When I first arrived at my school last July I received two white board markers and an eraser. Oh wow, I thought….tech support is alive and well here in Chillán. It was months later when I discovered that the eraser was actually meant to polish my shoes. Meanwhile, I brought it home (since I discovered an eraser in each of my ten classrooms) to use on our own white board, purchased after a vast search in all the office supply stores in So, back to the walking. We don’t own a car here. School is about a mile or more from our house and we get there by foot. I’ve only taken a taxi twice since last July due to blustery conditions. There are days when I walk to school, walk home for lunch, then back to school, then home again. All in all, probably equal to the miles I walk many a day in
Like any professional, I arrived last July with all the right clothes for teaching, including a pair of Italian leather J Crew boots I bought on sale 10 years ago and had yet to break in. True confessions—I had never worn them. Always the pragmatist, I guessed that
Still, as spring progressed, my feet were aching for more freedom. Our school follows a fairly strict dress code, so I watched with an eagle eye for a change in footwear. I was a bit uptight since all the women at my school tend to wear high heels, far too fancy and dangerous for my needs. Caramba! I often marveled at how my colleagues could balance on pinpoint spikes while walking to the farthest point on campus—ours, the senior building. I, on the other hand, could barely navigate the crowds with flats. Anyway, well aware that some dress codes dictate no open-toed shoes, I didn’t want to be the first to break the rules so I consulted with the experts: my students. While they acknowledged that exposed toes are not the norm, they also encouraged me to disregard conformity because, in their words, I was exempt as a norte
I must have been a victim of foot binding in a past life. Now that the school year has resumed, I suppose it’s time to dress professionally again, which means chucking the Reefs. They indeed look like they’ve been scraped and scrabbled by some vicious reefs. Nonetheless, they are deliciously comfortable. My solution for now is to leave my work shoes in my locker at school and wear my walking shoes, or flip flops, to and fro. Even this is an oddity and I feel like I have to change my shoes in the privacy of the bathroom to avoid gaping stares. Students make comments about my footwear when I’m in transit. Now I can put Rodrigo’s comments about my desire to ride a bike to school in context—scandalous he said. This is an insider’s view of “correct” teacher behavior in our school.
I never did put my Limpia Calzado (shoe cleaner) to its intended use, but it makes a perfect eraser for our white board at home. Rest assured, I do have a wide array of shoe polish and wax, and diligently keep my school shoes sparkling. So does Dan, however he has been wearing his Crocs to school these days and I sense a whole new scandal is about to erupt.
As for all the ground we’ve covered, we are making considerable inroads on the senderos (trails) of
