Pizza, Dolphins, Toilets, and Probably Disease
Skipping forward to yesterday, Wednesday, October 14, 2014. It was a crazy day, to say the least. My kids at the Institute were supposed to have a pizza party today, so I was ready for an easy day. They were going to make a piñata for 30 minutes then have a party for an hour. That would leave only an hour and a half of teaching! I was ready for a calm day with my kids.
Piñata making went pretty smoothly. I didn’t have any major issues. One of my students, Sofia kept trying to lick the paste, made of flour, salt and water. I kept telling her not to eat it, because she would get sick. She didn’t listen to me though and kept eating it off of the balloon and people’s hands. When the kids’ hands would get gloopy, I had them walk down the hall to the bathroom to clean up. This means that the door handle got pretty gross with the salt dough. We busted Sofia licking the door handle to eat the dough. It was completely disgusting. I don’t know how this little girl hasn’t gotten the plague yet. She’s licking everything all the time. It’s crazy! She’s also the skinniest little thing I’ve ever seen in my life. She looks like a little bobblehead, because she has a normal-sized head, sitting atop this microscopic body. She’s going to get extremely sick if she doesn’t come to grips with the fact that not everything is edible. Please bear in mind too, that she is nine years old. She knows better.
The pizza delivery guy was taking forever, so the pizza was pretty delayed. I told my kids they could play and have fun while we waited. Several of my kids were in the hallway and I was in the classroom talking to Alexa and a few other students. Suddenly, we heard this intense shouting. I was mildly concerned but figured that it’s just a few kids arguing or something. My kids all burst into the room screaming, “Miss Maddy! Miss Maddy! Come quick! It’s Sofia! Sofia!” I am immediately assuming the worst. My kids grab my arms and run me to the hallway. As we run down the hall, I’m mentally preparing for the inevitability of a bunch of blood, vomit, or broken bones. This is all a possibility, seeing that Sofia just licked the bathroom door handle. I analyzed the room. No blood and no one shriveled up in pain. There was, however, a gaping hole in the ceiling. We have the kind of ceilings that office buildings have, where there are squares that you can push out. You know the kind. Anyway, there’s hole in the ceiling and all of the kids are freaking out and pointing at Sofia. I got the kids to calm down enough to tell me what happened.
Here’s what happened: Sofia took Alicia’s stuffed dolphin. It’s smaller than the size of my hand but is really dense. So Sofia took this thing and started winding up like a windmill and released the dolphin into the air. It broke the ceiling tile and the dolphin was missing in action in the roof. All of the kids were in panic mode, except for Sofia of course; who thought the whole situation was hilarious. I ushered the kids into the classroom and started calming everyone down. Alicia wanted her dolphin back, but in my head, I was thinking, there’s no way we are finding that thing.
Alexa and I told Alicia that her dolphin was gone for good and naturally, she was ticked. She started drawing pictures on the chalkboard of her dolphin flying through the air and into the ceiling. She also drew a ladder, like hey this is how you get it down. I have no clue where to find a ladder in this place. No one speaks English and the cleaning ladies already hate us. We are in a bad situation. Once Gulya, our local coordinator arrived we explained the situation and retrieved the dolphin and everything was okay.
After that fiasco, I had the kids wash their hands and come eat pizza. I knew that none of those kids had REALLY washed their hands, so I handed out each piece of pizza. After eating, I went to the bathroom to get the grease off of my hands when I busted my students washing their hands in the toilet! I think they think that the water in the toilet is just as useable as tap water, which it’s not. These are the same toilets that you aren’t allowed to put toilet paper in, because the water pressure isn’t high enough to flush the T.P. down. You’re lucky if your poop goes down the toilet. Too far? Probably, but I’m going to take it a little bit further (sorry). There was also a copious amount of blood on the toilet seat, where they were “washing” their hands, which just makes it even less sanitary. It was bad before, but that made it even worse. Okay, I’m done with the disgusting talk. Either way, the point of this tangent is that there is definitely still pee in those toilets and they were washing their hands in there. I swear, kids here have no concept of what germs are and how horribly bad they are. It’s a problem.
Okay, I think that sums it up for now! Have a great week! Here’s to hoping I don’t catch a second-hand disease from these children!
All My Love,
Madison
Ps. I only have 61 days until I come home! Isn’t that crazy?!
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