Trying to make sense of myself.

My colleagues have just come to see me with  vitamin c rich blackcurrent jam and porridge and all things to help me recover, which is very sweet. It also makes me feel very guilty. I know that having M.E is not a psychological disorder, but I know that my mood does not help it or me.  I know it is stupid, I should be able to just go to work and not need affirmations, but when I lived in Senegal having a high status was definitely one of the unforeseen benefits of my year there.  Here I do not know why I have never known why my relationship to the work, place, etc, seems more complex. I think, correction I know I have always been insecure in my work, so need more assurances than many to know that I am of value - this has caused me to crash mentally in the UK.  Coming out here I knew that I was a person who can succumb to their own doubts, but I also knew that being away sometimes it is easier as the interest the other place gives me takes me so out of myself that I cannot help but to progress and continue.  One of the good things about Senegal was that whenever I was ill and as the year continued I did have more health problems, (often luckily during the breaks) no one questioned it, it was just le vent, so I could crash out for a couple of days and then come back and I was able to put my feelings of inadequacy, that I had let people down on a low control.  So far here I am pleased to say I have been able to keep going despite having had my throat problems for weeks, but clearly the fibromyalgia kicking in means that my body has sort of had enough.  I wonder if my mind has too. I really like being here, that is lots I love about it, but I guess I am scared I am not up to the job. The women here work all day at the school, they get up early, then they go home and work again.  Even before I was ill I could not do that.  Then when they are at work they just get on with it.  So I guess I am feeling totally inadequate. I know I have to fight this and to be honest their kindness is a way of saying come on we need you, so that is very kind.  Any way. Enough of that emotional rubbish.  One of the other consequences of the ME when it gets bad I know is that my psychological health goes down too but that it picks up as soon as I get physically better.

It is very beautiful outside my window, it has been snowing since Sunday night, which I must admit puts me off going out too much at the moment. Cold weather in the UK did seem to make me ill, getting wet too, despite all the research saying that it does not affect our health. Here luckily as it is usually warm even when in theory cold, I think it has been better for me, but when it is cold and slushy like this, as it was in Bishkek this weekend, then it might feel cold especially when my hat (whilst at school) has disappeared and my muffler (from the Ashu).

I have been reading Conrad's autobiography whilst off, despite watching the ground breaking, Apocalypse Now, until I came here I had never actually read him and while knowing the bare bones of his narrative, Polish, ex seaman turned Englishman, knew nothing of his life. So reading this I have learned a bit more about Polish history, I have also learned what a strange character he seems to have been, very unsettled always, self doubting, at times very inconsiderate to the needs of his late mother's family, but in the end struggling through, taking to the sea and then becoming a great English writer.

One of the things that intrigued me was his decision from a landlocked country (and as I now know, at that time non existent so to speak country) to go to sea.   The biographer says it is easy to explain, in some ways he could not make his own way in his own land as it did not exist  as such (his father and mother had both been imprisoned for their part in championing Polish nationalism) but also there were lots of Poles involved in the sea and navigation at the that time.

I have been asked by lots of people here, why travel, why Kyrgyzstan.  I always wanted to travel, but do not think I am a natural traveller, however as a child I always association travel with adventure. I was very lucky when 15 to work in France one Christmas, which was a very magical experience, as well as romantic. Then as a 19 year old I went and worked in Switzerland, again good, but curtailed in an unfortunate way by the need to resit (and sadly fail again) my English exam for university. After that I always hoped to travel, but enjoyed visiting lots of England instead with my then husband and his friends. So it was only after I got divorced that I headed off again. This time round Europe. But lots of people did that. However I went alone and I did find it took its mental toll. So while I am very glad that I went to all those places, finding friendship in some, there was also a lot of time when I was on my own, exhausted, with little money and unable to communicate very effectively with people. Thank goodness I also knew some people en route so turned up and stayed with, or went around with people in Amsterdam, Cologne and Tubingen, but by the time I was back I think I was a little crazy all emotional energy was gone. So travel is not always the easy option. But when my son was grown up I was determined to try and do it on a more extensive basis and one of the reasons I trained as a teacher was to enable me to get away. In Senegal I think I was very lucky, a because I did have the support (or should that be torment) of a partner which gave me something else to focus on, I had my friend in the country,  and I do not know why, on the days when the school depressed me, Daker lifted me and when Dakar depressed me the children lifted me. So what I cannot work out is why, when everyone is so nice here, and the country is so beautiful, do my spirits get so low?  I have the same problem in the UK so it is not exclusive to here, but it does seem more of a problem here?

One I suppose there is none of the adventure of travel, I am just here, and working. Two I am really on top of my work, everything and everyone I know is to do with work, in fact in this country it is so small that it is hard to get away from work anyway. Which is great if you are doing well, and one of the attractions here is that if one was doing well one could plug into something bigger and feel part of the greater energy and dynamism of life. But I am not doing great.  For one everyone else is with someone else reinforcing the difference that is already clear from my inability to talk with anyone in anything other than English and although I love the kids and actually I think some of them are speaking a lot more English, the truth of the matter is I have almost had to force them into listening to me, engaging with me, doing the work etc. It is interesting this term, although the year zero kids are still happy to see me, they seem to have no energy about them any more and the year 2 children are almost so professional that the class is just routine, (which is energy wise a good thing) so in a way I know that it is not just me that seems to be de-energized. Perhaps it is inevitable, in fact I know that there is lots of evidence that people on courses go through cycles and perhaps I am just on the downward slop and especially as May will be incredibly and scarily hurtling towards me will before I know be moaning at being back in the UK so all I really need to do now is just grit my teeth, do everything I can to restore my physical health. Try and talk with my head so that we can work and benefit from each other more and stop wingeing and just get on with it.

Goodies from work. Given my love of bread and jam really this is a the perfect place for me.