Finally...a summary from arrival in Almaty to the present!

Well, I am sitting here in bed, wrapped in blankets to keep from freezing (My bedroom window won't close and has a crack that is an inch in width. With the outside temperature fluctuating between 40 and 50 degrees the last couple of days, my room is cold!), listening to Kazakh worship music (and the neighbor's obnoxiously loud music) and munching on the cookies someone gave me for my birthday.

I can't believe I've been here more than 5 weeks already! 11 months sounded like such a long time when I decided to teach here, but the time is just flying by! I'm glad and sad all at the same time. I'm glad because I really miss all of you and I can't wait to come home and see you all again. On the other hand I'm sad because I have really come to love some of the people here and it will be so hard to leave. I'm really growing to love living in Kazakhstan. Who ever would have thought?! Certainly not me! If you would have told me a year ago that I would be living in Kazakhstan the following year. I would have laughed hysterically and thought it was a great joke. God has such a sense of humor sometimes.

Well, I arrived in Kazakhstan in the middle of the night on Wednesday, August 15. The next day I went out for Chinese with the family that I was staying with, and got to meet a bunch of the people from the school where I am teaching. I felt very strange. Partially because I was suffering from jetleg, partially because everything was so different and foreign, and partly because I was overwhelmed by the loving reception. I was immediately accepted into the community, right then and there, by the representation present at the restaurant. I have never experienced the body of Christ like I have here; it's incredible! I came here not knowing anyone and not knowing what in the world to expect, and lo and behold God's family here was waiting to receive me. God's love and provision is incredible! Well, back to my story. After Chinese, we stopped at the school and I got to meet a few of the teachers. Then we went home and that was pretty much the end of my Thursday. Friday I had teacher orientation at the school all day. It was pretty exhausting. I got to meet the principal (who is awesome! She is so wonderful and such a blessing to me. She's becoming a really good friend, too.) and all of the elementary teachers. The teachers and staff at the school are unbelievable! God has really blessed me. I am becoming good friends with most of them, and the others are wonderful as well. There is one other teacher who is new at the school. She is also a first year teacher and from Kenosha, Wisconsin. Can you believe it?! I go all the way around on the exact opposite side of the world and make a friend who lives right near me in the States! She teaches second grade and her classroom is right next to mine. I thought I had it rough being away from my boyfriend, Jesse, for 11 months, but this girl is engaged! I can't imagine how hard that must be for them. Anyway, most of the elementary teachers are from the States (Texas, Colorado, Wisconsin, and California), but the principal and one of the teachers are from Canada. Our Russian elementary teachers (all of the students have 45 minutes of Russian every day) are locals. If you include secondary teachers and all the school's teachers and staff, besides the aforementioned countries they include Russia, Kyrgustan, Uzbekistan, New Zealand, and South Africa. And yet, we are all truly a unified team. We work together, have fun together, laugh together, solve problems together, and love each other. And it's so fun to hear all the different accents and languages and learn about the differences in the cultures that we came from.

Well, after orientation I went to try and turn the disaster that was my classroom into something slightly less frightening and a little more organized. I never would have succeeded before I had to go home without the help of the first and fourth grade teachers. They helped me at least move the furniture out of the mountain in the middle of the classroom and arrange it where I wanted it. It looked a million times better when I left that night! If you want to see the transformation for yourself, see the before and after pictures of my classroom at http://eliciasadventures.myphotoalbum.com I don't remember anymore exactly what I did on Saturday. I think I just worked in my classroom some more. On Sunday I drove up into the mountains a little ways with the family I was staying with and we had a picnic by a stream, and then we all went off for some personal time with God. After awhile we all gathered together by the stream again to share and pray for each other. It was so uplifting and refreshing. It really helped me to get my week started with the right focus.

I really enjoyed staying with that family when I first got here. They were wonderful. They were a great encouragement in the Lord and I also had a lot of fun talking with them and joining them for movies in the evenings. I even got to watch some Stargate with another women who lives at their house and their son. After four days of staying with them however, I moved in with the family that I would be living with for the rest of my time in Almaty. They had been in the States for their one daughter's wedding and had just gotten back. (I just got back from making myself some scrambled eggs because by 2:30pm I need more sustenance than cookies. It took me longer than in the States to make them because I still have trouble with the stoves here. They are all gas and they do not light automatically. You have to turn the burner on and then light it with a match. Now, this was only my second time doing it and I definitely need a lot more practice. It took me a couple of tries to coordinate the gas + match timing. When I finally got it, I had to jerk my hand away because the gas was up higher than it sounded! Lol. Things seemed to be going smoothly for awhile until my eggs were cooking slightly faster than I wanted. I turned down the heat. Well, that's what I meant to do, but I accidentally turned it a little bit too far, and the flame went out. AAHHHHH! So, then I had to try and light it with my eggs still slightly cooking on the burner. Thankfully this time I got it on the first try and after that nothing eventful happened.)

Monday and Tuesday, August 20 and 21 were Teacher Orientation days for all teachers, Secondary and Elementary. At the end of each day there was a tiny bit of time to work in my classroom before getting picked up by the family I was now living with and taken back to their house. School started on Wednesday. I did not feel ready at all! My classroom wasn't completely the way I wanted it and I had no idea what most of curriculum was! I prayed and planned out the first three days in the minutest detail, figuring if I could survive until the weekend, that I would have a chance to go through all the curriculum and plan out my year on the weekend.

On Tuesday night I could barely sleep. I was so nervous, scared, and excited for the first day of school! My very first day teaching, ever! I cannot express to you my feelings when I walked into my classroom on Wednesday to see the faces of my students for the first time. Their eager, excited, smiling faces helped to settle some of the butterflies in my stomach, but not much. I enjoyed my first day teaching so much! It was a day that I had planned to spend getting to know my students and for them to get to know me, and to learn the routines that I had established. The day turned out to be so much fun! For both me and for them. It set a great tone for the year. The hardest thing for me that day was learning to pronounce the names of my students that are from other countries and learn to tell them apart. More than half the students in my class are from countries other than the States. (I only had 9 students the first three weeks of school, and now I have 10...I will be getting two more after Christmas. I was supposed to have close to 18, but for one reason or another the rest of the families were unable to return to Kazakhstan this year.)

Now I feel like I have always been teaching these 6th grade students at my school in Almaty, Kazakhstan. I have come to love each of them sooooo dearly! And now I can easily pronounce the names of my non-U.S. students and I know who each one is...they don't look at all similar to me anymore. I have also gotten the hang of planning and preparing for lessons and I am no longer frightened that I will not be able to challenge the 6th graders enough or prepare them for 7th grade and moving "upstairs" (the Jr. High and High School classrooms are all on the second floor of the building and many of the elementary students talk about "upstairs," where they are not allowed to go, with great awe).

Every day is a new adventure in teaching and I don't think I'll ever tire of it. After my Quiet Time with God each morning, I face the new day wondering what will happen in my classroom today. I enjoy my students so much! They are so much fun! They also have very different ways of looking at things that are constantly challenging my thinking. And sometimes they say and do the most hilarious things! Especially my non-U.S. students because they are English Language Learners (ELLs). Their first language is something other than English (and many of them know at least one other language besides). Because of that, they often say or write things that are downright funny! For example, the other day I was talking about the Apostles' Creed. Well, after awhile I came to realize that half my class thought that "Pontius Pilot" was the place where Jesus was crucified! I had the hardest time keeping a straight face as I tried to straighten that one out!

While my students are very well behaved and a blast to teach for the most part, they are also normal 6th graders and some of them have very strong personalities. There have been many challenges even in these first five weeks of school. There have been times when I was just clinging to God and asking him to help me make it through the day, fighting back tears because I was overwhelmed and had no idea how to handle something. At times like this God has always provided exactly what I needed at exactly the perfect time. Whether it was a boost of strength, a smile or note from a student, or a hug from another teacher or mom, or someone to talk to and ask for advice. (I just grabbed a nice warm cup of hot chocolate...they have Nestle Quick here! I will survive the Winter.) By the way, I think that 6th grade girls are the most emotional beings on the face of the planet! One minute they're best friends and the next minute they're at each others throats or crying. When I try and figure out what's going on I get, "She's mad at me! No I'm not! Yes you are!" HELP! If I survive all of the emotional roller coasters in my classroom through the year, I think it will definitely be a miracle of God. And my boys are in a completely different challenge category all their own!

While my students are the same as any other 6th graders in the States, they are also very different. They are what we call Third Culture Kids (TCKs). They have grown up in a culture other than their parents' and because of that they don't fit in either their parents' culture or the culture they are living in. There are many drawbacks as well as advantages to this. They have incredible insights into some things and perspectives that are very different from 6th graders in the states. They are very open to different customs, cultures, peoples, languages, and ways of doing things and have close friends of many different nationalities and languages all over the globe. They also adapt well. One of the main weaknesses that I have observed is the gaps in their education. Because many of them go on extended visits to their home country and sometimes for a year or two at a time before returning, they attend various schools throughout their education and end up missing learning some things. As a teacher, it is very challenging to find the gaps in their education and try to fill them.

My students are so precious to me and I love each of them sooooo dearly! I have the best students in the world! They are an incredible class. I will have a very difficult time teaching when I return to the States. Teaching here is like teaching in Heaven. Between the students, teachers, staff, faculty, principal, and the parents...I am so blessed and so spoiled I don't want to teach in a "normal" setting like in the States anymore! Oh, well. God will prepare me and help through it just as he has everything else in my life.

The subjects I teach are, math, science, reading, writing, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, history, spiritual formation (religion/Bible), and computer. Students also have specials that are taught by other teachers. Their specials are library, P.E., art, music, and of course the daily Russian. The elementary students all get a 15 minute morning break together. This was also designed with the teachers in mind...we get 15 minute tea break! Tea is a huge part of life in Central Asia...I love it! The students also get a 30 minute recess after lunch and a 40 minute recess after school lets out. Something at the school that is very different from the States, is that all elementary students wear slippers in the school building. It is a very Asian cultural thing. Almost every Asian school does it. It is a also what everyone does in their homes as well. In your own home you always take your shoes off at the thresh hold and switch to slippers and where slippers around your home. When you visit someone, you always leave your slippers at the thresh hold and usually they have "guest" slippers for you to wear in their home. I was really wierded out at first when I was given a pair of slippers to wear in someone else's home, but that is just the way things are here, they thought nothing of it. It also took me awhile to get used to my students wearing slippers in school and to make time for them to change back and forth between their outside shoes and their "inside shoes" as they come and go from recess and specials, but I am completely used to it now and don't even notice.

There is no cafeteria; all the students bring their morning snack and their lunch. There is a women who sells little snacks and some homemade foods twice a week. Some students purchase these for either a supplement or some variety.

Lunch is provided for teachers every day if we choose. Initially my thought was, why wouldn't you want to eat the free meal every day?! Well, I could answer that now. Don't get me wrong, we have a great local cook. The food, however good it is, is very local and very much the same. I embarrassed myself the 3rd week of school by quietly asking one of the veteran teachers if they ever served anything besides soup for lunch? The teacher laughed and said that they already had been...when it was served with a side of rice it was supposed to be more like a stir fry thing, not soup. I said "oh." I couldn't think of what else to say. Up to that point, most of the meals were a soupy, brothy mixture with vegetables (usually lots of cabbage and eggplant, and often beets, and carrots, and sometimes cauliflower, zuchinni, or something else) and potatoes in it. There were usually supposed to be pieces of meat in it...but you may or may not see any. The meat varied between beef, pork, sheep, and chicken. It tasted very good, but I got tired of eating the same type of thing with little variety and eventually it became difficult to force myself to eat it. I found out that the price of food has gone up this year and since the food budget was not increased and there are just as many teachers and a couple more staff to feed, that the cook is having a harder time getting ingredients. I felt really bad for the cook, but it didn't make the food any more appetizing. There is always bread on the table, but it is not the kind we are used to in the States. It is course and dark, and tastes different. It is often tough from sitting out, as well. Although, if you soak it in the "soup" for a little bit, it gets nice and soft and actually doesn't taste too bad. I am finding very creative ways to think on the bright side when it comes to lunch. Oh my goodness! I was so excited last week and this week! Last week we had lasagna one day and baked potatoes the next! I was so excited when I walked into the kitchen expecting the usual fare and saw instead these delectable treats, that I actually squealed out loud! And this week we had pitas with sliced meat, cheese, cucumbers, and tomatoes...twice! Perhaps God is trying to teach me to be grateful for what I have, not to take things, including food, for granted and to be more appreciative when I get the things that I like to eat. I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to savoring my first homemade meal when I return to the States!

Well, in the elementary the students have a half-day on Friday...they all go home at 1:00pm. They don't get lunch that day, but they get a 45 minute morning break later in the day instead of the 15 minute one earlier. After the students leave, we elementary teachers eat our very late lunch that we're all starving for! Then we have our weekly elementary teacher (and principal) meeting. Someone always brings some type of food (usually sweets...lol) to share with everyone. It is usually a very festive atmosphere. Sometimes I feel more like we are a group of friends spending time together, and then I think to myself, "what's wrong with that? Why can't teachers in the same building and on the same team be friends? Wouldn't if be better if that was true? What would happen if teachers in schools everywhere truly enjoyed spending time together?" We begin the "meeting" by sharing things from our week. Some are frustrations or asking for advice with something, but most of the things that we share are special moments, or hilariously funny things that happened. My favorite stories come from Kindergarten, with first grade as a close second. We also talk about the business stuff; the things that we really need to discuss, change, etc. Starting the last two weeks, our principal has been setting aside time for us to do curriculum development. It is not the most enjoyable thing to be doing, but we manage to enjoy it a little bit, simply because we're doing it together and we always manage to say things that make each other laugh. It reminds me of Mary Poppins, because just like cleaning your room, it's something that needs to be done and a spoonful of sugar (or in this case friends and laughter) does help the medicine go down.

I just looked out the window and it's raining! This is only the third time it's rained since I've been here. We need it badly. Sometimes the dust blowing around is so bad that I start choking and can't catch my breath. And it is always getting in my eyes. I'm so glad it's raining! :) I've always loved the sound of rain falling, anyway. Wow, it's almost 5:30pm here! I've been at this for about three hours (with a few breaks)! And I still have tons more that I want to say! I guess I'd better type faster!

Well, at the end of the second week of school we had a welcome back to school picnic. It was for the whole school; all of the staff, faculty, teachers, and member families of elementary and secondary! It was awesome! There was a brief member meeting first, and then the feast! Each family brought their own food and then they also provided a dessert to share. Each teacher was "adopted" and fed by a family. It was like a huge reunion! It was so neat to see people hugging and talking and laughing together. Some families had been gone last year and are now back again and were enthusiastically greeted, while others just hadn't seen each other much over the Summer; much catching up was done. And those of us who were new to the school (like me!) were warmly welcomed to the community! It was wonderful! I really enjoyed getting to know the family that "adopted" me. It was incredible to see the entire front yard just covered with blankets and families visiting and eating. I got some great pictures of it! After awhile I had to run off to my classroom. One of the other things happening that night was that the parents would get to meet the teachers and get to know them and find out about what the teachers' plans were for their children in the coming year and ask them any questions they had. There was a schedule for each grade so that parents who had children in more than one grade would be able to meet both teachers. I was incredibly nervous! I was far more nervous about meeting my parents than I was about meeting my students. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to answer their questions. After all, I still wasn't completely familiar with the curriculum myself! Would they find out I was a first year teacher and think me incompetent? I just kept praying. All my fears turned out to be wasted energy. My parents didn't want to know about the curriculum so much as they wanted to know about me and how they could help me. I was shocked. These were not the kind of parents I was used to dealing with in schools. It was a wonderful, positive experience and I came away greatly encouraged!

School picture day was crazy! I didn't really get any substantial teaching in all morning and my students were really hyper all day. I'll have to see if I can get some of the pictures and post them on my online photo album. It was so weird to realize that I am really a teacher at a school...they took my picture...so it's official! Lol! We've also already had two fire drills, one scheduled one and one that was a surprise. Both went very smoothly. We've also had one lock down drill. A lock down drill is in case of an intruder or a terrorist attack. There hasn't been an instance when they needed to use it yet, but the administration feels its best to be prepared, and I agree. I was a little bit frightened inside when they explained the procedure to me in orientation, but the kids are completely used to it. For them it is just part of life, like the fire drills and earth quake drills.

Speaking of earth quake drills...I had no idea that they had earth quakes here! They do, however and I have now experienced the first earth quake of my life. I think it was Sunday night, September 2. But in any case, I was sitting on my bed watching the movie Sabrina on my laptop with the daughter of the family I'm living with (she's a Junior in High School). Suddenly the whole room (which is upstairs) started shaking! Everything on my desk and bedside table tipped over and was vibrating toward the edge. I was rather more than disconcerted! I looked at the girl next to me. She was just sitting there watching the movie! Didn't she notice the room was shaking?! Was I going crazy? She calmly turned and looked at me. "Do you feel that?" she asked. I was like, "YES!" "It's an earth quake," she said, and went back to watching the movie. By now I was even more frightened and was like, "should we get in the doorway or under the desk or something?!" "No," she said. So I tried to sit and watch the movie too. The shaking stopped pretty quickly and although I waited rather tensely, it did not resume. So that was my first time experiencing an earth quake. There was another one about a week later, but I didn't even feel it...I was asleep. :)

One of the awesomely fun things at the school is the school spirit days. We had one this past month. It was "dress up like an ancient character day." It was so much fun! (and now I just got off the phone with one of my dear friends here. She was calling about getting together tomorrow and about the English Club that I will be helping with this week.) Even all of the teachers dressed up like a character...elementary and secondary! We got class pictures taken in our ancient garb to put in the year book. I also got some great pictures!

One of the things that I had no idea what to expect before coming was whether or not I would be able to find a church here and how that would work. God is so wonderful! He led me to this wonderful little group of believers that meet together in someone's home once a week. They share a homemade meal together (they take turns making it) sing hymns and praise songs, study and discuss the Bible, and pray together. They are all close friends and also do things together during the week in pairs or trios of various combinations. Sometimes they hang out as a large group. For example, last Sunday we all went bowling together after we had finished singing and praying. It was so much fun! I am a horrible bowler, but it was so nice to be spending time together, teasing each other, laughing and making jokes. It was wonderful! One of the things that's very different from what I'm used to, is that everyone in the group speaks Russian except my one friend who is a native English speaker. Now she understands most Russian, but I DO NOT! It hasn't been a problem though because they all understand English (most of them very well), and one of the other young women that I have become friends with is always willing to translate for me. She also translates what I say when I pray or share or talk, to make sure that everyone understands what I said. It was a little strange to get used to at first, but now I barely notice and I'm able to converse freely with them and reciprocate their teasing and join in their games, fun and laughter. I believe I am becoming really good friends especially with some of the girls, and I am growing to love each person in the group more and more. It's been wonderful to experience God's love in this small part of the body of Christ.

Sorry, I was gone again. I was talking to the family I'm living with and then I was helping to make homemade pizza and then I had to check some things online. I am finally back again and I have decided to just post this and write more about some of the other things I've been doing in another post because this is getting ridiculously long! Besides it is 7:30 pm here and I need a break! lol

Enjoy finally being able to hear some of the things going on in my life. There is so much more that I wish I could tell you, but cannot. I can't wait to come home and see all of you and talk to you and tell you even more in depth some of the things that I've experienced here! :) I miss you all so much!

Love,
Elicia