What You Put In, Is What You Get Out

It is well known that what you put in, is what you get out of anything, just like with marathon training - anyone can turn up to a race, but it's the months of hard training that gets you over the finish line.

And so, with that in mind, I decided to start helping out at a local school called Te Poi Primary School. Working with children prior to working in the orphanage in Nepal makes sense, and I am very lucky that I have been given the opportunity. With work and training every day I don't have a lot of spare time so for now it is every Tuesday afternoon (but hopefully work won't be so busy and I can do more afternoons).

Te Poi Primary School is a very small rural school with Year 1 - 6 children in two classes - the youngest class has 16 children, and the older class has 22 children. It was my very first school and the two teachers, Miss Clark and Mr Van De Molen, were also my teachers many years ago!

Last week I had my first afternoon at the school and I walked in to be asked, 'Would you be able to swim with the children?' So after a quick dash home to get my togs, I found myself in the pool with 16 children, myself at one end of the pool with the youngest of them. There were two boys who were too afraid to get into the pool, while the others happily became 'washing machines' with me. By the end of the swim I had one of the afraid boys on my back swimming around the pool. I was very surprised when he stood in the pool by himself, although not as surprised as he was! My first afternoon absolutely flew in, and I definitely needed a coffee afterwards, but I enjoyed it.

Today, I was back at the school and helped the children with colouring in and drawing themselves, while also doing reading with some of the children. It is awesome seeing them sound out words like 'Wiii, wii, wi ,thh, th, with'. Although they are a bunch of cheaters using the pictures to help them with the bigger words... but I suppose that is how they learn!

So I am definitely going to get a lot out of my time at the school. And after my first afternoon of feeling overwhelmed by so many little people, I felt a lot more capable today. By the time I get to the orphanage, I'll be a children master!