Faux Do-gooders

So after over 6 months working here, I feel I’ve been overly exposed to a certain group of people who, in my bitter disappointment, I call the “faux do-gooders” (FDG’s or bullshitters when I’m in a particularly bad mood)

To be more specific, they are the teachers who came up to me when I first arrived and who instantly introduced themselves (I don’t even work with the two worst FDG’s so they could have easily avoided me. What makes it worse is that they came up to me out of their own supposed ‘goodwill’)  I remember when I first arrived, how they talked a big game about how welcome I was on the island and how we should definitely keep in touch. Of course over time they faded and disappeared behind their “giant work loads” and “many engagements” until it got all far too awkward and they started to ignore me.

Let me tell you the classic traits of a FDG/BS-er:

They instantly reassure you, make sure they get your contact details and press their number in your palm making absolutely sure that if there is anything, just anything you need you can call them. They’ve been there too remember? Lets be BFF’s!

They fill you up with hope when they mention all the events that they’ll invite you to..dinners, excursions, day trips..the lot..damn it you’re already part of the family, what do you want for Christmas? hurrah!

Beware of these people, they take any shape or form. A classic tell, however, is that they probably have a family…small children. They are probably members of all the right associations and causes. Basically anything that screams, “I’M A GIVER” and therefore a “GOOD PERSON” However what they don’t fail to realise is this also makes them TOO BUSY

However as with all FDG’s the disguise soon wears thin and it becomes all too apparent that it’s all a facade to make themselves feel better. They are trying to make you a justification… so that they can somehow feel worthy of the kindness of the genuine do-gooder who had obviously helped them at some point in their lives

As for me after several, Oh next week-s, a few I’m just so busy at the moment-s and then finally the, how long are you here for again?-s.  It became very clear that nothing was ever going to happen. Now, whenever they come at me with their BS (that is, the ones who aren’t so embarrassed that  they avoid me)  I adopt a kind of neutral smile which say’s “sure thing” but which really means I’m really not going to hold my breath.

Ok let’s be fair, how can we deny it, we’ve all got a little FDG streak in us…? I know I have, but it’s just that I have happened to have met life’s extreme cases all crammed into a few months

(I’m sorry but who in their right mind would sit me down for half an hour to explain the midnight drive in the mountains they are going to take me on only, to conveniently never mention it again?!)

MESSAGE TO ALL YOU FDG’s,

It’s ok; go back to your busy lives. I didn’t come thousands of miles away to be spoon feed.  Yea it would be nice, really nice but I don’t need you. Just stop pretending!!

What irritates me are all these constant false promises it seems you need to throw at me at every given opportunity time. Don’t you see, you’re ruining it for the genuine do-gooders (GDG’s), stop giving them a bad name!  GDG’s are actually like gold dust and so when you find one, it really is a miracle. You are all pale imitations, stop getting in my way so that I can find a real one!

P.s- I’m still waiting for that midnight drive on the mountains…

The Other Side

Ok so I’m not a teacher (obviously) but in some weird invisible underrated way, I’m kind of a member of staff here. It’s a weird middle ground as I’m neither a pupil nor a teacher…but nevertheless a member of staff.  It’s so strange (hence the difficulty I have defining my job title) but I feel like I’ve gone from one side (scruffy uni student) to another (a kind of teacher, really an assistant but never the less still quite scruffy- Rome was not built in a day, friends) I feel I’ve made this transition in a heartbeat without any of the relevant training, PGCE or desire required.

It took a good few months before I stopped smirking when writing on the blackboard and I still flippantly tell the kids to sit down when the they enter the class and stand up for me (yes they still do that here)My handwriting is illegible and my sentences are wonky across the blackboard (You try writing straight on one of those mothers),  my chair is the table and when the obedient kid asks me the date and whether they should add a title… I rarely know and more often than not make it clear that I don’t care about dates or titles because I would prefer them to listen. I AM AN IMPOSTER! Haha! how did i actually get here?!! you kids you look at me as if i actually know what i’m doing…oh how wrong you are!

I’ve realised that the last place I came from was uni where the notes from the last few months of my final year were literally on scraps of paper, how am I then one to be all prissy about titles and dates? At least some of them are writing on proper paper! (Again, Day. Rome. Not Built in.)

But most of all I’d like to think that although I’m not the proper teacher they may be used to I’d like to think that when I do teach I do it well…it may not be decorated in the professional prissy swirls they are used to from their real teachers but what I have to say is still interesting and pretty damn good if I say so myself.

The staffroom is another mind field. The teachers…where do I begin with the teachers. It’s not like they are horrible (well not all of them anyway) they are just…very French. I don’t mean this in an offensive way…anyone who has lived in France I hope will understand what I mean. As I said, they are not necessarily mean, just indifferent. They know I’m not a permanent member of staff so they don’t really have the inclination to invest time in me. After their initial size-me-up-questions I feel I’ve faded from a vaguely interesting beige to a fairly forgettable grey. At first I sat like a young puppy, eyes wide and open following every train of conversation, ready and open to respond. That got a little embarrassing when I realised that they weren’t talking over me, the “train” was never rolling in my direction (I’m a  forgettable grey remember…or did you forget me too?!!)  So now I sit in the corner of the staffroom and books are my new best friend once again. Tragic I hear you cry? Almost certainly, but I love books and I’ve finally finished the Bell Jar which has been sitting on my book shelf for years. So you tell me who the real loser is hm? (Don’t answer that)

I guess I’ve never realised how similar a staffroom can be to a playground…and no I’m not just referring to the defaced trade union poster or the fact that last week one teacher had another in a headlock (true story) It’s all the cliques and politics. First of all there is me. Book worm and slight loner in the corner (sniff)  then there’s the popular group always laughing the loudest about the night before, inside jokes are thrown as well as flirtatious glances between the “bradgelina” of the staffroom.  There is the smokers’ corner…admittedly not behind the bike sheds but behind the staffroom so that the kids don’t see and the sports jocks (P.E teachers) Then there’s the token geek, bless him… I happen think he’s quiet cool. Both of us, as staffroom social outcasts, have built some kind a silent bond over our social inadequacies. Ah yes the good old  maths teacher, gangly and awkward …the kids shout “Mr Bean” after him…mean…yes but also true. He constantly complains to me or rolls his eyes if he catches my gaze in the corridor. I like Mr Bean. He blatantly doesn’t want to be there and he shuffles his feet to the next class.  Then you’ve the one that people kind of avoid but mainly because his shirt is soaked in sweat…I know we are in a humid 30 degree plus tropical island but bring a change of clothes man! You’re not even a P.E teacher, you teach music…unless you’re carrying giant tubas all day long I fail to see how physically strenuous your day can be!

Since when were all these people allowed to become teachers? My flawed naïve memories at school led me to believe all the my teachers were these mysterious figures with lives you didn’t really think about…probably because they didn’t really have one outside of school anyway. And of course as I got older I realised that this wasn’t true. But actually now seeing how the “other side” live I’m forced to admit that there is no “other side” We are all actually just one big mass of shockingly ordinary messy people trying to deal with with our messy lives and weird dysfunctional problems in the best way we know how.

Everyone is actually an impostor…it’s really about who hides it better.

Blimey…

School dayz

So I guess it’s a good as time as any to mention what it is I do.

Well, I work (kind of) as an English assistant in 3 secondary schools. These 3 secondary schools are in the rough outskirts of St Denis and a lot of these kids come from rough drink/drug/unemployed family backgrounds. Although this does sound slightly dramatic it’s not as bad as it sounds and although I have had a fair share of drama, I take quite a few of the advanced kids. What is worrying are the problems I have faced regardless. I totally was not prepared for some of the stuff I’ve had to deal with. I’m too embarrassed to write some stuff down! One particular joy was a boy rolling a spliff under the table ironically during a debate about drugs. (This boy was recently caught again and from what I can gather has been questioned by the police for that and a few other incidents) Another highlight was pretending to know what to do when a boy threw a massive backpack at a weedy boys head. Seriously it could have taken it off. And then there is of course the general schoolyard cheekiness. Cheek about my French, (just when I thought those judgmental days were over…how naive!) general disrespect…backchat and so forth.

30 percent of the kids only really speak Creole. Despite all this I’m dealing and think I’m doing a pretty ok. I’m still not sure about this whole teaching lark but I know I can make it a career if I want to. Whether it’s just making up lessons on the spot, trying to handle one of the many impossible situations I’ve been under or just establishing some kind of rapport with the kids, I am still here!…you know, in a battered barely standing kind of way

I feel in some ways I’ve regressed. Regressed to a life dictated by the shrill of the school bell. As I’m not officially a teacher or anything I don’t feel I have the authority to act with the same understated indifference the other teachers of the staffroom have so accurately mastered. I’m back to a life where handwriting is decorative; “k’s” now kick and “i’s” have heart hats. Titles must be underlined preferably twice with a garish pink or purple (as a former stationary fiend at school I find this actually quite cool! *ahem) and tipex (remember those days?!) is every students best compagnion.

Gone are the days in uni where everyone has more or less figured out how to play the game and answers are answered, not based on truth, but on which ever point of view could bump up the word count…and of course what ever the intelligent books on the old reading list said…because that’s what really matters right? Here is a place where answers more often than not have to mean something. When I ask what they did during the weekend, I’m really asking them to use the past tense. So I really have to be patient as they um  and ah about the minute details of how they fed their cat and then went to bed. The university approach says use as many past tense verbs as possible and create the most elaborate story to do so (I could have done that bungee jump if I wanted to)  How did we get to this stage?! Where the truth plays second fiddle to a decent grade…

I remember how I felt when I left school, I remember being  petrified about the next chapter but liberated to never have to jump through my teachers hoops and blindly follow their seemingly pointless instructions. How ironic that I should  find myself once again dragging my feet to the next class with the rest of the kids, feeling very much my 12 year old younger self

It’s weird to recognise all the people in the classroom. I am thousand of miles away but they are all the same! The retiring wallflower who will do anything to avoid talking but what they actually do say is probably the most valid (when will they realise?) the bolshy/funny one that not even I can keep a straight face to, the class outcast who’s pain will motivate their future successes and there is the class waster…my greatest source of irritation. They are often vaguely funny but only in a way that is at the expense of everyone else. As harsh as it sounds I find they only seek the class attention to conceal the fact that they are at most shockingly average and the spotlight they now command is fading…I keep wanting ask them, who will you be in 10 years?

I see you… The daydreamers, the chatterboxes, the ones suffering under the weight of their adolescence, the emos (sorry that’s probably the same thing), the brain boxes, the kiss asses, the disencouraged, the ones looking for a fight, the ones who can’t wait to leave (again,  probably the same category) I see them and in them I see myself and my friends…and the ones I couldn’t stand. Much to my horror I have to deal with them again, the silver lining is that this time I get to put them in their place.  I see little glimpses of who they could be and sometimes its good…other times not so much.

But I think i’ve realised that if i even get to make some kind of difference then i think that that’s ok…by difference i don’t mean “turning their lives around” (whatever that means)…I was fully aware that this was never going to be a “To sir, with love”  type experience by the end of the first week.  By difference i mean I’d like to just be a postive presence  for my time here. Someone who might teach them abit more than how to pronounce “the” and not “ze”

If i can truely do that… then that will be just peachy.

The burnt pan

I burnt the pan…really burnt it…not a light gentle char we are talking dark fierce welts. Charcoal scars fiercely ingrained on the pan. I burnt it making pasta of all things! if I was cooking my own sauce for my three course meal I might be more likely excused but no it was my safe student days pasta and pasta sauce combo. I just got distracted and the next thing I smelt was the burning that entered the room

I obviously did the necessary, and after several futile scrubs and attempts to rid the smell out of the kitchen, left it soaking in the sink. Who knew that this burnt pain would become the passive aggressive symbol of the twisted tension between me and strange flatmate Richard. He hasn’t mentioned my latest defacement (this is not the first nor second but third time I’ve burnt pasta recently…oops!) it just stays there, its new deep black tones speaking for itself

Of course Richard can never let himself not be involved in anything household like as this is after all his house and his only source of validation. So although I’ve never seen him “in action” as it were, everyday the pan is a little bit cleaner as we both unspokenly attempt to bring the pan back to life

Several days later the pan has been thoroughly  scraped, scrubbed, scoured and majority of its original grey dull is back but with numerous permanent dark scars. Richard, silent, me, sheepish, attempt to ignore the event. Look, I’m sorry I burn pasta and that your twisted suppressive life means that you can’t openly express your irritation… but if you ever had the backbone to ask and i ever had the backbone to say, you would know that I cannot stand to be in your grubby kitchen for longer than necessary. Whether it’s the weird stray cat with the broken tail, that you’ve adopted out of loneliness, that eyes up my food from the door or the mass of ants that have found a home near the sink or just the fact that brown (you can tell it used to be cream 30 years ago) is the ongoing theme, I do not want to be there…I’m just sorry my pasta and your pan had to suffer as a consequence!

The strange ones…

So I am living in St Denis, the administrative capital of this random tiny island.  I’m living pretty centrally for a good price with my own balcony looking out into mountains. This pretty cushty situation comes with a set of serious drawbacks (there had to be a catch somewhere didn’t there?…maybe that’s what I get for assuming I could have it all) I am living with a strange man made more strange by the fact that 2 years ago he basically nursed his elderly parents and grandmother until they all died within in year of each other.  Anyone trying to help themselves would move out, sell or at least completely refurbish the house. Richard decided to stay there, keep the house exactly the same and rent out the other rooms. I only fully understood the extent of the situation once my bags where unpacked. There was me so pskyed to find a place so central that I didn’t see the warning signs till my empty suitcase was under the bed.

The first few months were the worst. Richard constantly hovering behind my back checking I wasn’t going to trash or set the house alight.  Months filled with lectures about washing up (and I always wash up!) and how to use the washing machine. I’d leave an egg boiling on the stove to go and turn on the computer in the next room for 2 minutes only to find the stove turned off. Nowadays he’s vaguely more chilled, I guess slightly more appeased by the fact that I haven’t yet torched the place. But it still remains a very twisted situation

Everything about this guy spells social outcast.  From the anti-social hours spent watching TV/talking to his “internet friends” online to his constant allergies (think overly boisterous sneezes, think drilling sounds when he’s constantly blowing his nose.. basically its the worst cold you’ve ever had and times it by 10)   His work load is minimal, giving a few hours private tuition (science and maths of course) to a few students here and there. As he barely works his life revolves around singing loud heavy metal songs off key to himself and screaming at the television. Despite this he still surprisingly has a group (albeit fairly small) of friends who come and eat and talk with him. The only difference is they get him in small doses.

He is a cartoon character who should be studied; his loud caricature-esque yawns dominate every room in the house as he tries to attract the attention of no one in particular in an empty house that once used to be full. Everything he does is loud, talking on the phone, screaming at the TV, singing to himself. It’s like he’s trying to prove he still exists.

Can I really judge him for his choices?  Do I have any idea of what he must have had to go through? Or of what he must still be going through? Who knows what he needs to do to get through the day after having to live through that…I get it. But I really don’t want to be the one looking it, dealing with it (or pictures of his parents still on the mantelpiece) the house is an empty shell, literally falling as he tries to preserve the few remnants in his family house all while he stewing in his own misery.

I have tried the obvious. To look for other places, but St Denis is a small place filled with a lot of people and I’ve never found anything suitable. The hard thing is that this is such a good location and price that anything else from that point of view seems inferior in comparison.  I’m still looking but am constantly met with dodgy alternatives too far from the centre or too weird (this deserves a whole other blog of its own) But you know the really ironic thing? Recently Richard has asked me to move out due to the fact that his nephew Romain is going to move in in a few months. His nephew, who lives next door, is a mass of E numbers, tobacco and weed. Talks a lot and very loudly about nothing and is currently on medication (and from what I can understand therapy) for hyperactivity and insomnia.

Ironies of Ironies indeed! I feel like some kind of silent suffering women who’s been ditched by her knobhead boyfriend, foolish and feeling like I should have got there first. But for all this and after being surrounded by such strangeness I’ve come to think maybe I am the strangest one…who could be crazy enough to deal with it all???!

If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen (tell me how!)

I AM HOT!!!

No folks not in that way (however thank you very much) I mean temperature wise. I am boiling! I’ve never felt heat like it… it’s like I’m permanently walking in some kind of microwave on full blast. This summer is a particularly hot one and I’m slightly consoled by the fact that locals seem to suffering as much as I am. On the plus the good old sweat taboo is well and truly broken. In England, sweat patches are slightly frowned on (think impulse ad) but here it’s generally accepted as a grim reality of life under the sun. I have to admit, I still have to get my head around the teacher who literally looks like he’s stepped out of a shower..too gross? sorry

It’s a weird one though, talking to my friends in England all I can ever say about the weather is that it’s hot and all they can ever say is that it’s cold. What ever happened the happy middle man? I just feel both of us are in such extreme situations right now that neither of us can comprehend the other’s situation Somehow “I’m hot” doesn’t seem to truly portray the intense heat I’m feeling right now.

Let me try and explain..

This heat is…

crossing the road four times to stay with the shade (oh sweet shade, how I love you so)

restless nights  drenched in sweat

humidity, clammy air

hair frizz (like mine needed help)

Angry tan lines

back sweat patches (i’ve never felt so attractive)

chilled bottled water turned warm

fans blowing around hot air

a two shower MINUMUM

sunburn on sunburn

heatwaves

melted chocolate

exhaustion

melted chewing gum still in the packet

sticking to chairs

clearer??

(i do have to apologise for those slightly disgusted by this post. Me and my friends seem to talk about sweat so much these days that I forget how it’s probably not that interesting a topic for everyone else…)

Er..how did i get here again??

If you’d have told me this time last year that I would be living in a tropical island, I probably would have laughed in your face whilst making some kind of disparaging remark. So it is completely and utterly beyond me that, a degree and 5 months later, I would be here,  several shades darker and fanning myself from the heat like a local. La Reunion is a crumb sized French island just off Madagascar. No one except the French seems to know about this beauty which kind of makes me being here feel even more hidden, even more adventurous than your normal New Zealander gap year backpacker. It seems so strange to think about the journey I’ve made here so far. It seems so far ago now..and at the same time like yesterday.

La Reunion, for an island so small, is immense. It’s a fusion of different races, cultures and landscapes. When I first arrived I was just struck with how easily I found a place there, just slotted into the community. I really think that this is an island ready to accept anyone. Sitting on the bus everyone is a different shade, beautiful rich coffee shades, freckles and curly hair. However at the same time you’ve redheads, mixed races, Chinese, Indian, black people with green eyes; just all these varied ethnicities thrown into a melting pot. So imagine me, growing up as the only black girl in Rotherham suddenly in this whirlpool of different ethnicities. My eyes are in a constant state of wonder. Imagine a place where there is no real concept of the minority and majority and therefore the superior and inferior. No one can really say who is truly a minority here and so there is just an instant feeling of acceptance. I’m not saying this place is without its slight racial problems but it is a far far cry from the BNP, “our country our rules” society that I’ve sadly become accustomed to. So for me the initial feeling that, in some parallel universe, I could actually belong here, at least physically, was quite priceless.

The landscapes are as varied as the islands people; volcanoes, immense hike worthy mountains that wouldn’t look out of place in a Jurassic park-esque film and coral laden beaches. St Denis, the capital, is the administrative city which means that apart from business at first glance there’s that much going on. It’s busy (for an island!), cramped and difficult..it is also where I happen to live…and after 5 months I don’t think I’d have it any other way. At first I thought I would have preferred being in the south, home of the wonderful beaches and general chill, but I’m here to get things done and I like the rhythm of St Denis, it suits me well…even if there is no beach…

Here’s the thing, I feel I pretty much came here to somehow escape…although i’m not sure what from…post-graduation reality… student loans and the fear of the monotonous 9-5 … myself…either way I’m really not sure of how I got here …I think it was more just a series of “what if’s” and “what have a I got to lose’s” and so now I’m here unaware of having ever really made this decision but just knowing that I wanted to escape to some fun and quirks. But sometimes it’s not always fun and Reunion, as immense as this place is, isn’t really my idea of quirky so I am often left to answer the questions, just what am I doing here?? How did I actually get here and why? And how long before I feel I can go home?! What would I go back for? I can’t say that I can really answer these questions… but then again when I look outside my window, to the left there are those powerful mountains you can see from everywhere, to the right the sea, rich blue waves crashing against the rocks and all the palm trees and their shadows…I have to admit there are worst places to have my tropical existential crisis…

Well Hello…

Hello!

Welcome aboard, take a seat..here is my blog…first of all let me apologise for the clichéd “Selina ’s Blog” title…I did want to attempt some form of originality in my title but the best I came up with was “Selina’s Misdemeanors “  Catchy… yes but I do feel this gives off the wrong impression..bit like this is a blog depicting the trials and tribulations of my “life on the lamb” and well… best not to raise the bar too high on how exciting this blog is going to be!  And besides, aside from a pair of flip flops I may have accidentally stolen from a Jean Renaud look alike on a tipsy night out…my slate is pretty clean.

I don’t know why I held back so long from writing I guess I was just trying to take everything in for what it was without analysing it too much. But now I realise how stupid it was as my initial memories are slightly dulled now 5 months down the line. I realise I really want to note my experiences down because I am beginning to have the impression that these are the times my memories will be made of…the stories I will tell if blessed with old age. Wearing my rose tinted glasses and I’d like to think a funky grey afro…and so for that I want to remember everything, all else told being away is proving to be pretty immense eye opener…and well, everyone knows I love to tell a good story…