Attack of the Flying Monkeys

It started out just like always. I left my computer lab classroom -- where I was working alone -- to get a copy of the key from the main office. I pass a group of boys loitering on the stairs. They whisper amongst themselves, shout a "HE-LLO!" and then look at me smiling. No, scratch that, these are not smiles, these are smirks, they are mischievous and they make me uncomfortable. I drop a routine "good morning" back and then cringe as soon as I have passed them. I wait for it, and of course it comes. The whistling, the "psssssst" sound, the "linda" and "bonita" whispers directed towards my back. I keep walking and watch as the next gaggle of boys in the hallway get the signal from their friends (the boys I´ve just passed). She´s coming. Get ready. The whole routine is repeated again (several times) until I reach the door of the Director´s office, Angel (his name, not an adjective). I deliberately chose to sneak out of my classroom while classes were still in session because I thought maybe, just maybe, I would avoid this whole routine. But today is different, I am not accompanied by a teacher and now all these boys that I am working in my classroom -- alone. On the way back up to my classroom, the forces have doubled. There are more stations of underage prepubescent boys and they are rowdier. The gaggle outside my classroom has become particularly obnoxious, shouting louder and more insistently as I pass. I am supposed to be a teacher here for God´s sake. I (being my mother´s daughter) can finally bear it in silence no more. I whip around and try talking to them. "In the United States, that is considered rude." They play dumb. "No entiendo blah blah." Of course my vocab is escaping me when I most need it. "Basta," I finally say firmly. Enough. I shut the door.

Minutes later, after they have been banging on my door for five minutes straight, screaming, I finally crumble when I see that they have scaled the walls and are now at the windows 10 feet high above the concrete walls to my room, staring in at me with those smirks. The are yelling loudly in Spanish while they bang, and I can´t stop thinking of the flying monkey´s from "The Wizard of Oz." I feel infuriatingly helpless, like a piece of meat and though I know it´s irrational, I am kind of scared. I know positively that they will not stop. My vision blurs and I´m not sure whether to run outside screaming and rip them from my windows or burst into tears. Without many options, I fall victim to my second choice. I storm out of the room and again walk the miserable 45 seconds to Angel´s office. I barely make it through the door before I collapse in sobs. This is so embarrassing. A sweet, plump secretary whose name I have of course forgotten, takes me in her arms as I sputter out my story. My whole body is shaking. Was I really that scared of a gang of high schoolers? What´s the worst they could have done? I don´t care. I repeat over and over in Spanish "no estoy accostumbrada a eso," (I´m not used to this) and it takes me about 20 minutes to really calm down. Poor Angel says it´s his fault, I shouldn´t have been unaccompanied. What? You think I traveled from another CONTINENT alone, traveling a month before hand alone, to arrive in this little high school and require a 24 hour babysitter? I cannot get used to that. Angel tells me to go home, I have a meeting later that he will reschedule. No way, I tell him. "Today is just a bad day," I tell him. "I´m so sorry for reacting this way." I have things I need to get done and I have over three months ahead and I cannot cancel my whole day on behalf of a nasty group of high school boys. Ugh, boys. "They are just going to have to get use to our little gringita," the lady who is stroking my hair tells me. "But they were like animals," I tell her. Flying monkeys to be exact.

The males here take the heckling tradition to a new level, even I am obviously wearing thin. These are kids. My students. I feel disrespected, but fellow women seem to think I am overreacting. They seem to be saying ¨get over it,¨ that´s just how it goes. Why? I am repeatedly told that Chile is a machismo culture, I don´t even want to know how I´d hold up as a teacher in Italy. Well, if harrassing every single girl who passes you, when in some cases you are half her age, means machismo, I am over it. I don´t care what you call it, consider me twice the feminist I was yesterday. I can´t wait to get these boys in my own classroom and get them to focus on speaking English in front of others, instead of focusing on my face.

I know today is just a bad day. I woke up with a crick in my neck and upper back that has barely subsided and it´s gray and freezing outside. I lay in bed at night and think of all the lessons I must organize and I think I work myself into a tizzy. Stress, the cold and a stiff neck led to homesickness and that was topped off with flying monkeys. This poor day never had a fighting chance. But, man do I feel better after writing this all down...