Pics!
Trip Start
Jan 16, 2005
1
6
22
Trip End
Apr 2007
Tashkent,
Uzbekistan
Sunday, February 20, 2005
Finally, I have some pictures of uzbekistan to show you! For security reasons, I will email descriptions seperatly for those interested. Just post a message on this site or email me jess.teicher@gmail.com and I will tell you!
I have been in Uzbekistan for one month already! I just cant believe how fast the time has gone. The weather is finally starting to warm up- its almost 50 degrees out today and sunny too! It cleared up so much, we realized that we are surrounded by betuful mountains...who knew. Perhaps the weather report for tashkent on weather.com is no longer "smokey"? I went around Qibray yesterday and took some pictures (totally taking advantage of the nice weather) so you guys can get a glimpse of what I see everyday.
Teaching is going pretty well- Twice a week I teach 4 hours of English (2 each day) to anywhere between 15-35 students ages 10-14. Days where I teach large, multi-level classes are tough- try teaching about the Oscars to a bunch of 12 year olds who reply "I am 12 years old" when asked "How old are you?"! Some Uzbek teachers would like us to teach straight from the book, others allow us more freedom to teach what we feel is appropratie according to our student's proficiency. In my Oscar lesson, I had to teach straight from the lesson in the book so it was tough. The books we use (which about 1/2 of the students can afford to purchase) are from Great Brittain so the vocab/examples are kinda wacky. In this week's sports/olympics section the book goes on about cricket, but the teacher is allowing me to teach about my favorite american sports/sport heros...should be interesting!
The Uzbek is going ok- cyrcillic is tough (and not just for the dxlexic!) but I am managing. I able to understand what is said to me sometimes, it's the responding part which is tricky. It has been very frustrating though not knowing what is being said or how to respond, but I have nothing but time to learn!
This weekend has been pretty relaxing. Yesterday, we had our first Uzbek language "assessment" which was not relaxing at all actually, but after a few of the Qibray PCTs got together and made pizza. We found Pringles in the store my family runs and bought some Coke as well for a real american meal! It was juda zor (very good)!
**New Contact Info** My host family now as a phone so if you guys get an international calling card, you can call me (all incoming calls in Uzbekistan are free!) at home. Email me or post a message and we can set up a time!
Well I am going to post these pics and hope it works!
Hope to hear from you all soon!!
love
Jessy
