Classes: Children 6 - 11

On Wednesday there were 35 children in my younger children's class. I walk down the street in the strong sunshine with fifteen minutes before class. Several students join me on the road. At first they are bursting with enthusiasm. "Jenny! Jenny!" they scream. I say hello. They fall into step and walk quietly beside me, their store of English exhausted. They sneak shy smiles at me when they think I'm not looking.

When we approach the school another group of children run out across the field to greet me. "Jenny! Jenny!" It always makes me smile, no matter how I am feeling. It is like some scene from Anne of Green Gables. I say hello to each child and we continue our slow walk in the sunshine.

When I enter the classroom, all of the children assemble to greet me formally and sit down. I look at my watch. There is always still at least five minutes before we will start. "Five minutes of play," I tell them. Every time they seem surprised, scream in delight and run around in aimless circles for awhile.


I take off my sunglasses, take out my water, clean off the blackboard, find my chalk, take out my lesson plans and get ready to teach. By the time I am ready, so are the children. They are sitting in the rusted little chairs, behind the handful of desks we have left, with notebooks ready (not that we ever use them), looking at me expectantly. The number of chairs and desks in the classroom is steadily diminishing. This week the table I use for my teaching materials finally bit the dust. I don't know if the chairs are being "borrowed" by other houses, or if they, too, are falling into disrepair. The number of students is not, as I expected it would, falling off. Thirty five is a lot of children. Some weeks it's only twenty, but it never seems to fall below that.

Today we "warm up" with my favorite song, the Fruit Salad Song. The children love singing. No matter how rowdy they are, as soon as I start a song, they are suddenly and magically all seated, staring up at me like angels. This time, though, I don't want angels, I want noise and energy and wildness. That's exactly what I got, and then some. Before I knew it, the music was at the edge of control, increasing in volume, bordering on pure noise. With the help of a lot of my incitement, the children shyly added their own actions to the song. Some were clapping, others were just screaming.

When it was all over, a few ran over the the tap in the yard to get water and the rest of us panted for a bit while we caught our breath. I then started our lesson on prepositions.

Half way through, someone shouted, "Bananas!" and the song started up again in an instant. What could I do? I started dancing along too. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow.


(Photos: 1. Children singing Fruit Salad Song. 2. Same. 3. Children walking home after class. ) Today formatting photos is just not working for me. Sorry about that.