A Day with Family

I slept in way too long yesterday, and when I woke up I found that someone had put plastic wrap over all the breakfast dishes and left them out for me. Aw. Eun-mi and Auntie were at the school, but Uncle and I had breakfast-as-lunch together and tried to communicate.

Then we headed over the the school, where I think the kids are starting to recognize me.

I kept trying to get candid shots of the kids, but it's impossible. As soon as they see the camera they're all over it.


I think they've figured out that I might be coming back every once in a while, so they'd better not break their new toy. They were gentler with me this time, cuddling up to me and demanding I draw them pictures rather than hitting me and throwing things at me.

I got to teach a little lesson on phonics, but it quickly devolved into coloring time. I would start coloring, and at any time one of them could hand me a new crayon and I would have to switch. Sometimes they gave me the right colors, which is why I have a mostly true-to-life turtle on the bottom left-hand corner of the paper on the floor. But sometimes they would go crazy with the colors, and that was the cause of my dazzlingly fabulous train and truck.

I was trying to get them to say the words with me, so I pointed at the turtle and said, "I-ge mueo-yo?" ("What is this?"). They laughed and cheered and said to each other what I can only imagine was, "She speaks Korean now!" Unfortunately, they expected my Korean to be a lot better than it was.

Just outside the school there was a sort of market/fair thing going on. Eun-mi says that it travels around to different apartment complexes in Suwon.

So, what size do you like your dried, staring-eyed fishes?

We went out for dinner at Uncle's favorite restaurant.

Back at home, we had a little prayer circle because it was the anniversary of my Grandmother's death. Eun-mi translated as Uncle told me what he remembered about her last days, and we sang her favorite psalms. It was really moving for me, because I don't really know anything about my Mom's parents.

Tomorrow is the last school day before Children's Day, which is a holiday. Yesterday we spent all evening making party favors and decorating, so today should be fun. I'd better get over to the school right now and join in.