I Wear Slippers to Work

(and other strange and wonderful things about my job)

Yep.  That's right.  The school where Colleen and I teach is kindergarten only, and since the kids spend a fair amount of time on the floor, street shoes aren't permitted above the 1st floor.  So I get to slip out of my shoes every morning and into a pair of comfy slippers.  If you're going to be standing all day, that's the way to do it!

We've pretty much agreed that we LOVE the place we work!  All of the women we work with are just wonderful.  Except for our teaching assistants (the girls who showed us around the city in my last entry) and the school's English teacher, they all only speak Azeri.  But that hasn't seemed to matter at all!  Somehow we've managed to communicate, and we pretty much adore all of them.  We've already been to one teacher's home and been invited to two more! 

The last work day before school started, we were up in our classrooms when the vice-principal came in and invited us downstairs to make apple pies!  Apparently they do this on a semi-regular basis, on days when there aren't any students.  So all the teachers (maybe 15 of us) stopped what we were doing and made our way down to the cafeteria.  Our table was at work cutting up walnuts, another table worked on peeling and grating the apples, and a third group made the dough.  Then we all sat around making little 'apple pies'- actually more like apple turnovers.  Then, as quickly as we began, we finished and went back to work.  The lunch ladies baked them and we ate them over tea that afternoon.  Such a random but wonderful tradition. :)

Colleen with B- a super sweet teaching assistant at our school

Aren't they beautiful?

Though school started this past week, we don't have enough students for our English-only kindergarten yet.  So we've spent the past two weeks decorating our rooms, 'shopping' for supplies in the storage closet, and getting to know our teaching assistants.  You have to love a job that involves art projects, sorting legos, afternoon snacks, and introducing our new friends to "The Princess Bride"!  Oh, and LOTS of tea.  

Some of our homemade decor

My clothesline to teach the kids clothing (I'm in the process of making labels)

P, Colleen, me, and T in the coats we wear when teaching

Hopefully we'll have some students by the beginning of next week, but for now we're just enjoying the time to relax, prepare, and get to know our school and colleagues.  Once we have students, that will be a whole new set of experiences to blog about!  Stay tuned. :)

PS.  I've updated the "Pictures" and "Requests" pages (the tabs are at the top) if you'd like to check them out.