4 Eight Year Old Boys and Two 1 Week Old Kittens

This week in Korea for most elementary schools it’s Sports day activities, which means for the foreign teacher there is really not much to do.

I however, have been trying to put this music together for this drama performance for over a month now to no avail.  So I made an appointment with the grade 4 teacher who has a music editing program and the know how to help me.

I go to see the Grade 4-1 teacher at 2pm prepared with a USB of the music I require to be edited… when suddenly one of my grade 3 boys shoves this clear plastic canister in my face of the rear of what looks like an undetermined rodent….I did the usual OHHhh nice…what are they rats? hamsters? mice?  NOO stupid teacher Nina they imply….they are CATS, Agi Goy Yong ee,  Agi Goy Yong ee (baby cats)!!!  Mwuh?? Cats I say?? Ya look…A Ni Yo, no Am Boy oh (No you can’t see what it is) and they bring them down so I can look inside…and yes they were in fact kittens…the size of hamsters with their eyes closed..(You can see where my Korean cat Yongi gets his name from now more clearly!!) Simply short for Cat in Korean.

They beamed at me with pride and excitement….I looked at them with despair and concern of OH NO what have you done?? I asked them Oma odi issoyo?  “Where is the Mommy cat?” They said they didn’t know (Moll Ai Yo, Amado Oma Up soy yo)…They weren’t sure, maybe she was of nothingness… I looked at Teacher Yu and asked him to tell them to wait here before we walked over to the Onuari Animal Hospital (Kee del io yogi, chokum eu bun Nina Sun sing nim chonay Onuari Dong Mual beong wan  gai oh, chu say oh) while we went and did the music CD and I would then walk them over to the animal hospital… which thank goodness just happened to be across the street…actually I originally asked them to hand them over to me and I would take care of it and I knew that was a bad idea and wouldn’t work because we really needed to find the Mommy cat and hope she would take them back……

So the boys agreed to wait….Mr. Yu and I went into his classroom and we tried to do the editing but the kids were too much, yelling screaming etc…and the boys outside were getting impatient yelling to me Nina Sun sing nim bali wa…which means hurry up teacher Nina…with the impending doom of the kittens in that plastic canister I decided to have Mr. u download the program for me and give me a quick lesson on how to use it…looked simple enough..and then went and met the boys.

We walked over to the animal hospital together, twins, and 2 other boys, one on a bike and 3 on foot, one of the twins was the proud owner/slash founder of 2 male gray tabby/white kittens.

I go to the animal hospital a lot and they know me well there, but when I walked through the door with 4 8 year olds and 2 1 week old kittens the jaws dropped… I didn’t expect they would take the kittens, but they did just as I expected the Veterinarian came down picked one of the kittens up (who looked fairly healthy at this point, well fed, squaking etc.)  and I could see they both still had their umbilical chords attached…I felt sick….the boys were good and I told them in Korean to be careful…and to not touch them….and the vet did the same…and gave them a brief lecture on “animal husbandry”…they were told to put the kittens back where they found them and to not do that again….the boys promised they would said they were sorry and that they would keep and eye on them….

As we left the animal hospital the boys had clearly learned something and left with a new pride and a mission to save these precious little ones…they thanked me for my help as we parted ways and promised they would do their best..

I went over to where I thought they lived to check today…who knows the fate of these poor little souls I won’t find out till next week.

I downloaded the music editing program and tried to do it myself today….waste of time….apparently you don’t absorb anything when kids are screaming all around you and 2 kittens are on their deathbeds because of innocent well meaning little boys…or so they think.

Sorry no photos, I wish I had my camera yesterday….and my Korean is atrocious, my apologies!