After arriving safely in my new site, it is hard to describe the mixture of feelings of nervousness, sadness at leaving my friends, excitement for the days to come, and shock that this day had actually arrived. I had visited, which almost made things even more weird because I knew people and instead of a welcome from the neighbors I got more of a "oh, youre back" reaction. (Very genuine just the same).
Everyone is so kind and inviting, literally telling myself to make myself at home as I enter each house. After the fourth home I had to say, wow! I have so many houses here! Everyone wants to show me around, chat with me, and get to know me better. Its almost like being a local celebrity. Today I observed classes at the school next door. A girl in third grade made me a little note that had a heart on it and a sweet message about me being the outsider. She said that even though I felt like the strange one, we all feel strange at some point and soon enough I would get to know them all. It was the sweetest thing, especially coming from an 8 year old! Moments like that outweigh any statistics on the number of students we teach or teachers we train. It is those interactions that lie at the core of our work.
There are still moments when I walk alone that I realize I am still the weird one, the redhead in a sea of dark hair. I receive the looks and the occassional catcall when I leave my three block radius, but I am happy to find much less harrassment here than in my training town. I have yet to walk alone a lot though (having only been here for a few days on top of the fact that people are interested in showing me around.)
I apologize for the delay in posting and the short nature of this post, but I promise more updates will come soon. I have to figure out this transition and how to best use my resources here.
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