The Prophet

So it dawned on me I haven't written about the abysmal school that I currently teach at.
When I arrived in Florianópolis I hit the streets with a stack of leaflets to distribute to the unsuspecting citizens of the city. I was downtown passing out leaflets amongst the many other leafletters that are spread throughout the city center when a man in a suit enthusiastically approached me. In broken English He explained to me that he was the manager of a language school around the corner. The school, High Profile legally could be considered false advertisement due to its unbelievably low profile and for good reason. He advised me to give up trying to find students via circulating pamphlets because people would inevitably tell me to "Eat Shit!" He invited me for an interview.
The school is a haphazard combination of makeshift walls, brightly color-shirted bosses, unbelievably attractive secretaries, wacky-quack colleagues and remedial students. During my "job interview" my boss called one of my co-workers "coitado" which nowadays means poor thing or sad sack. My boss João, considerately inquired if I knew the origins of this popular expression, I responded that I didn't and he eloquently explained its background through a explicitly shocking demonstration of humping that was entirely too graphic for a job interview, even for Brazilian job interview standards. Apparently coitado is like coitus and it has found its way into the colloquial language.
The school pays unbelievably low. Basically there were single days at the golf course this summer where I walked away with more money than I make over the entire month. Then again I’m only working 17 hours a week. Anyways I like the students a lot and that’s why I’m there. What I mean by I like the students a lot I mean I’ve actually begun resenting the students.
I have a colorful pallet of students to choose from to tell you all about such as the “cool kid” who always greets me as “My Fuckin’ Brother” Or the distractingly gorgeous woman whose ears are slightly out of proportion with the rest of her otherwise beautiful Elvishly middle-earth features. (Tolkien reference). But there are only two students who are truly worth of a detailed mention on Hutch in Brazil.
So my first or second week of classes a couple walks into the classroom. The couple is a brunette woman with inviting eyes in her early forties and her husband a dark-skinned, heavily bearded, Gandhi-kin-resembled, finger missing, stylishly-bifocaled, receding pony-tailed dude. On the first day of class I casually made chit chat about their profession and they told me they had a pousada, or a bed and breakfast. I asked the husband what he liked to do in his free time and he told me that he was a writer.
"Oh a writer, what do you write about?" I intrigued.
"I write...prophecies." I didn't like the direction the conversation was heading.
"Prophecies about what?" I listlessly inquired.
"Prophecies about the end of the world." The couple cheerfully responded in unison.
I quickly changed the topic and class proceeded somewhat normally with the nettlesome speed bump of my Jewish faith rearing its ugly head.
Anyways they are weird and they constantly turn the class into a creepy forum for their cultish manifestos.
Example. I hate the school and I have turned to complete apathy as a form of pedagogy. I go by the book so strictly I run out of pages. So I was daydreaming while they read through the unrealistic dialog of the current exercise.
"Tina would you like to go to the pop concert tonight? Yes Tim that sounds wonderful. I will see you tonight."
This is the modus operandi of Low Profile English school. The couple continued to read their examples.
"Bob and I would like to go to the soccer match next week, who would like to see the new Steven Spielberg movie? Would you like to listen to the word of god?"
Just as I was thinking how unbelievable the conversations were my students managed to reinvent the wheel yet in a completely different direction.
I took a look at his website and it’s an endless supply of giggles. In the activities section, where I was expecting to see a listing of church raffles, bingo nights and such and such there was only headlines from over a decade ago celebrating their protests of the visiting rock band "The Rolling Stones" I'm not sure if you've heard of them. "Lovers of the Leaders" believed the stones to be an extension of the dark lord "Santanás!" As a protest the men dressed in nothing but speedos and the women were scantily clad in thongs touting fiery signs of outcry. I’m not sure as to what effect this had. These were the only activities listed.
Take a look at this "article" taken directly from the website of the prophet. It’s pretty much the worst example of photoshopping in the history of the program and verb. My photographer friend Nick Cope is probably spinning in his grave.
I knew I was on to something when I googled the name of the leader and the first thing that came up was the yahoo! Question, " Does Coca-Cola have anything to do with the devil?" Posted by the prophet himself.