Every Monday I walk through the National Gardens, passed Syntagma Square, over to the posh neighborhood of Plaka, where the streets are literally lined with marble. I tutor two girls Martha and Yvonne, 4 and 5, and George, 4, for an hour and a half. We color, play games, eat snacks, and get in fights. A lot of fights. These kids do not want to play nice. Now, I would be able to handle these situations just fine over in the States, or even yet, if the children spoke any English at all. Not to toot my own horn, but I am a pro at babysitting; I've been doing it since I was 10. I can get kids laughing and playing nice within 10 seconds of them pulling each other's hair out. However, my magic charm does not seem to work over here in the Aegean. No matter what I do, one of them will inevitably steal another's marker, hit someone, stomp on a Lego tower, kick my shins and run out of the room crying, about every 15 minutes. Oh the joys of children.
However, there are moments of clarity, when all three of them are peacefully sitting at the table or all reading a book. It's at these moments when I get to use my excellent educational skills (enter stage-right Dripping Sarcasm). In every sense of the phrase, I am a broken record. For the last month we have gone over the same colors over and over and over again. One time, I found I was saying the wrong colors, simply because my mind refused to work. I would point to a white sheep and say Purple, or a black dog and say Red. Luckily, they have absolutely no idea what I'm saying anyway. Last week, we sang Old MacDonald for a solid 20 minutes straight. The result of this painfully tedious exercise? All three clucked like chickens for the remainder of the lesson.
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