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Working with the Roma
Rachel Norton - Letter #8 (May 1, 2007)
Dear Family and Friends, Hello! I hope this finds everyone well and enjoying the spring sunshine! Those of you keeping track (probably only my grandmothers) will notice that I am late with this letter. I'm sorry for not getting anything written in the month of April! I'll try to get back on track in May. There isn't anything especially new or exciting to report from the preschools. Now that the weather is nice, fewer children come regularly. Sometimes they have to go into the fields with their parents who are working planting potatoes or picking horseradish. Sometimes they also have to work, collecting iron or wood. Some of them would just rather play outside. (I try not to be personally offended by that.) In some ways this is a good thing. There's a much more manageable adult to child ratio, which means that all the children get more individual attention and there are fewer behavior problems. The problem is that Alma and I haven't yet figured out how to plan for the new dynamic. There is significantly less continuity from day to day, so we can't plan to do anything that requires building on something from a previous session. Now we are starting to talk about the letters of the alphabet, but we are not stopping to let children who were absent catch up to those who weren't. If we did, then on E day, for example, we would have to take individual children aside to try to teach them A, and B, and C, and D. It's too complicated. We decided that it would be okay just to try to familiarize them with the idea that there are symbols that correspond to sounds, and let the elementary school do the work of teaching them which symbols and sounds go together! I've been debating whether to "publish" this next story or not, as I'm embarrassed about it. Obviously, since I'm introducing the anecdote, I've decided to go ahead and share with you what a jerk I can be sometimes. One day a few weeks ago, Alma and I were walking home from the North camp when a kid starting bothering us. This boy is about 14 years old. He had been annoying us a little bit ever since we started our program in the North camp in March. This time, though, he was worse. He was making all kinds of disgusting sexual remarks and grabbing at us and swatting our butts and things. Obviously, this is completely unacceptable and intolerable. We tried ignoring him, but he kept stepping right in front of us so we'd be forced to run into him. I was staring at some indeterminate point in the distance and gritting my teeth, while getting angrier and angrier inside. I stopped and said, "You can't talk to us like that. Stop it right now." Of course, that made it worse. I stopped again and shouted, "That's enough! Stop!" Alma kept instructing me not to say anything to the kid. She was telling me over and over (patronizingly, I thought) that I was only fueling the fire. I kept saying, "I know! But I can do whatever I want!" Somehow, perversely, I was so irritated by being told what to do, that I wanted to disregard Alma's advice just to show I could. Even though I knew she was right, I wanted to defy her. Furthermore, all afternoon I had been listening to people tell me to hit the preschool children to discipline them. So I guess I had violence on my mind. And so I stopped, grabbed the kid by the shoulder and hit him three times as hard as I could. Enraged and out of control, I hit a kid in the head. Me. I did that. Now, you should know that I didn't actually hurt the kid much at all. He tucked his face away and bore the blows on the side of his head. And I missed the mark and hit him more with my wrist than my hand. And, growing up in the camp, he's certainly used to this kind of thing. But I know none of that makes what I did excusable. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to hurt a kid who doesn't know any better. The kid wasn't at all deterred. He continued to follow us home, but the tone of his running commentary went from repugnantly flirtatious to outright threatening. And then he started throwing rocks at me. Hard. He wasn't aiming at my head or anything. I wasn't in danger of sustaining serious injury. But it hurt. Finally we arrived home and the kid ran off. I rushed upstairs and sobbed. I was absolutely filled with hopeless self-loathing. Realizing my own hypocrisy was causing me physical pain. Here I want to show the preschool children that violence is not a viable option, and yet I reacted to my own anger and frustration in an absolutely irrational, vile, selfish way, escalating the tone of the confrontation instead of diffusing it. I'm so ashamed of myself. The aftermath of this event was irritating, with people from the camp coming to me during the preschool to confirm that Alma and I were unharmed and not going to judge them harshly. (Me? Judge them?) There was much demonstrative slapping of this kid upside the head by various members of the community. But things are finally back to normal. The kid apologized, and I did too (although no one understood what I was apologizing for). He stayed away from the preschool for a few weeks, but now he comes around occasionally. He says hi to us, shyly. I decided to forgive myself, because, what else can I do? Sit around beating myself up forever? I'm pretty sure God has forgiven me also, not because I deserve it, but because that's what God likes to do.
Until next time (which will be soon!) PS. As always, should you wish to contribute to the fund that supports my work here, you can! Just make out a check to the PC(USA) with my name and ECO number, 074436, in the memo line, and mail it to: The Presbyterian Church (USA) Thanks!!
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