A Challenging Time

This first full week of school has been very difficult for me.  I have been 100% sure we'll be coming back by January several times an hour...and then a child grabs my hand, or Olivia gives a big hug to another child, or I catch a glimpse of the great equalizing childhood game-Rock, Paper, Scissors with Jack in the middle and then I feel differently...Jack cried for the beginning of the first three days of school this week.  It's so hard to see him upset about not wanting to go to school....mainly (honestly)-because I don't want to go either.  I've gone from teaching Algebra and Chemistry while juggling 17 young and brilliant adults to holding hands, changing soiled clothes and just sitting still.  These children are so sweet and beautiful-but honestly...I can't understand a word some of them say to me...usually in a rush because they've been wronged by another child.  There's one little boy who speaks kindergartenese in Spanish and like many little boys with long eyelashes and tiny dimpled hands-he has A LOT to say.  I mean A LOT.

Soup at every meal.  I am one of those people...like most Americans-who eats soup like three times a year and again when I'm sick.  So getting used to soup is taking some getting used to.  And then there's the potato surplus...potatoes in soup, potatoes fried, potatoes with peas, potatoes boiled and mashed,  potatoes with beans, potatoes with beets and cabbage...it's like Green Eggs and Ham.  I will not eat them in a soup, I will not eat them, they taste like poop.  I will not eat them in a mash, I will not eat them for some cash. I will not eat them Sam I am, I DO NOT LIKE them Sam I am!   I could go on and on and imagine that once I return to the United States-I will never eat another potato again.  Really, the food is pretty delicious...but a cheeseburger sounds pretty good after soup and potatoes with every meal.

Today was our first faculty meeting.  I felt like I contributed in a few meaningful ways...in a new language...in an effort to serve our students.   We drank Pepsi and ate guacamole sandwiches-without potatoes! and ran for a bus that stopped for us-a group of eight very different people arm in arm waving our arms wildly hoping the driver (who sits in a lawn chair strapped to the floor) will feel pity for us and wait while we jog the 50 yards to the bus stop.

 I'm not kidding you-the teachers walked away in love-the kind of love that makes a girl  100% sure she won't return to the states in January.