All things wise and wonderful

Life at Children of Hope is going smoothly and I am settling into some kind of routine, which isn't bad considering the kids are crazy! I generally arrive at around 8.30am, when they are having breakfast, am pounced on for hugs and attention, and then set about putting out their toothbrushes and cups of water so that they can brush their teeth. After that I have the terribly glam task of washing the breakfast dishes, before I join Sophie in the classroom for stories, ABCs and counting. Snack is at 10am, when I supervise, open yoghurt pots and juice cartons, cut up their fruit, break up fights and clean up spills, then the children go outside to run around, let off steam and beat each other up before coming back inside at about 11am to colour in and play with blocks. They have lunch not long before noon (sometimes earlier if Sophie is really sick of them!) and then go down for a nap. Then all I have left to do is clean up the lunch dishes before being picked up at and driven back to the house in Fish Hoek.

In the house there is a book which most past volunteers have written in, generally with advice for anyone else about what to do in the area and also programme-specific tips. Among things I have learned and will be sharing are the following pointers:

• no day will go by without somebody's yoghurt pot exploding in their bag
• always put out water cups in the same colour at teeth-brushing time....a single red cup in a sea of blue ones creates havoc and fighting
• always fill the cups up with the exact same amount of water - the kids always want the 'biggest' of everything, no matter what it is
• ditto for blobs of toothpaste and pieces of fruit
• small children never get tired of the same joke - twice a day, every single day, I somehow find the will to laugh when a kid gives me their dirty breakfast/lunch bowl and pretends to have lost the spoon
• drawing pictures for them is unwise - one kid sees you draw a cat for someone else, and you're suddenly drawing twenty cats......which isn't bad considering I was 'strongly discouraged' from taking GCSE art.

I complain, but I do actually enjoy it. There have been times recently when I've been tired, fed up (generally due to the bloody awful weather last week!) and wondered if I should have come for just a fortnight, but really that would not have been enough. The children are just about starting to get to know me, and me them, and I feel like I am finally connecting with them. The pre-school experience is definitely the toughest, but I feel like I am getting so much out of it as I am there every day and am always needed in some way, even if it is just opening yoghurt pots. And, very importantly, play rehearsals are going fairly well, although the mice who squeak during 'Old Macdonald Had A Farm' have been demoted due to misbehaviour and nobody has yet managed to start 'All Things Bright and Beautifully' correctly......in Red Hill the song starts 'All Things Wise and Wonderful', and no doubt will do so on the actual opening night!

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

~ Aesop, The Lion and the Mouse