TGIF

It is Friday! We have made it through our first week. Today we are making Valentines and showing the children the printed pictures of themselves. We start with Greetings, alphabet, and move to counting. The copybooks the children have are a mess. There are hardly any blank pages and several are falling apart. The room is really dirty. Hawa walks around sharpening pencils as the shavings fall to the floor. The pencils are chewed and broken in half; the children fight for the erasers. Some of the children have running noses and everyone is dirty. They all seem fairly healthy. There is some skin discoloration; which I am told by another volunteer that is malnutrion.

We follow our routine. The Valentines are a hit and I share with the class the Valentine my husband gave to me to take with me. I was not sure they would get the concept, but they do and they copy Ali’s artwork with determination. Some of them are artists already and do an amazing job. Others are struggling, getting frustrated so we try and help them. Everyone gets a crayon, some share with their friends and has a variety of colors and others fight over the colors. I don’t think too many were eaten and we have Valentine Cards for giving.

There are times that there are 5 or 6 children crying, 4 Teachers yelling, kids all pinching and total chaos.  If I wasn\t living it, I am not sure I would believe it could be so bad.  The class room is the dirtiest room I have ever been in.  My young partner Ali is hanging in there but I can see in her eyes that she is  struggling with why am I here- This darn foriegn keyboard is messing with me, so forgive my mis types.  But it is FRIDAY and we made VAlentines and I hear the beep beep of the bus and we are on our way back to home base!