A week ago a new girl was admitted in my class. She is from India and on seeing her contract papers I found that her father is S's colleague. She is three years old and extremely active and energetic. Having never been to any school before she, as yet doesn't know how to conduct herself at school like sitting at one place for an activity, waiting for her turn or interacting friendly with other children, which is quite normal and natural.
So half the time I keep running after her or screaming her name to come back which doesn't seem to make any difference to her. And if she sees any tempting article in any other child's possession she just crashes onto him and snatches it away sometimes even shouting something in rude tones like," Hey, give it to me."
Her eating habits are...well...a bit unhealthy. She doesn't like to eat anything unless it is sweet excluding fruits ! No vegetables, bread, rice, soup, fruits, nothing; only sugary juices and junk and that too she has to be spoon fed. The first day when she didn't eat anything, her mother who was with her in the class fished out a chocolate sandwich from her bag and fed her in the study corner. Our eyes fell out of our heads !
I had never seen, well, never even imagined a chocolate sandwich before! And Cl's heart nearly missed a beat to see such a stuff....!!!
The other new child has been admitted just today! A 2 year old girl from Mexico. She was quiet and shy and didn't at all want to leave her mother. We learnt that she has arrived in this country just four days ago!
Today was her first day in this kindergarten and as per the rule which we follow, we never allow a child's first few days in the school to be hectic or too quick. The first 2/3 days the mother or father is allowed to be with the child to make him feel secure. And then gradually we separate the child so in a week or so the child becomes well accustomed and familiar with the school and feels confident that he will be happy and safe here even without his mama and mama will come to take him back after a few hours.
Well, so today this child Pl was to remain in school with her mama only for about 3 hours and then taken home. When we were going to the park, the mother told me she needed to go to feed her other small 5 months old baby and will be back in 10 minutes. We allowed her to leave Pl with us thinking 10 minutes was surely not a big deal. However she failed to turn up after several 10 minutes and the poor child was constantly screaming her head off. We came back from the park after half an hour, ate the lunch, finished the toilets and were now going to sleep and still there was no sign of her mother. Then we decided to ring her to come immediately to fetch Pl.
I was so sorry to see the poor child only 2 years old, having just arrived in a new country, in a new school and separated from her mama for so long; eventually she fell asleep she was so tired of weeping. Even in her sleep she was making incoherent, loud sounds of crying every now and then.
Finally her mother came but by that time Pl was already asleep and we thought it was better we let her finish her sleep. There had been a foolish misunderstanding in our conversation. We thought she was saying she would be back in 10 minutes when actually she was telling us that her house was just 10 minutes distance from the school.
Well, anyways, I woke Pl after 45 minutes. She rose with such a cute innocent loving smile on her entire face that I cannot describe; she had forgotten everything in her sleep. She nestled close to me lovingly and when I handed her over to her mother she for several moments appeared as if she didn't even recognize her...!
I witnessed an amazing thing today. Wl is a tiny 3 years old German boy in our class who is currently having a crush on Ml- another 3 years old Indian girl. He was so protective and friendly towards Pl that he held her hands as if he were comforting or protecting her, kept chatting to her about his papa, mama and blah blah blah in German which she didn't understand and appeared so worried for her when she was in the sleeping room. Finally when she was collected by her mother and I brought the rest of the sleeping children back to the class he was frantically looking for her everywhere; he even opened the door of the room which no child is allowed to, and was searching for her in the hall as if to ascertain that she was indeed okay.
Amazing ! Isn't it?
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