Next level in the IEP!

December 6th - 8th meeting with Norelly

I met Norelly for the last required time in this course on the 6^th of December at our usual spot in the Recreation Center.  Norelly was sitting along with her good friend Denily who was just giving Norelly some company until I arrived.  Norelly seemed to be really happy today and I asked her the reason for her happiness and she told me it was because of the tests.

Norelly had many reasons to celebrate.  Norelly’s finals for the IEP were last week.  She had a writing final and a reading final.  Norelly did not want to proceed to the next level because she wanted to redo this level of the program.  She felt like she wasn’t comfortable enough to start learning tougher material.  Norelly’s writing test was on a scale of 6 and she prepared well enough to get a 3 she said.  “I wanted to get a 3 so that they would keep me back in this level”, she said.  But Norelly ended up getting a 5 on the essay and is now proceeding to the next level.  What this means for her is that she will be finishing the program earlier than she wanted but it also means tougher course work.  She was happy nonetheless.  Norelly joked then by saying that if she had prepared for a 5, then she would have ended up with a 3. Also, since she was done with her finals, she was now officially on break.  She enjoyed the fact that she wasn’t required to do any homework or complete any assignments.

Norelly also told me about her Christmas plans.  She told me that she was going to be at home spending time with the people she loves minus her daughter because Amanda, her daughter was going to spend her Christmas at her friend’s place.  I found this quite unusual because I have always known Christmas laying heavy emphasis on family. Norelly told me about her unorthodox upbringing in Venezuela. She told me how in Venezuela, people didn’t spend time with their family but with people that they always had a good time with. “In my family, we didn’t want people to spend time with family just because they were obliged to!” If I look at it her way, it makes some sense as it is important to be happy with someone else during the festive time rather than not enjoy yourself with family.

Finally before we left, Norelly thanked me for all the time that I put into spending with her and my patience in hearing her out.  I thanked her back for being great company and sharing things about herself and Venezuela which I would not have known otherwise. She then gave me a hug and told me that she will definitely stay in touch with me. Norelly also told me that she will probably be needing my help with her coursework set to become tougher. I told her how happy I would be to help her when she needed it. 

I took a picture with her before leaving and this is the first picture I have with Norelly

I love my Venezuela! Norelly 7th meeting

November 20^th Meeting – 7^th meeting

I was running a little late from a delay in my class right before our meeting.  But Norelly was sitting in the regular spot waiting for me with a smile as usual.  She was one of those no complaints and no worries people. I apologized to her for being late and she smiled again.  Her smile reminded me of the smile of a laughing Buddha statue I had in my home in India.

We spoke about a couple of very interesting things in our meeting this week.  I guess this was some kind of a country appreciation week.  It started out when I asked Norelly to share something interesting about her Venezuela.  There was an immediate smile on her face and she sat up erect to start her soapbox speech on her country.  She told me about Venezuela’s natural beauty. She started off by telling me about the deserts present there and how beautiful their sand’s color and texture were. I interrupted her to explain why different sands have different colors.  She then told me that her sister has a bottle filled with the different sands of Venezuela in a showcase at her house.  Norelly then told me that they had the Angel Falls in Venezuela.  Of course they do!  She then described how magical the flight tour over the falls was for her.  She loved it and told me she would love to go there again. Norelly told me that her friend once told her that the best beaches in Hawaii look like regular ones in Venezuela.

But I guess I judged Venezuela too soon.  Norelly then wanted to balance my view of Venezuela.  She then told me about the not so good things happening in Venezuela.  The first thing she spoke was about robbery.  She told me about a time when she was walking on a street with her phone when a robber, in broad daylight, approached her and threatened to stab her if she didn’t hand her watch to him.  Norelly, scared because he had a knife, gave him the watch and saw him run away.  She then noticed a cop standing in the vicinity but instead of approaching him for help, she quietly left to her house because the cops are not so willing to help.  Norelly told me how cops molest innocent women when they approach for help. Norelly also told me about the high crime rates in the freeways.   

 Because there is high traffic during work hours, the freeways are clogged and the robbers take advantage of this and steal things from the stranded cars. Corruption goes to a whole new level with the illegal tax evading system.  Norelly tells me Venezuelans have two options.  They either pay the taxes to the government or they pay a lower illegal tax evading fee to the government officials for them to keep.  People usually pay the tax officials the lower amount which leads to an empty Venezuelan treasury.  It’s this selfishness of people that leaves Venezuela in the dust in today’s constantly growing world Norelly tells me.

I had mixed feelings about our conversation that day.  I don’t think there is a balance between the good and the bad Norelly told me.  In my opinion, robbing and molestation of innocent people does not balance out with natural beauty.  The bad clearly outweighs the good from what I can interpret.  But in all this, Norelly says, “I love my Venezuela! I don’t care what others think about it.” It’s very true.  You can never grow to dislike the nation whose spirit runs in your blood.  I find this true as I always tear up when I hear my national anthem.

6th meeting with Norelly

6^th Meeting – November 15^th

Norelly and I met up for the sixth time in the Campus Recreation Center as usual.  She waved and gave me the usual smile of hers.  We first exchanged a couple of things that we did over the week and she told me that she had been spending a lot of time with her daughter. Norelly had had a couple of instances where in she felt that she wasn’t spending enough time with her daughter. When she told me that she was spending a lot of time with her daughter recently, I thought that was as good as it can get for her. Norelly is a single mother who is living in the United States for the sole purpose of educating her daughter in English; a privilege that she didn’t have as a child.

Then we discussed about a number of things; topics ranging from politics to travel all within a short span of time. And then I asked her how she felt about her reading assignment as she had told me in our last meeting that she had been assigned a book to read for her IEP class.  She told me that she hated it.  I was taken aback a little when she said that.  Norelly then explained to me why she didn’t like the reading assignment and it seemed to make a lot of sense then. Norelly told me that she was just beginning to comprehend different sentence structures. The book however had complex structures and also had big words that we don’t use in our everyday life.  So she had to flip through the dictionary every other paragraph to put the word into context.  I can imagine how frustrating it’d be to refer to the dictionary every now and then.  In a way, she lost the big picture of the book by concentrating in understanding the few big words.  This type of a problem can quickly turn something enjoyable to something irritating.  I offered to help her with her readings whenever she needed me even after our eight meetings.  She was really happy.

I then told her about how, only the other day, I went to an Indian restaurant on the occasion of Diwali; an Indian festival that celebrates the coming of good over the evil.  She was really interested and heard me out carefully.  I told her how we all celebrate with one another and give each other sweets as a sign of happiness. Norelly then went on to tell me how in Venezuela, Christians only celebrate Christmas.

Norelly’s family believed that they didn’t have to go to church every week to be good Christians.  She told me how they would pray from home, work or while just experiencing a problem in an office and that would have brought them closer to god.  Norelly is also a firm believer in service to people.  She told me that she would like to spend more time doing something to help serve people and get closer to god rather than pray in a church for hours on a weekend.  She volunteers at Catholic Charities in Fort Worth and helps them with their daily chores.

We then spoke about what our plans for the rest of the week were and then it was about time for Norelly to leave to attend to her other commitments.  We set up another time to meet. I thanked her for her time and she smiled yet again.  I was walking out of the recreation center and found most of what she said applicable to my past.  I was never a good reader and I had trouble with understanding big words.  My family too, believes that you don’t have to show physical devotion to be a good Hindu.  It surprising how even though the both of us come from different parts of the world, we share a similar set of ideologies. I walked out pondering over this as usual.