"Thank you dear miss GENi"

*Genevieve Lee went to Kyiv with ILP last fall. This is a post she wrote towards the end of her trip. Thanks for sharing, Genevieve!*

Saying goodbye is pretty hard. These kids have really taught me a lot about being patient and, well, mostly about being patient. Also I’ve gained a lot of creativity from having to come up with new crafts every day. There were times when they jumped on me and when they got me sick and when I was just plain tired that I didn’t totally enjoy going to school, but the times when they were sweet and gave me hugs and said perfect English sentences made it all worthwhile. These kids knew no English when we started teaching them (other than our fluent four-year-old, Marina, who lived in America) so hearing them say things like, “I want a pink marker,” and “Iliya, stop hitting me!” and “I like to eat cheese,” is really wonderful.

The kids made me a goodbye card. Inside it read: “I love you.” Pretty sure my heart melted.

Lisa is six and the best at arts and crafts. She could cut out her projects faster and better than any of the other kids, so I recruited her to help me cut out theirs as well. She was a great little helper :).

Olesya, Olesya, Olesya. This is the one I wanted to take home. She is so goofy and helpful and easygoing. She never picks fights or purposefully annoys the other kids and doesn’t get too bothered when they try to bug her either. Also, she is extremely smart and picked up English really well. I’m so proud of this little girl. I’ll never forget her spindly little legs in bright pink tights.

Marina lived in America for a while so she was really good at English and mostly just liked to tell us stories. She was also a jokester. She’d say, “Miss Geni! look a birdie!” I’d look and she’d say, “Gotcha!” Over and over :). Did you know that if you drink too much milk you’ll turn into a cat? Marina knows that. Plus she just has the cutest cheeks ever!

Geniya is one competitive little girl. She has the sweetest smile and is a really beautiful kid, but man, don’t try and take the ball from this one! Or get her out in Eeny Meeny Miney Mo. She’ll just say “No mo! No mo!” She is so precise with her art projects and always colors exactly in the lines and cuts them out perfectly. She loves numbers and will count anything. I’ll be teaching a kitchen lesson on vegetables and pretty soon Geniya is counting the number of peas in her bowl.

Iliya was the only boy in our class and usually loved the attention. He’d run around and poke all the girls and would also share his cookies during snack time. He wasn’t the best at keeping up with the lesson as he usually spaced out but he is so adorable and really smart. He was one of the first kids to understand the concept of answering a question rather than just repeating what I said. Plus he’s just so little!

Notice Marina’s face. We had to coerce them into getting this close to each other.

I’ll even miss being jumped on a little bit, like Lisa & Geniya are doing to Kristen here.