Learning creole

Language barriers make life hard. Perhaps they are also a good thing I tell myself, especially when it comes to teaching English. I stand the second day in front of my classroom. Today is the fourth. I feel like going back inside the house. I ask the students to open their notebooks. I show them what this means. I show them again and again. Nobody moves.. The students, half of them sit outside the tent blue tarp along the tree to their left that gives them a makeshift wall. A broken chalkboard stands behind me. The chalkboard behind me is already half broken. A crack runs along the left side cracking half way up, inching to the middle There are four bench tables. Luckily we are all in the shade. This is makeshift schooling post earthquake. Some students return with their books, some without.