Sojourn in America
The organisation that hired me had a program, touted as being, established to promote intercultural communication and interaction, chiefly through the work of international teachers in the host school systems in the United States. I’d seen an advertisement for the program in Courier Mail Newspaper in Brisbane blaring out, (WHY NOT TEACH IN AMERICA?), in June of 2003, while I was teaching at a state high school in Queensland and I rang the Australian director. I was a little concerned at my age so I felt obliged to tell him.
“Listen mate I’m er a little long in the tooth, if you get my drift.” Oh he got the drift alright, but he said that he’d done it when he’d been older so I applied.
This was followed by a battery of submissions, forms, tests, interviews and references, lesson plans etc, until I was informed that they had hired me and I went into a pool of teachers. Now, as any aspiring professional, man does not live by warm and fuzzies alone, so I looked up the online pay schedules. A quick scan of the tables of salaries showed that if one had a Masters, one could draw an extra $6,000 per annum in most districts in the USA. A prime opportunity I thought, to finish what I had started 5 years before, and qualify for the MA of which I only had 1 semester to complete.
Now the fact that I was teaching high school in the day would normally have made this task near impossible but, the clincher was where I was teaching it. I was no longer teaching at the previously said state high but in a Catholic girls’ secondary college no less, and basically I just had to turn up give them their work and they just did it, no fuss, no arguments. I was at uni at night finishing the masters and I should be graduated before I went to USA. Finally, in March 2004 I was interviewed by the Deputy something-or-other of Personnel for the County Public Schools Board, VA, and he offered me a contract on the spot. He actually said, “Mr. Silvestri, ah am authorised to offer you a contract to teach English to years 9 and 10 at my CountySchool District.” And he shoved a contract in front of me. So I signed on the line and all was fine and it was time, to move in line, and thus began the following odyssey…
After a sleepless night of anticipation, waking up at 4am and unpacking the laptop to surf a bit of web, we finally left my Mother’s home where I’d spent the last week or so after moving out of my flat in Brisbane. Speaking of the flat, I was kind of happy to be moving out of that flat for although it was relatively inexpensive, and the landlord, George, was a pretty happy Greek guy, his wife, Godzilla, was the landlady from hell. Anyway, I digress, so we all left in convoy on a one-hour drive to BrisbaneAirport for the flight to Sydney. I had packed exactly 32 kg for I remember this being the weight limit from previous trips that I’d been on. However, when I plonked my bag on the check in it weighed 34 kg and despite my bathroom scale-driven protests it was to no avail and I had to remove two kg of items from my bag. It turned out that I was allowed 32kg per bag, so in fact I could’ve brought two bags of 32kg each duh me, for not asking.
We left at 10.10am and I was of course sitting in the wrong seat and this woman comes into the cabin and says, “oh hi Enzo”, and I of course didn’t recognise her, so I said “oh hi…” back, nonchalantly, making out like I remembered her name and everything. I figured she must be another VIF teacher so I said something banal like, “All the way to USA huh”, and she nodded so at least I had established where she knew me from, now I just had to remember her name, I am terrible with names. Then Steve came in and I remembered him because we’d sat together at orientation and talked a bit, so I didn’t have to be subjected to that embarrassing moment where I have to ask a name that I had been already told, maybe Steve would mention it in conversation.
In just over an hour we flew to Sydney where a shuttle took us to the International terminal where we were to begin the 14 hour leg of our journey to San Francisco. I sat next to a dude from Adelaide who was going to Alaska to do some Oceanographic work and we had a good chat but this soon wore out and we just tried to sleep and pass the time. I got to thinking though, speaking of Oceanography, like yeah it’s ok to know what it’s like at the bottom of the sea, but do we have to spend so many resources making maps of the place, I mean, are people going to go there on vacation? I can just see it now, “Hey Martha, I think we’re going the wrong way, the map says to turn right back at that reef back there. Can you imagine setting up a tent, or lighting a campfire? I digressed again
Thirteen arse-sleeping hours later we arrived in SFO, and then began the frantic lining up to clear customs and connect to our next flight, we’d been told to get a move on, as there wasn’t much time. We all made it as it turned out and we were soon on our way to Washington/Dulles Airport, luckily they didn’t show Die Hard 2 on that flight! At this point began the biggest muck about as to our connecting flight that I have experienced in all my travel. We were told to go to another terminal, Terminal G, which we named the G Spot, for reasons that will become apparent later in this story. At the G spot we didn’t have pleasant experiences, and instead we experienced many dramas.
Drama 1: the computers were down so any information on the boards was wrong.
Drama 2: The staff didn’t seem to know what was going on and were not real helpful.
Drama 3: The guy at the departure gate was a youngish guy who didn’t seem to know his job.
Drama 4: The woman announcing the flights had a whining, grating and loud voice
Drama 5: Wouldn’t you know it, the guy at our gate was a LOW talker,
Drama 6: When I asked when our plane would board, he informed me that it had left already!!!
Drama 7: I of course proceeded to crack up and asked why he didn’t call us; there were 8 of us.
Drama 8: He said that he’d announced it several times. Bullshit! No one heard him
Drama 9: Allison, on board, had tried vehemently to notify us, all to no avail, thanks to airline staff.
Drama 10: With boarding passes re-issued we had to sleep at the main terminal, Sunday night. Drama 11: Max, at ticketing, said he would get us some airline food, as we were starving.
Drama 12: Max shuffles past us on his way home, avoiding our gazes until we called out to him.
Drama 13: Max finally came to us and said he’d be back with food, yeah right!
Drama 14: Max who? We never saw him again!!! Not happy Max!!!
Drama 15: Every attempt to find a vending machine was fruitless, there were none.
Drama 16: We had to eat Noeline’s Aussie chocolates and sweets which had been for her students.
Drama 17: I was tempted to break into a locked kiosk for food but figured the last thing we and the agency would need is a phone call from DC police in the middle of the night.
Drama 18: Cleaning lady showed us a vending machine and we almost emptied it of food.
…and so after spending the night at Dulles airport, sleeping (not!) on the benches, and telling jokes and amusing each other into the wee hours, we had been surely blooded into the sport of travelling in the USA.
Memorabilia 