Transition

Our second graders get to try their hands at making a mandala under the mango tree, and, like children everywhere, they run off without question, already certain of where to find the brightest flowers and the greenest leaves, even in the midst of this cool, dry season.

Some of them kick their shoes off to run through the short grass, while others collect fistfuls of just the right sized rocks, bringing them to the art teacher with far more care than what they use to keep track of pencils and notebooks.

Kids are kids are kids, some days focused in like laser beams and some days wiggly and talkative and doing their unintentional best to drive their teachers up the wall.

Two of the first graders act up just enough to get themselves sent out of class and then run down the road to buy cookies and toys that are quickly confiscated when they return. Because, they are eight years old, and, without the popsicle lady at her normal place by the gate, the money is burning holes in their pockets.

The third graders are reading through books faster than we can get our hands on them and they laughingly race to beat the American on their geography quiz, not the least bit flustered when we borrow their teacher to talk through the technology (three Am*zon Fire tablets for the school) that we are slowly adding into the classrooms.

And, we're all very human and all very messy, and the teachers are gracious enough to wait a few extra days for their supplies when the airline neglects to put my bags onto the same flight as my person -- because both of our governments are in a bit of a quagmire over how, exactly money should be spent.

It's a quick trip, just long enough to join in on the filling out of report cards and the giving out of a hundred hugs and share bites of a dozen popsicles. Just long enough to wrestle with contact paper on the kitchen floor and put up new blackboard paper over the middle bit that is too slippery to really be used. To sit with one of our school grandpas while his grandson picks moringa from the tree, and to rest in the shade with some of the staff when the preschoolers leave and the afternoon fades into relative quiet.

Long enough to take part in the gluing and the cutting and the constant scheming of ways to make it better -- because, these rockstar teachers, like rockstar teachers everywhere, are constantly full of ideas to make it better. Long enough to share cinnamon tea or hot chocolate with a dozen kids at once and for my water bottle to be used as a communal cup. 

Long enough for all of the jokes about how, exactly, the four year old is getting back to the States with me. And, long enough to watch him change his mind when he hears that, in the United States, we have ice on the ground!

Long enough to be very certain that, as much as I love these people, these kids, this school -- and as nice as it is to be warm for a few days -- my season here is finished.

There are other hands and minds and hearts that are better suited to this part of the task, other adults who are ready to take this school and continue to mold it into the best that it can be. Teachers and a director who have the power to take this so much farther than I ever could. This is their time.

This is a season where I focus instead on a crew of equally incredible kids in the States. Kids who find beauty in unexpected places. Kids who are some days laser focused and some days drive their teachers up the wall. Kids who read and study and play and laugh and sing. Kids who are preparing for and in the midst of trips and transitions of their own.

And, y'all, I am just as excited for that adventure as I was for this one.