In the past few weeks I somehow went from teaching two days a week to being surprisingly busy (for a Peace Corps Volunteer, that is). In addition to the four classes (6a, 6b, 10a, and 10b) I teach with Aliya, my counterpart, I have begun to teach two classes (8g and 11g) with a different teacher at my school and hold girls’ club at my school, and a teacher conversation club and English conversation club at the Uzbek private school in town.
Aliya continues to be an amazing resource for me. I am especially enjoying my 10th form this year. 10th grade, according to the textbooks is “America” year. Before school started, I made it clear that I refuse to use the textbooks at all this year, because they are poorly written and include a lot of incorrect information. Instead, I have been writing a lot of my own texts to use in class and designing presentations and activities that I think properly reflect America. My students really seem to be enjoying it, because using my pictures and my own experience is bound to be more interesting than a textbook written by Russians.
My 6th graders are still super cute. It’s hard to not love classes that will giggle that much when we play Hokey Pokey and Simon Says.
The other teacher I am working with is, to put it nicely, extremely frustrating. She’s an extremely nice person, but she isn’t the most dedicated teacher. After several weeks of her skipping classes, showing up an hour late, and leaving the classroom constantly, I finally decided to confront her. I yelled at her when she arrived an hour late to class and threatened to stop working with her. It seems to have worked. After that class, we sat down together and planned a lesson for our next class, and she was even on time to our class the next day! If I learn anything in this country, it’s how to be assertive. It really works. Who knew?
My girls club started this week. I’m really excited about it. I’m planning to just sit around and hang out with the older girls at my school. Today I showed them pictures of my friends, family, Charleston, and India. Then we spent a while just chatting about my future plans (they’re shocked that I don’t want to have a baby until I’m over 30 or that I only want 2), my family, and celebrities. Next time, I promised we could watch a movie. The girls are all really sweet, so I’m excited to spend more time with them. They’re also really patient with each other. We talked in English the whole time, and a few girls didn’t understand, so their friends would translate for them into Kyrgyz. I was very impressed with their ability and willingness to do that.
I’m also really happy to be working at the Uzbek school again. I did clubs there with Fritz and Martha last year, but I’m on my own this year, which I’m ok with. The teachers are really nice and really eager to improve their teaching and their English, so they’re really encouraging to work with. The kids are also amazing. The group this year is much smaller (there were 10 last week), more selective (the teachers chose their best students) and younger (the older boys were inappropriate at times to Martha and me last year, so the teachers wouldn’t let them in this year). It’s nice to be able to work with only the best students because we can get much more advanced without leaving anyone out.
Other than work, life here is going very well. There have been a few new low points recently, however. Firstly, a few weeks ago the gas for my stove and oven was cut off. I found out later that all of Jalalabad and Osh was cut off because Kyrgyzstan owes Uzbekistan $19 million in unpaid bills. Since there’s probably very little chance of Kyrgyzstan ever paying that back, I’ve resigned myself to working on my sketchy homemade ceramic hotplate. Since there’s no way to adjust the heat, to make rice, I have to stand in front of it and plug it in until it starts to boil, then unplug it until it stops, then plug it in again, and so on until it’s finally cooked. Let’s just say it’s a bit frustrating…
Also, yesterday I was walking home from school in the morning (yeah, I’m done by 9:00 two days a week), and I was walking past the bazaar towards the main street (named Lenin Street, of course) when I smelled something that smelled very … poopy. As I neared the corner of Lenin street, I saw that the sidewalk was literally littered with human feces. Turns out the sewage system backed up. Onto the main street in town. Gross.
Volunteer life continues to be amazing. Last month, Fritz threw a kick-ass 60th birthday party for Ginger. It was possibly the best birthday party I’ve ever been to. There was free food, free beer, and plenty of dancing for 20 volunteers and 15 Kyrgyz guests. Plus it all went off without a single problem, which is impressive for a volunteer party of that size. Otherwise, I’ve had smaller get-togethers. Last week, I attended a dinner party at Martha’s (she made sweet and sour chicken! Amazing!) and hosted a scrabble/dinner party (pesto pasta!) at my place. It felt very … grownup.
Next week, I’m going to Issyk-kul (the lake) for a “life skills, HIV/AIDS” training held by Peace Corps. Martha was planning to attend with a woman she works with outside of her NGO. She accidentally left information about it at her office, and her NGO got mad that she didn’t invite them, so they called Peace Corps to complain. To make a long story short, Peace Corps suggested that Martha find someone else to go with someone from her NGO, and I jumped at the opportunity. I’m excited both about the training and about the opportunity to get out of the daily routine and see other volunteers for a few days.
My health has been surprisingly good (knock on wood…), my cat is still amazing, and the exciting thing coming up is the annual Osh Halloween party.
I hope everyone’s having a great fall so far!