Bed Bugs...!

Today was my last day before vacation. While I was waking the children up I saw bedbugs. One was feeding on Ot's chubby foot while the other hung on the side of his bed.  I called in Cl and St and they both confirmed that they indeed were bed bugs.
Just 2-3 days ago, our sleeping room had been changed to a new location so now it is in the gym area in a separate corner where we earlier had science lab. Maybe there were stray bedbugs who got the opportunity to come out in all this shifting or might be that some new furniture was bought for the school was already having 2-3  or more bed bug infection.
Whatever, I have informed the other teachers and am going on vacation now. They will do whatever is needed. 

My Coming vacation

S and I have planned to go to Greece and then to India for a vacation. Accordingly I will be on leave for 3 weeks.

Yesterday I went to Mz to discuss this issue. She suggested that I could use my overtime for Christmas Play for my leave days. She said she would talk about this to Stf and see what she says.
When I went in today to talk to her she had a completely different air.
"Yes, I talked to Stf and she has said this is impossible. You child is studying here for free and you must regard this as extra payment towards you and forget about Christmas play. I mean, either you should start paying for your child or forget about Christmas Play. If you want you can further talk to Stf herself."

I went in to talk to Stf. She wasn't in but Tm was. He started saying the same thing albeit in extremely polite and gentle tones.
" I am ready to forget about Christmas Play; in fact I had already forgotten it but now that this subject has been raised I will tell you somethings. I have more than 94 hours of unpaid overtime; while every person over here is allowed half a day off for every 5 hours of overtime I am not being allowed a single day off for 94 hours. Moreover, I am being told I should that I should forget about Christmas Play when we all know that that Christmas play did so much for school's reputation and happiness. And I spent so much of my own money on it. "
" Please, don't feel bad. I will do everything I can for you. Tell me where and how did you spend your money?" He asked concernedly. " let's make a list of all the things that you bought for the play or spent your money on and I will pay you immediately."
" I would hate to take my money if that displeases Stf or you. I can take it only if you give it willingly and happily without considering it like an annoying burden or something. I hope you convey this message to Stf."

So saying I came away, truly incensed and truly on fire. How mean they are, how very very mean. I hate the fact she every time stresses that H is studying here for free which I should regard as a great obligation and so remain under her feet for all my life.

Tm The Boyfriend

Today when I went in to hand over the new contract papers Tm- his name is Tm, happily greeted me. We discussed the contract details for 5 minutes and for the next 15-20 minutes his personal life !!

He is not Stf's divorced husband but another lady's divorced husband and now he is Stf's boyfriend. He himself revealed all this information to me and in such a candid, natural, talkative manner that I feel certain whoever pays a visit to the office and meets him gets to hear all the same stuff in a very much similar way.

I believe he loves talking for he drifted into a completely personal conversation as easily and swiftly as a breeze of ocean air telling me everything that I neither wanted to know nor needed to and in fact even felt visibly uncomfortable to hear him talk about his private life. He told me he is a divorcee and has 3 children from his first wife; Stf too on the other hand is a divorcee and has two children. They had met 26 years ago only once and he had liked her but each went his own way only to collide 26 years later and fall madly in love now.
"She is the new flame of my life. I wonder why nothing happened all that years ago. We could have married then and been together but it had to happen now. I wasn't happy with my wife so I divorced her. I was suffering from depression and lonliness, feeling very very sad and all alone in this world. And suddenly my girlfriend came and she wanted me to meet a friend and there she was. We have met 8 months ago after 26 years. "

And then went on to discuss his vacation in India 20/30 years ago, Indian people, global issues, October fest, German beers, As's crimes....Phew !!! I believe he would have done a lot more talking had not Mz come in and demand his attention to something else.

His frankness is refreshing and endearing. I believe he is a nice man. He appears to be very loving, tender, kind sort of gentleman who looks like a Turkish man when he is actually a pure German. (We discussed this too!)

Oh yes, Thanks to Tm, my guess was proved absolutely correct today. He divulged to me that they had fired As as she had been caught swindling huge sums of money. 

Tk was right after all.

Today Tk's mother broke the news to us that she indeed is pregnant and the baby is due in June. 

"Ya, we know this already; Tk had told us a month ago." Her mother was so astonished. She thought it was a secret which nobody knew.

We had a really good laugh.

If you have a child in your house, you cannot have any secret.

Mother's Day in kindergarten

And now we are going to have Mother's Day. Unfortunately it will be on a Sunday but this can in no way stop the teachers and the little children to plan something for its celebration.

Our group, the second smallest in the school is learning the "Mama ach ich hab dich lieb..." which is a mother's song and we keep telling the children that they have to sing this song for their Mama on Sunday. The children colored construction paper which we folded and made into a small gift box on which the children stuck stars and flowers. Now today we and the children together rolled out cookie dough, cut heart shaped cookies out of it, spread milk on them, stuck colorful sugar pieces on them and then Cl baked them - all right in front of the children. We plan to keep these children made cookies into that gift box which the children will give to their mother as gift.

The children loved rolling out the dough and turned real creative after 15 minutes. Ll couldn't roll hers properly so she altogether decided to make snake cookies instead of the heart shaped ones. And then all the children discovered making snake cookies was more interesting. Little Mx who is a real sugar lover in our class instead of spreading  the colorful sugar pieces on the cookie ate all of it and then kept digging in his spare dough snake cookie to pull out those tiny colorful pieces and didn't hesitate to eat even the raw dough if that meant a little sugar in it. Ot too thought the dough ball was something nice to eat and popped the whole ball into his mouth and we had to retrieve it quickly much to his displeasure.

Finally when we ended this activity the whole kitchen floor as well as the huge kitchen table was covered with sticky cookie dough and tonnes of colored sugar pieces all over....

The cookies were ready in less than 20 minutes. Tomorrow we shall pack them into the gift boxes and keep them into the children's baskets for their mothers.
Doesn't it sound tremendously exciting and so prettily cute?

H's group too has made chocolate cookies and muffins. I saw Mym packing them and when she saw me she smiled. "Bitte augen zu machen. Es ist geheim nur fur mama."

Stf's boyfriend

On the Christmas play day I had met a man who told me that he was divorced husband of Stf and had business interest/partner ship in the school. He had appeared to be middle aged, good natured man who loved cycling and travelling and had even been to India on a long cycle trip as a gift from his father for completing his matriculation. On a second thought I had wondered how he could have been divorced as he appeared to be a kind, loving, gentle sort of man.
I remember seeing Stf with this same man in the restaurant too where we had had our Christmas party.
After As was fired Stf roped in her boyfriend to help her out in the school affairs and both I and Cl didn't know who was her boyfriend or divorced husband.

Two days ago I was called in the office and when I entered I saw the same man - Stf's  divorced husband. He wanted me to fill out the new contract papers for H. So I guess Stf is getting help from her boyfriend as the others tell me as well as her divorced husband.

S says it must be so romantic to be in a relationship with the divorced husband...!

A nice hearsay

Today I was talking to Bh mother. She told me something nice. She had come to pick up Bh and was putting on his shoes when she heard two other parents whom she didn't know at all, talking in English about me.They were praising me and said that I and Cl were the best teachers in the school.

Wow! isn't that great? I told this to Cl and she was soooo happy.
Our sincerity, love and dedication for our job is paying off.....!!!

Baby birth in our school.

Fr's Mama had long been pregnant. The baby was due in the first week of April. She kept coming to school to drop and pick up Fr till she started getting too uncomfortable. Then she stopped coming. We assumed that the baby had come. We asked Fr but she didn't know much. She only said ,
" Baby? But there is no baby."
I thought I would better explain her a little bit.
"Fr, your mama has a little baby in her tummy that's why her tummy is soooo big. She will go to the hospital and the doctor will take it out. Then you can play with the real baby in your house."

Tk who is an Egyptian girl and very intelligent started insisting in her broken words and mixed language that her mama also has a baby in her tummy. We didn't believe her as we thought she was only making it up to get attention or only imitating Fr.
Then one day I saw Fr's grand parents who had come to drop her off. I immediately asked them where and how was Fr's mother. They told me she was at the hospital and the baby can come any day now.
We daily asked Fr if the baby had come yet but she apparently didn't know much and answered in the negative and there Tk kept insisting that her mama also is having a baby inside her tummy. It is hard to know the truth because her mama always wears huge full body length robes which dont give us any hint at all and certainly we have no plans to ask her this question.

Then one day Fr's baby came into this world finally. The grand parents informed us that the baby was very big and a C-section had to be done to take him out.
I asked Fr where was the baby now.
" In the hospital."
'What was he doing?" I thought she would say he was crying. But she said a bit exasperated and somewhat disgustingly;
"The baby was drinking my mama's boobies."

Oh my God! How we burst out laughing and kept on laughing till our sides started aching and the little children who didn't understand a thing did understand there was something funny and started laughing too. Cl had gone  all red in her face.
"Oh, it sounds so exciting. I can't imagine what it must be like to have a baby. I want to be a mama too."