Meet My Students, Part III

Only a few more. . .
The Bulldozer enjoys any number of not so endearing past times including, drinking water that is blackened with paint from dirty brushes, throwing his body on other children or the table, throwing his body on the table and wriggling around until everything on the table is on the floor, and dumping everything on the floor which on one occassion most unfortunately included an 800 piece lego set. His aunt, who raises him, is truly an idiot. While discussing Refiloe's infantile speech (this child is seriously delayed) the aunt said "he doesn't know how to speak because I am too busy to talk to him." When I asked what this child spends most of the waking hours he is not in school doing, she said, "He watches wrestling on TV."

Roshina, from Pakistan, used to be inseparable from her denim hand bag and animal print sunglasses. Thankfully, I have weaned her to the point where these items can rest on her hook in the hallway without causing a major crisis.

Imogene is one half of the German, Chinese, Malaysian twins. She is trilingual (German, English and Cantonese) with scarily advanced fine motor skills.

Ellen is Imogene's partner in crime and is discernible from her sister by the unrulier hair and mischievous grin.

If Toloana wasn't such a happy, oblivious child, I might find her rather annoying sometimes. Whenever I sit next to her, I end up with bruises on my thigh the exact size and shape of her small, pointy elbows. She also begins every sentence with "I want my. . ." so "May I go to the bathroom" becomes "I want my toilet" and so on.

Tlotliso is all but silent, although his parents tell me he is a chatterbox at home and gets into all kinds of trouble. I've seen the latter but I'm still waiting for the former. The only occasion in which I heard a steady stream of words come out of his mouth was when I gave him a simple direction in Sesotho (take this chair) but I couldn't catch a word of his response.

Katleho is so quiet and sweet and easy that half of the time, I forget he exists. And whenever I am writing about the children or need to recall a list of their names in my head, I always get up to 20, then search my brain before I remember "Katleho!" Sorry buddy, you're last again but I still love you.



Random Funny Stories:

The other day Sean was sitting on my lap and my hands were resting on his lap. His shorts felt disconcertingly damp, but then again, we had just been drinking water and he isn't all that coordinated. I pointed and said, "What's that?" He looked down and said, "Um, that's my penis." Oh child, I was asking what's on your pants, not in them. . . at least no one entered the room halfway through the exchange.

Chinzera brought a yellow plastic gun to school one morning and amused himself by pointing it at his friends and whispering gun shot noises. Charlie, of the pseudo neo-hippie parents, glanced at the gun and said, "Hey, I like your leaf blower." This very same leaf blower fan had a major accident on the playground (which was during my planning period). He romoved the soiled clothing, trod in his feces and proceeded to continue playing, while trailing his excrement around campus. I spotted him from the window wearing nothing but a yellow rain slicker!