In some ways, Fe y Alegría No. 44 feels just like any school I've been to - the kids have their classes, there's lunch and recess, special days mean special celebrations. But there are so many reminders how different this elementary school is from the 3 I attended in Boston.

Like, just to take one example, the day a few weeks ago when José Daniel's dog entered followed him into the schoolyard and would not leave. The dog kept trying to climb the stairs to the third grade classrooms. I clapped, told it to leave, and hissed at it (all standard way to get a dog to go somewhere else) and it just would turn away for a second and then try to climb up again. It was a problem, because José's class is rambunctious enough; they would not benefit from the presence of a canine friend. 

Finally we conceded that only José could get the dog to leave. He came out of class and lead the dog down through the schoolyard to the front gate. The 2 giant school dogs then put José's much smaller dog in it's place when they saw him and chased him out. "Be careful not to let your dog in here," said one teacher, "the school's dogs will eat him for lunch!" 

We haven't seen José's dog since, so either the school's dog did eat him, or José's done a better job keeping his furry friend from coming with him to school.