Since I moved to the Dominican Republic to teach in a small Christian school, one thing is new. Until now I’ve never had the privilege of teaching seniors, and therefore never have had to face their particular brand of finishing out a school year. I am referring, of course, to the traditional senior prank … that primitive need for a class to leave its mark like a wolf cub learning to mark his territory. This year is one that I won’t forget for awhile.
Arriving at 7:06 AM on the teachers’ school van as usual, we filed off the bus, and marched up the tiled corridor that opens onto our campus. As the panorama of the campus became visible, each mouth opened in surprise one by one. Yellow, police crime-scene tape stretched across several pathways causing us to stoop in order to pass under. “For Sale” signs (Se Vende) were placed on certain teacher’s doors. Old uniform shirts hung on make-shift clothes lines. Picnic tables dangled precariously from trees. And, of course, the proverbial toilet paper hung from virtually every tree.
An eerie silence seemed to hang over the campus as the teachers wandered speechlessly through the senior prank artwork. One had to be there to appreciate it, but it really did seem like a sort of artistic collage.
They did not miss a trick. Later, when I tried to open my room by turning the door knob … can you guess? Oil was smeared on the doorknob as well as on the banister railings and all the freshman lockers. When I looked at the security camera above the high school mall area I noticed that someone tried to spray shaving cream over it in an attempt to put anonymity to these actions, which brings up an interesting question. How did they get away with this? Our campus has four security cameras with an armed 24-hour guard (referred to as a “watchie”). Was he sleeping? Did they bribe him? Many unsettling questions are unanswered. However, apart from a spray painted palm tree most of the artwork did not appear to be malicious … thankfully.
The most memorable feature of their mark upon history was not the hanging picnic tables or the bouquet of balloons over the campus hedge. While the teachers were walking through the campus in the eerie, stunned silence we heard the chirping of birds. Since there are many vocal birds here in the DR I didn’t think much about it.
As I started up the cement steps to my room I noticed that the chirping grew louder. Rounding the stairway landing and looking up I couldn’t believe what I saw.
In front of me were about a dozen fuzzy, yellow, new born chicks scattered on the steps. When I made it to the top and looked down the hallway I saw about 200 more chicks huddled together on scattered newspaper. Across the campus I heard shrieks of surprise coming from the female elementary teachers as they encountered a similar sight.
Over the outside wall near the entrance to my room I peered into the outdoor covered cafeteria to see a hundred more chicks scattered across the floor and sitting inside the upside down cafeteria tables. Awareness of the enormity of this slowly floated to the top of my consciousness. The campus was filled with hundreds of baby chicks!
Since my first two periods were senior classes who were now gone, I spent most of the morning cleaning up the mess outside my room left by the chicks and the seniors. Scooping them up four at a time with both hands I placed them in cardboard boxes and also in the deep set science sink in the back of my room.
By the time I tried to put bowls of water in the crowded boxes the chicks looked like a drenched frightened kitten after her first bath. And when I was kicking the newspapers together into a pile to throw away I found another chick hiding under the classified ads. The entire day was colored by those chicks in one way or another.
When I tried to do some business in the office I heard the now familiar chirping coming from the vice-principal’s office. He was gone so my curiosity drove me inside his office. It took about five minutes but I eventually located a small cluster of four frightened chicks huddled behind his door. I put them in a collection box that was set up in the teacher’s lounge for orphan chicks found during the day.
Certain students carried a chick with them to classes all day. A horrified teacher reported on the bus on the way home that she saw a student clutching a chick in one hand while eating a donut out of the other. She was predicting we would all die from bird flu as a result of this prank.
At the end of the day many chicks found their way home with various students. Some teachers brought small clusters of up to forty chicks with them on the bus to find a home for them. The chicks in my room were eventually collected by the school janitor who roughly poured the boxes of chicks together like someone pouring water into a container. Later, when I held my head in my hands at my desk trying to enjoy the first peace and quiet of the morning, I heard more cheeping coming from outside my window. Peering out the aluminum louvered windows I saw a neighbor woman who lives on a small farm next to the school walking with a box of chicks perched on her shoulder. I found out later that the director contacted our farmer neighbors and gave most of the chicks to them.
So intent was I in caring for these pitiful little creatures that I completely forgot about the last awards assembly of the year. At the time I was supposed to be handing out awards for my math and science classes I was babysitting 200 chirping chicks. I’m not sure I will be able to forgive the seniors for that embarrassment. The vice principal accepted my apology and said that he was able to stand in my place with little effort.
Another event is now chalked up in the annals of senior prank history, and I suppose next year’s class will try to top that. And on it goes … forever. When I arrived home that afternoon after school the thought crossed my mind to look up chicken jokes on the internet. Why did the chicken cross the road? You know, that sort of thing. The teachers’ end-of-the-year awards banquet was scheduled for that night and I had been asked to give a small devotional. I thought it might be a good ice breaker. But, you know what I did? I took a nap instead. It had been a rough day and I really didn’t care why the chicken crossed the road.
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