Peacock

Nina will work with the older students, we—… they?—reasoned diplomatically. (Notice: I did not say “democratically.” One of the foundation’s many challenges is that it operates according to the competing laws of monarchy and anarchy. I didn’t catch the irony of the moment until sometime later.)

Either way, I nodded agreeably when they assigned me to the older group.

However, when I rang the bell a week later and opened the door to the immediate affection of twenty laughing five- and six-year-olds, I was glad when they later reassigned me to the younger students.

Glad for about twelve-and-a-half minutes, that is.

Indeed, after twelve-and-a-half minutes of absolute anarchy—children crawling all over me like ants, pushing each other from behind , scurrying, hurrying—after twelve-and-a-half minutes of savage lawlessness, I half-wondered if I would survive the afternoon, let alone the four-month placement. 

Still, by the prodding of some higher power, by the nature of my commitment, or merely by a parent-ingrained ethic of giving everything more than one shot, I showed up again some two days later. I was, to say the least, more wary, but also more prepared, determined to impose if not order, than at least to organize the inevitable chaos.

Although I’ve only been with the program for three weeks, each day I spend with the children at Fundación Ñeque is a little better than the last. Last Monday, I taught them an English lesson on “the family.” While I have little experience teaching such young students (more experience with older middle and high school students), the premise is ultimately the same. That is, patterns of demonstration and participation. After we repeated the names of each family member, I sat down with the students on the classroom floor—colored pencils fanned haphazardly like the tail-feathers of a peacock—for an activity in family-portraits. As I had been told many of the students in the after-school program came from broken homes, I approached the topic gingerly. 

So we sat down together on the floor, and drew our fragmented families. Families without fathers or grandparents, families with uncles or cousins living at home, families of only two or three. Some of the children’s questions demonstrated obvious doubt—“I don’t have a grandpa,” they might whisper to me in evident embarrassment—but I reassured them that whatever they had was good. 

As the students were finishing up, I decided spontaneously to let them present their families to their classmates. And together we validated and affirmed whatever each student had to offer—whatever mismatched mosaic of colors, whatever half-broken tail-feathers their families presented.