Chapter 2: Training and Friends

Before we were to be ready for the world of teaching in Korea, and before we were to become the teachers that we left our home countries for we would have a week and two days worth of training. The training center was where the new crop of EPIK teachers would be calling their home for the next week. The situation was not unlike my first time attending college and the social ritual of meeting people for the first time and the relationships that would develop because of it.

I arrived with little knowledge of Korea and even less knowledge of how a Korean school system was supposed to run. It was a series of events that transpired over the first few hours of getting off the plane that set in the tone of just how fast, how random and how last minute Korea could be. I was later told that Korea was a country of last minute planning and events. A country the moved quickly and had no time to spare for those who would slow them down.

The college atmosphere was further amplified and strengthened in nearly everything that we did. We stayed in dormitories after classes were over. We attended classes and lectures dealing with different classroom and student management techniques. We ate lunch in a cafeteria with meals prepared for us by the kitchen staff. The atmosphere despite being thousands of miles away from anything that resembled  American or in the case of the other teachers (South African, British, Irish culture) was very familiar. I wasn't sure of this was intentional to make us feel at ease and gradually ease us into a Korean lifestyle or not but I do know that the familiar environment made us all closer, it allowed to find our people, the people that we knew would gravitate towards us and find familiar ground. I was lucky enough to quickly find a group of people that I could identify with, laugh with and enjoy their company. It would prove to not only be a beneficial way to pass time and form friendships, but also a a preliminary means of building the only network of people rely on. We didn't know it yet, but the hardest challenges were awaiting us. The first week being on our own would proves to be a test both will and emotion. In times of crisis and in times of need they would be our source of information and our source of comfort. Miles away from home, they would be our family, a band of brothers and sisters to weather us through the rough times ahead and share our joy in all of the victories and triumphs that we made.

We did not know at the time because like college, we were in a bubble, a safe microcosm to keep us feeling safe and warm miles away from home. Towards the end of the orientation I knew that this bubble could not last, that our friends would soon separate and go our own separate ways. I knew it. We all knew it. We did not care.

Instead we wisely chose to take the time we had left to enjoy company. We norebanged until out throats turned raw. We played card games until the early hours of the morning. We cracked jokes in class. We ate together during meals. We were a group that was about to leave, but the friendships and relationships that we built would last after the last lesson.

It is too early to tell if the friendships will last, if the scattering of our class (Class 4) will provide strain or not. I do know that the times we spent were real and genuine.

And in this day and age, genuine friendship and kindness is priceless and irreplaceable.

We came from all over the world. We found each other in Daejeon.