Kirsi

This is my student Kirsi. His name means "first son born after twins." No joke, that's what his name means. He is the nicest kid. To come to school he bikes 3km and once his bike chain broke so he was having to walk all that way (My principle likes to use information like this "oh! The children walk so far! look how hard their lives are!! They suffer! We are poor!" to make me feel guilty but I know these kids that walk all that way to school and it's true they walk far and school is expensive and they DONT STUDY or pay attention in class and therefore they might as well stay home for all the good it does them). Kirsi however works his butt off. He was first in his class this year (6th grade). Anyway, that time that he broke his bike chain our Secretary bought him a new one because he was a nice kid who worked hard. Well, Kirsi was so touched that he has been pumping three buckets of water for her everyday since (this was months ago) to show his thanks. I was looking for a source of regular water so I told Kirsi if he would pump two buckets for me everyday for 6 weeks I would buy him a soccer ball. A soccer ball is a big deal - they are highly coveted and very expensive. You can't even buy them in my village. Kirsi said he would be so so so happy to get water for me but he didnt want a soccer ball, if I could just buy him a pair of pants that would be payment enough. Oh Kirsi. So, when the six weeks were up I told Kirsi that we would go shopping together the next market day. I told him he was to pick out a pair of pants, a shirt, and a pair of shoes. He tried to refuse the shirt and shoes and I had to use my teacher authority to make him accept the offer. We shopped around for the items and the picture above is of Kirsi in his new outfit. What a sweet kid. He went around for a day showing everyone his new clothes and wasn't madame rebecca so nice to buy him a gift. He is also his class representative and during our end-of-the-year meeting he stood up and said "I would like to thank all the professors for teaching us. Mme Rebecca bought me pants." I was a bit embarrassed. Anyway, the point of this blog is how sweet Krisi is not how nice rebecca is for buying him clothes. I will tell him that I worte a story about him on the internet (this necessitates explaining the internet . . . hmm . . . that might be impossible) and it will make his day.