Gifts I’ve Received

I’ll be honest: I like it when people give me things. I’ve received a handful of thoughtful gifts – such as a handmade scarf my Iranian student gave to me because I complimented her on it when she wore it, or a set of board pens from a student in the kids’ class I taught which always destroyed my board pens in competitions. The most valuable gifts I’ve received, though, haven’t so much been “things”…or at least if they were, the importance was in the thought:

My Russian colleague gave me a cactus she had somehow transported all the way from Russia to Sarajevo. I brought it with me to my next location, and then back to Sarajevo, where it remains: in my last apartment, hopefully either with the next teacher living there or my friendly Bosnian landlady.

The times I have cancelled a lesson with a one-to-one student because I’m sick (which has happened twice in my EFL career), the person has contacted me to check that I’m okay and ask if there is anything they can do to help. When you live alone in a foreign country and are sick, this is a really nice gesture to have made – even if you don’t take anyone up on it.

I got recipes for Becki Snicla (Wiener Schnitzel) and Bobice (Slovenian/Istrian Soup) which I have passed on to family and still use today myself in some form.

In one of the last sessions with a group of office mates in Sarajevo, I mentioned that I might be going to Greece, and asked one man about a Greek city he’d spoken highly of in a speaking exercise (“describe a remarkable place you’ve visited”). He told me the name, and then came back late from the break. At the end of the class, he presented me with a map he had printed out during the break and handwritten directions. I didn’t go to Greece, but I still have the map.

Of course, in many more formal settings, it can be bad form for teachers to accept gifts. It can also, however, be quite the experience to try and refuse a gift. But this post is less about that than about the nice things, material or not, that people can “give” you.