Only a Year Ago - Part II

Ok. I found one other email update from Kenya that I wanted to post.  Here it is:

October 2, 2011

 

It smells like rain.  I love that smell. 

 

The smell of a new beginning, a fresh start.  The smell of thorough weeping, a cleansing of the soul.  The smell of the earth rejuvenated, reinvigorated.  The smell of old things washed away, a purging of dirtyness.  The smell of sadness, a mourning for things lost or not had.  A beautiful, rich smell with a mixture of emotions.  The smell of how I feel...

 

A fresh start: I actually like teaching.  Sometimes, I still get nausceated by the idea of standing in front of a class, stuttering my way through a lesson and receiving blank stares.  However, this is no longer the norm.  Even my most challenging class (8th grade Pre-Algebra...15 goofball guys and 4 dramatic girls...all of whom would not consider math a favorite subject) has been tracking with me lately.

 

Thorough weeping: Due to some combination of a lack of sleep, a failed lesson, typical early-20s angst, feeling lonely, missing physical touch, and a hundred other reasons at any given time, I've cleansed my soul many times (Jessie and the tissue boxes have been quite comforting though).

 

Rejuvenated:  Sharing dinner with several families, feeling my eyes light up as I talked about CCDA philosophy of ministry with a parent who found such things also quite fascinating, making yet another random Wheaton connection (your niece's in grad school at Wheaton and just started dating a guy who worked at the same camp as me...wait, does his name happened to be ___?  yep, it is a small world...and once you go to Wheaton, it gets about 732 times smaller.), absolutely loving the past two weeks of teaching my advanced Algebra class (solving equations on individual whiteboards for two weeks!  now, this is my kind of math.), listening to little Joshua at dinner tell a hilarious, ridiculously animated, 10-minute version of the story of Joseph (so, they threw him in the well, and Joseph was like, "Ahh!"...), and watching the glorious sunset as I jog home from Rosslyn.

 

Old things washed away: Slowly, God is healing my fears of teaching.  After a rough experience in Chicago last fall, I almost changed my major and dropped education completely.  While I still don't know if I want to be a teacher, I now see that I could be a good one, if that's where God wants me.  (...but Lord, I would prefer not being condemned to that fate.)

 

Sadness: Sadness that I cannot spend longer with my students (note: I did not say "spend more time teaching"); sadness that the missionary community seems quite isolationistic (where is the incarnational ministry?  where is the living among the people?  where are the widows, the orphans (ok, we do have baby Jane with us!), the poor, the untouchables, the children (ok, I see a lot of children regularly), the sick, the dirty, the prostitutes, the people that Jesus would be hanging out with and loving?); sadness that school politics are still present at a Christian school; sadness at the racial segregation, cliques, and occasional cruelty of the 7th graders to each other (words wound deeply); sadness that people cling tightly to their denominational ties rather than Christ (who destroyed all barriers that humans like to put up to keep others out).

 

Mixture of Emotions:  I helped out at a dental clinic in Nanyuki, a city a few hours from Nairobi.  Our dental team consisted of my host dad Mike & dental student Joshua (our two dentists), a dental technician, three dental assistants who work at the various dental clinics with Mike, and my host sister Nikki and I.  We saw about 100 patients that day.  I learned more about dentistry than I've ever known in my life and saw my life's quota of teeth being pulled and cavities filled (the cavities were actually really cool; teeth being pulled was also interesting, but a little too bloody for my taste...no pun intended).  I'm now an expert at preparing syringes (for numbing), using suction, washing dental instruments, and holding flashlights (for extra visibility).  In Kenya, there's one dentist for every 200,000 people.  Yikes.  But anyways, something that struck me that day was seeing the way Mike and Joshua came alive while seeing patients for 10 nonstop hours.  Mike didn't even eat anything for 10 hours, and Joshua only stopped for 30 seconds to wolf down a sandwich, but it was as if they didn't even need food because they were so energized by what they were doing.  These two men were made to be dentists.  

Similarly, that's something I loved about watching Jessie teach: she comes alive when she's in front of a classroom talking about math.  She was made to be a middle school math teacher.  I'm not sure that I was made to be a middle school math teacher (one big difference between Jessie and I is that she is always one to ask, "Why?  Why do numbers work this way?  Look at these awesome connections between the way this works and the way that works," whereas I generally ask, "How?  How do I solve this equation?  What's the process?" ...number theory/asking why is an area that I would need to develop tremendously if I choose to be a teacher because I wouldn't be content being a good teacher, I would want to be an excellent one...there's that Wheaton perfectionism rising up in me).  But I don't know that I want it badly enough.  Teaching is not just a career; it's your whole life.  And I'm not sure that I want it to be my life (then again, it doesn't really matter what I want...we'll see where God puts me).  

After the dental clinic, we had a good conversation in the car on the way home about career possibilities (the sky's the limit), and I realized that I love working with people one-on-one.  I love helping people understand the way that their brain works, the way they communicate, the way they show love to other people (personality tests, love languages, learning styles, etc.).  So, I'm considering going into counseling (I probably should go to counseling first...ha!).  I haven't chucked teaching out the window, but I am exploring other possibilities as well.

 

The smell of how I feel... sorry there wasn't a more concise way of expressing how I feel (if you made it this far through my email, I'm quite impressed...either you had nothing else to do or love me a lot...I'd like to think it's the second).  I can't believe I only have four weeks left.  Also, I've added more pictures to my facebook photo album titled "Nairobi 2010," so feel free to check that out.  I have no profound words of wisdom to leave you with, but I've realized again this semester that God loves us to let us stagnate.  The growing pains hurt.  But my God is also a Healer.

Only a Year Ago

I can't resist... While thumbing through old emails, I found one from a year ago.  Too bad that I didn't start this blog in time to celebrate the 2nd annual International Christy Krumsieg Day on October 24, 2011.  Oh, well... I often celebrate birthdays after-the-fact, so I suppose other holidays can follow likewise.  Without further adieu...

 

Official Declaration from the Hyodo family:

 

Today, October 24, 2010, is an international holiday known as Christy Krumsieg Day.

 

At the Hyodo household in Nairobi, Kenya, we will be celebrating this holiday with gifts, a commemorative family photo, cards, a special dinner (heard rumors of a Lebanese restaurant), and playing Cranium as a family.  This holiday was established on Saturday, October 23, 2010, when father Mike Hyodo realized that this was the last week of Christy Krumsieg's stay in Nairobi.  Although a petition was begun to extend Christy's membership in the family (which included staying until Christmas), a compromise was reached granting Christy the permission to travel with her mom and grandparents to Mombasa, the Congo, and back to Chicago, but only under the condition that a holiday would be established to celebrate the past three months and begin to bring closure to that experience.

 

Thus, Christy Krumsieg began to bring closure to that experience and say her goodbyes...

 

Good-bye to my host family: I can't imagine these past three months without them... from little Joshua's explosive energy to helping Blake with geometry homework to talking about college possibilities with Nikki to having entire conversations with Tia through eye contact only (which makes teaching her in Algebra also quite fun).  I'll miss Mike's corny jokes and Trisha's fussing over making sure I have everything I could possibly need or want. 

 

Good-bye to my mentoring teacher Jessie: I had to travel halfway around the globe to learn from the best middle school math teacher in the world, but she proved to be well-worth the effort.  She has taught me how to handle the ex-pat world (translation: ex-patriot - the international community), how to work collaboratively with other teachers and staff, how to communicate well with parents, how to engage with Kenyan culture while working at an international school, how to cry when you need to, how to treasure middle schoolers, and how to be a freakin' awesome math teacher.

 

Good-bye to my students: During parent-teacher conferences on Friday, one mom was telling me how much she appreciated me (on behalf of her eighth grade son), and said something along the lines of "It's been nice to have some fresh meat around."  And I thought, "I'm sure it is.  Your son's class likes to eat me alive!"  However, despite the times that my eighth grade Pre-Algebra has driven me nuts, I will still miss all of my students tremendously. 

I will miss hearing the eighth grade girls' high-pitched squealing outside my classroom door (I think it's a mixture of laughter, talking, emotions and eighth grade girl-ness), seeing my students take more responsibility for their learning, listening to their stories involving experiences all over the world, playing sproutball with them [an improved version of dodgeball... we played for many hours on our three-day Cultural Field Studies trip, which also included a walking safari, learning about water conservation, songs and s'mores around the campfire, devotions, a boat ride to see hippos, and a service project at a local Kenyan primary school - I was surprised by how many of our students had never been to a local school and it was neat to see some of them realize how privileged they are to be at Rosslyn... where we have electricity (and not only lightbulbs, but also TVs, projectors, microphones and musical equipment for chapel, and computers in every classroom), where we don't spank our students for being late to class or misbehaving (although sometimes it sounds like a good idea... but generally, I'm against using fear as a classroom management technique), where the students don't have to walk many miles to school, and where the students get an education that prepares them for prestigious universities in Europe and the U.S.]...back to other things I will miss... eating sushi that my students share with me (I need to make some Korean friends in the States), watching my 7th graders practically jump out of their seats to answer a question in class (in particular, two tall, gangly, twitchy boys - one Chinese, the other American - who sit next to each other and enthusiastically explode - arms and legs flying everywhere - whenever I ask a question), and helping my students make connections and understand math on a deeper level.

 

Good-bye to Kenya: I will miss the sunshine, the purple jacaranda trees, the relationally-based culture, mangoes, people-watching in an international setting, Kenyan tea, saying "Tu a nani!" (See you later!) or "Asante sana!" (Thank you!) to our houseguards David and Kennedy as one of them opens the gate to let us out, delicious lentil stew, and random adventures (safaris, hiking, dental clinic, Israel Houghton concert, etc.).

 

There were times over the past 12 weeks that I thought I wouldn't make it.  I remember mentioning to Jessie how long it took me to write a single lesson plan and how I had no idea how I could possibly teach another class (much less a full-time teacher's class load), and she responded, "You will become more efficient... or die."  I was convinced I was gonna die.  Somehow I must've become more efficient because I'm still alive to write this email.  God is faithful. 

 

Join me in celebrating God's faithfulness and International Christy Krumsieg Day today... here's few suggestions for celebrating the holiday:

- smile :)

- give somebody a hug

- play piano (or whatever instrument you may play)

- go biking

- play games with your family/friends (board games, card games, whatever)

- drink a soy mocha

- shop at a thrift store (it's even better if you shop with your mom)

- eat a mango

- give somebody a back massage

- read a book (for fun! ...readings for class don't count)

- go to a playground and swing

- send Christy Krumsieg an email

- find a reason to declare an international holiday in honor of somebody else and celebrate!

 

Hope your holiday is as joyous as mine!