It's Sunday morning.
For almost the first time, possibly
even the first time since being here, I taught a full week of school. 5 whole
days in the classroom, with the kids, 2 hours.
I reflect on that week and to be
quite honest, there's a smile spreading across my face. Why? I'll tell you
why...
...because after a whole week of
teaching, those kids are becoming mine.
Monday came. Monday went. As I
walked home, I shook my head. It went alright, I guess, but not good enough.
I feel like I failed.
Keep going, child. A still
small voice whispered above the treetops. The week isn't over yet.
On Tuesday I believe I first prayed
the prayer. At the beginning of each class, the students all stand and I have a
prayer. It varied from day to day, but today I specifically asked for God's
spirit to be in the room while we had class, and for everything to go according
to His will. I didn't think much of it...but when I left the classrooms a
couple hours later, having prayed that prayer in all three grades, I realized
that things had gone quite well--in fact, did I dare hope that they had gone really
well? They had.... Lord, I think I need to keep praying that prayer.
I prayed that prayer all week. And
everything went so wonderfully. I think I’ve found the secret: not that class
will be flawless now. But if God’s spirit is in the room, and if His will is
being done, then I can’t complain.
Then on Wednesday things began to
get interesting. Since praying that prayer, my 5th graders were really getting
in to what I was teaching--they all seemed to be understanding, and enjoying,
class. 6th grade still was a challenge, as they're quieter and fewer in number.
And 7th grade? Oh, let me tell you about 7th grade.
While my 5th graders are
enthusiastic, and my 6th graders quiet but diligent, it is 7th grade that takes
the cake for being the most amusing.
(On Tuesday, one of the boys in 7th grade looked
miserable. I’d wondered for awhile who he was (I’m still learning names) and he
was always so quiet, but today he was really quiet. Not only that, but he
looked in pain. I mentioned it to Hannah and Sharon later, and found out his
name was Shaw Nay Moo. He’d had a bad headache or something that day in class. Somehow,
that headache has cured him of silence. Since then, he’s moved from the middle
of the room to the front row, and become one of my principal antagonists. He
sits right next to the other principal antagonist, Tee Nee Too. Those two,
combined with Maw Soe Thay, and all the other boys, have made my week
absolutely hilarious.)
Reviewing vocabulary words on Monday, I asked the 7th
graders to make sentences with a few of our old vocab words. I had several up
there, and “club” was the first one: like, a club that you can be apart of and
join and that sort of thing. Almost immediately as soon as I had said the word,
Tee Nee Too piped up with, “Do you have the club?” Mental images of Tee Nee Too
with a club flashed through my mind as I laughed and shook my head.
Next it was “pretty;” as in, pretty good. Maw Soe Thay, in
the back of the room, called it out this time. “You look very pretty.” Needless
to say, the sentence got modified just a little.
Then, “exciting.” Perhaps you remember the last time I tried
to get them to make a sentence out of this word, and Maw Soe Thay said, “I see
a monster.” He fixed it: this time it was, “Seeing monster very exciting.” I
had to give that to him—he was right, after all! I wrote it on the board and
oh, how that boy grinned at me!
But that was Monday, the day that things didn’t go so well.
Tuesday was another story.
Tuesday morning, I teetered on the brink of utter sadness
again. Not because I was homesick; not because I couldn’t stand things here;
but more because of God’s request for me to “wait.” I didn’t want to go to
class at all—but I went, feeling inadequate and anticipating a terrible day.
Tuesday was probably the best day of teaching I’d had in
ages. I taught the kids all the different ways to say “yes” and “no”…and
believe me, hearing a bunch of students say, “Uh huh” and “Uh uh” is terribly
amusing, especially when they’re laughing! I left classes on Tuesday with a
song in my heart, all sadness banished from thence. God, You are so good…So good.
What amusement I got in class one day, when Maw Soe Thay
taught me a Karen phrase on accident. From the back of the room, he mouthed
something to me. I couldn’t understand him, and ended up at his desk. He said
it again, and I looked confused. “Paw tha me?” He nodded, and let his head fall
to the side, eyes shutting. Oh wow. He’s
saying he wants to sleep. I laughed and said, “Ohh!” Then I shook my head. “You
always want to sleep!” He laughed then and hid his face on the desk, half in embarrassment,
half in amusement.
On another day, Tee Nee Too left the classroom, presumably
to use the restroom. When he returned, we were going over something, and he
stood off to the side for a moment before clambering over boys and benches to
get to his seat. As he went, I heard, “Teacher!” I looked at him, and with the
biggest grin and a half laugh, he took his index finger and pushed one of his
eyebrows up. I guess I never thought about the fact that while kids here raise
both eyebrows, and lower both eyebrows, they’ve probably never learned how to
raise one at a time—something I do quite frequently. I think they all get a
kick out of my expressiveness.
At the end of the day, I had prayer, and while the rest of
the students sat down or dispersed from the room, Tee Nee Too and Shaw Nay Moo
(recovered from his headache and quite the animated character now), remained
standing. Tee Nee Too looked at me as I picked my things up, and said, “See you…next
month!”
I looked startled. “Next month?”
Tee Nee Too laughed.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
He said something about next week, while Shaw Nay Moo
listened.
I nodded. Next week was the big ration check, and we weren’t
going to have any school.
Shaw Nay Moo asked me if I was going. I shook my head—“No, I
stay here.”
Shaw Nay Moo now leaned forward. “Why?”
I’d never expected that question and for a moment I was at a
loss for words. All three of us laughed, and I replied, “Because I can!”
Tee Nee Too asked, “You ‘fraid Burmese?”
“Am I afraid of the Burmese?”
“No.”
Alright, then what did
you mean? “Well?”
Tee Nee Too made a shaking motion to show fear. “You ‘fraid
monster… I mean! Burmese!”
Laughter. “Monster not Burmese,” I said as I retreated from
the room.
It just keeps on getting more interesting. I walk by the
classroom, and Tee Nee Too yells, “Good morning Teacher!” I lean up against the
wall between 6th grade and 7th grade, waiting for the
kids to finish their break, and Shaw Nay Moo’s head pops out of the window next
to me, and he asks me if I’ve eaten already (a standard Karen greeting). I come
into class 40 minutes later and am accosted by Shaw Nay Moo and Tee Nee Too,
wanting to know what the picture on the front of a Fisherman’s Friend cough
drop packet was (a tug boat).
I finish class, and all the kids except Tee Nee Too and Shaw
Nay Moo leave or sit and Tee Nee Too points to Shaw Nay Moo and says, “He say
he miss teacher.” Shaw Nay Moo looks surprised, a little embarrassed and smacks
Tee Nee Too before pointing at his now-laughing friend. “No, he say!” Tee Nee
Too shakes his head. “No, he say!” I throw my hands in the air. “You both!” As
I leave, Tee Nee Too calls, “Teacher!” I turn and look and he points at
himself, then Shaw Nay Moo, and then himself, and then Shaw Nay Moo, and then
me. I looked amusedly horrified and said, “No, no; two not three!”
Days pass…Those kids greet me out of the classroom, talk to
me here and there, they actually speak to me now. They’re not just a mass of
kids—they’re getting names, faces; I’m recognizing them. They’re becoming a
vital part of…well, of me.
Thursday afternoon, Sharon and I were doing dishes. She
mentioned the group of boys who had gotten in trouble at the beginning of the
year—the 12 or so that I remembered seeing, but only remembered one face from—and
that only because he got in trouble again. But now Sharon is telling me that my boys: Maw Soe Thay, Tee Nee Too, Shaw
Nay Moo, Saw Jaw Bu (in fifth grade): were involved in that. I remember
wondering why Sharon had taken that incident so hard—I got it now. Those were
my students… My “kids.”
And too, when I learned that at one point Shaw Nay Moo got
put in prison, and Thara Paul had to pay a fine to get him out. I knew it was
one of the boys, but didn’t know who. No, he didn’t do anything wrong—except that
at a check-point he got scared and ran from the officials. It wasn’t that he
got put in prison; it was that he got
put in prison. My student… my “kid.”
God is doing strange things in the heart of this missionary.
Things that make me sit back and go, “What? No way.” But that’s all a part of
being freed, I guess.
Freed. “If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free
indeed.”
Chains rattle. Prison walls tremble, cracking; and dust
sifts to the cold stone floor. One fetter bursts open, then another. The
trembling grows heavier, steadier; and the iron bars begin to vibrate in their
sockets. I feel the tread of Almighty God shaking my prison, bursting my
fetters, rattling my chains.
There’s no feeling in the world like knowing that Someone is
coming to rescue you…even if it’s from yourself.
Koo Koo Paw
Flowers shot by the roadside
It's rare that you see elephants here--it merited chasing them with our car to get pictures.
The mahouts thought we were a little odd, I think, but oh well. We got pictures.
Little boys.
It looks so bright, so pretty, picturesque... How deceptive.
A contented Thurston, only so because the puppy was leaving him alone. They aren't the best of friends yet.
Tee Nee Too, my main antagonist/tease.
Harvey calls him "little rascal," I still occasionally call him "little one," he gets called "puppy" and "Camo." And he seems to respond to any one of them. He's pretty happy.
Thara Ehkganyaw.
Random student who I don't know the name of. Quite the hat...
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