Teacher Chronicles – Chapter One

August 27^th

The children call me Señor Agua. I tell them they are my little flowers and they must come to class every day so I can water them to help them grow tall and strong, but that is not entirely true. They would grow even without me. It is they who keep me strong and give me hope.

I am writing this at my old oak desk although it is only mine in the sense that the villagers let me use it to store my papers and lessons. Its spacious top is a constant reminder of their openness and generosity. Except that it is oak, it could have been my father’s and perhaps that familiarity calms my heart and focuses my thoughts in the morning sun. In the yellow shadowed light I admire its honestly earned dings and cracks, the creaky and often sticky drawers, as much as I love the people of this village, this country. It reminds me of my home, of imperfections. How these poor folks acquired a huge desk and hauled it to a remote village I do not know, but it probably was brought here by someone from my country in the early days when you could still take possessions with you. When I leave I cannot take it with me. I know that. But someday I will have to go away. It is only a matter of time until someone will speak of the American teacher while visiting the city and arouse official curiosity, and that will be all. I will have to be gone because I cannot bear to visit that world upon the lives of these innocent people.

I did not always want to be a teacher but teaching comes to me as naturally as flight to a bird. My childhood dreams contained drama and adventure, great discoveries and inventions. School was simply the vehicle that would propel me to greater heights. I never pictured myself returning to academia on the other side of the desk. Teachers were old and boring and dressed poorly. Encountering one of my teachers outside of school was as strange as finding a trout flopping down the middle of the boulevard. To most of us, teachers were as much a part of the school building as the desks and chalk boards. We felt our daily arrival breathed life into them and when the final bell rang, they lay about their rooms like half deflated globes until the next day.

I have to begin with an apology for the nature of what follows for it is only now that I have time to write again and am able to sort through the events and people that brought me here. If it were a string of beads the thread has snapped and I am sure that many have gone missing. At this point this cannot be called a book and it is certainly not a diary though it may resemble one. Now I wish that I had kept one. It is not so much a memoir as a series of recollections. I hope that you will forgive if I forget important people or jumble the order of things. I am not sure I can even remember how it all began, when the world began to tilt. Even though we all perceive things differently it is important to record what we can of our history however flawed by the retelling and not allow it to simply be erased. History created at such terrible cost should not be lost. This tale has heroes and villains alike, but mostly people filled with noble ideas and intentions who were both. After all, what separates a misguided hero from a villain? For each person who gained something, countless others lost everything, at least everything that means anything. Yet, if someone tells me they have lost everything I say “You still have your life. Is that nothing?” It is for them I am writing this. Perhaps it is for me as a way to make sense of these last few years and preserve a belief that my life was not for nothing.

Well, I must take this up later as I hear the chirping voices of my brightly colored little flowers arriving to breathe life into their old deflated teacher. At last.