After moving in
Moved in with my host family yesterday and all of a sudden felt very lonely. It was like, "Great, I'm in this place with my stuff and don't know anybody." Also, my host family's place got broken into 3 days ago and a bunch of her electronic stuff got stolen. Knowing this didn't add to my sense of security.
Have heard so much about crime here that I think I'm scared all the time which is a very different feeling. It suxs to always have to hold on to your purse or bag and keep looking around. Its like you never relax.
What suxs about living in a big city is that there is not a common place to hang out which is what small towns and villages have. I'm hoping that once I start going to school I'll meet people and more familiar people would make me feel more comfortable.
My host mother is the principal of the school I will be teaching in. She got divorced 8 years ago after being married for 16 years. She has three daughters. The oldest is 24 and was married and has a three year old daughter. Her husband died in a car accident two years ago.
My host mother is definitely middle class and lives in a nice location even though she talks a lot about being poor. When a huge percentage of people in this country live under US$2 a month, living in a house which doesn't wash away in the rain makes you a pretty economically stable person.
A bunch of really wierd things happened yesterday. First my host mother, Pauline, kept saying how poor she was and gave an example of how quickly the elctricity finishes. ( Here people buy a prepaid electricity card and then feed it into the meter). And then I saw last night and this morning that the radio would be on without anyone being in the room or the TV will stay on without anyone watching it. Then she had to run some errands yesterday so she asked me to cook dinner and after I did she said that she was offended that I cooked and felt bad. Now I'm guessing she meant that she felt sorry and not offended.
I felt crap all day yesterday. Woke up today with the same feeling so decided to go into town. However, its not a very comfortable feeling walking around and having to be on ultra alert in case anyone decides that they like the look of your bag.
And then you have people begging which makes your heart leap to your mouth. Here people don't play a musical instrument to earn money, they whistle. Probably because they can't afford to buy an instrument. Most of the beggars I've seen so far are blind.
Coming into town is an unusual place. This is where the rich and the poor, the white, black and colored mix which makes up for interesting socail dynamics. It is also unusual for me to stick out somewhere so much. I have only seen a couple of people like me i.e. people from the Indian sub-continent. I felt a bit like that when I was in Brazil but I guess I was with friends there all the time so I didn't quite feel the need to blend in so much. Here, however I wish the neon sign over my head which says foreigner would switch off. It would have been different if I was in South Africa as thanks to the Brits there is a pretty significant population of Indians there. For those who don't know the history. After the slave trade, the Brits figured out that it would be nice to bring in some "servants". There were people from the sub-continent who the white rulers thought were more apt in the field of civil service etc.
After reading Cox, this makes up for an interesting race and class observation. To put it simply, the whites were the ruling class and held the white-collar jobs, the browns the blue collar jobs and the blacks were the basic labor. However, there were is an exception as some of the "servants" were brought in to work on certain kind of crops. Makes me think about Mexicans in US today.
I sometimes feel that the brown people still are best at making themselves invisible. In UK where they make a large percentage of the country is where I felt most that they were working not so hard to make themselves invisible.
I don't know if I'm making any sense anymore. There are way too many thoughts in my head and feelings in my heart to be able to articualte it well.
Start teaching on Monday, till then pray for me or keep your fingers crossed. Which ever one you believe in more.
Have heard so much about crime here that I think I'm scared all the time which is a very different feeling. It suxs to always have to hold on to your purse or bag and keep looking around. Its like you never relax.
What suxs about living in a big city is that there is not a common place to hang out which is what small towns and villages have. I'm hoping that once I start going to school I'll meet people and more familiar people would make me feel more comfortable.
My host mother is the principal of the school I will be teaching in. She got divorced 8 years ago after being married for 16 years. She has three daughters. The oldest is 24 and was married and has a three year old daughter. Her husband died in a car accident two years ago.
My host mother is definitely middle class and lives in a nice location even though she talks a lot about being poor. When a huge percentage of people in this country live under US$2 a month, living in a house which doesn't wash away in the rain makes you a pretty economically stable person.
A bunch of really wierd things happened yesterday. First my host mother, Pauline, kept saying how poor she was and gave an example of how quickly the elctricity finishes. ( Here people buy a prepaid electricity card and then feed it into the meter). And then I saw last night and this morning that the radio would be on without anyone being in the room or the TV will stay on without anyone watching it. Then she had to run some errands yesterday so she asked me to cook dinner and after I did she said that she was offended that I cooked and felt bad. Now I'm guessing she meant that she felt sorry and not offended.
I felt crap all day yesterday. Woke up today with the same feeling so decided to go into town. However, its not a very comfortable feeling walking around and having to be on ultra alert in case anyone decides that they like the look of your bag.
And then you have people begging which makes your heart leap to your mouth. Here people don't play a musical instrument to earn money, they whistle. Probably because they can't afford to buy an instrument. Most of the beggars I've seen so far are blind.
Coming into town is an unusual place. This is where the rich and the poor, the white, black and colored mix which makes up for interesting socail dynamics. It is also unusual for me to stick out somewhere so much. I have only seen a couple of people like me i.e. people from the Indian sub-continent. I felt a bit like that when I was in Brazil but I guess I was with friends there all the time so I didn't quite feel the need to blend in so much. Here, however I wish the neon sign over my head which says foreigner would switch off. It would have been different if I was in South Africa as thanks to the Brits there is a pretty significant population of Indians there. For those who don't know the history. After the slave trade, the Brits figured out that it would be nice to bring in some "servants". There were people from the sub-continent who the white rulers thought were more apt in the field of civil service etc.
After reading Cox, this makes up for an interesting race and class observation. To put it simply, the whites were the ruling class and held the white-collar jobs, the browns the blue collar jobs and the blacks were the basic labor. However, there were is an exception as some of the "servants" were brought in to work on certain kind of crops. Makes me think about Mexicans in US today.
I sometimes feel that the brown people still are best at making themselves invisible. In UK where they make a large percentage of the country is where I felt most that they were working not so hard to make themselves invisible.
I don't know if I'm making any sense anymore. There are way too many thoughts in my head and feelings in my heart to be able to articualte it well.
Start teaching on Monday, till then pray for me or keep your fingers crossed. Which ever one you believe in more.
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