Joe and Gilbert

 

I include two boys in this post, because they seemed to be together a lot during the early days of school. I thought they might be brothers, and had a hard time associating the right name with the face. For a few weeks, I never addressed one of them by name until I had looked at their shoes. 

I hate that I accidentally took this shot as a video (I do that occasionally!) Gilbert wore those neon green shoes nearly every day during the first months of school. I would look for them daily so that I could know which boy was Gilbert!

I mentioned Joe in my post on circumcision. He is back in class now and we have daily exchanges that go like this:

Joe: "s'il te plait aide-moi!"  Please, help me. As he hands me his school uniform after the PE session.

Me: "donne-moi ton pied gauche." Give me your left foot.

Joe: "gauche! droit! gauche! droit!" (pointing to his arms or legs, sometimes getting it right, other times getting it wrong.)

We repeat my request for his body parts until we get him dressed. He will return to stand by my chair now and then throughout the day. He counts for me and we do right and left. Occasionally he will come to get help writing his letters or numbers. He is not quick at writing them, but he can count to 10 and can recite the "poems" that they are learning.

Joe on the car during the early days of school. He frequently wore those hiking boots.

Gilbert and I spend a little more time together because he is one of the younger children. So sometimes he sits with me while the others are writing on their slates. In recent weeks, however, he has begun getting his slate out to write as well. At first he would bring it to me and try to make me write the letter or number they were working on. I refused, but would take his hand and push it in the proper direction to write the letter. Then I would tell him to write one. He would refuse, and push the chalk into my hand again. We continued this routine for a couple of weeks, but he has now begun to try on his own. Occasionally he will have me guide his hand, but then he will write by himself.

An interesting development has occurred with this change. Gilbert, who is normally a lefty, will occasionally put the chalk in his right hand and write the number that way. 

Despite his youth, Gilbert is quick to learn the lessons that don't involve writing. He can count to 10 and is occasionally used to shame the older kids who have trouble counting. 

One of his dearest qualities to me is his laugh. Gilbert takes great joy in most of life and will laugh and giggle at the other children. It is highly contagious. I love the video below because his joy manifested itself differently. 

I took these pictures today. Joe's, above, did not have good lighting, but I hope you can see his sweet face. Gilbert is in the green chair looking at me. I thought about cropping this picture to just show him, but I love the sight of the children waiting for the teacher to prepare their papers for them to write. Today they were working on the letters "u" and "i." In cursive. In the French education system, on which Togo's is based, the printed letters are used at the beginning, for children to learn the shape of the letter and, of course, to learn to recognize it in a printed text. They write those letters briefly, but then work on learning how to write cursive.

Just in case you have difficulties loading the videos.  View them here.