It's a small soup

It's a small soup around here, and the world that we call international Christian education is a small soup as well, which I guess is my way of saying, "It's a small world after all" without getting the song stuck in my head. 

Here are a few examples to illustrate these points:

One.  I live on campus, making the soup very small indeed. The place is crawling with students all the time, as you might expect.  Sometimes my interactions with them are quite amusing.  Today, as I arrived home from grocery shopping, two of my students were loitering outside the building where I live.  "Hi Miss Clare," one of them calls cheerfully to me, "I was just talking to [insert friend's name here] about fractions."   Riiiiight. The perfect welcome home from the grocery store. 

Two. On Saturday I was at Nak Suu and was invited to hang out with the staff who run it at their dance off/ fundraiser Saturday evening.  So I figured I'd go and support them and the outreach trip they are going on next month.  Well, their turn out was kind of low, except for the fact that the directors' kids invited all their friends.  The directors' daughter is in my class.  So there I was, doing the dance off thing, while being cheered on by a group of my lovely students.

Three.  I was sitting at a sidewalk cafe yesterday afternoon, in a neighborhood downtown. Across the road was HOBS: The House of Beers yes Mike, we can go when you are here). I look up and see a group of farang (foreigners) walking in- among them a girl who looked very familiar... finally I was able to place her. She teaches at a NICS school in SE Asia and I recognized her from the pictures of a friend who also worked at that school.  Maybe this week is their spring break??

Four.  We were talking at a department meeting the other day about people on our staff who had taught together previously- in other countries.  You'd be amazed at how many their are. While I never taught with any ICS staff, there is another new teacher here who used to teach in Suriname with my former roommate from Argentina (who is now teaching in Kenya...). 

It's a small, small soup.