The joy in the terror of preschoolers.

This was my first week teaching at the preschool. One of the teachers is spending the month of October studying/ taking exams, so I am filling in for her as Teacher Giana. I am with them everyday from 730am until 3pm. And my lord... are they a handful. No, handful is an extreme understatement. There is between 20 and 30 in class everyday with 2-3 teachers. Only about ten or less are kids from Refilwe, the rest are from the surrounding communities.
Everyday consists of breakfast, then sitting in a circle saying how we are and if we are happy or sad and why. Then we learn a little geography, study the letter of the week, art, snack time, count as high as we can, then off to recess. Lunch, nap time, and then the kids are being picked up within about 2 hours. All the while, we teachers are constantly "SIT DOWN!", "YOU ARE BEING VERY RUDE!", "DO NOT HIT YOUR FRIENDS!", "WHY ARE YOU TALKING WHILE I'M TALKING?", mixed with a little, "Look at you superstars!", "Oh my word that is beautiful!", pretty much making everything they have to show us seem like it's pretty much the coolest thing we've ever seen. Even if it is hula-hooping for ten minutes. Which actually is pretty impressive. It's very tiring indeed and I give mad props to the teachers who do this everyday, all year, every year.
TO ALL YOU TEACHERS: Mad props. You're a superstar.

I'm falling in love with them. I wake up everyday so excited to see them. Forgetting for a moment about how they constantly push me to the edge of having a heart attack. In between the discipline and teaching the children respect for your friends, yourself, your environment, I find myself loving on these children as if they were my own. Holding them, kissing their booboos (which half of the time are invisible), and trying to make them feel like they are the most special things on earth. They really are.

As crazy and exhausted as I feel at the end of the day, I freakin love this job.