It could be argued that teaching 4 year olds increases the likelihood of surreal experiences. One morning this week I had more than my fair share.

Bingham hosted an international Basketball tournament over three days. It was a miracle of organisation not least with some visiting players having visa issues. Teams flew in from Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, and Ghana. We are very proud to say that Bingham boys won their final, whilst Bingham girls came second. This was undoubtedly due to their talent and training, however being acclimatised to playing sport at this altitude may have provided a tiny advantage. I took my class to see the start of one of the matches. Now they nearly all want to be basketball players when they grow up, except for the one who still wants to be a Power Ranger.

Anyway, because all these visitors needed accommodation there was a couple staying in the apartment above my classroom. Thus it was that I arrived this particular morning to find a big puddle of water on my classroom floor from the shower in the apartment above.

Having sorted this out we began the day. We had a visit from a relative of an older Elementary child who used to be a fireman. The presentation involved him putting on a blindfold and demonstrating how to rescue someone, in this case a teddy, from a smoke filled building. He crawled along feeling the floor and bumping into furniture along the way to find out where teddy was trapped. This process seemed to go on for quite some time because of course he needed to retrace his pathway all the way back to the doorway and freedom.

We now have tadpoles in our classroom brought in by a High School student who found them in the river behind her compound. My UK colleagues will know that I have coaxed tadpoles into frogs for many years mainly with the help of rainwater collected in a water butt. The difficulty here is that the river water they were drawn from was polluted and black and we are in the middle of the dry season! Being an Early Years teacher the tadpoles are in a transparent container in our ‘investigation tray’, which is surrounded by a couple of magnifying glasses, frog life cycle sequence cards and puzzle and a picture book about tadpoles. One of my charges was flicking through the book when her friend called her, she nonchalantly tossed the book back in the tray as she rushed off, but alas it landed squarely in the tadpole container. Thankfully they all appeared to be still wriggling.

I know that Shrove Tuesday was the 14th but for various reasons we had to postpone our pancake making. The children were busy mixing the batter and commenting on how the lumps were disappearing when a member of the class suddenly needed the bathroom urgently. In her hurry to meet this need she managed catch the edge of the bowl with her foot sending a copious stream of batter all over the floor and splattering her classmates nearby. Fortunately it wasn’t my intention to cook pancakes and I had prepared Blue Peter style (‘here are some I made earlier’) a few ready cooked pancakes for the children to toss with extra to consume.

As the morning drew to a close, I began to wonder what else would happen. The class however were looking forward to a birthday celebration. These always take place outside and the birthday child’s parents typically provide cup cakes and maybe a drink. We all sing ‘happy birthday’ in English and Amharic, then the class enjoy an extra outside playtime. On this occasion the parents had come prepared with a skit for the children to enjoy whilst they ate. Mum and Dad had kazoos and rather than speak they communicated clown-style in ‘kazoo speak’. Dad changed into various characters by ducking down behind the playhouse. They did really well, conveyed a message about friendship as well as entertaining the children. From my point of view this variation from the norm rounded off my morning.

On the way home I pinched myself – no I really didn’t dream all this.