Two vignettes & a plea from this week:
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I tutor my landlady’s kids (a 10-year-old girl & an 8-year-old boy) twice a week in English. We play games, we sing songs, we review the harder bits of what they’re learning in class, and we talk about whatever they think is interesting.
After Wednesday’s class we were talking in Spanish, and apropos of nothing, the girl said, “There was a tsunami in China,”
“Actually, it was in Japan, but close enough,” I said. “Did you know that there was also a tsunami in Peru? Any idea why?”
She shrugged. “Because it’s close to Japan?”
“No, Peru is in South America. On the other side of the world,” I said. “Anyway, after the huge waves hit Japan, they bounced back and went all the way across the Pacific Ocean and hit Peru. But, where the waves were 10 meters high in Japan, they were only 1 meter high in South America.”
“Did it flood?”
“Well, I suppose if someone had built a house right next to the beach, then yes, it probably flooded a little,”
“In America, are the houses made of wood?”
“Well, in North America, yes,”
“I know the countries of North America!” the boy said. “The United States…New Zealand…”
“No, idiot. New Zealand is in Europe,” his helpful sister shouted.
He started again: “The United States…Ireland…”
“Try again,” I said. “What’s right above the United States? It’s really cold?”
“Alaska!”
“Canada,” I answered. “And the last one…? No idea? Well, it’s Mexico,”
They both shouted, astonished: “Mexico is a country???”
***
For the past week or so, my roommate's daughter, son-in-law, and grandson have been visiting from Bulgaria, which has turned our normally-tranquil apartment topsy-turvy! The 2-year-old grandson is, as they say here, a “terremoto” (an “earthquake”). I´ve learned a few words from him in Bulgarian: “topka” and “adibe” (“ball” and “again”.) He doesn´t say the word for “again” correctly, though... apparently it´s supposed to be something like “haribe”, but it´s a difficult word for a 2-year-old. When I take him for a plane ride through the apartment, and he shrieks “Adibe! Adibe!” I understand him pretty well. I am getting very in tune his shrieking. :)
On Tuesday, our neighbor, who has a 4-year-old and a 4-month-old, came over for a visit. Watching my roommate's 2-year-old grandson and the 4-year-old neighbor interact was wonderful. The 4-year-old only speaks Mallorquín, and the 2-year-old only speaks Bulgarian, but they understood each other well enough. The 2-year-old would shriek, the 4-year-old would laugh, and then they would both start chucking balls and puzzle pieces around the room. It was great fun. The 4-year-old was also quite nice to my roommate’s grandson, and gave him the choicest of toy trucks to play with, and kindly let him with my roommate’s AWESOME giant Pilates ball, even though the 4-year-old was eyeing the thing covetously.
They’re leaving tomorrow and our apartment is going to be pretty sad without them. Well, luckily I’m taking off tomorrow, too, to visit Ms. Becca W. in Cáceres! No moss growing here…
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As well as playing with adorable toddlers and teaching two very intelligent but geographically-confused kids, my mind this week has been in Libya. My friend is coming home to the US today, which is both great and terrible news. I’m not going to pretend to imagine what it must have been like to leave family behind in an uncertain Benghazi. What started as jubilant, peaceful protests—a celebration of the people’s freedom of speech and freedom of self-governance—has turned into a civil war, just as Qaddafi’s son threatened so many weeks ago. The dictator of Libya didn’t stop at sending his own military in to bomb his own, peaceful civilians—he even called in foreign mercenaries to do his dirty work. Now, the Libyan military is pushing eastward towards Benghazi, and the rebel army that sprang up as a response to Qaddafi’s initial violence is resisting as well as it can. There are mixed reports: the military is winning control of city after city on its inexorable march towards Benghazi, but the rebels are also pushing back, and meanwhile, the US hems and the UN haws. The UN is planning on voting today on whether or not to use airstrikes on Qaddafi’s forces to take out the tanks; now that a no-fly zone would be useless, people are talking about imposing a "no-drive zone". Inside Libya, misinformation is flying everywhere—remember Qaddafi’s declaring that his people loved him, and anyone who didn’t was drinking Nescafé that was spiked by Al Qaeda? I talked to my friend a few times over the past month, and the stories she told were chilling. I struggle to imagine what it was like, and I don’t think I’ll ever understand. I try to read as much as the news as possible, but I’m not sure how much I’m actually understanding. How much can we learn to understand others by sitting at home and scrolling through news stories? The tiny, skewed window we get into others’ lives as they are interpreted by news corporations is usually nothing close to the real thing. Even so, that is no excuse not to try to stay informed. I have no earthly clue what it would be like to live under an oppressive, murderous regime, then to have a few weeks of pure, terrifying hope, and to now wait in fear for bloody reprisals--but I'm trying to at least follow the plot line, even if I don't understand the characters.
If there’s one video that you should watch that explains what the waiting is like in Benghazi, waiting for the military to attack, it’s this one.
Update: while I was typing this, the BBC reported that Benghazi is now being bombed. Pray, please, pray.
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