But no one knows its meaning except God.

In the last 60 years I have lived in the shadow of Stalin and Hitler, but thank goodness not been directly affected by their hideous rule.  I have stood by as Vietnam went into meltdown and then as the Killing Fields flourished.  I went on marches to try and end apartheid and stopped buying South African food. I stood in Trafalgar Square praying for peace in Ireland.  So many awful awful leaders have abused their power and their people and so many people have abused their neighbours, families etc.  And now it is happening again. Muslim against Muslim, Muslim against Christians etc. Not real Muslims but people claiming to act in the name of Islam.  Their actions have made me finally get my Koran out and read from it. Today's reading included the following:
"He has revealed to you the Book with the Truth, confirming the scriptures which proceeded it, for he has already revealed the Torah and the Gospel for the guidance of mankind, and the distinction between right and wrong.... It is he who has revealed to you the Book. Some of its verses are precise in meaning and others ambiguous. Those whose hearts are infected with disbelief observer the ambiguous parts so as to create dissension by seeking to explain it. But no one knows its meaning except God.

A being through time.

When I reached my 50th birthday I had a big birthday party.   I had lived longer than my mother: but compared with my grandmother who died at 90 was a mere a youngster.

Now I am almost 60.  I do not know where the last 10 years have gone, although I do not feel older I am. I am definitely entering that phase of life when I am sort of old - whatever that means.

I seem to view it in two ways. When I got to the age when I knew I could no longer have children I definitely went through a period of mourning.  I felt very sad to know that I could no longer be a parent to a new born or feel life within me.  It felt like a loss of something to do with what it is to be a woman.  But now I am enjoying it. I love and wonder at the idea that I have lived so long.  And want to celebrate this thing called life.  So I hope over the next few years however, long I have (- I have always said I need to live 200 years or so to do all the things I want to do -  however if I were to stop sleeping and watching TV and had just got on with things, I would probably have packed a lot more by now) to try and make sense of this shifting phenomenon:  being through time.

Had I been born 5 years ago,  I would have been able to retire at this age and got my state pension and mentally I know I have been working towards the idea that I will work till I am 60.  This is mainly because when I got M.E it was such a struggle to work that I did not even know if I would work again so the idea that I might have to work for even longer was unpalatable. Then when I lost all benefits despite being unable to work full time any more I had to get on with it and work to survive and that is what I have been doing with a range and patchwork of jobs. I knew economically my year out was probably not good sense, but sometimes one just has to do something different, but when I came home from Kyrgyzstan this year I entered a sort of strange place a place where I wanted to stop work, because I was almost 60 and where I had to take on board that that might not be possible.  Having always had to earn a living - albeit with state aid when my income has been low - I both love the idea of not working and having an income but cannot quite get my head round it either. I had numerous conversations with my pension provider to see if had understood the idea of annuities etc.    In the end I had to conclude that while I was in a position to get some of my pension at 60, it was not a living income, but just a bonus, so work might still have to come into it. Much to my amazement I have at last secured a permanent 0.5 teaching post and was looking forward to the income on top from my pension, only to now be told I cannot get my pension as I am in work. So having spent months getting my head round this idea that I am 60 a pensioner - I am not I am just another worker.    While this has its psychological attractions if my physical being can keep up with this, I know that mentally for a long time I have both felt ready for a change but also unsure how to conduct this change.  I want getting older to be a sort of wake up call. To say hello all this comes to an end so if you have dreams identify them and see if you can fulfill them, in a context where sleeping and watching TV is so comforting and fun.

Anyway we will see hopefully I can put some messages up here that reflect on these things and I would love to have other people's in put and thoughts.

Furious over pension news

Since returning to work my anger levels have definitely been growing. So while I mainly feel calm regular eruptions tell me the long days, rude students, and the total failure of the college systems to enable smooth functioning are taking their toll - that underneath the apparent calm I am very tense.   The level of anger has surprised me because although the world of Kafka has only worsened since I was last here I really thought I was mentally above this because in a way I know it is only temporary - that soon I can get a bit of extra income from my pension, get a nice lump sum, so can really enjoy when I am not working.

So today to find out that the information given to me by the Teacher's Pensions is incorrect that I cannot in fact access this money unless I stop work for a day !? has left me really erupting. Ever since summer I have been dreaming of this money and how it will liberate me. Prior to accepting the job I checked that it would not impact on this and was assured I could have a mixed pension - ie have my original pension at 60 and the other pension later.  But no one no one said that I would somehow have to stop my new permanent job for a day in order to claim that money.   Only now have I received that information.  Furious.

Lodging my thoughts.

My lodger uses my bike, I do not mind this it was bequeathed by another tenant, but I do mind when he fails to tell me it was stolen on Saturday until today.

Meanwhile whether I go back to Kygyzstan remains uppermost in my mind. I am working towards getting the flat ready to be rented out in total. - In theory it was supposed to be rentable immediately - but it now turns out that there are problems with the fire alarm system and that something else that should have been done back in 2007 wasn't so I have not been able to get the necessary electrical safety sorted.   So between trying to floor the loft to take more stuff, check the furntiture and store furniture there is even more to do than I realised for any move to be possible.

A Kyrgy farewell.

very tired. It is very hot and humid in Istanbil and it does not see real that for the last 5 months I have been living in Central Asia.

It was very Kyrgyz the last few days, people working all hours, some very good presentations, and everyone so interested and keen on what they are discussing. Several people leave, they just slip away so I do not manage to say farewells. Then despite being very tired, the others put on a concert, including our music teacher who sang several songs in English. Just when I think I am dong something nice and good they do the same thing, 10 times better, so he sings these songs in perfect English,  but people were still very kind about our performance in Kyrgyz.  It felt very intense, and then everyone danced the favourite dance together, and I was given a thank you present, and farewells, and then the concert carries on, and my departure is thankfully swallowed up.

 I cannot sleep but not because I think I am going, but because I am full of plans and full of thoughts about how I might try and stay and yet spend more time in the UK, Then a lovely lovely picnic next day up in the mountains, where I have gone by horse.

Dancing, music, nature, food, and more of all, a little like a Turkish picnic in the UK, but ever more so, proper food call cooked from scratch.  I love the dancing here, it is totally normal for women of my age to get up and dance, everyone in a circle and one or two dancing in the middle, men and women together, though the staff are mainly women.

 Then suddenly people saying good bye,  then I am being told I am on the bus with the people saying goodbye.   I am back at the Ashu rushing to get my car to Bishkek, it is ;pouring with rain, thunder and lightening.  I stuff things into the bag. I run up stairs and give my presents to the staff, they just sit there, I just stand there, I do not know if they have any emotion, I do, I run back down again and bring my other bag to the car.  The sun comes back out and we wait. apparently I am not going in this car, apparently I am going with the art teacher and he is asleep.  He just arrives and at the same time the buses from the mountain come. My head wheels me down the road and into their bus, along with the director and the art teacher,  and here we sit drinking vodka. I am so tired I keep falling asleep. I do not know how long we sit and chat more final farewells including with the mother of the Ashu owner, her son is away, I have not said goodbye to her husband, despite all the emotion I know by now my room is housing someone else already, but we smile to each other and hug and the acknowledgement is genuine. She and a few others depart.  Then suddenly everyone decides to head to the spring, and there we have a few more vodkas, with a few of the other school staff The Director of the Foundation, the head of my school all have more vodkas and cognac. I just close my eyes and sleep, thinking we are here for hours, but no suddenly more farewells and now it really is goodbye.  I just sleep in the car. Only to be woken to have a meal as we are now so late, that everyone wants to eat, except for our director, who is asleep. We finally get to Bishkek at 9.30 6 hours after I left the picnic.  I catch a bit of sleep at the school owner's house, there is more thunder and lightening. At 12 I am off again to the airport. I wanted to be there early as I have no idea if my bags are overweight. And sadly they are so out go my shoes, a jumper, etc. Not quite sure how this has happened as I left several items behind I also unintentionally left my lovely winter coat behind, but it is so hot and so hard managing three bags that I am not sure how I could have brought more.  I do not like going to the airport as sometimes it can be very busy it is also a little weird I went through three different screeners, but no one spots or questions the bottle of water in my bag or several other things that breech regulations but my bag is searched because of a book!.  I am one gram over weight and my handbag now over weight but I am allowed on.  And just sleep. And now I am here and it is as if that time did not exist.  So strange.

Soon my head will be in the states with all the other directors, she will come back to the summer school, they have international staff to work in most of the schools, but mine, while they wait to see if I am coming back or not. It feels so nice and free next to the Mamara sea.   I have no idea what comes next.

A nice little get together at my Dom.

Very very very tired and a little alcohol fuelled, now that is what I call a staff conference. We started at 8.40 and have only just finished at 8.40 pm and tomorrow it will be the same, and a recent Uzbek tour guide accused the Kyrgyz of not being hard working! This, in the case of the staff from my school,  after working all day yesterday preparing the showers and rooms for all the staff from the 5 Bilimkana schools so that they can sleep in the school and attend the conference - they have done a brilliant job they look great and it is a good dry run for the summer camp,  or in the case of the visiting staff they went on a factory tour on route to here to assess a potential place for group visits.    I was one of today's speakers, I had made a short video, but then discovered I had a 30 minutes slot but had so much to say that was easy,. I then disappeared up to the school to build on my work yesterday trying to burying as much wood as possible in the apple field crazy I know but everyone else was busy putting up pictures, or making beds, they work instinctively as a team, this is my way to contribute and what was nice today I meet someone from the Foundation who totally understood my aims.I had carefully embedded the apple project into my talk so that the school will have to follow up on it.  This new colleague who works at head office and is helping with the summer scheme studied at the Schumacher College in England she studied holistic science so of course she got what I am trying to do.  So although I am very tired it has been like all good staff conferences very thought provoking, we have covered, schemes of work, the dreaded lesson plans, I have refused to return if I have to do them here! we have looked at tablets, and whilst I was away marketing. In my case challenging of course as I do not speak Russian, but everyone has engaged with me, and tried to help me, it is lovely seeing some of the people I have met before, and now we have all had a first glass of vodka we are all a little more relaxed.

End on a high note.

The end of an amazing day, it could not have gone better. We have raised about 12000 coms, the duet went really well and was received well, all the kids sang very well, even if I did have the usual fight to get their work included despite fully informing people what they were performing even down to saying has he written it down.  The children loved the lucky dip there were fights to get into the bin and after they just demolished the box in case, the number of sweets did not go down so well but the money raised from the two games covered the costs of the things I bought, but this year was about introducing concepts, as I donated the prizes. The Kruskhi kids sang brilliantly happy and hey brother, and then one of them ended the whole concert with the traditional Kyrgyz dance and I was encouraged, nae forced to join him.  Just a lovely lovely day, and kept me from getting too sad as it was so much fun. Everyone seems to be assuming I am not coming back, and today would be a hard act to follow.  However, I have said I hope that even if not as their permanent teacher the foundation will find a way for me to come back sometimes as working with them despite the moans has been a real privilege.

As usual no video me or the English work, but I took this during rehearsals with the Kruski students.

I have heard of events being rained off but this is ...

Wednesday afternoon, sat on the swing and taught group three there last lesson. Just three of them left so a huge drop out which is not good and discovered one of the three is the older brother of one of the 2B children, I already knew that the other two had relatives either studying or working at the school so clearly these three felt obliged to come.  Other classes the drop out rate has not been so bad. Anyway as you can see it was lovely. The builders creating the kitchen have put up a temporary stage too for our concert and it was all looking lovely.

I woke up yesterday morning to this.

All the hard work snowed off, well not quite.  The roof for the temporary stage was broken by the snow fall, and it is so cold that we have decided to move the event inside. It means fewer people can attend. But over lunch I could see a anxious discussion taking place and I guess that was the decision taken as a result. This is the first time that the school has held a fundraiser and my head is very anxious that people locally will not understand the idea or appreciate it so she is concerned that my plan to just do a lucky dip for 20 coms e.g. the price of an ice cream may be too much for the audience.  The event seems to be a bit of a missmash of the usual children's singing and us staff performing, anyhow we will see how it goes.   Everyone is very tired and my throat is not the only one knackered so not sure how the singing will be at all. We were at the school till 7 last night and so I am working at the Ashu this morning to as I know it will be mayhem and rehearsals at school.

 There are two guests from France staying and speaking with them I had such a pang to be home.  But just one last hurdle the staff conference and if it warms up I will be probably very reluctant to leave at that point. 

Book worms?

It may be the Parkinson's principle at work, but despite being under my hours in terms of teaching, I always work a full day and leave with things still to do. So today having gone in relatively early 10.00 (having already done some work at the Ashu) with the intention of doing some urgent computer work, I was confronted with the fact that we had no water and no electricity and certainly no internet, but by the time, I had prepared my classes, scattered ash round the apple trees, discussed the concert, put back some of the trilingual language cards, it was dinner time. 

When I finished my last class with the year 1 children, I felt quite emotional, it was a lovely class. I had found 18 English books suitable for their age about the school so after practicing their song for Friday and having a reprise of Walking Through the Jungle which they did months ago and which they mostly remembered but still cannot name the animals that they have just sung about, I let them loose on the books and it was nice and calm while I did some one on one work with a few of them.  Then I kind of realised that was my last session with that group. Then I went and had my last session with the year zero children and they too were entranced when I let them loose on some books suitable for them.  They even sat quietly or joined in appropriately when I read them a story. This story was a slight accident. I was printing out some books for the year 2 students, and kept getting it wrong, usually when I do this I give the resulting over print of individual pages to the younger children to colour, but this time I also read the book to the children as it had words that they were familiar with plane, boat, train.  And it was so lovely. I do not know if it is because I am going at the end of this week or because there are less children in at present, but I just felt relaxed with them and they loved the noises we made for all the different transport system. This was how I had imagined class would be with them and it happens now just at the end.  I still feel torn but talking to my son for the first time in weeks and hearing of his plans for November and my strong desire to join him doing some of these things does make me wonder. 

One very nice thing happened today. The music teacher and my head suddenly hurtled out, I had no idea why in fact I thought that there might be a problem, but when she returned about an hour later, she was really relaxed and happy. She had been to a sort of nation day nearby and there she had met people who told her about apple projects and she even met a man who could tell her about and here we had mimes, guesses, snakes and then finally I realised what she was telling me, worms. She has met a man who can help us to get worms. Her genuine pleasure and relief makes me feel that some of the problems I have been having re the apple project, composting etc, is just that it seems a bit overwhelming to her. She has all this stuff on her plate and then this foreigner comes with new ideas that really seem alien, but now meeting local people who can help her, makes a great difference. I would feel the same to be honest and in fact one of the reasons I am hesitant about coming back is that I feel overwhelmed with what I would have to do if I came back, this year has been hard, but it is probably much easier this year,when no one knew what they were doing, but next year there will be more classes, more students, more everything.  

A very elegant young woman came into school today and confidently asked in English how are you? Turned out she is a relative of one of our teachers, her grand neice, and she works as a private English tutor but all over Central Asia.  It felt very strange suddenly having someone other than my head speaking with me at school and explaining things to me, I wanted to say I have been here some time, so sort of know what you are telling me, but then we started talking about children and language acquisition so that was quite nice. 

I will probably curse my failure to take more pictures of the children just doing every day stuff. I grabbed some shots of my kruski students but these days only three turn up.  

It is still cold, so really hope things warm up for Friday.  Time to go and find out if there is any dinner tonight as it is past 7.  

Noises in the night.

Still on the dongle in my room so no pics, but can get internet elsewhere in the Ashu, but the Ashu is full tonight with a seminar.  I am pleased to say that the owners wife and their son are back too, I was worried I might not see them before I left. Although only 8 months old their son is definitely making talking sounds.

Last night at 12 there were other sounds. Someone banged on my window waking me up, looking out without my glasses on, I thought it was the owners mum complaining that I had the song I am trying to learn on too loud, I turned it down and was just thinking hang on why is she knocking on the window not the door, when a gentler tap on the window came, I opened it and ,someone, who I vaguely recognised,   explained in English that they were builders. Having seen the panels that will be slotted onto the new building arrive by big lorry earlier that day, this seemed likely despite the time of night. . I therefore went to take them to the room in which I had seen other builders sleeping, the stars looked amazing as I walked them over, but he said he had already looked there so that was no good so that meant waking someone other than me up.  Just in case I suggested the grandfather as I know that he can defend the property if it turned out I was helping these people improperly,but he was not in the sort of lean too cupboard in which he usually sleeps, so I had to stand outside all the doors (the family swop the rooms they sleep in according to need) until I worked out where she was and woke her up.  I left them to sort it out but at 5 this morning the noise of a cow bellowing woke me up again. Shows me how much double glazing  protects me round here as I have never heard the morning cacophony before, but I had left the window open by accident.

I felt very rough this morning, have dragged myself through the day and although I knew there was a ton to do for the fundraiser we are having on Friday just left as soon as I could. I have a sore throat and my voice sounds dreadful so hope it improves before I have to sing. It is cold again here too, which does not help.  However, the rest of the school are all singing and dancing and moving. Furniture is coming in for the first summer school and apparently someone English will be helping at it so a new guard is arriving and apparently after summer more than one new year will be added to the school, they will recruit for further classes of a higher age than our current students.  As per usual all change. I do not quite know how my head manages it all. She is looking tired and stressed to be honest but not too bad under the circumstances.

I found out who the young woman was, She was not to do with the Foundation as I suspected, but the head of the Foundation is also her boss, and apparently she is involved in yet more charities that he runs, is there no end to the number of ventures he is involved.

Had a nice days teaching. I explained to the children about how to do a lucky dip and they are very excited about the idea.  I am not quite sure how I will manage it and the how many in the jar sweets and try and sing I am trying to resist making more films as my camera really is on its last legs.  I have donated the presents for the two games so if the idea does not catch on there will be no loss. Judging by the kids reaction though they will want to have a go.

A couple of days ago going through my luggage ready for going home I found a blow up globe I had brought with me, interestingly it has the capital as Frunze, not Bishkek. Frunze was the previous name and it is why Bishkek is Fru for the airport. I have been using the globe, just to throw at the kids individual questions, it is harder for the others to shout out the answers in that context and fun for the kids, what was nice today was before I used if for class, 2B's teacher showed them Kyrgyzstan, and how small it was and then a quarter of the way round the world they found where I live, even smaller. Gasps at both the distance and the sizes.  And on Friday when the women from the States came the children who met them were blown away by the fact that they would travel half way round the world to get home and take 24 hours to do it. I often forget where I am in some ways, I am just here in my little bubble.  If the school were round the corner it would be easy of course I would stay.

Anyway, only 2 more days teaching, I am desperately trying to get all the children's books as complete as possible, they will need to go over the same ground next year for a while but at least chunks of work on paper will have been done,and I am desperately trying to get the year 1 children as close to reading as possible, Today one group were so quick with the activity (picture of chicken and rice - use letters to spell both words) that they had finished it before I had explained what to do. Two tables managed the task relatively easily and then swapped words so spelled four words in the time two tables managed to spell one of their two words,  so a gap in ability seems to be developing.  And yesterday I managed to very calmly read to the year 0, most of whom listened, then for the second time, they watched quite nicely as I showed them sort of how to play snap and some of them went away and did it.  I realise how much they have grown in this last year.  Not little kids anymore.  Some of them know most of the alphabet and are ready to move on to year 1.

My taxi is booked.  I am not looking forward to managing my two bags in Istanbul in between Bishkek and getting home, but I am hoping I can leave one bag at the airport.  Then back to the UK at the beginning of June.   I definitely cannot regret having this year, I have been very lucky, despite some niggles and if I could only become more Kyrgyz in temperament then these niggles would not exist.

No sense of humus.

Today I got a lift to work with my head and her husband. I surprised her by asking if she had gone to work on Saturday. Yes more subudnik, apparently people were sorting out the playground, but you could not tell anyone had done anything. However, why wasn't I asked was floating through my head. However, I still headed to the rows of apple trees with a sense of optimism that someone would have magically restored all the wood to the ditch it had been taken out of. Here miracles like that happen, it was the same in Senegal, go home at the end of the day, come back next day, in theory no one has been at work, but tons has been done.   HOwever, in this tons had been undone. Despite very politely telling my head that one row of hugel kultur had been destroyed, now the second one has been.  I know it might seem silly, but I just feel despair.  We can speak English together but are not speaking the same language.


I think my colleague is having the same problem, she is still off sick from stress, but here that is such an alien concept that it just does not compute.  Howevers as a result of the ever flowing emails between her and our liaison person I am learning more about what one should do here if ill. Judging by the amount of alchohol consumed it seems unlikely that people do not suffer from stress here, but they do seem to be much better at coping with little planning and things being just thrown at them.  The liaison person said here people know that classes can be cancelled unexpectedly and they do not know why, so for them that does not become a health issue, but if they cost as much as we do to employ perhaps they would think differently too.

A mysterious wodge of bags have appeared in the building I am occupying, and mattresses and an ironing board.  I am wondering.  Hopefully will find out soonish.

Not actually feeling very well at present, too many trips to Bishkek, trying to sort out the hugelkultur then disappointment over its destruction, adapting to new glasses and trying to get lots of paper work sorted means I have been pushing my body a bit further than it can cope with.  Normal stuff for lots of people at the end of term.  At least I know timetables will be thrown out of the window as staff try and get the children ready for the fundraising concert.

However two good things, I am now getting loads of emails from head office, they are in Russian, but with the automatic translate as least I have an idea of what is being discussed which is much nicer. Tonight at dinner I thought I had been given everything I was due to have (I am given a scaled down version of the guests meals) so had tucked into the bread and jam only to be given two little apple pies and given my mania for them using apple in cooking have had to eat them. I might have lost weight when I first got here, but definitely putting it back on today.

Despite very very very itchy eyes and feeling very tired have managed a last horse ride up the mountain. Yesterday from the bus  there is a bit where one goes through a mountain pass and the amount of flowers on the hillsides were amazing and I even saw a couple of yurts set up for the summer and I had meant to film it on the way back but the bus was just too crowded on the bus to even see out.   So I thought I might see the same flowers today, but no, so different eco system, but lots more blossom out and got higher up than I can on foot, and it is a lovely day, but by does wearing jeans chafe on the way down and my knees are knackered
now, but at least I did it. Although I like going up the mountain I get a bit scared coming down so we did not go to high up, I feel a bit like life is on  a precipice anyway cos if I do not sign up to come back then what I have some ideas but will have to find work, anyway next week end we will have the end of term conference and it will be goood to discuss policy with the policy team which I in theory lead and just swhow that feels.  Now it seems so normal to be at work that I will not be next Tuesday is a bit hard to get my head round, but I still get quite anxious about going to work sothere however, I think I feel that about most jobs.

Back to Bishkek.

Had a lovely last day in Bishkek. Caught the fastest bus I have ever been on so was able to fit in a coffee with my ex colleagues before heading to the opticians where I have finally sort of sorted out my glasses. (I have been having lots of headaches with all these changes of glasses so hope things will settle down a bit now)  I then met up with an American teacher I know and we had lunch outside at our old haunt the Sierra, then I sat in the park with an ice cream and then popped in to see my Kyrgyz friend and her granddaughter. Unfortunately I woke the granddaughter arriving so she was very grizzly and I could only talk with my friend whilst sitting out of sight so I did not stay long, but we talked about some of the serious problems us foreign teachers have had here. The conversation made me wonder if part of the problem has been the way we foreign teachers have raised our concerns, it seems that sometimes we have just been seen as negative, and it has not been understood that we are raising issues to raise the quality and provision at the school, rather than to be a nuisance. So maybe we have to find ways that are more culturally suitable to raise issues so that they can be understood and resolved more effectively. As a result of this conversation I missed the 5 o clock bus and only just got the last seat on the 6pm bus which was good as another 10 people piled in who had to stand. A small group of boys who had obviously been to some kind of competition in Bishkek were amongst this group so me and the woman I was sat next to scouched over a bit so one could sit with us.   When another group of people piled in at Kemin, one of the boys had to sit on my lap, my insistence that he "down started" a whole conversation about who I was, turned out the woman next to me her grandchildren are at my school so knew me and then the boys were trying out their English so despite the packed bus it turned out to be quite fun. It was so hot in Bishkek and on the bus I felt very drained so despite it being after dinner I popped into the restaurant to get some water and to my surprise found my boss there so we had a little chat. So one way or another a very social day. He and I have talked again today and I do think that the Foundation is beginning to work out some systems and strategies that sound good.  Whether I am brave enough to carry on this adventure with them I do not know or whether I am good enough or will be free to I do not know, but at least despite some ongoing problems, feel that for every negative there is a positive there too.

Thank you three American women

Last night at the Ashu three very nice Californians arrived, women maybe my age, better preserved than me, travelling for a month in the Stans we did not talk for very long but it was very nice meeting them.   My head is about to go off to America with the owner of the Foundation he has got sponorship to take them and I am very jealous as I want to go to Washington.  So meeting these women reminded me of my hippee youth.  Today they briefly came to the school and I am glad to say liked it. They heard my colleague the music teacher singing.  He has a great voice.  If I can find audio of him I will attach it later, and I mentioned that yes I had said some time ago to the school he has a great voice he should do a concert and that in a week's time we are doing are first ever fundraiser.  And you know what they did.  Bless them. I thought that they had shoved a 1000 soms my way which is worth quite a bit but no they have donated a lot more.  They will probably never know what a kind gesture that was but thank you.

Ironically given my water problem I have not been able to give it to the head yet as she is heading off to buy some water as we do not have any today.  Having said to her over and over we need to collect rain water, maybe I can ask if some of the donation can be spent on a water butt.

Water water everywhere so do I give up!

I am sitting quietly in a classroom writing this. The child/children I am supposed to be teaching know I am here as one came and put their bag in the room and then wondered off, but today I cannot be bothered to go and get them. Let them do their own thing.


And the reason for this revolt.

Well had I had access to the internet yesterday this is one of the things I would have written.

For the last few days I have been trying to keep the hugelkultur going, so every morning packing a bag of wood shavings an bringing them up and in the afternoon doing other work with leaves and digging in the wood. For some days I have noticed a couple of the rows have been watered but the row I have been working on has not. I think I have some dead trees, but wondered if watering would help.
One of the brilliant things here are the irrigation ditches all around the village, and I realised one of these ditches reached a couple of the rows and that was what was watering them. So yesterday morning I dug a small channel to my hugelkultur row, no too big to overwhelm the ditch not so small as to be a trickle as my understanding is that plants should be well watered but not drenched.   When I came back in the afternoon the source of water to the rows had increased enormously and a couple of the rows had water rushing through them, some had spilt over where there were blockages and were watering the whole field, my hugel row some of the water had come down the row, some had spilled over where the hugel mound of wood had got in the way. So I tried to create some water channels to the next row which had no water and I reduced the flow of water into some of the rows and blocked some of the channels to reduce the flow. The water flowing off all the rows was beginning to flood the newly created football pitch. So my thinking was hmmm not sure about this how to manage this now with the wood I have put in the ditches. Clearly they are not the only thing causing a problem and indeed by stemming the tide they may be being useful, but will the water manage to get through them to the end of the row. It will be interesting to see what happens, but I will write on facebook and on my blog and see if anyone can advise how to manage this situation. But there was no internet even with my dongle I could not get anywhere.

I left yesterday about 6 having sorted all this out. Today I come with my usual bag of wood only to find that someone has dug out half the wood from the ditches. I give up. Not only was that a lot of work for them,b ut it undermines all my work and it totally negates the point of an ecological experiment. Do I ask my head why they have done it, or do I just give up. To upset to care at the moment.

The usual ups and downs.

This morning it was so beautiful and I was thinking I am learning so much doing this, that though it is often very painful here, perhaps if I am really not doing anything more worthwhile then I should come back here, provided it is actually feasible in practical terms. But then this happens.  My English teaching colleague from Talas is off sick. She has informed the Foundation about the stresses of working there and has just had to get away until things are manageable there, but then apparently she gets a call from the Foundation saying where is she  and that they will not pay her if she does not come in so then. I find myself thinking, no really despite the good things the organisation is just not right on enough to carry on with them.   Then this evening I got to talk to one of the agro-forestry experts staying for a conference at The Ashu. He had not heard of Hugelkulture, but said the concept was basically sound and that getting them to compost stuff in Kyrgyzstan was very sound. But when I said well as he is in a conference on Agroforestry could not he introduce the idea of compost as an economically viable product for the country, he said that in practical terms the conference would probably not achieve much and that I would probably be better off myself trying to persuade people. As readers of this blog will know I have had no success which is why I keep hoping the movers and shakers, will make a difference.   So I am feeling very fed up, but the person who suggested I talk to this guy, suggested I talk, to two women from the University who might help.  I hung around but they were so intense in their discussions I could not even get them to glance in my direction.. However, when I asked  one of the staff about my missing boots and puppets, she happily interrupted them and good news missing items now found,, but even better having interrupted the two women I was able to speak to them about information to farmers etc re compost and they said that they were both interested, how hard it was to get the information across, but that there was an organisation called Biom based in Bishkek who try to put out information on the topic at this point the owner's mum brought my puppets back (I had lent them to her grandson over the weekend) and I asked them to tell her about composting so they did.  I think she has taken in some of the information and I know that she is the kind of person, that if people saw her composting even just a little bit it would help. The compost I tried setting up at the school sadly has been burned, but for the first time after speaking to massive numbers of people on this there may have been a little breakthrough. So that makes me more positive again about trying to come back, so usual back and forth. The good thing in return is that the owner's mum was able to tell them about the Foundation and the good things it does.

Measuring the apple trees. Part of the BAB project to monitor the tress as they grow. 

A long journey and lots of window shopping.

When feeling emotional whilst doing one's packing discovering that one's boots seem to have disappeared has helped put the grump back in me. Luckily they were very battered and my plan was to leave them here for if I came back, but now it seems the fact that they have been living outside might have done for them. They were outside, not because I wanted them there, but because every time I took them in, they were deemed too dirty to stay in, so I just left them outside, figuring they were safe there.   I always have to take my shoes off when I enter the building. Anyway, Never mind.  I have had good weekend despite lots of slightly annoying things. Like it taking 4 hours to get to Bishkek instead of the usual 2.hour 25. I think one o clock bus was cancelled and the following bus an hour later had 11 people standing including me for the first hour or so of the journey. , however I am pleased to say I am sufficiently Kyrgyz now to be able to sleep standing up.  But by the time we arrived in Bishkek I was feeling too hot and shaky to get on another bus so changed where I got off so as to catch the trolley bus to the nearest coffee house. However, after waiting forty minutes for a trolley that never came I had to catch a marshrutka.   Luckily the trolleys were back in action today, but then they went a completely different route and I landed up having to get off and find the marshutka again instead. , so I am guessing that is why I could not find one yesterday - the route has changed.

I spent the day with my soon to be gone colleague who is good re camera's as rather belatedly  it has occurred to me they might be cheaper here. She has given up on her school, the stress of working there at present too much, so she is in Bishkek till either things sort themselves out in her school or till she leaves in two weeks time. She, I and the former coordinator all went for a farewell dinner on Saturday night. It was so warm in Biskek we could sit outside and it was lovely and warm pottering around town today too.    There are lots of things I will miss about here if I do not come back.

Could you do that again again and climb every mountain.

Last October despite the bitterly cold weather, I enjoyed the 1st annual Chong Kemin bike ride.  For reasons I do not fully understand the 2nd, Chong Kemin bike ride was this morning. In October, I captured every moment, except when after lots of standing around suddenly the owner of the Ashu, who organised the event very quickly went one two three and I completely missed the bikers heading off. Today I was determined not to be distracted by late minute bikers arriving, just prior to the start and was poised with my finger on the camera, pressed as he said one two three, followed the bikes as they speed away and then to my horror realised as I pressed the stop button that the record light had only just come on. I had missed the mass start again.  Luckily I did not miss the argument that followed the winners arrival - poor boy in pink at the front of the shot, and other riders coming in,  were virtually ignored as the controversy went on, who knew a local bike ride could cause such passion. As we drove round following some of the action I was able to take a last look at the valley.  I had then planned to spend most of the day working, but took to the hills again and finally found an Edelweiss.  I  got further up the mountain than at any time before so was very pleased but have got very little work done as a result. For reasons I am not quite sure about I have also sort of buggered up going to Bishkek tomorrow, I think it is partly because I was waiting to get confirmation emails from 4 people to try and determine my actual actions, but the other problem is I am supposed to be taking one of my bags up and I am so not looking forward to that that I think I have not really followed up on the whole thing. If my colleague was still in place he would organise all this, now it is up to muggins,

Anyway hopefully when I wake up I will feel a bit more dynamic and sort it out. Meanwhile I attach a bit of today's action.

PS It is another holiday here in Kyrgyzstan, which is why I am not at work.

Respect

By now regular readers of this blog will know that I have mentioned several groups of people older than me travelling through Kyrgyzstan, I have been deeply impressed but today respect. I have discovered first of all that some of the group are in their 80's, but that did not stop most of them going horse riding! And this afternoon they watched a demonstration of some Kyrgyz sports, it started quite late so I joined them, and wondering back asked what they had done earlier in the afternoon, thinking they would have rested or pottered about a bit, which is all I can do after a horse ride, but no this lot went WHITE WATER RAFTING!!! At the age 82 one guy had his first ride on a horse and first rafting experience. RESPECT And shame on me for my ageism.

The little kids gave me respect today too. I was waiting for the Kyrski class to arrive from the village down the road so was just sitting there and one of the young girls came in and asked me what I was doing so I just sang her the first bit of the song I am trying to learn in Kyrgyz, bless her she clapped and ran to get some of the others to listen, so it obviously sounded vaguely correct, but that is the easiest verse to learn. They are so quick they picked up the tune straight away.   So a lovely day really sun, hard work, and lots of good company.

Another nice thing happened actually two.  The year 2 children, 8/9 have written a book albeit with a bit of help from me, I live in Kyrgyzstan, we eat etc. and they have drawn pictures. My plan is to be able to print it out for them to take home over summer. But first of course the kids have to type it up, this is very good for their letter recognitiion, first the quick brown fox, then they can type their page. The two best readers happened to sit together and they quickly typed the phrase to practice so then I was able to show them their pictures and ask them to type the sentence they had written, that done I then gave them the flash card with pictures of all their pages to insert and these two boys twigged and they did it.  They were so excited though too that was the nice thing. So using the skills that they have learned in Russian computing classes my class.

On the way to work this morning carrying my bundles of twigs and wood shavings so a bit of a struggle I met an old woman who was hoping for a passing car to give her a lift, but she engaged me in conversation, indicating Bilimkana school and walked with me there. She found it hysterical that I could not communicate with her.    She tried everything she could think of, then I would say, sorry I can't speak Kyrgyz and she would rattle with laughter.

When I arrived at the school the mystified music/computer teacher gave in and gestured what is it with all these sticks. So I tried to gesture back rain, wood goes yippee and then trees go yippee the earth is damp, I hope he got it.

A better day

For the second day in a row I have been able to wear a summer dress and today it was so lovely I did cheer up a bit.  I worked at home most of the morning, filled a plastic bag with woodshavings and enjoyed the walk to work. The shavings have three purposes, to be put in the apple ditches for the Hugelkultur, to be used in the lucky dip that I am making for our end of term fundraising event and for the year 0 children to glue onto paper to make letters. An activity that I am pleased to say worked very well. For once they got lots of applause, they remember chunks of the alphabet song, are very good with Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, remembered some earlier songs from right at the start such as Twinkle, Twinkle and they remembered lots of colours and  they listened well to the Elmer story, they like it when I do lots of voices for the animals and then the wood shaving pic. And what was nice at the end, and I think that this says a lot about Kyrgyz children and what is considered important here they tidied up the wood shavings without anyone asking them to. In fact it probably wouldn't have even occurred to me to do it and so they put me to shame.

Year 1 I did some blend work and one little girl immediately got what I was after which was great so that helped all the others - they had to spot the blend in a word from this years book. But the CD getting stuck meant the alphabet ended at WWWWW.did not help. I did a little bit of videoing to try and capture some of the day, as in a few days this will be all over.  I still might be back, but who knows.  One of my other colleagues handed in her notice today, she will be off to work in sales in Saudi Arabia, so even if I come back despite things seeming timeless it will be different next time. The video is of some of her children being unusually quiet on a visit to my office.

Then I had to teach two Kruski groups together so got them to read the play version of Last of the Mohicans together.  Pretty good that they can do that.  Then home before then rain, only to get a lift with a coach of new tourists staying the night - a familiar guide and another group of intrepid septuagenarian antipodeans, so good food tonight guaranteed.

Emotions.

If I thought this last term would be the easiest that I would just have to see the time out, then I was wrong. Emotionally it seems to be as challenging as term one when I was very lonely at times and found the situation at school very difficult. Maybe it is cognitive dissonance but bit I am finding it very difficult to be present at the school truly present and when I went to teach yesterday it was if my body was there but me the teacher had departed.  I got through the day, and had to do more teaching than usual but if felt very odd, and I just crashed out as soon as I got home, so maybe an element of depression too. I just bombed on Monday night with the realisation that my two colleagues would be leaving the country before. Maybe just shows that despite how nice and how much I like all the people I live with and work with these two people who shared with me the process of my recruitment and coming to the this country and who have spoken with me online to share our views, how, even though at times I have had severe disagreement with one of these people which has been very painful, they have been vital in my coping this year.  I am pleased to say discussions with someone who may come next year cheered me up a bit but I am not sure how to get myself back to put my energy into what needs to be done in the next three weeks but I am hoping that my spirits will pick up a bit as there is a lot to be done before I head home.

All very Kyrgyz

I have just met a fellow blogger. I think hers is a much more informative blog re the history of the area and the pics are fabulous so I include the link here: /http://notquitemarcopolo.blogspot.com/.  She has been to some great places  Including Cholpan Ata, which turned out to be brilliant for me after the quiet start.
I just had the whole beach to myself on Saturday morning and was able to start writing my end of year report, not something I had really planned to do, but actually a useful thing to do away from everything. I did try having a swim but my heart almost stopped it was so cold in the Lake, but it was great just to sit. Only later did I realise how burned I had got.  So if this is what it is like off season I hate to think how I would have struggled with the heat in the summer.  After lunch my plan was to head off to the museum and to discover where the stone garden was (a site of petroglyphs) but I had forgotten it was Sunday and that things might be different on a Sunday - in my village everything is open all week round - but clearly not in Cholpan Ata, off season.  So I did some shopping for stuff for the fundraiser and decided to head on through the town hoping to spot something interesting. Suddenly I spotted a sign and something I had vaguely read about the area came back to me some kind of peace park related to Chingiz Aimatov.  Having spent the afternoon there, I am still not quite sure what it is about, but that sort of sums up Kyrgyzstan for me.  It could not decide if it was terrible or kitsch, worthy or what, but I still enjoyed pottering around it.  Kyrgyz seem to like mixing up nature and representations of nature, all over the country you suddenly see what looks like a plaster caste animal. They also like big entrances to roads etc, and in this grand country that sort of works, again often quite kitsch, but somehow okay, like their big statues of Manas everywhere, so this park was a bit like this but on a small scale, and mixed in with a bit of philosophy for there were statues from Greek stories, references to various faiths, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, statues of people like Victor Hugo, pretend trees next to real trees, dirty great big paintings of key characters from Kyrgyz myth or history, no English explanation so I am not sure and a room dedicated to the great writer, but again just with big pics of him.  And all on a very lovely sunny day with views of the mountains and views over the lake a bit like wandering around a historical house in the UK only it has been decorated by Lewis Carroll.  This link through may explain it more: Ruh Ordo.

After that I happily pottered back to the hotel via more shops with English speaking staff, very good English speaking staff and even found a cup of tea at the taxi stand.  I had hoped to do some work online in the evening but the internet was not good enough so watched Sherlock Holmes and Treasure Island in Russian, a typical English bank holiday yet very Kyrgyz too.

This morning I pottered on the beach as long as I could, sat on my balcony writing up some of my report and then finally established that there was a reception and they even knew how much I was paying - half a month's salary, but well worth it, and headed off. I had also figured out that there was probably a bus back from next to the taxi stand so caught the 12 o'clock bus back to Kemin.  In the village next to Cholpan Ata, there were lots of stands with animal furs on sale, in other places, dried fish, bits next to the lake are like dessert, then you come across tons of apple trees and loads of blossom, it really is a lovely area, but Cholpan Ata did seem the best place for having a sort of standard tourist experience rather than something authentically Kyrgyz. Once in the mountains the road is being rebuilt, but we still made good time, a few yurts in sight, but nowadays most of the road vendors live in containers instead.  However, the back route to Kemin had several selling goods.  Although Kyrgyzstan is very empty in terms of the size of population even in the most remote places one sees someone walking along tending a herd, or a couple sat on a precipice overlooking the river gorge I was watching one woman walk away from her yurt installing family only to realise she was heading for a pee unaware everyone on the road above could see her.

I got to Kemin just after three and almost got a lift with someone who said that they were going to Chon Kemin, but who was not going that way at all. However, one of my Kalmak Ashu neighbours rescued me, I thought I had recognised him, and he clearly recognised me and a few minutes later he secured us both a lift in a nice plush car so I was home by 4. You just pay the driver the bus fare, so it works well for everyone.  Then this afternoon I figured I best head up the mountains because who knows how many more chances I will get after this.  Soon my bags really will be packed and I really will be heading home.   But I have just heard from my Talas colleague and she will have left even sooner, Hellppp the adventure really is over.

Perfect calm.

I have noticed that whenever I leave the protection of the valley,I get a bit oh I have had enough of Kyrgyzstan, what this usually means is I hate feeling so stupid because I cannot communicate with people, then the beauty of the place calms me.  It is so calm and beautiful here and to the locals not hot enough for a holiday, but to me it seems perfect, even if there was samsa for breakfast.

May bank holiday

I always knew this bank holiday away would be a little weird but it is weirder than expected. Booking for Issky kul the most popular tourist destination in the country out of season, I couldn't decide what was best a proper lakeside hotel in the main tourist spot or the CBT community tourism in a village. . I probably should have done the latter , as the villages are full of apple blossom, but in the end decided it would be safer to come to the main tourist spot as at least there would be restaurants something to do in bad weather and it would be easier to work out where to get off the bus.  But the first problem was getting on the bus.  My original plan had been to catch the 8 am bus but when I was invited to join the guy from seminar group for breakfast I decided to risk getting the 9 o clock bus, which was nice as The Ashu was full of people I vaguely knew and it was bright and sunny and lovely having a relaxing breakfast on the terrace.   I almost regretted having booked to go away but as there was no room for me almost had no choice and I wanted to see Issky kul again.  Apparently the hotel staff had booked for me to stay with my head, but I only got to know of this when they rang to apologise to say I would now have to stay with her two nights, instead of one. At which point I was able to tell them not to worry as I was going away. As I missed  a call from her whilst I was at the beach, I am guessing they did not bother to tell her that I was not staying with her after all.    I got to Kemin where I had to pick up the bus here about 9.45 and then it was a question of trying to spot the right number bus and flag them down.  Several people were also trying to go to Karakol judging from the conversations they were having with the cars that were also stopping to offer lifts (you just pay towards the petrol)  and we all commiserated with each other as one bus after another failed to stop. I was so busy listening to car conversations that I almost missed the fact that a bus had stopped and had to rush to catch it.  So that was the most important thing achieved,  the thing I was most worried about, and it had only taken an hour, but working out where the hotel was once I got to Cholpan Ata was slightly more difficult than expected.  When I came through town in November there were huge signs up announcing Cholpon Ata, but I did not spot anything this time to say where I was, Luckily I had met a nice English speaking Kyrgyz women, when we stopped for coffee en route,  who, informed me that my sister school in Kant has a bad reputation except for my English colleague! (the one who has left) She also told me where to get off the bus, but then finding someone who knew the hotel was a bit more problematic.  I stopped for coffee and something to eat to get my bearings. Much to my embarrassment after almost 9 months here I still could only work out what two things were on the menu but did not fancy either of them, luckily they had samsa which is a perfect snack, but the staff then sent me in the wrong direction for the hotel. As it is a major tourist spot I thought that like Karakol ther emight be a tourist information bureau, or English spoken, but nothing so I asked at the museum, who found out the information and sent me off in the right direction. I walked most of the way, but then gave up and got a taxi here.  Once here, that was when it got weird, no reception area, no one asking my name or speaking English, at first I could not even see the hotel. There were what looked like lots of holiday apartments. In the end I found a building right at the end of the route, but no sign of a reception, just a cleaner who rang someone who said she was here.  I said I was here but where was she?  Bishkek,! She confirmed when dinner was and then I was just shown into this room, with its broken blinds and cigarette butts. No tea, coffee or anything but they put the heating on despite it being boiling today.  But once I got down to the beach, all to myself I decided it was just about manageable because there is something magic about the Lake even in a hotel with no facilities.  It was a bit too cold for swimming but lovely for paddling. I sat for several hours, writing up my report for how the year has gone.

After that  I did try walking back into town to see if there was a tea room anywhere but gave up as it was too far. By the time 7 o clock came I was really hungry, but the cafe was locked,and none of the other people I had seen wandering around were in sight, so in the end I knocked and knocked and the door was eventually unlocked and I was seated at a table with two salads. When I asked why for two when I was one, one apple was removed so I guess it was my table, but I felt like I was in some weird movie.   About 10 people eventually came in but it was all very separate not like at The Ashu where most people at least say Good Evening.

Anyway I am now watching an old black and white Russian film, no idea what it is about, but it is nicer than the news from Ukrained which gets worse and worse.

 

All my bags aren't packed.

Trying to get the motivation to pack up all my stuff. No not because I am heading home, but because the Ashu is so full that there is no space for me tomorrow. Luckily I was planning to be away as I am going to Issyk kul, but I know it takes me a couple of hours to empty my room and I really could do with out it right now.  Next weekend is another bank holiday so I hope that they will have room for me as no more money after this for trips away.  It is not quite the tourist season in Issyk kul, but when I went to Karakol I travelled the length of the legendary lake and even in a huge snow storm it looked so brilliant I knew I had to come and pay a proper visit. So going to be a tourist tomorrow.

The Ashu has been so full that I have either had to have my dinner in the kitchen or on the terrace so apart from saying hello each day to some of the seminar attendees that I recognise did not get to talk with them before they headed home after five days today. So it was a nice surprise when one of the attendees who I spoke to a lot when the same group was here in Autumn came and joined me for dinner. He will be here all weekend, but obviously I will not be, he lives in Switzerland and comes over twice a year for these budgetary, meetings so it was nice to have another talk with him. Whatever I decide or whatever I am able to do next year, I have been extraordinarily luckily this year.  

Got kisses of some of the year 0 children today and the year one children yesterday, not something I am very comfortable with but shows how fickle the fickle finger of fate is. So it was a nice day today school wise. The Year 1 children read through half the Last of the Mohicans very well. And my Kygyz colleague and I have agreed to try and learn a song together for our fundraising concert in May.

Altynai

Almost a perfect day.

It is lovely and warm, windy, but nice for walking, almost a perfect day. But for yet another email asking me what I am doing next year. They want a decision before I have had a chance to come back and see my family and get a better feel of whether it is appropriate to disappear again.  I have told them that this year it was relatively easy to come out as Nathan looked after my flat but if he wanted to leave the flat too, I would have to sort out an awful lot of stuff to enable someone else to live there. Also I may just not want to leave Nathan, and my family as I miss them, however, I know from Senegal that I will also miss the students terribly and I would really like to see how they progress.  I am also having real difficulty trying to decide how economically viable coming back would be.  I earned some money this year before coming out so that made it manageable this year but apart from what I can earn over summer would not be in a position to do this this year. Whilst here I have saved some money, but then when I take into consideration my up front costs for coming here, the resources bought for the school and costs back in the UK, the price of new glasses, the fact that I will need to buy a new computer and camera on my return as the ones I have have taken a real battering out here I am not sure whether or not I have had to use my savings to be here or not this year.     Not sure how to work through this being a bear with very little mathematical brain.

Anyway, I have been able to make a resource today, a small dressing up box for the children and I love the sight of the all the potatoes that have just been planted. They do not seem to be seed potatoes. I think that the women in the street must have been the planters judging by their aching backs.

Observed muddled, and delighted.

It has been such a busy week that I cannot catch up with myself, but luckily tomorrow is a holiday so while I never get up early tomorrow I will laze even more, have a leisurely breakfast looking out over the countryside, go for a long walk and then get on with all the work I have to do.

I have been working with the 10 year old Kruski students who used to be the bane of my life on a short version of the Last of the Mohicans. The audio version is the first thing I have found that keeps them quiet as they try and follow the text, but we will not have time to read it all as only two more lessons with me  and I want them to try and understand it a bit me so I am going to have a go at adapting it as a little play for them to do.

I am trying to take saw dust up to the school some to put in the apple ditches as part of the Hugulkultur thing that I am trying to complete before the end of term.  I want at least one of the rows of trees to have some wood, leaves and compost in before I leave in the hope that it will help with water retention. Then today I realised that the cook had thrown out some uncooked food waste, where they burned it before, so I have used the masses of stones to build a little wall round the space in the hope that it will encourage them to compost the material instead. I need to add to the wall,

I also want to use the stones to do something more creative, the rocks here are just beautiful and of course I want to create more resources so that when I leave if I do not come back who ever comes next has lots of materials to use.  But I am not nearly as busy as everyone else as they have to put in showers, build a kitchen and sort out the garden all before the summer schools.

On Monday night when I stayed behind to make some Satpin bingo cards, I fully expected all the staff to be there making things, ready for Tuesday but to my surprise they were not. Come Tuesday though there was plenty of evidence that at some point they had made them.  Tuesday was observation day and rather timidly I had been asked a) if I wanted to attend and b) if I would mind if I was observed. This had come up at the meeting a couple of weeks ago, that for some reason were not to be invited or included in such things.  Both me and my colleague absolutely shouted down this idea as it is in our contracts that we will be observed by our colleages and will observe in turn.  What was nice here rather than the ghastly experience of being observed in the UK is that it is not just the "quality control" person who observes, but colleagues too, so you get feedback from a group of people. And the feedback was done very gently. I think my lesson was the worse, but I still got positive feedback so that was a relief, it was a revision class, so had less variety in it than had it been a straight forward session, but the kids were nice and lively yet well behaved at the same time, so not intimidated by the presence of the observers which was good.

I have seen a couple of my colleagues teach, as I did a little team teaching with them at the beginning so I opted out of seeing the year 1 teacher but I was at school for 9 which was a great achievement for me to see the year 0 teacher and then observed the year 2A and B teachers.  It was a revelation for me to see the year 0 teachers class. I have never seen the children so deathly silent.  It was a good class, lots of variety, the kids better behaved than any children I have ever seen before - it was unnatural almost but when I asked at the end if that was how they always were she said yes. Maybe this is partly why they go mad sometimes with me, I told the quality control guy that when I teach them if each child does not have a resource and one they want they riot and when they get a resource they hit each so much so that I di d not recognise these children.  The downside of her efficiency was that her class finished too soon, but she had some lovely materials and some nice ideas, which just needed developing. However, the best class was the 2A maths class it was stunning. Variety, from group work, to a group game, to board work, to individual questions showing differentiation. It anything it had too much in it, and one child did not get included quite as much, but who knew maths could be so exciting, a level 1 class definitely.  One of the reasons for employing overseas teachers like myself is to bring western methods to enhance or replace Soviet methods,  but I have always thought that my colleagues methods were very good, seeing the two senior teachers in action was proof of this.  Although I did not enjoy the literacy class as much, again there was variety of methods, good pace, in the middle a quick soviet style minute of exercise to freshen the mind and then some writing and spelling and pronunciation work all of which was very interesting.  I took away something from each teachers lesson.

I totally messed up the day in the process by teaching 2A when I was supposed to teach 2B so showing everyone it is not just them that muddles things at times.  I also did a terrible class with year 1 so thank goodness I was not observed doing that.  I keep thinking that there must be a better way than this, shouting over a bunch of kids no wonder they cannot work out what the lesson is, but how to introduce language to them otherwise. as it is I do use lots of other methods, but this is one I wish I could do better. But then today because they listen and I made more or less the same process more interactive they were much better and even year 0 were much better today, in fact all round it has been good today.

We have not had a party for a while, but when I was told that year 2B's daughter in law had given birth - she is the Kyrgyz teache at the school, and mother of two of my Kruski students - I figured that something would take place, but today as I had Kruski was not ideal. I gave my students something to do for five minutes, rushed in and had a cup of tea while the first congratulatory speech was given, then returned to class After class I was given some plov that was left over, and sat and relaxed with the cook and my head for a while, but as a result have tried not to eat too much just now in the rather full Ashu restaurant.

A cow of a day.

If I have understood it correctly more depressing news about my flat in the UK. Apparently it was illegally separated and building regs did not cover anything like gas or electrics when they came in (both of which were faulty, one of which was illegal) they just ensured that the sound proofing between flats met the requirements. So what I thought was a letter signing of the property by building regs was not a letter to say that the gas or electrics were okay, it was a letter to say that the sound proofing was okay!!!! Sound proofing with WH Brown had incorrectly told me was above standard. It also sort of implies that the Borough knew that the letting there was illegal but did nothing about it, they also took over a year to tell me how to report the gas as being illegal and they did not think that 5 people in a one bed flat was overcrowded.  There seems to be very little protection re housing in the UK.  I know that when I bought the place, I kept saying to myself if seems too good to be true it probably is ...but I cannot see where the flaw is as all the paperwork seems to support, not that I am getting a bargain, but that the deal I think I am getting I am getting. Well if it seems too good to be true I now know it is because none of the paper work is what you think it is or is a lie.

Anyway it was a nice day at work today, sort of, though the fact that my head has been out recruiting potential students to go to the Foundation university has unsettled me a bit. This is in fact another very good idea, that they pay for people to go to uni and that they then work for the Foundation, however, I would have quite like to have been involved with promoting this and I hate to agree with Gove, but I also think that the Foundation has missed a trick as I think really they need to see if the students they are selecting have the language or aptitude to go to uni so have suggested that they ought to work in the school first get some experience as a classroom assistant that way when they get to uni they will have earned some money, proved their worth and they know what they want to get out of University. I have said this several times and thought that the idea had sort of got a nod, to say that there may be something in it, so I was a bit suprised that before the policy working group discussing all these issues could even get together this decision seems to have been taken out of its hands. However, it does show how dynamic my head is, there are showers being built for summer school, more bits of the basketball being sorted out, a kitchen being built and yet she still manages to do even more so perhaps instead of niggling I should be thinking good on her. for at least starting the process so I am glad I have talked myself round.

Discussions are still taking place re next years contracts and again they seem to be ignoring some of the policy and some of the other suggestions that have already been put forward but the nice thing is that they do seem willing to negotiate and it is flattering that I have been asked up to head office, but because none of them seemed to know about my health despite that being the reason my insurance was so mega costly, (I kept ringing up with every little thing just in case as travel insurance companies are notorious for saying but you did not inform us of that twinge you had last autumn etc.) and despite me having that bit absolutely confirmed by email before accepting the post last year - so they should have known what my position was, what I have been offered so far is more than I I feel I could manage especially as I would have to commute, cook and shop for myself.  So not sure at present, all taken a bit of a surprise course as I thought they just wanted me back here and under the same contract all this time, not more hours in a totally different location with different housing etc.

Anyway it is very wet here and when I left work,  very late for me at 6.30 as I finally got access to the colour printer, the cows were on their way home. There was a whole bunch of them and they were so funny because it seemed without instruction from the guys who look after them all day, they all just took off when it came to their turning, some going to the left for example, others staying on the main road for longer, one just ran down the hill leaving me in hysterics at the sight of her and I thought another had accidentally followed me further till it too turned in at the last house in the road. It bellowed in delight as it walked through its door.  Animals are so wonderful.

The last of the herd

Saving the earth, saving my computer, but not saving my eyes.

It is such a beautiful day I have just sat out on the balcony to have breakfast.

But yesterday when I headed off to Bishkek it was cold and miserable so I am really glad that it better for me and the tourists today. On Friday night my computer completely died so that and continuing problems with my new glasses meant definitely a trip to Bishkek and time to meet up with my old colleague to try and really fix our friendship in the process. I needed him a) to explain the problem with the glasses, they are great for distance viewing but not for on the computer and b) to suggest how I might fix the power problems with the computer.  Luckily the English speaking Turk who runs the opticians was there and he explained I need to give the glasses 10 days to settle. So I have in priniple agreed to try and do that, but immediately returned to my old glasses to use the computer as the new ones are just so out of focus, and I got my old glasses reframed. So all that was sort of settled but in the end not resolved. Then off to Zum which are lots of little shops within one big sort of department store. My former colleague had quite rightly said that a good shop could test my power source to work out the problem and very quickly he found somewhere that did the business found me a new battery and hey presto weeks of struggling on with a cable that works sometimes stops sometimes all sorted within minutes and for a very good price. So after that we had to go to Beta Stores and have a nice Turkish meal.   I am definitely enjoying being here again.

After which we parted and visited the latest art exhibition of work from Talas and Shabdan. I find it absolutely fascinating watching how these pictures are progressing several artists sometimes capturing each other in the shot interrpreting all angles of the landscape around them at different times of the year. Some seem too bucolic some look like they were painted 200 years ago, some are just absolutely the Shabdan I know and sometimes love.

Friday was Subodnik at school - more tidying up so with this in mind I rescued as much wood as I could and put it in the ditches where the apples have been planted and I gave the head strict instructions to ensure that all the children gave any wood they found to me.  What I had not anticipated when I turned up nice and early - 9.15 - was that half a dozen of them would be in a truck and the other half a dozen kids would be passing up to them the remaining leaves with all the precious top soil to dump somewhere, while the staff were spreading the new earth that they had paid good money for ready for the spring planting.  NOOOOOO I shouted as I saw another bag head for the trunk, NOOOOO I shouted as a wheelbarrow full headed in the same direction, so I grabbed it and to the horror of all, who had already looked horrified as I had arrived Lynch like with a wodge of sticks in my arms,  I headed across the field to dump this best earth and leaves over my wood. Several kids joined me, and when we returned I insisted that they leave the wheelbarrow where it was ready for me to continue when after my lesson. Another teacher insisted that they bring it to her who I knew was going to fill it and dump its contents, NNOOOO I shouted, but I had to teach so she won and several loads of precious earth were put in truck whilst I taught. So when I came out I hoicked myself up into the trunk and chucked out the little dead pine trees and started filling bags with earth and leaves to take out of the truck.  I then jumped down and wrestled another wheelbarrow load heading in the direction of the truck, from my colleague who in defeat wheeled it over to my sticks of wood. Fantastic covering for them.  During lunch we had some visitors from the Ashu so that was a very nice distraction. Several Vietnamese taking lots of pictures. Vietnam is now a very developed country as far as I can see from the people who I know have visited which at one point I could not imagine after the destruction and economic policy post the war.   Who knows in years to come our children will be tourists taking pictures of the children they find around the developing world.

After their departure I ran back to my desk found the stuff I had printed out about carrying for apple trees and read out the relevant bits to my head and after that the children were only allowed to pick up the stones. I have realised with all this digging  that not one worm was to be found in any of the earth, not in the ditches or in the soil the children had removed. So that is my next mission to find some worms. Who knew teaching English could be so physical, to think I gave up my garden as I did not think I could manage it any more! Luckily no sooner than all the work for the day was finished than the wind whipped up and the rains came to green this valley.