Journal-Eileen Strong
Today was, for many of us, the last regularly scheduled day at the P.P.A. After finding out that I will not longer be in my kindergarten classroom for my last two mornings, I quickly found myself already missing my noisy, yet lovable, 5-year-olds. I will miss watching Carla draw a very obvious circular island with a palm tree on it, and the children mistaking it for a shoe. Still, funny things like that happen in a kindergarten classroom whether it is in Peru or the U.S., but I do not think that I have come across smiles that have touched me as deeply as they have at the P.P.A.
As in the toddlers' area, the reality of these children's scenarios hits me harder and harder every day. It seems unfair that while I consider the weeks, months, or years many children have until they will leave, the time is approaching for I myself to return home. While it is helpful to know that we are one group preceding a handful of others, I still want to stay and be the one to wipe Emily's nose or tell Enrique that his name is not, in fact, spelled L-U-I-S.
I suppose the most important thing that I will take with me is a compilation of smiles stored up in my brain. It is amazing how one can actually see a child start to feel important with just a friendly glance his or her way. With these last days, I am sure most of my time will be spent admiring the genuine and beautiful smiles that fill the P.P.A. Though we have come for a short time, a smile helps remind me that we are, in some small way, making a difference.

Thoughts of the Day-Eileen Strong
"A smile is a light in the window of the soul indicating that the heart is home"
"The reward of a thing well done is to have done it." - Ralph Waldo Emerson