day 11 - school tour and english discussion!

acck! this is what i get for not posting the last couple days. now i have SO many adventures to catch up on. let's start with thursday night...

an invitation to the president's school!
 we took a taxi over to the school at which Dinara, our translator from last year, teaches English. this is one of Nazarbaev's (k-stan's president) new schools; there are several in the country, but this is the only one in Ust, and this is the first year that it's open. apparently, these are very prestigious schools. students must pay to attend for the first several years (maybe through grade 7?) and after that they take exams; if they do well enough on these exams, they win scholarships for the rest of their secondary education, including meals, tuition--everything. the school was very nice, big spacious. we were quite impressed with Dinara's classroom. each child's desk is equipped with its own computer. the teacher's desk has both laptop and desktop, and the room has both blackboard and interactive board - something i've heard about in the States but never yet seen. Dinara and the other teachers obviously take their work very seriously - she said she is often there till 8 preparing for the next day's lessons.

while dinara was giving us a tour of the school, we ran across a room of students that were staying late to study. one of the boys had a dombra, a traditional instrument, and Dinara asked if he would play for us, which he did! poor little guy was so nervous; but it was real treat for us.

isn't he cute? 

we also ran across these girls playing chess. apparently it's all the rage and the kids do it at every break. far cry from the game of four square that we used to play when i was in junior high!

english discussion group
dinara had invited us for an English discussion group led by a Peace Corps volunteer from Amercia, named Melissa. the group was attended by about seven teachers from the school, mostly English teachers, as well as Melissa's husband Matt (Matt teaches at the school and Melissa teaches at the University. they'd been here in Ust only about a month so far, but in Kaz about four months. staying for two years.) it was quite evident that these teachers --especially the younger gals--were excited to have some more native English speakers join the group. they had a nice little spread of tea and cookies prepared.

they asked us what we were here for and we shared with a few of them about the adoption. this was interesting because some of the younger ones seemed keenly interested--excited even--but others didn't seem to display much interest. we wondered if some were disapproving, or if for some here, it maybe be embarrassing to know that foreigners come to their country and adopt their children. we've encountered this several times now, where we're not really sure what reaction we're getting from the natives. it's not like we run around telling people what we're here for, but if we're asked, we usually share. our translator explained that for some people here, their idea of adoption is foreigners coming here for children in order to sell their organs! how horrible! it's tragic that these horrible things that have been done and can sometimes give international adoption a bad name. but most people who think this are simply misinformed. anyway, that's topic for another conversation.

melissa chose to ask questions about parenting since we were visiting the group.  we broke into pairs and discussed different questions that she had prepared with our partner, and then we shared reported back to the group. this whole experience was such a highlight for us, b/c it gave rob and me a chance to hear what kazakh people really think - what are their values, what do they think about discipline, what do they fear/dream/aspire to, etc. many of their answers were really similar to ours, and others were a little different...SO interesting.

on a very foundational level, too, it gave rob and i another chance to think through, how do WE want to parent? what is the thing we hope for most for our child/children? what do we think about discipline? that last one is probably the one that scares me most. ;-p it was interesting to me that when asked what is the greatest hope we would have for our children, rob and i gave almost the same answer, and we weren't in the same group (good thing, ha?) guess if you want to know what that is, you can ask me. :-)

afterwards we chatted with melissa and matt, and she even suggested i might come over to the university some afternoon - there would be many english students there who would love to practice conversing! i might pursue this if it seems we have time, i think it would be very rewarding. they also told us about an English discussion group that happens downtown at the main library, Pushkin Library, on Sunday afternoons. hmmm, let me check our calendar --oh! we're free! think we'll take it in.

we headed back to the hotel in high spirits. it was so great to have this kind of interaction with some of the people who actually live here. i am so glad i've kept in touch with Dinara (she's 3rd from the right). i think she was so pleased and proud to be able to show us where she works, and she should be...

and a Babes update?
well, this was several days ago so i don't really remember for sure, but i'm pretty sure it was good visit, since we haven't had a bad one.  stay tuned and i'll tell ya more from the next couple days. :-)