Nightmares

The kids have also penetrate my psyche now.

I've dreamed about work before, which can be expected, considering I spend 10 hours a day in this school. My past 2 dreams, however, have been less than pleasant.

The first one was about Javier. I woke up and felt... not right. Other people in the house said they could hear me making noises in my sleep. I couldn't place it until I saw Javier later that day, and my stomach just churned and fell to the floor. A flash of him in serious physical danger came back to me. In my dream, he had been cold, shriveled, shaking, discolored... basically on the verge of death. In the dream, he was wearing the black sweatshirt he always wore, with the hood up, but he was basically a skeleton. He's skinny as it is, but looking at him in my dream gave me a physical sense of his harm that couldn't be hidden by a giant sweat shirt.

The second one was about Kim. She was wearing a necklace, and a man came up behind her and strangled her with it. I actually lashed out in my sleep when that one happened.

I can only protect them from so much.

"Mommy!"

Two of the girls I tutor afterschool have taken to calling me "Mommy." Talk about disturbing. I am a long way from wanting children of my own, and this year has reaffirmed that ten times over.

Every time they say it, I remind them that I'm their teacher, not their mother. They see how strangely I react to the idea of being a mom, and they find it funny. That makes them say it more, I'm sure.

One afternoon, we went to the computer lab. One of these girls started typing a letter to me. It went something like this:

Hi Miss Dawn!

Do you want to know why I call you mommy? It's because you are so nice and so pretty and I love you so so so so so much much much much much!

Love,
Kim

There were a few more "so's" and "much's" but that was the gist, and the gist was heartwarming.

Dia del Niño/Children's Day

Dia del Niño-or Children’s Day/Day of the Child-is the Mexican holiday to celebrate children. Think of Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, only for kids. What a brilliant idea! Why don’t they have this in the States!? With how commercialized every other holiday is in America, Dia del Niño would be an absolute success. Think of the toy companies and Chuck E Cheese!

The extremely supportive parents at our school used their budget to throw the kids a party of carnival proportion. Classes were cancelled for one entire morning to celebrate children being children. There were tents for nachos, free toys, and games. Kids ran around from bowling stations to spoon races. Jump houses (brincolinas I think?) were inflated and rowdy boys bounced until the walls of the jump houses became the floors. My personal favorite was the musical chairs event, where every time the Mariachi music shut off, the kids scrambled to the empty chairs, accompanied by apocalyptic screams.

The core group of parents at the school passionately endorsed the day, as they do all other school activities. At the very least, reluctant adults gave in to the morning. The more serious children were bored by the carnival and didn't see the point, while others giddily ran about collecting free pencils and wistfully remembered all the Dias del Niños they had ever celebrated.

In a place with so little, the celebrations are so big. It makes you wonder: are they overcompensating for childhoods harder than I could imagine living even as an adult, or are they simply living and valuing what’s most important in life?

April was a busy month

I saw two (good) events at Alisal Community School in the month of April that I've never experienced anywhere else. One was a pep rally for the California State Tests (CST) held at the beginning of May. The other was Children's Day.

First up: The Pep Rally. Every classroom made posters with motivational messages, like "I will rock the CST" or "Do your Best on the Test." At 1pm, all the students lined up with no semblance or order on the blacktop outside the school. Teachers and staff gave every kid a helium balloon, either yellow or black in honor of the school's colors. They were marched towards the infield of the track, where a DJ was blasting Black-Eyed Peas and Shakira hits. The 5th and 6th grade cheerleaders led the school in cuteness and pep. The principal, Ms. Armenta, led the school in dancing with awkward school-appropriate hip movements (which is hard for Latina girls, even if they're only 5 years old) and frightening love. Some of the more intense young men decided to try out their breakdance moves on the grass, with varying degrees of injury and success. One little first grade boy was so overwhelmed by the festivities that he prostrated himself into a defense curl, on top of a manhole, and hid his head from the enthusiastic noise and Californian sunshine.

Possibly the most touching was the chanting, started by the 4th graders at the request of Ms. Armenta. She encouraged each grade to come up with a cheer, and the 4th graders chose the famous "Sí se puede" (or "Yes we can," the motto of the United Farm Workers coined by César Chávez). Yelled from a grassy field in the Salad Capital of America- Chávez's own soapbox and stomping grounds-the passion of that cheer carried beyond the test in the coming weeks. The kids yelled the chant in words understood more clearly than most of the ones that they would see on the fast-approaching CST. I've never felt as connected to the strength and passion of the Mexican people than I did at that moment. Their parents might be working hard in the fields, and now their children work just as hard, if not harder, in the classroom.