Lessons Learned

Here in Mussoorie, and in India in general, there are some things one should know about the culture or the habitat to be able to avert unfortunate events and live a boisterous life.

Lesson #1--the meaning of the head bobble. In Indian culture, instead of nodding your head up and down to signify your agreement, a person tilts his head side-to-side. Almost like a bobble head doll. In the States, if a student was to nod her head to the side once after I asked her to complete a task or do this differently, I would think that she would be begrudgingly saying, "Ughh, if I have to..." Not so here. That side head tilt or bobble of the head from side-to-side means, "Yes, of course!" or "Sure thing. No problem." I think I am starting to pick up the side head tilt but also find myself doing the standard up and down gesture in affirmation.

Lesson #2--they're climbing in your windows...snatchin your crackers up. I entered my classroom a couple Mondays ago to find something amiss. As I walked around my desk, I discovered what appeared to be cracker crumbs all over the floor, a torn wrapper, and crumbs covering my chair accompanied by a nice divot where someone (or SOMETHING) had quite obviously enjoyed his snack.

"MONKEYS," I thought as I surveyed the crime scene.

The detective in me searched the room for a lead in the investigation. It wasn't hard to put the pieces together:
What: trespassing and stealing
Where: Studio 51
When: sometime between the period of Friday afternoon and Monday morning
Method of entry: potentially one of windows positioned slightly ajar due to the increased moisture of monsoon
Consumed: my crackers
Who: presumably, a monkey

My furious fingers typed up a maintenance request for the full closure of my windows. It came out something like this: "A monkey got into my room and ate my crackers." Nope, that won't do. I decided to change it to the more serious-sounding and imperative words of "A monkey got into my room and made a mess."

Lesson #3--even YOU can be a culinary artist! Let's face it: life outside of college is tough. Especially in a foreign country. Not only are you away from the great community of friends and teachers who shaped you for the last four years of life, but for some graduates you are also learning how to live on your OWN. Because Woodstockers are far-removed from cinemas and other forms of entertainment, much of our excitement and energies get to be focused on one thing: FOOD. Now, cooking for me only became an interest within the past couple years. I took a stab at granola bars and then a peanut sauce Thai dish, all the while learning which spices I liked and if I put this with that it could really be tasty. Up here, far far away from foods we Americans are used to eating, a good ole heaping of 'Merica can be just what a person needs to keep spirits high and your GI problems at an all-time low. Maybe it's because of talent, maybe it's because of the LACK of comfort foods here in India, but I have become Chief Chef Katie Extraordinaire. "Katie, will you make those no-bake peanut butter granola bar thingies..." (we have yet to purchase an oven) and "WHENEVER you want to make those banana pancakes again..." (exquisite tastes, I know...and we eat them with the LOG CABIN SYRUP sent from my wonderful aunt and cousins!!!) can all be heard coming from the mouths of my friends and roommates. When times get tough, even amateurs can be acclaimed culinary artists.

A Day In the Life

Lindsay, me, Rebecca, Shannon, and Ingrid on Independence Day

1. A day in the life...Well, friends, this is a look at what a typical day may look like for me at Woodstock School.

6:15 AM--wake up for school...maybe. If it is heaping buckets of rain, I'll take the large umbrella today.
7:15--after breakfast and trying to orientate myself to being vertical (feeling well is a PLUS), I trek my way up the 1,000 feet to our state-of-the-art Win Mumby athletic complex to take my shower. I've decided to cut my losses, and a day of teaching in a damp WS polo, by hoofing it up the hill so I can clean up in a well-pressured, always-a-warm-shower locker room. Pack carefully or you may be pantsless for classes.
8:30--morning assembly for the 7-12 grades every other day. I am the advisor for 7 seventh graders so I sit up in the balcony and try to figure out this community just as much as the nubes I am advising. :) I love it.
8:55--first class of the day. We are on a 7-day cycle of classes, so each day is different. I teach 3rd and 4th grade art at the Junior School as well as 9th grade art, Drawing/Painting, and Sculpture in the Senior School.
A second class
10:40--TEA TIME! Morning snack, which has been known to have CREME PUFFS for the students every so often...
2 classes
12:45--Lunch. When it's a good day at the cafeteria, it is oftentimes a GOOD DAY at the cafeteria. The same is true for the contrary.
2 more class periods
3:45--Afternoon tea. Yes, you may actually have tea 3 times a day if you wish: morning, lunch and afternoon.

2. Retrieval of the vacuum. So this past weekend I was supposed to make it out to Rishikesh with friends, the spot famed as the birthplace of about 48 songs by The Beatles in the late '60s including many that made up The White Album. (You say you want a revolution...) Instead of embarking upon my own self-actualization journey, I was meditating in my bedroom, hoping to transcend the bout of stomach sickness I was wallowing in. By the afternoon on Saturday, I felt I could gather some gumption to venture outside to enjoy one of the sunny days we had been gifted with that week. Maybe some exercise would do a body good. I decided I would go and pick up the vacuum belonging to another staff member for obvious reasons and encountered two fantastic experiences on my daytrip to nowhere.

Experience #1: Off on my trek around campus (they are ALWAYS treks...) I hit one of the main roads and headed east. I'm just walking along, watching the motorcycles pass me on their way to some higher ground, when I hear what sounds like a couple of vehicles approaching behind. The first cycle passes me with two men on it, man on the back unashamedly craning to look back at me, and they continue on just fine over the encroaching gravelly speed bump. The guy on the motorcycle following them decides he will do the same, except in his case, he's the driver as well. He passes me, craning his neck immediately in the overtake, but is on his way up the speed bump without a straight shot. Gottcha! The man realizes only too late that he has succumbed to the clutches of the gravelly speed bump with white girl on the side and loses his balance, not to mention his pride, over the edge of the round. Ungracefully, his cycle careens into the fence 5 meters before me, forcing I'm sure some choice Hindi expletives from his mouth. His friends up ahead take a knee while the man recovers his bike and his dignity from the rock pile.

Experience #2: I've got that vacuum now, been told how to care for it as if it is a child, and am ready to make my way back home. Who would have thought there would be wildlife on the route back?! The wildlife was me. I'm walking back down the main road, carrying a vacuum, ya know, living the Indian life. A set of bikers decide to take the safer way as compared to the aforementioned male and pass me on the left, stop about 25 meters later, and simply park it in the middle of the road...watching the local game do its thang on a day in the life of India.

3. Indian Independence Day was on Monday, August 15th. The school prepared for the occasion by readying nationally made textiles and crafters for the week's theme of "Fabric of a Nation" while the new staff especially made sure they had someone to wrap their saris for the big day. Feeling like prom all over again, we new staff white girls were draped, tucked, and sinched by regular "Good Indian Girls." (We did our research beforehand but were well aware of the importance of making everything look as perfect as possible...this is a big deal people!) Below are the outcomes--quite a success in the forgiving eyes of our Indian colleagues. :)

Living In the Clouds

1. Life in the clouds. Because it is monsoon season and because we live over 6,000 feet above sea level, most of our days in Mussoorie right now are lived like this. You walk outside your door and enter into this fairyland that drops off just beyond the ledge in front of you. We really cannot fathom WHERE we live because we cannot SEE it most of the time.

Let me explain.

The two top pictures are of a pathway down the mountain. On a clear October day, one would receive a SPLENDID few of the foothills and their valleys from these vantage points. Not so in monsoon! We literally watch the clouds roll in and are enveloped by them 6/7 days per week.



2. Ferns grow on TREES??! Yes they do. This season doesn't only turn Mussoorie into a magical fairyland, but a wild, jungley one at that. Sidewalks get sprinkled with bleach every now and then to keep the slippery moss from taking out a student (make sure you roll your pants up...). The walk to school is beautiful due to a profusion of foliage growing out of EVERYTHING. Take a look at those ferns growing out of the bark on trees! I have heard that once the ferns start turning, monsoon will soon come to an end.



















3. On sunny days...On the rare occasion when there is a clear, sunny day, some of my friends here at Woodstock and I head out on the town to the bazaar. Well, actually, whether or not it is sunny, we still go, but on this day it happened to be pleasantly bright outside! So my roommate Shannon, Lindsay (the Senior School band teacher from Fargo, ND), and I trekked into town with the hopes of picking up my sari for Indian Independence Day which is this upcoming Monday, August 15. As a national holiday, we will celebrate by decking ourselves in Indian dress, attending a flag raising ceremony at 10:15 and then feasting on local chefs' food for lunch in the Quad, a school gathering area. More pictures to come!

Me, Lindsay, and Shannon at the Clocktower Cafe--
the local "American-food" dive.


Lindsay, me and the incredible mountains in back!

This is the way I live.

To the left and below are pictures from my walk to school. Click on them to see them larger.

1. Lights out. Just as I typed those first two words, our power in our house went out...for probably the n-teenth time since we have been here. Sometimes it is for a brief moment, other times it is spotty for hours. It's a part of normal life here--something to expect numerous times a week if not per day. We'll have all of the 7-12 graders gathered in Parker Hall for assembly in the mornings and our Head Principal Mr. Anderson will be up at the podium speaking and the power goes out. No microphone, no lights, nothin. We all sit there with whispers flying until the electrical symphony grants us permission to continue with our day. One can image that this could make it difficult to cook in the evenings, eating dinner most definitely after 7 or 8 pm on most days. If such an occurrence happens, you will find my roommates and I forging through draws to find our candles and matches, hastily lighting them, and bringing all three to the GAS cook-stove (still working!) where our dinners are just about burnt. Life ceases to lack excitement.

2. My home. The place that I settle into at night is called Midlands Duplex. It is just a little skip from three dorms up the hill from us. Myself, Shannon (PE teacher from Silver Lake, MN), and Rebecca (Art teacher like me from Texas/the east coast) live on the left side here in a nice, 4 bedroom, 1 bath home. It is more than enough space for us and two other women live next door. We have been nicknamed the sorority house...too many young women for one plex!

3. My Classroom. I can't leave you hangin after talking about my first day of class in the last post, so I thought I would put up some pictures of my classroom. It is quite lovely and has THE BEST windows ever. I have my own gate and nice wooden double doors to set the mood for "entering into the art world." You may notice a blaze orange hat resting in the bottom left photo. This was a necessary article packed in my luggage, as I need it for the first day of classes when I introduce myself to my students. I like to start off on the right beat by performing a rap about me with the students' help. It goes a like this...

Well I grew up in a town

in the south of Wisconsin

Didn’t have a lot of people but

man was it hoppin’

Mount Horeb was its name

it’s the home of the Vikings

Little Norwegian town

with lots of trolls and cheesy things

What’s my name? (Students: Miss E) (4x)

In my family it’s just my

mom, dad, and sis

And though we love each other

it hasn’t always been bliss

But we’ve had a lot of fun

adding extras to our fam

Like my cousins and the daycare kids

named Cody and Cam

What’s my name? (Miss E) (4x)

Growing up I was a kid who

kinda liked school

Enjoyed doing artsy stuff

and the golden rule

Basketball was my game

and I played in the band

Loved hanging with my friends

and giving others a hand

What’s my name? (Miss E) (4x)

Off to college I went

after my senior year

Leaving mom and dad behind

had me shedding a tear

But I’ve had a great experience and

come to find

That teaching students like you

would really blow my mind

What’s my name? (Miss E) (4x)

So here I am today

glad that you are all here

Hope you learned a bit about me

but man we got the whole year!

Can’t wait until I get to learn some

things about you

So I guess the first thing we should do is for you to tell me

WHAT’S YOUR NAME??

The First Day of School

I felt like it was appropriate to give this title to this day. It was. MY FIRST DAY OF REALLY TEACHING!!!! All my own, just me. I feel like such a grown up and understand just like every other teacher does, I'm sure, how much you "fake it til you make it" as one of my roommates Shannon likes to say (the authority part here, people). As a student, most of the time you can't even tell when a teacher is uneasy about their role and status. They're THE TEACHER; end of story. A couple times throughout the day I remember thinking to myself, "Am I really doing this right now?? Am I really an official teacher?!" Yes I am, Woodstockers, yes I am.

1. Something that hurts. MAN those hills are hard on your knees! My knees are a bit achy and they HATE going down hills even more than going up! It's not that bad, just annoying.

2. Something different. This past Saturday was the day our school provided the new staff a chaperoned trip down to Dehradun (1.25 hr. down the mountain). There we would acquire all sorts of home furnishings to help us settle our roots deeper into this rocky soil. So after first making some purchases at a rug and textile shop (where all of the items are made by a leper colony), we jetted our way down a "short cut" road that would take us to our next stop. Apparently EVERYONE ELSE in DD that day also knew of the "short cut" and decided to drive it at THE SAME TIME. Basically we found ourselves in an Indian traffic jam, backed up on both sides of the road at times, but especially in ours. Those motorcycles would weasel their way in between cars like usual. And we were stuck, going nowhere, until our driver decided it'd be best to head back the way we came. "Okay, how are we going to do that??"...famous last thought.

Well, THIS is how we'll do that.

Our driver begins the 17-point turn to try to get us out of our lane and into one of the sporadic openings in the right lane (remember, Indians drive British-style), but quickly finds that that option is too slow and is starting to back up the on-coming traffic even more. So what does one do in a situation like this?? ONLY THE LOGICAL THING TO DO: REVERSE REVERSE!! REVERSE REVERSE! Thank you cha cha slide. Our driver slams it into reverse in the right lane and we're out of that jam faster than an earwig can crawl out of my cinnamon package. Too bad I left the ground stuff in Wisconsin...

3. Something VERY different. The other day the whole staff was invited to a short communion service before school began. I was sitting in my chair, receiving the Body of Christ, when I happened to notice something peculiar to me on the alter. "No..." I thought to myself, "it isn't!" as I comically arrived at my own conclusion about what might be served next. As it so happened, that afternoon in a small chapel in Mussoorie, India, I was served orange-mango juice, the Blood of Christ.

Here are a few pictures of my walk to school--The First Day of School. The sun is rising on what will be both a hard-working and wonderful year at Woodstock School.