From Russia With Love

In the Kindergarten (which is actually preschool) I have five kids.  Yep, that's it.  Five five-year olds.  I had been getting totally frustrated with the three kids that had been regularly coming because they don't understand anything I say and I don't understand anything they say, so just...it's annoying.  On Monday, the other two kids arrived and I could see that Nastya and Sasha were being mean to Dana and she came over to try to tell on them and she was getting frustrated and I heard her ask another little boy if he could say something in English (she said this in Russian) and she walks over to me and I'm trying to act all sensitive and like I've seen what's happening and suddenly she says, "They are being mean because they won't let me play with them" in perfect English.  I about fell off of my chair.  I was elated.  She speaks Russian and English.  Oh, and Italian.  And she is so sweet.  And if you've never had a trilingual five year old translate for you and another adult, it's pretty weird.  It's nice to have her there to be able to communicate with the Russian teachers and sometimes she'll speak Italian with me and it's close enough to Spanish that I can speak to her in Spanish.  Plus, she just loves to play with me and she's super cute.  

I am finding it difficult to get excited about teaching such young children because I can only sing The Wheels On The Bus so many times in one day...

Yesterday, we had to take the kids to the doctor at the main school (we are in a separate building) for a regular check-up.  I felt a little uncomfortable because they put them all in this big room and tell them to strip down to their underwear and they have to lay on this table with these clamp things on their legs while they listen to their heart or something-I'm not really sure what they were doing.  I guess all the kids at the school have to do this because there were older kids going in and out as well.  (Teachers get medical tests done, too, but before school starts.  And it's more than just a TB shot.)  As I've said before, modesty isn't really important here like it is in America.  And when a male has to go to the bathroom...welp, they just go wherever they are.  Today one little boy had to go while we were out at recess, so naturally he just pulled down his pants and went right there on the playground (in full view of everyone and everything).  And a teacher walked out the door while he was going and she just stood and watched and waited until he was finished and when he had pulled up his pants, told him to pull his shirt down a little more.  

Lots of differences...but I'm getting more and more used to them and nothing really surprises me anymore...