No Title

In case you are wondering if I am sleep deprived and forgot to title this post, no worries!  I have finally somewhat recovered from jet lag and purposely titled this post "No Title"  :) I love words, but today, I could not land on a noun, adjective, or verb that adequately summarizes the past few days.

On Monday, we arrived at the Buckner pre-school around 8:30 to a room-full of singing children.  They sang to the "visitors" and Ashley and I headed to work in the classrooms and Taylor and Susan in the medical clinic (we will swap next week).  Upon entering the room, I was introduced as "Teacher Christina" and was told to take attendance and begin teaching the class -- let's just say I wasn't expecting that one! :) One of the most difficult barriers is that while many in Kenya do speak English, preschoolers do not.  Somehow, by God's grace, we managed to successfully talk about the theme of the week "family and home" and make up songs about our family members, and draw pictures of them, and count them, and every other activity I could possibly think of concerning families!  As the children drew pictures of their homes, Teacher JoAn said, "Teacher Christina! Come look at this drawing! See how accurate! She (a preschool student) drew both her family's house and hut!"  Thankfully, it came to light yesterday afternoon that "Teacher Christina" is not actually a teacher in training!  The teacher thought that I was an elementary education major, and now that she knows I am not, I am happily teaching only some (not all) of the classes and planning fun activities.

Yesterday we brought crayons and colored paper and traced the children's' hands.  And today I brought musical instruments from "my box" for music class and the children really enjoyed them. We are teaching them to sing "Jesus Loves Me" and "King of the Jungle" -- they especially like the "bubble, bubble, bubble" part.  The children love to sing and spontaneously sing and dance quite often.   

The children call us "Mzungus" which means "white person", and during the three hours of playtime each day, we each have at least 4 children holding our hands/hanging on us.  Being in "the country", we REALLY stick out, especially since most of the young children have n

ever seen white-skinned people before.  They stroke our arms and hair and even push on our fingernails which they think are a funny color.

While some of the children come from good families, a few are foster children and others come from very sad family situations.  But even those from good families have torn clothes, shoes, and sweaters (Yes, it's winter here, but it's in the 80s and 90s and the parents still send their children in sweaters and hats).  Nearly all 70 children are sick.  Nap time is a chorus of coughs and there are always multiple runny noses and fevers and children falling asleep at their desks or on the dirt outside.  And when they get hurt, it costs money to see the nurse and the school doesn't even have bandaids.  I was excited today to bandage up a few wounds with the first aid kit.  

On Monday, the number of children seemed overwhelming.  But after four days, I have learned a lot of names and now have many 3-7 year olds I call my "little friends".  I have fallen in love with a little girl who is 5, but only looks 2 or 3 as she has been malnourished.  

Ultimately, I find it rather ironic to be called "Teacher Christina" as yes, I can bandage a knee and sing songs, but this place and these children are teaching me more than I could have ever imagined.  Today the song in my head is "Jesus Loves the Little Children of the World".  And never have I hummed this song with such vivid images of beautiful little faces in mind.