Feliz Navidad everyone! The adorable yet frightened looking children above are Rosita and Osman and they are dressed as Mary and Joseph. Every night this past week we've been doing Posadas, which is a pre-Christmas tradition down here which involves dressing two kids up as Mary and Joseph and going around to houses singing asking for “posada” which is like rest or a place to stay. We get sung rejections at the first two houses but then the third houses lets us in where we sing more songs and talk and eat snacks. Its really fun and usually ends in someone falling asleep on me (second picture above). My fellow teachers and I have also been given charge of directing a rendition of the Nativity performed by our little kids. I think Joseph quit on Thursday and the Angel Gabriel insists on wearing a bunny mask and carrying a sword. I don’t even want to see what happens when we add in the sheep and angels who are all under 6. So we’ll see how that goes when we perform it in 3 days... Three of the other girl volunteers in my house have lice right now but so far I have gotten by uninfested. One of our nuns just found out today she has the strongest strain of malaria, but don’t worry about me I've been taking my meds. This morning Dan (red head above) went to light our wood stove when he saw something dark in the back which turned out to be a chicken. He tried banging on the top and poking it with sticks but it just kept squawking and wouldn’t move. Finally, to use Dan’s words, the chicken “shit out an egg” and “lunged” at his face, but both chicken and human were unharmed. I think we’ll probably eat the egg. Well that’s about all the news from down here in rural Honduras! All our big Christmas celebrations will be on 24th because that’s what they do here, and we’ll enjoy the traditional meal of tamales and chicken salad sandwiches. Mmm! Okay so I wrote that before Christmas but then didn’t get to put it up due to horrible internet connections. So now it is the 27th, I hope everyone had a great Christmas and wasn’t too hot. Oh wait that was probably only me. I spent all day on the 24th making tamales, which are kind of like the Honduras equivalent of turkey after Thanksgiving, I think we've eaten them for pretty much every meal since then. What they are are ground up corn which is then boiled with a lot of lard in water for a long time until it becomes this kind of mush type stuff, then you scoop a bit into a cooked banana leaf with some rice, maybe a slice of potato and carrot, some part of a chicken quite possibly the foot, and some rice, then you wrap it up in the banana leaf and boil it for a couple hours until it’s about the consistency of congealed animal fat. Get yourself a chicken sandwich and a big glass of coke and you’re good to go! Our Nativity play was a very loose translation…Gabriel just sat down in the middle of the stage and watched when mary and Joseph were rejected from the inn, and our little innkeeper kind of forgot his lines and just ended up yelling out “¡No hay espacio en mi casa! ¡Establo!” (“There is no room in my house! Stable!”). But they were all really cute so it didn’t really matter. Well that’s about all that’s been going on down here! Merry Christmas! I miss you all!!
I just watch to wish everyone a merry merry christmas, no matter where you are! I miss you all so much, and I can't wait to we are all reunited next christmas! The first picture is of this morning, where I was christmas marching at 430am! Starting the 15th of Dec until christmas, there are christmas marches that end at a different person's house each morning, where you have ginibre (like a ginger cider), and crackers or bread and then followed by a mass. So today was my first christmas march, I slept at my aunt's house with my sisters their cousins and neigbors and then we were singing domincan carols and marching with the town, drum, and other instruments and all, trying to literally wake the neighbors. So much fun, but I'm exhausted! The second pictures, is the fiesta del ninos I helped plan for christmas. My parents donated money, and I went and bought all the kids their little gifts, this is them saying thanks! Once again Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, I'll think of you guys come midnight when I'm on the beach ringing in the New Year!
Helllllo friends! Okay, so I realize that I probably have the easiest access to internet, but I've been waiting to post until something of significance actually happened. Which it still hasn't, but whatever. Although the first picture may appear totally posed, it actually wasn't. I'm just that great of a teacher. And the second picture is from the girls' first basketball game today, which was exciting. They lost, alot, but I was screaming and jumping up and down so much cheering. Our side of the bleachers were packed with all the girls family members - which are the most vocal fans ever.
The 11 hour days here are hectic at best, but I'm getting to a point where I think I'm used to how crazy things are around here. While I got threathened by one of my students last week, I really do love them, and I know that they feel the same about me. I love the community here. The culture is so different than I've ever known and they teach me so much everyday. One of our teachers unfortunately had to leave the school and it shook the girls so bad. I had to deal with 28 sobbing girls for two days. It was hell. Drama here is the usual. In addition to being their religion teacher (which is my favorite part of the day), I'm also in charge of the lunch program, basketball detention, homework time, and the programs after-school. So yeah, I am padding my resume like woah this year with all the shit they throw at me. We had our Christmas party last night, which was really awkward/fun. I love the young people I work with. I'm also invited to Nativity Prep's (the school that the teachers I live with work at, its the boys school) christmas party which I am looking forward to. Its at a country club, and I actually get to dress up and eat real food, which is rare around here. I don't really go out too much, just the teachers I live with or the development director (whos 25) at our school. The convent recently got wii so thats what I've been up to. I hurt my back badly last month from playing wii boxing (and losing horribly) every night. We got guitar hero too and i pretty much suck. i sit an inch away from the tv and my roommates just make fun of how horrible I am. One of my roommates forced me to read that twilight book that every american teenager seems to be obsessed with, and I'll be honest, it's nothing to write home about. The girl in the book pissed me off cause she's so stupid and in love with a vampire, and she's cool about that. Not that any of you would read it, but its awful. Umm, thats whats up with me.
All right, well it's been a while since club myst so I owe an update. The classroom is going pretty well. .I figured out a new way to make out my lesson plans. I pretty much write a 8-9 page paper outline thing for a week, which takes a lot more time than before but HEY big shocker, class is more organized now than before. I've also been changing stuff up on the kids, like creating a homework folder and creating more class jobs to make my life a tad bit easier. I'm still a lil punk when it comes to calling the parents, I gotta just sack up and do it but I'm afraid some parents are gonna want to come after me with a .45 asking why their kids have D's. I won't lie, I just gave them a social studies quiz and literally gave them the answers before the quiz and I STILL got kids in the 70s. When the answer to a question is charter for an official government paper and you get "Barock Oh Bama" as an answer, you can choose to do two things: start flipping desks or laugh out loud. I choose the latter. One big thing thats happening in my school though, on a somber note, is a HUGE budget crisis. So my school is $100,000 in debt and we apparently need to make changes now. Some of these changes include firing one of the 4th grade teachers, getting rid of the school music program, fundraising up the ying yang, and more. We have some kids leaving the school too because of the rising tuition, including Jennifer Vasquez in my class. She came yesterday to pick up her stuff right before my writing lesson, and suddenly writing became the last thing on anyone's mind. The girls in my class were wailing and I've never seen tears fall, it was literally like I turned a faucet on their tear ducts or something. Jennifer came in not crying but within 5 minutes she was bawling too. It was touching and depressing at the same time. . .I kinda stood there mad awkward trying to make her laugh by giving her a test they had just taken and said, "Well, you know you still owe me a test and a quiz now, let's not forget." Thank God she laughed or else I would have felt like such an ass. Even the guys in my class were tryin to piece it together, saying things like "GUYS DON'T CRY" and they broke in 20 minutes. Speaking of the fellas, I'm their new basketball coach and have yet to give them streetball names. I will be posting a picture of them soon and require you give me your best suggestions. . .I already am going to be calling the tallest one Escalade. Otherwise, life is going really well. My community is great, we had a blast for Halloween dressing like kids from Legends of the Hidden Temple (I was Silver Snakes) and we're actually having a Christmas party tomorrow! We're going to have hot chocolate, spiced apple cider, rum, tequila, ginger bread, ugly christmas sweaters, christmas music. . .although the nights always end up at 3 a.m. with people caravaning to get tacos or tortas at our nearest mexican dive. We also just had a huge reunion with all the teachers in the ACE program last weekend in Austin, which is pretty incredible. Everyone had some great stories and the last night was a SHOW. The program pretty much gave us 2 free kegs and unlimited wine for 180 teachers, everyone got sloppy and danced to We Three Kings followed by Lil' Wayne all night. Here's just a lil picture of me and my Phoenix ACE community. We're pretty stellar and have a super nice house, so ya'll need to roll through! Oh, and VA on the 20th. . .you should come too.
Idea... try to frying the tortillas in a little oil and sprinkle salt to make homemade tortilla chips, this is always a hit here! Here, things are actually getting occasionally chilly. At night I usually where a sweat shirt, and I wish I had brought long sleeve shirts... but what I know think is cold might only be 65, im not sure when everything is in celsius. Anyways tomorrow, I am heading to a Christmas Fair until Tuesday. The fair is in the capital for 5 days, and this year it is dedicated to my artisan association! And yesterday I just found out that the government decided to give us funding for our transportation and lodging there.... so this means we have less costs and my artisans can make more money yay! My mission for this fair is also to get the artisans more organized, so my goal is to get them to put prices on all their merchandise they are selling (because as I told them, everyone understand numbers no matter what language they are speaking). And I'm going to go print out sheets today for them to write down there daily sales in categories of types of merchandise, and I'm passing out a marketing survey in English and Spanish to the customers. I'll update later to see if any of these grand plans work.... Also, I am super excited about the fair because a lot of my Peace Corps friends are going to be there, and on Saturday the head of the PC here is throwing a Christmas Party. Also, I am staying with this lady who works for the US govt. and offered that I could stay with her for free. On the phone I think she said she worked for the CIA, but I probably misheard her.... because I didn't think you could just tell people that. Anyways thats whats going on down here! Here is a picture of what all Volunteers down in the DR truly want for Christmas!
And the other picture is my friend and her kids, who I'm trying to help with her jewelry making business! I found a cool shell on the beach and she made me a really pretty necklace with matching earings yesterday! peace out from the dirty south!
Its been a week and no one has written in this thing! I only get to check the internet once a week and I want to hear about people in that time so get writing, I´m looking at you people in the US with unlimited internet access.
Not too much new this week. I made flour tortillas by myself, kind of by myself, for the first time. Everyone makes fun of my method of throwing them, which involves me taking the masa (dough) between my hands, and then flailing my arms until it stretches out into what looks like a long dough tounge, and then turning it and doing it again going the other way. That might not make sense if you´ve never made them. Fresh tortillas right off the fire is maybe the greatest food ever.
Anyway, I thought I´d share some pictures of my kids.
Sorry about my lack of updates so far—with only about an hour a week to either be on the internet or call my parents its hard, especially because my laptop was dead for about a month so I couldn’t even write things before hand. But now it has mysteriously resurrected! Sounds like a story I heard once. So all glory be for that! But onto things, I have so much to tell you!
So I’ve been here down at the Finca for almost two months now which is pretty hard to believe. If you want to see where I am in the country, look up where Trujillo, Honduras is, that’s the closest town. So we’re right on the northern Caribbean coast of the country literally—the beach is about a 10 second walk to my front door and I fall asleep to the sound of the waves every night. I also wake up to the sound of about 25 roosters screaming outside my window at 5am every morning. When it’s a nice day its absolutely gorgeous, but it’s rainy season here so on average we only get like one or two of those a week. So most days it rains all day , and usually a couple days a week we have no running water because it just goes out from the rain. But yes, on a regular basis I have running water and electricity! Only cold water for showers which is the worst part of my day (or every 4 days) because it can actually be pretty chilly out when its rainy. Chilly meaning upper 60s. But today is really nice and its weird that I’m still wearing shorts and a t-shirt and tomorrow is December.
Anyway, onto more interesting things! So I live here in a house with 21 other American (and one little adorable Mexican) volunteers all in their 20s. Although five are leaving in a couple weeks because they’ve finished their two years here. Picture Real World minus all the drama and cool house and with like three times the people. So the Finca is kind of like set up in a compound type fashion.We have a church, a primary school, a jr. high, a clinic, a food bodega (where we keep all our food and sell it to the surrounding community), an office with a little convent attached where our three adorable nuns live, and then six small houses that all our kids live in with two Honduran house parents that are divided up by age and gender. Then we have a big soccer field in the middle of the property that as you can probably imagine gets used a lot. They love them some soccer down here. We’re in a really, really rural area, 30 minutes by car on a really crappy dirt road gets you to the closest town which is not exactly a bustling metropolis. But it does have some small grocery stores and a couple internet cafes that I think we probably provide 50% of the business for.
So we all have different jobs around the Finca taking care of our 50ish little bundles of joy. Most of us are teachers, social workers, maintenance workers, or do community outreach. Next year (meaning starting in Feb, the school year goes from Feb to the end of Oct) I’m going to be teaching third and fourth grade in our primary school. Yes, I will be teaching children! English, math (yes math…Mr. Reca would be so proud, and probably horrified), and health. And religion to 1st and 2nd graders so like singing Jesus loves me this I know. I think I’ll have 7 or 8 fourth graders and 8 or 9 third graders. We have about 120 kids that go to our school, only about a third of them live at the Finca—the rest are children of the people who live in the surrounding poor community. So since our kids are on winter vacation (think our summer vacation) for a few months, the two other new teachers and I have been doing winter camp for all our kids under 12. All of you who did RAMP or like summer programs (so like all of you) can understand how wearing this is on your sanity. But it´s fun, we do alot of coloring and hula hooping and mangling Spanish. I think I’m going to feel like I’m a counselor at sleep away camp for two years, thats what everyone has said its pretty much like.
Happy Thanksgiving a few days ago! And before any of you pity my being away from home and having no way to celebrate, let me tell you that I was probably just as stuffed on Thanksgiving as I normally am at home. When you have 20 plus Americans living somewhere, they will find a way to celebrate Thanksgiving. Ours involved a lot of planning since we were feeding like 60 people (we invite all our neighbors and all the house parents here). We all divided up into teams of two or three to cook specific things, I was on mashed potatoes which involved washing, cutting, boiling and mashing about 90 potatoes. We had three turkeys, stuffing, the potatoes, green been casserole, butter corn rolls, cranberry sauce, gravy, and like 6 pumpkin pies and 5 apple pies. It was awesome considering our diet usually consists of massive amounts of rice, beans and cabbage prepared in different ways. Anyway, Thanksgiving was awesome and I totally appreciated it way more than I do in the states. Oh also all the volunteers played a game of football while everyone watched earlier in the day and I didn’t suck that bad!! I caught the ball like 3 times!! And my team won! It was a great day. But don’t worry, I’m not becoming athletic or anything, pretty much all the volunteers go running like 5 times a week and I have yet to subject myself to that once.
So that’s about it, life in Honduras is pretty good. I get to see gorgeous plans and animals (and some not gorgeous ones like 7 foot long black snakes, rats and crazy flesh eating (not really but it feels like it) ants) every day, I get to eat oranges and grapefruits that we pick off our trees, and I can go swimming in the Caribbean whenever I want (barring sun). At night when its clear you can see a crazy amount of stars and the ocean has phosphorescent algae that glows like tons of lightening bugs in the water. I’m also pretty sure our kids are the most gorgeous, adorable children on the planet. I did have a weekend of barfing and being horribly sick a few weeks ago, but besides that my health has been pretty good. And despite not having a phone, a tv (ok we have a TV but we only watch movies every two weekends), the internet or anywhere to go, we find ways to entertain ourselves. We play a lot of games and cards, I get to do a lot of sudoku and crossword puzzles and reading, we cut each other’s hair, have idiotic photo shoots, listen to music, tell stories, etc. Oh and also last week someone procured a pirated DVD of the new James Bond movie so we got to watch that! But like 15 minutes were inexplicably dubbed in German, and like 10 minutes was totally scrambled because the disk was scratched, and then the rest of the time we only caught like 80% of the dialogue because the sound quality was so bad. So afterwards we were all trying to put together what exactly happened, but it was still really exciting. I highly recommend swinging on down here for a visit if you get the chance. I MISS YOU ALL!! I really love reading about what you all are doing when I’m able to keep it up! Also, everyone who has sent me mail...I don´t think I can tell you how much this makes my life. We get the mail every Thursday and it pretty much is what makes my week. I got a Thanksgiving card from Mrs. Sherman on Thursday with a crossword puzzle from the post and the comics inside and it was one of the greatest things I´ve ever gotten in the mail, I almost cried.
Love you guys! I hope you’re all enjoying being able to listen to Christmas music now! Keep doing awesome things and know that I´m thinking of you all!!
Kelly's life in the Carribean is quite a contrast to my life here in Ukraine. Today was the first snowfall and I assure you I won't be wearing anything less than my heavy winter coat, winter boots and hat until the end of May. Lidiya, my host Mom, is very concerned about my ability to survive the winter on my own given the selection of winter clothes I brought and my inability to cook borsch. These last two weeks of training will be devoted to intensive Ukrainian cooking lessons. After tomorrow, I'll be able to make some mean potato pancakes, carrot salad, and these weirdly delicious cheese pancakes called tsernyky.
In Ukraine and I'm pretty sure the rest of Peace Corps you have to do some kind of community project during your training. We're having a fundraiser to raise more money for textbooks since the ones they have are terrible and are filled with erroneous information!Maps of the U.S. show Washington D.C. in Michigan. Anyway, our fundraiser is a concert/school dance/talent show/ student teacher trivia game challenge. I'm in some way involved in all of these activities on stage so wish me luck! I think I might have to play a piano solo on a piano that has about 50% of the keys out of tune and I definitely have to sing a song in Ukrainian about a boy who loves women and cheese pies.
So, I am guessing you all got my massive email update with the details of my new life in an artisan village. But since that email there has been 2 life changing events, which I will now relinquish!!!!!! So enjoy this insider scoop.
Thursday, Nov. 13th. It was a dark stormy night, with a hint of danger in the air. Well it was at least dark. Because my artisans decide to have their meetings at 530pm, which really means 6pm in an outside tiki hut with no lights. So since its nearing winter the days are getting shorter, which my artisans may have forgotten because its still 80 degrees at night. I can't blame them, I don't believe winter really exists either since I still can't walk outside midday without melting. But regardless of our beliefs the sun still knows its winter time and about 15 minutes into our meeting its pitch black. So this meeting involves a lot of fighting, jumping topic to topic, literally jumping and all in very fast spanish. I was in the dark very much literally and figuratively. After all this confusion, I also had to coordinate who of my artisans were coming with me to an art fair in the capital next week and get all their information which I had to pass on to the director of the fair. Luckily, this didn't cause as much trouble as I thought it would, but still doing this all in the dark, especially just writing personal information down correctly with out light was a bit challenging, and interpreting dominican spanish. So needless to say, I left this meeting quite stressed.
I drudge home, in a bit of a bad mood and frustrated with my spanish ability. I rush to my room to shower and relax. I lock the door, and am about to change when I spy with my little eye a massive tarantula on the wall behind the door. Now when I say massive, im not lying (it was mildly smaller than the size of my face)! And it was not intimidated, unlike myself. My spanish mother, knocks on the door telling me my dinner is ready, and I respond in spanish "I have a problem, but I don't know the words." My fear struck me dumb, and I could not for the life of me remember the word for spider. And I couldn't open the door, because was afraid the monster might jump, because apparently they do that. I can handle jumping artisans but not jumping tarantulas. So I frantically flip through my spanish- dictionary and eureka if find the word "arana with a tilda over the n" (just in case you find yourself in the same position). So I scream "Theres a big spider behind my door." My mom responds with "O". And then quickly grabs a key, and rushes into my room, and tells me to leave that she will take care of it. She takes a plank piece from the door, and swiftly tries to impail the spider. But apparently they are inimpailable, but I still took a picture of it being squished because it seemed we had the upper hand at the time (and i figured I could send it to the spider later to bring up painful memories muahaha). Since it wouldn't die though, my mom had to do a heroic and skillful maneuver of "guiding" the tarantula and scooting it out of the house as it was walking. She gave it a last kick, to let it know it wasn't welcome back around these parts. And then all was safe and well. Although, I almost suffered a hear attack, the unwelcomed spider did act as a great stress reliever. My family and I had a great laugh from this episode and proceeded to have an hour of fun insect stories as I enjoyed my dinner of fried salami (which I actually like now, although I am sure my arteries will suffer after 2 years). So I guess moral to the story, if you are feeling stressed just always remember that moody jumping artisans are never as bad as jumping tarantulas, so and at least you dont have to coordinate getting them to a fair.
My other new experience of the week, was a dominican family reunion and trip to the beach. Now my friend Gori has a bunch of family in town, because its the one year anniversary of her uncle's death and they have a really big all day ceremony. So most her family from the states came and are staying for a few weeks. Now her family is a party, literally. Every night they are partying way into the night, and I usually try to only stay for a tiny bit if at all normally because I try not to drink in my community, and some of the NY uncles and cousins can get a little fresh. But the family was nice enough to invite myself and the volunteer, Cati, who I am following up to join their family trip to the beach, Nagua. Now I was a little hesitant because I knew this trip might would be more or less a shit show, but Cati convinced me to come, and she is really sweet and responsible, so I figured a free trip to a beach I haven't to been to, sure why not. And I knew it would at least interesting. Basically, I was not disappointed. First we fit 19 of us and 1 baby snuggly into 1 van! And then of course around 10:30, the wine and the straight rum start flowing in the van. Actually it is quite a skill these people have, of drinking out of small cups, while driving over dominican roads (which is normally much rockier that a thirty year old roller coaster) and not spilling at all! I definitely have not mastered it, but im getting better. Also along with the wine (which is basically liquor because its so strong and in one gallon containers), there was cheese and crackers were going around, which made me quite happy. So basically, as road trips go, it was pretty enjoyable. Then we roll up and pile out into the house of a relative, where there procedes to be more sitting around and drinking until finally make it to the beach. The family at the beach was a blast! Now Cati and I, were I think the only ones with bathing suits, but that didn't stop the family from being in the water, swimming with clothes apparently is the norm. And laying out and relaxing was not the norm. We basically just splashed around and played lots of chicken. I tried to teach one of the brothers to swim, but it didnt go so well. I asked him how dominicans expect to get off the island, if none of them can swim. He didnt answer and just laughed. Anyways the beach was a lot of fun, and then we all had a big dominican style late lunch of rice and chicken and bussled on home like one big happy family. Well we had to carry the grandfather and the aunt into the van, because they were sloshed. The way back was fun, not horribly eventful. The now warm wine and rum started flowing again (i stuck to gatorade), and many fun dominican car games, but I don't have their kind of energy so I took a nap. But then was awaken to a cousin serenading me. All and all it was a good old family fun day with a crazy dominican family. They kept partying into the night, but Cati and I opted for having a pj party with my little sisters, making popcorn, and watching the classic dance drama "Step Up." And then this of course was followed by a dance party.
So in response to Zach query, I will update you on what I've been doing. The short answer is working too much and (probably in all honesty) drinking too much. The longer answer is probably not much more interesting than that, but I'll give it a go.
So things here are good, but it's finally getting cold. I haven't bought a winter coat, although I was cornered by a salesman at the market last Saturday and told me I needed to buy a coat. I told him I didn't, but he didn't believe me and gave me a long, quizzical look before letting me, the stupid foreigner, go. I'm on the edge between buying a normal (relatively speaking) looking coat and just going extreme and buying a ridiculous leather coat with fur trimming like one of my friends did. The ridiculous-ness that is Russia has been wearing off on me. I also bought a Russia football (soccer) scarf that says "We are from Russia." I'm hoping that the militsiya (police) or muggers will be fooled into thinking I'm Russian and leave me alone. We'll see. I've got a good group of friends - other teachers - here but I really need to start hanging out with Russians; particularly the absurdly attractive girl (she's my age so its not anything inappropriate, just to clarify) in one of my classes, which leads me to...
my classes. Teaching has been good, but challenging. In particular, the company I work for is fairly disorganized and I've had new classes dumped in my lap the day before they start; their preferred method is to mention something about "your new classes" offhandedly and walk away. It has been somewhat frustrating, but since there's not much I can do about it, I've decided just to grin and bear it. Again, I think it's symptomatic of the country in general and not just the company. The actual teaching has been good though, although hard. I have a lot kids classes, which are difficult just because they generally come after school and don't want to sit through another hour or hour and a half of class. The adult classes are easier I think, but challenging in ways the kids classes aren't; adults are generally a little more demanding on the teacher than kids, who don't really care if they learn anything or not.
Living in Russia has been interesting, but not as different from living at home as I thought it would be. I think that's because Moscow is sort of like New York City - if you only visit/see New York, you've not really experienced what the rest of America is like. Still, it is different. People in public are definitely more abrupt, you see a lot more drunks, the police (for me) are scarier (in the sense they can give you a lot of problems if they ask you for your documents and decide they need to "fine" you) than in the U.S., and the drivers are insane (crossing the street is a bit stressful). Still, most everyday things, like food and public transport, are cheaper than in the U.S., although its incredibly easy to spend a lot of money in almost no time. I haven't gone out to any real clubs yet - I'd go but a lot of my friends here aren't really into that thing and they're really expensive anyways - and I was supposed to go to a soccer game today, but my friend who I was supposed to go with was too hungover and took a rain check. I'm debating whether to go to the CSKA-Spartak match next week (thus risking getting the hell beaten out of me regardless of which team - its Russia's biggest rivalry and they play in the same stadium - I support) or the Lokomotiv-Dinamo match (marginally less chance of getting beat up, but they're both Moscow teams so it'll still be crazy) but I'm excited about that.
Phew, that's whats been going on with me. I've been trying to update my other blog http://rossiyablog.blogspot.com/ so if you're dying to know what's going on with me, thats prolly a better bet. I also have some pictures up at picasa http://picasaweb.google.com/TEWonder. Anyways, hope all is well with you guys
I've been absent in this blog thus far, but have been reading everyone's entertaining entries. Good stuff, lets keep it up. FXCF, after reading your posts, I'm still dumbstuck that you are responsible for the education of 2o something 5th graders. You are a buffoon. In other news, heres a quick update on what I'm up to. I'm living in DC with 3 roommates (one a good friend from ND, one the friend of a good friend at ND (also in DC) who went to Dartmouth, and one a random Craig's list kid from Wash U in St Louis). I really couldn't have asked for a better living situation, as we're all pretty sweet. Going in to a living situation not knowing 2 people is a tenuous situation, but it's more than worked out--it's rocked out (sorry for that). I'm working at a law firm in DC, and after going in to the job mildly interested at the prospect of law school, my interest has since dwindled. They work way too much. The only kind of law I can see myself possibly doing is human rights law, but all things considered its just too panstakingly meticulous a profession. Ivan came up 2 weekends ago for his bday and me, him, Danger Reeves and Mach H all were able to meet up at the Sabarre sanctuary for a good old fashioned big ass food bash. No night would be complete, however, without Aaron randomly showing up with Paolo by his side, and that is just what happened. This week I'm going up to NYC to visit 2 of my roommates from senior year who now live with one of my other best friends from school too. The tentative plan is to watch High School Musical 3 with that dreamy Zac Efron. Before I wrap this up, has anyone heard anything from Liz? like her status of being alive? Liz, if you read this, you should write us when you get the chance (and I understand you may not have had the chance yet). And Tom , whats the haps in Russia? Alright playuhs, im out. latro,
So a lot has happened from the labor day weekend as far as teaching goes! Well for starters, my school has started this new thing called Benchmarking. Throughout the entire year, a teacher has certain state-wide standards that we have to teach. Beginning each quarter, the kids take a pre-test (which they're supposed to BOMB considering they don't know anything on the test) and then take a post-test, where they're supposed to improve. We have a math benchmark and a writing benchmark test. . .but it gets a little tricky. The thing is our school curriculum has not been universal by any means. . .so essentially there are 8th graders in my school who don't know 3 x 3 off the top of their head. The school expects an 80% increase in grades from pre to post but with that many deficiencies there are obvious huge problems. . . .So here's where I come in. I suppose it's rough enough to come into the first year of teaching, trying to find your method of doing things. It's incredibly difficult to do it while an administration is attempting to make a school-wide change of implementing and executing instruction, all while more or less grilling us about the scores. I felt in the dumps this past Thursday when I got some scores back and my kids improved by just 10%, where the administration then told me I should use the math textbook program even though they told me not to in the beginning. Haha, it's kind of a mess BUT the bright side is that it can only get better from here and at least next year the administration won't be so confused about what to do. My kids are doing great. . .having a birthday and being a 5th grade teacher is maybe one of the best things ever. I got a MASSIVE smiley face baloon, bags of candy, homemade cards, and 2 kids even brought me empanadas (think of the delicious mexican version of a Hot Pocket) and a giant cheesecake. I gave them practically no homework that day. Thank God the kids are a great group, they really have made this experience worth the hard work and endless amounts of planning. Also, if any of ya'll remember maybe a story you REALLY liked in 5th grade, let me know. . .I'm reading them the BFG right now, they're lovin it. As for the community I'm living with, things are amazing. I'm really lucky to be in the place where I'm at with the people I'm with. We get along super great (which is good, considering other ACE communities don't always click so well) and we do stuff with each other all the time. I just gotta mention yesterday because I guess it was pretty epic as far as teachers on the weekend. Basically I got my house on a VIP list for this swanky club called Myst. Two weekends ago, my housemate Pat and I went out to the bars with some of his friends in the area. A friend of one of his friends so happened to be the DJ at said Myst, and Pat and I chatted up a bit. He told us he could get us into the club for free, so I took his number down. . .time went by. . .and Matty Stuntz (I kid you not, that is his name) texted and asked for all the peoples we wanted to bring. So then this happened. We rolled with 10 people, partied for 3 hours, then went home. It's pretty fun especially when your housemates literally just fist pump the entire time. The club-goers just kinda stared at us, but we didn't care. . .I guess when you can stand a class of 26 5th graders for 8 hours a day, you start to get pretty tough skin. Hope all of you are doin well, keep up the updates!
So…. I am not so intelligent- After setting up this blog, I’ll managed to lose my gmail account name and password which I set it up under…until a couple of days ago. But, eureka, I figured it out finally… kinda like a pirate finding a buried treasure (I apologize I have been a little obsessed with pirates since coming to Caribbean, haha I even have a skull and cross bone bathing suit). But anyways, now I have been able to read and see how everyone has been doing. It sounds like everyone is managing well, and we are all going through that first fun and ackward stage of getting acquainted with a new place.
So today is just another day in the sweltering heat of the DR (although the mountains are not as bad as Santo Domingo). I am right now watching a cult of aliens in “Hombres en negroes dos” Men in Black 2, with my 11 and 3 year old host nephews, as I wait for my host brother to come home so I can interview him about his business for my project for class. I have to write a business plan paper in Spanish and an Income Statement by the end of this week for one of the companies I interview. This should be interesting, since most of the places I interview don’t really keep any kind of records… and not to mention I am sure things are getting lost in translation (my Spanish is progressing slowly but surely. I think I am passed the early child stage. But I have definitely not matured yet. I think I am in the ackward puberty phase of my Spanish capabilities).
I really like my family here in the Mountains of Juan Lopez. I dance and sing with them all, especially the 3 year olds. I play lots of baseball with the 11 year old. Whenever the volunteers get together to play at the field on the side of our mountain (I’ll need to take pictures of this, like lizmac says, its sure not ugly) kids appear out of thin air in the matter of minutes and soon there are 25 kids playing/ watching. For a place where there is no cell phone reception, word sure gets around here fast!
Also, I really like the daughter-in-law, Jokaira, whose family lives with us right now. If its not raining, I am going to skip class tomorrow, and go to her work, which is in Porta Plata, the big beach town about 2 hours away. Since she works at a resort, she speaks a little bit of English, which comes in handy if I am having communication issues. She is really trendy, cool, and an awesome mom (her kids are so good and not annoying!) So she is sort of my Dominican role model here. I decided I might even change my name once I get to my village and start going by Jokaira. Not just in memory of her but because I have found that NO Dominican can say/ remember my name, I think the double L is tricky or something. But it’s always kind of funny, to watch people struggle at it.
And my neighbors are really fun too! We convinced, Jesse, who is the host sister of one of my best volunteer friends to have a house party 2 nights ago. Now Jesse has a little 3 year old, but she is really crazy and funny! We have dance parties A LOT, where we teach her the Macarena and the running man, and she teaches us to try to shake our hips… (one of my 2 year goals is to be able to shake it like Shakira). Or we will have cooking contests or just mess around. Well anyways, she lives next to me, and we convinced her she should have a party. So I went on a beer run on the back of her husband’s moto, helmet and all! And some how we were able to a fit this huge crate of beer on the motorcycle with us! Then our other friends and volunteers arrived from the top of the mountain with the Dominican rum! We blared the music and my friends host dad whom is 60 came over somewhat drunk and showed us card tricks. Then the Spanish and English music flowed, and we had a good old time talking in Spanglish and learning lots of Spanish slang and bad words. Then me and my friend Justin, pulled out the Soulja Boy Superman dance to show Jesse. Haha my Dona, also around 60, came out too, it was a good old time in the campo!
So yea, my family is basically the bomb, except for one. The other daughter-in-law, whom is my age, doesn’t like me so much. Luckily, she has only come around a few times, but every time I see her, she always has some not-so-nice comment for me. But I think I am going to just kill her with kindness. Today, for instance though, she came over and before even saying hello, she tells me I am gaining weight, but my Dona (host mom) and Jokaira came to my defense real quick. And then I ran about 9 miles, to show her! But, besides that life on the mountain is pretty sweet! I am going on a lot of cool field trips this week, so I will update you guys soon about stuff I am actually doing!
so while all of you are off doing amazing things in other countries, i am here, in wilmington, delaware. now before i go off about how there are no redeeming qualities about delaware, i really do love what i am doing. and i need to tell myself that everyday. and delaware has no sales-tax. so that's one for the redeeming qualities.
just to fill you in on what i've been up to, i'm at Serviam Girls Academy, and this is it's first year. we take girls out of the inner city schools and prepare them for the long term goal of college. it's a long day, starting at 7am and they leave at 6pm. i've been teaching 33 inner city girls religion and health. oh, and coaching volleyball, because getting cut from the volleyball team freshman year means i have all the experience and talent in the world. they, on the other hand, have been teaching me hand games, how to build a thicker skin, the words to just about every hip-hop song, patience, what strength really means, and of course, double dutch. it's impossible, but we're taking baby steps. my goal is to be double dutch master at the end of this year.
like any first year teacher will tell you, it's hard. but at the end of the day the rewards are endless. some of these girls have been through so much in their lives, and come to school everyday smiling and that gives me a whole new perspective on lives. but before i make them out to be angels, they aren't. now i know why i never went to an all-girls school. DRAMA. and total 'tude. even to people of authority, like teachers, especially teachers. but that's the demographic and how they are raised. but i love teaching them religion, it makes me so happy. and i'm also happy that i am no longer teaching them sex-ed. cause that would have been interesting and scarring on my part.
i really love the other teachers i work with. they are hilarious and are always there to help me out. my principal on the other hand is a different story. i don't know who takes up more of my patience, her or the girls.
i live in an old covent with 7 other teachers that teach at the boys' school down the street. the house is so big and creepy. there's a whole 3rd floor we don't use cause we're pretty sure its haunted, and religious art everywhere you turn. oh and there's an empty chapel. so naturally we are throwing an oktoberfest party this weekend and using the chapel for beerpong. yay Jesus. and yay beer.
hope you all are doing well and finally settling into your respective places, well, for some of you, when you get there. i miss you all and i have the girls keep all of you in their prayers.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Hi everybody!
I just spoke with Mr. Wonder online and he reminded me that we have this lovely joint blog set up and you people are actually writing in it. I was excited to be mentioned by name in most of your posts, though less excited that each time was a reference to just how cold I'll be in two short weeks. As your adventures continue, do not forget home. New and exciting things are happening here as well. For example, 21,000 showed up at Van Dyck Park yesterday for a McCain-Palin rally. Considering the city of Fairfax only has a population of 23,000, it was quite a turn out especially since there is no parking there. I had know idea that many people could fit in the same area where we used to play capture the flag at St. Leo's. I went with my Mom to check it out and it was kind of cool to observe, but also kind of scary. I get claustrophic in crowded bars, so it was too much to be in a crowd of people chanting "U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A." Kelly and Elizabeth, do you have access to news where you are? I guess if you can get on the internet you must, but will you when you move away from the cities?
My day can currently be divided into about 5 activities that I do everyday. I babysit for a family with many children under the age of 6, I play Pokemon War with Zach, I go shopping for discount winter wear, I eat dinner and then I hang out with the other Zach in my life. Alright, good luck and have fun!
Hey all, I just wanted to check in from the Motherland. Things here are good, but I've been ridiculously busy with training. For instance, I left my apartment today at 915am and won't get back until prolly 10-1030ish pm. Kinda sucks, but the training itself isn't bad. Today, I taught some Russians both vocabulary used in murder investigations and the past continuous tense. You'll have to take my word that they went together. I like teaching more than I thought I would, although I've taught a grand total of 3 hours, so the jury is still out. I've also realized that my Russian is definitely not up to the task, but I am learning new words slowly; for instance, I learned the words for handcuffs (narunichniki) and cough drop (dlyagul...something or other). Katie, take notes. Moscow itself is huge; it's the biggest city ever. I live about 15-20 minutes inside the city limits and I am still a 15 minute walk to the last Metro stop on my line. I've explored around my neighborhood and around the school where I am doing training and haven't had time to go anywhere else. I live about 15-20 minutes inside the city limits and I am still a 15 minute walk to the last Metro stop on my line. Red Square and the area down there was closed off last weekend for City Day (861 years of Moscow and still kicking) so I am planning on making my way down there Saturday or Sunday. My apartment is small, but nicer than I thought it would be. The building itself is a stereotypical Eastern European apartment block - again, notes, Katie - but the inside is pretty nice. The weather, on the other hand, has not been so nice. It's been in the forties (5-8 Celsisus? I don't really get it) and raining the last couple day. I made a joke about it to the class today - that I'm not used to the weather and they laughed, but probably because 5-8 degrees celsius is nothing and not because the joke was funny. Anyways, I'll put up pictures on Facebook or somewhere once I take some. Hope everything is good with everyone else, I'm doing well until it gets really cold, which is probably right when Katie will arrive in Ukraine...sorry, couldn't help throwing that jab in there. See ya.
¡Hola gente! I hope this works, everything is in Spanish so hopefully I´m doing it right. Anyway, I´m here in Xela (aka Quetzaltenango...but that name is really long, everyone calls it Xela) Guatemala where it is rainy and cold. They said it would be cold, but I think I thought to myself "It´s Central America, how cold could it be?" but I was wrong wrong wrong. In the evenings and mornings, and during the day when it´s raining, which is almost every day, it´s about like Virginia in late October because I´m up in the mountains. Other than that I´m loving the food and culture here--muy muy rico! Oooh the food is good, lots of fresh, home made corn tortillas and cheese and coffee, oh man the COFFEE is amazing. I live in a house with 9 other members of my host family ranging in ages from 1 to 78. I am always wet and cold, and I just always think to myself "Oh Katie...Katie...this does not feel good" haha. At least when I get down to Honduras it will be wet and HOT. I´m taking Spanish classes from 8-1 5 days a week, and it´s really good because I have a private teacher who is hilarious, and I´m actually learning really in depth Spanish grammer versus the kind of general stuff you learn in high school and college. In the afternoons my group (the 6 other kids all going down to work at the Finca) and I usually do some kind of activity. This week we took a salsa class one day (so unsuccessful), went to this natural hot spring about an hour away another day, and yesterday afternoon the three other girls and I started taking these weaving classes at this women´s cooperative in town. We will eventually each have weaved a scarf but it´s going to be over many days and hours. That´s pretty much how I´ve been spending my days. In two weeks we´ll be making the trek down to Honduras, which is actually quite far. It would normally be about a two or three day journey, but we´re taking 10 so it´s really going to be more like a quest. We´re stopping at alot of cool places like this giant lake (Lago Atitlan) for a few days, these bat caves and natural pools (google image search Semuc Champey, it´s not ugly), and these Mayan ruins. Then we´ll finally get down to my future home on October 1st (hopefully, though we don´t have any specific plans on just how we´re getting there yet). Anyway I´m really excited, I love the other people in my group, and I´m really looking forward to getting down to the Finca. Hopefully I´ll be able to put some pictures up soon of people and places I´ve been so far. ¡¡Miss you all!! ¡Se extraño muchisimo!
First off, I want to thank whoever came up with this whole blog idea. I think it's pretty awesome that we have a forum that's so easily accessible for all of us, especially since almost all of us are going to be in places where communication is going to be so difficult. So mad props to those of ya'll, this is tight. So just to remind you, I'm currently teaching at St. John Vianney Catholic school in Phoenix, AZ which Notre Dame's ACE program set me up. Sometimes I'll be sitting at my desk, look at my 26 5th graders, and shake my head. Me, a legit teacher? I mean I was an international relations major, so what in the world am I doing in this classroom trying to teach stuff like division, reading skills and the sacraments? Surprisingly enough, I don't want to run out of the classroom like a bat out of hell like I was told I would want to do from tons of people. I have a really good class of kids, although the mix of skills is absurd. I have kids who are smart enough to be in 6th grade and kids whose goals for the year are to learn english. I also have a kid who is ADHD and literally needs to be reminded of everything for every activity. I'll tell the class to get their books and everyone will be walking around doing it. . .except for this one boy who is just somewhere else. As some of you may know, I also have a child who is very sick with an extremely rare disease. It's something you can't look at and tell. On the surface, he looks like everybody else but his situation is just not a good one at all. When I found out, I was more or less numb for a couple days. I definetly didn't expect anything like this going into teaching. His name is Vincent Salazar. . .if ya'll could send a prayer or two in his direction, I'd really appreciate it. On a different note, it's nearing the end of Labor Day weekend which just so happens to be ACE Phoenix's time for our traditional house party. ACE communities from LA and Tucson come up and we pretty much rock out for a couple days, share stories, and chill. It was awesome to see other teachers and hear their take on what's going on with them, not to mention swim around in our pool for 6 hours and eat bbq. Probably the most awkward and funny part of the night was right in the very beginning. So we have about 20 some people in our house, a keg, and 7 handles. Some of the teachers I live with invited all their high school staff, just to be nice even though the majority don't show up. . .because they, you know, have families and stuff. Well lo and behold THREE NUNS show up, and one of them just so happens to be the principal. People were walking around on eggshells for a while, and I started blasting favorites like "Amazing Grace" and "Like a Child" to make them feel more at home. That probably did nothing but make it even more awkward, because then people started to not care and were taking beer bongs outside while LeAnn Rimes's version of amazing grace was pumping. When they left, three teachers from the high school showed up and drank fifths of rum. . .on their own. At one point I looked around and thought, "Man, we all teach kids" while people are jumping off the roof into the pool and going off the diving board with the empty keg in their hands. If I knew teachers did this kind of stuff in the past, that would have blown my world. Well, there's just a lil tidbit in a day in the life of a teacher. Hope to hear from the rest of ya'll soon, much love.
So here begins our 2 year adventures all over the world.... a good start for our world domination. But seriously, I think we are all going to be changed for the better and I am so thrilled to hear about all the crazy and absurd stories that are to come. So here is the deal I was thinking, for our joint blog. Lets all try to post (obviously depending on if we have internet connection) at least once every 2 weeks. Then we can all keep up with each other, and read about everyone at the same time. And it will be funny to compare stories from the tropics, to the bitter ice tundra (Ukraine- sorry Katie :), to dry and hot phoenix, and everywhere else.
So, I guess I will begin our staggering work of genius with my first post. (We are definitely publishing this after, because I will be super poor, so lets everyone write our best and make this a best seller).
Actually, I am going to post this first, because I am in the airport and not sure if I will have time to finish my first story. So the first post is done, aight.
