JSMK: Meeting our (New) Students

Today we jumped straight into teaching English here at JSMK (Jungle School of Medicine Kawtoolie). Our self-appointed tasks for today's 2-hour session included:

- get names of students
- cover alphabet basics (names of letters and sounds of letters)
- group similar-sounding letters
- practice greetings - initial meetings and greeting acquaintances

The first task proved to be challenging. Every single one of our nineteen students have multi-syllable names like "Saw Pu Do Nee." My brain just does not seem to be able to put those sounds into the correct order and associate them with the correct person yet, but we had each student write their name on a paper and we took mug shots of them so we can drill ourselves all weekend.

Class was hot - no fans here - and the dogs roamed freely through the door-less frames to snooze at the feet of our students. However, our students were attentive and seemed willing to practice their English speaking with us, despite the challenge of not always understanding our directions.

After class, I had sweat clear through my army green capris (hello, teacher-who-seems-to-pee-her-pants-during-class... No kidding, head sweat turned into back and pit sweat which turned into butt sweat and folks, it was just real life in the tropics, you know? I'm certainly no Queen Elizabeth II who reputedly never sweats, even in the hottest weather), so we retreated to our house to change and drill ourselves on names.

Let me tell you about our house (known as the Galawa House here - the foreign house - where the visitors stay): the downstairs has a large sink (with running water) and counter space - a rustic but very effective kitchen if I could figure out how the little portable burner works. Also downstairs is a large computer, a desk, a printer, a paper cutter, an assortment of medical books, and plastic totes upon plastic totes of medical supplies and supplies in general for JSMK to run. We are powered by solar energy, here, so we do have lights in the downstairs office/kitchen area at night (upstairs we use our headlamps). Immediately inside the barn-style double doors (which don't seem to be normally shut as the office is accessed by various staff members) are the ladder-stairs that go up to our living area.

The upstairs has walls that come up about 4 feet. In theory, this is enough height to be able to modestly change one's clothes, however, our house is toward the lower end of a hill which has other houses built on it, so in fact, I'm still trying to figure out exactly how best to change when students and staff are roaming around to avoid inadvertently scandalize get someone with exposed leg or something.

Our hammocks and mosquito nets are hung in the open, living area upstairs, as the two more private rooms at the back of the house are full of more supplies and tools.

After we had our dinner - which is graciously brought to us for us to eat at our convenience - we decided we should get out into the little community here. Last night I went to a little store (actually someone's house) and was invited to sit down and have a cookie and a cup of Milo with a little group that was celebrating someone's wedding. It was fun, but it certainly takes a measure of determination and energy to go out into a social setting where one knows no more than a handful of words of the other's language (and vice versa) and endeavor to engage with a group of others that are all speaking the same language. However, we know if we don't do it, we're liable to have very slow relationship growth, and since our time here is limited, it seems sensible to just get over our "I-look-like-an-idiot" tendencies - yes, even if it means repeatedly slaughtering someone's names or asking their name multiple times after you've already introduced yourselves to each other.

So we decided to go for a walk. On this walk, we came across one of our students that was playing a guitar. He offered it to Gabe, who quickly realized it was badly out of tune, so Gabe tried to tune it and promptly snapped the 4th string. I think Gabe would normally feel badly about snapping someone's string - but there's a whole new level of badness feelings when you realize you've snapped the string of someone who probably makes just a few dollars a year (teachers earn an annual salary of $40 a year) AND you're a strenuous hike from the nearest place you could get strings to replace them! Thereby started a good 35 minute effort to spliced the broken string with excess string and make the situation workable.

We continued on our way touring the camp - avoiding stepping on the chickens that are everywhere and waving and saying "hello" to the mothers and kids we passed. While we were trying to fix the guitar, a group of the boy students gathered, then left, then returned about 20 minutes later wet from the river that flows at the base of the camp. As we walked to the opposite end of camp, we noticed that a group of girls was heading toward the river with what looked like armfuls of clothes. I decided to go join the girls and see if I could glean any tips on jungle bathing, so Gabe went back to our house while I followed the girls down to the water.

Sure enough, bathing and clothes washing was in session. I greeted the half dozen young ladies, and through our very limited shared English and Karen words, they invited me to bathe.

Within moments I had a borrowed tubular piece of fabric around me, and I was attempting to get unclothed underneath the tube of fabric (they modeled how to hold it up with your teeth). At one point, the fabric slipped, about the time I was trying to unhook my bra, and while I was attempting to keep my left breast discreetly hidden, the right one definitely got exposed to the whole group. One of the girls very sweetly said, "It's OK. Don't be shy." To which I promptly replied, "Don't worry - I've never been this naked in public before. I'm definitely getting over the shyness. Besides, you're all going to be medics anyhow, you'll be seeing far more interesting sights then this!" I don't think they understood the words, but from the laughter, I think they got the gist of my meaning!

For the record, I now know that I am to hold the tube fabric, strip off my other clothes, and then wade out into the river and submerse myself up to my shoulders (fabric and all). Then you soap up - arms and armpits and neck and feet is obviously easy, while torso and upper legs required a bit of careful holding and balancing - and then you submerse yourself again to rinse. Hair washing is phase two, which I didn't attempt today, but it seems to involve tucking the tube fabric around you tightly like a strapless dress, then ducking your head into the water to wet it before lathering it. It seems commons to wash the clothes you just took off while you're all wet.

There was certainly an excess amount of giggling and encouragement, and I left with an invitation to join them again tomorrow evening.

While I was flashing body parts to the world at large by the river, Gabe went in search of a Coca Cola and ended up partaking of Karen "Chocolate" - a red, mildly stimulating seed called betel nut pasted in a chalky substance, coated in a brown syrup, and rolled up in a leaf that everyone seems to chew and spit like tobacco and actually has nothing to do with chocolate. He said it wasn't bad, although it did make his mouth tingle.

It looks like we both ventured into new socializing territory in our effort to get to know our students today.


- Dani