My new job

I did something yesterday that I haven't done for a long time.  I went to work. Like any first day at a new job, I was nervous and excited.  I didn't know what I should wear, and I didn't know what to expect. I assumed that I should get there early to fill out some paperwork and get a bit of an orientation, and make a plan for the day.  As it turned out, I about fifteen minutes early at 9:45, and no one was there. I hung around watching the students slowly filter in.  Then a couple of administrative types came in and told me that Inga (my supervisor) would be in soon.  She finally came in at 10:10.  She took me aside, and after barely introducing herself, gave me a word game and assigned four students to play it with me. Two of the students were 40ish Somali women; the other two were a couple from Nepal via Bhutan.  The Somali women had been here for nine months, the Nepali (Nepalese?) couple had been here for eight days after spending eight years in a refugee camp.  The Somali women barely spoke English at all, the Nepali husband was actually pretty good, and his wife was somewhere in between him and the Somalis in language skills.  The game that was assigned was pretty dumb, and after a few rounds, we just had a general discussion about who we were and where we came from. I bonded with them by sharing the story of my immigration from the wilds of Canada.

After an hour and a half, the class took a break.  After the break, I was assigned another five students, this time a group of men from Kenya. They all spoke quite passable English, so we didn't even bother playing that dumb game.  They told me what they needed was help with written English, and particularly help with filling out application forms.  All of the men were unemployed, and all had been frustrated in their job searches by the difficulty they had in filling out forms. They were also intimidated by the civics and English proficiency tests for US citizenship. I spent a bit more than an hour with these guys and promised them that next time, I'd come prepared to help them.

At 1PM, we all packed up and left. I talked to Inga for about 30 seconds before she said goodbye and I left.

So, how did it go?  I was disappointed in having zero orientation and zero guidance. In spite of that, I actually enjoyed spending some time with a segment of the population I'd never dealt with before. The good news about no guidance is that I guess I can do whatever I want.  The students that I dealt with obviously wanted to be there, and obviously wanted to learn. Next week, I'll go in armed with a few games that aren't quite as dumb, and I'll have some sample job application forms and sample immigration test questions. 

Classes were OK yesterday, but they'll get better from here on in.

Oh, and I never did fill out any paperwork.  I'm not sure if anybody knows who I am.