Last days of school

And I am a little sad. I think I almost started crying as I was saying bye and thank you to my 6eme class. And then I remembered that I had my camera with me. And a colleague was sitting in the teacher’s hut so I asked him to take a picture of me with my students. I thought that all the kids would want to come in the picture…but here we only have a fraction of the kids. And most of them pictured are the trouble makers in the class. And the head above my left shoulder is Beatrice and she is great. A real good girl who tries really hard and is always participating and sad when I don’t call on her. And the boy in the front left side of the picture is one of my absolute faves: Sylvain. It was at his house/near his house that I got Rosie. The kid with his khaki shirt open and with the blue shirt is Ricardo. A real rico-suave. Haha. I think in another blog I had mentioned how one Saturday morning during tutoring, a kid asked me if I had eaten rice that morning…because I was smiling so much…well, that’s him, Ricardo. He’s a trouble maker, talks a lot. But he’s always crackin’ jokes, just like Sylvain. One kid, who’s not in the pic, Rodrigue ended up being one of my faves too. Rodrigue was a real punk at the beginning. And then one day he just stopped. And I wonder if it had anything to do with the fact that I talked with him one-on-one and asked point blank, why do you cause me so much trouble? Please stop. And he did. And he’s a real sweetheart who ever since that moment really tried hard in class. The little kid with a smirk (and yellow shirt collar) on his face, ugh. He’s smart and all, but a real big punk. Not so much one of my faves. But he’s smart enough. And the kid, sorta smiling next to me with the white shirt collar, get this, his name is Dieu-Donnée, which literally means “God gives” in French. He had a real big mouth all throughout the year and gave me plenty of headaches, but he somehow weaseled his way into being one of my faves too.

So yeah, I hope to get some more pictures of my students. And I really wished I had taken their pictures at the beginning of the year, cause I am sure they’ve grown a lot. They had such baby faces just a few months ago. Awww, and they’re gonna be bigger and ganglier next year…they will not be as cute next year.

And I am sure it’s probably nice for y’all to have pictures to the faces I have to stare at every week. You now have faces to the stories of I have of these kids. And I was just now thinking, how in a few years I am going to be really sad when I won’t see them anymore. And I probably will not be able to keep in contact with them, just because that is kind of how it works around here. Man, I am already sad.

So bottom line, I will try to get some more student (and maybe with me) pictures. They’re just too fun. And take note, it’s kinda a national phenomena to not smile in the picture, if they do, it is ever so slight and subtle, casual. Ha, no big Yovo smiles like mine! Which is a shame, cause if you are to be around Beninese people, for the most part they are always so fun and joking and having a good time when they can.