So maybe you’re thinking one little kid calls me Megi and kids at school are giving me lots of attention, but it’s a little bit more than that. Whenever anyone asks me my name, I say my name is Meghan, and then they call me Megi. Megi is apparently a common name in Georgia and I am okay having a name people can remember and pronounce. I have yet to introduce myself to anyone as Megi, but it doesn’t matter--this is what I am going to be called.
So when I say I am a local celebrity I mean no matter where I go or what I do, people point and stare. Kids run up to me in the park and say, “Hello.” I don’t really mind any of this, I love that kids find me interesting. Hopefully being able to talk to me will be an incentive to learn English. But on Friday I had to hold back tears as I was dealing with my celebrity issues. I would have wanted to cry even if the video cameras were not following me around.
Let me explain a little bit about my first week of teaching that led to Friday’s near break down. Monday morning I was sitting in the principal’s office with one English teacher. I told her I only wanted to work with two teachers to start with and then maybe go up to three. School Number 2 has five English teachers. They all want me to come to every one of their classes. The Ministry of Education gave me instructions to work with no more than three teachers. Even if I wanted to, there is literally no possible way for me to go to all the classes of five full time teachers. I am very bad at saying no, so I spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday going to every class I was asked to with every teacher who asked me to go.
The school is half Russian with a high Armenian population, so I have three languages I don’t understand being spoken around me and no organization or directions as to my job responsibilities. Most of the English teachers seem to know what they are saying when they are teaching, but it is obvious they have memorized scripts because they all have a hard time carrying on a very basic conversation with me.
Thursday I told the two teachers who work in the Georgian school that I wanted to work with them. I asked them if I could write down their schedules. They both agreed. I asked them which one wanted me to go to what class when they overlap. They said I could choose. I left school on Thursday feeling like maybe I had made a huge step: I had a basic idea of the schedule I wanted and the teachers I wanted to work with were happy with it.
Friday morning, I came in and went to a few classes. I was starting to feel comfortable in front of the class and was even starting to think about the possibility of leading a class for more than a few minutes at a time. During a break between classes, I was sitting in the teachers’ lounge when the school director came in and had someone tell me that a news crew was coming to watch me teach. I said okay, when? I was told they would start in about 30 seconds. I didn’t know exactly what to say or do, so I just said okay and put on a smile.
At this time, every teacher who could speak some English was trying to walk with me to class. I was led to a class I have never been to before that had an English teacher I had no memory of meeting. I thought I had met them all. I was handed a book I had never seen before and told to teach, while four English teachers stood in the back of the room with the news crew.
I am told to write something on the board, to engage the kids, to look like I know what I am doing, and every time I make a tiny mistake it is pointed out to me by one of the teachers standing in the back of the class. I remained fairly well composed even though I did want to cry. After one class I was interviewed and led to another class that was slightly less stressful because at least I had worked with the teacher, met the students one time, and even seen the textbook before.
Someone else in the TLG program told me she saw me on the news and that I didn’t look very happy. I told her that it wasn’t the most pleasant experience for me because I didn’t know what I was doing. I asked her if it looked like I knew what I was doing, she said she didn’t know because everything I said was dubbed over, but she thought it looked good other than I didn’t look over excited about it. Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t look excited--because of that whole Georgian culture don’t smile without a cause thing.
So, when I say I am called Megi I mean everyone calls me Megi. And when I say I am kind of a local celebrity, I mean me just being in the town is worth at least a few minutes on the evening news.
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