What I would like to be

I taught another of my classes at the Anh Linh school today. I have three more scheduled and it will be sad to say goodbye to the children, whom I have become fond of and who are fond of me too. One little girl always takes my arm when I arrive on my bicycle at the school and strokes my skin curiously to feel the sweat that has accumulated from cycling in the hot sun.

I only had seven kids today, although more showed up about an hour and a half through. These children had been attending revision classes and came to my class afterwards for the last half an hour. I asked the kids to produce a drawing to show me what they would like to be when they are older. This idea was inspired from a story that Ms Kim Ngoc, the headteacher of the school, told me about one of the boys who regularly attends my class. "When he came here, he thought he could do nothing", she told me. "His family are all street cleaners and he thought he would end up doing the same work as them. We are beginning to change his mind. Now he wants to be a furniture designer". Sure enough, this boy drew a very neat picture of himself designing a sofa (amusingly, this scene was set in a child's bedroom and he appeared to be wearing his school uniform). A shy little boy named Dat told us he wants to be a policeman, because he "wants to catch criminals". It took some encouragement to get him to start his work but after some prompting and suggestions he drew a cute picture of a stout police officer in a green uniform and hat patrolling a city street. Bao, one of the most talented students, was uncharacteristically shy about his drawing at first, hiding it with the palm of his hand as he worked. Eventually he showed me that he had drawn himself as a painter. I was so proud! As for the girls, they all drew pictures of the clothes shops they would like to own. In fact, when I asked the class what their ambitions for the future were, a lovely girl named Trang was the first to shoot her hand in the air and said she wanted to be a teacher. Even so, she ended up drawing a fashion store as well, perhaps as this is more interesting to draw than a school classroom.

Just as most of the students were finishing, a bunch more showed up from their after-school revision class. These children wanted to do some drawings but I was concerned the others would become restless. We decided to to take all the kids outside, where the new arrivals could do some drawings at a bench and the rest could play ball games for half an hour. When the headteacher came to check up on us as 4pm arrived, she chatted to two of my students and then translated to me that they had got confused and told her we had been out playing for two hours because not enough students had turned up for the art class. I had to reassure her we had, in fact, been doing some work earlier.

Bao's depiction of himself as an artist (with a long ponytail- traditionally symbolic for an artist or other highly respected folk. I can't explain why his hair is red)

Dat's drawing- the friendliest-looking policeman I've ever seen