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Show groups we have had so much frankness and friendliness I feel we are helping solve some problems, and we have a few girls who are of Yery inquiring mind. We have been having small group tea parties with the girls and their mothers at irregular intervals and if we keep it up we shall cover the school in the course of the year0 I think these are good, In the fall we had some good hikes. but we have had a really extraordínary amount of rain, beginning early in November and continuing almost without real let-up till nearly Christmas. We have decidedly passed our full normal amount for the whole year, and a good deal of it has come in such floods that it has really injured things. Certain sections of the town have been flooded so that people have had to leave their houses, numerous half ruíned houses have tumbled down, and several times the new electric cars, which actually got ínto operation this fall, have ceased runníng'for some hours because of the sand washed on to the tracks. That being the case there has oeen rather a cessation in outdoor things, bft we have had about two weeks of good weather now, and of course shall have more later. To be sure the main stretch of the winter is still ahead, but in this country that does not mean a very long stretch although the more I have to do with the sub-tropics the more assured I am that the place to be comfortable in winter is probably the Arctic. This is rather an aside from the subject I started with, namely friendly relations with our pupils. We have re cently branched out along this line to a wider bit of friendly relationship. There are in this neighborhood, which is back from the main street and full of little houses, an ap-palling number of more or less neglected looking little children play-ing in the streets by which we walk to school. It has been much on my mind that the sehoo| \ought to be able to do a little social service work for these children, something that could be more direct and steady than their interest in the baby home which is an hour's journey away* I laid the matter before Sideka Hanum, a most energetic and socially minded lady who used to teach for us, and was dragged away for work in the government school because she had not finished her eight years with the government that beneficiary pupils of the state normal have to put in, But she is a very warm friend of ours and we of hers. She specialized in physical training and games and appears to possess limitless energy and good will. So she is going to our school grounds Sunday afternoons when they are not in use, and a group of our girls is helping her and we are starting a little neigh-borhood play-ground work. Which is a great joy to me, because if I can get our girls to do things of that kind and to feel that they are nnder obligation to do them, I shall feel zhe school is really of nervice to the nation. So little by little we go on and there is more trust, and con-fídence, and friendliness, a few stronger traer ideáis, a little more self sacrifice. May the Hew year bring more and more of it all. For we say we are here to spread the kingdom cf heaven. And if that means anything it must mean that we are to know God and show G-od so well that the human relationships all around us becorne a little more like the human relationships of a loving and happy farnily. Ever sincerely, Edith P. Parsons American Collegiate Institute Gueuz Tepe P.O. Box 111 Smyrna, Turkey |
