My favourite routines

So I wrote this way back at the beginning of March, decided it wan't finished, and then never found the words that should fit on the end. I found them now, and I hope you all forgive the delay: March has been an interesting month.

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Routine, I’ve found, is a beautiful, comforting thing. It helps keep me sane. The routine I keep with God is most certainly the best kind.

I pray with my children every morning, every break-time and every lunch time. I pray with my roommates before every meal, before every new endeavour and whenever we venture into the unknown, frightening or painful. I pray with the other teachers every day before school, or at least when I manage to get to the morning meeting. I pray every Monday evening with the director and his family and the rest of the English teachers, every Tuesday at Bible study and every Sunday in church.

I can honestly say I’ve never prayed so much in my life.

My kids do two sets of prayers in the morning: ‘Thank you God for’ and ‘Please God help’. We write them on the board at the beginning of our first lesson, everyone volunteering ideas for me to put up. ‘Thank you for milk’ is a common one, because we have milk every morning too and it’s an easy English word to remember. But we do get some more interesting ones too. ‘Thank you for all teachers’ is one of my favourites, right up there with ‘Thank you for rabbits’ and ‘Please help us get yoyos’.

My kids shot up hands when I ask them who wants to pray. They get upset, seriously throw tantrums and cry upset, if I don’t choose them. To pray, out loud, in English.

I used to dread praying out loud. It would have been mortifying if I’d been made to do it in French.

In 'fun reading' I generally try to read one Bible story to them before they all go off to read by themselves. We pick them from this beautiful picture book with easy, rhythmical and repeating words, and they watch eagerly, not put off in the least when we the same story over and over, day after day. They interrupt, pointing at characters in the book and telling me all about them: ‘He is bad!’ ‘She no listen.’ ‘Look, Miss Emma, six children!’

They never fail to notice Jesus. Never fail to notice God and his love, even when he’s not quite physically there: no old man in white to point at and identify with. Maybe he’s hidden in the folds, nothing more obvious than a light, a look on a characters face, something a character does.

They’re desperate to see him, joyous to see him, every time.

Grooming habits

Elaine erupts with concern during our English lesson and thoroughly distracts the whole class. I’m confused until Marie comes over and points to a small scab on my leg. ‘Oh’ I go, rubbing at it a bit ‘I just shaved this morning.’

Four sets of uncomprehending stares are levelled at me.

I act out shaving, pretending I’m holding a razor and running it over my leg. They don’t get it. Thai women, I remember, don’t often shave. So I have them feel the hair on my arm and then the lack on my leg.

A Burglar in the Garden

Yesterday evening was an interesting evening.

On Saturday morning Amber, Kenzie and I had headed to an early morning market about 30 minutes south of us. Among our purchases we had several plants; some parsley, some mint, some tomatoes and a chilli plant that had been given to us despite protests that we’d never eat the chillies. We hoped to put them in our garden or some pots (We hadn’t really thought beyond ‘We want a herb garden, let’s buy some herbs’) and didn’t realise until we got home that we had neither pots or tools with which to garden. There was a brief escapade with one of our kitchen utensils by Amber, but the soil turned out to be too hard. So we put them in the fridge and left it for a day.

Fast-forward to Sunday afternoon. We’ve just left a cafe we’ve sat in for a few hours, more for the internet than the drinks, and Amber and Kenzie are planning to catch a songtaow to an evening service while I’m heading home with the noble intention of lesson planning, writing emails, doing my washing and other such mundane week-end trivia.

Get home, hop in shower, hop out, put on clean clothes, throw nasty-dirty-smelly clothes in the wash, bring all my work downstairs and then...

Perhaps I’ll put the sprinkler on. I bet the grass could use some water. 

Word-Warriors and The Usual for Lunch.

I’ve got two bits for you today. The first is a tid-bit on one of my students, and the second a snap-shot of the everyday. I asked my father for advice on what he thought people wanted to read back home and these ideas are from those suggestions. I’m going to try to do something similar once a month; one thing about a student, one thing about the everyday.

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Word-Warriors.

One of my children has a habit of picking up things I never meant to teach her, words and phrases I never deliberately endeavoured to have the students learn. She’ll say them at odd moments, not all the time, and I find myself constantly surprised by it. “What are you doing?” she’ll say, a phrase I think I’ve only ever used as a quick jolt for when they’re being silly or naughty. Their attention will come back to me with a guilty giggle or smile, and mine turns to her pleasantly shocked yet again. I don’t think I’m ever doing anything particularly interesting when she asks, but she still seems to delight in ambushing me with this unexpected English phrase.