Nothing I had learned in teacher’s college prepared me for that first day. It began gray and misty, and as our wheezing little bus ascended the steep green slopes of the Andes there was a remarkable quiet throughout the vehicle. It was as though we were in a landing craft heading for certain death or dismemberment on some hostile shore. I wanted a cigarette. Badly. Lately I had been trying to quit, and each little failure made me feel like more and more of a loser, driving me to yet another cigarette and another round on the vicious cycle of legal addiction. At least junkies had the extra hurdle of having to go out and break the law. In Colombia, everybody smoked. At 50 cents a pack I couldn’t afford not to smoke.
My classroom was all set up, my first lesson had been rehearsed, I had little name cards to keep the Jose Maria’s straight in my mind from the Maria Jose’s, or the Juan Carlos’s from the Juan Felipe’s or Juan Mario’s. I was as ready as I knew how to be. I went to the staff room for a coffee.
“Well hello there! We haven’t met yet! What do you call yourself?”
An exceptionally large man with an incongruously tiny head was hollering at me. He clutched a plastic red mug the size of a double boiler ornamented with a peeling Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. It was September.
“Well come on, that’s not a hard question is it? I’m Alex. Alex Dennison. But please, call me Al.”
The bellowing giant thrust out his hand while peering at me through his impossibly thick glasses.
“Gerald Thurlington.”
“Can I call you Gerry?”
”Sure.” I pulled my hand away and conjured a smile before making my way over to the cupboard full of mugs.
“Whoa!! You’re a brave man Gerry! Watch you don’t take someone’s mug! NOT a good way to get off on the right foot! HA HA!!!”
I used to watch a lot of M.A.S.H reruns growing up. There was a particular laugh in the well-used laugh track that always stuck out above the rest. It was a man’s laugh, a complicated laugh. It started low, and then rose in pitch over a series of exhalations, each one sounding oddly like water dripping into a well or a deep cavern. It was a musical laugh, but its music was dissonant, unhinged, and slightly manic. This was the laugh of Alex Dennison.
I picked a plain, non-descript blue mug and filled it from a bubbling urn of the type found in middle class suburban church halls.
“Just a plain blue mug eh? HA!! Oh are you walking? Wait a second, I’ll come with you. You’re upstairs right?”
I nodded assent, wondering in the back of my mind about his knowledge of my room’s location. I hung awkwardly in the doorway as the oaf gathered his belongings, which seemed to be strewn throughout the staff room.
“Okey Dokey. All set. You lead the charge Gerry, I’ll bring up the rear. HA HA!!”
The halls of the Medellin Academy are cold in the morning, and I could see my breath. I wished I had dressed more warmly.
“So you teach English right?”
“Yeah. How about you?”
“I’m the new music teacher. Do you like music?”
“Well….yes…”
“You’ll have to come over for a beer sometime Gerry. The wife is here too. She teaches down in the elementary. You’ll have to come over for a beer and we’ll listen to some music. I’ve got all kinds of stuff, from the Baroque right down to Pat Benatar.”
“Wow.”
“Why don’t you come over tonight?” Alex had stopped in the middle of the hall. Through the thick lenses of glasses too big for his tiny head, his eyes were those of ancient hound, yellow and milky.
“Well, I don’t know about tonight…” As I began, the eyes visibly drooped. Naked disappointment. Kids were starting to arrive by this point, all wearing the blue track suits that I supposed must be the uniform of the school. Their voices were shrill and piercing in their excitement to see each other again. They reverberated off the cold empty walls. I could already feel the beginnings of a headache tightening behind my eyeballs.
“I mean it’s the first day of classes and all. Let’s just see how it goes.” The sorrowful eyes perked up at that.
“I’ll tell the missus. She’s been dying to have people over since we got here. We were the first ones here you know. Wanted to make sure we got the boat on an even keel.”
“Well, we’ll see how the day goes, all right?”
“Yep. We’ve been here just over a month. I can already Hablo a bit of the old Espanol. Ha Ha!!”
“Well this is my room.”
“I know.”
“Well, I’ll see you later.”
“Have a good one. I’ll come get you after school. Okay?”
“Um, we’ll see okay?”
“Yep, see you later. And don’t let ‘em see you sweat!! Ha Ha!!”
Locking the door behind me, I sat at my orderly desk and checked my email. In my few days in Colombia I had already emailed everyone that I remotely knew, scouring my address book for even the most fleeting of contacts. I had sent cheery greetings individually to each, feeling very much like the jaunty adventurer, sure that one and all would be impressed with my fearlessness and the exotic, dangerous nature of my travels. So far I had received nothing in reply except for two “failure of delivery” notices indicating that at least two of the people on my list were farther away than I thought. I scanned the news disinterestedly, keeping my eye on the clock, and listened to the increasingly loud cacophony in the hall. The girls were screaming. Literally screaming. The boys were making guttural grunts. Not having a clue what they were saying made them sound like a group of animals, an excited, sonically abrasive, socially excited menagerie. Just as the howling reached a fever pitch, the bell rang. Swallowing my fear, I rose and opened the door to the great unknown.
