Tía Mala

Hi all, 

Well that is me "tía mala" or the "evil aunt" After a fairly awful Monday at small group last week one of the girls asked Sofi our teacher who would be helping her on Tuesday, when she dais Larissa the girl cheered! The reason, because I can be quite a disciplinarian at times, and last week I needed to be. 

Leomar working hard

This year we have started with a new focus in small group, focusing on those children who have not yet finished primary school despite being old enough to be in secondary school. The main reasons  they are behind in school is because of bad behavior or absence, and learning difficulties, often all three. Also, many of these children are in small group for the first time and therefore are not at all used to sitting down and studying and obeying rules. Due to these reasons the discipline can sometimes be quite a challenge, and never more so than on Mondays after a 4 day break from the routine of small group, and this is the day of the week when it is my turn to help Sofi. Last Monday was especially hard in the morning as several of the boys came with the desire to fight, I am not entirely sure what their reasons where, there seemed to be a fight for whatever reason. Leomar, who is trying his best to be good and work hard, was being wound up by several of the other children and eventually exploded to the point that he wouldn't calm down and every time we managed to separate him from the other children he would then start again, in the end I had no choice but to take him outside the church and wait for him to calm down. However, this seem so unjust to him as it wasn't him who started it and he was so frustrated that even when he tries to do well he seems to get the blame, therefore taking him out actually made matters worse as he found a glass bottle and tried to get back in. I closed the door so it locked us out so he couldn't get back in and he through the bottle against the wall of the church, he then went and found more bottles by this point I knew his attention wasn't to hurt anyone, more to vent his frustration by breaking them. Meanwhile Sofi let the other children leave by the side door and called Leomar's dad to come and get him. 

The afternoon group is made up mostly of youth, who bring their own issues, namely bullying, even though they are all at the same level more or less they often call each other names and annoy each other. Last week I was able to have a good chat with one of the worst offenders, Harold, who has dyslexia, as do most of this group I suspect, and as he was calling the others "bobo" I asked him if I was too, he naturally said no, so I pointed out I have some of the same issues as he and the others, so therefore if they were "bobos" so was I. He didnt stop though so I seperated him from the others and chatted to him about how people with dyslexia have a higher IQ than others and thus he I and the others are the opposite of "bobo" we just cant put it on paper! Since this chat he seems to have lessened the bullying. 

On the other hand, Horacio has decided he would much rather sleep on the benches than work, but what he didn't think about was that his back and legs would make a rather nice bed for the resident kitten! 

The good news though is that this group has now been accepted into a program with the Dept of Education in partnership with us in which these children will be able to study to pass their primary education in one year, enabling them to start Secondary school, with people more their own age next Jan. 

So, at the end of the day, I don't mind being "Tia Mala" if it means that these kids learn how to behave in a class environment and therefore are able to finish this course well and overcome the difficulties that they have faced. Of course I always follow up the discipline with lots of love and affection and the children (nearly) always accept a hug after a telling off.

In other news, I did the sponsored run on Sunday and managed about 5 miles (according to Gerard the mathematician) in one hour in about 15c heat :) followed by a swim in the sea and resulting in a very fetching tanline just below the knee!! 

Until next week gentle readers

Petra