Grateful for Pillows

We woke up to pouring rain on Tuesday morning, and no power again.  With it being the rainy season here, it is to be expected, but it’s unfortunate for the kids to not be able to play.  As we arrived at school at 8:30, no one was there, but after calling Emmanuel, he insisted they would be right there.  The 3 older classes showed up, but the nursery school children, and KG1/2 (Jessie’s class) remained at the boarding house because it was too cold for the little ones to walk to the school.  As I sat and waited for another teacher to arrive, the children came to me and said, “We are ready to learn.”  I looked around the room and realize that I not only had my class of P1/2’s, but also the two upper level classes.  Without another teacher around, or any other adult for that matter, I had to think on my feet. How could I teach 24 children, who range from 7-13 in age, and from grade 1-5??  I had planned on working on phonics with my class, so I did a couple exercises to work on the sounds letters make, then grabbed books for the kids to read.  I matched the older kids with younger ones, and asked the upper level grades to help my P1/2’s sound out the words.  I then walked around to help some of mine who were really struggling.  I’m at a loss because I can’t continue to teach if they can’t read what I write on the board.  I had hoped to do one-on-one with reading and phonics, but as I stood alone, I had to just erase that idea from my mind.  As the kids began to squirm and the older ones started to just tell the younger ones the words without making them sound them out, I realized this was failing miserably.  So I told them we would play a “game.”  Two children would come to the board and I’d ask a question, the first person to write it correctly first stayed at the board, and the other sat.  Then the next person in the row would come up, so on and so forth.  They seemed to like this and started getting silly.  I ran into small problems when I had first graders up against fifth graders, but all in all, I kept them under control.  It felt like a wasted day, and almost as if I had been defeated.  I was simply trying to keep everyone in order, and there was no way to teach to 4 different grade levels.  If the rainy season comes every year, and rain comes each day, you’d think they would have a better system set up.  Then I wonder, what would happen if I wasn’t there??

When we returned to orphanage in the afternoon, we brought fabric that we had gotten on Monday.  We had decided last week that having the kids make pillows would be a fun idea.  Many of the children end up falling asleep on the floor.  They have bunk beds, but not enough to fit all of the children who sleep there.  Pillows, such a simple thing that we take for granted, would make all the difference in the world.  Jess and I cut the squares out, and then let them sew 3 full sides, and 1/3 of the last.  We told them we would buy the filling and bring it on Wednesday.  With 13 children, and 2 machines, which kept breaking, it took us the entire time we were there to finish the sewing.  But it was clear the kids were excited, just as we were for them.

Every Wednesday, the children have worship in the morning before they learn.  Since our classes were doing that, we jumped in the nursery room to watch what happens there.  Well not much apparently, because the teacher was watching worship.  Because we were there I guess she felt that she didn’t need to be.  As more people dropped off their children, the room began to quickly fill, and as soon as we picked up one crying child, another was being hit or in tears.  It was pure chaos, as an 8 year old was leading them through their songs and rhymes.  I began to count the children and after I reached 65, I stood in shock.  One teacher is in the room during the day, with 65 or more nursery aged children.  It is enough for me to manage 12 children who are 7-13, but 65 three year olds??  Something needs to change.  Even if another person is hired simply to aid and keep the kids in line, it would help so much.  When worship ended and I returned to my room, I was alone again, and my hopes of one-on-one reading quickly vanished.  I decided to do a project I had planned for last Friday, but never did because of the test they were taking.  I gave them each a piece of construction paper, and told them to do an “all about me” page.  They wrote their name, age, and what they wanted to be when they grew up.  Then their favorite color, food, soccer player… whatever they wanted.  I wanted them to be creative and they got to use markers, something that doesn’t happen often.  They came out great, and some of the kids really got into it.  These kids have big dreams, as they told me they would one day be doctors, nurses, football (soccer) players, bank managers and police officers.  They are kids, just like any others.

Today after school we brought the foam pieces to stuff the pillows for the kids.  They were all so excited, each pushing their way through to be first.  Jess and I stuffed them, and then they had to hand stitch the rest closed.  They might have been able to close it with the machine, but we thought that some practice hand stitching wouldn’t hurt.  You would have thought it was Christmas, because the smiles on their faces were amazing.  As I watched their excitement, I realized how much we take for granted at home.  A pillow, something that cost a total of 28 cedi total for all of the children who participate in sewing (about 15 USD), made their day.  To break it down even further, it cost us about $1 USD per child.  I would be that everyone at home could go in their house or car and scrounge up 1 dollar right now.  One dollar can make a child go from sleeping with their head on the floor, to having something soft under it.  It’s amazing to me, and something we need to not lose sight of.  Think of all the things you take for granted, and maybe tomorrow, realize how damn lucky we are to have what we have.