The first day of school there are eleven kids.
By our third Wednesday, we have fifty-six, and we've capped all but the second grade class with its age range that stretches from eight to sixteen.
Fifty six blue t-shirts. Almost seventy eggs cooked each day for students and staff. Seventy-five bowls of fortified rice, so that we always have extra when the bigger kids ask for more.
Sixty six pairs of shoes that slip on and off at each doorway, our floors kept clean enough for little people to sprawl out on, their work spread on mats or clipboards out in front of them.
Because, of course this the kind of school where we work barefoot or in our socks, where we sit on the floor, where we share Jessica's phone and water bottle, and where, when the teachers ask, we say an emphatic, "Yes!" to staff wearing jeans and polos.
We count marbles to practice subtraction and flip over clip cards to see if we got the answer right. The reading teacher hides alphabet rocks and sandpaper letters in the grass and we use our fingers to trace on laminated cards and makeshift sand trays.
We draw and color and begin to let the big kids experiment with paint.
The tinies build the letter D out of foam pieces and rock it on their shoulder like a baby, and the PE teachers chalk lines in the hard packed dirt under the mango tree to play endless games.
Some days they run around with stickers decorating their arms and foreheads or wear rainbow colored scarves like super hero capes, and, on Fridays, we play musical chairs and have dance parties until the lunch supervisor begins looking pointedly at the clock.
Every day, he reads them a story while they eat, and, every morning, we start by gathering together in a circle to let a child choose a song and lead us in a prayer. Some days they choose a church song. Some days we sing the days of the week. Every day we tell them that Ms. Jessica thinks they are the hardest working kids in all of Haiti, and, three weeks in, they have begun to repeat it with confidence.
"I am one of the hardest working kids in all of Haiti!"
They are rewarded with the occasional lollipop, with stickers, with lavender oil rolled onto the backs of their hands, and, when they turn in their homework, with an overly exaggerated handshake ceremony in front of the whole school.
Because, to get from where we are right now to where we need to be by the end of June...they are going to need to some of the hardest workers in all of Haiti.
We have little ones who always want to finish first, always want to have the right answers, and ones who have never been to school before, still mystified by these squiggly lines and shapes that the big people seem to expect them to know.
Teenies who just turned three a few weeks ago, and fourteen year olds working to get each other up to speed. Math and art teachers who tailor lessons for preschoolers who work on one number all week and sixteen year olds who pick up the concept of subtraction in a single forty minute block.
Mix and matching a dozen different kinds of education and brainstorming each day after school as we search for ways to make it better. Ways to combine Haitian and American strengths, to reach all of our kids, to have fun -- and to keep the flies from overtaking.
Some days, there are an awful lot of preschooler tears, and, some days, the tears come from twelve and thirteen year old boys. Some days, half grown humans find themselves sent for a time out, and, some days, we have a lot of conversations about how they have good hearts and they are so smart and they can use good manners at school.
But, most days, the twelve year old helps me to bring lunch from the kitchen, driving his serving tray like a monster truck and making the cooks laugh when he "beep beep's" his way into the kitchen. Most days we give out dozens of hugs and high fives and exclaim over the kindergarteners' straight, quiet line, and the teachers run at 112% until they melt onto a flat surface for their break.
It isn't perfect, and no one is pretending that we don't still have a long ways to go -- or that I'm not still confused by the slight difference in the words for "pencil," "crayon," and "chalk" -- but it is the start of something good.
Something full of giggles and victories and kids who are slowly learning to ask for help when they don't know. Who are learning that we are more proud of their effort than their perfection. Who grin with pride when they ask for the soccer ball in perfect English.
Messy. Goofy. Active. Testing.
Always growing.
Learning Grace.
