Finding material to write about weekly (weakly?) can sometimes be difficult. Some weeks there is an abundance of events that happen and all I have to do is write about them. Other weeks, nothing out of the ordinary takes place, so more effort is required to find things to write about.
Well, things do happen, but I’m not going to write about everything. When I started my blog two years ago, I made the decision to try to keep it light and humorous. When I say ‘try’ I mean ‘do a task with little effort’. I figured that if I though it was funny, maybe somebody else would too. And if they didn’t find it funny, at least they had solace in the fact I wasn’t in their school, teaching their kids.
We have issues up here that are just like everywhere else. Some of the issues up here are not just like everywhere else. We have an extremely high rate of substance abuse. This is an issue that touches the school with a cruel, unfair hand. With substance abuse comes neglect of children in a variety of ways we witness at the school every day. And being in a remote area, we don’t have resources readily available to help solve these problems. When these problems persist, the young victims continue to suffer.
We have no law enforcement in our village to respond quickly when needed. This allows for some to not be held accountable for their actions, and continue with behavior that is detrimental to the community. I want to strongly emphasize that the overwhelming majority of citizens are law abiding and only want to do the right thing. But in a village with less than 200 people, it only takes a few to disrupt the community. Like Monica says, “The smaller the room, the more potent that fart.” I married her for her flowery prose.
Every day I get to go to work with 19 amazing kids. Some kids come to school carrying more baggage than I could possibly endure. They may come in wearing the same clothes for the past two weeks, having only two hours of sleep on a living room floor that night, and a small bag of Doritos for dinner. But they walk in with a big smile on their face. It makes the whining about Romney’s tax return or that Obama is a communist sound ridiculous and trite.
So, I do have plenty to blog about. Monica and I don’t feel that we are here to save a village. We are here to work in a community and try to become a member of a group where we are the outsiders. I also don’t think I would be benefiting anyone, including myself, to comment on specific tragedies we may witness. We love being a part of this community. While we don’t ignore the adversities, we want to relish all of the positives; which greatly outnumber the negatives. I will try to write about the things that make me smile and laugh, not the things that break my heart.
No comments:
Post a Comment