Friday, February 29, 2008

English Class at the park

In the center of town somewhere, there is a playground built by friends of the Mercy Foundations. It is a real drawing card for the local kids. There are a few buildings there, and they offer English lessons as well as medical clinics etc. We have volunteered to help every Friday. This was our first week, and seeing as we did not know where it was, and the directions were to difficult to explain, we were going to meet Nastia (the teacher) at the Foundation and go with her. We had a bit of time before meeting her so we went to the local Library. We found an English class there as well. The teacher was so thrilled to see us and was starving for attention and help. She had tried to get help elsewhere with no success. She teaches English in semi private lessons. A lesson is two hours twice a week and the cost for a student for a month is just over $1.00. So we will probably spend a few hours a week with them and maybe take them on an outing or two to somewhere cool.... an English field trip.
Anyway... all that to say that we left there and walked to meet Nastia only to walk all the way back... the park was across the street from the library! All this walking! ...oh well "what does not kill us makes us stronger".
The class at the park had about a dozen kids from 8 to 16 years old.
( maybe a year or two either way) . The kids really enjoyed it. We even had a story time where we acted out David and Goliath... guess which part I played...
Last night we had supper with Acel and Talant in their apartment, another traditional Central Asian experience. We loved it. They are actively working with the local and Dungan population.
We are really looking forward to working with them here.

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