Rain, rain, go away...

Wait...what? The nursery rhymes are getting the better of me clearly. RAIN. RAIN. RAIN. It actually rained today. The first weather I have actually seen in Qatar besides the burning desert sun. The babies were freaking out. First of all, Tuesday is mysteriously their favorite day of the week. No idea why but every day when I say, "What day is it?" they yell "TUESDAY!" Oh, the mysteries of a three year old's mind. And so then when I said "Look! It's raining!" they freaked. Every day I ask them if it's raining. Obviously the answer is always no. So today it was Tuesday AND they got to put the rain cloud on the calendar. SO joyous. We also sang "The 'Eebsy Beebsy' Spider" and they were even more enthusiastic about 'down came the rain' than usual. But they couldn't see the rain... and since I felt like it's a rare enough occurrence here, I wanted them all to see it. So I lifted them all up to see out the window...the shoulder height window. M.I.S.T.A.K.E. Remember that 55 pound child I told you about? There's more than one. No more bicep work outs for a year.

And speaking of that 55 pounder... remember how he was the bane of my class? Well he still struggles with most simple commands like "sit down," BUT for some reason he has become my little police officer. By that I mean yesterday when the bell rang and I said, "Toys away!" I hear a little echo "Toys away! Toys away!" only to see Yahya barreling about waving his finger in children's faces scolding them. Today I looked up twice to see him doing the same and saying "Sit down! Sit down!" to other children. I don't know how I won him over (considering last week I confiscated his shoe until lunchtime because he kept taking it off) but it only adds to the hilarity of my class dynamic so I'll take it.

Fairly incredible change from day one to now, otherwise known as week 8 for those of you not keeping track. Keep this in mind- week 8. We're midway through the week at this point. After my break, I walk back into my class at 9:20 and my supervisor walks in and says, "You have a new student!" Like she's announcing that I've won the Golden Ticket. New. Student. Week. Eight. Seriously? Two months into school...where has she been hiding for two months? Seriously? She has been on no roster, no list. She was registered today. Today. My 29th student. Unfortunately bloodcurdling screams ensued starting at 9:25 when her mother started trying to take her to her seat. After forcibly removing her from her mother's legs and all but shoving the mother out the door, Miss Christine and I endured a solid 20-25 minutes of piercing screams. I decided I could not handle this again, even for one day, so I crouched down to reason with a three year old in the midst of a tantrum. "Anjilena, we are your new friends. There is no crying at school. See everyone else, no one is crying. See Deema? She will be your friend. She does not cry now. She has stopped crying. They are not crying because we have fun at school. Now we will have fun and you see this? (Pointing to schedule where "Home time" is prominently displayed complete with house picture) This is where Mama and Baba will come again, right? Mama and Baba will come at this time" I have no idea what she understood, but no more tears. And fortunately, she is a straight up g. She did two worksheets today and no tears for the rest of the day. All that remains is to decide how I will teach her the alphabet, considering we are now at "Jj." How do you back teach the alphabet? Sigh.

Teaching is even affecting my social group now...last Thursday evening Alex (the other American teacher) and I were coming back from school and there were about eight little boys, whose average age hovered around 10, playing basketball outside of our building. Many administrators and other teachers live in our building with their families and their children told us we are the 'cool teachers' during one memorably (read: frightfully) long bus ride. So we were invited to play basketball with them...obviously we joined. They split us up because we are from America and all Americans are good at basketball (even though we are girls)...HA. Then they taught us how to play football (soccer football, not American football). Much of the basketball game went like this: "Jihad, Jihad! Pass! Hussein! Pass! Miss! Miss! Pass, Miss!" Professionally inappropriate? Perhaps. One of the best times I've had here? Definitely.