Katie Jares' Reports

Last spring when Phil Holland, the Grinnell Corps handler and my de facto boss here at Anatolia College, visited Grinnell to "talk up" the program, his slideshow included a picture of the high school circa 1930 with the majestic gray stone Macedonia Hall overlooking a windswept field. Before the presentation cut to the next slide, that image had become the stock image, in my mind, of what Greece and Anatolia College would look like. A dignified institution sitting above a sprawling seaside city, where one could follow a dusty path down into Thessaloniki for all your shopping needs. Now, I expected there had been some gentrification. I read Wikipedia on a regular basis and was quite aware that this little plain was now home to over a million people and had earned a reputation, as reported by the New York Times, for being the "Seattle of the Balkans." Regardless, any time I found myself telling people where I would be spending the next 10 months, I instantly placed myself as a black and white figure in the 1930s photograph. Needless to say, I was shocked when five months later I actually arrived and found my new home was now next to a multilane highway, the city a good forty minute bus ride, and nary a dirt path-or even a sidewalk-in sight.

If my expectation of what the school and city would look like was shattered, it was certainly not the only one to go. Thanks to the fine reporting of last year's fellows, Jason and Lucy, I knew (and it does bear repeating) that Grinnell Corps-Greece "is not a teaching position." But I was also unprepared for what some other choice phrases in the job description meant. My favorite, perhaps, is that the Grinnell Corps Fellows provide an English component to the dorm life. What I had failed to realize is we would be providing the only English component. Staff memos, job orientation, and even the daily cafeteria menus are all printed in Greek. I can just imagine my conversations with my future children:

"You don't think you understand your homework, let me tell you about the time I was hired to a job where all the instructions were in Greek!"

"God, Mom. Not again. Please."

It was extremely disheartening to not be able to read the walls of the staff break room or know if it was pasta day yet. After learning the Greek alphabet, however, these signs have all taken on a new dimension, and become puzzles to unravel rather than just annoyances.

The students, perhaps more than anyone else, also have to deal with our Englishness. At the meals, during regular activities, and even on field trips, they have to make a concerted effort to include us in their conversations. Watching the care and time they put into talking with me is by far one of my daily highlights. In particular, several of the younger students are trying to teach me backgammon. My response has been to turn the board over and teach them checkers. We move the pieces back and forth across the board, each explaining in slow English the rules and role of pieces. After several months, I now have a champion team of checker players but am still a little shaky on the basic procedures of backgammon, often because my instructor is torn between explanation and guaranteeing their victory.

I share this experience of adjustment with a handful of my students as well. Ingle Hall dormitory houses not only Anatolia College students, but also students from Pinewood International School. The differences between these students vary-many of the Anatolia students are here on scholarship while most of those who attend Pinewood are from wealthy families who are scattered around the Balkans and European Union with a particularly large Bulgarian contingency. Meeting these students though, I found the simplistic dichotomy the Greek and Bulgarians are divided into incomplete. When I began this quarterly report, I decided to sit down with several of the Pinewood students to really talk to them about how they perceived themselves and their peers (I promise, this really wasn't the sociological experiment it sounds like). There answers surprised me. They overwhelming agreed that they were from wealthier families than Greek students, and were quite aware of their financial privilege. However, many were attending Pinewood as a college preparatory institute, like the Anatolia students, but rather because they would be taking over families businesses after graduating from high school. I think that does change their storyline. Their time at Pinewood ultimately will be their educational experience, not just a stepping stone. And it also means their high school experience is meant to be something rather different than a four-year study fest.

But, I'm getting sidetracked by background theory. Many of the Pinewood students have also had to undergo a period of culture shock as they are far from home and don't speak Greek either. This year, Stanislava, a new Pinewood student arrived knowing neither Greek nor English. Her classes, completely conducted in English, were teaching her words like homeostasis and photosynthesis before leaf and feather. In the library, we'd often sit together, trudging through mathematical word problems, one drawing at a time, accompanied by frenzied flipping through the encyclopedia to find a more accurate picture. I continue to be stunned by just how well her English has become and her perseverance in learning. Six weeks into the semester, Stanislava insisted on reading all 600-plus pages of Harry Potter in English to supplement her classes. Now, as she starts to get a handle on English, she has also taken the unusual step-for a Bulgarian student-of learning Greek as well. The other day, I realized she knows more Greek than I do, and felt embarrassed I had not dedicated myself so exuberantly to learning the language my students and fellow co-workers speak.

Since we live in the dorm, Kate and I never actually get away from work, unless we've left the country. I live right above the main office and every waking moment, from 7 AM to 11:45 PM, is conducted with the din of students running and yelling in the background. We and the students form a strange makeshift family. That has become the biggest culture shock of all. Kate and I are who these kids run to for homework and run from when they have broken the rule. I've experience sheer disappointment in a student who was caught smoking in her room and felt real pain as I issued out a punishment-I never believed that parental line "this hurts me more than it hurts you" until working in the dorm. At the same time, I'm also the proud one who is there snapping 100 pictures during their Christmas Concerts or Thanksgiving Square Dance, and pointing out to anyone else at the table "Look! Look at Kostas! He's one of our students! He's doing so well." We giggle over their dates, begrudgingly wake them up at 7 AM, hold them when they are sad, help them-as best we can-with their homework, and try to inspire them to do start studying. The year has forced me to rethink assumptions about the roles of parents, who are parents, and certainly respect my own parents more. Oh, on that note, I'd also like to empathize with all parents who received a college degree only to have their children treat them like Neanderthals. We know that burning stick in your hand (that is now on the floor) is a cigarette. We're not that blind. Yet.

On that same note, our jobs here still allow us a sizeable amount of free time. During the day, I have quite a list of various activities to involve myself with, but Greeks don't burden themselves with too many commitments the way Americans (and certainly Grinnellians) typically do. Currently, my schedule includes teaching a SAT preparatory class on Saturdays and Tuesdays, conducting college essay editing sessions, serving as the editor of In-Focus, the high school newspaper printed in English, advising the Social Action Group, and assisting with individual dramatic reading. While that sounds like I'm kept quite busy, on any give week, I'll probably only have half of these activities to attend, since there will inevitably be a cultural day, cancellations due to other school activities, or just plain disorganization (for instance, a month before the semester ends, our Social Action Group has meet a grand total of 3 times.) As such, the phrase "I'm busy" has taken on a whole next context. At Grinnell, that usually meant several meetings, prison lesson planning, at least one talk I wanted to go to, maybe trying to squeeze in some time at the gym, and a night of homework before me. In Greece, that same phrase becomes a synonym for "You're cutting into my afternoon nap time."

Probably the most enjoyable extra-curricular activity I am involved with is the individual dramatic reading. I meet with Yolanda once a week in the basement of the library to consider voice volume, word emphasis, and tone. Another English teacher suggested she use the first chapter of The Princess Bride as her performance practice piece. Being Greek, Yolanda has absolutely no context for the cult following or an appreciation for the sheer ridiculousness of Buttercup and Wesley's story. For a month, we'd meet, and she would read Buttercup's lines with the utmost sincerity, sending me into laughing fits. Together, we're rereading the whole book, and through her, I'm rediscovering a childhood classic in a whole new way. I'm finding out why I loved this story, beyond its reputation. Two weeks ago, we meet at our usual time, and were reading the part where Buttercup realizes she's madly in love with Wesley, when Yolanda threw down her copy. "This is…funny, isn't it? It's completely mad." I nodded, and Yolanda started laughing. That revelation has brought a new life to what we're doing. This activity isn't just something else to be added to her CV, but now seems to be an act she enjoys.

I also enjoy substitute teaching. After a slow start, Kate and I have become classroom-tested veterans. We've been fortunate that rather than the "fireman substituting" of yesteryear, we seem to have more warning (usually at least a day) and we're able to form some sort of lesson plan. Still, most of the substituting involves practicing English phrases or playing Twenty Questions. Some of the longer substitutions have yielded lovely conversations though, including a discussion about American drug policy and some extremely creative responses to the writing prompt "think of what you would invent and why." I'm a big fan of the no-calorie-but-all-taste-hamburger.

While part of the reason I did apply to Grinnell Corps-Greece was certainly for a change from Grinnell, I have had a hard time adjusting. Not just to the new language and culture, but also my newfound alone time. When talking to Natalie, one of the dorm students about this dilemma, she retorted I should just do something I've always wanted to do.

"What?"

"You know, learn Spanish or how to play the guitar. Just do something you've always wanted to."

"Well, I'm trying to learn Greek so I can talk to you guys."

"No, just do something you want to do."

That has been much more difficult for me than I'd like to readily admit. Sometimes I'm not sure how this year in Greece will fit into the rest of my seven-year plan; how this experience will contribute to my goal of reforming the American criminal justice system. But it has given me time to get to know who I am and think about what I want-not just want I should do-in life. A discovery that took sixty-plus teenagers and living in a new continent to consider.