field trip fun!

Trying to catch up about some fun happenings around here...Last week I went with Anni's ENTIRE school to the zoo. I had suggested that going with the kids would maybe be fun. Be careful what you suggest...I was "in charge" of the day. With no warning at all! I drove the watoto we carpool with straight to the zoo that morning since it would be pointless to go to school first since they were all boarding the bus to head right to the zoo (Plus any excuse to avoid buses full of loud watoto- hey, I did my time back in the day!). We arrived a bit late since I had to drive another child to another school. I had suggested that maybe we go around 9am since I was not sure the zoo would be open at 8am. But after being assured it was open the plan was set for 8am arrival at the zoo. We walked in to all the kids sitting in a small place near the entrance because it was not open for another hour. We just had to sit there and wait. In the U.S. all those kids with notta to do would have meant chaos but as I have learned over and over again people here are just used to waiting. The kids waited for about an hour and some of the teachers led them in singing and a dear soul at the zoo tried to ask questions about the animals. After we finally got in the kids were separated into their class groups and lined up. It was then I was handed a microphone and told to lead the field trip: WHA?? I quickly responded that I could help translate a bit but really did not know much about animals. You know other than the "this is a turtle. It has a shell" Yikes! Lucky for me one of the zoo keepers was from Kenya and knew a lot of English so he and I worked together to lead the kids through seeing all the animals. One thing that made me laugh is instead of splitting up into age levels or class groups and separating so all kids could see everything, ask questions, NOT get mobbed and run over, etc we all stayed together the ENTIRE time. Teachers kept reminding kids to be quiet and listen. All I kept thinking is that would be much easier if there was a smaller groups but we just rolled with it. The jumpy castle, camels (including a baby born 2 weeks ago), the snake (they all got to touch it),and snack time were huge hits. Although I had to quickly run out with Evy to get Anni a juice as I only packed her usual bread and water for her and all the other kids had all these crazy good snacks- some even had soda bottles in their bags. Obviously I did not realize field trip=pimped out snacks! Lesson learned. It was a fun day and I got to see Anni interact with all the kids. She definitely has friends that watch out for her (or are tired of her whining:) because they would hold her hand and walk through the zoo or call her name to make sure she got a precious place on the concrete to see the animals front row. It was sweet! We ended the field trip with a mass assault on the playground and then a car ride home full of 4 happy but tired watoto.


one of Anni's classmates....too cool for school