Untitled - CSUN ScholarWorks - California State University, Northridge

Cold, frustrated, and cold. I sat hunched in a shiver, sitting
with my Albanian colleagues in the teachers lounge, this
barren, dungeon-like concrete room with a scatt�r of rickety
stools. Heavily bundled in jackets, scarfs, mitts, we shook in
this wretched January freeze, puffs of breath trailing our
brittle words. We huddled around the wood stove, waiting,
waiting anxiously, while someone tried to get a morning
fire going. It was just short of 8 o'clock.
"They don't study, they don't listen to a word I say ... "
My arms were folded and pressed firmly against my chest,
an attempt to compress my body heat into some underlay
of warmth.
"I know," said Kadira, my counterpart, the Albanian
English teacher. She sat next to me, flustered, too.
"They never have pens. No books. Nothing."
"Yes, they are horrible."
"I don't know what to do." I sometimes left class
ready to cry, this feeling of . .. of what the hell was I doing
here, I'm wasting my time. They didn't care, they didn't
want to listen, they couldn't be bothered. It bordered on a
fuck-you attitude. I knew this really wasn't true, but it cer­
tainly came across that way. As I did my best to keep some
realm of a lesson moving along, everyone would break off
into loud splinters of Albanian conferences, turning away,
laughing, joking, their chatter gaining in depth and magni­
tude, tuning me out as some irritating interruption. "I
just-"
"You cannot do anything," Kadira said.
A fire began to kindle in the stove. The teachers closed
in around it, with a few more bodies gradually squeezing
in, hands outstretched, anxious for a little warmth. Kadira
and I sat crushed in the middle of this, conversing in
English, a rabble of Albanian pleasantries and exchanges
surrounding us.
"Ftohte!"
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