One of us was leaving today, so we decided to make most of our final lessons with the kids with some pictures and photo-taking. Usually we don’t bring cameras into the classroom to distract them, because the kids LOVE the camera. For my second grade class, I allowed them to draw whatever they liked, and they were more than willing to.
I had brought a box of crayons from Malaysia when I came here, and it sure did come handy especially for the classes with the younger kids. While some of them has their own colours, most of them don’t, so it was very popular with the children. The only problem was getting them to not fight over the crayons, and returning it after they were done so that others could use it too.
Some of the kids drew pictures of us the teachers, and one decorated hers with the following lines for me which read “这是我的家，在那山脚下。门前有两颗果树还有一些花草。她们很美丽，我很喜欢我家。回去以后我不来北京了。我舍不得北京，可是明年就要回去了。我好想我老家的那小猫，她是母的，很听话！老师好，老师好，老师好，老师好得不得了了！这是我养的鸟，这是我的家。我想老师你会喜欢” “This is my house by the foot of the hill. There’s two fruit trees in front of my house along with some flowers and grass. They are very pretty. I love my home. When I return to my home, I won’t come to Beijing anymore. I will miss Beijing. But I have to return there next year. I miss my cats at my home, she is a female cat, and very obedient! The teachers are good, very very good!! This is the bird I kept as a pet. This is my home. Teacher, I hope you will like it” Apparently she was going back to her hometown with her family. Like most of the children in our school, their parents are migrant workers who came to Beijing to erk out a living, but more than often the odds are sadly against them.
Yet it was very inspiring to have taught them, because they seem to smile and laugh a lot. Most of them are cheeky, and will do all sorts of things to catch your attention, but they are really very nice kids at heart. However the older ones who are around 14 years and older, are less positive on their future. They told us they have no hopes of going to university, and also that they can’t see a future for themselves in the capital, due to restrictions and red tape abound, even if they just wanted to proceed to highschool.
After classes ended, we brought our cameras outside, and these are mostly shots of the year 5 boys from my class, which I preferred to call them ‘my army of boys’.
Before dinner was served, a few students from the university came to take one of us to the airport. We said our farewells, and the kids also sent her off. Then it hit me, that I would be leaving in two days too.
Suddenly it felt much lonelier than I had expected.
この長い旅で 