Sooo, I know, you've heard it before: more details later, more stories later, more emails later. I've heard it all before from friends living or traveling abroad, and I've said it all before here. But I never get around to it. And when it comes down to it, blogs are just stories, and stories are just words, and I have been so tired the last month that I have no words left at the end of the day.
Fatigue. I am tired in a way that I have never experienced. I am so tired. I have a love-hate relationship with this job. I love the kids, hate the loudness. I love the teaching, hate the low levels of English when it comes to conversing with the children. I love dinner time with the families, hate the food. The weather is good here, despite the wind (my least favorite kind of weather). Does everything come down to good vs. bad?
As this last session begins, I find that I don't sleep enough, and that there is no way for me to sleep more. I do not find enough time during the day to hear my own thoughts, to organize my own ideas, but I am always volunteering to do something else or help someone out. And at the end of the day when I should be organizing my lesson plans, or discussing ideas with another counselor, all the thoughts I have lining out during the day to save for later are gone from my mind, replaced with a heavy blankness that I cannot break through. So this entry is not news, but rather a rambling self-reflection on time spent working here and hope for the future two weeks and then the next two months.
I have always considered myself a patient person, but this experience has taught me that patience wear thin and fatigue doesn't help that. Also, however, I have learned an increased self awareness, because these kids (though a contributing factor) are not the cause of my tirednes and so they shouldn't be subject to the impatience that my fatigue causes. That being said, it is more difficult to connect with the kids in these later sessions.
After being here for over three months, and working most everyday with 55 children, as well as 13 counselors from all over the world with very different backgrounds, personalities and levels of English, I feel a simultaneous sense of relief and regret that this part of my life is coming to a close. I stand in front of a room of 60 people telling stories, acting in skits, singing loudly to songs I don't know or don't like, and I find that I have gained many skills that will benefit me long after, even if I never repeat living or teaching in summer camp. I do the same things over and over again, and I feel both grateful and annoyed at the repetition. I want to tell stories of some of the great kids I have met, but feel the stories will be lacking when outside of the context of living life at Tour de Buis. I want to explain about how days off are spent in the neighboring towns and cities, about the walks I have taken or the conversations I have had, and although there is great value to me from all of them, there just aren't enough words to set the stage for the stories in order to accurately represent the context and then the values I gain from them. Suffice it say, kids are smart, but in another language it is difficult to fully appreciate. Kids are loud and annoying and so ready to break rules, but also willing (even if grudgingly) to stay within set boundaries. I am much louder than I ever knew, and more capable of silliness. I have learned that there is no line that we cross to become grown-ups, but we become them in the presence of children that must be cared for, and so being in charge of children or even a parent isn't always matter of experience or being ready, and more a matter of necessity. I pick up spiders and remove from the tents without batting an eye for the kids, when without them I might scream just as they do. I am so annoyed by the kids sometimes, but I still find great joy from being with and getting to know them.
I hope to be more specific here in the future, when I have had time to reflect and more energy to type. For now there are no more words and so I leave it, at 1 am, tired and incomplete. Mostly this is proof that I have survived, that I am tired but still alive, and one last promise for new and better news in the future. Only time will tell if I am successful to that end. However, you can always look forward to more pictures of my silliness; somehow there is no end to photographs of that.
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