Curve Ball on My Second Day of School!

 So my counterpart (Radmilla) calls me about an hour before I'm due at school last Tuesday - the second day of the term - and tells me an emergency has come up with her brother and she needs to go to Podgorica for him. She apologetically asks if it would be okay for me to do her classes.  I am not excited.  Partly because it's her most difficult day - five classes, three of them second graders. One 6th. One 8th. And the 8th is a group I have not even met. I was due to only "lead" the 6th grade class as I had already observed/met them. And then for the 2nd graders, I was to do one fun activity while she taught most of the class.

As mentioned, I was NOT excited. But Radmilla was pitiful enough, suggested the classes could be cancelled in case no other English teachers had a free period to cover them and if I didn't want to do it, etc., so of course what was I going to say as a new PC volunteer?  Then, before she hung up, she mentioned this 8th grade class I had not yet met was, of course - of course - her most diffcult in terms of behavior, with wild boys who wouldn't sit still, wouldn't stop talking, etc.  Sigh. Here's the school, by the way--pretty basic/boring:

Of course that 8th grade class was first up. And yeah, it went about as well as you'd think, considering the above. They all lost their minds to be alone with the American who they had not yet met, and couldn't stop interrupting the "lesson" to ask questions about me, about America, etc. I promised them if they could quickly get through the bulk of the required vocab/grammar, I'd be happy to chat with them at the end. And that worked for about 5 minutes.  It wasn't until I suggested sending 2-3 of the worse offenders (boys - it's almost always boys) to "visit" the Director (principal) that things calmed down to a mild chaos, and even then very little of substance was learned.

Luckily, the 6th grade class was next, and while they were a little antsy, too, with regular teacher gone, at least the behavior was decent and we had a good class.  This one may end up being my favorite class.  Apparently, all these kids are from small nearby villages.

The day ended with 3 straight classes of 2nd graders. Of course they are adorable--and generally well-behaved. Certainly more so than the 8th graders.  But they're also like 7 years old, so there was a lot of distraction, movement, etc. And I had NOTHING prepared since I didn't think I'd be teaching them, so I spent most of the lesson reviewing what they had learned during the last term: numbers, colors, animals, and toys.  Then tried to play Simon Says while introducing parts of the body.  

Again, good kids, pretty well behaved, but exhausting to entertain and I was definitely feeling it by the end of the day.  Peace Corps wants us to teach around 15 classes per week, with 3 more hours allotted for planning/grading (ha, more like 5 is needed) and then 3-5 more hours for extracurricular stuff (e.g., Drama club, English club, etc.).  Unfortunately, Radmilla's schedule includes 18 lessons: 9 for the three 8th grade classes, 3x a week each, the 6th grade class three times, and then the three 2nd grade classes, twice a week. I would love to not have the second graders, but that leaves me with 12 hours, so we're still trying to figure stuff out.

After a month or so, they want me to switch to Teacher Linka, who has all the 9th grade classes, so my schedule will change; and then afer a couple of months with them, they want to pass me around like a show pig so the other English teachers/grades/kids get to...I dunno...."experience" the American?  Not too thrilled about it, but I did get here halfway through the year.  I'm hoping/assuming/planning to "ask" to have a set schedule for the next school year so I'll have the same kids all year - if I could pick, only 5th, 6th, 7th, and/or 9th grades.  We'll see.  Pray for me.

Disclaimer: Any thoughts, observations, opinions, etc. are of course mine and not necessarily the views of Peace Corps.

The Holiday Season in Montenegro

As I'm such a nomad, I have spent my fair share of Christmases "alone" - but this one was a bit harder than most as I'm still missing my little monster something fierce, and I had JUST arrived at my "permanent" site 5 days before.  Plus, they don't celebrate Christmas until January 7th (Orthodox), so Christmas Day itself was definitely a bore.  The twins DID play "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" on their piano, so that was nice, but definitely one of my most "disappointing" Christmas DAYS itself.

ANYWAY, there were some still some festivities I was able to engage in.  There was a school holiday concert on the 29th to also mark end of term. As I shared already, the twins played piano, and there were multiple groups/grades who did traditional Montenegrin dance in costume, various other sketches and musical pieces - including a festive one of 10-12 year old girls, all dressed in white with tiaras doing a dance along to Mariah's "All I Want for Christmas" (suck it, haters!).

Of course by the time I arrived for this concert, the Cultural Center was packed, so I stood in a doorway - which was fine with me, as more air, but I was spotted by one of the teachers from my school and she insisted I come sit in the front row with the school Director and other local "dignitaries."  Such is the life of the American celebrity in town. Ha!

The day after that, there was a small, semi-impromptu gathering in the apartment building courtyard where, again, the twins played piano, in addition to some other kids playing, in appreciation for this generous dude in the building who bought Christmas gifts for every child in the building!  I would say there was about 20-25 gifts in all.  So pretty cool.  Also got to meet a fair number of neighbors, who seemed too shy to chat up the American - to my host mom's distress.

On New Year's Eve, I was out with the host family at their weekend house which is where/when we did Secret Santa (New Year's is almost equal in importance to the locals as Christmas). I had drawn Dmitri and was hoping to find some Harry Potter related thing but no luck for our given price range (no more than around 10 euro).  They had a nice copy of "The Little Prince" so I snagged that - only to get home and discover they already had it! PLUS, what I thought was wrapping paper for just under 3 euro turned out to be a poster of the night sky/constellations that was just under THIRTY euro and I was too dumb to notice until leaving the store, then felt too embarrassed to try and go back and communicate it with my crap Montenegrin, so I kept the receipt and decided I'd have a "fun" dumb foreigner story for Secret Santa and I could tell him if he REALLY liked the poster, he could keep it, or return both to get a nice Harry Potter encyclopedia which was about the same cost as the poster!  Duh!

WELL, it turns out Dmitri is an astronomy buff, and the twins were psyched to have the poster to put up in their room (fun fact, the twins were born under the sign of....wait for it, Gemini/the twins).  AND he also wanted the copy of "The Little Prince" just for himself (as opposed to the older, smaller, family copy).  So it all worked out for the best even though I spent WAY more than I should have.  But then THAT part is totally normal Christmas for me!  LOL

And of course I did go check out the TINY Christmas market they had in the town square - 6-8 little traditional brown cottages, most all serving drinks.  There was a small stage, as well, where singers performed and even a small carnival ride and grab games for the kiddos.  Small town life in Montenegro! Here is a pic of the lights/market - I really need to get my google fi fixed, as this local phone/camera I bought is crap.  

Finally, have I mentioned how much they LOVE fireworks here?  There were quite a few set off around town for New Yea'rs Eve, of course, and then there were more the evening of New Yea'rs Day.  And THEN they had to have some on Christmas Eve. And THEN of course on Christmas Day/evening, as well.  Then even a few the day after that just coz!  :)

Disclaimer: Any thoughts, observations, opinions, etc. are of course mine and not necessarily the views of Peace Corps.

Cultural Differences - Where Montenegro Gets it Right (and not so right)

Okay, now that I've been here about 3 months (3 months??? seems like longer), here's a few differences that the U.S. could stand to emulate, along with a few that make me miss "home:"

* Hot water heaters: for the bath/shower, they have smaller water heaters in the bathroom that you only turn on about 20-30 minutes before you bathe and then turn off when you're done - cutting electricity costs and saving energy.  

* Sticking with the bathroom, a downside is that many places - older, more rural, still have outdated toilet plumbing and thus you can't flush paper. So they keep little covered wastebaskets next to the toilets for that. This is how it was EVERYWHERE while I was in Kazakhstan and I got so used to it that when I was med-evac'd to the states and staying at the PC hotel in DC, I did it the first couple of times there. Felt bad for the maid!  Luckily, where I am now is a more modern building so don't have to do that!

* Like most civilized places - and, luckily, I know this is increasing in the states - people remove their shoes upon entering the house (some even outside the door) and immediately put on house shoes. Another thing that happened in Kazakhstan and got me in the habit of doing it 25 years ago - reinforced in Hawai'i', where it is also the norm. I mean, honestly, who wants your nasty shoes tracking in whatever offal you've tromped through outside (shudder). 

* Even though tourism is the biggest industry here, there's a problem with littler in many areas - exacerbated by the fact that garbage removal is a little less "standardized."  Where I lived during training, there was basically just a small "dumping ground" where I waited on the van for school where folks would dump their bagged trash - which was often then torn open by all the roving dogs (there's a LOT of roving dogs and cats here). At my new place, there are dumpsters, but I have yet to see regular, door-to-door pick up of trash here.

* Blankets are all covered here in "blanket sheets." A bit awkward to put on, but thus allowing for easier cleaning. Basically a pillowcase for your blanket. Then, if you need more, you can put another uncovered blanket on top of the covered one so that it doesn't touch your filthy body!  :)

* Stores are closed on Sundays. And, in fact, they recently LEGISLATED this because they did allow them open on Sunday in the past, mandating that employers pay extra to staff on those days - but since (surprise, surprise) many emplloyers weren't doing that, the government just said, "Fine, you can no longer be open on Sundays at all.'"There are exceptions for hospitality industry stuff, and if there's only one grocey store in town they can ask for an exception, but that's it.  

* Like most civilized countries, health and education here are free - all the way through getting your Masters! Some health services DO cost (elective, some dental), and there are also private providers if you want to pay for "higher quality" and/or quicker access, but since life expectancy here is about the same as in the U.S., they're obviously not hurting.

* Finally, an "interesting" old school cultural note: Back in the old days (and, apparently, POSSIBLY still happening in isolated rural/mountain enclaves), when a wife was unfaithful to her husband, she would have to bake a large loaf of bread that she would then place on her head before her husband then whacked her on said bread/head with a huge mallet, killing her. Ah, if only Eve had known what she unleashed by eating that apple!

Disclaimer: Any thoughts, observations, opinions, etc. are of course mine and not necessarily the views of Peace Corps.