gatorade vom and English class

August 17, 2009


I threw up bright pink gatorade vomit all over the road today...mmmmm. I'm not even sure why I was naseaus. Maybe the sheep smell that's been permeating the house for 2 days now. We've had relatives over since Friday. It's customary when important people come to visit that you kill a sheep in their honor. So for 2 days my family has been eating sheep for every meal. I just have not aquired the taste required to eat sheep. My family seems to understand this and therefor I am exempt from eating it. Although last night I was offered half an eye ball from a relatives husband. I declined as politely as I could.

I met with my counterpart today to discuss lesson plans for the up coming school year. My school really needs new books. My counterpart has one book for the 8-11th grades that was written in 1986. The students don't have books so they have to copy everything down from the one book. It's a lot of reading and translating. I was hoping for a more grammar based approach. That is what I have been focusing on in my English clubs. It seems to me that if the students know the basics of English grammar then they will be able to construct their own sentences and thoughts, rather than only knowing phrases they have learned. I had been wondering why the students were able to speak on "topics" but not able to communicate away from that. For example, my sister can speak rather fluently about "her family". She can fluently tell me names, ages, where they live, what they do, etc. But she cannot translate that to tell me about someone not in her family, or discuss a different topic. I'm struggling with how to be effective and but not offend anyone, especially my counterpart. She gave me her lesson plans from last year. They consisted of the dates of the lesson, topic of the lesson, and page number. That was all.

Thomas has been in Osh since Saturday. He is helping some other volunteers with a University Camp on journalism. I have never been so bored in my life. I did not realize how much amusement we brought to each other. With him gone there is no one to speak to... atleast not fluently. My host sister is gone too. This makes it even harder since she is really the only person who can communicate with me in Kyrgyz in a way that I can completely understand. I read an entire novel today. The whole thing, cover to cover, that's how much free time I had on my hands.

School starts on September 1st. I will be teaching about 15 hours a week. But I'm sure I can fill the rest of my time with English clubs and tutoring. I have already had several people inquire about me tutoring their children. There are also 2 students I really want to help get ready for the Flex test so that maybe next year they can study in America. We'll see what happens.

Sadie is doing well. In only a few weeks she has learned, sit, stay, down, leave it and how to walk on a leash. She's a pretty smart dog! I have been taking her for walks in the evening and it has helped her get familiar with new people. She now rarely chases people down the road. She really only chases bikes and herds of sheep now. Much better than the women and small children she used to be prone to chasing. I have decided that at the end of September I will take her to the vet to get her fixed. She still seems a little underweight to me and a little young. She still has a lot of molars missing and Christina told me when they all come in she is 6 months. I'm guessing that will be about a month or so from now. It's neat how I've watched my family's interaction with her change. In Kyrgyzstan dogs aren't really pets the same way they are in America. They aren't petted or given "special" food or ever allowed inside. But my family has slowly been coming around. They have started petting her, giving her bones and talking to her sweetly when they think no one is listening. It's nice to see the impact I'm having even though it is relatively small. Start small......