Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

Yesterday afternoon I joined the NSTP students in their final session with the Grade 2 students of the nearby public school. They gave the kids posters each and a class record book and a box of chalk to the teacher.
There were also games with prizes%2C an extension of the mini games that they had at the end of each session. There was the traditional stop dance, Bring Me (they even asked for white hair and the longest hair) and an evolutionary rock-paper-scissors game.

hey also gave awards to the best student in each of the subjects that they taught, and of course, food. They had made sandwiches and juice from powdered concentrate earlier that day, which they counted as being part of their hours, as well as the tying of the rolled posters that they gave the kids.

But I guess the highlight of the day was the five gallons of ice cream that was donated by the politician (mayor? I’m not sure) father of one of the students.

Somehow, I was the one on hand to fill their small plastic cups as the students lined up outside their classroom. There were only 28 pupils for the Grade 2 class that day, but as the news of our event reached the rest of the nearby classrooms, there were Grade 1 students who went from ice cream as well.

It was okay because the group had bought 100 cups for the day%2C and all of them were used.

I guess a third of the way through the large canister was when I asked for a seat beside the ice cream dispenser as I scooped lower and lower to feed the kids.

One of my students even wiped my brow every once in a while -like a surgeon.

About half of the way through the ice cream the inner can came loose from the outer cylinder, which contained ice and salt for thermal insulation. This made it more difficult to scoop from the sides (where the ice cream was still solid) unlike from the center (where the ice cream was already soft).

I think it was at this point that the line started to dwindle, and I got about a two-minute rest, until the kids started lining up again with their cups for seconds.

Some of the college students offered to replace me, but I declined. The awarding ceremonies were still going on inside the classroom, and they needed to supervise the kids from just throwing their litter anywhere (trash bags were what they forgot to buy for the activity).

Around this time the scooper I was holding fell into the salted ice water, so I had to pause from the dispensing to go to the washroom and rinse off the scooper.

When I got back in the room, the college students were giving the award named after me to one of the kids. I don’t know why, maybe because the kid reminded them of me. Even though my hands were still a bit wet they wanted me to give the award to the kid, so I did so, and they took pictures.

Two thirds through the five gallons when I tried to push against the ice cream to scoop, the inner can would sink lower into the ice water it was floating in. This was the point I decided to take the inner can out of the larger canister. I surmised that it would be okay for the ice cream to melt some more to be easier to scoop, and I could clamp the bottom of the can with my feet for better leverage.

Finally the can only had about an inch of ice cream left, and even the kids who had gone for thirds were already full. I stood up from beside the can with only a half circle of ice cream left lining the bottom.

I told the students that if I ever got tired of teaching at least I knew there was another job I could go to at any scoopery.