Differing Perspectives

I was doing lesson plans in the little lobby at the guesthouse when I noticed a huge cement building with a fancy second-story window a couple doors down. After walking that way nearly every day for five weeks, I couldn't recall such a grand building located so close by. I made a point to check it out on my next trip to class. Walking by later that day, I realized the storefront of that very same place had a corrugated tin roof and a garage-turned-into-a-store appearance just like all the other storefronts in the neighborhood. It was only when I looked at it well back from the street and to the side that it showed off its finer features.

When I first arrived at the guesthouse, I wrote that the matriarch of the manor laundered every day. Even though I'm usually up at six in the morning, I'm hard pressed to look out the window before there are royal blue towels and colorful sheets hanging over lines and fences everywhere. It seemed like crushing, neverending work. Then I started to watch the matter of fact way she went about her day, usually smiling and seemingly never perturbed. There are days I wonder if she'd teach for me and we could trade.

The dogs aren't walked here, nor is there labeled dog food and no one would understand the term pampered pet, but they are not scrawny or mean, nor is any other animal. They just have a well-honed survival instinct and know they have to fend for themselves, just like pretty much everyone else.

Babies cry when they look at me, hopefully because I don't look like their mothers or anyone else they've ever seen, but the little girls in class like to hold my hand and the owner of the guesthouse calls me madame. As long as he puts the accent on the second sylLAble, I'm okay with that.