고마워

Nothing to get your head on straight like finally, finally teaching again.

My mother/teacher's class is overflowing. Overflowing for a camp that is. And they're off to a great start, enduring all three hours, rather than starting out calls of headache after only two. They're an endless parade of compliments, about how thin and pretty I've become. Which, you know, who's going to object to that on a daily basis? And apparently, after finishing class today, they marched straight down to the main teacher's office to compliment me to Coteacher in front of the head teacher and the VP. There's nothing like having a group of ajummas pulling for you, I'll tell you. All's right in the (Korean) world, if you can manage to keep the ajummas happy.

And then, back to the center finally, where the boys puzzled over the Rangers badges I brought them back from Glasgow. Eventually, they managed to figure out that FC stands for football club, which was the term I was using to explain what the damned things were. Geonhee, my obvious little favorite, one of the twins, kept repeating, "Manchester?" over and over, at first out of genuine confusion, but thereafter just to get a rise out of me.

"Nooo! Geonhee! Glasgow! Scotland! Not England! Scotland!"

For the duration of the lesson, whenever there was a lull in hubbub, there he was again, randomly: "....Manchester?"

Chanhee, Geonhee's twin, apparently had some kind of head surgery while I was away and is shamefully sporting a beanie over his now shaved head and wound. I have absolutely no idea what the surgery was for, or how serious whatever it is was, because there's no one at the center who speaks anymore English than I do Korean. He was kicking up his usual nonsense tonight, though, so I trust he's alright.

They were bored with the game we were playing at first, so I decided that instead of passively giving them the edge, as I usually do with my students, I would ramp up my efforts, and everyone started to get more involved after I started stealing everyone's cards. I came under full attack, but still ended up taking third place, out of eight, with only the other set of twins (a cunning little duo the other boys call Cutie Baby One and Cutie Baby Two -- Jeongwoo and Jeongwon) managing to outdo me. Whenever I stole one of Geonhee's cards, I instinctively replied, "고마워" when he handed it over, which sent the whole group into a frenzy of delighted giggles.

"Teacher, again!"

"Go--mah--whoa. American style. You like that?"

"Yes! Teacher one more time!"

Every evening the woman who runs the center forces at least one of the boys to walk me to the bus station. Tonight, Geonhee took on the task, and slipped me two little chocolate candies before he turned to go. "고마워 건희."

"아! 샘! Thank you! 반가와요!"

"반가와요."