It is snowing again and yet the internet is working.
I got through work despite still being ill And Nathan and are talking again after a slight hiatus. Our lovely guests have gone, but it was nice to cook my own dinner and watch the sky blacken the winds pick up and the first flecks of new white on old white.
I can still feel the illness making me tetchy at work. When I walked into the year zero class there was a completely different teacher, and I was stupid enough to try something new and give all the children their text books so that they could all have a book and listen to the audio rather than follow me. I knew something new would faze them, but with 13 children and 15 books them getting upset because they did not have a book was something I did not really want to get into. The poor student teacher of course did not know the kids names, she had just been left with them, then in I waltz, and mayhem ensues. Eventually the class was pulled together and thinking of my colleagues suggestion that I challenge them a bit more, rather than giving them a flower to colour, I showed them the flowers in their book and told them to draw them. What did they do? They wrote the word flower perfectly. Then they drew the flowers. After class, I checked through all the books and made sure that all the kids names were in them properly so hopefully that bit will go smoother next time.
I almost did the reverse in the year one class. I had to take in book, cards, water, CD player, and my computer. We played the game where the kids were given a number and then had to find a colour. They understood the game today (no student teacher, her mum is not well) and played it well. They do not know their colours yet, but some of them are sticking. I then tried to play them the Balloon Song to listen to and realised that I did not have the speakers, so the class teacher went over the colours (how come they are happy just to listen to her and sit and just repeat for ages, but thank goodness they are and the good thing is that now she knows the colours in English). Got the speakers, but then they did not work. So over to plan B. Handed out copies of the story, for the children to listen to on CD, which I had printed in black and white and then realised that they could colour them in. When they had finished I gave out card games to play, tailoring what I gave to each different group, some colours, some words, etc, and it was just such a nice quiet, purposeful class. What was especially nice, I gave two girls, very bright, words that I have not given them, they were finding the pairs, but were not surprisingly a bit unsure, then I showed them the related page and they were off and running, they could match their word with the word in the book. Yes they cannot read or pronounce that book (the words sea and beach may not be the most useful that they have encountered in this landlocked country, though there may be a lake beach), but just this process of spotting words, will help them read later. So a nice day.
I also did a bit of research on EU funding for agriculture. Many of the local farmers want to be a bit more productive and find ways of adding value to their farms, and I know that there are NGOs etc, working in this field, but whether there is anything specific that the farmers here can tap into I do not know, but at least I have started the process to try and find out.
I told my colleague the other day that if I was to stay then I would want to stay in my current school and then move to Karakol if they opened a school there. We discussed why I might want to do this. Luckily I know conversations do not seem to stick with him, but even I was amazed when he asked yet again if I wanted to stay, (how many times do I have to say I cannot possibly know at this stage) and that I wanted to move to teach in Bishkek if I did. Suffice it to say, I was pretty tetchy with him. Busy man that he is, he was tetchy back. But if I was a Kyrgyz teacher, I could have retired by now. 55 for women and 60 for men, which is a great deal for women, but lousy for men as 62 is their life expectancy. I knew some of my colleagues were working over their retirement age, but I had no idea how far over they were working.
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