Amina is well on her way to Oxbridge

Amina endelea vizuri! That means Amina’s doing really well. I went to see the nursery class last week and they’d been doing exams. Amina got 7/8 for knowing her numbers and 4/4 for being able to write words next to pictures. It would have been 8/8 if she’d written “4” the right way round. So cute.

Here you can see her holding her numbers exam:

And not particularly about Amina, but still sweet: word has got round the school that I have a box of special Shrek plasters in the office (sent to me by Lovely Jane Postmistress Fowler, of course). I don’t think they quite appreciate the concept of ogres, nor the delightful adult/child humour combination in Shrek, nor the idea of Eddie Murphy as a donkey singing “I like big BUTTS and I cannot lie” etc etc but nonetheless they are turning up in droves with tiny little cuts and looking hopeful. I am such a soft touch that I can’t resist even though they’ll run out soon. Here is a picture of Violet, one of my total favourite pupils (in the sewing class, always smiling, until the day she sewed into her own nail – details in last post) with a Shrek plaster on said digit. Probably not an ideal choice for a tiny blog picture, but I am sure you get the idea.

One of my other little favourites was in for a plaster on Thursday. He is so thin that his knees are bigger than his calves. He has HIV and the school is very enjoyably casual about it. I was merrily wiping up his blood and thinking how different it would be in England. Obviously I won’t be quite so relaxed if I find myself developing full-blown AIDs, but I am pretty confident of the healing powers of Shrek.