On with it

Our first whole week of teaching has passed. Not bad, not bad. I can do this for 3 more months. There are 3 groups of kids that rotate between the teachers and learn something different in each class. The subjects are gym, arts & crafts, shop, drama, and games. Not the typical school subjects. This is becasue our teaching method is differnet than they typical classroom taching method. We use activities and objects to teach and model the language. I do alot of talking and demonstrating and the children are having so much fun with the activity that they dont even realize how much english they are using. By the end of the day they have learned a hanful of words, and by the end of the 4 months they will have learned a handful of phrases (if i do my job right). We each have a "home group". I LOVE my home group. I have 2 boys-Dima & Alyosha, and 2 girls- Kaatia & Daniella. Dima is the sweetest little boy. I can tell he wants to learn so bad. Every time I say anything he will try to repeat me word for word but it mostly comes out in a blend of the more dominate sounds. Alyosha is a handful! He thinks he knows it all becasue he has been through the program once already. He has his precious moment and can be the sweetest kid at times. Kaatia is rarely there, but when she is there she shows her strong desire to learn. And Daniella is a bit spacey... never really know where her mind is. But when it is here, she does a great job! I am excited to see them all grow and get better and better. Once they can actually answer my questions rather than just repeating everything i say, i will rejoice so good. (can I add... I am so temped to teach them a little somethin' like "whaddd uppp" or "whass hanninin")

It turns out to be quite the commute to school every day, about 2 hours. We walk from our apartment to the metro, then take the metro 1 stop & tranfer to another metro. Then we get on that metro and go 1 more stop. Now we have arrived at the bus station where we get on bus 121. This bus ride can last anywhere from 60-100 minutes. Then we get off at a bus stop and call the school to send the driver to come pick us up. OH, and then there is the journey home. The school provides a bus for all its employess who dont drive. We ride this bus every day after school, which drops us off right at our doorstep. Which is nice, but it also takes about 90 minutes. The ride home is a little more entertaining. The bus is about 98% women with only 2 men; the driver and the PE teacher. There are probably close to 30 people on the bus every day and it is so much fun to sit there and watch all the ladies pass around Cosmo and their favorite recipes. Our first day on this bus was a little intimidating and i felt like all these ladies hated us Americanskies. But just one short week later and im starting to feel the love :) Maybe i will even be able to form relationships with these ladies, even though we dont speak the same language.

We had some extra time one day so we went exploring around the gated community where our school is located. Its a woodsy/ forrested area. It looks like it ould be a state park where you can reserve a camp site or cabin. We found a lake on the property. It was very beautiful. We also notice that there are lots of mushrooms around this area, and people pick them and take 'em home. for what? I dont know, maybe mushroom soup or to get high? no, no, no. We had a good time taking some pictures on the dock, too!

I love these girls that I am with. I had and AH HAA! moment today; I can't believe I am around the world-in a foreign country with my best friends and no parents or supervision!! As we walked around Moscow today without the slightest idea of where we were going or where we were- I was felt so happy to be here with 3 awesome girls who make me laugh and who i get to share this adventure with.

Whelp, one and a half weeks down and 14 to go. Though 3 of those weeks will be spent vacationing!! Our first vacation is October 6th-10th, and we have no idea what we are going to do. I need ideas-ASAP