Delivering Hard News

Thursday was a day of modest celebration and considerable relief. A small number of students showed up, wearing their choice of either traditional clothing or the colors of the Kuwaiti flag. Arabic music blasted from the loud speakers in every classroom and I continually adjusted the attendance, as students trickled in at a slower pace than usual. One student brought a tin of chocolates, which I opened and shared with everyone. I love fruit and chocolate combos, especially chocolate and orange, and I wondered if the one I popped in my mouth was some kind of truth elixir, because when a boy asked me, “Are you coming back next year?” I couldn’t answer with an ambiguous “Inshallah.” I looked straight at him and said, “No, I’m not.” I was worried by how students would take the news, but they showed poise and maturity, saying, “If it makes you happy, then we’re happy for you.” I had been fretting over making an announcement, but it came about in an organic way, and to my relief, only two people’s eyes teared up: mine and those of a female student who had been counting on me being her English teacher next year.

One student’s initial reaction was particularly heart-wrenching. She asked, “Are you leaving because of us?” I said, “No, of course not. I would bring you with me if I could.” When I told them I may be moving to Philadelphia, one student agreed to come with me because, “They have good cream cheese there.”

Later that day, I was on the rooftop, chatting with a friend who teaches in the middle school. All the students were corralled into sections and given colorful sheets of paper to hold over their heads, so when a drone took a picture, it would look like a Kuwaiti flag. Another teacher warned us, “We’re not sure if this is even structurally viable. The roof has never held this many people before, so if you feel the ground wobbling, run.” That made me a little nervous, even though I knew this teacher was half-joking, so when my friend and I were asked to participate in the human flag, I considered the possibility of the roof caving in and the colorful sheets of paper fluttering down on all the bodies and wreckage.

We weren’t as uniform as the North Koreans making their giant human mosaics; some students were tired of holding the paper over their heads. Some could not resist the urge to make paper airplanes. Organizers made commands into the speakerphone, like, “White students, get closer to green students.” Apparently, the Kuwaiti flag in the pictures looked unacceptably patchy and we needed to bunch together. My friend found my fear of the roof collapsing very funny and bounced up and down to make the roof wobble even more. Needless to say, we all survived, and more importantly, no one died in a display of nationalism, taking part in a human flag formation.

When I told another teacher that students took the news of me leaving surprisingly well, she said, “They’re used to it. Teachers leave all the time.” But here I must contest that I am not just any ordinary teacher who comes for two years and leaves again. I am not just one red square in a giant flag formation. I am a unique individual who recognizes students as unique individuals with limitless potential. I can’t imagine the hurt students must go through having to say goodbye to teachers every year. Sometimes they don’t even have the chance to say goodbye. I thought I had built a resilience to having transitory friendships as an international teacher, but I think it’s something you never quite get used to.

Because I’ve maintained some level of independence, buying and carrying my own groceries rather than having them delivered to my door, and cleaning my own apartment rather than hiring someone, one of my friends tells me that I’ll have an easier time transitioning to living back in the states. One aspect of living in the states that I have not forgotten is that people are recognized more for their individual qualities, even when political factions are quick to judge people with opposing views.

Yesterday, I was reflecting on the fact that so many people living in Kuwait express the same grievances. People complain of being horribly disrespected. They say the people in their home countries are friendly, but as soon as they come here and see the tactics some use to assert their power, they become . . .  mean. There’s no other word for it. Just that simple word that denotes senseless playground taunting, but this kind of meanness shouldn’t be associated with children, because these are adults taking part in this kind of behavior.

Recently, I went into Jo Malone, just to sample some of the luxurious perfumes. The saleslady treated me to a complementary hand massage and a lesson about pairing scents. The art to pairing scents, she said, is to choose two that will complement each other perfectly. They must bring out the unique qualities in the other. Both scents, even if one is warm and the other is intense, can create a lovely new fragrance. Wouldn’t that be nice if people could work together the same way? Nobody likes it when domineering personalities take over like a cloying perfume, and yet this is what so many mild-mannered people, the warmer perfumes, experience every day.