End of the Drought

It's been a while since I signed on to this blog. I no longer live in the drought stricken town. I no longer live with the same people, although I am in daily telephone contact. The rains have come down, filling the nearby lakes, watering the gardens and blooming trees. Life has become gentler, kinder, less stressful.

Everything has changed except me. I still need to lose weight. I still struggle to accept my physical limitations. I still don't have a clue why the wicked, the greedy, the mean-spirited, the cruel and the selfish do prosper, year after year.

On CNN Live, Sarah Palin's shrill voice pierces the airwaves, ranting on and on about the passage of the health care bill. Sarah Palin and her family have health care. So she wants to deny others what she already has and surely assumes it is her right to have? Her supporters cheer as she screeches out her jingoistic rhetoric, twisting her words to push their hate and fear buttons. I bet these supporters all have health care too. Not to mention the freedom from want that many of them take for granted.

For some it's just their nature to want to keep what they have, and to resent even the idea of sharing anything with others perceived as unworthy. The poor, the powerless, even the uninsured. Who have surely arrived at their bottom rung status because they are somehow morally defective, lazy, feckless.

Some must be drug to the well of compassion kicking and screaming. So be it.

Grass, Greed, and imagined retribution

The long drought is browning the life out of this town. The shade of the grass in front of a home or business openly declares the level of prosperity of the owner. The better the neighborhood, the greener the grass.

Whole areas seem to be drying out, plants and ornamental bushes shrinking away from the sun, leaves falling from trees a month early. The temperature was over 100 degrees today, as has become usual.

Firmly settled in the air conditioning, I begin channel surfing. Images of the Sudan appear. There is an air of death and devastation. A man speaks of a mother burned alive, a young sister kidnapped and enslaved. Rape, murder, burial in a mass grave, these are the fates of many. The narrator speaks of fears for his own safety as he journeys through danger to a refugee camp. Two women sit on the dirt, surrounded by swollen bellied, starving children. There is a newborn, eyes shut against darting flies. I look at her face and see myself, but for the mysterious workings of place and time.

I go in my kitchen, get a bottle of cold water, a snack, and somehow watch until the program is over. Turn off my TV, take a shower, and climb into a soft bed. I try to sleep, remembering. Counting my blessings seems a somehow inadequate response, a telling over of the beads of how well off I am compared to many others.

Another channel surfing episode surfaces. I remember a woman on HGTV pitching an on-camera fit because the huge, beautiful kitchen in her half a million dollar home did not meet her exacting standards. Her husband nods sadly, knowing she won't be satisfied until the unnnecessary work is done. I could rant on about other ungrateful, greedy airheads I see on E!, Bravo,and other channels.

Like the prophet Jeremiah I ask why wicked people, (and the ungrateful greedy) continue to prosper while the weak and impoverished suffer.

I google "why do the wicked prosper". The Bible promises that all will be well in the end. However, I derive immediate comfort by imagining those covetous and grasping airheads of reality TV reincarnated. Living in huts, hauling water, sleeping on bamboo mats, working the rice paddys, making do and doing without. While the dispossessed of the world live in the green-lawned homes, eat the plentiful food, and enjoy peace and safety.

Zirahuen

There is a Purepechan legend about Lago Zirahuen in Michoacan, Mexico. The Emperor Siguangua had a house built on the shore of the forbidding lake. There a sacred hummingbird stole his daughter's soul and transformed her into moonlight. Devastated by her disappearance, her beloved searched for her nightly. Finally the mother goddess Cueraperi led the grieving Cuitzeman to the moon gilded waters of the lake. The Princess arose from the depths, and dragged her beloved beneath the waters to abide with her forever.

The Princess is usually referred to as "La Sirena"("The Mermaid"), and is surrounded by a a dark legend. Angered by the hummingbird's betrayal, The Mermaid lies in wait to pull men down under the waters. Dozens of local fishermen drown each year, as well as unwary tourists. When I lived in Zirahuen, an entire family from Mexico City drowned, as one by one they ventured into the frigid waters to rescue loved ones in peril.

Called an "Ojo Del Mar" ("Eye of the Sea"), the lake waters shade from clear sky blue to deep cobalt . Perhaps this is the basis of another popular legend, that the bottomless lake is connected to the Pacific Ocean by a profoundly deep tunnel. The lake does have a mysterious presence, and very strong currents.

Although charming and rustic, the town does not often welcome long term visitors or developers. Most townspeople and ranchers prefer to retain their traditional lifestyles and values . Foreigners (anyone not from Zirahuen) are tolerated only as long as they do not disrupt village life. Most are only allowed to live on the outskirts, in locations approved by the community. Residents of Zirahuen are intent on retaining the natural beauty of their surroundings and the purity of the lake waters.

I was told that foreigners who had displeased or disrupted the community were usually asked to leave, and were sometimes forced out. I was rented a hilltop dwelling outside the community by one of the village elders. When we arrived at the house we found a woman tourist packing up her belongings. She said she had been in Zirahuen only a few days, but had been frightened into cutting short her stay.


We were not exactly welcomed. Our first nights in the house were enlivened by people running and jumping on the flat roof. Other nights cattle were noisily driven through the yard. Later, we became more more accepted, and my older daughter was seranaded from a tree by a young village boy.

To a great extent, the people of Zirahuen govern their own community and enforce their own laws. Lawbreakers are simply told to leave. Our neighbor across the road, Cenida, had been exiled because she had tried to kill a rival. I had a frightening encounter with another local who had been banished for committing murder.

I was walking across the yard one afternoon when a truck pulled up right next to me. The driver said that he had seen me at the bottom of the hill getting a tire repaired, and he had brought his friends for a visit. After some conversation, it turned out that they were interested in more than a visit. I was living in Zirahuen alone with my children, and I was terrified. Then the men suddenly turned and left. Unseen by me, Cenida was holding a shotgun on them.

When I first moved into the house, Cenida's 5 year old son informed me that he must be the only person gathering the firewood. For a fee, of course. He then pointed to a pine tree about 50 feet in back of the house, and stated that I was never to go beyond that tree for any reason. I was mystified, but agreed.

This was explained one afternoon as we drove back from the Patzcuaro market. Large columns of black smoke were rising from the hills immediately behind our house. I was horrified to discover that the smoke was from vast marijuana fields the Mexican army had just burned. Tragically, the military had also shot any farmers found in the vicinity. There were many widows made in Zirahuen that day.

I was told that the distant landowners would not be charged with any crime, and that the fields would eventually be replanted.

There was a reason not to go beyond that pine tree.

Teaching in Texas

I used to teach at an inner city school in a major Texas city. The children dealt with many difficulties in their home lives. There were students with parents who dealt drugs, were repeat offenders, or were chronically unemployed. Some had single moms who survived any way they could, even when it meant exposing their children to violence and various types of abuse. Child Protective services was in contact with many families, however it usually took years of repeated complaints to get a child removed from a home.

The teachers were also a mixed lot. Among the caring, dedicated teachers were angry burnouts, the uninspired, the emotionally uninvolved. Many of the more competent teachers lived in daily fear of job loss, while others who should have been fired were treated to all sorts of perks. They came to work when they pleased (up to 2 hours late), left early, took long lunches. All their absences were covered by aides provided by the principal. They were treated to cozy chats, snacks, and impunity for their often illegal acts. These teachers used fear and intimidation as classroom management methods. One had a habit of painfully grabbing and pinching the ears of students, one put them up against the wall with their noses pressed against the sheetrock, another was seen actually picking up and tossing first graders into the classroom. Her favorites kept order in the manner they pleased, as long as they produced high test scores at the end of the year.

The teaching style insisted upon by the principal endorsed all these actions against children. Her main goal was to walk down the halls of a completely silent school. If there was noise from a classroom, it meant that the teacher had lost control, and that those students were not learning. Thus the teacher’s job was at hourly risk if any sound or activity came to the principal’s attention. She ruled with the iron fist of an unchallenged dictator, as long TAKS scores were high. Protests and complaints were useless and risked jobs. A teacher's union poll listed her as one of the district’s worst principals, which was vindicating to read, but did not produce change.

I walked into to this unknowing, idealistic, and full of creative ideas. I was hired along with two others to replace those whose test scores had not measured up. At the orientation meeting I met my mentor, a favorite of the principal. She wasted no time telling me how angry she was to have been called in a day early to deal with me, that she had no intention of helping me in any way, and that she was leaving as soon as the catered luncheon was over. I never saw her again except at staff meetings or when we passed in the hall. She walked past me each time as if she had never seen me before. My co-workers advised me that protest was pointless.

Another new teacher was placed in the classroom next to mine, and I survived my first few months mostly because of her ineptitude. She was inexperienced and judged poorly, with little sense of where she was or who she was dealing with. She enthusiastically brought all sorts of things to enrich her classroom; a puppet theater, costumes, finger paints, music, nerf balls and other play equipment. She had everything in place for the first day. The students walked in and chaos descended. I could hear the noise through the shared wall. The principal was immediately notified by her network of spies. She descended, and rang the emergency bell three times, an in-school 911 signal. The assistant principal and all three secretaries responded to restore order.

This was how Ms. Craft began the school year, and her situation never improved. She was singled out for random, almost hourly, administrative visits. If a child was up or making noise, she was reprimanded and written up. The principal repeatedly tried to force Ms. Craft to resign, but Ms. Craft refused. She knew the principal’s teaching philosophy was fundamentally wrong, and she needed the job. A stalemate was reached. The principal moved Ms. Craft from one grade level to another, ultimately placing her in 5th grade, where her students would face an array of standardized tests over a number of subjects. Although she was eventually accepted by both students and parents, her fate was sealed. When end of year test scores were reported, not all Ms. Craft's students passed.She had been their teacher for only a few months, however she was blamed for all failures, but received none of the credit for the successes. I later overheard the principal telling the office staff to take steps to insure that Ms. Craft would “never teach in Texas again”.

Thanks to Ms. Craft, I was mostly ignored, except for a few highly unpleasant visits of inspection. I was left to find my own way, which i did. Through sheer luck, the principal usually seemed to appear at a moment of total calm, although I did get called to the office for minor offences. Once I was grilled for 30 minutes because a student “touched his head” while I was reading my class a book. Due to various staff turnovers, I was moved to pre-kindergarten in late November. This change was to my enormous relief. I was then exempted from most intense scrutiny, as my students were too young for testing.

Retribution eventually caught up with the principal and her favorites. The situation at the school had deteriorated to the point where it drew the attention of parents, notified by unhappy children. When many repeated complaints about the abusive teachers were ineffective, some began their own spying program. The ear grabber was seen by a grandmother who arrived early for dismissal and peered through the glass door panel. One particularly angry morning the teacher who threw children into the classroom was witnessed doing so by a group of parents . The principal refused to make changes, so the parents simply withdrew their children and placed them in one of two neighboring schools. Word got around, and enrollment dropped off. There was talk of the school being closed.

My classroom was full, as were the other early childhood classrooms. Positive word had gotten around too. Mostly free from harassment, we were able to allow our students the freedom they needed to learn. However, this was not enough to save the principal’s job. At the end of my second year the principal was moved to a desk job until her contract expired. A new principal was brought in. Informed of the situation by the assistant principal, he cleaned house. In the end, justice was served.

I had left, thinking that any other teaching job had to be an improvement. I was wrong, but that is another story.

Life is full of pleasant suprises. Only good things happen to me. My affirmations for the week

Life as I Live it

I do think things are cyclical. Good luck, bad luck, ups and downs, synchronicity and chaos. I have just endured a long period of everything going wrong, but i think things have finally turned around. Except for today. Today was full of cat poop, conflicts, missed connections, difficult decisions. Thank God a day only lasts 24 hours. There is always the possibility of a tomorrow, with "no mistakes in it" as Anne of Green Gables once said. In precious moments of peace and quiet, my mind turns over the compost heap of my past, and spins hopes for the future.