Cucumbers, Rubbers, and Tehva

Here is how you traumatize S the Wondermaid--sex ed.

And here is how you play it off like those condoms were supposed to be in the toy box--Tehva.

But first a bit of background. We still enjoy the biweekly visits from S the Wondermaid who continues to astonish and amaze with her prowess in the kitchen, her kindness with the kids, and her thoroughness with the mop and bucket.

S's battle with the house is as never-ending as the quest for smarts undertaken daily by the Fantastic Four who darken my school room door each morning, which lends a lovely balance to my life. The house is like a mountain, stacked to its pinnacle with stones on the edge of tumbling over a precipice, threatening to take down the whole peak.

The Fantastic Four's battle with the daily regimen of reading, math, and thinking thinking thinking is contributing to this precarious peak because learning here in Oman while you are a teen apparently involves lots of eraser ash, crumpled tissues, half-chewed pencils, and tiny scraps of paper tossed onto the most immediate floor space. And it also involves extensive cutting, slicing, peeling, ripping, rubbing, and rolling. You know, just to keep it all fresh.

The scraps that result from all of these actions often end up tucked away in odd places--under the seats of the car, wrapped up on people's desks, and stuck in random containers. If the remnants are simply, say, flakes of paint, then S just gets on with things. But if the remnants are condoms? Well, then S pulls out the big guns.

When we returned from Jordan, we found that S had defrosted the freezer, deroached under the sink, cleaned the windows, bleached our socks, combed and primped the cats, and emptied Tehva's toy basket, scrubbing each item thoroughly. She then had replaced everything in its proper place, except for a small plastic tea pot. I found it sitting in a place of honor in the kitchen upon our return.

When I tried to remove it from its new showcase area, S lunged at me. "No! It is dirty! Do not touch that! I have boiled it and washed it with soap. But do not to touch it! I think you need to throw it. It is very dirty."

So I pulled back my hand like I had been burned because S has seen dirty in her day, and if she says this is dirty then it must be DISGUSTING. But no. It appeared to be the same blue plastic, moderately clean Fisher Price teapot that it had always been.

S lunged at me again. "No! Do you know what I found in there? THREE USED CONDOMS! Somebody in your house hid them there I think. I FOUND THEM AND SCRUBBED AND SCRUBBED! SO DIRTY! AND I PUT THAT POT IN BOILING WATER!"

The telling continued in this vein, cyclical in nature, peaking and then subsiding until it had been reduced to "Three condoms," and "Very dirty" along with frantic gestures.

And then it dawned on me. These were the absentee condoms--the ones that had gone missing during our sex ed unit when, in very American style, I went out and bought a box of condoms and a bag of cucumbers and let the kids have at it. Along the way, the kids also filled two giant white board with questions ranging from those of technicality to those of practicality. Tehva, being seven, was excluded from this event since she already has a horrible habit of blurting out the most inappropriate things and actually could have probably taught the unit anyhow. I nestled her in front of a Mr. Bean DVD and ignored her.

But the whole time I suspected that Tehva was lurking around the perimeter of the talk, and when I heard her running the water in the bathroom, I suspected that she was up to no good, since she, soap, and water are not friends.

And, indeed, poor S found the proof of Tehva's covert misdeed, shoved in the bottom of Tehva's beloved teapot.

When I confronted Tehva, she giggled and then laughed, pointing out that condoms make good balloons. When I explained to S, she giggled and giggled and giggled, but mostly she looked relieved. And when I reflected back on the whole sex ed talk, I had a sudden revelation as to why one-room school houses probably never tried to address sex.

Small children make talented condom thieves. And discarded play condoms make for an uncomfortable clean up crew. Just wait until we dissect those pigs!

Michael Row the Boat Ashore--The Music Video

Pete Seeger may be dead, but he has been stuck in my head since hitting the ground here in Jordan.  You know how sometimes you can get a song stuck in your head but then listen to a recording of it and it’s gone? Well I had this ridiculous notion that actually visiting the River Jordan might wipe Michael Row the Boat Ashore from my mind, thus curing me of the non-stop Pete Seeger concert in my head.

It didn’t work.

As a matter of fact, it has made things worse because now not only do I have the lyrics, but I have a visual to go with it—like my own private music video. Let’s do this verse by verse, shall we?

Michael row the boat ashore, hallelujah,

Michael row the boat ashore, halle-lu-u-jah,

If Michael could row a boat in the Jordan River, it would have to be a very small boat and he would have to be very skinny. Michael would also have to be careful not to inadvertently row the boat into the shore rather than ashore. The River Jordan would more appropriately be called the Brook Jordan, but that lacks the ring that River Jordan has.

Sure is skinny for a river, isn't it?

Michael’s boat is a music boat, hallelujah,

Michael’s boat is a music boat, halle-lu-u-jah

Michael’s boat may be a music boat, but it does have competition. The Jordanian side’s River Jordan-side shelter is a pretty quiet, simple affair, with a thatched roof on wooden stilts. It has the same charm that the rest of Jordan has—unpretentious.

The simplicity of the Jordan side

But the Israeli side is something fancy. There is a polished stone visitor’s center with stone steps leading down to the muddy riverside. And where we on the Jordanian side had a smiling, bomber-jacket-wearing, slick-talking guide, on the Israeli side they had a priest who appeared to be in charge of full time homilies. Frankly, we are not sure whether that priest hangs at the Israeli side for work or if the group of Russian Orthodox Christians brought the priest with them, but no matter where he came from, he was a source of song and prayer that would drown out that music boat any day.

Sister help to trim the sail, hallelujah,

Sister help to trim the sail, halle-lu-u-jah.

And what can we trim that sail with? How about a white piece of fabric? That makes a good sail. Fortunately, that sparkling white visitor’s center, in addition to a homilying priest, has an area where you can rent starched white robes with Christian symbols ironed on the front. I think the idea behind those robes is that they will preserve your modesty while you pursue a religious purge in the Jordan but I for one can testify that those robes do no such thing. I can also testify that Russians prefer striped tighty-whities to boxers and that the women see no need for wearing a bra during a religious purge.

In contrast, on the Jordanian side, only one of our party had come prepared for a Jordan River purge, and he had come that way only by chance. Clad in a black pair of trunks, he entered the river near the reeds at the edge of the wood and thatch roof shelter and doggy paddled parallel to the slimy wooden steps. Then he dunked his head in the silty grey water and emerged, pink and goose-bumpy.

Jordan’s river is deep and wide, hallelujah,

Meet my mother on the other side, halle-lu-u-jah.

Jordan’s river is neither deep nor wide, as was established earlier. And had my mother been at the other side, I could not have gotten to her. In spite of the religious significance of the place, and the peace of the river itself, it was very clear that we were standing on a highly contested border. We had passed curls of barbed wire on the walk in, as well as high flying flags—both the blue Star of David on the white background that symbolizes Israel and the red, white, green, and black that is Jordan’s. A Jordanian soldier snuggled with his gun and napped atop his amphibious vehicle under a camouflage cover, just out of eyesight of the people on the Israeli side.

In spite of this, the only physical thing keeping us from crossing the River Jordan was a length of black netting stretched across the steps down to the river on both banks. On each side, between the lengths of netting and the steps there was a very narrow corridor of water available for a Jordan River purge. In between the nets was about three feet of river water.  And as I said, my mother was not in Israel. Or if she was, she was disguised as a devout Russian.

Jordan’s River is chilly and cold, hallelujah,

Chills the body, but not the soul, halle-lu-u-jah.

In the end, peer pressure won out and I dunked my head in the Jordan River. 

Fellow dunkers unite

There was a small group of Americans on the trip with us, visiting from a Christian international school in China. It was one of their group that took the initial plunge into the river, and his example prompted Tian and me to do our own purge along with Alicia, another teacher. 

The Jordan is the only major feeder of the Dead Sea, and it is brackish due to its proximity to that body of water--the water has the same sweet-salty taste as the Dead Sea, but is much milder. As we dunked our heads in the frigid waters, my nose filled with the stuff, as well as the grey mud suspended in the greenish waters. My head ached from the cold and when I pulled myself out of the water, the cold air stung.

And, yes, Pete Seeger was right. My body was chilled. But not my soul. Halle-lu-u-jah.