The children

(October 12th, 2011)

They are the ones who brought me here. Fully hearted, I wished to work with children.  And so I am.

The children are adorable. Being among them, I am happy. There is a kind of joy in me, which I rarely feel. It’s peace, when I am with them.

Brown eyes. Light brown, bright brown, deep dark brown. Curious, sad, shy, looking up and looking down, straight on towards me or a bit aside, escaping my green eyes … They are there, in this tiny small classroom, poor and rich altogether as I could have not imagined. They don’t have more then they need to live from one day to another, and yet they have everything. Their smiles are complete, there is no fault in them, no mixed emotions, no doubt.

‘Miss!’ I don’t hear him from the first time, I am too concentrated on checking on the kids writing on their notenooks. ‘Miss, you’ve succeeded!’  He smiles, sitting there among the children, the teacher who gave his class away to me. He is surprised, not by me, but by how the children have responded, managed to understand eventually how these adverbs of manner work … With surprise, this is how he’s been watching us, the whole 40 minutes until now. It’s not easy, verbs, actions, the ‘How?’ question, eventually the so much desired adverbs! They get it all right, I am proud of them. These are children nine-ten years old, they are in the third grade; I remember I stared learning English only when  I was in my fifth grade, I was about eleven.

The picture in front of my eyes now … They sit in no order whatsoever. Long wooden benches, two rows only. The girls all together on one side, the boy on the other. One here, three over there, books, and notebooks and pens and backpacks all look like someone has just thrown them all over the place. ‘Good morning, Miss!’ They all stand up. ‘Good morning! How are you?’ ‘I am fine!’, yelled in fifteen different voices. I hold myself from laughing. ‘My name is Madalina, but you can call me Madu …’ ‘Tell them to sit down’ the teacher whispers to my ear, coming a bit closer … They wouldn’t sit down, until I had told them to.

There is this small little boy in the back of the calls, never sits a second. He’s all over the bench, all over the other kids, all over me!! He wants to answer all the time, how wants to come to the board and write all the time … a tiny, tiny little boy. And there’s this girl, in the first bench on my right, with the kindest touch of everything surrounding her. Long black hair, woven in two tails … and a gentle smile-

My knees shake all the way back home. I bike, and  I feel I lose my equilibrium for so many times … I stop at the pod, under the shade. I sit on the edge, I light myself a cigarette, I watch the bike standing just in front of me and the dusty road … I am almost crying.