Just when I thought I was on Kyrgyz time I just could not sleep last night.  It is one of the joys of teaching that it fires the imagination, the only problem is the time of day or should I say night when that happens.

I ate last night with the art teacher at the school, he will come once or twice a week to teach, at first the conversation was rather hesitant, but as he talked about his art and what he hopes to do with the school inspired me. I want to do some art work around Postman Pat or Bob the Builder for example. In Senegal we used to do whole class pictures around a literary text which was great fun.    Perhaps when he has bought the art materials that he wants for the school that will happen.

I cannot help feeling that I could be part of something really interesting if I stay here. The artist and his colleagues had work shops in the summer at the school and created the school playground with its natural wood swings and tyres. The children only get five minutes between classes but they love to play with these objects.  I cannot imagine what it was like last year maybe just a bit of concrete and wild grass.  At the moment we only have classes 0 - 2 but more bits of school are being built so that there will be a biology room, a maths room etc.  and dare I hope an English room.

When I first tried getting into teaching it was with the idea of being a primary school teacher,  I even had acquired the last place on a course at NLP as it was then called.  I had been lucky to get the place because my degree was not a dedicated degree, which was a requirement then for primary teaching.  Then suddenly my place vanished. Understandably people with community languages were more important than monolinquists like myself;   my last place was given to someone else.   And so I came to train as an FE teacher in Media instead.  Which was a wonderful thing to do, and gave me a lovely career, but was not the original plan.  So when I reduced my teaching hours I did some supply work in local Hertfordshire primary schools knowing that one day I would try and work abroad and that supply work would come in handy on my return.  That bit of supply work, plus my experience as a childminder and under fives community worker, helped me get the job in Senegal.  I loved working with little ones.  They are so funny.  I still miss the children I taught there and wonder how they are now. But when I got back to the UK Hertfordshire had changed its policy and I was no longer eligible to work in primary schools with them, which is partly why getting work was so hard, typical I had much more experience but could not capitalise on it.  But now I get the chance for such an experience all over again.  I sat in the kitchen canteen with the five years olds yesterday.  Opposite a poppet, like a cartoon girl, with her big bunches and huge ribbons.  We cannot talk with each other, but we can make faces and that is what happened, I winked she blinked, she opened her eyes wide, I did too, etc, etc, and we just laughed. You cannot buy such moments.  Let's hope that natural easy communication can transfer to the classroom.