School is Going Well

I’ve gotten a lot of questions about A and school. She is settling in. She and I walk about thirty minutes of the way to school together and then I go on to the train and she continues to school. She’s not a morning person and neither am I, but I’m fortified with caffeine, so me trying to make conversation usually annoys her. I joked with a work colleague that if it wasn’t considered child abuse, I would probably make her drink a cup of coffee to get her moving. Most mornings it’s a silent walk but every once in awhile she opens up, telling me about the friends she has met that she walks home with.

The other school that we thought she would go to, many of the kids that go there pass us on our walk as they head in the other direction. She said after school they sometimes tease the girls from her school. I asked her what they say and she responded, “I don’t know I can’t understand them.”

She said she gets teased nicely about her accent. They make her say words like tomato. She said the other day they were talking about a flashlight at school and her friends laughed. They call this a torch. She said to me, “What if I showed up for the field trip with a stick on fire”.

She got invited to as H calls it “loiter” with her friends next Thursday after school since it ends early. They are going to walk down to the High Street in town. I guess it’s kinda like American kids going to the mall together.

One day this week, after she and I had parted ways in the morning, I saw her meet up with one of her friends to walk the rest of the way to school. The rest of my day went so smoothly seeing for myself that she is fitting in.