There is no painless way to return to the 9-5 (by which I mean 7-3) life in a dusty city after two months mucking around barefoot, off the grid and drunk on sunshine. But a quick way to switch gears is to invite a little panic into that window in which you've already unpacked but haven't put anything away. And for me that was to look at my class roster.
TWENTY-ONE THREE YEAR OLDS.
TWENTY-ONE THREE YEAR OLDS SPEAKING 12 LANGUAGES.
Do you have any idea of the volume of separation anxiety tears 21 children can produce? Do you have any idea the gallons of nervous pee just waiting to flood tights, jeans and floor? (The number of accidents are, for obvious reasons, far greater at the beginning of the school year, and I swear I can see the evidence on the mottled brown carpet like rings on a tree). Do you have any idea how much confusion can ensue when you put 21 children who have never been to school before in one room? And the way the confusion multiplies when there is .5 different languages per capita and I speak fluently a grand total of one?
Although my neighbor and colleague teaches fifth grade, she understood enough to buy me a back to school gift of a botle of Amarula (a South African liqueur). This after I asked her, "screwdrivers are part of a balanced breakfast, right?"
Dressed in polka dots and red maryjanes, I hung name tags around my students' necks like leis at a Hawaiian airport. I shook dozens of parental hands and collected their dutiful offerings of lunchboxes, spare changes of clothing and epipens. Then I smiled them out of the room and met my new students.
Charlie is the obvious product of having two cool parents and three years of overhearing conversations peppered with SAT words. One of his classic moves is to start immediately screaming my name at any given point he can't see me. Then when he spots me, he runs over, head butts me in the crotch and says, "Pop! I'm right here!" He is more than a little dramatic, and the day after his best friend went away, he threw himself on the dusty ground of the playground, clawing at the earth and bellowing her name, "BELLA! BELLA!," in what ammounted to an unintentional farce of A Streetcar Named Desire.
Rebecca is a tiny Kenyan who is fiesty as hell. She hits, spits and giggles as if her life depends on it. She even cries with gusto and after vigorous weeping sessions she is known to vomit, a quirk made all the more memorable to her teachers by the vibrantly colored yogurt drinks she consumes each day at snack time.
Assefa comes from Ethiopia and her striking beauty is made that much more startling by her faint unibrow. Her English is unintelligible and she doesn't understand a damn word I say, but the way she enthusiastically responds "ok!" to everything nonetheless has a irresistable appeal amidst the general preschooler rebellion.
Alpa is . . . well, I pulled the mother aside one day and asked, seriously and without exaggeration, if her child ever sits down. . .
Isabella's manly Italian accent is shockingly inconguous to the sweet, blond pigtails. She was fine the first day until her 8 year old brother stomped over to my class midway through the morning to check up on her. In his uncannily identical voice he told her, "You are a big girl, you must be brave," followed by an affectionate shove that sent her sprawling, and the rest of the day wailing and calling for him despite the fact that he knocked her flat. These days she is my faithful shadow. The first time she got picked up from school by a family friend, she refused to go with him, clinging to me, crying, "I don't want to go. I don't want to go. AHHHHHHHHHHH! I love you! I want to go with you!" I had to carry her kicking and screaming to the neighboring UN where he works, rushing past the guard as I didn't have the requisite passport on me, and place her apologetically in his car. Now she is more compliant thanks to a chocolatey bribe (from him, not me).
Chenzira is significantly quieter than the others. He likes to limit his vocal exertion by whispering, remaining silent, or contriving other ways to reduce his need to speak. Raised eyebrows, I've learned, means "yes."
It is Maria's personal philosophy that a kiss (or several) cures everything. One day after several disruptions during a book I was reading, I put the book on my lap and informed her that I was upset that she was not listening and disturbing the story for other children. Her eyes widened. "You are upset? Ms. Sara is upset, guys." She got up and walked toward me stepping on (inviting cries of pain) and stumbling over several children on the way, kissed my hand elaborately about a dozen times and said, "You're better, ok?" She sort of missed the point but how could I stay upset after that?
And that's just a third of my students, not including the bulldozer who was suspended until a second assistant teacher could be hired. . .
Here's to nine more months of tears, kisses, giggles, pink vomit and happy (hopefully) chaos!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
What beautiful portraits! Thank you for sharing. Your children are so lucky to have you - good luck!
How bout a class picture?
Nope, sorry. I try to avoid posting pictures (or any identifying details)of children on the internet without consent of parents or guardians, and consent would make me have to tell them about my blog, and I would rather not have to write knowing that parents might be reading it. For the same reason, I won't post pictures or names of the children at the orphanage. I got permission to use the pictures of the Malawian students so long as I sent some copies(I did). And every once in a while, I take a picture of a child I don't know because someone sees me with a camera and and wants to have their picture taken (especially if it's digital so they can view it immediately), or if they are doing something interesting, I ask permission to photograph, but I try not to make a habit of photographing strangers (and I almost always ask permission, unless it's a faraway shot or a crowd), especially children.
Post a Comment