Tea is a cup of life

What’s your tipple? Mine is tea, and my current favourite of the many local brews is Te Canelo & Clavo, cinnamon and clove.

Another goodie – with that extra zing to wake you up in the morning – is coca tea. It has medicinal uses – it’s said to combat the symptoms of altitude sickness (siroche), though I don’t know whether that has any scientific basis or is simply a sales ploy by the locals. (They also sell coca sweeties for the same purpose.)

Coca tea is, of course, made from the leaves of the coca bush, a Peruvian native plant which flourishes on the cool slopes of the Andes. It has been cultivated in this country for centuries. Coca leaves can also be processed to make cocaine, and some locals chew the leaves to alleviate tiredness. This is common, for example, amongst the porters who carry tourists’ luggage along the Inca Trail, the four-day trek to Machu Picchu.

It didn’t occur to me until a volunteer mentioned it recently that drinking the tea and eating the sweets can leave a drug residue in your system which can be detected by Western drink/drug driving tests. Try explaining that to the zealous traffic cop back home!

The tea shelves at my local supermarket are extensive, so I’m obviously not the only one who enjoys them. Other flavours include:

*      Felices Sueños (Happy Sleep – love the name!) (includes Valeriana, Toronjil, Pimpinela y Chamomile – that’s valerian, lemon balm, burnet and chamomile)

*      Antigripal (anti-influenza) (includes Eucalyptus, Escorzonera, Borraja, Mint, Asmachilca, Muña y Honey of Bees – that’s eucalyptus, scorzonera, borage, mint, asmachilca, muna and bee honey)

*      D`ellas (tea for women – according to the packet it “relieves the menstrual colics”) (includes Hojas selectas de Oregano, Paico, Malva, Mint y Muña – that’s selected leaves of oregano, paico, mallow, mint and muna)

*      Dietetic (includes Alcachofa, Sen Dienta de León, Chamomile, Borraja y Culén – that’s artichoke, dandelion, chamomile, borage and culen)

*      Digestivo (includes Culén, Muña, Anise, Cedrón, Chamomile, Mint y Toronjil – that is culen, muna, anise, kidron, chamomile, mint and lemon balm)

Note one of the brand names in the picture – Horniman’s. I couldn’t help but wonder what the ingredients in their teas are! Apologies for the juvenile humour – Horniman’s Tea has actually been around since 1826 and was a household name in the Victorian era.

Well, my kettle’s whistling me a merry tune, so I guess it must be time for another brew! One final thought:

‘If man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty’ ~ Japanese Proverb

‘Every break should be inspirational’

Above, my first class and, below, some of my other classes

I read that on the side of a tin of Nescafe coffee. Of course, Nescafe’s advertising meant every coffee break should be inspirational but I took their message literally. Let me explain …

After I broke my ankle in Istanbul back in April 2008, I was stuck in my 50-square-metre-small apartment for almost six weeks. I was very unstable on my crutches and it took ACC (Accident Compensation Corporation – the New Zealand government department that’s supposed to ensure accident victims are well cared for) about four weeks to get me a wheelchair, so I couldn’t easily venture out.

Day-to-day living was easy enough – I was lucky to have friends who visited me often; my workplace was only 5 minutes away, so my workmates took turns delivering and collecting work to and from me; I ordered my groceries online and had them delivered; and I became quite speedy at zipping about on my wheeled office chair, the fastest and easiest way to get around indoors.

Still, I had a lot of time – too much time – with nothing to do … except think. So, I put that thinking time to good use. I have always loved travelling and, even though I had only been away from New Zealand for a couple of weeks before my recent holiday had been cut short by my accident, I knew that I wanted to travel more, and for much longer. And I really wanted to live and work in other countries, so that I could more fully experience their cultures.

But how could I make my dream come true? I’m no spring chicken, so no country would give me a working holiday visa. I had to find some other way. I googled, I followed links, I researched different jobs … and finally focused on the idea of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL). It was ironic really – my last teacher at primary school, Mrs Brownlee-Smith, had told my mum many years before that I should become a teacher but I’d always dismissed the idea.

For the past ten years I had been working in the publishing world, as Operations Manager at Auckland University Press, but it was time for a positive change. I discovered a TESOL course scheduled for the end of the year at the University of Auckland so sent in my application, attended an interview, sat an entry test, and was accepted. I later took 4 weeks’ holiday from work to complete the course.

I also needed to finish my undergraduate degree as many of the foreign teaching jobs seemed to require a degree as well as a TESOL qualification. I had been studying as an adult extra-mural student for many years but still had four papers to complete my Bachelor of Arts. I finished one paper in the second semester of 2008, another paper at summer school, then the last two in the first semester of 2009, finally completing my double major in Classics and History.

The day I returned to work after the TESOL course, in December 2008, I resigned. And six weeks later I started my first teaching job, at Language Studies International, where I’ve worked ever since. That first day, I was scared stiff! But my students were lovely and responded positively to what I was teaching, so the morning passed quickly. I was mentally and physically exhausted, but also exhilarated and I felt a huge sense of satisfaction. I was already looking forward to the next day!

I feel I have been incredibly lucky. To be honest, I chose teaching as a means to an end, as a way of achieving my travelling goals. But I believe I have discovered my true vocation. I love seeing a student’s eyes light up with understanding. I love it when they ask tricky questions because it shows they’re really thinking about what I’m teaching. I love seeing their progress from being barely understandable to almost fluent. I love the crazy moments when I find myself miming some word or concept to make it easier for them to grasp and I love the laughter we frequently share. I love meeting students from all over the world – almost every day they teach me something new about their countries and their cultures. The only thing I don’t enjoy is having to say goodbye to all the wonderful people I meet.

So, it turns out that my (ankle) break really was inspirational. It gave me the time to re-evaluate my life and to set in motion a series of changes that have truly been life-changing.

Hilarity and horror

Our topic in my pre-intermediate afternoon class this week was animals, and we started the week with an hilarious lesson on the verbs we use to describe the sounds animals make. My students happily clucked like chickens, roared like lions and barked like dogs, and we laughed a lot.

On Tuesday and Wednesday we covered animal habits, habitats and body parts, finishing with a fun game of ‘Go Fish!’ as students raced each other to get the most sets of animals with fangs, tusks, hooves, wings, gills, scales, etc.

Thursday afternoon was fun too, as a Japanese girl instructed us all on how to make origami cranes and frogs. It required acute listening skills, reasonably dextrous fingers and quite a lot of patience on the part of our instructor! Once again, we laughed a lot, but the results were beautiful, and if you press the frog’s bottom with just the right amount of pressure, it will do a complete somersault. I’m still practising with mine!

The first session on Friday afternoon, however, was more horror than hilarity. One of the discussion questions I had set the students was ‘What’s the most interesting animal you’ve ever eaten?’. With students from such diverse countries as Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Turkey, Italy, Japan and Korea, I knew it might produce some interesting results but I was not prepared for one Korean student’s horrific description of how his countrymen prepare dogs for the plate. Apparently, the best way to ensure the meat is tender is to hang the live dog upside down and beat it to death. My student quickly assured me that he thought the process was disgusting and he had never eaten dog but, as a long-time animal lover and animal-rights supporter, I was still shocked.

We quickly moved on to what I thought was a much more pleasant question, about what pets the students had. But even that produced a shock. The same Korean student related, with much sadness, how he had had a lovely little dog for 4 years but when he left home to attend university in another city, his mother had sold his pet for $500 and kept the money. A quick hug from me stemmed the tears that were welling in his eyes and, luckily, it was break time so he had time to recover before we finished the week with a board game about animals – ending with more fun and laughter as they all competed for first place.

Sometimes, teaching produces these unexpected moments and, when I first started teaching, I very quickly learned that you need to think on your feet. But that dog story almost had me dumbstruck.

At times, I feel more like a mother than a teacher and, in fact, one of my Saudis calls me ‘Mum’. It makes me feel old, but I am also flattered that he thinks so well of me. I used to think teaching was about instructing but, actually, being a teacher is a truly multi-faceted profession: you have to be part actor, part motivator, part comedian, part friend, mother or older sister. Probably the smallest part of all is instructor. In spite of moments like the Korean dog story, teaching is certainly the most rewarding work I’ve ever done.