This is story #56 in the series “Where Exactly is Home?”. The author recommends you read them in order.
Introduction:
“Where Exactly is Home?” follows the story of my parents, my two younger brothers and me, Susan, who emigrated from war-battered Britain, in the mid-late 1950’s, to Southern Rhodesia, Africa.
The effects of this move on our family were huge, as we struggled to adapt to such a different way of life. Only after further upheaval, and more long-distance travelling, did our family eventually settle in the city of Salisbury, Rhodesia.
However, we did not know then that we would not remain there for the rest of our lives, either.
When the family first went to Africa, I, Susan, was 9 years old. My two brothers, John and Peter, were almost 7 and 4, respectively.
Nowadays, as seniors, John and Peter live in England. I live in Canada. Throughout our lives, we have both benefitted from, and suffered because of, our somewhat unusual childhood.
I, for one, still sometimes ask myself which country represents home to me.
This is a series of stories under the title “Where Exactly is Home?” – I recommend you read them in order, starting with story #1.
56. A Lesson Learned
I stand at the console in the language laboratory at the school where I have just been appointed as a teacher of French. I am new to the school, and a new teacher for the incoming students who are lined up outside the language laboratory door. It is April 1972. I have now been in England for just over three months. Everything here is almost unknown to me. This smart-looking grammar school is so different from the single-story colonial high school where I had been teaching last year, in Africa. There I had been living as a member of staff in one of the two boarding hostels, where just about all the students lived, too. The school was in a small village in a large farming community, 50 miles from Salisbury, where my parents lived.
I am also new to this language lab. I have had no time to practise any of the routines associated with running a lab. The previous day, during our lunchtime break, I had been given a quick run-through of what to do by the Head of the Department. Yet here I was, about to use it as a means of instructing thirty teenagers. I was terrified. Would I remember everything I had been told or would I make a dreadful mistake in front of the class? I knew I had to look competent, though I was far from feeling prepared. To me, on the raised dais at the front of the class, the console, with its long array of switches, dials, and buttons, looked like something that should be in a spaceship. I hoped like crazy that I didn’t blow the entire thing up! And certainly not in front of a class of adolescents!
