Attack of the Killer Kindergarteners

We must be getting acclimated. Both awake well before the alarm and ready in record time.

Good thing we had eaten a substantial breakfast--we were swarmed by the pre-schoolers as soon as we approached the building. Unfortunately, their memories of our last encounter on Friday endured the weekend and our interaction began with another tickle-fest. Big mistake! Within moments, more than a dozen kids were hopping across desks and jumping off a table, except for 4 little kids sitting quietly…obviously new students.



The regular “teacher” was busy mopping the floor, African-style, in our usual room. This is accomplished by bending at the waist and pulling a small pool of water in a wavy                                                                           motion toward the door.

We tried to get the kids organized into some sort of game or activity, but they were all over the place, still wanting to be tickled. We finally went outside, but much time passed before the energy levels returned to just a normal “frantic”.

We are thankful that we have short days this week. After an hour and a quarter, we were exhausted & gratefully returned to the mission house to exchange our nursery school things for the “How to Write a Story” lesson we would be doing with Form 3 students at the secondary school.

We went to the teachers’ meeting, after which Haran directed us to the library building. He had assembled 9 students of girls and boys & brought in paper. We drew the story graph on the board, explaining about Introduction (exposition), Rising Action, Peak, Falling Action, & Conclusion (deunumua). We had already prepared a story about a boy catching a thief, returning the money, & being rewarded by the storeowner. After introducing that, with a little play-acting to break the ice, we wrote a group story with suggestions from the class. The students are extremely shy, but eventually we got a story from them. Then it was their turn to write original stories after brainstorming some key words for characters, settings, action, etc. We were most gratified to see them begin to write…a few of them an entire page. Each had a chance to read their stories aloud, though some needed tremendous coaxing. It was the best class that Montana and LuRue had had. We are looking forward to more of the same this week.

Before our afternoon social session at 4:00, we took a walk in a new direction & explored some new paths. We are beginning to feel very comfortable walking anywhere in the town.

Though the social activity was a little late in getting started and the students who came were extremely shy, answering questions with one-word sentences, everything changed when the three of us brought out the cards. The students have their own version of Uno, using a regular deck of playing cards. There was much shouting, grabbing cards from one another’s hands (including ours), and slapping them down on the table…all very good-naturedly. Our room attracted some onlookers, including some girls that didn’t want to play, but liked running their fingers through our hair, in between taking pictures with Montana’s camera. We think the fascination with our hair is because it’s so straight and the fact that the girls have to have their heads shaved during their school years. Not sure why.

Learning to shuffle cards was also a big attraction, so there was a lot of fun & laughter. They were all disappointed when we had to leave.

Montana and LuRue do much better with the “big people”, we’ve decided, than with the “human beings” as Edward calls them.

We shall survive!