School Days
School has recently begun again after the Christmas vacation. Kids are waiting at the bus stops in the morning to go to classes, most of them only anxious to see friends again and play with them at recess. In our township there are three large schools, along with the high school. But the younger children in some of the villages still attend the local escola unitaria . These small unitarias , as they're called by most people, are one or two room schoolhouses. The classroom is on the bottom floor, and on the top floor is a small apartment for the teacher. The smallest are only one classroom. The biggest have two classrooms, and apartments for two teachers. In the middle of the parish where my husband grew up, there are two buildings with two classrooms each, together. Practically all these small schoolhouses around here were built in the 1940's and 1950's, to bring a certain order to education. My mother-in-law went to school in a private house where the teacher was boardi...