It's been a while right? I suppose we've been lost in the flow of life. The new school year is well underway here and I have about 4 blog posts that are partially written... but I've just never sat down to keep writing and upload them (yet).
Most of those unfinished posts are about adventures I've had in the great big city, Seoul, but in the end I'm writing a post about my home in Korea, Hwacheon. When it comes to my blog, I like to upload fun stories from exciting experiences, but don't be fooled. Like my last post hopefully conveyed, there's some treasures in the countryside of Korea as well.
A post about my wonderful little wedge of Korea seems to unwind from my thoughts so much smoother as I type. This week has made me truly fall in love (again) with Hwacheon town and surrounding area.
I've been reading this book set in the highlands of Malaya and it is so gorgeously written, I keep overlapping its imagery with Hwacheon on my daydreaming bike-rides home after work. (Seriously read it! It's 'The Garden of Evening Mists' by Tan Twang Eun.)
My Hwacheon Elementary counterpart, Wei, lent me the book last month, which makes it that much dearer to me.
Wei has had a rough last couple of weeks as an unexpected health complication arose. For the betterment of her health and the peace of her family's hearts, Wei has left Korea early to heal back home in America. She said her goodbyes to all her fifth grade students who flooded the English room at school on this past Wednesday. I'm going to miss her a lot but also am happy she's making a decision that's best for her health and wellness.
One thing is for certain, our school life has changed a lot with her departure. With the nature of the Fulbright program, there was no way for our school to have a replacement teacher until the next round of accepted grantees come to Korea (in August). Our old schedule had me teaching 3rd and 4th grade with my coteacher, Sunny twice a week, while Wei would've taught 5th and 6th grade with her new coteacher, Sungsil two/three times a week. As Wei would've had more class hours, I was put in charge of all the after school classes (7 a week). Now, to make things fair for all the students, I am spread among all the grades studying English, meeting them all once a week for official classes. And after school classes have stayed the same.
This was not only a big change for me to adjust to, but also for the English coteachers, who now teach by themselves for every class once a week as well (I can't be in two places as once as much as I wish I could). Sunny, my coteacher was particularly stressed about the students revolting without the "fun foreigner" teacher, but in the end she is realizing how much they love her too. It's not easy, but she's doing well.
I had my own stress dreams last weekend, and honestly, Monday of this past week was rough. I was preoccupied thinking about the schedule changes and didn't give my 3rd grade after-schoolers my full attention, which resulted in chaos. I teach after school classes by myself, and have been fine with small classes from 1-12 students the past year and a half. But the 3rd grade after school class this year has 30 students registered, and as 3rd graders have only just begun learning English, I use a lot of Korean to explain our activities. And my Korean is far from perfect, so it's easy to get frustrated and if my attention isn't focused, lose control.
So yes. Poor Gabby. Life is rough.
While I was busy self-obsessing and boo-hooing some magical force within Hwacheon persisted to snap me out of it. This week was so full of magic and wonder that by Tuesday there was nothing to stop my grins.
Monday, on my tearful bike ride home, I came across three of my 4th grade boys playing by one of the small rivers' dams. I waved and they immediately shouted for me to come down and see what they had discovered. Still in a daze from work, I scooted down the rocks that led to the riverbank, already smiling despite myself. These boys are some of the most troublesome in their grade, and this was the first time I've seen any students playing outside on my bike trail home.
They eagerly explained that what they had just found was something really dangerous, and if humans eat it they die, and how they barely caught it with old reeds and sticks. I could only follow so much of their rushed explanation, and I sure have no idea what that thing was, but it looked kind of like burnt shoelaces. One of the boys, Yongha, crushed it with a rock to the cheering of his companions.
Then the other boy remembered the fish they had caught. Soon they we recounting this capture story (they caught the fish with their hands!), and dragging me to see the fish they claimed were huge. It took us a while to find the right crevice in the rocks, and they were very disappointed to discover that one fish escaped while another had died, but they held up their last living prisoner proudly for me to admire. It was about the size of my middle finger.
As much as I wanted to sob in desperation about work, that encounter let me smirking and full of love for those little, funny demons.
Tuesday morning as I biked into town, I got mud splashed on my pants and almost ran into one of the dump trucks cleaning up the ice festival remains, so I negatively jumped to the conclusion that that day would end up just as awful as the previous day.
Full of nervous energy and frustration, I parked my bike and started trudging around the school to the teacher entrance. One of the 3rd grade boys who was in the failure after school class suddenly ran out a side door pointed to the sky and shouted to his friend. When no one came out after him, he quickly pulled in the closest person he could find, me. He shouted rainbow! and dragged me to his vantage point. Sure enough, right in the middle of the sky was a chunk of rainbow, pretty as can be.
Hwacheon magic was at it again. With that rainbow in mind, I went through my classes with a continually improving mood until I had the 4th and 6th grade after school classes. They were absolutely perfect. Feeling immensely relieved that maybe I'm not a terrible teacher and person, I met my friend Susan for our weekly workout after school, and grabbed some grub in town.
When I biked home the sky was almost dark, and the last ten minutes or so I was completely enraptured by the moon. Just a day before the full moon, it was fat and eerie, surrounded by clouds and the smokey pollution of farmers burning dead crops and trash. The sky around the moon glowed golden.
Hwacheon magic at it again.
Wednesday was comparably magic-free, but it was my first time teaching my first students (I didn't teach their grade for the last full school year) so that in itself was pretty magical. I heard old nick-names I thought they had forgotten (like short ribs teacher "galbi (갈비) Teacher") and felt really happy to see matching joy on their faces at our reunion. Though, the joy of seeing my old students again was made bittersweet as my counterparts Wei came (escorted by my even older counterpart Amelea) to say goodbye. Wei left safely and looked really good, so I'm just glad I had a chance to say goodbye.
Thursday work was great again, and I took a break about 2/3 of the ride to home. I relaxed, listening to the streams and watching the sun make its way down behind the mountains, and munched on snacks in this gazebo-like thing along the farmers bike trail. The sun lit every dead-looking bit of vegetation with golden halos that filled me with wonder.
Hwacheon magic at it again.
More detail on my Instagram!
Now that the days are getting longer (and warmer) I went for a run along my old route from last year along the main river. The sun slowly set, and the sky was completely full of purple and pink colors peeking behind mountaintops. The rivers were fairly still so the reflection of the sky made them pastels blended with the deep blue and green shadows of the mountains. I also saw many little buds starting to make their way out again and now proclaim THE MAGIC OF SPRING IS ALMOST HERE~
My bike ride after the run was rough since my legs were already dead, but the rivers and sky retained their lavender hues, and I saw a new animal to add to my Hwacheon wildlife list! After reaching the top of a hill, right before biking down past the military ground part of my bike trail, I stopped to take a breath when a rustling made me jump. On a farm field below the trail a large furry animal bounded through the moundy rows, jumping so high I thought it was a kangaroo or jackalope (Shame on you! says my child-self who took stacks of animals books from the library every week and could recite any random fact about the randomest creature). When it finally stopped its retreat from the scary human, I could see its form better, though I still can't say for sure what it was, I guess it was a deer? If Korean deers have thicker coats and shorter legs than their American kin.
Photo credit for above.
Okay Googled it. What I saw was a water deer. Which have huge fangs you can see more of here. But I was not close enough to see any saber-teeth thank goodness.
My week was finally made perfect, with a magical cherry on top, when the last five minutes of my bike ride it started to sprinkle rain a bit. I love rain. I love Hwacheon.
To end I would like to show you the evolution of parts of Hwacheon the last two months (from ice festival to present)
First of we have nice thick ice for hundreds of people to safely walk on:
That started melting last month:
When suddenly we had a huge downpour of rain which made the rivers overflow, washing the ice up onto the sides as well:
The huge snow sculptures have yet to completely melt.
But they're getting there.
The random drain that exploded with water that froze a chuck of my bike trail
Well it's still melting, but the rain also dumped a ton of mud and random vegetables on that whole section. It was like quicksand I had to trudge through while walking my bike and trying not to lose my shoes.
Thankfully that has hardened and slowly dispersed.
And yeah, once again, SPRING IS ALMOST HERE. YAY (but say no to mosquitoes)
ANNYEONG
갈비 티철이 돌아왔다~
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