No Worries

There is a phrase that Lao are always using: baw pen yang. It means I'm sorry; no worries. Today was a manifestation of that phrase. Exuberant and joyful! Today was my first day of teaching. The first day of any course is inevitably filled with jittery nerves, anxious anticipation, and the universal insecurity, "Will s/he like me?" This morning in a second floor English language classroom in Laos was no different. My students, six years to adult, shyly clustered into the classroom and begin filling out the neon colored name tents I had set on each of their desks. I introduced myself with a series of short sentences I had written on the white board, "Hello! My name is Ms. Jen. I am a teacher." We then began a noun and indefinite article activity using stuffed animals and picture cards. The students got acquainted by matching their stuffed animal with its corresponding word card held by another classmate. It was a series of jolts, bumps, confusion, chaos, chatter, and laughter! We finally found our matches and the students returned to their desks to draw and label the animals while I photographed them holding their name tag. I explained that this activity was to help me remember their names. They looked at me with a hybrid of humoring me and humor at my strange American antics. As class was dismissed, the students filed out of the classroom and said goodbye. With each shy ochre glance and slightly cracked smile, I sensed an silent breaking of the ice and an invitation. A welcome to enter in to the tangled web of multicolored threads of false starts and failures, mispronounced words and misunderstood gestures, mistakes and laughter, striving and succeeding, collaboration and celebration that, woven and spun, create the tapestry of education. Baw pen yang. Nevermind mistakes; we're all in this crazy beautiful adventure together!