Conversations with a 5-year old

Guess who was waiting outside my door this morning? A former student, and two others. The youngest was five years old.

Kid: Bobby-wawa!
Me: Wo bu shi wawa!
Kid (clinging to my leg): Wo de Bobby wawa!
Me: Wo bu shi ni de wawa! Ni shi wo de wawa!
Kid: Wo de Bobby wawa!
Me: Wo yao zou la!
Kid: Bu yao! Wo bu yao Bobby wawa zou la!
Me: Wo bu shi ni de wawa!!

Kids are too cute to be strict. :(

Kids are so free here

It amazes me how free the kids are here. They go everywhere, alone, or with friends their age, with no adult supervision. All over the town. Many of them are already starting to work, like carrying baskets on their backs to sell plums or other fruits or vegetables. Others carry their younger siblings in baskets or cloth slings on their backs until the babies can walk. Even the babies walk the streets alone, though usually their parents will be watching from a short distance.

Life is just so safe here, that people don't need to worry about their kids. It's amazing. I wonder how long it can stay that way. I'm sure it's easier in a small town.

Our class teaching team ate lunch at the restaurant run by the family of one of our students. We had these fantastic noodles. Yum. :) Our student was helping her parents prepare some vegetables for the restaurant while we ate.

You see it everywhere here. Kids grow up young and fast. They learn about life young and fast. And they start to work hard young and fast.

One of our kids cried because she got nothing write on our test. David gave her a pep talk on perseverance. Two other kids got the top two marks in the class (one of them got 100%). These were the same two that we had given the same perseverance talk last week because they were also crying for academic reasons. There's such a wide range in our kids.