Walking Ourselves Back Home: The Education of Teachers with/in the World

INTRODUCTION: I AM HERE IN THE WORLD I am here in the world and the world is here in me each breath a reminder to me of the connections that sustain the very substance of life, of people... I am here in Ten Sleep, Wyoming.... on a Girl Scout trip designed for underprivileged, inner city, girls of color All dressed in shiny new Girl Scout "gear," I kissed my mother and father goodbye and climbed through the doors of the van, on the first of many journeys that would open my eyes to a world beyond Seattle, Washington, beyond this colored girl's sense of time, beyond this colored girl's sense of space, I would see Glacier National Park with trees so tall I couldn't see their tops, and Old Faithful, with all of its sulphur and spit I would ride Charro, my palamino pony and get a tick that scared me to death I would dig for arrow heads and realize the ways of ancient peoples, I would watch sun set pink and orange over the terracotta Rockies Most of all, I would ride on a plane and realize how vast and wide these United States are And how those little lines we called borders in U.S. history did not really exist from the window of a plane.... I am here in Britain.... my first trip "over seas," I learned that I didn't like smashed peas and I loved drinking beer in the pubs and ploghman's lunches. that castles are real and going to the markets was a social event for women as long as you had a good wicker basket and a story to tell, that green is so green on the hills of Scotland and heather was both a color and a flower, as peaceful as it is breathtaking As I sat night after with the innkeepers over tea and biscuits and a smoky fire, We talked of politics, and race, and whose English was the "real thing" And I learned that teachers are everywhere If you are open to the lessons they have to teach you.... I am here in Mexico.... Not a lick of Spanish to my name But my boyfriend and I had dreamed of this trip and, even though he was gone, My dream remained And so did my determination.... I cried a lot on this first trip sur de la frontera But each time a tear fell An angel appeared to make it bien The guy who showed me the right bus to San Miguel de Allende The teacher at my school who would make me speak Spanish "Cynthia, como se llama este cosa?" "Cynthia, donde' esta la mesa" (or the door or the store or whatever) I personally think that she just liked the name Cynthia I'm really not sure she liked me But I for sure despised this woman But I adore her now Because humility is always good for a person with lots of "education" Because empathy for the difficulty of learning a language can only truly be known through experiences Because the passion that I now have for language--all language And the ways in which it opens the world to you and you to the world, I'll never forget.... I am here in El Salvador my politics urging me south to understand the deeper meanings of concepts I throw around carelessly Like war and poverty peace and prosperity Like developed and underdeveloped Like Third World and First World Like faith and hope Like responsibility and solidarity I lived within a comunidad which many would say was poor But as I listened to the US-supplied bombs fall like rain as I ate my beans and tortillas and listened to the stories of everyday life as I talked with the children and heard them sing their revolutionary songs as I knelt in the dirt with everyone else for fourteen stations of the cross I learned that being poor materially does not mean being poor spiritually: I was amongst some of the richest people I had ever met that countries are intimately connected and that that relationship should be reciprocal and respectful, that faith, as I had practiced it could be a part time thing, when hard times came or when I might find the time Los Salvadorenos remind me that real faith is a full time commitment based on the premise that today is all you have, and tomorrow is never promised. …