the thigns that have happened.

on august 20th, we opened our doors to 85 bright and eager students in cienfuegos. a few days later, our "love" school opened for the first time - offering education to 85 haitian children who had never ever studied before. big things have been happening in our neck of the woods.

i knew we'd have some run-ins but i never thought it would be these. 

- a five year old who is well down the road to being expelled. his dad has already been called in twice, and his mother was called to pick him up early today. he's thrown stones and kicked and punched. on tuesday he used a pretty big rock to hit another kid and today dragged a kid through the gravel. sadly, the parents don't seem interested at all in fixing the situation - and when i called his school from last year, the principal told me that they had all kinds of problems, too.

- a three year old who is so aggressive the other kids automatically put up their fists when he comes around.

- parents who are extremely concerned that we're not allowing their kids to take notebooks home. but when we sent them, at least four of those concerned parents didn't bother to make sure they came back. exactly why they aren't allowed to take them home!

- a four year old who was mistaken for a girl for 4 days - his parents have his hair in a ponytail and send him with a pink backpack. it wasn't until the teacher walked in on him in the boys bathroom that we knew for sure he was a boy! when i told his mom she needed to cut his hair, she says she can't, because the father "made a promise" on the boys hair. (more on this ridiculousness in another post).

- a second grade girl slapped across the face by her mother and scratched with her nails. poor girl was then bullied because of it.