French Fries on the Maroni

Well, it finally happened...I lost my voice. We all wondered who would be first to be afflicted with this extreme handicap and I won the prize! The reason this is such a handicap is because it is very difficult to teach (especially children) when you have no voice, but also there is not enough time to regain the voice before going out to teach some more, meaning that it just progressively gets worse until you are forced to stop teaching because you really have no voice!
In any case, it sort of worked to my advantage today. The children in today's class found it very amusing and I tried to make it into "whispering day". It turned out to be a "whispering 5 minutes" before chaos set in again. So after a short discussion, the coloring sheets came out and I enjoyed the rest of the class smiling and handing out markers. It's interesting how when you can't talk, you watch a lot more. I learned a lot about the children today.
After the class, the three of us had an hour and a half to kill before our junior youth groups, so we bought some lovely French pastries and sat down by the river as the sun was setting. It was perfect!
When I got to the junior youth group, there were only 4 youth there. We spent a few minutes debating whether or not we should do another lesson and finally decided it would be best to just leave it, for the sake of the others and my throat. So I piled four 13 year olds (who were in their pajamas) into the car and we drove into town to buy French fries. There is a little stand in the middle of the town that makes them...it is also unfortunately the spot where all the scooter gangs hang out. When I stopped the car, the kids bounded out of the car like wild animals let out of the cages it. Luckily they are very smart and didn't endanger themselves...however, they made their presence known.
Once we had our fries, we drove down to the river and sat on the rocks eating and talking about school. One of the boys, Enrico, who has a lot of difficulties reading and is very reserved, burst out "Miss, you're actually nice!"...It struck me that the only side of me he had even seen was the one that pushed him to read and participate in the activities. I laughed and said "Well, sometimes."
We spent a few minutes identifying what each one of us had difficulties with and threw a rock into the river as a symbol of throwing away the difficulty and we then picked up a stone to symbolize what we were going to do to help with this difficulty.
This was followed by some races and cartwheels in the park before heading back to Vampires.
My only regret of the evening is that I DIDN'T HAVE MY CAMERA!!!! Sigh...But it was a wonderful opportunity to bond with the youth and a lovely end to the night.

Lesson Learned:
We must think before we act but don't forget the value of spontaneity. Sometimes following through on a spontaneous urge to do something can result in extreme fun (as long as it's within reason)