We are back in our own flat tonight and all reports are that the water is going down, so things should be O.K. It didn’t even rain today.
It was a stressful day. I didn’t know if I was supposed to teach or not so the morning was filled with back and forth SMSes, which continued even after we got onto a severely overcrowded tram, which was, of course, standard for the day. A brief taste of Bangkok. Anyway, the gist of it was, the school was, like my own kid’s school yesterday, sort of halfway between open and closed. There were a few teachers there, and the handful of kids had been herded into the družina (the družina is a great concept, it’ s where the kids go after classes are finished but their parents are still at work. There are generally no lessons and precious little supervision. They might have a ping pong table, or lego, some coloring books, stuff like that. ) So, I had a class of 12 kids, ranging fro 1st grade up to 7th grade, but it was a very positive experience. About half of them I’d never taught before, so that was fun, and even with my regular students, I had them in a different environment.
A Still Photo Does Not Capture the Chaos
One little first grade girl, who generally just stares at me very cutely (but cluelessly) whenever I ask her a question, actually participated in the class and answered several questions clearly and using more than one word.
Then, I went to try and get money from SPUSA, which takes about as much work as teaching the classes in the first place, and today was no exception. The door was open, but there was nobody in the office, nobody in the corridors. I could hear one class going on behind closed doors, but it was like a ghost school. Eerie.
So, back to the flat, the sidewalk was dry as a bone, our evacuation was unnecessary, but if we’d stayed at home we’d have been stressing over it all nigh long.
Didn’t get much time at home, though, had to go in and pick up the kids. Sam was right out, no problems, but locating Isabel was more problematic. The družina on the ground floor said she was probably in the družina on the 5th floor, but they never answer the intercom on the 5th floor, probably because the teachers are too busy talking to each other and ignoring the kids, so I delegated Sam to go up and take a look. There was nobody on the 5th floor, but one teacher told him they were at the playground in the park.
So, I went and looked, and the park had a big old sign on the fence saying “closed due to storm.” Sam suggested they might have gone to a different park, so we tried there and it was the same story.
Got back to school ready to shout and scream at somebody, and there they were. So I should have just got over it at that point, but I was explaining the dilemma to her teacher (they’d been at yet another playground, which I’ve got no idea where) and she didn’t seem to be quite cognizant, at first, of my level of pissed offness.
No obscenities were used, no blows were struck, but within seconds we were screaming at each other in the hall as all the 1st graders looked on, open mouthed.
I probably should apologize, my daughter adores her teacher, but I’m not really sorry, and I don’t think I share my daughter’s opinion.
www.gurukalehuru.com 