Monday, September 20, 2010

Back to School

Isaac started school!



We presented ourselves to the secretary at a school we had heard was good at dealing with foreigners and asked, in broken Bosnian, if Isaac could attend. “He can,” she told us in Bosnian. “Do you want him to start today?”

In a mixture of our very bad Bosnian and her not-too-bad English, she arranged for us to return for the afternoon shift. Schools here have one set of children in the morning and another set in the afternoon (with the happy outcome that there are always children out and about in the city; there’s never a time that they’re all in school).

Isaac was very excited but also very nervous. He asked his dad to give him a father's blessing. There wasn't time to go all the way home, but we found a quiet corner of a busy park, and David blessed him.



Back at the school, his teacher showed us the classroom (very bare by American standards—a chalkboard, a teacher’s desk, 25 desks with nothing in them (since a morning shift kid shares with every afternoon shift kid), 25 hooks, and two tiny bulletin boards tacked up on one wall), and then she sent me on my way.

His grade attends only 2 1/2 hours a day, so I didn't have long to wait for his report: "It was great!"



More information on father's blessings.

1 comment:

Dan said...

I'm impressed that he thought to ask for a blessing. Very cool.