Skip to main content

The Oasis

The washed out faces greet each other across the hallway. There is a faint, knowing smile, a momentary glance at the ceiling and then a farewell - for the next sixty or so hours.

He unlocks his classroom door, enters, sighs and picks up his bag. As he leaves for the last time, he casts his eyes around the room to make sure that all the computers are switched off. He pushes the light switches up and exits the war-zone, now achingly quiet. The sound of a lock turning can be heard all the way down the hall.

He walks wearily down the staircase. On his way out of the entrance hall, he looks to see if any of the secretaries are still in. Seeing that the office is empty, he opens the front door, feels the cold air brushing against his cheeks and tries to remember where he parked the car, all those hours away. He closes the door

School is finished for the week.

The drive back home is relatively trouble free. At least the rush hour hasn’t kicked in yet. When he opens the front door of his house, he hears the usual sound of his kids screaming, the TV blaring and his wife walking around the kitchen, making the Friday night meal. He walks in. She immediately tells him the little one needs to go to the toilet, the eldest hasn’t done her homework, the second one was rude on the way back home and is in her room as punishment and the other one is square-eyed watching TV.

The oasis of peace that he has been so looking forward to, at the end of another challenging week, is nowhere to be seen. He wishes it were already evening and the kids were asleep; that he could sit down and take a breather – but right now, there’s no time. Shabbat is drawing in the house is in the usual turmoil. The oasis he hoped for has disappeared into the ever-expanding desert.

He has no time for the children. He is bullish and impatient towards the wife and the kids. She responds aggressively and he knows that, far from finding his oasis, he’s walked into the burning heat of the midday sun. She’s tired and although she really can’t understand how stressful his week has been – she too needs her own Shangri-La.

The Sabbath barges in and the kids get noisier and more hyperactive. Supper-time turns into the usual rat-a-tat affair and although she puts the kids to bed for him (after the usual dramas), his oasis seems to have evaporated.

He knows that he needs some time to himself. He’s realised that unless he has a chance to enjoy the Oasis of Peace that is Shabbat, he will enter the new week in the same manner he exited the last. His dilemma is how to find the time to spend a minute in the sun. When he does take a moment (or two hundred) to recharge his batteries, the wife resents him for daring to taking the time out, leaving her to look after the kids. In trying to address his own inner disquiet, he has succeeded in creating a new storm. Her resentment becomes the weekend equivalent of the aggression he has to deal with from the kids in his class.

He knows that, until he returns to school on Monday, his home life will consist of hostility and resentment. He resigns himself to this and gives up any chance of locating the long lost oasis.

On Monday morning, he will back in the war-zone that is his classroom and the dream of that sweet, unreachable oasis will just have to remain there in his memory.

Who knows, maybe next week, he’ll get a little closer to drinking from its waters.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ten Jewberry Muds

To get the full effect, this message should be read out loud. You will understand what 'tenjewberrymuds' means by the end of the conversation. This has been nominated for the best email of 2005. The following is a telephone exchange between a hotel guest and room-service at a hotel in Asia, which was recorded and published in the FarEast Economic Review: Room Service (RS): "Morrin. Roon sirbees." Guest (G): "Sorry, I thought I dialed room-service." RS: "Rye..Roon sirbees..morrin! Jewish to oddor sunteen??" G: "Uh..yes..I'd like some bacon and eggs." RS: "Ow July den?" G: "What??" RS: "Ow July den?...pryed, boyud, poochd?" G: "Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry, scrambled please." RS: "Ow July dee baykem? Crease?" G: "Crisp will be fine." RS: "Hokay. An Sahn toes?" G: "What?" RS: "An toes. July Sahn toes?" G: "I don't think so."

Our City

Tomorrow night, we will be celebrating the thirty-ninth anniversary of the return of Jerusalem into Jewish hands. Many people around the world continue to deny the Jewish people the right to claim the city as our eternal capital. On the Temple Mount, the Arabs do what they can to destroy any evidence of our ancient presence, yet, despite their efforts, they cannot erase the basic fact that Jerusalem has, is and will always be - ours. This is not to say that the city is less important to persons of another faith. What I am stating and categorically so, is that Jerusalem is accessible to anyone who wants to worship therein, but never it let be forgotten that, at the end of the day, we, the Jewish Nation are the only people who, since time immemorial have chosen this very special place as a destination for all our prayers - she belongs to us. Every time we pray to G-d, we face towards Jerusalem. Every single Ark in every single Synagogue faces towards the city. It’s presence in our psyche

Oh, To Be Loved

I confiscated a tub of Vaseline from a Year 8 student today. The same kid admitted to throwing a stub of paper at me from the back of the room. After the end of the lesson, I refused to return the Vaseline to him, whereupon he curtly told me to “drop dead”. When he approached me at lunch and asked me again for his precious tub, I told him that he could have it back if he wrote me a letter of apology. His response - “shut up”. Sometimes, I wonder why I bother teaching these children. I know that moaning about it here won’t help in the slightest, but at least it makes me feel a little better by getting it out of my system