So after my last entry about the volunteers and my friends here, I realized that I was leaving out another group of individuals that have a HUGE impact on my life: the kids! They are amazing, hilarious, frustrating, adorable, sneaky, smart, and so much more. Since I neglected them in the last post, here is the run down, including some photos (if they work).
We started off with 18 kids, but after Christmas break (in early January), two didn’t come back. Eyob says this happens every once in awhile and the families probably moved to find better income. We were sad to see the two girls go, but there is really nothing we can do. So we were at 16. Then, just this week a little girl was asked to leave for behavioural issues. She was asked to leave once before but was brought back. She cries about missing her mom a lot, but also ripped up some of the other children’s clothes. Eyob said it’s sad, but they can’t afford to keep buying new things when she feels upset. Again, I am sad to see her go, but I have no control over it, which I have learned to accept.
Soooo, we are 15 kids. 10 boys and 5 girls! It was more balanced, but all 3 of the children who left were girls, so now they are greatly outnumbered. Their abilities have a large range, from starting to spell and read a bit of English, to not knowing their whole alphabet. For English, we have split them into group to provide some more individualistic teaching and understanding. I have been in the lowest group and I’m trying to get the children to know the sounds of the letters, as well as distinguish between p, q, b, d (which is actually quite tough if you think about it. Why is English so hard?!?).
Along with just wanting to tell everyone about these adorable kids, Wednesday evening we had an amazing experience with them that I wanted to share. First, it started to rain! The first rain we have seen while being here. It was a pretty big rain that included thunder and lightning. The kids handled it pretty well, but we were stuck inside for break. Amarach came in and started the kids singing. It was really cool! I had heard a few of the songs at the Christmas celebration, but it was really great to hear them again (all in Amharic). Amarach led them and she has an amazing voice, so I was really happy. After they finished a few songs, they all started speaking in Amharic and began moving the chairs and tables in the room. All of the volunteers rushed upstairs to grab our cameras. Pretty soon they were DANCING AND SINGING!!!! Again, Amarach was leading the pack. It was so great to see them doing something they clearly really enjoyed and it was such a great photo opportunity. The pictures in this blog are them dancing and then a group shot.
So there they are, the kids. So so cute. I hope that is enough of a description. It is hard to talk about them all without going into all 15 separately, which I know is too much. They often misbehave, but its all part of the job. They are also an extremely affectionate group and give kisses on the cheek every time we enter or leave the classroom (even if we are coming back in a few hours). It’s very adorable, but the occasional snotty nose on the cheek is the price we pay. The kids are usually sniffling and I have joined them for the past week. But, snot and all, they are a great reason to be in Ethiopia
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