This month in Manzini, Swaziland, I am an assistant teacher at a care point/preschool. There are about 40 kids. Me and one of my squad mates split up and I help with the “lions”, the five year olds, and she helps with the four year olds.
The day begins with recitations of the allegiance to the Swazi flag, the Christian flag, and the Bible. They know what the colors symbolize and recite it all at the top of their lungs. Then they sometimes go over numbers (1-100), shapes, the weather, seasons, etc.
After, they are sent to the “toilet” and they make a line for the bathroom which takes a good amount of time. Then they split up and work in their workbooks. They learn listening skills as the teacher calls out which picture to color and which color crayon to use or where to draw a line, a circle, or whatever the case may be. This lasts about an hour and soon after is their time to eat.
They whip out their food out of their tattered backpacks, and begin tearing into whatever they were packed. The food varies from a huge hunk of sweet bread filled with icing, three slices of plain bread and a piece of fruit, or maybe a piece of sausage. For the most part, they have a filling lunch. Although seeing one of the little girls folding over one of her three slices of bread and eating it as if it was a sandwich broke my heart. She was so completely content eating that random piece of bread with juice. She would take them out one by one, food it over and eat it as if it was the best sandwich she ever had.
As soon as they finish eating they run outside to play. The boys like to find discarded pieces of brick and use them as if they were toy cars. Some of them continually call out “teacher, teacher!” For us to look at them doing a flip or jumping from the jungle gym, we say “Wow!” Or “good job!” like their biggest fans. They play for about an hour and then they are back in the classroom.
They go over songs, memory verses, and usually story time follows. During this time I usually read them a story while the teacher translated to make sure they understood. I also got to teach them a few songs including the ever faithful “hippopotamus song” and my favorite thing I taught them, the Cupid Shuttle (to teach them their left and right of course). They would thank me for the story with a little chant I could never quite make out, and dance around so cute.
At the end of the day, they would say a prayer and be on their way to the playground again until their bus came or they were picked up. I would catch one of the combis (public vans) with a few of the kids with my squad mate. Luckily Dominic was on that bus too so I got to enjoy his precious little smile for a little while longer. Read more about him in my next blog.
