Bursar asked me today, “When are you leaving?”
“Next Thursday,” I replied.
“Is next Thursday this Thursday?” he said.
“No, umm… next week, on Thursday. So, you know, I have one week left.”
Bursar looked sad. “We live together all year, like a family. Now, one of us is going.”
(Aww… I’m gonna miss you, Mr Bursar!)
Things I thought I would learn, but haven’t…
• To build a beautiful, long Dewey number.
• To use BookCat to organise the library. The library still has no computers. Please send computers. You know the address.
• To make creative dishes out of island food using two pots, a gas bottle and no fridge. “Island cabbage” will always taste like sludge to me. I fed my “tin fish” to a cat.
• To live with spiders, rats, mice, centipedes and lizards. I still hate things that crawl around on scratchy little feet in the night and cover my house with tiny pellets of shit.
• To love Vanuatu String Bands. Brazil has Gilberto Gil, Italy has Eros Ramazotti, Vanuatu has… falsetto yelling and a ukulele.
• To enjoy “camping” and “nature” and to be a “hippy”. Sorry, Mum. That community school didn’t work. Moving to the country didn’t work. And neither did volunteering, apparently.
Things I’ve learned instead:
• Change management. It’s no good walking into a place and chucking out the old system straight away. You’ve got to listen, learn and compromise. And then you’ll probably learn that the old system had some good points…
• Things annoy you. Things are boring sometimes. But when you have a goal, those things don’t bug you as much. As much.
• Plan, plan, plan. And then change your plan when you realise there’s no way it’s gonna work.
• I can wear conservative clothing although I don’t agree with the reasons I have to. I can go to church although I don’t believe in god and don’t think I should pretend to. But I will never compromise on my independence or my need for personal space.
• I can live without the internet, but I don’t like it. I don't like not having instant answers to crucial questions like, “What did my Popple look like in the 80s and do they still make them?” CRUCIAL information, people! The developing world needs information such as this! Ok, maybe not that particular piece of information…
• There’s nothing like an SMS from a friend to cheer you up when you are feeling particularly down, and you barely have mobile reception, and there’s a spider in your water jug and you want to cry.
• Positive self-talk really works. “I am strong and brave! I can pick up this dead rat! This dead rat is not disgusting!”
• Marcel Proust was a jerk to his lady-friends, but geez, I gotta love him for keeping me company all year. Reading In Search of Lost Time was a good way to… lose some time.
• AND FINALLY, I know now why school librarians have that stereotype! That shushing, frowning, grumbling stereotype! It’s really, really hard work to get a bunch of kids to put anything back where they got it from, and to teach them effective information-seeking behaviours! But they do learn. And while they’re learning, they’re kinda cute.
2 comments:
Aw. The googly-eyed kids. Everyone learnt something. It was all worth it.
But my couch will feel empty after next Thursday. :sadface:
Aww I just saw this! I am sad your adventure is over! I am back on Facebook so I will have to track you down.
And yes, positive self-talk is very valuable! It sounds like this was a really good experience for you!
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