"Wow. Your eyes are really red" the five year old with the old man's face stated, staring at me quizically. "I know honey. Siéntate." I answered, as I noticed a devilish little blond haired boy rising up, wiggling his knees and shaking his booty.
Re-entry is almost more difficult than leaving your home. Instead of arriving to a new, exciting place, your returning to the place you came from...sometimes to the same old thing. There is a flurry of activity and dinners and people that are happy to see you and then things settle back to normal. But you aren't quite normal yet.
After returning from Asia with my mind blown, I remember being surprised when people would ask "How was your trip?" and only expected a one sentence answer.
Your closet seems endless as you are no longer living out of a suitcase. I reminded myself to drink tap water and not throw toilet paper in the trashcan. Everything is just so comfortable. Slowly, the strange shampoo and toothpaste that you bought in some other place runs out, to be replaced by an American product. Then you realize your trip is really over.
We ate our last meal in Mexico in Tecate on July 27th. As I sat at Los Amigos watching Mexico go by, I knew I was going to miss it. I was jealous of the people that live in border areas and can dip in and out of Mexico at will. After making one last visit to the Secondary Inspection Area to have my car thoroughly thumped and checked for drugs, we crossed into California. I mentally begged the pinche Border Patrol agent to use the drug dogs instead of opening the doors of my car, so that all of my possessions wouldn't spill out into the parking lot.
I crossed through the police state the day after. I wanted to stay, really wanted to stay. I felt that it was my civic duty to be present the day that SB1070 went into law. But I had an appointment on Friday in Atlanta. My new job, at an ELEMENTARY school, wanted me to sign insurance papers. So I raced toward Atlanta. The wheels fell off of my luggage in Sinaloa and the wheels of my car began to fall off in Arizona. I lost another in the black hole of Texas and found myself hunting through Abilene for a tire that would fit my car the day before my big appointment in Atlanta. Late in the day, I entered Mississippi, Green, humid, hot South. It was practically ripe. I knew I wasn't in the borderlands anymore.
After a fifteen hour drive, I made it to Atlanta the evening of the 29th. I woke up Friday at my mother's house, confused about where I was. And I checked my email. "It's okay if you just come by on Monday for pre-planning" my new principal informed me. I was willing to try elementary school, though I firmly consider myself a high school teacher, mainly because this school seemed different, experimental. As I scanned the email, I found myself thinking that they are all the same and cursed myself for taking the whole thing so seriously.
I drove through town. People were honking and screaming at each other in traffic. "Take it easy," I thought "it's not like you pendejos don't have everything the world has to offer".
I found an apartment by Sunday that is a three minute walk from the school. Maybe everything isn't exactly the same. New school, new neighborhood, weird new reality. And then I reported for pre-planning the following Monday. I don't like getting up early.
"This room looks like a loft!" Alec exclaimed when he visited, staring at the twenty-foot ceilings, wall of windows and exposed brick walls. I had spent the day digging through the mountain of educational materials in the classroom. I added my carefully saved construction paper to a foot high stack and put my one sombrero on the class set that already existed. Did I think about the TJ kids? Did I notice that the supplies in that room were enough to fuel an entire Mexican school? Did I miss my gray, cell-block classroom without overhead lights?
"Where can I find your curriculum?" I asked my new bosses. "Well..." the answered and started giving me activity ideas. "No, no.." I said as gently as possible. "I know how to teach. I just wanted to know, um, what you wanted me to teach...". It's a little tricky to write a K-5 curriculum a few days before school starts. But I did it. Still not sure what curriculum boards do. I had a skirmish about being paid for my years of experience and held up the signing of my contract until it was accurate. I like starting out on the right foot.
"If we report a student to DFCS, do we find out the action they are taking if the child is still in our classroom?" a teacher asked during our child abuse in-service. No, I thought, thinking of April. They don't tell you anything. You pass the semester, looking for chunks of missing hair and scabs on her scalp, like the last time. And the semesters afterward, you see each other in the hall and awkwardly nod and look away. "I'll tell you if I hear anything...." our facilitator answered.
I wrote curriculum, made some lesson plans and tried to organize the classroom. I trashed a disturbing eraser with "enojado" written on it. And I dragged boxes in the evening and found myself shaking from the ample air conditioning in all of these crazy new buildings.
And then I woke up, at 6AM, 3AM Tijuana time, climbed over some boxes and got ready for the first day of school, two weeks after driving out of TJ.
As I hung over the trashcan in my classroom vomiting, I heard the door swing open. "Hi Maestra!" a chipper parent called out "We bought you this book!"
