“Just keep your nose clean and everything will be jake.”
Today is cool and beautiful with lots of sun. Mother Nature is garbed in her best for this weekend. Tonight, though, will be cold, in the high 50’s. I figure it’s a dress rehearsal for what’s coming.
My street has close to a million kids 10 and under. Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration, but this morning that’s what it sounded like to me. They woke me up before eight yelling to one another, and I think I heard one crying. I drifted back to sleep only to have them wake me again. That went on until 10 when I decided I’d get up. Every day the kids ride their bikes up and down the street mostly for the fun of it. The street is a good one for kids on bikes as it has little traffic. I’m just wishing the bikes came with muzzles. Now, of course, the kids are gone so the street is quiet. I guess they figured everyone’s awake now so their jobs are done.
Learning kids’ names was always one of the first items on my agenda when I was teaching. I wanted to address each kid by name instead of using the proverbial you or the pointed finger. I had five classes of names to learn each semester and I did. In Ghana the learning was complicated by the names and how to pronounce them. Abibata Abdulai and Bintu Liman were a couple of the more difficult names to remember. Fatima was pronounced as fa teem ah. Old-fashioned names were popular. Faith, Hope and Charity were common. Florence, Beatrice, Agatha (a ga tha) Rose, Grace and Regina, pronounced the Canadian way, were also common. It took me a bit longer to match names to faces.
My dad was great remembering business names and details but was never good at other names. I figure his head just didn’t have the room with everything else he remembered. I had two friends with Polish last names, and he never got those names right. One he called the Pole, and the other he never called anything except she or her. I don’t even think my friends noticed.
Explore posts in the same categories: MusingsTags: Abibata Abdulai and Bintu Liman, beautiful day, cool day, faith, Hope and Charity, kids on bikes, learning names, muzzles for kids, noisy morning, Peace Corps Ghana, waking up again and again
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September 5, 2015 at 12:19 pm
Now watching the dirty Russkies against Sweden – come on Team Christer.
September 5, 2015 at 12:49 pm
My Dear Hedley,
I couldn’t find the game so it must be on a dedicated station.
September 5, 2015 at 12:56 pm
Kat, it’s on ESPN3 which you can access via any mobile devise or through Apple TV. Dirty Russkies are up 1-0 and Ibra is completely invisible, as usual.
Meanwhile over in San Marino, England are up 2-0 in a kick about and will be the first team to qualify for Euro2016 other than the hosts, France.
I was busy securing my hotel for the Final next year – we are fond of Hotel D’Aubusson on the left bank and will camp there for the festivities.
Pulling for Sweden to get back in this.
September 5, 2015 at 9:44 pm
Thank you, MDH
I too am rooting for Sweden to get back into this.
September 5, 2015 at 1:55 pm
I don’t have the channel so I check the online news every now and again.Still a Russian lead I’m afraid. It is amazing how they can build a team around one person like Ibra. He rarely do anything and how he managed to get injured is a mystery, he barely moves 🙂 🙂
September 5, 2015 at 1:56 pm
I can thankfully always count on England!
September 5, 2015 at 12:43 pm
Hi Kat,
Some days it does seem like the street has close to a million kids. Not so much anymore because the main group of kids are at or approaching the age where they get their first jobs. A couple of years ago, though, the sound of basketballs hitting the asphalt (or the rim or the backboard) was a constant background sound of summer. Basketballs, skateboards, street hockey, street lacrosse. My street offered it all. It will be quieter for awhile but the next batch of littles is already in the wings and a couple of them are independently mobile right now. It won’t be long before the street is noisy with kids again.
It’s lovely and cool up here today. I didn’t mind the 52ºF temperature when I walked the dogs this morning. Perfect. I’ll take it.
Enjoy the day.
September 5, 2015 at 12:55 pm
Hi Caryn,
We are on our second round of kids. The first round was when we all bought our houses. Those kids are now married and have kids of their own. We now have 9 kids ages 10 and under on a street with only seven year round houses. They all have bikes.
It is wonderful cool here as well. I love today!
Have a great Saturday!
September 5, 2015 at 2:02 pm
We only have two kids in the vilage, one is slightly younger than ten and is so shy that I always never see him and the other one is my neighbors daughter soon two years old and she doesn’t make especially much noise either 🙂 But she likes my dogs so she’s a favorite of mine 🙂
Cold, cloudy and rathger rainy here today, we barely reached 50F Autumn is here and I wouldn’t mind if at least the weekends were rain free 🙂
I always remember names if they are unusual, it is the more common names that are problematic for me. Numbers have always been easier to remember but I really can’t walk around calling people by numbers 🙂
Have a great day!
Christer.
September 5, 2015 at 9:11 pm
Christer,
This is the largest number of kids here at one time since I moved in in 1977. The oldest, who is ten, was a toddler when his parents moved in. He now has three siblings, the youngest, a girl, is two months old.
A beautiful day here and now a chilly night, perfect for sleeping.
The names which were more complicated were the Muslim students, but I managed to get them all into my head.
Enjoy your evening!
September 5, 2015 at 5:11 pm
When I left NJ this morning the weather was cool and landed in Dallas to heat and humidity with a couple of sprinkles during the cab ride home. Last week they recorded record hot temperatures in the NY metropolitan area for the first week in September and when it cooled off yesterday I came home to the usual heat.
I place a lot of emphasis in my course to our new instructors to make an effort to use our client’s name frequently and to pronounce it correctly. We give everyone name badges for that reason, A few years ago a new instructor entered my class and his name badge read, Burdnice, as his first name. I shook his hand, handed him my business card and asked, ‘How do you pronounce your name’? He angrily replied, ‘I go by Nick’! I imeadiatly took him to HR to have them make him a new badge. Now the HR people actually ask new hire employees what they want on their name badge.
A few years ago I had two managers from our training center in China come to Dallas to attend our course. I had been corresponding with them through Email and I was worried about pronouncing their Chinese names. When they walked into my class they held out their hand and said, ‘Hi, I’m Roger’ and the other man said ‘Hi, I’m Chris’. In China people choose an English name while in school. When I went to China to teach 45 instructors they had some interesting English names. Our lead Boeing 737 instructor’s English name is Happy.
September 5, 2015 at 9:16 pm
Bob,
That weather you left is here also. It was a cool, lovely day but the night is downright chilly. We sat outside for a while and a sweatshirt was a necessity.
My African students didn’t have nicknames. They had tribal names, but they went by their English names. You made that guy totally comfortable by finding out he goes by Nick. He’ll not forget that courtesy.
I never knew that about the Chinese. Just figured they had difficult to pronounce names. It is good to know they’ll also have names I can pronounce.
September 6, 2015 at 8:20 am
September 6, 2015 at 1:10 pm
Gnu,
What fun that was!
The guy sounded just like Bush. I chuckled about the Disney like Obama.
September 6, 2015 at 8:23 am
September 6, 2015 at 1:12 pm
Gnu,
He made a great super hero. Love the ears!