The Day to Day

As some of you may or may not know, I'm working here in Indonesia as an English teacher. It's not particularly what I want to be doing (hence the reason I have avoided mentioning it till now) but it's what I am doing so we just accept and move on.

The hum drum routine that strings my days together. . .is going to work, teaching various pieces of language to spoiled children, correcting tests, making photocopies, and trying very hard not to die of boredom. Sounds like fun eh?

It does provide me with an air-conditioned perch however where I write and stretch, money to feed myself, and a view into the lives of others elsewhere that I would not normally be privy to.

Am hoping very much that this is my last trip on the ESL express. I would love to volunteer to do this job with Tibetan Monks or impoverished slum children but getting paid to do it is somehow. . .demeaning. Don't know why. . .perhaps because no one really takes it seriously and apart from the "certificates" we need to get to teach. . .no one really cares what our capabilities are. It's not a meritocracy by any stretch of the imagination. . .so feels like quicksand. Just use what you have no control over. . .the fact that English is your mother tongue. . .and teach. . .as skillfully or unskillfully as you can.

Depending on the locale, this kind of job attracts all sorts of vagabonds- dropouts, searchers, career-changers, life-changers, heart-broken lovers, idealists, philanderers, adventurers, and lots and lots of alcoholics or recovering ones.

That gets me thinking back to "D," a man that passed through the school I was working at in China. "D" showed up one day as the new teacher looking like he had just finished starring in the sequel to "TRAINSPOTTING." Banged- up, hollow-cheeked, raccoon-eyed, mohawk, earrings, collar-shirt, and a skinny tie. Impossible to tell the age maybe 30 maybe 40. English. He was loud and laughing but a little too loud and a little too fast. He knew a LOT about English though, think he had a masters in linguistics buried somewhere in his travel trunk, and built a momentum around his monologuing that was dizzying.

"D" was always coming out of the "hair salon" on the first floor which was actually a very antiseptic mini-brothel and in the time span of three-days had built a bit of a reputation for himself as an unstable alcoholic/addict of some sort or other.

There was another teacher "C" who tried to take "D" under his wing. Being an American "C" was a little bit more sober and serious than "D." "C" had clearly seen as much of the underbelly of life but had somehow, probably because of his less sensitive nature, emerged more intact and less emaciated.

To make a long story short, a week into "D's" tenure he failed to arrive at work for days in a row. "C" went to investigate. He found "D" lying naked on his apartment floor with a knife in his hand. "C" got a bucket of cold water and dumped it over "D's" head. "D" woke up mumbling, crying, swearing he wanted to kill himself.

Somehow "C" convinced "D" to hold of on ending it all, tucked him into bed with a glass of water, then came down to the hangout spot and started telling the tale.

I felt sorry for "D." He had a real spirit to him, shattered though it was.

"D" was fired and deported, never to be seen or heard from again. He was the most dramatic ESL teacher I've met to date. But as I say that. . .I think of the woman who escaped from the Congo with her child under her arm, and the Zimbabwean princess, and the plastic surgery addict,and the genius hermit, and the closet transvestite. Hmmmmmm?