The Journey Inward

Another day of training down at our city campus. Another day of enlightenment, learning and connection. My favorite part is meeting people and hearing their stories. Here are a few.

I first saw Cristina at an online Zoom meeting for a Task Force we are both members of. I loved her hair, dark with gray in the front and curly. The next week I saw her in passing at a training and it was even more glorious than it had been online and I told her so. Now we have officially met and spent time together during this training. Yesterday we ate lunch together, and I asked her the story that brought her here.

She was born in San Diego, but grew up around the United States. The man she married was also a teacher, and they decided the only way that two people living on teacher salaries could see the world was to teach internationally, and so they began their residencies at different schools in different nations over the years. They adored some of the countries and others were rough, like the short hours of sunlight in Russia. They had their daughter abroad.

They moved back home for 10 years to care for her mother, and this is their first assignment back overseas, as there daughter is 22 and finished college. Cristina is easy to talk to and her husband came over to say hi while we ate and he was equally warm and kind. We are going to introduce each other to our home turfs one of these weekends.

Lauren is a colleague of Cristina’s and is a new mother. She has been teaching for 6 months at their school. She is young and sweet and South African. She fretted that her overseas experience was so limited compared to ours. She lived in Greece, her mother’s home country for three months. I told her that in my book, living ANYWHERE overseas for ANY length of time changes you. She said it’s something she’s very proud of.

The final story comes from a South African man who teaches in the lower elementary school and who grew up in the townships. Only person in his family to finish high school. Only person in his family to go to college. Only person in his family to move away. Only person in his family to work a professional job where certification is needed.

Which comes with a lot of responsibility. He pays what he calls “black taxes,” meaning his money goes back home to support his parents, his sister and her children and the child he had in his late teens being raised there. He has such mixed feelings because they don’t show gratitude or contribute and his sister keeps having children. He is having a hard time supporting himself and getting ahead.

On top of that, he is gay and cannot bring himself to tell them. He grew up in the church and his family is quite devout. He fears they will not accept him. He wants to bring his son to visit and meet his boyfriend. But he is afraid his son will say something back with the grandparents. He says that being gay here is not something you openly show, especially in the black community. He feels very much himself at his school and is showing up authentically, but feels like he’s pulled between two worlds and is afraid to commit to his boyfriend. It was such a vulnerable conversation and I appreciated his honesty.