I have to say I love to teach and although I have retired from formal teaching in Montreal, I have a wonderful opportunity here at HATS to continue to do what I love to do. Now I will let you in on a secret, I am a music teacher, but teaching is teaching, right? For all who are reading this and are classroom teachers I will endeavor to not let the team down!

I began lessons with Ti Luc but I am not the first to help him with his reading. Thanks to Jessie (of Seth and Jessie!), he knows all the small words and that helps a great deal. We have class every day except Friday and Ti Luc is moving along quickly. If you have ever seen Ti Luc do his happy dance you can picture just how delighted he is to be doing English lessons. I wish all my students were so keen!

There is not much that happens on the compound that the older kids don’t know about so I am pleased to say that I now have a class twice a week with the older kids. JJ can speak quite well and Moise understands a lot, which is very handy when I cannot explain things in Creole as these boys are willing helpers with the littler kids, small jobs, etc. I have found that hand language works pretty good too! Leica and Djemima will not be long catching up.

Although I would like them to be able to read the language we are starting with conversation. What is the fastest way to get a teenagers attention? Food. So we went to dinner at Madame Wight’s house. You can have a great conversation around food and the passing of the food and asking who would like to have the food and it took us 45 minutes to have our dinner.

Peanut butter and crackers along with a pop really makes a great dinner! I am grateful to have this time with kids and be teaching too!

Because it is all about the kids.