Chew the Fat

9.15am -Wonder into class, the kids, who are all playing with toys around the room, scream 'Teacher Christian,' and run and hug me. They are tiny 2 and 3-year-olds that walk like drunks and have giant heads. A couple are still in nappies. We spend the next two hours playing, singing and learning words. Each activity is divided by a bathroom break. The theme of the week is water transport. We colour submarines yellow and sing ‘We all live in a yellow submarine.’ The kids are so into the song they laugh hysterically. Peter vomits on me. Others start to cry because the smell is so bad.

12:30pm -We get a phone call from a lady who Joyce met at the 7-11 last week. She was super friendly and wanted to take us to her coffee shop. As soon as I got in her car I knew something was terribly wrong. Amway bags were lying everywhere. She took us to an Amway café and tried to sell us Amway for an hour. This was especially boring for me because I had no idea what she was saying -it was in Chinese.
1.45pm- After an hour of polite nodding, we tell the Amway lady we had a meeting to go to. We hail a taxi. Our driver was on drugs, and drive really fast yelling at people. She asks us to find her an American recording contract for her because she is a wonderful singer. She turns the radio on full and sings to us all the way home.

2.30pm- Joyce decides she wants some more practice on her new scooter. We head out to the lake. She follows behind and I keep an eye on her. A lady stops suddenly in front of me. I smash into her, knocking her and her vegetables onto the road. She is ok, but is screaming as though her leg has fallen off. It’s a graze. We take her across the road to an old Chinese medicine man. He rubs some black smelly stuff on her leg and demands that she comes back three times at $50 nz per visit. We spend the next hour fiercely bartering the price. He threatens to call the police, we tell him we have nothing to hide, he backs off. We pay 20 bucks and head home.