Prejudices

Small Settlements or villages are no different than a large city. I grew up in the sixties and I saw my share of prejudices and more so during my life.  I always looked at them in disbelief when I hear people doing and saying hateful things to another person or about a culture and for ignorant reasons on how they look or what they believe.  I am taught to love one another as you would want to be loved. At the school I teach we have two sectors, a Georgian and Azerbaijan sectors, with a little of Russian thrown in the mix.  Depending on whom you talk to and what time of day, I will be told that my village belongs to Georgia and then the next minute, I will hear it is Azerbaijan’s.  My answer to this is I am a Peace Corps Volunteer and my role here is to teach ANYONE who wants to learn English.  I don’t care who they are, what sector or background they have, if they want to learn, I am here to teach. I tell you, I sometimes go home with a headache!

Another incident happened today.  School was cancelled for the rest of the day because of (guess????) SNOW!!  Yep, a blizzard is coming so they sent us home today and no school on Friday.  See the picture of how sad the kids are!! 

Anyway, I was walking home in the snow (actually it wasn’t too bad, I did have 5 layers of clothes on!!), it was quiet and very white and when I walk to and from school, I like to pray and think about what I will be teaching or what I had taught.  It was muddy snow as the snow plow had not come through our village yet and as I was walking a car drove by me as close as he could get and I was covered with that muddy snow.  They knew who I was and it was just plain meanness.  I said a few choice words which I cannot repeat and then went home so angry, I wanted to spit!  I went right to my room, got a tub of warm water and started wiping off the mud.  I then realize there are prejudices against me because of who I am and where I come from and  I may influence the students to become more of who they are and for some that is a threat.  Oh my…

Life Challenge: Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.... Mother Teresa