A child is a curly dimpled lunatic

Armed with Ms. Ortiga's advice to find what our students know, what their interests are, and never start teaching the alphabet through the letter "A", we marched into teaching these kids with apprehension. I was assigned to the first graders along with Melissa and Jonathan, and we worried that they wouldn't like us. All the Happy Campers shared the same fear, but we soon realized that they were futile.


See how much they love George?

The kids swarmed around us, especially Georgi, like bees around a honey jar. We were newcomers to them, but to us they were the sweetness on top of the cake. They tried hard to learn the simple English vocabulary we taught them each day, and it made us fill with joy when they would recite the words to us the next day. Even now, they still remember the English names we christened them. It was a joy to plan new lessons for them each day.


By the river

Showing off their snakes

The one thing that is similar between KAS and Sing-Chung Elementary School is the size. Although KAS is a school of around 300 students, and Sing-Chung Elementary school the size of 50, both schools feel like one big family. Every kid seemed to know the other, although not in the best way. Fighting was a huge problem. There wasn't a single day of the week where there weren't at least one kid crying from a boo boo. The most miraculous thing about these kids was the fact that they got over these arguments in a wink. One minutes they could be screaming while pulling each other's hair out, but the next minute they could be holding hands while skipping down the hall.


Tony arranging his rainbow

Jay

It's sad how the older you get, the harder it is to forgive and forget. Perhaps that's not the problem with age, but with society today. City-dwellers find it difficult to trust and treat each new day with skepticism, while those who have very little in the mountains are ready to face each day with a big smile. We came into the mountains hoping to learn about the Aborigines culture, but perhaps, optimism and contentment is the most important lesson we learned.

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