The Bubble is Broken

Leaving the comfort of the Shingyang bubble was scary, what was even scarier was being dropped off in front of my apartment saying goodbye to my co-teacher. That’s when it hit me, I was alone and on my own, my first thought was “I wonder what everybody else from the program is doing.”

It felt strange to be separated from the people I spent almost every hour together of the prior week, I imagine how a yolk might feel when it’s separated from its egg white (assuming they were capable of emotions). However, I wasn’t as alone as that yolk, I had my friend Sebastian living on the other side of the village. That first night after unpacking he came over with two weird sweet potato, pineapple, sauce-less pizzas for dinner, he thought they were Hawaiian; I couldn’t blame him, I probably would have too. When he left I decided to walk with him so I could see the village and expel those initial fears of being in a new place and not knowing where anything is, but just as we were leaving my building a car stopped and English came out. We chanced upon two other English teachers, Jackie and Chris who drove us to Sebastian’s and then me back. I had to save my exploring for a later date. When I got home I spent the rest of the night browsing social media, not wanting to go to bed yet, not wanting to be “alone.”

The following day I visited my main school for the first time and two others. I’m teaching at 4 different elementary schools. Monday and Wednesday are at the same school while every other day is a different one. The schools I’m teaching at are rural schools, surrounded by trees and rice paddies and not much else. My main school is the biggest with around  32 students, while the other 3 have around 20. In the whole school. From kindergarten to 6th grade. My main school’s 5th grade class is one student who happens to be both the president and Vice President of the class, in another one of my school’s I teach a combined 5th and 6th grade class with a total of two students, one in each grade. The biggest class I have is 12 students and it’s a combined 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grade class. It feels more like tutoring and less like teaching, classroom management is definitely easier, but their English levels are extremely low. Officially they don’t start learning it until third grade.  For some reason I imagined it being a lot better.  The schools while rural are equipped just as well as any, they have large smart screen tvs in every classroom,  proper gyms facilities with more stuff than the amount of students, computer rooms so every student has a computer, one of my schools even has a ping pong room and they all have a cafeteria that serve delicious Korean lunches.  So far everything has been going great, I was invited to go on two field trips with my main school, last week we went ice skating and  today we made green tea.  Boseong is famous for its green tea fields which I hope to visit soon!

Living in a new country where you don’t speak the language is very difficult, even more so when it’s not Latin based and you have no idea what anything is or how to even ask for something. Luckily my co-teacher at my main school is amazing. If it wasn’t for her help I’d be lost, the day before my first day she came with me to the bus stand so I knew what buses to catch (even though I was extremely nervous taking it for the first time and had no idea what the stop looks like and where to get off).  I had to show the bus driver a note on my phone that said please tell me when I arrive at…..(school name). She’s helped me set up my bank account which was an hour long ordeal, she translates for me and the other teachers (I’m sure she’s tired of it), she helped me get a SIM card which would have been impossible since the first place we went to even she had no idea what the people were saying, she’s helped me set up and online shopping account and a bunch more little things that are so dependent on knowing Korean you can’t do them without help. It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible. So far life in Korea has been like swimming upstream, eventually I’ll get there. Each small victory whether it’s successfully buying a ticket to the next city over or successfully ordering something online, makes living here feel a little less daunting.