Monday 4 June 2007

Change in the weather

When the weather changes, odd things sometimes occur.

The air was very heavy this morning, the kind of humidity that makes you sweat standing still, and I was walking. Swimming through the air.
I was cursing too, why do people leave litter as though they'd emptied their cars along the road? One piece of litter caught my eye, it looked like one of our booklets from work, but when I looked more closely, it was a rental agreement with someone's personal details on.
Next to it was a cheque. Then another, and another, I picked them up along the road until I had eleven in my hand, eleven cheques, signed, made out to someone, with the account holder's name, address, and of course, account number on each.
How odd.

About half an hour into the start of the morning programme, the rain started.
When a class comes in for a school programme, the teacher hands over her class to us effectively. We teach them, the focus is on us.
But there is one type of school where that temporary switch of focus keeps being drawn back, and I have never quite grasped the dynamic of it until today, until one teacher took the trouble to include me.
When we have a Jewish school in, the teacher will often interrupt, say something in Hebrew, say a blessing perhaps. We respect their need to do this of course, but it excludes us from the class while that is happening.
Today there was a different teacher, one who took the time. She addressed me as 'Mora' (no idea of spelling) just as they are always addressed, and she explained that this is the word for teacher. It is used as a courtesy title.
I like this, I have always thought that there should be a title for teacher as there is for doctor or priest.
I had been playing with the idea of insisting on being called 'Magister'.

There were three children in the class who have just arrived from Israel and spoke no English. But again, she explained this. I said it must have been tough for them living in Israel at this time. She said it was, but you get used to it.
'You hear the rockets going off when you take the children to school, and you hope they will come home but ehh...you get used to it,' she said.

At the part of the programme where we give the children honey, they had to wait for the special honey blessing. And she explained to me why this was so.
This woman made a difference to me today. She made an exclusive practice inclusive. Her name was Esther, the same as my mum, and we established that both of our dads were called David. Her own parents had lived in Manchester but had retired to Israel, seemed like an odd choice to me.

Afterwards, I phoned the bank about the lost cheques. They took the details down, they seemed nonplussed that I would ring them. They asked me to take the cheques into any branch of that bank, which I did. At no point did anyone ask me who I was and honestly, I would expect that the police might be involved in this at some point.

I have food ready. My writers' group should be arriving at any moment.
Toodle pip.

2 comments:

Sleepy said...

I know of people who retired to Eretz Israel...

Eeeeesh!

Schneewittchen said...

Sounds daft and yet I can kinda understand it.