School Daze
By: susan peterson stamis
Tags: dodge ball, foreign service, guatemala, nurse, poinsettia, school bell, soldier, state department
Category: Uncategorized
In beautiful Guatemala where poinsettia bushes grew as big as Volkswagens and wild quetzales flew in the sky, I attended grade school. The open-air classrooms were nestled on a large, lushly landscaped piece of land, but it was a deceptively idyllic setting where the school’s principal and her minions doled out the three R’s in a style worthy of the Spanish inquisitors.
In a gazebo set apart from the other classrooms, we learned English grammar from a corpulent kinky-haired old crone who scared the peepee out of us. She commanded our skittish attention by clutching our skinny 10-year-old arms with her knotty fingers, while through crooked brown teeth she mocked us for our unforgiveable stupidity.
Amazingly, she was able to pull this off without getting out of her seat. Innocent as lambs and obedient as dogs, we trotted forward as our names were called and stood quaking before that frightful old hag, yielding to the taloned grip and stuttering out whatever daily lessons had been drilled into our empty little heads.
At recess, we played “mata bol.” In a big round dusty field, our nemesis was a pair of inseparable (and large) twin girls who, in spite of their obvious devotion to each other, always split up and competed on opposing teams. This tactic confused us, and it took us a few painful games of this Guatemalan version of dodge ball before it dawned on us that it wasn’t healthy sibling rivalry that prompted the strange strategy, but a clever alliance to ensure that the interchangeable twosome would clinch a victory no matter which side won.
Gesturing and shouting aloud to each other in some incomprehensible Spanish secret twin gibberish, “tipi-tapa-tipi-tapa-tipi tapa,“ they cued each other across the battle lines. First pointing at their victims, they rocketed the ball back and forth across the field with brute force and stinging accuracy, systematically eliminating one cringing, chicken-hearted, lily-livered opponent at a time.
The “dodge” aspect of dodge ball eluded the more dim-witted of us who, out of sheer self-preservation hopped around with our eyes squeezed shut and our hands covering our heads. In the unlikely event that one of us actually caught the ball, the odds of us smacking one of the twins with it were pretty slim, because in spite of their girth they were nimble, like a pair of dancing hippos. After clearing the field by knocking us all out of our shoes, the demonic duo skipped away arm-in-arm in their identical and still-spotless dresses, giggling, “tipi-tapa-tipi-tapa…”
Striving to regain a bit of dignity following the humiliating defeat in “mata bol,” one of us shouted out, “LET’S PLAY WAR!” In this sickeningly melodramatic game, beautiful brave nurses tenderly administered to handsome heroic soldiers wounded on the battlefield. The limp and broken bodies of the fallen were draped across the teeter-totters and monkey bars, and we invulnerable nurses carried out miraculous rescues under heavy fire.
Through the RAT-A-TAT-TAT! and POW-POW-POW! sound effects provided by the boys, we dragged the bullet-riddled and unconscious men over the treacherous terrain of the graveled playground; set their broken bones, bandaged their bloody wounds and then sent them back out to be blown up, KA-BOOM! and sewn up all over again.
Once, in an extemporaneous bit of acting, my nurse character ran into the path of a stray bullet and fell into a bush. She lay there for a while, moaning loudly and hoping that some brave and handsome soldier would come to her rescue; but she lay waiting in vain, because it was a different time then and that’s not the way the game was played.
In that rich, romantic world of our childish imaginings, we were wild and beautiful, strong, and heroic. All too soon, though, the old gorgon of an English teacher stood on the school steps, ringing the big brass hand bell, CLANG-A-CLANG-A-CLANG-A! We rose from the battlefield, shaking the dust from our clothes and the fluff from our heads and schlumped back to our classrooms, heroes no more.
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About Me
My father was a Consular Officer in the United States Foreign Service. He was first stationed in post World War II Berlin, where I was born in 1950. Subsequently, we lived in the Philippines; Jamaica; Guatemala; Washington, DC; Greece; Ceylon and Mexico; visiting many places in between. I was reared by my parents and nurtured by the various amahs, nannies, and housemaids who, every two years or so, entered and exited my little life.
I was educated in American Schools in “foreign lands,” but the most fascinating classrooms were the exotic locales where we lived, and the most inspiring teachers were the colorful people of those exotic and ancient cultures.
The bi-annual “home leaves” which my family spent at my grandparents’ homes in Los Angeles, California provided a sense of constancy to our nomadic lifestyle. My many aunts, uncles and cousins lived there and I eagerly looked forward to those vacations. We were 1st and 2nd generation Greek Americans (all 4 of my grandparents had immigrated at the turn of the century), and thus had foreignness stamped onto us even though we were Americans.
Two of my father’s siblings were also in the diplomatic service, and we world-traveling cousins were a source of endless curiosity to our domestic counterparts when we came home speaking English with unusual accents, reducing the statesiders to hysterics.With his various cameras, Kodachrome, Ektachrome, 16 millimeter, Super 8 and Polaroid, my father rarely lost an opportunity to document the events unfolding around us. After years of waiting patiently in boxes under the stairs, these photographic records are now fulfilling their purpose as mnemonic retrievals of my little life.
Mnemonic Retrievals 
So look forward to your descriptions of growing up.
Nostalgic tears on Sunday afternoon.. Your writing really put me right there on the battlefield with you…