Not So "Wild Life"

While sitting on the bench in the Piano Building listening to my students work on their inverted chords a monkeys came to hang out in the tree I was looking at.  Now, I know I live in Africa and monkeys are everywhere, but I can't help being a little amazed when I see one during the middle of my class.  It's not like watching a squirrel.    

Later in the day, I got a “Gun Shot Warning” email.  The Superintendent wanted to warn us that if we heard gun shots it was because the rangers were trying to chase away the baboons in the forest off campus and if we saw baboons on campus to report them to the office.

Then, I had another bird in my classroom, but this time it was a huge pigeon.  It was just hanging out when the kids and I came into the room.  It was so much bigger than any of the other birds that have joined my class that when it started flying around I was afraid it would run into one of us which would have hurt because of its size.  Plus, who knows what it would have done if it was mad, I didn’t want it to attack any of us.  Clearly, I don’t know a lot about pigeons. 

I tried to get the kids that were already in the room to go into the Kindergarten room and close the door but of course, not everyone was back from recess so when I went to grab another teacher to help get the bird out there were kids coming back out from the kindergarten room and kids still coming in from recess all making noise and wanting to help.  Then, we couldn’t find the bird and thought it had flown out the window.  When we did find it the kids surrounded it which was less than helpful.    

Have you ever tried giving directions to kids who just want to see what is going to happen to the bird while the girls keep screaming whenever it moves and one of the boys wants to help by catching it himself?  It’s a little chaotic to say the least.    I knew once we got all the kids in the other room and got them to be quiet the bird would calm down enough for the other teacher to get it out, but in the meantime it flew into the window pretty hard and fell on the ground, which made one of the kids cry.  I finally got the kids to be quiet in the Kindergarten room and the other teacher got the pigeon to hop onto a rule so she could carry it out the window to fly away. 

When I count the monkey that pooped in my room, all the dragon lizards, locust, and birds that have been in my classroom distracting my kids I can't help but smile.  I mean, I never had any of this in the States.