Joys of the City!

Well it has been some time since I have updated my blog. We are always guessing and trying to anticipate when the electricity goes out, but it is worthless. There is no rhyme or reason to the electricity flow! TIB! So to say the least, when I have time to sit down and write, the electricity goes out or my computer dies. Anyway, despite the that all is going well. I began teaching this week. Teaching in the classroom is so much better than teaching in front of your peers in the college classroom, let me tell you. I find that the children gives me energy to teach. When they are enthusiastic I am too! The students that are in my class are a hoot! I have picked out the class clown. He is a short boy who has glasses. His dad is an actor and of course he takes after his father. He bring such life the room that when our feet are dragging, we are sustained. I have also identified the mother of the room. She is a slender beautiful young lady who opens the student's wrappers for tiffin (snack time). I have also found the trouble maker (not really for they are all really good kids) He is so funny because he coordinates with his buddies and they all talk to each other in their language. I have to brake them up and say 'Uhem, English thank you!' There are so many more students that I could talk to you about. I finally know all their names and faces! It is getting easier and easier. I am also feeling more and more confident and comfortable with them. I have one particular student that I feel I am most here for. He is a student that just arrived a month ago from the States. He has had a difficult time adjusting. I have been working and encouraging him through this process and hes starting to come around SEED PLANTED! Keep him in your thoughts. He just needs someone to be a constant in his life to that he has security. I think He knew what He was doing when He put me with the boy in the states that I baby sat. That job prepared me for teaching her definitely.
There are some difficulties that I face teaching in an all ESL school. I knew that most all of the students did not know any English before arriving at the school. Now they are in fourth grade and are almost fluent. It is amazing. However, in the last two days I have had to teach about humor and idioms. Unfortunately, we are using a North American curriculum. So for a foreigner, it is difficult to get the humor and idioms that they are not familiar with. I know that they have the idea of idioms and humor down but just not the same types they are used to. So it is truly hard to know if they are really understanding. I wonder if they have their own idioms. I am sure they do? Perhaps I should ask them. It is also hard to know what they understand or dont understand in a passage of reading. They are so polite (and the culture does not encourage creativity or thinking for yourself) that they do not ask questions or challenge the teacher. So when I am going over a passage that has vocabular that I think they know, they actually dont and so the understanding of the passage becomes difficult. Learning how to teach ESL is difficult. Where is Annie (my previous roommate) when you need here language skills? Anyway, all that to say I am really getting to know the students and they are so forgiving with cultural mistakes and or confusion in my instructions. I am able to speak into their lives and share the Love with them. I couldn't have asked for a better class or cooperating teacher.
Now on to the fun part. I went to a Bazar the other afternoon to purchase some fabric to take to the tailor. I am having him make two Shalvar Chamise with Orna (long top with baggy pants and a shall) Then I also bought a Sari. It is deep red with gold sequence in a leaf pattern. I cant wait to see it when they are all made. Okay so we drove to the Bazar in the school van. There was a cacophony of people everywhere trying not to get ran over by rickshaws or motorcycles or cars for that matter. Most of the people in the open air bazar were males. However, a good number of them accompanied women to the shops. So imagine, in the middle of this huge crowd, a van full of about six white, mostly tall, Americans get out. Can you imagine all the stairs in our direction? I felt as if I should have placed myself in a glass box for all of them to gawk at me and also for my protection. I am so thankful that we had three men with! But man the circus must have come to town because there was a huge crowd around us. When we would stop on the side of the street, people would actually stop and stair at us from only a few inches from us. They then would call their friends over to take a look at what waltzed in. Trying to cross the street was another venture all of its own. Man if you were not fast enough or alert enough you would get ran over. It is like the yellow and white taxi cabs in Chicago; they dont stop for you at any time. And man do these people use their horns. It as if the horn was an extension of their angry vocal cords. Honk here and honk there... so loud. It amazes me how loud this city is, louder than Chicago sometimes, without the noise of the 'L'. (oh funny side note, the people are afraid of cats. Don't remember if I told you but they are. They don't have any sense of a pet either.) However, annoying and rather irritating the men and people in the streets were with their constant stair of our every move, shopping was fun. I got to barter with with the sales people through a native gentleman from the school. When you walk off the street into a building the aisle is very narrow and on either side of the wall several little alcoves made that housed fabrics all the way to the ceiling. Rows and rows of fabric in all different colors and styles and patterns. There are three different types of fabric alcoves (shops) There were the three piece Shalwar and Chamise with Orna or there are shops with only bolts of fabric and then there are shops that sell Saris. The fabrics that they use here are so New Orleans. It is very gaudy. There are patterns of all different colors and shapes. They might use two different patterns with six colors all together. They are also into embellishments such as sparkles everywhere. It is like a sea whirl of sparkle and color. But then you also have the burqa. It is a black drape over the whole body with a separate black head peace and face mask. But now the fashion is that those are colorful. This is allowed only in some families. But people mostly wear the Shalwar and Chamise... the people that would wear the Sari for everyday wear would be the village people. The city people usually only wear them to weddings and fancy parties. And man can these people party... all hours of the night. The family schedule here is nuts. The children dont go to be until at lease 2 am. They have dinner around 11pm. But anyway, oh man the city smells really bad, especially in this Bazar. Few, it smells of a mix of fesses and garbage. There is so much polution from littering that the city has actually outlawed plastic bags. The bags are not biodegradable and so it was killing their soil. They then were not able to produce crops. So now they only use brown bags.

Well the power just went out :) So I am going to send this before the internet goes. I will write later :)

Love you all!