My Escape Through the Jungle: A Panama Story

While in Panama, I took an excursion to one of the must-see islands that are part of Bocas Del Toro. It was a little expensive to get there (relatively speaking) and if you wanted to see various beaches you’d have to pay for additional transportation. Me, doing this entire travel as cheaply as possible, was like…NOPE! I’ll walk.

Well, I’m an idiot. I got dropped off at the main dock and decided that the walk to the beach I had picked out was only a mile away and that was nothing compared to how much I had been walking those days. Wrong choice. It was the slipperiest, muddiest walk I’d ever taken in my life. Not to mention it was muggy, hot, one of my shoes was broken, and there were just so many bugs. I was walking through sludge and mud up and downhill for an hour before I reached the beach, cursing to myself along the way.

The beach was completely deserted. I did not see another soul. I enjoyed the solidarity until I started to get hungry. Then I decided it was probably time to move on to a more populated beach.

Following my map, I crossed the beach to enter a small path through jungle. No big deal, so I thought. Before I reached the path, I passed by a few local boys with machetes (normally used to cut fruit, coconuts for example) and they asked me for money. I had a bad feeling and passed by them quickly. They shouted to me “maybe later!” and laughed. I had this feeling that I couldn’t go back the way I came, ever, because if I did, being the solo little white girl on the island, they might try and rob me. Onward I went.

Well, turns out the little path through the jungle ended shortly after it had begun. I still had about a mile to get to the next, more populated beach. “How hard could it be to trek through some jungle?,” I thought to myself.

Pretty flipping difficult turned out to be the answer. I climbed through dense jungle, climbing up, down, over, under branches, plants, rocks. As one point I came to a part of the jungle infested with red frogs eggs, which I guessed were poisonous. I climbed up, around, through thick branches and plants, again, with one broken shoe, cutting up my feet, my arms, my legs. It was exhausting. And then I came to the cliffs.

Basically, after trudging up and down a few thousand meters, I came to a point in the jungle where I either had to climb up a very steep, muddy point surrounded by frogs eggs everywhere and little red poisonous frogs, or I had to climb down and hug myself against the steep cliff, amongst crashing waves, to get through. First, I tried going up. I could not make it. No matter how hard I tried. The cliffs it was. Hugging myself against the cliff for fear of being swept away by the intense waves, I slowly inched my way across to the next part of the jungle. This was the most terrifying part. Sharp rocks were everywhere. And everything was wet at this point, including my phone, which I desperately needed because of my map. However, the phone managed to survive and I slowly inched myself around the cliff.

Then came the climbing over and under of branch after branch. I did so much balancing, and jumping and maneuvering, I felt like Indiana Jones, I really did.

About two and a half hours later, I finally made it to the beach. I was bruised, cut up, hot, dehydrated, exhausted. But I felt like a total badass.

And surprise, people are not supposed to cross that part of the jungle. That’s why the guys on the beach said “maybe later, then” and laughed. That’s also the reason I felt I had no choice but to create my own path through the jungle, for fear of being robbed. Maybe my fear of that was unjust, but I try and always follow my instincts.

In conclusion, probably one of the most physically and mentally challenging things I’ve done. I haven’t really done a good job of explaining what it was like, but I tried. It was my real-life Xena: Warrior Princess moment.

Commen

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The Jindo and It's Fans

In the wise words of Miss Jennifer Stearns, what a day. It was my intent to go to Busan this morning, a city about two and a half hours from where I currently reside.  Because it's so far, and because I'm taking care of three dogs right now (three!), I decided I didn't trust the puppy to be home alone for that long so I took her with me.

We got to the bus station and the buses to Busan were sold out.  So I came up with Plan B: Suncheon's Culture Street.

Tom (the puppy) and I got to Suncheon and hopped a cab to the street.  Now, being a cute little Jindo- a dog beloved by the Korean people- Tom had up to this point garnered her fair share of attention.  But it didn't stop there.  As soon as I stepped out of that cab, which had stopped right in front of a restaurant, the restaurant owners were all over her.  They begged be to sit down and drink some Makkolli.  They were fawning over Tom.  At 11:50am, I reluctantly agreed.

These old country folk knew not a word of English, but that didn't stop them from asking me everything they could think of about Tom and I.  Am I married?  That's a go-to question and not a big shock.  But from that to how I plan on getting Tom on airplanes, and everything.  I drank the Makkolli and wanted to get on my way.  But I couldn't.  By this point, some other fans had gathered and they also needed to talk to me and ask about Tom.

Now, my roommate named our girl puppy "Tom."  Weird, but I figured it was fine since we're in Korea and no one here knows that "Tom" is a boy's name...or so I thought.  One of the men asked her name and I told him.  "Tom??? Tom Cruise???" he shouted back.  "Miss Tom????" he continued to inquire.  Welp, I guess they think it's as weird a name as I do.

Again I was ready to leave.  But not until they insisted I eat lunch.  So I did.  I ate with three cyclists who happened by and they took pictures with me as if we were old chums.  And finally, a good hour and a half later, I was on my way.  They told me to come back and hang out anytime.  I just might.

Maria Poop Hands

This blog is at least 9 months overdue.  But I can't let this story die without writing about it.

Last year, my year of Craigslist-related employment (aside from the theatre), I took a stint at a daycare, working in the 18-month-old classroom.  It will forever go down in history as one of the most challenging jobs I've ever had.  And I literally could regale anyone with hundreds of tales (horrors, really) from daycare.  But I digress.

The single most horrifying and hilarious day of work was this:  (Mind you, if you meet me in person, the sound effects that come with this story are really what make it gold.)  There was an adorable little girl in my class named Maria.  She was a spit-fire.  Pre-mature but strong as hell.  Wild.  Crazy.  Constantly in trouble. Always throwing toys, hitting other kids, scaling walls.  This kid was so much trouble and so much work, so naturally, she was my favorite while all my coworkers thought I was crazy.

Maria was nearing two-years-old so she was speaking pretty well.  At lunch time she always asked me "A-whatchoo have Kay-Tee?"  To which I would respond something along the lines of "It's soup Maria." "I see soup!" she would demand, and then I would have to show her my soup in order to calm her intrigue over my very boring meal.  At this same time of the day, Maria would, like clockwork, flip her plate of unwanted food onto the floor.  Everyday, I would sweep it up and everyday I would answer her same inquiry "A-wha-happened Kay-Tee?"  To this I always replied in a very dry tone, "you threw your food on the floor, Maria."  To which she would ask "A-why?"  To which I'd respond, "I don't know, you tell me!"  "A-why?"  "Because I don't know why you throw your plate on the floor."  "A-why?"  I went on and on with her out of boredom with this line of inquiry, but you get the point.

One day, after cleaning up the table, we were putting kids down for their naps.  Routine was to take them from the table one-by-one, change them, and get them in their crib.  Now Maria had a habit of stripping off her clothes and throwing everything out of her crib the second she was placed inside of it, therefore, she was always last to be changed.

On this particular day, I was down to two kids at the table, Maria and Mark, and I was changing one.  As I was doing so, I hear a horrified scream come from the table.  I look up at Maria and she is staring at her hands, looking mortified.  Her face is red and she is in tears.  I see something brown on both of her hands but am too far away to recognize the offending substance.  I quickly change the kid I have, put her in the crib and make my way over to Maria.  Well, you may have guessed, but Maria  stuck her hands deep into her diaper and then pulled them out.  Poop, all over.  I had to pick her up as she cries out "A-WHAT-HAPPENED-KAY-TEE????!!!???"  To which I frantically respond "You put your hands in your diaper Maria!!!!!!!!"  "A-WHHHHYYYYY??!!??"  "I.DON'T.KNOW.  YOU. TELL. ME.!!!"  And at this point everyone was crying including myself.

The kicker to the story is Mark, who was sitting next to Maria, mimicked her.  So as soon as I cleaned Maria, and I walked over to Mark and I realized that he too had stuck his hands in his diaper and was covered in poop.

And the kick-kicker is, when her parents got to school, of course we told them what happened.  To this they responded with a beaten tone, "That's nothing.  Last week, she pooped, stripped off all of her clothes and was running around with poop in her hair...in the park."

ESL Series: Christmas Wishes

ESL Series: I will quit the E-World

A few years ago, I taught a class of 5 middle school students:  Rich, Henry, Patrick, Sarah and Eva.  We got along well, but teenagers are teenagers and they liked to tease me and I usually teased them back.  I especially liked to get my revenge on them on test day.  On test day, I would type up a written test for them to take.  For this class, I always wrote the student's names into the test and would write things like "Change the sentence to past tense:  Rich loves Eva."  They would get so annoyed by it and it made me laugh.

One day, I made up the test and on the first page I made a reference to Rich loving Eva.  His response is above.  Didn't even write the answer, instead he wrote: "I kill you. Watch out your back."

On the next page, I wrote a story that they had to change into past tense.  It went something like.  "Henry is looking at Sarah.  Sarah is dancing with Patrick.  Rich loves Eva.  Rich asks Eva to dance with him.  Etc..."

So Rich didn't catch what I had done at first and begins doing as instructed.  Finally he realizes and halfway through writing out the past tense version of my story he stops writing and writes "teacher, you do this one more time I will quit the E-World."

I wish I could better describe the funny.  I miss this class to this day.

ESL Series: The Shower

Today I decided I need to start documenting the funny things that happen in an ESL classroom.

In my school, we have a vast amount of flash cards and teaching tools to help us in our classrooms.  My first year, I had a lower level class that was studying house objects.  I pulled out the house objects flash cards and began going through them.  All was fine until it came to the shower flash card.  This flash card shows a picture of the backside of a naked boy with shower bubbles covering his tush.  He is holding a shower head and is clearly showering.  I didn't think twice about the card when I showed it to students the first time.  But when I showed it, the class went wild.  Screaming, shreaking, laughing, crying, students covering their eyes turning red, students rolling of the floor in hysterics....the class became uncontrollable.  All because of this scandalous flash card.

As the years have gone by, I have learned to take this flash card out of the mix when teaching about house objects.  However, nowadays I am teaching what has become my favorite class of all time.  Two young boys and two young girls.  They are absolutely adorable.  They are young, about eight years old.  This class makes me laugh out loud every day.  I decided I had to bring out my favorite flash card for this class, because I was dying to see their reaction.

The moment comes and I break out the flash card.  As, expected, they lose it.  The two boys are laughing so hard they are on the floor.  The girls are shreaking and covering their eyes.  It was hilarious.  The next class, it was time to review the flash cards.  I wasn't planning on showing the shower flash card again, that would be overkill.  However, as soon as I pulled out the stack of flash cards, all four of my students started to flip out.  The boys began giggling, the girls were bracing themselves.  I couldn't explain to them that I had removed the shower flash card from the stack because if I even mentioned the word "shower," they would lose it.  This flash card has become my most powerful resource and also my kryptonite.

I will post a picture.

Big Country, Small World

I have the craziest story.  On day two of my trip in Russia, I was aboard a train going from Vladivostok to Slyudanka, a trip that totaled 69 hours.  On this trip I met a Korean guy who spoke English.  We became friends and we exchanged contact info.  This man was interviewing people along his trip and asking them about their travels and dreams.  I was one of his interviewees.

This man was getting off the train in Irkutsk, the stop after mine.  We said our goodbyes when I left the train, and I hadn't heard from him since.

Later on, I went to Olkhon Island on Lake Baikal.  On the island, I met another Korean traveler.  We enchanged info and we kept in touch via email.

Since coming back I realized I hadn't heard from my train friend.  I looked though my social media and I realized that we exchanged info but never connected.  I sent him a message using the email I had written down.

He responded and told me that he had lost my contact info along the trip.  But then he told me he had heard about me when he was in Moscow and then proceeded to ask me if I had visited Olkhon Island.  I said, "Wait, you heard ABOUT me?   And yes I did, how did you know?"  He told me he met a Korean man in Moscow that he decided to interview and after talking they both concluded that they had met me.  They had both met me separately, and then managed to met each other and deduce that they had both met me.  In Russia.  The biggest country on earth.  

Big country, small world.