The kids are alright

Nearly two weeks gone now and it feels like twenty. I can hardly remember leaving new york now, feeling like a bug being carried in a jar, not knowing what the next day would look like but knowing I was going somewhere. My jar tipped over and now I’ve got four rotating outfits, geckos living under my bed and 28 primary school kids that don’t understand English (oh, and I have the WORST sandal tan you’ve ever seen). So like any bug would do, Im just attempting to hack it and trying not to bug out.

Most days, after sending the kids out shrieking and tumbling to the school gate at 4pm, I feel like konking myself on the head for getting us into this. Teaching little kids is kind of like being a doctor I should think, you win some battles and you lose some, but most of the time you lose before you even get a round off because the poor kid doesn’t understand a word you are saying. All the usual teachers’ tools I could remember being effective on me when I misbehaved are out the window - ultimatums, isolation, humiliation, threats, you know, all the good stuff. Without English they cant even call your bluffs, they just sort of sit there and stare at you like you’re a big white polar bear attempting to sell mittens on the beach. And well, you are big and you sure are white. Sometimes you get so tired of pulling this one off of the shelves, putting that one in time out for kicking someone in the face, sharpening a pencil because they chewed off the graphite, calling after the one who is hightailing it out of the classroom in your scariest and most matronly voice, cleaning up spilled Ugi with your skirt, preventing one from impaling the other one with a stick, and peeling them off of every square inch of the place that you forget you actually have to teach them something. Usually I get tired of repeating the only Swahili words I know and resort to just gesticulating wildly with my hands. Sometimes it even makes me feel better to drop in a “ you little brats!” out loud. That’s just about the only time its nice to be misunderstood.

But even with my thoughts of suicide throughout the day, the little guys inspire me. Their social systems are so sophisticated, their personalities so distinct and they are so easily made so very happy. All the while they are murmering in Swahili sweet sounding little words and I am so very sorry I cant understand them enough to catch these little unconscious windows into their lives. Like reading a dream catcher over a small, silent sleeper. What are their parents like? Where do they sleep? Will they ever leave Tanzania? What do they hope for in each coming morning? They are the purest form of good intentions and forgiving them is so easy. After you put them in time out, they still come to rest their heads in your lap and hold your hand and want to sit next to you during duck duck goose. They don’t know you but they love you.  Even if you are different. Teaching school to all these powerful future people wrapped up into small, inquisitive and laughing little packages is the only place I don’t feel like a complete stranger in this country.