Misery Loves Company

Guys, I’m gonna warn you right now, this post is not going to be a fun, lighthearted one.

All summer long, before I left for Germany, I kept having this recurring thought that they had made a mistake in choosing me to teach. Turns out I was wrong about that part. But unfortunately it seems like a mistake has been made, just in my school placement.

I have made very few people aware of my current situation, partially because it is kind of a touchy subject, and partially because it is not the answer that people are looking for when they ask “How are things going in Hamburg?”

So, how are things going in Hamburg? Hamburg is great, Hamburg I love, but “things”, I’m afraid, are not really going as well as I had hoped they would.

“Things” are going like this: on November 13^th I sent an email requesting that I be able to transfer schools. They obviously wanted to know why, and so I had to explain that I felt that I was no longer working in a comfortable or safe environment, as I was being verbally sexually harassed by the students on a daily basis.

On. A. Daily. Basis.

Let’s get one thing straight; I put up with a lot of shit in general, and I put up with a lot of shit from men. I am tough. But this? This constant whistling and catcalling and kissy noises and little comments? In my place of work, where ideally I would like to feel confident and secure, but at the very least just ignored and left in peace? After almost 3 months it has just become too much.

And at first after sending that email I was almost ashamed. Ashamed because I was letting it get to me. Ashamed because I was giving up, I was letting them win. And ashamed because I felt like this meant that I couldn't do this simple job, like I had failed my one task.

Until I realized several things:

I realized that I possess the capability to do anything. I can continue to work at this school if I choose to. But what I have realized is that it is not just what I can do, but what I can do while maintaining both my sanity and my happiness. I can count on one hand the number of days that I left the school in a good mood, and I am just not okay with living like that, in Germany or the U.S. for that matter.

And I realized that working at this school was causing me more stress and misery than it was happiness and willingness to cultivate cultural exchange. I couldn't focus on learning about the vocational school system, because I was too busy trying to ensure that my students wouldn't sexually harass me on the way to class. I couldn't think of ways to make learning English fun for them, because I was trying to plan my bathroom breaks around their class schedules so that I didn't see any of them in the halls. I couldn't get excited about going to class in the mornings, because I was too busy putting on layer after layer of clothing, just to make sure that quite literally not an inch of skin was showing, only to have it not make a difference anyway. And I didn't leave school in the afternoons feeling accomplished and pleased with the day’s work, because about once a week I left almost in tears because I felt like I was nothing more than some pretty-but-useless trophy for them to admire in English class.

So can you imagine me explaining all of this to someone who quite innocently asked me how things were going in Hamburg? All of this hasn't made things easy by any means, but it has definitely made me question how we view and handle sexual harassment, not just in the U.S. but just generally as human beings. It hurts to feel that I might not able to complete my contract at this school simply because I am a girl in a male-dominated environment. The two previous teaching assistants were both men, and they seemed to have no problems, but when I, a female, tried to do exactly the same job that they had done, I was not given the same treatment or respect, and that really hurts.

So now, I wait. I wait to hear back from the powers that be, and see if I will be able to transfer to a different school. And I suck at waiting. Case in point, I was actually going to wait until I heard back from them to post this, but I got impatient and so now we can all wait together.