Monday, June 20, 2011

This is from Melody's blog, but it's my story. Why rewrite something well told?

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“ANIYO!!!”

Posted on April 26, 2011 by melody

... But before that happened we had to celebrate Easter at school right? Thursday afternoon rolls around, and after I take my students to a nearby playground to gather cherry blossoms I can see the kindergarten and first graders out in the field finding eggs they decorated for an Easter egg hunt. Little did I know… (the tale as I interpreted it* from Ms. Wheat, friend and k4 teacher at my school):

Ms. N (a kindergarten assistant teacher) rushes up to Ms. Wheat right before they are supposed to head to the field. Ms. Wheat had just finished informing her four-year-olds that while they were in P.E. the Easter Bunny came and took their eggs (“Why would he do that?!” little shouts proclaim) and all he left behind was this giant carrot, which she produced from behind her back, for their class pet Ashes (a guinea pig). She then explained that he left them, “out there!” and dramatically pointed to the field, “So we have to go find them!”

“I don’t know what happened in the ten minutes that we placed all the eggs on the field and then came back inside,” Ms. N begins to explain to Ms. Wheat. “But an old ajhussi started picking up all the eggs, taking the youngest kids eggs out of their plastic bags (they had two eggs they painted in a bag to make it easier for them to find) and smashing them. When I got out there he had about 15 eggs in his arms and he wouldn’t give them back to me! I had to get a translator to come outside and make him give them up. So… some of your kids eggs got smashed…”

A slightly disheartened Ms. Wheat took her students out onto our private soccer field to find the eggs, smashed and unsmashed alike. When they got out there she saw two adjumas come onto our field, look down, and see some of the colorful decorated eggs. They looked delighted and started to PICK THEM UP.

“ANIYO!” Ms. Wheat yells NO in Korean and begins to wave her arms at them. They think she means for them to get off the school’s field so they begin to walk away, eggs still in their hands. Exasperated, Ms. Wheat has her teacher assistant (who thankfully, is Korean) run after them and explain that “No, they cannot take obviously decorated eggs just because they are Korean in Korea and everyone is one big family.” Well… she might not have said those exact words to the two ladies, but she did get the eggs back.

*I made up the dialogue from what I heard from Ms. Wheat

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