Thank You--Week 17 & 18

I have had a lot on my mind. Many entries were in the making before I decided to write an entry to appreciate you. You who make this world a little bit more peaceful, you who ask questions and thus enforce a degree of transparency on the body of authority, you who smile and create many more narratives in which smiling is imagined, lived. This entry is for you who believe in humanity for humanity is your belief in humanity. I am not fond of poetic abstractions, so let me tell you where this pattern of thought comes from. I spoke with a dear friend today. We were updating each other on our recent experiences. So much was discussed of economic desperation and closed-mindedness, lack of embrace, proud ignorance, empty full minds, so much hopelessness. Our talk was redirected to another subject and she told me about a friend who is an Oxford graduate, she has gone back to the Middle East and is currently teaching at an Afghan refugee school in Tehran. Such news move and inspire me. This is her blog, write to her, see her photos: http://setaaareh.blogspot.com/

I am proud and thrilled to be hearing about such people, to be around such souls whose minds truly invite all political borders into a collective love-making to birth a world in which you and I would never be left alone dreaming before a wall taller than our determination.  Let’s bring walls down this year, in our own unique way. Happy New Year, thank you for being witness to this amazing journey.

Love, peace, and less walls in 2011!

Your Aria

The Wayfarer—Week # 14, 15 & 16

A few entries ago I complained about how the lower middle class does not possess the means to philosophize, consumed by their struggling dailyness and livelihood. Three weeks without posing an entry would lead me to reflect that I have yelled at nine year olds more so than I’ve read, I’ve filled out nonsensical paperwork more so than I’ve translated poems. But take this entry as a clear opposition to the intellectual drought of the middle class everywhere. I traveled to Pachuca today, a charming town spread on hills. There I met a lovely friend with whom I explored the city’s museums and archeological sites. I felt alive again. One of my favorite parts of traveling is conversing with random people! Reactions, perspectives, faces, hopes, and wishes are what I crave. I love to ask questions, and I love to be asked questions. The term “the Middle-East” immediately triggers a conversation which delves into politics soon after. Example:

Mexican A: Where’re you from?

Aria: Iran

Mexican B: Ahhhhh!

Mexican A: so what’s spoken there? What do you call it?

Aria: Persian

Mexican A: terrorists live there! (not to be mistaken with a question, this is a statement)

Mexican B: and bombs...

Aria: exactly!

Mexican A & B: Aha! (in unison)

In this dialogue I don’t mean to reduce my Mexicans into stereotypical people who ask shallow questions based on distorted information, but show my weariness of being asked political questions in general. My whole youth was politicized, and I rightly believe that my region and its people have so much to offer to the world, perhaps beyond the troubling conflicts of today. Therefore I grow weary of any type of audience who jumps into political discussions without asking me about Middle Eastern culture, food, music, poetry, etc. Today was another day. I was walking home from the bus station, tired and hungry when I walked by an exotic, tiny bookstore. I took a quick look and continued walking. But I couldn’t resist the temptation. I went back and looked around. I didn’t have any money or energy, so I asked the cashier for a business card. She immediately caught my accent and asked me where I was from. Unlike almost every other time, “Iran” was the beginning of an hour long conversation about traveling, cultures, cuisines, and poetry!

My companion became really interested in my origins, so much so that she went back to her computer, found an online radio for Classical Persian songs and played them in the bookstore. There is no way I can explain how I felt like listening to Setar, Santour & Tar and Persian poetry being played at a bookstore at the heart of Mexico. It was unbelievable. At my absolute delight, every customer who came into the shop asked about the music, and my companion would excitedly point to me and say, “tenemos un amigo de Iran!” My companion told me about her passion to visit a few friends in Turkey but was unsure if she could afford it or logistically do it. I talked about my future traveling plans, and soon my companion was inspired and decided to seriously pursue visiting and working in Turkey for some while.

I’m so glad, more than I’ve ever been as an ambassador of my culture in Mexico, that I was able to be a source of inspiration for a young, appreciative world citizen to embark on an adventure and see more of this world. For all I know, we can use a wonderful ambassador of Mexican culture in the Middle East. I wish her the best, and I look forward to returning to her book store for a conversation about literature and traveling over a cup of tea.

Aria 

Migratory Bird --Week # 13

When you cease being a tourist, get a full time job, study, pay life expenses, borrow money to eat at the end of the month, you start living a life. And ever since I’ve begun living that life, I haven’t had much time to reflect on my decision to teach abroad. This evening the weather was neither cold nor hot, there was a pleasant breeze by the water fountain. The kids were playing by the temple when I, for a few seconds, arrived at this thought: my most precious investment is traveling and shaking new hands, climbing new rooftops, and making love to different ideas. And no one captures this better than my beloved Sohrab Sepehri, the migratory bird:

Life is that strange sense possessed by a migrating bird
Life is a train's whistle reverberating in the sleep of a bridge
Life is seeing a flower bed from the enclosed window
of an airplane
Life is feeling the moon's loneliness
Life is a flower raised to the power of eternity.
Life is the earth multiplied by the number of our
breathings.

Where ever I am, let me be,
the sky is mine.

Sohrab Sepehri
Trans. Karim Emami

The Empty Place of the Narrative of the Colonized! –Week 12

We’d like to think that the age of colonization is over, and that the politics of despair and exploitation are over. This is a question I most specifically ponder these days as I teach my 4^th graders about conquest and colonization. I was hired to replace a leaving teacher; the school had already designed this unit. The central idea is: Conquest and colonization was a strategy to expand territories and obtain more resources. As is evident, this unit is structured and designed from the perspective of the colonizers, only highlighting the positive aspects of this horrid human phenomenon, cultural blending and exchanges between the colonizers and their colonies.

This perspective is fundamentally unjust to those whose cultures were destroyed by colonizers, whose resources were plundered, whose languages were wiped out, whose religions were eradicated. Many societies have reclaimed the religion and culture of their colonizers by combining them with their unique indigenous symbols, images, and interpretation. They have given an indigenous flavor to the language, customs, and mannerism of the colonizers, that underlines the great ability of human beings to adjust to new situations. The irony today is that by resenting the colonizers as a whole one will refuse and reject an inseparable part of their own identity: a culture that has been passed along to them be it by force.  But does that mean condoning the nature of their invasive and horrid acts?

Colonization in the form of sailing for new shores, stealing resources, enslaving people, and imposing one’s cultural/religious elements on a people might be over. But the arrogant, supremacist, survival-of-the-fittest attitude of colonization is far from over. To this day, in comparison with the amount of literature produced and examined by colonizers, the narratives of the colonized are missing. The narratives of natives of Americas are missing. The narratives of African slaves are missing. To this day, euro-centrism (since most contemporary colonizers have emerged from the West) dominates the history of colonization. There can be a balance between reconciling with the traditions of colonizers and treating and reclaiming them as one’s own, but criticizing and taking into question the lack of mutual respect, violence, and racism that colonizers have demonstrated with full force.

We are reaching the end of this unit in 4^th grade English, and I look to nurture, spark and ignite a timeless and global sense of condemnation in my students towards any act of invasion, exploitation and disrespect towards any people. And it’s with great sorrow as an American that I have to use the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as clear contemporary examples of warmongering, exploitation, lack of respect and terrorism.

Globalism means mutual respect between nations, academic exchanges, sharing of economic resources, eradicating political restrictions on traveling, respecting international laws, breaking political monopolies, placing sanctions on individuals responsible for atrocities rather than sanctioning an entire nation and labeling them as the “axis of evil.” Globalism means recognizing no distinction between one’ domestic and foreign policies, it means treating others as one’s own people. Globalism means myriad politically autonomous territories, but only one border! I now wait exuberantly for my 4^th graders to present their research on the effects of colonization on their country of choice.

Peace and resistance from Queretaro,
Aria

To Be or Not To Be -- Week 11

I am not of an underprivileged background. I have never had to worry about money becoming a hindrance to in my life and educational growth. We’ve had enough to maintain a relatively comfortable life. Given that I had the opportunity to immigrate to the U.S even further places me into an exclusively privileged stratum. But I have never lived in an elitist bubble. I was not blind to those who washed cars’ windshields at traffic lights, those who sold candies on the street, and those whose parents were martyrs of war or victims of political activism. I was definitely sympathetic to class disparities, but held no regards for the elitist discourse of behavior which further separated the low class from the rest of society. My father, Ebrahim, was a man loved by people of all walks of life. His funeral was a rare example of pluralism which had brought together engineers and farmers, doctors and clerics, architects and gardeners, and writers and street vendors all under one roof. Every time he entered any house, he’d go directly to the kitchen to greet the cooks and maids. He had no respect and regards for the lines society had drawn between people of different classes. He was bold and genuine, and sadly for us, he lost his life over it.

I see fundamental problems with the world’s economic structure and class disparities and the tangible effects it has had and continues to have on people’s lives. In Iran, I mingled with those who were doomed because their last name was not quite “elitist,” or their background was not filled with college-educated, politically active, and independent business owners. In the U.S, I observed how a certain race has monopoly over social resources and political outlets. And here I am in Mexico working for a school exclusive to the upper class. When I came to Queretaro for my interview, I had such a Marxist irk upon seeing workers opening car doors for students that I didn’t want to return. Now, I work for an “International” school funded by a body of parents that much prefer to see a white, blue-eyed American teach English than an Iranian with an Islamic background. Therefore the administrative staff conveniently forgot to mention where I grew up for 18 years in the letter of introduction that they sent to parents.  

Discrimination is wrong, be it targeted at the poor (as is always) or the rich. I don’t intend to discriminate against the upper class, question their wealth, or call on their money to be distributed amongst the poor. I call on them to practice what they preach. They send their students to an “International” school for them to learn how gorgeous and historical Paris, Madrid and London are. I call on them to equally familiarize themselves with the beauty and history of Herat, Shiraz, and Cairo. They send their kids to a school that teaches their kids to embrace all perspectives and ethnicities. I call on them to be justice-minded, and open their car doors themselves, open doors, many doors, doors to understanding a people that they push farther and farther into a corner, open doors, infinite doors into understanding that every man who has risen to change the world has been of a middle or upper class because philosophizing is the luxury of the privileged; “To be or Not to Be” maybe an intellectual dilemma for the rich, but it’s a question of actual survival for the poor.

I know that the elitist life style of these parents is not the totality of this marvelous country. I know there are people, far more international, living in ghettos and neglected indigenous communities. I know they are people who have global perspectives but dip their dry bread into water for dinner. It’s ironic, but I need the money of the elite to explore the “other” side of Mexico. I will use this experience to get closer to the underprivileged working in the school, hear their story, shake their hands, and open my door to them.

Peace from Queretaro,

Aria

Viva Los Reyes --Week # 10

If we had considered our time in Mexico to have been bereft of any drama so far, last week alone made up for it. Carolyn finally decided to move to Mexico City to be with her boyfriend, the sole purpose of her coming to this country. She faces a new set of challenges, mainly now that she will be living with David for the first time. Claudia got a position in Mexico City, the Montreal girl finally ended up in another huge city. With her passion and unwavering support for Queer and women’s rights, it doesn’t get any better than living in Mexico City. Intellectual communities with a lively sense of political activism await her. And our Rafael, our I-am-gonna-go-with-the-flow-Rafael, got an ideal job in Puebla after he had already decided he was going to follow Claudia and leave Los Reyes. Puebla, its unique cuisine, old history, charming architecture, and beautiful women will definitely satisfy Rafael. I can hear him shout to himself, as he tends to do when he is alone, “dope man, I’m the shit.” And I, the hot-headed, passionate, culture-loving, intellectual-wanna-be, ended up in a charming town quite alike my own Shiraz, called Querétaro. I know Rafael will read this comparison and say, “damn my dude, you gotta tie everything to Eye-ran in your entries.” Yes, I think I ought to for I love that piece of land called Iran.

Overall, teaching and living in Los Reyes was not a good fit for us and keeping in contact with a world filled with opportunities that all involved living in far more interesting places and getting a better salary further unsettled us. I have such little time in this marvelous country and I really intend to make the most of it, but that is not to disregard the invaluable friendships that I’ve formed with students and people of Los Reyes. This decision has not been one without regrets. But I have to content myself that during my little time with my students I genuinely tried to open up new and different avenues of viewing the world while profoundly respecting their current thought patterns and values. I tried hard to be an approachable teacher and friend who was equally open to learn from them, one who valued their stories, their life style.

I take with me, most preciously, the bond I formed with my students: My remarkably intelligent advanced group (Diana, Aldair, Michel, Alee, Luis) and all the laughter, stories and discussion that we shared. My Intermediate class and their obsession with sex and their youthful energy will never leave my memory. My wonderful friendship with Xochilt and Adriana, I’d never forget the way they’d drag the first syllable of “teaaaaacher” whenever they wanted to tease me. My lovely friend Oswaldo who kindly and generously showed me his wonderful village, Tocumbo. Our wonderful Spanish teacher, Mary, who insisted on interacting with us in spite of being under pressure from the institute not to. I received my first formal Spanish education from Mary, and for that, I am always grateful. To lovely Bernardo, the cheese guy, whose passionate and sincere descriptions of how beautiful Mexico is in spite of only having traveled to two states would drag me to the market. To Nikki, a wonderful teacher and friend, whose pieces of advice helped us deal with the unusual behavior of the institute. To the Ice-cream lady whose pina coladas would bring momentary joy to my evening hours. To Los Reyes for receiving and hosting us, to its warm-blooded people, green hills, beautiful plaza, and all its ice cream shops.

Much love and peace to Los Reyes de Salgado,

Aria

The Pedagogy of the Discontent–week # 9 (delayed)

My discontent with the English institute in Los Reyes is not a piece of news to any of my relatives, friends, and co-workers. While it has failed to affect my general happiness the majority of times, its negative influence has grown recently, both at work and outside. Bfore I decided to teach English abroad, I had read numerous blogs; I was well-aware of the business-oriented mind-set of most language institutes. In spite of the growing number of institutes that mistreat their teachers, I came here to form my own judgment:

The pay is extremely low. There are many unpaid hours. There are no incentives, financial or otherwise. Mismanagements run throughout the hierarchical system. Students—the concept of education in general—are nowhere on the list of priorities. We have been given a book, and the objective has been to finish it. Almost no extra supplements or materials are provided, and far worse, are discouraged. Overall this institute gathers a list of ingredients that would make a perfectly discontent teacher, both at his profession and personal life.

My co-workers have reacted differently to this dysfunctional system. Reactions have varied from pure apathy, lack of motivation to bring about change, and a strong-willed desire to push the institute as far as possible on our demands. Upon the grounds of nine weeks, I make the judgment that none has worked: We are all equally discontent, the apathetic, the determined, and the unmotivated. But what happens when one realizes change is nearly impossible...

Complacency has been a large part of my social upbringing in Iran, both religious and spiritual complacency, resulting into social acceptance towards one’s class which indirectly—and ironically—embraces the lack of social mobility and class disparities.  The oppressive policies of the regime promoted social passivity and political apathy. People’s non-participation in Presidential elections (until 2009) had given the government an outlet to exploit the system “legitimately.” Political apathy and hopelessness run deeply into the Iranian society. This is the kind of environment that I grew up in.

I profoundly resent apathy. Apathy prevents one from bringing about change. Apathy often constitutes acceptance. Acceptance under marginalization gives birth to more oppression and exploitation. In my Iran, the pedagogy of the discontent had long been established with the vocabulary of apathy and passivity. The Green movement has had a massive impact on the re-writing of a more dynamic, political conscious and socially active vocabulary. Of course it takes time for the newly written vocabulary to penetrate into every aspect of society and bring about change. One cannot help but to be filled with hope to see that the wall of apathy has been crushed.  

Los Reyes Teachers

My policy has never been apathy, here in Los Reyes or elsewhere. I’ve tried hard to bring as much change as possible to my classroom by being a professional, caring, and approachable teacher, while searching for better opportunities. Not have I only found solid job offers so far, but I have also motivated and assisted my co-workers to search for better opportunities rather than choosing complacency and apathy. I have done what it takes for them to find a job that brings them contentment. We all have stood up and voiced our discontent towards the school’s mistreatments. As I am writing this blog, three out of four of us are preparing for job interviews on Monday! Getting accepted into those positions is genuinely besides the point, having the courage to crush apathy, being aware of one’s worth, and voicing out opposition are what matter the most. It’s invaluable, as a group of teachers, that we have begun writing the pedagogy of discontent by carving the word “hope” in the forehead of our fate. 

Eshq,

Aria