An Unexpected Party and a Long Walk

Hey everyone!  Sorry it has been forever since my last post.  It certainly wasn't for lack of things to write about, but we lost the internet connection in our apartment our last two months in Baku and it was hard to keep updated.  I still want to share some of my pictures and stories, so I'll try to make up for lost time and post a few entries in short order to catch up. Then I'll pick up with (hopefully) more regular entries again.

 

One unexpectedly cool thing that happened at our school started out like a fairly normal occurrence.  Whenever a teacher had a birthday, we would have a little party after school, with cake and tea.  The only thing different about this time was that it was downstairs in the theater rather than in a classroom.

 

 

It slowly became apparent that this was more than a simple birthday celebration, though. First of all, it kept going. Usually at these things everyone eats, downs a glass of tea, and then leaves in pretty short order, but no one was leaving. We realized later that it had transitioned into a second party. Some of the teachers got up on the stage to dance, and we were even treated to a few (hilarious) interpretive performances by Bike (bee-KAY). Then suddenly we found ourselves watching a play.  Though it was all in Azeri, we got that it was about two boys who see a couple of beautiful girls, then go beg their mom to set them up.  Their mother then goes to the girls' mother, and eventually an engagement is made. The two brides-to-be sat with their backs to each other, and someone draped the traditional red veil over them both (you may remember that from Peri's henna party back in October). Then we were all invited up onstage and given lit candles. I was just thinking "Woah. This feels really real," when I realized that the two girls under the veil were in fact engaged (and one was crying). This had turned into their actual henna party!



 

 

It was really quite beautiful and emotional.  We danced around them, painted our hands with the henna, and wished them all kinds of love and joy in their future marriages.  What a lovely surprise!

 

That same weekend, I met Valerie to walk around downtown. We ended up in the old city and checking out the Shah's palace. I just wanted to share a few of our pictures from that afternoon.  It's really something worth seeing.

I can never get over the juxtaposition of old and new
here- the Shah's mausoleum with the TV and flame
towers in the background

On our first visit Rachael, Colleen, and I couldn't quite figure out what this
was for. But Valerie told me that the servants lived down below the house,
and if someone in the family needed something, they would call down
this shaft for someone to come to them

Me and Valerie

Class Night

Since the beginning of the year, we've known that we would have to put on a class night at some point.  Since the beginning of April, it's been an almost daily stressor.  But in the end it went well and there were plenty of fun moments along the way.  We had plenty of backup!  All the teachers were backstage helping with the costume changes, or filming the show, or setting up the reception outside.  Colleen and Peri orchestrated the backstage efforts, and I spent the entire show onstage behind the curtain, prompting when they forgot lines.  Farida did not get the concept that I was 'hiding' from the audience, and asked me why I was there several times, once from all the way across the stage!

I was so proud of our kids- it was an hour show, and the only thing they did in Azeri was the national anthem!  They did two dramas, two dances, six songs, six poems, and a gymnastics display.  We finally got the video on Friday, so here are a few highlights.  None of the videos are more than 2 1/2 minutes, but feel free to pick and choose which ones you'd like to see!



And now we get to actually teach again!  I've always heard teachers in America complain about teaching to the test- we've spent the last month and a half teaching to the Class Night!  It's quite a relief, to be honest. 

While we're on the subject, I'll go ahead and share two small goals for the last month.  Teaching kindergarten is as much about life skills and communication as it is about reading, writing, and addition.  They've made a lot of progress, listening to and following our directions, saying please, thank you, you're welcome, excuse me, I'm sorry, and bless you when people sneeze.  They know how to wash their hands well and cover their mouths when they sneeze or cough.  They clean up after themselves in the classroom and at lunch, and they ask for things politely (most of the time).  But there is still plenty to learn.  So, here are two things that I especially want them to learn before they leave kindergarten:

• If someone asks a question, answer it, even when the answer is "I don't know." We have one boy in particular who will just think for a minute and then walk away! 
• When you want to talk to someone, but they're already talking to someone else, WAIT.  This is a big one. Apparently Rachael's high schoolers still haven't mastered it! :)  But I'm determined to start our kids on the right track!

So there you have it.  It may not sound like much, and I hope that proves to be true.  But I'd rather just focus on those and worry about other skills once they've mastered these.  I'll let you know how it goes.  :)

Hospitality

Hospitality is a really big deal here.  A really big deal.  And it shows in more areas of life than you would think.  A friend of ours who is pregnant still tries to give me her seat on the bus.  I have to be stubborn and practically force her to sit down before she gives in.  And I've lost count of the number of times I've gone to pay my bus fare on the way out only to find that one of my friends paid for me already.

 

Of course, there is also the more traditional form of hospitality, which translates as food, food, and more food!  A guest should never have to ask for food or a drink refill.  In fact, sometimes they will refuse the first time (or even the second) out of politeness, and the host is expected to offer again, even up to the point of putting food on the plate anyway.  And it's not just like having a huge pot of chili on the stove with some cornbread.  No- variety and choices are key as well.  Once, while visiting someone's home, I found myself with three different drinks in front of me- a glass of juice, and two different kinds of tea!

 

A perfect example is the Turkish breakfast the school hosted for us at a restaurant.  Eggs, fried sausage, cheese pastries, fried cheese, black and green olives, a refilling bread basket (with three different kinds of bread), and every conceivable topping to go on it: two kinds of butter, honey, two kinds of jam, a peanut butter-ish spread (maybe from sunflower seeds?), three different kinds of cheese, prosciutto, cucumbers, and tomato slices.  Oh, and of course the never ending cup of tea. :)

 

This was just my plate- and you can't even see the
plate of pastries and fried cheese to the right

 

Valerie and me enjoying our Turkish breakfast

We've tried our hand at hosting a few times.  The first time, our guests called at the last minute and couldn't come, but more recently we had our vice principal and Valerie over for tea.  We did our best to set out plenty of options, but it's still a weak imitation of the real thing.

 



Of course, there's the other end of hospitality- guests should bring a small gift (often food, but not always) to the host.  On the occasion mentioned above, our guests apparently decided that giving each of us a coffee cup and a stick of deodorant was the way to go! :)

Oh, and there's also the lovely lunch ladies at our school, who will load us up with enough food for an army if we don't stop them.  One of the first words we learned in Azeri was "enough"!  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, as the following picture shows.

All we could do was laugh (and take a quick picture), and then I just split it with her rather than getting my own.

In fact, the hardest part of this hospitality is making sure we're not always on the receiving end- inviting friends over, insisting that someone else take the comfortable seat, and sometimes racing to the front of the bus to pay for our friends before they can pay for us.  It's a wonderful expression of the culture here- where we've met some of the warmest, most generous people I've ever known. 

Thankful

This weekend most of the people in our home group were busy, and it ended up just being all the single girls, minus one.  Rather than have someone host, we decided to go out to dinner, and it ended up being an impromptu girls' night out.  It was wonderful, and exactly what we needed.  We had dinner at a rooftop cafe downtown, ice cream from a place around the block, and then walked to Andrea's apartment to hang out for a bit. 

Lovely ladies, lovely view, lovely day!

The topic of the night was gratitude.  Several of the girls have been reading books or doing studies on gratitude, and they shared the things they'd been learning.  Among them was that it's not enough to simply enjoy the good things in life, but we need to turn that into praise for the One who gives them.  We delved into the hard question of how we're supposed to give thanks in all circumstances, even bad ones.  We also talked about naming our blessings (instead of a generic "Thanks for all you do for me") and going beyond the big, obvious ones.  It's important to notice and thank Him for all the tiny things, to develop a general attitude of gratitude and praise. 

In honor of this, I thought I'd make a list of some of the little blessings I've noticed in my life the past few days:

• It's been warm enough for me to eat my breakfast on the balcony the last two days.
• It's also warm enough to wear skirts again!
• The 4th grader who spontaneously hugged me on her way to my class
• Someone put a sponge (to be used as an eraser) in my classroom at the elementary school.  In a school where every classroom has a smartboard, it's impossible to find an eraser for the one chalkboard.  I've been tearing paper out of a notebook. 
• The coffeeshop/elevator music version of "Gangnam Style" that was playing at the cafe where we had dinner.
• Typos/mistranslations in menus:
  
• The taste of clean, cold water.  An everyday occurance, but not one I usually pay attention to.
• Lightbulb moments with the kids in kindergarten
• I haven't had a mosquito in my room for several days now.
• My preferred bus pulling up to the bus stop just as I walk up (with open seats)
• The babushka standing on the corner selling individual portions of nuts wrapped in paper.
• The fact that the paper turned out to be an unused worksheet from some English language class!  :)
  

All told, that's a lot of blessings for just a few days!  And I know there are more that I'm not remembering right now.

So here's my question for you (didn't see that one coming, did you?  It's an interactive blog now! :) )- How has He blessed you lately, in big or small ways?

TGIF

This Friday we took our kids on a field trip to what was essentially an international science fair.  There were booths set up for each of the countries represented, some manned by local students who had studied the country, and some by actual students from there.  Our vice principal set up the trip and ordered taxis to take us there after breakfast at the school. 

The thing is, they timed it so that we arrived during the opening ceremonies, which was nice for not losing the kids in the crowd, but it also meant that no one was in the booths to talk to us and explain things.  So we walked up and down the aisles trying to keep them from touching things.  The school wanted us to take a lot of pictures along the way (I suspect the photo ops were an important factor in choosing this particular field trip) and you can see the progression in the pictures below.

First picture



Sixth picture

Teacher!  No more pictures, please!

Last picture, on the way out the door

Those poor kids!  Despite all that, though, we did manage to get some good ones.

Those are some of Rachael's high school students running the South Africa booth

Farida!  Don't touch!

After 30 minutes of this, they were DONE!  But the taxi wouldn't be back for another half an hour, so we took them upstairs to the cantine.  Along the way we discovered... bouncy castles!!!  Thank goodness!

Now this is what I call a field trip!

Getting the kids off of them when it was time to go was an ordeal all of its own.  We got back to the kindergarten in time for a late lunch ("No, Nasreddin, the tea and cookies we had at the cantine don't count as lunch") and then it was our class' turn to have the logic puzzles the school bought recently.  The kids love them.  They have to use logic (and sometimes basic math) to match pictures.  Then they put numbered tiles in the right places, and if they did it correctly when they flip it over, it will show a pattern.

Here's a short video I took of Muhammed working on one.  I love it because it's not just him figuring out the puzzle, but talking through it entirely in English!



He was so into it that when it came time to go, he refused to leave.  He wanted to finish the last one.  We had to physically carry him out the door, put his coat on, and walk him down the stairs. 

I'll tell you what.  For a day in which we didn't teach a single lesson, we sure were exhausted.  In fact, this is what happened as soon as all the kids were gone:


Not staged at all: this is what Peri found when she walked in the door.
And we definitely stayed like this until it was time to go home!

What a day! 

T.  G.  I.  F.  

Novruz

The Persian holiday of Nowruz is celebrated (under slightly different spellings :) ) all over this part of the world.  In Kazakhstan it's known as Nauriz, and here in Azerbaijan, we have Novruz.

Essentially, it's a holiday celebrating spring and the new year.  Each country has its own take on it, though, with its own unique traditions.  Some of those traditions here in AZ include:

• Semani- about a month beforehand, we started noticing little plastic plates of grass for sale everywhere- the supermarket, the metro, on the street.  The main day of the holiday, you're supposed to surround it with fruit and nuts and put candles in the grass and light them.  One woman said that you should let the candles burn all night, so that there's no darkness in your home, but that seemed a bit dangerous to us!
• Trick-or-treat!  Only here, the children place an empty hat outside your door, ring the bell, and then run away and hide while you fill it (with much healthier treats than Halloween usually boasts of).  They come back for it once you're inside again.
• Fire jumping- Every Tuesday of the month leading up to Novruz, they build bonfires for people to jump over.  The idea is that when you jump over it, all your bad deeds/vibes/etc are burned away, leaving you with a fresh start to the new year.  In our courtyard, they had a smaller fire to the side with kids as young as 4 and 5 jumping it!

I definitely tried my hand at fire jumping, and while we caught it on video, you can't really see me in it.  So here's a video I took earlier on of some of our neighbors. 

The two days before the holiday, we celebrated Novruz with our students at the kindergarten.  On Monday we learned about spring, baby animals, and how plants grow.  And then Tuesday was just one big school-wide party!  Some of the kids wore traditional costumes.

Meyva, the 2-year-old daughter of one of the Turkish teachers

Here's a little montage I made with some of the videos we took:

 

Happy Novruz!

Kids Say the Darndest Things...

When we first started teaching this year, it seemed an almost insurmountable task- everything had to be coupled by gestures because the kids couldn't understand a word we said beyond "Hello" and "What is your name?"  It's one thing to expect that in an English lesson, but what do you do when you have to work with 5-year-olds 7 hours a day, and those are the only phrases you're sure they understand? 

Things have gotten easier (for the most part) since then, though, and their language skills have snowballed.  Those moments that make us realize "Woah- they really are learning," are happening more and more often.  Now 3-5 months later (depending on the student), they understand most of what we say and ask about the words they don't understand.  They speak to us in complete sentences, unprompted, telling us stories, making jokes (kindergarten jokes), and quite often tattling on one another!  We've even overheard them speaking to each other in English on occasion, like asking "Can I have a napkin, please?" at lunch.  They're picking up on words/phrases we say a lot.  It cracks me up every time I hear Farida say "Goodness gracious," and Colleen definitely taught them to say "awesome."

One day, during a 10 minute play-break between lessons, I heard Farida say "I'm a policeman!"  When I turned around, this is what I saw:

 

After I took the picture I made her get off of him! :)

Along with these new language skills come all the usual kid conversations- those childhood observations of the world that are sometimes right on the money and sometimes hilariously strange.

Today was full of such conversations!  Since Novruz is this week (a holiday celebrating spring) we took spring as our topic.  We made flowers out of clay and winter trees to which we then added leaves, and one of the twins informed me that the tree's roots (I had to teach him that word) held onto the earth, because trees don't walk around like men.  In our English lesson we learned the names of baby animals like puppies, kittens, chicks, and ducklings.  We spent a little time talking about the each of the animals.  When we got to kangaroos and how their babies are called joeys, this conversation happened:

Me: Where do joeys live?
Nasreddin: In their mommy's... teacher, what is this? (points to the pocket on his jeans) 
Me: Pocket.
N: Our pockets on the side, but kangaroo's pocket on the front.
Me: Yes
N: And kangaroo's pocket is big
Me: That's right, because she carries her baby there.  Do we put our babies in our pockets?
N: No, we put them in a house.

At which point I looked at Colleen and wondered why we never catch such moments (which are so much funnier with their hand motions and expressions) on video.  So here's a video from a little later on, talking about ducklings.  Not a particularly funny conversation, and they're not talking quite as much as they had been, but you can still get an idea of how they communicate.



(UPDATE (3/22): The conversation continued with them deciding that that's why the teacher always goes first, too- because she knows where we are going.  The next day, Nasreddin was the line leader and he told Colleen- "Teacher, say where we going and I put them there.")

In Colleen's science lesson, they learned how plants grow, starting from a seed, and how they need water, dirt, and the sun.  It took them a minute to wrap their heads around the idea that the dirt is the flower's food.  Arslan asked if dirt is yummy and Muhammed pictured the roots grabbing dirt like a hand and shoving it in the flower's mouth!

It's nice to see the results of our work.  To know that as much as we've messed up (and it's been a lot), they are still learning and growing by leaps and bounds.  Plus, those results sometimes have us crying with laughter.  That helps too!

Cemeteries, Cinnabon, and Sleepovers

Though there is a sizeable expat community in Baku, we've hardly met any Americans here.  Except for a Christmas party in December, we've mostly hung out with locals and people from other countries (including a surprising number from the Philippines).  But recently Jillann, a teacher who was here before us, put me in touch with her friend Elly.  Last weekend, for Colleen's birthday, she took us around to some of the sights we hadn't been to yet.

 

First stop was Martyr's Alley.  Part of a much larger cemetery, this particular section memorializes the deaths of approximately 93 civilians during a protest of Soviet rule on January 20, 1990.  It was sobering, walking down the row and seeing the pictures of those who had been killed.  The oldest we saw was a 77-year-old woman, and the youngest a 13-year-old girl.  

 

The very first one you see as you walk down the alley is a married couple.  The husband was killed in the massacre and the wife killed herself when she heard of it.  She was only 20.  It is so unbelievably sad.

 

Our day got a little more light hearted after that.  We enjoyed exploring a part of the city we'd never been to before, and took advantage of the new scenery to take some more fun team photos.

 





If it wasn't so hazy that day, you could see where we live across the bay.



With our new friend and the Flame Towers- still my favorite
(and definitely the most recognizable) landmark in Baku

Hungry after an afternoon of walking, we set off in search of... wait for it... Schlotzky's Deli and Cinnabon!  I didn't even know they had a Schlotzky's here, and I'd heard of the Cinnabon but hadn't experienced it yet.  A roast turkey sandwich and a cinnamon roll for dessert?  I'll take it. :)  Then home to spend the evening chilling with a movie.  Happy birthday Colleen!

 

 



While we were walking, Elly invited us to her place this weekend for a game night.  Since it took an hour and a half to get to her apartment from ours, we decided to make it a sleepover.  Three games, two movies, a pancake breakfast, and some guitar playing later, I am quite excited about our new friend.  I didn't realize quite how much I'd missed having an American friend.  ::contented sigh::  I needed this.

PS. I updated the "Pictures" page again.



The Best of Both Worlds

If you read my recent entry, "Up in the Air," you may recall that they were talking of sending Colleen to teach at another school.  Since then, they tossed around the idea of each of us going there one day a week.  But again, nothing came of it.  We just decided to go about business as usual, while knowing that, if anything happened, it would probably happen quickly.  That has definitely proven true.

Monday morning I walked in the front door of the kindergarten and before I'd finished signing in, I was told that someone was there to take me to the other school.  Fortunately, the man who was driving me only spoke Azeri.  Our limited conversation options gave me most of the ride over to try to plan an introductory lesson on the fly. 

I ended up not needing it, though.  While they had planned for me to start teaching that day, the groups on my schedule were all from the Turkish section, which was on vacation for the week.  So I spent the day observing other English classes, trying to get a feel for the different levels and how the school works in general.  Apparently they want us there every day now, but Colleen and I will be alternating between this school and the kindergarten.  I will be there Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, teaching mostly 5th and 6th grade, and Colleen will be there the other days teaching 3rd and 4th.  Since they already have an established class schedule, we'll be taking half of the students for a supplementary conversation lesson during one of their regular English classes.

I've loved all the classes I've had so far.  Here are some highlights from my first two days there:

• Word about the American teacher got around fast- during one of the breaks I was standing in a 5th grade classroom, and I looked out into the hall to see a group of kids from the next room peering in at me.  The teacher had to shoo them away!
• We'll alternate which half of the class we teach each week. Their English teacher chose the students who would be in the first group, and they were jumping up and down in their seats trying to get her to choose them. I know the novelty and excitement of having an American teacher will wear off soon enough, but it's nice in the meantime. :)
• Teaching the kids to say "Teacher, slow down please!" because, let's face it... I still get excited about things sometimes and forget where I am and who I'm talking to.
• Getting to know the other teachers in the break room.  They're really wonderful women.  I already have a few offers to help me with my Azeri. 
• Walking home from work- that's one thing I've missed, and this school is only a 30 minute walk from our apartment.  Plus, they let us leave after our last class, so I'm usually home half an hour before I would have even left the kindergarten.

So all in all, I'm pretty excited about it.  I'm looking forward to meeting the rest of my students and planning some real lessons.  But it's the perfect compromise- I love our kids and coworkers at the kindergarten as well, and it would have been sad to leave them permanently.  Here's to getting the best of both worlds!

Hocus Pocus

One of the kids favorite games recently is to get one of the wands from our dress-up drawer and 'cast spells' on the teacher.  I've spent my fair share of time chasing them around the room as various animals, but this one with Colleen was downright epic.  They decided to branch out from animals, and the results were pretty hilarious.  To give you a hint, in the opening shot she is being the Azerbaijan flag!



I'll tell you what.  If nothing else, kindergarten is never boring!

Up in the Air

Hey.  Sorry it's been so long since I last posted.  It's just that since New Year's, nothing particularly blog-worthy has happened.  Work.  Kids. Watching Downton Abbey with my roommates.  In lieu of a story, allow me to share a bit of the culture we live in (or at least work in- I don't know how this compares to the country as a whole).

One thing we've marvelled at since starting work at our school is how little things are planned in advance.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm fairly used to that after all my years abroad.  But some of the particular instances here crack me up a bit.  At one point we were asked to make out a long-term plan, detailing the topics we're going to teach in each subject for the rest of the year.  That's fairly standard, as I understand it.  But no one was able to tell us how many weeks we'd be teaching, or when school ends.  Huh.  Okay.  We just made an educated guess and planned weeks worth of topics without tying them down to particular dates. 

Then there was the time we found out on Wednesday that we wouldn't have school Friday.  It's not that someone forgot to tell us.  They had just found out themselves.  A week before New Years, we asked when the holiday would start and how long it would be and were told that we'd find out next week (a day or two beforehand).  And this last Friday we left work not knowing if there would be school on Monday, since Sunday was a national holiday!  We had to call someone over the weekend to find out. :)

None of this bothers us.  It's mostly just funny.  But one particular situation has us even more up in the air than usual.  Since we have four teachers and only five students, I've long wondered how the school could justify it.  A while ago they decided that they would have us teach an extra conversation lesson each week, with me staying at our school to work with the other classes, and Colleen going to a nearby elementary school.  But nothing ever came of it and we had almost forgotten about it.  Until last Thursday, when P dropped a bomb on us- they had decided to send Colleen to teach full-time at the other school, leaving me to take over the kindergarten group.  But Friday afternoon we still hadn't heard any firm details, so Colleen wasn't sure where she should go to work on Monday, let alone what kind of lessons she should prepare. 

Without any more information, we decided to carry on as usual, but I would be prepared to take over any day that they decided to whisk her away to the other school.  Apparently someone from the head office was coming by on Monday to work out the details.  Except that they didn't.  So another week passed.  At this point, we don't even know if it's still going to happen.  But if it does, it will probably happen quickly, without much advance notice.  Ah, flexibility!

It gives new meaning to the passage "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own" (Matt 6:34).  We really don't know what tomorrow will bring.  That's always true, wherever you live.  It's just easier to remember it here! 

Happy New Year!!!

This is now the 4th country I've celebrated New Year's Eve in.  It's not quite as big a deal here as it was in Russia or Kazakhstan, but it was still pretty spectacular.  It certainly put any New Year I've spent in America to shame, if only because of the events at the end of the night.  Intrigued?  Then read on...



The local butcher shop getting ready for the holiday- seeing as I have
a long-standing fear of turkeys, this made me a bit nervous

 

This year was definitely different from previous years. First of all, the weather was simply gorgeous. It was warmer than it has been in weeks (in the 50's) and the sun was shining. We met a teacher from Rachael's school downtown, and after she left for some last minute shopping, the three of us walked up and down the park by the water.



Just a bit different from New Years Eve in KZ or Russia!

Have I mentioned what a beautiful city we live in?

But of course there were still New Years trees and Grandfather Frost (like Santa).

 



I can see our house from here!  This is why we have such a phenominal
view from our apartment- we live at the end of nowhere!

The sun sets on 2012

Shortly after the sun went down we headed home to chill out for the evening.  We watched a movie and then went out on our balcony at midnight.  Now this is where the spactacular part comes in.  If you've read any of my posts about the holiday from years past, you know that fireworks are a huge part of the celebration.  Everyone and their brother buys as many as they can and then sets them off in their courtyard or off of their balconies at midnight.  And they don't have any kind of laws restricting who can buy the really big ones, so it's lightyears beyond anything you've seen at home. 

We figured that, considering our view, we'd be able to see most of the fireworks across the city from our balcony, and we definitely got that part right.  It was pretty great.  What we did not count on, however, was the view we would get of the ones going off in our own courtyard.  In the past my roommates and I have always gone outside to watch the show.  This time, we were on the 10th floor.  Which means they were exploding right in front of us.  Literally 20-30 feet away.  It was spectacular and terrifying all at the same time.  This is some of the video I took.  You can definitely hear us flipping out in the background:

 

 

I think Rachael was right, though, in saying that the best part was probably our neighbors on the next balcony, looking at us like we were crazy!  What's up with these weird American girls, shrieking and laughing and cowering in the corner of their balcony?  Even the little girl was laughing at us! 

 

Once we got back inside and let the adrenaline rush subside, we poured ourselves another glass of bubbly (well, kind of- it was a carbonated fruit juice of some kind) and paused for one last group photo.

  

Happy New Year!

So that's all for now.  Happy New Year from Baku!  I hope 2012 was wonderful and that 2013 will be even better. :)

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like... Oh Wait, Nevermind

Celebrating the holidays overseas is never quite like in America.  Last year, for instance, my roommates and I found ourselves out doing some last minute shopping on Christmas morning and only opening presents that afternoon.  Our dinner also included shashlik, the Kazakh version of a kebab.  Not exactly Norman Rockwell-esque, but we made it work!

This year, however, has been the least Christmas-y of all my years overseas.  We never seemed to have time or energy to decorate or prepare anything during the week, and the between sickness and other issues, the weekends got away from us as well.  Before we knew it, it was December 21st, and we had yet to even buy a tree.  We found a small one on top of Colleen's wardrobe, but we never even put it up.

Our one attempt at seasonal decorations

This long weekend was a much needed break for all three of us.  We took a day to just chill out and do nothing, and then a day to do a deep-cleaning of our apartment.  I cooked, which is something that sadly falls by the wayside too often when we're teaching.  We hung out and watched movies.  It was a wonderful time to do all those things (including just relax) that we usually don't have time for. 

On the 24th we went to an American-run coffee shop to indulge in some holiday-themed coffee drinks (for Rachael and Colleen) and hot chocolate (for me).  Then we wandered downtown for an hour and a half looking for a mythical Mexican restaurant we'd heard about.  We finally settled for dinner at a nice place near fountain square.

Today we never even got out of our PJ's (which is why you'll see no pictures of us!)  We spent the day watching Christmas movies and cooking.  Rachael made cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and we had my mom's amazing pot roast + green beans and rolls for dinner. 

Dinner and a movie: "Miracle on 34th Street"

It was a lovely day, but despite the themed movies and the late-night skype with my parents, it just didn't feel like Christmas. 

One could assume that without all the usual trappings of the holiday in America (and don't get me wrong- I love the usual trappings!) I might have been able to focus more on the reason for it all.  And that should have been the case.  But unfortunately, that did not happen, at least for me.  In all honesty, it was just an extra day off work.

I don't want to let this one slide.  I think I'm going to take a day during our next holiday (for New Years) to celebrate Christmas again.  No decorations, gifts, heartwarming movies, or special meals.  Just me, Him, the Book, and the greatest story ever told.  Maybe some carols.  Anyway, that's the plan.  Please feel free to hold me accountable on this. 

A Day in the Life of a Kindergarten Teacher

Okay, I'll come straight out and say it... my main motivation in writing this particular entry is the excuse to include a bunch of pictures and show everyone how adorable our students are.  Consider yourself warned.  :)  So, having said that, here is a typical day in the life of these two kindergarten teachers:

8:45-9:10- Students arrive at school.  They put their coats away and are free to play until class starts.  Since our first lesson is art, often either Colleen or I are cutting, gathering, or arranging things for whatever the day's project is.  At some point a crowd of curious 5-year-olds will surround us, with a chorus of "Teacher, what is this?"

9:10-9:50- Art.  Every day we have a different project planned, some more involved than others.  We try to use different skills (drawing, tracing, painting, cutting, gluing, weaving) and reinforce the language they're learning.  "What is this?" "What color is it?" "How many are there?" "Is it big or small?"  They have made TP roll binoculars, lion masks, pasta necklaces, and picture frames, along with all the usual coloring and painting projects.  Once Colleen had them make sheep out of a TP roll, paper, and some cotton balls, and it was the biggest hit!  One boy wanted to carry it with him all day, and she had to bring an extra chair to the English lesson for it in order to get him to sit down!

 

10:00-10:40- Breakfast, including time to corral the kids downstairs and wash our hands before and after.  Have I mentioned that we get 2 out of 3 meals at school every day?  It's a pretty sweet deal. :)

 

10:50-11:20- English class.  This is the only part of our day that we were really trained for before we came!  Each week we have a topic like food, animals, or family, which we also try to incorporate into other lessons.  Three or four days out of the week we'll focus on new vocabulary (with a LOT of review the whole way) and the other day or two we teach a grammar concept (like pronouns or basic prepositions) or useful sentences. 

 

The kids pick it up really quickly, but the amazing thing is when we hear them using words or even sentence structures we haven't taught them!  They pick up so much, just from hearing us speaking all day. 

 

11:30-12:00- P.E.  This is probably the hardest lesson to control, but the kids need it after sitting still so much of the morning.  We play soccer, tag, and monkey in the middle.  We work on different skills, like kicking, catching, jumping, climbing, and throwing at a target.  When possible, we also try to play games that reinforce whatever they learned in their English lesson.  In the video below, the kids had to transfer all the noodles from one chair to the other, acting like whatever animal Colleen called out. 

 

 

12:10-12:40- Math (MWF) or Science (Tue/Thur).  Math right now is basically a lot of practice writing the numbers, counting, and saying them in English, although just this week they got their first color-by-numbers picture.  Science is just exploring the world, and learning the words to talk about it.  We've talked about the five senses, the weather, the different seasons, and different kinds of plants.

 

12:40-1:10- Recess!  Everyone's favorite time of day, including the teachers.  As long as they're not in danger of hurting themselves or each other, we get to just chill out for a while and talk. 



F bossing the boys around: a pretty accurate
representation of how things go down in our class

1:10-1:50- Lunch.  Though the kids mostly talk to each other in Azeri and Russian, this is a great time to work on manners- for example, saying "Teacher, can I have ketchup, please" instead of "Teacher, ketchup," and saying please and thank you.

2:00-2:30- Problem Solving lesson.  This is just a fancy way to say that this is the time of day when they play with blocks, put together puzzles, and play with clay. 

2:30-3:00- Music (MWF) or Skills (Tue/Thur).  The skills lesson is a time to do tracing worksheets, as well as do cutting, coloring, and matching activities in their workbooks. 

In the music lesson we teach them songs in English, thus far, mostly ones we grew up with, like "The Itsy Bitsy Spider," "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" and "Rain, Rain, Go Away."  This week they're learning "The Hokey Pokey"!  Whenever possible, we try to find cartoons or videos of the songs to play on our laptops, which they love.

3:00-3:30- Review and Games
3:30-4:00- Snack time.
4:00- The kids go home and the grown-ups collapse in exhaustion!

You may or may not have noticed that there were often 10 minute gaps between classes.  The school here has built-in breaks for the children to play between lessons.

The whole class (at least that day) chillin' on the windowsill

One thing we love to do is teach them little games or tricks.  The latest is the high five thing- "Up high, down low, too slow!"  They can literally do that over and over again for 10 minutes if we let them.  Although they came up with a variation on it all by themselves.  If the person manages to slap your hand before you pull it away, they say "Too fast!"

P teaching them "Thumb War" (after we taught it to her)

So that's it!  Our super cute students.  It's not always easy to teach them (in fact, it almost never is) but it's certainly entertaining!



On a school-wide field trip to a bookstore last week

PS. As if this wasn't enough, I posted a few more on the "Pictures" page, as well as some that are not of the kids... although really, what fun is that?