A white board on a stand has appeared in the room, I am happy to see. I find a Kleenex to erase the scribbles on it. Ach. Someone has used the wrong markers on it and the scribbles are permanent. I look around this sorry place. Three walls of the classroom are entirely bare. There are no books.
I remembered to bring a battery for the dead clock in the office. There are no clocks in the classrooms.
The volunteers and--oh my gosh--the children were surprised to hear that the program is ending today--April 9. Why couldn't it have gone on until summer vacation? I ask and am told the children have to study for exams.
The kids go to school in two shifts, each only a few hours a day. In April it is the boys in the morning and the girls in the afternoon; in May it will switch.
Today I have prepared a sheet of tongue twisters, a word search with letter O - Z words and a word scramble using words I think they will know. I have brought three decks of cards to possibly play Crazy 8s, and learned the rules of 4-square from Ben. We are four volunteers in the morning, three of whom will stay for the afternoon.
In the end only three boys show up. After one of the vols burns off some energy with a little hallway football (soccer, to most of you), we play Crazy 8s the whole hour. We take photos and say goodbye. I give them some Easter chocolates someone has given me. There is no school today for some reason. The program leader decides to cancel the afternoon session, even though we had 24 girls in the afternoon last week. We are sad that we won't have the chance to say goodbye to the girls. Another group of outsiders has passed in and out of their lives.
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