Two lifts and one near disaster

I am almost too mortified to say how much went wrong with the class today.  12 5-6 year olds giggling at a rhyme is lovely, them saying hello to Sooty is lovely too, then them grabbing all the toys, trying to play the piano and then thwacking each other to bits whilst I try and stop them playing the piano is not ideal.   One boy was crying so loud luckily he got the head to come in!  So no hiding place for my inability to carry my beautifully devised lesson plan through.  I had been in the class a few times before and each time the kids had shouted out, hello, how are you?, my name is.. so I was fooled into thinking that they knew the phrase and that they knew how school worked, but they have actually only been here as many days as I have so school is totally new. I forget that when I worked with similar age kids before in Senegal most of them had come to nursery at the school and knew the routine so whilst my presence caused a stir, it did not cause too many riots and as there was always an assistant around I was never left to fend for myself. Here they are new, I am new and well it was terrible.

BUT the good news is that although class was over, no one came to take over so I let the kids play, and just chatted to them and they were pretty much good as gold, I even allowed a bit of supervised piano playing.  Then when their teacher came back I stayed in class and I watched as the kids calmly sat beautifully for a full half hour doing their mark making practice in their books and then we did applique together and then we all went into the computer room watched the beginning of Postman Pat on the huge screen in the room, followed by Rapunzel in Russian. Then back to the staff room for chai and bread.   The head said perhaps I should not teach them again till they are more familiar with school, which may be a good idea, but I have asked if I can sit in on their Wednesday afternoon classes so that they get used to me and listening to English. I do not want them to think I am no good so need to come up with some solutions and pretty quick.

Two lifts today, one sad, one hugely funny.  I am quite happy walking to work, but I think it does not seem to come naturally to the locals. Even though I had already said good bye to her Raja, the lovely family matriarch who is off to New York, insisted on giving me a lift part way to school today on their way to the airport.    I shall miss her.  She is away for a month and a half so we have said it will be interesting to see who knows more new words by the time she comes back, me or her.  My money is on her. Meanwhile on the way back, despite my best efforts to say, No thank you, Jok Rackmat, or something like that.  I found myself being hoist up on to a horse and lead home.  The poor man, carried all my books and whilst I was trying to feel intrepid realised that normally this high up I would have a helmet on and speculated that my insurance probably does not cover horse riding accidents.  No sooner than he had helped me down again then he was back on horseback galloping away. Wonderful.