Winter Fun

Winter Fun: The "Christmas" themed class holiday party!

After making reindeer antler hats during the "Christmas" party, I took each student's portrait in front of this sign. I had to include some of these. Here Seung Bin willingly obliges to a portrait. 

 One my student's mom came in a ready a cute story, A Yeti In Town, about a young yeti who is accidentally shipped to London. 

 Akylbek. That face about says it all. 

The class did Secret Santa and Ms. Rita, my Cooperating Teacher, brought in her tree and we set it up the morning of the party as a surprise. The students made the ornaments. 

 Vanda with a recently-missing tooth.

 Nurlan. 

 Here Ms. Rita opens her gift. The students worked hard on decorations the week before the party, and it was pretty festive in there. 

I am happy because my Secret Santa got me Belgian chocolates. 

Winter Fun: The Winter Concert.

"Winter Fun" is the title of one of the songs my students sang at the Winter Concert. Leading up the concert, we practiced singing this very catchy tune in class a few times a week, for a few weeks. Now that stupid, catchy song gets stuck in my head every few days. 

 My students with the other 8 Year Old class at the Winter Concert. I was so proud of them, they sang loud and knew all the words!

 The grand finale in "Winter Fun".

The students who practiced were able to play "Ode to Joy" on the recorder. Remember, there were weeks and weeks of preparation for this concert, which meant weeks and weeks of saying "No recorders in the classroom!" and hearing the high-pitched tunes in the hallways. As the music teacher put it, "It's the sound of learning". 

Girls do a traditional Kazakh dance. 

Winter Fun: The Kindess Carnival. 

The last day was a half day, and two hours of that half day the kids ran free playing games at a carnival sponsored by the 11 Year Olds.

Here, my class waits to leave the assembly before the carnival begins. 

 Akbar knocks 'em dead in bowling. 

 Prizes, prizes, prizes!

 First, put your hand in a dish of raw eggs and find the marble. Then put your hand in a dish of flour and find the marble. Then, put your hand in a dish of spagetti and find the marble. Then put your hand in a box and take your prize. 

 Students were so excited!

Here Ansar and Insar arm wrestle for a prize.

 Obstacle course!

Danial K. in action. He gave it all he had. 

 The school as seen from the skywalk between the two buildings. This was taken on the last day before break, and all the snow seemed so appropriate for the last day of school before Winter Break. 

Winter Fun: Snow!

 The tools for the job. We have about 10 inches of snow right now. It's beautiful, but a lot of work to keep it clear around the house and car, especially while using a make-shift snow shovel. 

Our front patio. 

The road we live on. We are the pink gate at the end of the road. 

Winter Fun: Thailand! 

Here we come!

December?

     Well, I suppose it's time for an update. It doesn't seem too long ago that we were just arriving back from Uzbekistan and now, 4 weeks and 2 units later, we are only two weeks away from Winter Break (no one is complaining!). School keeps us very busy so days fly by and weeks seem to go even faster. It's not only planning and teaching and grading that keep us busy; committees, newsletters, meetings, and periodic obligations and parent communications make for full days. Both Nic and I are enjoying teaching and feel like we are beginning to find our stride in this new profession. 

     It's hard to believe that we haven't even hit our 4 month mark here in Kazakhstan...it seems longer. We encounter our difficulties still (as would happen for anyone learning a new culture), but we also find that we're building our routines. Food in supermarkets tends to be expensive, so we try to shop at local markets. However, now that the cold has set in, markets close earlier. The market near school that used to stay open until after 6 is now half way closed down at 5. Some vendors actually put their produce into glass cases with lights in them to keep them from freezing. Veggies are getting more scarce and more pricey (as should happen in a market closely linked to local agriculture), but we can still find the basic potatoes, carrots and cabbage cheaply. 

     Weekends are generally dedicated to cleaning the house, cooking a good meal, planning and grading (of course) and skyping with our folks. We usually have one social event in a weekend, and that's really about all we can handle at this point. We are fortunate to work with some great and laid back people who like to socialize. The Wilkinsons (from Texas) hosted a chili cook off a few weekends back. 

There were a number of competitors, and some very delicious chilis that night. 

But, a crowd knows when they've found something good. We got second place! 

The school Spirit Committee (of which I am a proud member) hosted a Thanksgiving Feast for all staff at the school. It was a big undertaking, but the committee is full of resourceful and organized teachers!

No turkeys at this Thanksgiving, but plenty of chicken! The men do the honors and carve 40 chickens for the meal. 

 The Decorating Committee did a great job turning a school cafeteria into a homey dining room to share a meal in. 

There were lots of fun decorations made by the elementary students. 

Every class in the elementary school has a Buddy Class. Our buddy class are the 4 year olds. About once a month my 8 year olds read to the little ones and help them with crafts. 

 Danial K. loves to read and gets excited about books. 

Daniel M. helps this little one make a Thanksgiving cornucopia. 

 Vanda has a captive audience and a big book. 

Ayanna helps this one cut out her fall leaves for her project. 

We continue to love our house. In the mornings, with no traffic we make it to school in around 20 minutes. In the afternoons, however, it can sometimes take up to an hour with traffic to get home. With insane drivers (it's almost comical how terrible they are...almost) on the roads it can make for a stressful commute, but we are always happy to step into our peaceful compound. 

Since we're so close to downtown, we can see and hear all the action. The other night there were huge fireworks we could see from our front windows. Notice how the window is open? Another thing I love about our house is how toasty warm it is!

 This was taken from our back balcony, looking east. It's been quite foggy here and today is the first clear day we've had in about a week. I wish I could say that the white line on the horizon was clouds, but I fear that it is smog. 

 This is also from our back balcony, looking north onto downtown. You can't see it clearly, but the streets are lined with blue-lit holiday decorations. The city is festive, with decorations all over. The big holiday here, however, is New Year. A local told me that when Communism came, there was a push away from Christianity, so they changed the focus from Christmas to New Year. Locals celebrate New Year the way Americans celebrate Christmas: with presents and a tree! They even have a Santa equivalent called Dit Moroz. This year is also Kazakhstan's 20 anniversary of independence, so there are lots of decorations for that as well. Whether for Christmas, New Year, or Independence, it's nice to have some holiday cheer in a city far from home. 

Uzbekistan: Samarkand

Samarkand, our guide told us, is known as "the woman with make up on". All of the 5 Ms (mosques, madrasahs, minartes, mausoleums and monuments) were elaborately tiled and decorated. It is the second largest city in Uzbekistan, with a population of 300,000. It was the capital of Temur's empire in the 14th century and the home of our guide, Temur. 

 This is Temur's mausoleum (the ruler, not our guide). He originally built it for his grandson who died at a young age, but, according to legend, Temur died the day after it was completed, so he was buried there as well. 

Just a side door. 

 The dome above the entrance to the mausoleum. It is papier mache that was painted in rare pastels. 

 The tomb room inside the mausoleum. 

 There are about a half dozen people buried here; Temur, 2 of his grandsons, Temur's spiritual advisor, an astronomer and a few others. Temur's tomb is the dark one in the middle. It is the largest piece of jade in the world. 

The inside of the tomb room is also decorate in papier mache and ornately painted. This is looking up inside an arch and to the domed ceiling. 

This is a museum to the Uzbek astronomer Ulugbek. On this hill he had an observatory with a 40 meter sextant built in the 15th century. He recorded many stars and estimated the distance to the moon within 20 meters. 

Just below the observatory, a group of women were selling bread. Judy and I went down for a photo opportunity. This woman spoke a bit of english and was incredibly sweet (like almost every person we encountered in Uzbekistan). 

She asked us questions like if we were married or had kids, where we were from, our names, and translated everything to the other women. One woman asked her to ask me if I was a girl (I was only slightly offended). 

They posed for a picture, and Judy and I bought hot, flaky bread for the bus ride. 

A large complex of madrasahs and mosques. Here are buried the bones of Muhammed's cousin, who came early to Samarkand to teach Islam. Legend says that he still is alive and living in the wells of the complex. 

A worker's sustanance: tea, bread and hard candies. 

At nearly every place we stopped, we had to pay a few hundred sum to take photos. This woman was the money collector at this complex and welcomed a portrait. 

A narrow passage from the front to the back of the complex, with arched entrances to rooms for teaching, all brightly tiled and patterned. 

A local woman poses for a portrait. 

See the domes through the arch? 

This hallway leads to the bones of Muhammed's cousin. 

A tiled dome inside one of the rooms. 

This is a mosque that was built by Temur's favorite wife. While he was away, she ordered it built for him as a surprise. The large stone on the platform held the copy of the Koran we viewed in Tashkent, the oldest one around. 

This mosque has not been restored from damage by earthquakes. Inside the room with the dome, we could faintly see the original decorations from the 14th century. Unfortunately, the photos didn't come out so well. 

It is supposed to be good for fertility to crawl underneath the Koran stand. 

Just next to that mosque is a large city market (you can see the mosque in the background). This woman vends nougat candy. 

Traditional beaver pelt hats. 

Orange carrots for salads, yellow carrots for cooking. 

This is Registan Square, meaning "the sandy place". These were once functioning madrasahs. Now it is the heart of Samarkand, and where young boys once studied the Koran, vendors line shelves with pottery, embroidery and plastic knick knacks. Even still, it is an impressive and beautiful place. 

Nic at the entrance to one madrasah with rare green tiling. 

Inside a restored room. 

One of the vendor's shops. These embroidered tapestries are called suzanni, and are all over the country. They are incredibly beautiful and died with natural materials like pomegranates, leaves and walnut shells.   This woman was working on one, while all around her hung some of the most beautiful suzanni I saw on the entire tour (and the most costly, but rightly so. They were fantastic). 

From Samarkand we had one final bus ride back to Tashkent and to the airport. The great thing about coming in the Fall is the harvest. We stopped along the highway to Tashkent and could buy a kilo (2.2 pounds) of fresh, intense magenta pomegranates for about US $0.20.