A little of this...a little of that...

-Teaching is sleepy-
I know that it’s a bit hasty to judge but I have been teaching for three weeks now and ya know, I just don’t like it that much. I LOVE YEMEN, I love being here, I love Arabic, I love learning about Islam, I love the food, I love my students and coworkers, I love where I live, I love the people, I love that I moved here. But…the actual act of teaching? Not so much. In class it is fine, but the prep work! Oh hell, the prep work! Lesson planning is just plain laborious. I have to keep people engaged, interactive, and stimulated for TWO HOURS AT A TIME! The material is dry, well really, just plain boring. I’m teaching lower level courses so it’s all about the grammar. I really couldn’t care less WHY or HOW we use English, I just know that I’m good at it and speak it rather well. I only care about vocabulary, and literature. Umm…yeah, that’s really all. When I’m teaching the simple past tense of “to be” aka “I was”, “you were”… there really isn’t a whole lot of complex vocabulary to work with. My students are wonderful and earnest and kind. But I don’t want to have to spend even one extra minute outside of the classroom thinking about modal verbs let alone spending hours trying to come up with a plausible way to make the topic “can/can’t” interesting and last for two hours.. Amideast is amazing. They are doing great things in the Mid East especially in a post 9/11 world. The company motto " Bridging cultures, building understanding" is particularly apt. I keep meeting people who have studied in America on fellowship and cultural exchange programs. Or are working for their TOEFL so they can go to University in the states. Their stories are amazing and I'm very happy to be part of something so meaningful.

-Bad word sounds-
all the time my students mispronounce words so they sound like they are cussing wildly. Or sometimes in a perfectly natural manner they will bombard me with racial slurs or swear words (an example- the word cheek- first they mispronounce it like chick but also their accents are so thick it really just sounds like they are saying shit). It happened just the other day, we were using descriptive words for facial features and body parts when a student sad an extremely rude racial slur- A good reaction would be; don’t show alarm, calmly ask them to clarify, acknowledge what they said and then mention how, in English that word is actually bad to say. It is unkind and never used. Tell them multiple other options for that word and then, just as calmly move on without making a big deal about it. My reaction was not quite as subtle or professional. When the student casually mentioned the word as a descriptive example I said “WHAT?!? Wait…WHAT DID YOU SAY?” my eyes going wide and my mouth dropping open in alarm. The student repeated the word, I must have still looked stunned because a couple other students repeated the word as well, in a “Hellooo teacher, you don’t know this word?” kind of manner. Soon every single person in my class was shouting the word in various and alarming degrees of volume. I was like WHOOOA there class! Yes, I know what you said but NEVER EVER EVER say it again! My class kept asking, why? What does it mean? as they all continued to shout. As the only Caucasian woman working at my company I fervently hoped that no one was passing by my door at that exact moment… WHAT THE HELL IS TARYN TEACHING HER STUDENTS!!?!

-Incestuous friendships-
Yemen, it seems is a very small world. The man I met in the suq? The guy everyone call’s Obama? He is the father of one of my students. My friend Muhammad? Obama is his uncle. My family? Their close friends are being tutored by my Colleague’s(Muhammad Talksalot’s) wife. A friend I met in Aden told me to come to dinner and meet his cousin? Who turned out to be one of my students. A man started talking to me about his brother who has been to America- turns out it was Amal and Basaam, the couple I met in Jordan. Last night I went to dinner with Matt and the Muhammad’s, they decided to invite a friend of theirs, Waseem. I had met Waseem previously two-nights earlier at a get-together with my family. I could go on and on. Its just wild- this isn’t some crazy small town, it is the second largest city in the whole country. Its crazy the complex series of acquaintanceships and family relations.

-sweet, sweet vengeance-
The last three times I went by the rooster’s turf (once again safely sequestered in my bus) he wasn’t there! I HOPE HE WAS SOMEONE’S DELICIOUS, DELICIOUS DINNER!

-skimpy swim attire?!-
I’ve been curious about the swimming situation. I know men can swim whenever and where whatever they choose. But what about all the ladies? I find bathing suits in America are remarkably scandalous and thoroughly indecent. I, not a big fan of swimming, find myself extremely self-conscious and uncomfortable in the clingy, revealing ensemble of a bathing suit. What- in this culture of extreme sartorial modesty and conservatism- do Yemeni woman wear? Certainly not a bikini! Maybe a one piece? I decided to check it out. THEY SWIM IN FULL ABAYA! Can you believe that! Full abaya and head scarf…in the water…while swimming! I feel like that is extremely dangerous, just imagine how heavy and entangling a huge, cloaking-robe would be plus a head-scarf, and face cover. If any sort of current caught you or perhaps a rogue wave bombarded you, how could you even survive? Every woman I saw had some sort of floatation device in their arms at all time, not because they couldn’t swim, but simply because of the sheer volume of saturated clothing they were trying to support. So I guess I won’t be swimming any time soon…