And, there is a stigma attached to this as well. Sometimes I feel I'm not quite a human being, but an English-teaching machine. Mr. Tim doesn't need rest, he's a teacher. Mr. Tim doesn't need to go out and chat with the people in the town because he's a teacher.
And then... and then, one of my shy adult students makes me homemade placinta (an incredible bit of deliciousness here), or one of my high school students paints me a garden that makes my jaw drop, or several of my students insist on taking Mr. Tim out running so he stays healthy, or one of my students creates a piano composition to match a poem I wrote, and another invites me to join a nascent science fiction book club. There is also the sheer joy in watching the students get lost in debating integration for Moldova and forget for a moment that they are speaking in English about a complex topic and they don't have training wheels. In short, every day I marvel at the generosity of spirit, the potential for greatness and the joy of learning that I see around me. I am truly grateful to be here.
The hardest thing, I've found is to make sure to take even a half hour for myself. For my own satisfaction. I often don't think to take a break from grading essays or planning for the next day, to simply write poetry, take photos, go for a walk, etc. But yesterday, when a student backed out of a typical Sunday lesson, I took that walk and it was just so amazing. I saw my first deer here in Moldova. It was a brief sighting to be sure, but it was a sighting. I found a patch of wilderness that was so beautiful that my host mother, on seeing the photos, asked me if I was sure these were taken in Moldova. She knew they were as she saw me take my camera on my walk, and she smiled proudly and said, we really do have some beauty here too.
So, for your viewing enjoyment:
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| Autumn Hillside |
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