Thursday, February 8, 2024

 Thursday, February 8, 2024

'   It was a bad night. I was wide awake by 2, drowning in annoying thoughts. Unfortunately, as bad as ruminating is, it can also be productive.

  A friend jumped all over me for saying that the Marshallese had trouble thinking through the consequences of decisions. She argued the Marshallese were perfectly capable of going to college. I can understand how she might have interpreted my comment as a generalization applying to everyone in that group. However, I am always thinking in contexts. 

    The Marshall Islands consist of 29 islands or atolls. The total area is 72.05 square miles, with a population of 42,500. Many of the Marshallese live in a small, contained area with an equally small number of fellow residents. All the problems one could encounter have been resolved. 'If this' is the problem, 'that' is the solution. They don't encounter unique situations that require a great deal of thought. Any Marshallese raised in an urban culture with people from all different islands will already be dealing with a more complex cultural system requiring more thoughtfulness.

  Generalizations about a population often carry some truth unless they are an ethical value judgment- like everyone from that group is evil.

   Today, I had a session with Shelly, my therapist/life coach. We talked about hysteria. I'm prone to it. My mother was more than prone; it was her lifestyle. Hysteria was her response to a great many things.

     Shelly said it is a misunderstood problem. I know in the case of my mother and me, it is a result of post-traumatic stress; I live with an underlying terror. Mike lived that way, too. Mike and I both believed following the dictates of fear was not a good way to live. Neither of our mothers did. They both embraced it, seeing it as an appropriate form of self-protection. Mike had his behavior under control. I've learned to control mine much better than I could when I was younger. It is why I have been in therapy all these years- to gain control over the fear I live with every day. It's been unleashed again with Mike's death. It's not a nice way to live.

   I went to Ulu Wini. The kids were all the K-3rd graders working on a craft project for Valentine's Day. I only got to work with third-grade S.  Last time I saw him, he dramatically improved. Today, it was like he was back at square one. He couldn't remember the letters of the alphabet, and he couldn't focus. It was frustrating and disappointing. Perhaps I'm burning out.

    A little boy approached me and asked, "Are you a boy or a girl?" I wondered if he was confused because my hair was short. He nodded. In the Ulu Wini community, all the women wear their hair long.

  His question reminded me of other funny incidents. While teaching in Columbus, Ohio, a little boy approached me and said, "You shouldn't be teaching. You should be home with a candy cane!" He was from an immigrant Somali family. Women in their seventies had no business working. He had only heard the word cane in English in the context of Christmas.

  When I taught in Trenton, two Chinese boys thought I was 92. I was in my late 50s. They didn't speak English well at the time and were forgiven. However, they said the same thing two years later when their English was fine. They were confused because no self-respecting Chinese woman would walk around with grey hair before her nineties.