The land of Borat...NOT

It's still difficult to figure out what day it is, but I do know I am in Shymkent. In fact as of 6 am, the whole team has now arrived with Lance getting in tired after traveling since Saturday with all his delays and missed connections.

On Tuesday, Robin, Grazina and I toured the Senior English Center, wher we will be teaching. We met with Slava, an Albanian missionary to Kazakhstan who directs the program along with Karot, a Kazakh, who showed us around the city-- how to take busses, where to find local caves--basic survival needs when in a new city. Shymkent is a sprawling city of 1,000,000 people. On the streets, at least 10 people came up to us and asked if we were Americans. They just wanted to speak English with native speakers. They don't see Americans here very often. That was fun. Every one here is friendly and very helpful. We've met 3 LCC students who live here and now are working. In their words, English opened many doors for them. Slava took us to a cafe for some Kazakh food--the lamb is so tender and delicious. When I got a Coke, it came in a liter bottle--30 cents. The bus ride sets us back 20 cents. All the busses are independently owned. There's a person on board who shouts, come to my bus, at every stop. It's very entertaining. The weather


is dry and hot--90+ every day. Today, it's back to school for more specific planning-- lance and Grazina for testing and Robin and I for teacher seminars for Thursday and Friday. Lance and I are staying ing pink house, Robin and Grazina in green house. The two day seminars went really well, talking about and discussing different teaching pedagogy, practices and differentiation strategies. The most difficult task for me is remembering and then saying the names. I will save those for another blog. So far we only have 36 registered students-- it't kind of like "if you teach, they will come." Slava, our host, has invited us over for supper tonight at his house. Makes at, an LCC grad who works at the English Center, said he was serving horse...we probably won't because it is expensive, but I look forward to it. Today, I ate lunch--plove, a rice, meat, carrot mixture, a cucumber and tomato salad bread and a pressed fruit drink for $1. After school each day, we go to the open market for apples, bananas, and apricots. The ladies there are very patient and one even had me count the change in Kazakh. She was my teacher. On Saturday, we will go back to the center for more registration. Since the teacher seminars went over so well, they have asked us for 10 more 90 minute sessions after our student classes. Cool.


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