My new job

BART whistles and dives in the dark. From Embarcadero to Dublin Pleasanton, in a few minutes, I reach Lake Merritt station. Tens of Chinese people practice tai-chi in front of the BART station, strange morning vision. Further away, Laney college, deserted yesterday today. An ageless crowd is bustling about. Blacks caps on the side, grills, chains around their necks, hat on the head, trousers lown down on the butt. Chinese, handicapped, obese in their wheelchair, mothers with the child they have not be able to unload to anyone, a homeless guy with his huge backpack.Everyone is here in pursuit of education. One to learn how to read, one to read another to learn arithmetics.
After a quick stop at my office, yes, I am entitled to an office that I share with Judith, it is randomly organized, a broken lamp, no internet connection, there should be one, but there isn't one.
In a corner, piles of sheets, a mess that my exchange partner has carefully left in a bulk, a doll which probably belong to her granddaughter. The desk drawers are full of paper napkins, plastic spoons, bags of salt and pepper, one dollar notes.
So I grab my stuff, students rooster and I go, map in hands, to my classroom. My students are there, waiting with anticipation. A list of thirty students enrolled, but more want to join in. Today we get to know each other. I introduce myself, they try to pronounce my name, I show them where Switzerland on a world map, no one knew where it was. They are surprized by the distance and very interested. They ask me thousands of questions, what's the speed limit in Switzerland? How much is gas? If I have any children or how long I have been in the US.
I have been struck by Johnny Gamez, I think there is a mistake in his name, it should be Gomez and he agrees with me. He came to class with his house, a huge bag, leaves and dried grass on his clothes, reeking a putrid odor. In the class, no real desks, broken chairs individual desks. The students take a seat, young, old, some clean others much dirtier of various ethnicities. Runder an obese African American student has to bent on to a chair next to her wheel chair to write, she can't put her notebook on her knees. Johnny is in the first row, alone. It is true that his smell is kind of repulsive. Finally a young African American student will volunteer to kindly start a discussion with him. He keeps calling me each time he has to write a word. He tells me how happy he is, he feels the words are coming. It is very touching to see the energy he puts to do well. He has taken a dirty sheet of paper from his bag, it is brown where his wrist has rested. I also have to take care of the others, Calvin, Precious.. but they seem to have fun. At the end of class, some come, shake hand, thank me.
I am touched by what I see, I feel I am in a different world, a world where it doesn't feel good to be black and where it doesn't
feel good to loose your job or to be sick and where the family stucture doesn't exist anymore.

Laney in numbers

Number of students : 27’022
Enrollement by age :
Below 15 1%
16-18 8%
19-24 31%
25-29 15%
30-34 11%
35-54 26%
55-64 5%
65+ 3%

Men 40%
Women 60%

Average age 32

Enrollement by ethnicities

African Americans 29%
Asian Americans 24%
Caucasians 20%
Philippinos 3%
Hispanic 13%
Indians 1%
Others 10%


Number of students per class 30 +
In the neighbor college the teachers have discovered on the first day of school that their salary had been reduced 15%, tough knowing that last year it had already been reduced 7%.

Apart from that I discover this fantastic city whipped by the winds and wrapped in the fog, I get used to my dark bedroom, to the subway and to the visions of madness and misery which haunt the town, I stand on my head at yoga to find my balance.

Heading south

It suddenly gets much warmer when we leave SF, we drive across the California orchards, the roads seem dusty, the hills time-worn, Mexicans buzz about in the plantations. The road leading to Santa Monica is long. In turn the rvs, the sparkling trucks, the dilapidated pick-up whisk on the freeway. What a change, Santa Monica and its mutant women, siliconed, nail-polished. Santa Monica its promenade and pretty facades. Santa Monica and its neat lawns, its gorgeous palm trees, its yoga schools at every corner. The temperature is mild, we find ourselves back in August, we dare wear a skirt and walk barefoot.

Even the homeless seem cleaner, as if they had been given clothes so as not to disturb the picture. I even saw one wearing white socks.
Each day its discoveries, yesterday I went back to Venice Beach, a world of its own. They were shooting a film, dirty dreadlocked beach bums were acting without conviction under powerful projectors. A few meters away a man seemingly coming back from Woodstock sells sage, tanned face, filthy clothes and blond hair headed. Further away, a muscular black guy holds the assembly under his spell, He is holding a folding chair on which is sitting a twelve year old girl, now he stick one of the chair's foot in his mouth and surprise he holds the girl and the chair in balance with his jaw.
The merchants are making money and sell cowboy hats, music from the Andes, food and all kind of clothes.
Bike riding policemen patrol the promenade. On the beach they move in quads and jeeps, the activity is intense and the sirens wistle any time telling us that something just happened.
On the beach further away it is another fauna, the surfers confront the swimmers, well almost for a lifeguard hurries up to set them apart with a loud speaker. Each has to evolve in a definite zone and nothing will make her change her mind. The Pacific sea water is surprisingly warm, it must be around 24 degrees celcius, but it doesn't look clean.
Santa Monica live at yoga time, everyone is going or is coming back from a yoga class, mat on the shoulder dressed in Lululemon pants and comfortable shoes. The classes are packed, the mats close and one works dripping sweat in the heat of the studios, head in the neighbor's feet careful not to touch each other while saluting the sun. The level is impressive, the yogis assiduous. No showers at the end of the class, each leaves the class on a cloud to shower home.

San Francisco

The wind blows ceaselessly moving thousands of papers and rubbish, strewing the steets, sweeping misery, chapping the crimson homeless' faces and those of the wakos haunting the city. Women, men, mixture of both, transvestites not having had enough money to finish the work, the vision of all this people in perdition if scary

Last year I was in Bombay, there was a lot of misery, but here it is this human madness which really shocks. Round the corner of a huge building, in the icy wind, a man half naked dances in a tutu
touseled hair, he jumps, shouts and digs with his grubby fingers between the cracks in the sidewalk to pick up dirty cigarette butts . Further away, an African American man sleeps huddled-up in a door way, pants down to his knees, open mouth. A toothless transvestite, a year old faded hair tint, skin riddled with scars holding a pink purse in his hairy arms. Yesterday I promised myself to avoid the most striken by perdition areas of the city, I always ended up broken, sad and unstrung.
So I headed to the Pacific, to the waves. Sailboats tilted by the wind raced in the bay, the sea lions were basking in the sun on the pontoon groaling and thousands of tourists were uncovering the beauties of San Francisco.
The bedroom found on the internet with a view to a wall in one of theses small victorian Castro houses definitely lacks light.
I am going to look for another one soon. Castro, gay paradise, women are sparse, men interwine and hunt. The neighborhood is really cool and lively. When downtown San Francisco is wrapped in a fog cloud, Castro shines under dazzling sun. Today I went to Oakland, thirty minutes door to door with BART, it's great I met some teacher, the dean. They are all quite friendly. I have an office with a view to Lake Merritt, it's beautiful. The climate in the Bay area is much milder than in SF, I am looking forward to start work.

Arrival in the US

I arrived here in Washington DC a few days ago and things seem to be rolling. The Fulbright meeting has just started. The vibe is over positive, but I sometimes find it difficult. Everything seems to be so well, too well, too wonderful, you look awesome, you are the hero of the day, the teacher of the year, better than this or than that, I am not used to this and it feel artificial, when it gets over the top, I hop for a drink to the next door cafe and treat myself with an Odwalla juice, my favorite and I dive in the pool or read in the sun next to it.
All of us (teachers from all over the planet are going on an exchange in this wonderful country)go from one workshop to another where we learn how to teach and behave when facing the "homo americanus". The American government has edicted a new law, « no child left
behind » and despite the constant augmentation of students in the classes (over 30 in some classes)the teacher has to develop a differenciated pedagogy so that his/her students succeed otherwise the school ratings will drop and it won't get any money from the government for the next academic year or it might even close.
The workshops are great and the facilitators have a great sense of humor which makes it really interesting.

Besides all this, each of us is busy sorting out the last few problems, the extermination of rats in the South Carolina property, the cost of snow clearance in Illinois, the cost of installation of a new cable in Oklahoma and what more the cost of a car in California.
Others came loaded with suitcases full of books and exchange these as if they were rare goods with a lot of seriousness.
In my case I spend most of my time looking for Brenda who still hasn't got a place to stay in Geneva (after we had to cancel the housing agreement because she neither gave me an address, nor pictures of the place in Oakland), has no plane ticket to go from Frankfurt to Geneva and who still hasn't enrolled her daughter in a school in Geneva, and who... I was about to forget, doesn't speak a word of French.
One more day with these charming collegues and I will be off to San Francisco and California.
I feel happy and I am excited by this new adventure. I love walking the streets, observing people, I relish every single minute of my stay here.