The Weekly Dispatch No. 2:In Which We Get Lost Again, Begin To Earn Our Keep,
Visit The Cathedral, And Entertain Dutch Visitors

Our second week here was every bit as enjoyable and educational as our first. We learned, for example, that Wednesday night is “sport night,” which means that large groups of students gather at pubs—including the one at the Student Union, which serves the cheapest beer in town—to watch football/soccer games and then roam the streets in various states of drunkenness. We learned this when a “bobbette,” which I believe is the correct term for a female police officer in this country, came to our door and informed us that there would be a closed circuit television van parked in front of our house to videotape the hooligans when they came storming out of the college’s gate. As it turned out, the CCTV truck was a deterrent and the only thing the police had to watch on their monitors that evening were Beth and me waving at them and pretending to throw rocks through neighbors’ windows. We also learned that the famous “British sense of humour”—particularly that of the local constabulary—does not include pantomime and that the British spell jail gaol.

This was also the week that Beth and I became “employees” of CCCU, though we have yet to be fully recognized as such—evidenced by our inability to obtain library cards from the university because we have not yet received staff ID numbers (though we do, now, have our computer usernames and don’t have to go to the Two Sawyers pub when we want to check our email). On Tuesday morning, I met with Mandy Cooper, Programme Director for the American Studies Department at CCCU and my “co-teacher” for the semester. As she explained in that meeting, the course—American Literature from Pre-Columbian era to about 1820—would be taught by me but that she would be available to supplement the course content with presentations on visual arts from the time and to help schedule visits by computer and library folk. She also explained that most of their academic undergraduate programs are three years in length and that students begin from the first semester with major field courses; there is no equivalent to our general education course requirement. We also talked quite a bit about students, a chat which reassured me that the students I would be meeting on Thursday would probably be no different from those I was used to teaching—except for the language barrier, of course.

That afternoon, Tuesday, we decided to take a heritage walk. Mandy had given us a booklet with a dozen or so of these hikes—most between two and six miles—and we picked one that would keep us in Canterbury rather than one that would send us out into the countryside where, as we had learned the week before, we would surely lose our way. So, guidebook and ordinance maps—the ones that show every road, path, etc.—in hand, we began our walk inside the city walls (which we are learning to pronounce “the city wools”) and ambled along past historic buildings and through tree-shaded parks. The book then sent us up a steep hill to the campus of the University of Kent, a larger, more modern campus than CCCU with an impressive theatre/movie house with an even more impressive list of films and plays, and took a quick rest stop to see where we were headed next.

At this point, as we read the directions, our confidence waned, and we were back in the strawberry field. Rather than following streets with names, here is what we were told to expect (and this is word-for-word from the guidebook):

Cross Giles Lane, through gate and ahead towards chestnut paling fence. Through gap by stile and ahead along right-hand field boundary.

At wire fence turn left through narrow gap in hedge, then immediately right to wooden fence.

On reaching corner of school grounds look left to view southern portal of tunnel. Take first right of two possible paths.
To this day, I still do not know what a chestnut paling fence is, nor am I sure that we took the first right of two possible paths. We did travel along a very narrow footpath that we were told by a fellow traveler was one of the footpaths taken by pilgrims on their way to the cathedral, and were afforded spectacular views of the Kentish countryside as we descended into the city centre again. We were “off-map” most of the way, but the rather prominent cathedral bell tower kept us moving in the right direction. We also, quite accidentally, came across the Canterbury City Cemetery and visited the grave of Joseph Conrad where, in a fit of literary pretension, I gazed thoughtfully at our surroundings and quoted—or maybe paraphrased—Marlow in Heart of Darkness: “And this, too, was one of the dark places of the world.”

On Wednesday, suffering from a few thorn scratches and tired legs, Beth was put to work. She—actually for the second week—led a discussion seminar that is a part of the Modern Britain class all of us, students and faculty, are required to take while we’re here. Our seminar group includes all of us from Illinois—community colleges, North Central College, and Illinois State—and a lone student from Arkansas State. They’re an outstanding group, and Beth—as expected—got them thinking about the notion of British Identity (our topic for the first couple of class sessions), as well as about the idea of an American Identity. In both cases, coming up with a single definition is impossible, which was the point our lecturer, Nathan, was trying to illustrate. As he pointed out, the images and ideas that were British in the past—tea at three, stiff upper lip, and all that—are, in fact, of the past and do not reflect modern Britain at all, except among those who cling to tradition.

My class the following day was dubbed a “taster.” According to Mandy, students can sample classes the first week or two before settling on the courses they want to take. I have to admit I cringed at the idea because we have worked so hard at ECC to eliminate that sort of thing and get right down to business. Here, however, that jumping around is mitigated a bit by their tutor system; every student has a faculty member with whom he or she meets regularly and, in the case of late-enrollers, that faculty member works to bring the student up to speed. Mandy told me that on rare occasions students have entered classes as late as November. It should be remembered, too, that these courses do not really end at the conclusion of a term. The class I am teaching, for example, will continue until early May.

Knowing that we had to mount something of a “dog and pony” show, Mandy and I worked out an hour-long session that would give the students a chance to look over the syllabus, ask questions and get a sense of what would be expected. We also worked in an ice-breaker and took some time to introduce ourselves. Other than a couple of places when a student said something, and I needed to look to Mandy for translation (I did apologize in advance for any misunderstandings and told them to feel free to ask me to repeat something they didn’t understand), the class went well. The students were a little more willing to discuss a couple of poems we asked them to read than our my students at home but, again, these are students who are already committed to a major field of study and have a lot of experience discussing literature. There were also three returning female students, which also gave the classroom a familiar, community college feel. All in all, I’m looking forward to the class and to working with the students.

Friday was our first school-sponsored field trip. Naturally, the cathedral was our destination. Knowing that we would be visiting the place—and not wanting to waste any of the sunny, un-English weather that we are still enjoying—we have avoided any sites that we can see during the gloomy, dank days we are continually told will be here soon enough. The day we visited the cathedral was no different, but, as we soon learned, it was a good thing that the sun was out because it illuminated the stained glass windows and allowed us to see them at their brilliant best.

At the cathedral, we were divided into two groups, each assigned a guide for about a ninety-minute tour. My group had Vivian, who loved the building, while Beth’s group had Lenny, who loved the stories associated with the place. As a result, my group got to see nooks and crannies Beth’s group did not see, but they were given far more dramatic and—in the case of Beckett’s murder—more gory renditions of the history. The place is as astonishing and awe-inspiring as any place I've ever visited, and although we have dozens of pictures, until I've learned how to blog more effectively, you'll have to wait until we get home or until I've posted them on a photo site to see them. I'll keep trying...

After the cathedral, everyone except me went to the Canterbury Tales, a very cheesy tourist attraction featuring the “sights and smells of Chaucer’s Canterbury” with the emphasis, according to Beth, on the smells, which she figures is less a marketing gimmick than an excuse for not cleaning. Our students, to a person, were unimpressed with the place, though some were intrigued by the promise of “animatronics,” which turned out to be a spring-loaded plywood cutout that flapped up at the right time.

While the rest of the crew were enjoying that experience, I was welcoming our first guests: Tom and Astrid von Krimpen and their foster-baby, Mattanya. Tom and I were exchange partners last year—he visited ECC for two weeks in the fall; I visited ID College in May—and became good friends. They stayed with us until Monday morning, allowing us to show them around Canterbury and, on Sunday, to do a little traveling through the English countryside. I did the driving on Sunday, which was not as frightening as I thought because Tom’s car is a left-hand drive, so it just meant my having to be next to the curb as we traveled. That wasn’t much of a problem except when we got to roundabouts and I couldn’t really see cars coming up on my right. Aside from a couple of near-misses, it was a piece of cake. The highlight of the day was a visit to Rye, a hilltop town where Henry James lived and wrote. At the very top of the hill is a church and at the very top of the church is a bell tower, which visitors can climb up to see the countryside. I bravely agreed to accompany Tom and Beth, but halfway up, my fear of heights and accompanying vertigo hit me, and I had to bail out. While I might have found the view stunning, I’m growing very used to living happily on the ground, looking up.

All in all, it was a very pleasant week, and an even more pleasant weekend.

Before I sign off, I have to tell this story:

Sunday morning, as we went out to find some fresh pastries for breakfast (an impossible mission, we found), we rounded a corner and came face-to-face with a horde of German tourists, all bearing down on the cathedral entrance. Because it was early, the gates were locked, so the visitors had to mill around outside. One man, apparently too impatient to wait for a view of the cathedral, went to a bookstore where a book opened to a photograph of the building rested in the window, and he videotaped the picture of the cathedral through the glass. I’d like to be sitting in his home as he explains to his guests that piece of footage.

More next week.

Cheers!