Jamie Makes Pancakes

During the first few weeks at school, I had planned on starting an English club. Each week would have a different theme. Film, games, cooking, dancing, cultural presentations... I've since learned that in Georgia, simple things require weeks of planning. Not necessarily planning, actually, that doesn't take long. They just take weeks before anyone actually carries them out. And I am completely dependent upon Georgians to help me carry out any of my plans. 

The film week, as I think I've mentioned, was a complete failure. So I moved on to cooking week. I suggested it to my coteacher, and she said she'd talk to the principal about it. About a week later, we discussed recipes, and decided on pancakes. About a week later she had me start teaching the vocab (flour, butter, melt, pour, frying pan, etc) in class. About a week later it was actually time to start making the pancakes. This delay had an actual reason. The oven, which I could have sworn existed and was in the teacher's kitchen had mysteriously disappeared. An entire oven. This makes me question my sanity a bit and wonder whether it was ever there to begin with, but the principal brought in one of those gas camping burners for us to use. Perfect! An open flame from a tank placed precariously on a chair at a perfect height for 3rd and 4th graders. That will definitely end well.

Finally the day came. I was informed I didn't need to bring anything (apparently my guest status has not worn off yet) and the kids were each assigned to bring a certain ingredient. During the 3rd grade's class time on Friday, they all marched in to the tiny kitchen and gathered around the table with their ingredients. The kids took turns dumping in the ingredients that I had measured out (although the concept of taking turns did not get through to a lot of them, so I had to fight off lots of little hands trying to grab teaspoons of baking powder out of mine). When we got to the sugar, I added the 2 tablespoons that the recipe called for, and was then told by my coteacher to add more, lots more. We ended up with probably 10 times the amount in the recipe. She also added vanilla powder for a little extra flavor. 

When it was time to add the eggs, I handed one to a little boy named Beka. He has a really hard time paying attention and sitting still in class, but he always gets super excited when he knows an answer and practically jumps out of his seat. Basically, he's extremely adorable. When I handed him the egg, the usually hyper Beka was all seriousness and concentration. He started to tap it carefully against the edge of the bowl, but the bowl was plastic with a rounded edge, and the egg didn't crack. He tapped again a little harder and a little harder, but still no luck. Just as I was about to offer to help, he smacked the egg down on the edge of the bowl and sent raw egg flying all around the table. He stared up at me with a guilty look on his face, holding out a slimy hand full of shattered egg shells, and I busted out laughing. It was definitely the highlight of my week, if not my entire semester here. For the rest of the eggs I decided to crack them myself, and let the kids pour them in. You live and you learn.

After the batter was made, we fired up the burner and the kids took turns pouring the batter. This was a bit chaotic, since they were all fighting over who would go next and crowding around the burner. While one pancake was cooking I would try to cut up the previous one and give each of the kids a bite. It was a little hectic, especially when the teacher would step out and I would try to keep 15 3rd graders under control while also trying to not burn the pancakes to a crisp. But we made it through, and the kids seemed to enjoy it. The original point was so they would have a fun way to learn the previously mentioned vocab words. I don't know how successful we were in that area, but there are a few phrases that I'm sure they picked up after 45 minutes in that kitchen. They are the following:

"Be careful!"

"It's hot! Hot, hot, hot!" - I'm not sure why, but I would always repeat it 3 times. They would then turn into little monkeys and shout "hot hot hot hot hot!" back at me

"You guys! Seriously! Calm down!"

"Wait your turn!"

"Stop grabbing!"

"No more pancakes if you don't sit down!"

"You guys are acting like a pack of wolves!"

"Don't your mothers ever feed you?!"