So there are lots of squat toilets in Vietnam. You know the kind that are basically a hole in the floor but if you start there they look something like a real toilet? And they have these little spots where you’re supposed to put your feet. It’s pretty easy to avoid these if you have a mind to, which I have done with great success so far, but it doesn’t change the fact that that’s what most people here seem to be used to.
Which brings me to the cute part.
I was down on the Jumpstart floor of the school today, the place where all the 4-6 year-olds come, and went into the bathroom (which has regular old western toilets) to find little footprints on the toilet seats. At least one of them, and how many more I can only guess, decided that it would make most sense to climb up and stand on the toilet seat. Call me crazy but I don’t quite follow . . . I realize that everything you need to know you learned in Kindergarten, but to be fair they haven’t made it through kindergarten yet.
Which brings me to my next topic, which is MY Jumpstart class. I FINALLY brought my camera to take pictures of them during the break, and I started a small Vietnamese riot. These kids went nuts, as you will soon see. If the pictures seem poorly aimed and out of focus it’s b/c they are. You do what you can when your right hand is snapping away and your left hand is warding off 6 kids at a time. You’ll notice there are lots of aerial shots. That’s b/c they couldn’t reach me way up there. 
I had considered trying to do this during class time while they were being the little studious echo angels that they normally are, but instead you get the riot.
I just want to note that I’m pretty hoarse right now . . . my voice is on the verge of leaving me altogether here at the end of this teaching weekend. Remember how I said these kids copy everything you do and exactly the way you do it? They actually changed their voices today to match my hoarse voice.
Now a couple of notes on individual students . . .
This kid, Binh, was already winning for cutest kid in the class, but he clinched it yesterday. I was teaching them 5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed. You know it: Five little monkeys jumping on the bed, one fell off and bumped his head, mama called the doctor and the doctor said, “no more monkeys jumping on the bed!” So at one point we role played and he was the doctor. He got dressed up with his glasses and stethoscope and was more enthusiastic than you can imagine every time he got to say “lo maw monteys jumpin on da bed!” And he’s always giving you this look, too, it’s great.
This girl – the one in the white – is actually crazy. She just started coming to class this week, and probably knows more vocabulary than anybody else in the class. BUT. Everyone else will be on colors or animals from Brown Bear Brown Bear, and she will be completely oblivious to it all, thinking very deeply and wondering with her whole brain just where the snakes are. Like, literally as if she knew they were somewhere in the room with us and she just had to find them. This was her only question/comment all day yesterday. But she’s very cute.
This kid was Binh’s competition for cutest in the class. Every time we’re passing something around the class (a ball, flashcard, whatever) he cannot stop squealing and laughing with glee when it hits his hands. It is priceless.
So that’s my Jumpies.
