Day with the Third Grade

Today Stan was sick in bed all day, so it was my turn to venture out on my own. I bought some groceries including fruit, juice and various other drinks to help keep us hydrated as we fight off our illnesses. Later, I went to the orphanage to visit the girls. The walk from our hotel takes about 20 minutes and today it was snowing heavily. I took a cue from the locals and carried an umbrella to keep my hat and scarf from getting coated with snow.

When I arrived, I found our usual place to visit with the girls was not available so we ended up in the middle girl's classroom. The middle girl's teacher has been very friendly to us. She even encourages the girl to use the English that she's been learning in class. The teacher prompted her to say, "Sit down, please," when I came into the classroom.

It seemed like it was an unstructured playtime for the class so we weren't interrupting anything. As soon as we sat down and got out our activities, the entire class was grouped around us. I think everyone in third grade played Animal Upon Animal today! They also joined in on our origami and old maid game.

As we were leaving, I tried to tell the girls that Monday would be a big day. We would show up early in the morning and go together with the orphanage attorney to town where we'd see our facilitator and their social worker. I didn't know the word for court, so I couldn't really explain why we were going to town. The oldest one jumped in with, "Photo?" If she knew friends from before who had been adopted, she might have thought we would be taking passport pictures. By tomorrow, I'm going to have to look up the word for court and judge!