The Break Room

“I have been out of school for a very long time,” I realize washing my face before bed on the eve of my first day of school.

My student teaching semester ended in May and it is now mid September.  This has been the longest summer vacation I’ve ever had, and feels especially lengthy since my first few weeks in Georgia have been spent in relative leisure.

I have been to Lesichine Public School Number 2 several times since I moved in with my host family, but mostly what I do there is sit. “Dajaki, Hannah” the other teachers, and even students, are always saying to me, indicating a chair they pulled into the center of the room. We sit in the various classrooms and drink sugary instant coffee while students hang new curtains, or in the teachers’ lounge eating bologna and fresh baked bread, passing around a large bottle of Coke.

The first day of school begins very officially. Everyone gathers outside the front of the school to sing the national anthem, the principal (called the director here) addresses the students, and I introduce myself very awkwardly in English while one of my fellow teachers translates for me.  However, this is the only part of the day marked by any remote semblance of order. As the rest of the day progresses, bells ring to mark the beginning and end of lesson periods, but students constantly filled the hall. They barrel down the hall at a full sprint calling loudly to their friends and occasionally pausing to greet their teachers with a kiss on the cheek.

I am passed from teacher to teacher to parent to student, in a blur of swift smiling introductions punctuated by my companions talking in Georgian about me behind their hands. Sometimes they would even tell me, “You’re such a good girl!” I always try to take this particular remark as a compliment, though it often makes me feel like a dog begging for a treat.

The day passes quickly in this manner and it isn’t long before I am surrounded by my fellow teachers in the office, just sitting. They are conversing quickly, and sometimes very loudly, in Georgian about how the students have changed and complaining that not all of the new books have yet come in. As my host teacher stops translating the conversation for me, I lose track of what the other teachers are talking about and return to my realization that summer is finally over. It is time to begin something new, and after this quick and dirty introduction to Lesichine Public School Number 2, I am beginning to realize just how new this thing will be.