I started keeping a track record of the times I was called fat or chubby in a day. Its 3pm and its up to 8. Not too bad.
I woke up this morning with a completely different mindset.
Which is basically how i start every one of my mornings,l so no surprise..haha
But today I really felt an urgency to start.
Start a project, start teaching, start writing a grant, start taking care of myself, start putting in all my effort and enthusiasm into this school I have been assigned to.
The first week(last week) was a bit, lets say, hard to swallow.
Here was the headmistresses (the principles)week:
Monday: Nails done for 3 hours
Tuesday: work with another teacher on her assignment for college to be a teacher? weird, 4 hours
Wednesday: play Kangaroo, 2 hours
Thursday: Came in at 1:30, school ends at 2. (it was raining)
Friday: came in at 10:30(it was raining again), get hair done.(2 hours)
It brought me down, seeing this, but lucky for me I had the 53 kids at the special needs school to brighten each and everyone of those days.
I spent last week in the deaf classroom. I worked with a 8 year old that didn't know how to hold a pencil. By Friday she had it down, and was tracing circles.
I also started to work with her on signs. It begins of course with the alphabet and repetitions of signs that guide her throughout the day, such as wash your hands, take a rest, sit down, stand up, color this, trace this etc..
My favorite part of the first day with her was getting her to make the correct hand for the letter "f". She flipped me off for a good 3 minutes during this drill. I couldn't help but laugh.
The other kids in the class are awesome, ages range from 7 to 14. Its hard to see their abilities at the ages they are at. In the states at age 14 a student would be starting algebra, here they are still dong subtraction and addition. So I had them work on keeping the environment clean posters. I read most of them and they had good illustrations of trash cans, picking up trash and not littering. Then I got to this one kids picture and it said :" do not throw hot water on animals" with a bucket and a dog on it. awesome.
There are many things at the school, people would view as downfalls, but the kids seem to put a positive spin on everything(isn't this one of the keys to life?) I view it more as me needing to start to get to work!!
It a different world than I thought, teaching and creating curriculum with zero resources. It challenges me to be better and think further outside the box.
My walk to and from school(its 40ish mins each way) consists of greeting people and admiring the beauty of this country, as well as trying to dodge smoke coming from garbage piles and minibuses speeding on by 2 inches from my body. I give countless kids high fives, which pretty much makes any day better.
But honestly, my day is completely satisfied when I walk into The Alpha House, An orphanage, or really a family, consisting of 30+kids. I started tutoring/teaching them on monday and im not sure if my heart has soared any higher. I have found complete reason for being here with these kids, and two of them are actually my students at the special needs school. I'll describe this place in more detail once i get a moment..because it deserves far more explanation than the last three sentences.
I am so grateful for these feelings, the beginning feelings, when everything seems possible and I have a child's like dreaming ability. I'm hoping I can keep that, and I'm hoping that whoever is reading this can challenge themselves to hold on to that dreaming as well...oh the thinks you can think!!!(yeah i just quoted dr. seuss :))
Peace, Love and New beginnings!
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