Emotional Monday...

What a day…

School was surprisingly good for a Monday! I felt bad for the learners though…my teacher did a religion lesson that consisted of reading first and then a HUGE summary that the kids just had to copy into their books. It took them all morning to do this. No activity, no engagement, just copying words from the board. Then, after break, I taught a math lesson on less than and more than, gave the kids a few practice problems and then tried a game called math basketball with them. Although the game got to rowdy and the kids couldn’t really handle it, they had fun while it lasted. I told them that maybe we will try again another day this week, but the days are winding down. We did play another game though at the end of the day…HEADS UP SEVEN UP…a classic, but these kids had never played and they really enjoyed it. I even enjoyed just being able to have more fun with the kids. My goal is to play at least one game with them each day. I just really want to spend as much time as I can laughing and smiling with them, rather than raising my voice and being frustrated with them.

After school, I walked home with the Children’s home kids once again. It was again a great walk. I could tell right away though that Bianca was struggling. She started to tear up as we got closer to home, so I hugged her tight and said if you are sad because this is my last day at home with you, know that I love you, I’ll miss you and I WILL write to you. I told her we would have the best time ever today and enjoy every last minute. I knew by her reaction that I had read her emotions correctly. As we walked in the gate we both pulled it together and it was a pretty normal beginning. The kids ate lunch, rested and then started on homework. I help Bianca with her English homework and then helped Johannes with reading. After this Bianca randomly started reading all the letters and cards I had written her over the last two months. As she read she began to cry…I held her tight and tried to comfort her as much as I could, assuring her in any way that I could. Shortly after this she began to literally ball…balling to the point that she was coughing and hyperventilating. I teared up and hugged her tighter. My heart just broke as I realized that Bianca is one of the only kids there that doesn’t have siblings there. She doesn’t have a real family so when she gets close to visitors, it hits her really hard when they have to leave! In Bianca’s last letter she said to me that she doesn’t have a mother or father and so she loves seeing me because I am her mother. She said she wants to cry every time she sees me because she sees her mother and will miss me! After trying to calm her down a little I took her on a walk. I tried to tell her that she has probably had a lot of people tell her they will keep in touch and then don’t, but I am different and I promised her that I would write and that I would NEVER forget her!

Thursday is the last day I will see her…it is going to be a hard day. It’s so hard to have to say goodbye and not know if I will ever see them again. Usually I can say, I love you and will miss you, but don’t worry we will see each other again…I can’t say that to these kids and that just makes it 10x worse.