Outside

Outside. It is a terrible day for school. The drab green. Cyclical
notions. Students stare eagerly at the water retainer in the hope that
it will burst and flood the classroom. My mind joins them. Secrets count
down until the bell sounds. Until we are all alike. All free. I can feel
the heat of the noon sun even in here. It cooks the metal of the pen,
heats the soles of my self-shined shoes until the rocks no longer scrape
the ground as I walk. She sits in front of me, the woman charged with
"making us teachers." Words cannot express how happy I am to be a math
educator; to not have to deal with this teacher. Her voice, her
handwriting, and her ideas could easily be confused with a 10 year-old.

3 more minutes have gone. Still I wish for the open air. Even more so
now. Half an hour to lunch. 6 hours to dinner. 1 day till the weekend. 2
days till I can freely stretch my legs for the first time in 2 months. 2
weeks till training is over. Both a blessing and a curse. On my own, no
supervision, No curfew. No Americans, though. No friends, no confiders.
Only complete isolation. 106 weeks until we return to our lives in the
States. We will never be the same. Already I have changed. Already I
sense the difference between me and I. The twisting, turning, holding,
restructured and reinforced insides that compose the essence of my
humanity. I will miss this place, these people. But it is too far away
to be thinking about. Scratch that, no thinking about the limited nature
of my time here. Live for the perpetual moment. I live for the perpetual
here and now. Not for tomorrow. Use yesterday only as a static reference
point. Internalize the essence of here. Not outside.

Beautiful

Beautiful. Like just before rain. Common interests. Like a sun shower
immediately preceding a double rainbow over Mugandamore. Cartesian
products. Waving Flags. All I can think about is who is on the other
side of this wall I lean against, I stare at as thirty Rwandan students
stare back. I sit and observe the others. I see the way his hand
twitches on the back of the chair during lunch, the way her body is
tilted ever-so-slightly towards him. The way he keeps his hand on the
strap of his bag when they walk, perhaps worried his nervousness will
betray his deepest emotions. When asked about him she laughs to sound
nonchalant, but the smallest moment's hesitation behind her eyes, the
tiniest change in her intonations betray her desired reality. The
strategic placement of hands as to maximize the potential to be held.

I see this all. I process it, understand it. I know more about these
people from how they interact than from what they say. I can do this,
and I am very good at it. But I seem incapable of correctly
comprehending my own actions. I see what they do, I see its effects, its
efficiencies and its flaws. But I cannot understand my own actions and
their outcomes. I can see a projected path, given certain continuations
and logical progressions, for the interactions of two people. I am not
able to do such for myself. She is near me. I feel so much.

I sense my own longing for comfort, for compassion, for safety. I fear.
I am afraid. Loneliness will engulf me like a grain of sand in a storm.
My only fighting chance against the perpetual torment that is the
undying loneliness. To be alone, isolated is not bad. Perpetually? It is
like the stink of death. I can ignore it, yes. I can pretend it does not
exist. But it will eventually overcome me, consume me. I will become it
through death itself. I can only hope that she, the one like the moment
before it rains, like the double rainbow to finish off a perfect day,
can help me fill the void I still harbor in my heart. She is. Beautiful.

11 mathematicians in one room. Communication is a problem. 11 Americans. 11 native English speakers attempting to explain math. English is messed up. No one in this room understands the dynamics of interpersonal communication. Systematic approaches. Scientific methods. The complete lack of human understanding

Sometimes I wonder if anyone can see it well. The obvious to me about me. The focus is so strong on rubrics, numbers, equations. The desire is so strong. I want this. An invisible vision it is. We are all egomaniacs. It is nearly required to be here. We are all experts in our field. Some more than others. Some I’m  not sure how, yet they are the self-proclaimed. We talk ourselves up. We lie, cheat, bend the truth. We are self-proclaimed good human beings. I am one of them

It occurs to be me that this is a very pessimistic way of looking at our mission here. We ARE good people. We are doing good in the world.

68 Americans isolated in the middle of Rwanda. It was bound to happen. Incessant urges. Teenage hormones long since forgotten, accelerated and multiplied by alcohol. I’ll be the first to admit that we were both really drunk. Would this have happened otherwise? Is man’s greatest pitfall once again to blame? If such is the case, I embrace it. Who gives a shit. This is good, Life is good. Africa, teaching, adjusting. Now the new relationships are forming. I did not see it coming. Should I have?

So many chalk numbers. Delinearization. Non-central thoughts. I have a hard time following him even with my English fluency and math training. The students have no idea what he is saying. We sit in back while he discusses in front, chalk in hand, Tongue in cheek.

I find my mind wandering. Shitty desks. Nails perturding, squeaks and rotting wood. The walls are always the same beige-green color. They are inescapable. She haunts my thoughts in the most peculiar, amazing ways. I cannot stop to pull myself back to reality. I feel her shape in mine, the slow draw of her breath as her chest rises and falls. Sensual hands on my leg. Her neck. My hand. Her hand.

When things fall, they usually do so in a constant matter. Gravity. 9.8 m/s. Straight down. This is what I am used to. This is different than my gravity. Centrifugal motion is not usually gravitational. Yet I find myself falling around the same object continually. These are the days of my life.

Did alcohol impair my judgment? Or did it simply drop the barriers I had set up to keep people out? 3 days. A 3 days’ notice that I would enter this endeavor single. There is an element of truth to the notion that she simply makes me confortable, that I yearn so badly to not be alone in this world. We process, adjust, and reapply. No interpretations. We fail to grasp the truth of the tiny facts we process. More than that, I yearn for her; she makes me happy. Radiant beauty. She grounds me while making me feel alive. She is horrible for the steadiness of my heartbeat.