The usual highs and lows.

Had a rather horrid flashback today, when the teacher went out of the room and left me with students who I thought had been doing their English alphabet revision and so I handed out my big alphabet but prior to this photo being taken the excited response to it, was utter chaos.

Much more successful was my bag of rubbish. I may have lost my clothes on route, but my bag of rubbish survived in my hand luggae, bits of packaging that I thought the children might like e.g. tea, coffee, oranges. Year three have already been doing some language around buying food so this was for a bit of realia revision. They wrote shopping lists or their products out and bought and sold - a very nice way to end the week.

Not so successful Year 1 have completely forgotten, Two Little Dickie Birds and 5 Little Ducks, but they very quickly picked up the key themes in the book Walking Through the Jungle which I did with Year 1 last year.  Its lovely pictures really captivate them. I did an extra lesson with some of the year two students in preparation of them doing some work around Handa's Surprise - four girls came and helped me paint a nice big version of the title page. It was so peaceful working with them. They really thought about the colours and it is only today I realise how easy it was communicating in English what they had to do.  Today they have started to enact it and I am trying to encourage the local teacher to have the confidence to put it on with them at the end of term. She has not been putting on events each term and while the teaching seems to have been good if not very good, the place of English in the curriculum and in the school seems to have suffered a bit without me making sure it is always visible and audible.

Sadly my attempts to introduce compost or land enrichment have totally failed and no time now to follow up on this or energy.  However, it was a lovely sunny day today. All has settled down well at the school Tomorrow there is a ceremony to celebrate the children in year one having learned their Russian alphabet and in theory at about the same time my head and I are supposed to be meeting up with some of the after school children that we taught.

EE not getting any where.

Any ideas I am trying to buy add on on EE but the page my phone takes me thru does not seem to operate and when I go on their website I also do not seem to come thorugh to anything that actually allows me to buy anything. EE have up to now been a nightmare as a supplier as almost a year on from being forced to switch to it, I cannot access My account.  I cannot find anything like an email to contact them with - just a phone number. I had rung them before coming away but that had not resolved the matter but looking up their website at the time purchasing add seemed feasible and easy.



Feeling very tired, but still very happy to be working at the school. What is nice is that now there are two Kyrgyz English teachers here and as I am taking their classes in effect they are able to help me, and so we are able to team work which is ideal. One of these new teachers seems genuinely finding my ideas interesting and helpful and is picking up ideas.

Back to Kyrgyzstan.

When I turned 60 I had meant to keep up the blog about that, but as you can see I have not.  This  partly because getting into the blog is often very complicated as I have two google accounts and I just get sidetracked into their system and cannot get onto the blog, but tonight I have made it much to my delight as it has been a great day.  

I flew out to Kyrgyzstan on Friday, we left an hour late (something to do with the police checking passports?  We were never told what the problem was just that we were delayed.)  which meant that my connecting flight could be an issue as we were due in just after I was due to leave.  So I tried to notify the hostesses.  One went by, so I tried hailing her, but she flagged her finger in the air in a wait gesture implying she would return, but she did not. So I pressed the call button but the stewardess who came could not speak English, she went away and did not come back with anyone who could, so I had to call again and this time ask her to get someone, who did eventually come and said they would arrange for the onward flight to be delayed or arrange something. So I relaxed till a message went out that was inaudible beyond something re transit. Given that this might be an instruction e.g. go to the front of the queue I again tried hailing someone to help me who just rushed by, when she passed by again I again tried asking her but again the finger (not the usual rude one, but the one that says wait) this time very emphatic without a backward glance or attempt to help.  Air rage surged in me as I yelled could you just answer me.  No she just ignored me and went on by and huddled with the other stewardess at the front of the plane looking at me.  I pressed the button, the huddle hesitated that then sent the woman who could not speak English and again could not help and just went away. I  pressed the button again, again she came and again I had to ask for someone who could speak English. They eventually returned and said someone would meet me at the airport and ensure I get the plane.  Once off the plane I eventually located this person, who proceeded to run me through the airport and get me on the plane. He did not help me with my hand-luggage but seemed to think me a fit and healthy 60 year old so capable of running with it.  I am not sure my body agreed with him. We then proceeded to wait for a few more people and a bit more time, so I trusted that meant this time (I had had the same dash last time I flew with them) my bag would be transited too.  Wrong.  Luckily they have a good missing baggage report system at the airport. A nice German couple planning to spend just one night in Biskek were just ahead of me reporting their lost luggage and had to change their travel plans to pick their luggage up on Sunday, but my plan was and continued to be to come straight to the school two hours away.  My head teacher and her husband kindly meet me at the airport, partly to help with the luggage, but instead took control off my missing luggage form and have rung each day trying to re-unite me with it)  When I left Kysyzstan I had left my coat behind but I had forgotten that I had left some shirts and a skirt here. So while I did not have any toiletries, or the books and work I had for the children, and some other more personal items; as a result of her efficiency, I did have a change of clothes. And tonight the hotel owner has kindly turned up with the bag. I think he might have gone all the way to Bishkek to get it which is ironic as the nice young German couple having been reunited with their luggage yesterday, also came down here today!

I spent Sunday talking to my boss and up at the school getting today's lessons ready with the help of the music teaching, apart from an emotional hug in greeting , it was like had never been away.  I do not know what feels more surreal in fact, my life here or back home, as it just feels wonderful to be here and see the friends I have made here, but I still pinch myself to think I got to do this in the first place.

Anyway today it was class time. My main idea was to revise some of the work I have done with the children and to see what progress they have made. The school now is bigger than it was last year - a pre school, two year zero classes and then the children I taught previously.   I tried tiptoeing in hiding behind some gorgeous flowers my Head had presented me with at the airport and which I thought I could take to the school to share with everyone, but one of the classes spotted me and came out, the children all giving a very nice - happy but polite hello.  It felt very emotional to see their teacher.  Then the other class rushed out with more of a hug and again great hugs with their teacher - they are both wonderful women with so much experience it is a honour to work with them.  I popped over to the new canteen  to say hello to the cook (who had made a cake in my honour)  where the new pre - schoolers greeted me in English and then into my first class. Year 1, previously year 0. They have a new teacher,who speaks English, and she has them taught well.  One of the students pointed to the English poems and story I had put up on their wall the day before obviously pleased with this new addition to the classroom. They were all able to ask each other their name (they are 6), then I tried singing some of the songs we learned and they remembered lots of the words and all the gestures ahead of me doing them.  They then worked together to write the alphabet on the board and sang the alphabet song - so very good. Similar situation with class two, previously one, who remembered all their colours and some of The Balloon Song which we had learned rather quickly at the end of the year and they did even better with Walking Through the Jungle which they had learned in their first term. Considering no one has done any of this with them since last May pretty good.  They are all reading and writing in English. Then year three who loved playing What's the time Mr Wolf,  which was new work for them. I was also asked to do a circle time with them and they managed it -telling me what they have been learning since I saw them last. I also gave them a five sentence dictation - which reminds me I need to mark it before work tomorrow so had better go. I would never think to give 10 year olds dictation but they really like it and seem to be good at it.  When I think how hard it was doing book work with them at the beginning of last year as only one of them could read and only one or two had any idea of how to do it and now they can all read and write in English it seems a miracle to me. So, so far it is definitely worth this return and clearly my colleagues are doing a good job, but I think and hope that it is also useful for the children and my colleagues that I reappear and do this couple of weeks with them.

In memory and in hope.

I have lost some very dear friends and true loved ones over the years.  Too many have died young, but every day I hear the news, x has died, y has died, 62, 63, 64.  It is like something coming towards one, and one never knows who will be next.   But last year my best friend and one of my honorary Scottish cousins were diagnosed with terminal cancer.  I visited my friend New Year;s Day her treatment is challenging in the least, the Government's lack of financial support worrying and the constant fear the drugs money will run out worrying, but she is still here and doing everything that she can to live.

My cousins in Scotland decided to give their sister the best time they could until time ran out.  They had a year together doing nice things.  Christmas came and went and I had began to think my cousin would cheat time for a lot longer, but today the news has come of her passing.  I never saw Susan with anything but a smile on her face, she seemed to absolutely love life.  It will be very hard on the family to be without her.

I had meant to ring both her and my Dad today, but I also got word today that he is back in hospital.  My friends Dad is in hospital too.   Strange places hospitals. The night light, the noises and the worry.  Sleep well and get well please.

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.