It smells like the cabin

I wanted to put up a quick post this evening as I just got home from a lovely dinner with our fabulous country director, Mikel Herrington. I walked into my apartment and headed out into my terrace to take down some laundry I had hung up. As soon as I got back inside I happened to smell my hair and it reminds me of our family's cabin. Until I came to Bulgaria my only real interaction with a wood stove was there in the wintertime but living here provides me with the smell all winter long as many people still use wood stoves. I guess my future thoughts associated with burning wood will also have to include Bulgaria. I hope you're all having a wonderful evening.

Peace, Love, Literacy, and Reckless Curiosity.

I dropped my glove...

This morning I learned I would be subbing for a fellow English teacher as she was ill. Therefore, today was a much different day than I had anticipated. Instead of teaching 3rd grade, I taught 5th, 6th, 7th, and 12th. Well, more like attempted to get something done as I had no plan. Everything went pretty well and I will also be taking her classes Wednesday and Friday. Therefore, no 3rd grade for me this week :( I'll miss them as I enjoy teaching their classes. However I met with one of the teachers today to show her a Days of the Week song as that's what they are focusing on this week along with some other materials. They're going to learn this one:

Days of the Week

After school I stopped by the grocery store for a few things and came back to my place. I had lunch while watching Dexter (I'm loving this season). After I got done eating there was a knock on the door with a random man from my building asking if his glove fell onto my terrace. I've got to say, I've never had someone come to my door to ask for their glove they had dropped from a few floors above. Sure enough, I walked outside and there it was. I found it an enjoyable addition to my afternoon as it definitely made me smile.

To catch you all up on the last week it's gone by very quickly. Last Tuesday I presented at the B27 (this year's group of volunteers) IST (In-service Training). My counterpart and I facilitated a team teaching session and I collaborated with another volunteer to present a session on extracurricular activities. It was an enjoyable day away from Sliven and a nice way to catch up with volunteers I don't get to see very often.

Last Friday I was able to do a Thanksgiving themed lesson with all the 3rd grade classes. They received quite a few new food words and things associated with the holiday. Plus they each got a mini-book to color and a printout of a cornucopia to bring home. It was a fun, enjoyable day.

This past weekend I was at Dragodonovo which is a village near Sliven to celebrate Thanksgiving with about 15 other volunteers. We had a great time hanging out, doing activities with the boarding school one of my fellow volunteers is at, and eating lots of delicious food. I made 4 batches of cookies and about 4 kilograms worth of apples for apple crisp. Needless to say everything was delicious!

 

I hope you all had a great holiday. Don't forget to check out the English Enrichment Workshops I'm trying to fund. I need the funds by January if the workshops are to be implemented.

English Enrichment Workshops

Peace, Love, Literacy, and Reckless Curiosity.

So Much to Share

This week flew by, yet I don't have an exact reason why. Well, it was a regular school week with a few additions. Monday I subbed for the 2nd grade English teacher which was a mostly enjoyable day.

Then, I was able to meet up with Amy (fellow volunteer) and her friend that was visiting for dinner that night. They also came to my school  Thursday night for our annual "Мамо Татко и Аз" friendly competition. That's "Mom, Dad, and Me" for all of you would don't read Bulgarian. It's a competition where each class within the 1st grade competes against one another in relay races. First the kids compete against one another, then the moms, and finally the dads. It's a fun competition and between each round students perform songs and dances. Everything is based on time to figure out the final scores and then prizes are given accordingly to the classes.

I made cookies for a few of my after school classes this week because they've been working so hard and a few teachers and students asked for the recipe so here's the link (it's in metric too):

Sugar Cookies

Sometimes I add cinnamon to the recipe as well and I occasionally drizzle icing over them.

The 2nd thing I'd like to share is "Over It" written by Eve Ensler. I enjoyed reading her viewpoint on such an important global issue.

Over It

Third, another great article this week was written by Maya Lau who was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Senegal. Her honestly shines through while she reflects on her time in the Peace Corps.

What the Peace Corps Taught Me About Failure

And last, I'm still looking for donations for EFL Enrichment Workshops so they can be implemented in the spring. Only 26 people need to donate $50 or 65 people need to donate $20 or 130 people need to donate $10 for it to be fully funded!

Enrichment Workshops

Peace, Love, Literacy, and Reckless Curiosity.

PCPP

Please consider donating to my Peace Corps Partnership Project. There are a lot of interested teachers who will be extremely happy to learn more about making their classrooms an engaging place to learn! Just click this link:

Enrichment Workshops

Any little bit helps!

Please email me with any questions or comments: katelynchristinemartens@gmail.com

Peace, Love, Literacy, and Reckless Curiosity.

Oh, what a day

Today I substituted for the woman who teaches English to the 2nd graders all morning. It was interesting to say the least. Most of the classes went well. We reviewed some of the vocabulary, letters, and numbers they have learned thus far. Then we played bingo with the letters A-O and numbers 1-5 on 2 x 4 grids. They had to get all 8 to get a bingo. It was a good time and the kids enjoyed it.

After school I met with about 1/2 the kids from 3"B" for spelling/speaking practice. We had a fun day filled with 24 vocabulary words, 2 conjugated verbs, and fun activities involving motions. Lots of smiles = a great class.

After spelling practice I headed to a local orphanage with one of the 12th grade students from my school. We met with the doctor who works there and were able to ask her some questions about it, the student was my translator when I didn't understand or wanted to ask something I wasn't quite sure how to. The orphanage is a small orphanage and is for children 0-3 years of age. They didn't actually want any future volunteer assistance due to having about 2 staff per one child there. I feel like that's a great problem to have and the visit went over well for the most part.

After that I did some grocery shopping, came back to my place, ate, and watched some TV.

Then I headed out to meet another volunteer during the early evening. We hung out at the bus station with a Bulgarian friend waiting for the other volunteer's friend to arrive here in Sliven. After her friend arrived we all went to a restaurant where we met up with another person and had a nice dinner together. Us four ladies and one man. Oh, did I mention, one of the people had a puppy! Great addition to the night. Plus, to top it all off he paid for our dinner. What a great ending to a great day.

Now it's time for bed as I'm exhausted. Until next time :)

Peace, Love, Literacy, and Reckless Curiosity.

Fresh Food

One thing I appreciate about my school is the fact that every day there is a healthy snack for the elementary students. Though the students may buy a whole lot of junk food for themselves, the school provides something good. Just this week I saw carrots one day, apples another, and kiwis today. Every day each teacher sends a student down to the entrance of the school where the security guard is in charge of the crates of fruit or vegetables. The class then has a mid-morning (or mid-afternoon) snack. I will say that I have noticed sweet bread or plain rolls occasionally however I think it’s great that most days mean something good to eat. Speaking of something good to eat. My favorite snack lately has been slice apples with cinnamon and honey. Yum!

Other than that today was a nice day as the sun was shining the beautiful fall colors seemed to be coming from everywhere. I wish you all a wonderful weekend and don’t forget today is Veteran’s Day back in the USA. Remember to thank a veteran for everything he or she has done for our country.

Also, good luck to all my fellow PCVs who are competing in the Athens Marathon tomorrow!

Peace, Love, Literacy, and Reckless Curiosity.

Miss Representation

The documentary I just finished watching this evening was only fitting after the events of today.

This morning during my third grade lessons the students were learning how to say phrases related to money and what they "can buy" from a store pictured in their books. The students were grasping the new language fairly well when a boy mentioned he could buy the doll and the ball for the amount of money he was given. He was correct in how he answered the question and I was ready to move on. However, the teacher I was teaching with asked the entire class "Can he buy the doll?" to which I was confused and thankfully a lot of the students also were because he of course had enough money to buy it. She then went on to say that "boys can't buy dolls...he could buy one for his sister but he wouldn't want a doll". I'm sure my face said it all as I was very upset she told an entire class of 3rd graders this. Every time a gender stereotype comes up in school I have to think how to address it. For today, all I did was tell the class that I think boys can buy dolls because dolls are fun to play with. It frustrated me and made me very anxious to end that class and move on to something different.

Back to the documentary though, I just finished watching "Miss Representation". I enjoyed the film and feel it had some great insights into "the media’s misrepresentation of women [which] has led to the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence." That last bit was taken from the website. I highly recommend watching the film, especially if you are a parent as today's media has such a strong influence on girls and boys. Learning how to be literate and a critical thinker in today's society is crucial. You can find more information and learn about the documentary here:


Miss Representation

The rest of my evening will be filled with knitting, music, and another documentary. I'm so happy to have a relaxing evening at my place :)

"May we make empowering other women and girls a priority."

Peace, Love, Literacy, and Reckless Curiosity.

Happy November!

I'm so thankful yesterday and today have been no school days because of how much work went into last week with all of the Halloween festivities. It's back to students tomorrow and I'm happy to get into more of a routine as the last few weeks have been hectic.There hasn't been school for the last two Mondays plus last week the schools in Sliven had no school Wednesday because it was our city holiday. That means a not a whole lot of English for my 3rd graders since I see them Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Tomorrow I will resume a more regular schedule which will be nice. My teachers and I can get back into starting the lesson together, me bringing two students out to work on their speaking and comprehension skills, and then coming back together at the end to review the lesson or play a game.

To catch you all up on my weekend...Friday night I attended a hip hop dance performance here in Sliven which one of my students invited me to. It was nice and I enjoyed seeing what they were capable of as that is not something I've been to before here in Bulgaria. Then Saturday/Sunday I traveled to my host family's as it was the town holiday and I hadn't seen them since May. I finally got to meet my baba's grandaughter which was fun.  Her name is Victoria though her nicknames are Vicky or Kiki. She is an adorable two year old who made things that much better. The other volunteer who lived with my family after me was also visiting so it was nice to all be together.

Other than that I've been able to relax a bit and do some catch up activities around my apartment. I've been knitting a lot lately which is fun. I'm trying to challenge myself with some more difficult patterns and I'm hopefully going to start on a sweater soon. I hope all of you had a wonderful Halloween!

Peace, Love, Literacy, and Reckless Curiosity.

Bittersweet Halloween

As I sit down to write a blog about this week’s Halloween festivities I can’t help but thinking that this is the last Halloween I will have here in Bulgaria. It’s somewhat bittersweet to know that every day becomes that much closer to me leaving Bulgaria as I’m much closer to my close of service date than I am to the date I became a volunteer. Every event is now a last and so I want so badly for things to work as well as possible. However, things don’t always work out the way they are intended. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not heading into a depressing, things didn’t work, not doing this again message because this blog definitely is not about that. Though, while some things about yesterday’s carnival worked other things definitely did not.

After counting all the tickets, there were 238 students from 1^st through 4^th grade who attended yesterday’s carnival with a parent or adult. That’s a lot of people at once but I had no idea when I first put up the posters how many of our elementary students would buy tickets. There are about 500 students in 1^st through 4^th grade at my school so I’d say we had a great turnout for the first year. If you're a numbers person, or just plain interested, here you are:

The attendees included:

• 80 first graders (31 boys, 49 girls)
• 63 second graders (35 boys, 28 girls)
• 43 third graders (17 boys, 26 girls)
• 43 fourth graders (21 boys, 22 girls)
• 9 students did not mark their grade (3 boys, 6 girls)
• That's 107 total boys and 131 total girls equaling 238 children (who each brought an adult)

I really hope my school tries again next year as I think most of the activities were well received. The problems of yesterday inherently stemmed from the carnival being a new thing at my school. It was organized in stations and there were 15 different activities for kids to participate in. However, with so many people around, things got somewhat more chaotic at times than I’d hoped for. Also, we had a spur-of-the-moment “costume contest” which definitely did not go very well since it wasn’t even planned for. I believe all the kids had a great time and it was the parents who made things a bit more difficult. The idea was for parents to help their kids and do things with them however there was a lot of standing around.

Several teachers along with students from 6^th, 7^th, and 12^th grade helped out which was awesome! Our activities ended up being face painting, photo booth, hand ghosts, how-to-draw cat/bat/spider-web, bobbing for apples, word searches, mazes, coloring, making English words, stick the mouth on the pumpkin, Bulgarian mad libs, basketball toss, football (soccer) kick, relay race, and bingo. It was a lot to organize and though I received a few negative comments, I’d say it was a great first attempt and they could hold a successful carnival next year only by having the students come by grade and removing most of the parents from the mix. There were some awesome costumes and many of the students brought carved pumpkins which was wonderful. All the comments I received today from students and staff were excellent so that made me feel it was much more successful than I felt leaving school yesterday.

All of the Halloween Carnival photos can be accessed HERE or under the “links” section by clicking “Halloween Carnival 2011”.

Today we continued with the theme of Halloween in my 3^rd grade English classes through singing two different songs and playing letter bingo. If students got a bingo they won a piece of candy however all students received a spider ring at the end of class. It was a fun day. Here’s a few clips of 3 "V":

Not many of them knew I was videoing until the end:

This afternoon I met up with Amy (another volunteer) to have lunch and get photos from here that she took yesterday. Tonight I’m going to a student’s dance performance which I’m excited about. It’s nice being invited to so many things this year. I hope all of you reading have a wonderful Halloween!

Also, don’t forget to check out my Peace Corps Partnership Project I’m trying to fund at the moment. It can be found here (please email me if you know of any people who may be able to donate):

English Enrichment Workshops

And lastly, thank you for everyone who is reading as I have now hit over 10,000 views! 

Peace, Love, Literacy, and Reckless Curiosity.

Election Day

It's Sunday afternoon and I just had a delicious lunch of pears and cauliflower with cheese. This week was a regular school week except now I teach 3rd grade in the mornings instead of the afternoons as they have changed shifts. It will stay this way through December. There is no school tomorrow due to Sunday's elections which are taking place as I write this, so I have lots of time to finish things here at my place which is nice.

The crazy day of this last week was Monday. We had a storm filled with rain and winds of 70 km/hour. Getting home from school made for quite a bit of difficulty Monday afternoon. All the taxi company phone lines were busy so I decided I would try for the bus. Well the bus was broken down (though still running) so I stayed there and waited and they finally got it to start. Then it was a slow journey to the stop closest to my apartment building since the rain "puddles" were higher than the bottom of the bus at times. Walking the short 5 minutes from the bus to my apartment meant I was soaked to the skin with cold rain everywhere except what was under my rain jacket. Needless to say I got home, changed clothes and sat next to my heater for a bit to warm up. The wind even blew open the door to my terrace and one of my windows a few times in the evening. It was so loud I even wore earplugs to sleep. Seeing the city after the storm meant many downed trees and dead birds. Also, many of the villages around the city had no power for up to 4 days. It was quite the weather and I'm glad it wasn't like that any other day of the week.

   

On to better news though...

Saturday night I was able to go to the children's musical of Thumbelina here in Sliven. One of my 3rd grade girls was part of the dance chorus. It was adorable and a well executed. There were several set and costume changes which flowed nicely throughout the performance. I went with another volunteer as my student's father is her Bulgarian tutor.

This weekend has been filled with knitting, online TV, movies, listening to music, and making things for school. I'm not even ashamed to say I've been playing Settlers of Catan online with a few other volunteers in the evenings. Last night we played a few games. I didn't win either but it was still fun, I just learned how to play this week so I have some catching up to do. I'm kind of excited to potentially play the game in person at some point and not just online to see which I prefer. I think it'd be easier to comment verbally than type everything out but otherwise I like the game.

I'm interested to see who wins the mayoral race here in Sliven. There are MANY candidates and posters have been strewn across the city for the last month. If you're at all interested in the elections here. There are a few articles you can find through these links:

Elections 1
Elections 2
Elections 3

I hope you're all having a relaxing Sunday!

Peace, Love, Literacy, and Reckless Curiosity.