TR # 13 - Teecha

With Rui it was love at first sight. No matter that he's engaged, and to a polyglot too. Yes because she speaks "another European language". Really? What? Italian? No. English? Obviously she speaks English, we're in Canada! No, another one. OK, so French? Spanish? German? Russian? No, no. I got it! Taiwanese!

Yes, because Rui is six years old, he's been in Canada for not even a year and doesn't have a very clear idea of geography. It's hard to make him understand where Europe is and even more that Canada does not border with Africa. Rui has come as a surprise, at the very last moment his mother decided to enroll him to the summer camp where I volunteer as a teacher -Teecha as they call me here- of English to recently immigrated Chinese children. They know me as "the Italian, the one who can make pizza" which is now an inevitable association. The supervisor immediately puts her confidence in me and considers me the group leader, which doesn't make me feel calm at all. Then I ask Rui if he wants to play something. Yes, Teecha! Let's play Tic-Tac-Toe! Which if I was brought up in Canada I would know is what we call "tris" but this is not the case. And how do you play it? "Eeeehhhhmm it's a game.... That is it's easy. It's just a game. With paper and pencil. And you draw the lines so and so and then you put the ball and then you win." Then we play other games and children often re-create the rules themselves. Ste in particular, only to lose anyway... "Sure I made the rules myself, but I must also respect them!" Then we study Canada and it's assumed that I know how many provinces and territories there are or how many points the maple leaf has. But I know the official languages, and also Rui: "English and....... Chinese!" no honey, it's French! "But I know many people who speak Chinese and no one speaks French! And then you know that they do everything in China? Also this case is made in China because there they do everything and then they sell all over the world!" Rui likes to exercise, therefore every day he wakes up at 6 am to go jogging do tai-chi and then have breakfast before going to school or to us. What sports do you like? "Baseball, hockey... football, soccer..." and here we have to write your favorite sport, what is it? Badminton! How do you spell it? " Sure you don't want to write baseball hockey or any other sport that I KNOW the spelling of?! "No, I like badminton!" gulp.

At the summer camp it's important to do many different activities. Manual activities such as origami (Rui says that I'm doing pretty well), projects such as "my home in Canada," baking cookies and playing outdoors. On his project Rui is doing the highway and the river and the bridge over the river. Why don't we also draw the wooden planks on the bridge? "Eeeehhhh. Eh. Because then if the car goes on the wood it falls into the river." Yeah. It's true. But maybe there's the asphalt under the wood? "Eeeeehhh. Yes then I color gray underneath so you see it." What's that, a plane? "Eeeehhhh no. It 's a rocket in the rocket-station which is close to the river." And why are you doing people on horses? Who are they? "They are soldiers then there's the king here and that is the tower of the soldiers and the great one for the king." But why are you doing the soldiers? What are they for? "Eeeehhh. Because they are the ones who protect us from evil and so we are sure that Canada is free, right?" Self-evident. Meanwhile, I make a car "very good, put it on the highway, Teecha!" Now write the words you learned "...eeehhh car? King?" Are you sure they're new words? "Hihihihi eeehhhh eeehhhh not really?"

Before cooking you should learn the words related -it would be even better that I knew them but never mind: break the eggs, you know what that means? "Eeeehhhh break like when you break stuff?" exactly, precisely. But what do you like to eat? "Ooooohhh I eat a lot of rice!" Really? And do you cook it? "Eeehhhh no, grandma cooks it for breakfast. Ohhh but at lunch yes, I cook! Do you know how to do it?!" no, tell me! "You take the rice Teecha you put it on a plate, open the microwave, press the button, wait for the third beep and then it's ready!" Better than Chef Ramsay. Then we make cookies and I pretend to be able to measure in cups and teaspoons because the other teecha's afraid of the dough. And fortunately she's not there the following time, when we eat half the dough raw... she would've fainted. The supervisor then asks me to teach good manners... but why so much confidence in my native culture?! Rui loves his parents, rightly so. But "they just arrived from China and sleep all the time, they don't work!" tells me the first time, so they can follow him in the garden ("like eeeehhh you bury the seeds, water, and after a while the plant comes up... but a couple have been eaten by the raccoons!") or take him to swim ("yes, because here I go to the swimming pool but in China instead my mother took me to a cold cooold river which is big like a sea! "). Then his father gets a job and what does he do? "Oh, a Chinese job. He like... sells. Sells Chinese fruit." So Rui stays with his mother and asks me: "But do you believe in God?" eeehhhmmmm... you? "Nooo, hahahahaha. How could a God exist who doesn't have a mother? I think my mom is always there, but God has no mother!" His logic is flawless. We also go on field trips. In which the supervisor gives me again the role of leader. And asks me at inopportune moments, "how many kids do you have?" just when I've not counted them for at least two hours. But in the end everyone arrives safe and sound. At the science center I don't know whether to keep an eye on the children or the teenage tutors who play more than them, then we visit the oldest theater in Toronto but Rui only remembers the ghost upstairs Sam the trombonist: "We have visited the haunted house!" ehm not really. At the amusement park Rui is too short for almost everything but the next day "eeehhhmmm can I tell you something, Teecha? eeehhmmm just wanted to say thank you for giving me the money to shoot even if I didn't win the toy." You're very welcome darling. Rui always wants me to play with him "eeeehhhmmm Teecha, would you mind playing with me?" And at Taboo and Apples to Apples we make an awesome team together. And even with the sand castles we aren't bad at all. Rui perhaps didn't learn a lot from me during these weeks but has an excellent memory: he perfectly remembers the first thing I taught him and he tells it to me while we say goodbye the last day.

"Eeeehmmmmm can I tell you something?" Of course, anything you want. "Now when I see the Moon in the night sky you know you know you know what I think? I think of my Teecha because Luna means Moon in Italian!" I hug Rui and maybe watching the Moon I'll think about his round face too and the wonderful person he's destined to become.