I know I've been missing from blogland for a few weeks, and I apologize again. As usual. I've been busy with school etc. since I last wrote. More specifically, busy navigating the complexities of teaching second grade English to a bunch of Muslim children in a conservative Muslim country. We're reading fairy tales this year - seemingly innocent, right? You can tell a fairy tale any way you want and still have the same ending. There is surely a totally acceptable, approved version that I'm teaching. No possible issues could arise here, right? Wrong.
Just last Wednesday:
"Someone please give me a sentence for handsome."
[Silence]
"Okay, who can tell me what 'handsome' means? Yes, Ali?"
"Miss handsome means nice to see, like beautiful."
"Exactly, yes! Like beautiful, but we use it for a boy. Now someone give me a sentence for handsome."
"I saw a handsome prince."
[Small silent giggles and shifty eyes cascade around the classroom]
"Good. Thank you. Now, our next word is married. Who can give me a sentence for married?"
[Silence. I know this will go nowhere.]
"Okay, how about 'The princess married the prince.'?"
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!! Miss!!!!!!!!!!! AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!!
"Miss! Miss! No, put 'The princess married the princess.' It's better."
"Uhhhhmmm [Shit! Shit! What do I say???] well, I don't know......maybe. Maybe some places. *Fastest sentence I've ever said in my life.* Not here though. Let's say it this way. Please write it the way I have it on the board."
I know the ridiculous (and hilariously instantaneous) burst of laughter is due to their being seven years old, but how do you field even these innocent ideas of sexuality in a place that doesn't acknowledge any difference in orientation? Difficult, to say the least. I have no desire to lose my job and be deported (obviously) or give them a false sense of what their reality is, so what else could I say?
Follow this scene with two boys playing with something under their desk...rifling pages....whispering.
"Boys! [Jump out of their seats with guilty faces] What's this?!"
What do you think I see under their desk? Bugs? Notes? Toys? Basketballs? No. (All things I have seen though.) A copy of Sleeping Beauty, which we will read in March, open to the page of the prince kissing her awake.
"Misstyfelice! You see?? It is haram (sinful/forbidden). He is kissing her on her MOUTH!! Ewwwww. Is haram!"
"Put the book away, please. Don't bring this until we need it and I tell you to bring it to school. Or you might lose it. Then you won't have it when we need it."
"But Miiiiiissssss! It is haram."
"Well.... it's not haram because they get married. [Maybe?] Now put it away and pay attention."
Sigh. I can't even imagine what March will be like.
