Day 4 The real start of school.

A gentler day: no tourists, just a quick breakfast of bun and the delicious jam (which may be from a Russian jar) and I walked the 25 mins to the school across the river and up the road.  I wondered if something was wrong as I expected to see the children milling around, then realised that actually they had already started and I was late  But my first class was not till 9.30.    Typically I had lots of materials with me but had forgotten what I actually needed but both the small year two classes (7 and 8 year olds) were fine. Most of them joined in,  all of them knew my name is and were then able to draw a picture of themselves and put their names in Kyrgyz on them.  I had noted down their names the day before too and translated them into some kind of English (many a bit like Turkish names), so I could recognise them when they said them.  I then had a very pleasant 11.30 lunch of salad and soup, before tackling year 1, who I am sure are lovely, but suddenly trying to control 20 kids and find out what they are all called proved impossible  for unlike the other classes I had seen nothing in writing to advise me, and when I tried checking their details out later, the cursive forms of the writing defeated me so I am still none the wiser. We started well as they were almost all able to come out one by one and write a letter to copy the date, Tuesday September 3rd 2013, but when I tried finding out their names, there was so much noise I could not hear them.  Some of the girls were beating up the boys, some of the boys were beating up the boys, and some were happily colouring in during class until I was mean enough to get each of the "transgressors"  to stop and to try and engage them in a game.  These kids being very smart were able to do both, so definitely the greatest challenge so far, apart from trying to find out the word for paper so that the children had something to draw on and realising that the CD would not work as we are still out of power.  Just as I set off home the lights came back on but I was off to the local shop to buy a small ball for tomorrow's activities which will hopefully be a little more successful.

Tonight I thought I had meal time sussed.  I had had a lovely salad, I had had a lovely soup, felt perfectly happy that it was very similar to what I had already eaten. I was thenoffered chai, so happily munched the rest of the bread and jam, thinking that was it, when the main course came out and then afters!  Suffice it to say, I am very very very full.