The First Day of School
Monday, October 20th, 2008Well our first day of school was just terrific! The children were great! A few criers from the little ones early in the day, but that’s pretty normal and they settled down quickly.
The first big surprise was that the guardian was in the middle of washing the floor when we arrived this morning at 7, and it was under half an inch of water. The second surprise was that the parents hadn’t understood our detailed explanation last week about staggered entry and who came when, so almost all of them showed up.
We sang and played games for an hour and then explained again and called the students on the roster for Monday into class. When we went to send the others home we realized that many of the parents had already left for market! I’m not sure how we solved that one, but someone took them home.
The two helper teachers were great! I am going to have to explain to them not to insist that the children participate, but just invite them in when their ready.
You wouldn’t believe the portions these kids consume. I could not eat what the 4 and 5 year olds managed. They were humongous servings! The chef gave them 3 huge spoonfuls of rice, and two of beans. I had to ask for 2 and 1.
We just had a wonderful day! The stove gave the cook a bit of a problem, as she is not used to it. It worked beautifully the day before so we’ll have to train her a bit. We realized all the things we still need to get, like garbage and compost buckets, sponges for the little blackboards etc.