A Great Line Up
Tug-of-War
Potato Sack Race
Lunch Time
3-legged race
Eating Contest
My PC Training Put to Good Use
Friday, October 27, 2006
The 2nd Annual Field Day Extravaganza!
October 21st was the 2nd annual Field Day of all PC volunteers in Macedonia. This tradition began last year by the Mac 9’s and now it was Mac 10’s turn to try to do as good a job, if not better than the previous group. This is a project that I headed up with an organizing committee of about 10 other PCVs. However, because I was the closest to the location (Prevalec) and because I was the head of the committee, yours truly ended up doing a lot of the work! There were games to organize, budgeting to sort out, awards, lunch items to decide on, T-shirts to design, supplies to collect and purchase and lots of logistics! We had the fortune to use last years’ event to base our plans off of and improving on. So this year was quite a success and a lot of fun for everyone. At the time we had almost 100 PCVs in country (Mac 9’s are in the process of finishing their service and returning to the US and the new group, Mac 11, is an unusually large 49 trainees!) We had about 80 people in attendance and 60 of them were participating with about 10 people running the games. There was a potato sack race, tug of war, egg-toss, steal the bottle, 3-legged race, shoe kick, egg-spoon relay, limbo and a potato chip eating contest. I hope this tradition continues as long as Peace Corps exists in Macedonia. It is the only official volunteer event that is purely for fun and socializing amongst the volunteers and it is a chance for the current volunteers to meet the new group of trainees and often the last time that the “old group” get to hang out before the end of their service. We were also fortunate to have good weather and lots of helping hands to make the day a lot of fun and well worth the hard work!
A Great Line Up
Tug-of-War
Potato Sack Race
Lunch Time
3-legged race
Eating Contest
My PC Training Put to Good Use
A Great Line Up
Tug-of-War
Potato Sack Race
Lunch Time
3-legged race
Eating Contest
My PC Training Put to Good Use
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Work? What work?
I realized that I never mention my work on this blog, just about my travels, discoveries inside fruit and special events like holidays.
Well, I actually do work. I go to school 5 days a week and work with the local Macedonian teachers teaching English. This year I loathe my schedule because classes start at 7:30am everyday (except Mondays, which are at 9am). Ugh. There are three English teachers that I work with, following around and going to class with them. All the teachers in Macedonia use the same book, "Dream Team" and all the kids here learn British English (also, all the teachers have British accents, which was weird for me to get used to at first). During the lesson, from time to time I am able to teach part of the lesson, or add to it if I have personal experience. For example, yesterday the lesson was about London, so I shared a little bit about my being a tourist there in the past. One time last year there was a lesson about Australia and I brought in some Aboriginal music for the kids to listen to, which they loved. Sometimes I do the reading so kids can hear a native speaker. Sometimes the teachers are absent so I teach alone, which is, at times, nice because then I get to do my own stuff and make the lesson a bit more interesting. "Dream Team" is a fine book except the kids need more practice speaking English and learning grammar.
So I am at school about 25 hours a week in the classroom (which is a full teaching load in Macedonia) and then I have my afterschool English club. All the kids are welcome, but there are often just a small core group of about 8 girls who attend. We meet twice a week for an hour at a time and we play games, read books and sometimes listen to music, which gives them a chance to practice their English. I also have some crossword puzzles that the kids can also color, which are a real hit.
In addition, I just started up a Club GLOW at the local highschool. This is a club that is based directly from the girl's summer camp I worked at this summer. We just had our first meeting and we will meet once a week for an hour and learn about topics similar to camp like leadership, health, environmental issues, self esteem, etc. Think of it sort of like Girl Scouts. I never thought that I would enjoy working with highschool students, but I really love these girls, they are so much fun to work with.
Now if that wasn't enough, I also have lots of projects that I work on. I'm very involved with Peace Corps activities and I attend meetings often, and go to the PC office in Skopje about twice a month. The following are projects that I have worked on in the past or ones I'm working on now:
Member of VAC (Volunteer Action Committee), think Student Council
Head of the planning commitee for Field Day (last weekend, more on that later)
Coordinator for the National Essay Contest in English, including holding essay writing workshops at my school and the nearby highschool.
Member of TIP commitee (Human Trafficking, a big problem in Macedonia)
Working on getting the PC traveling photo exhibit to come to Kochani (next month)
Moderator of English Teaching Listserv for PCV's and Macedonian Teachers
Co-editor of "Pauza" the Macedonian PCV magazine
Writing supplemental curriculum (grammar focused) for "Dream Team" and having it available on the listserv (in the future will add it to the Resource room at the PC office)
Working on getting English books donated to my school.
In addition, I started attending the local Methodist church in town. It is very small, many people are surprised to learn that one exits here. The other interesting thing is that all of the members are Roma, there are no Macedonians that go. But just like Macedonians they are very friendly and welcoming. The second time I attended the minister asked me if I would teach the congregation English after the service. I was hestitant to agree (everyone heard the conversation), but I'll give it a try and see how it goes.
Lastly, I also hope to start a class to teach the teachers at my school English, as many have expressed a real desire to learn. So, if I can sort it out in my busy schedule that is also another secondary project I hope to start up this fall.
So, I guess I had more to say about work than I had thought!
Stay tuned for pics and info about the 2nd annual Field Day event that was last weekend.
Well, I actually do work. I go to school 5 days a week and work with the local Macedonian teachers teaching English. This year I loathe my schedule because classes start at 7:30am everyday (except Mondays, which are at 9am). Ugh. There are three English teachers that I work with, following around and going to class with them. All the teachers in Macedonia use the same book, "Dream Team" and all the kids here learn British English (also, all the teachers have British accents, which was weird for me to get used to at first). During the lesson, from time to time I am able to teach part of the lesson, or add to it if I have personal experience. For example, yesterday the lesson was about London, so I shared a little bit about my being a tourist there in the past. One time last year there was a lesson about Australia and I brought in some Aboriginal music for the kids to listen to, which they loved. Sometimes I do the reading so kids can hear a native speaker. Sometimes the teachers are absent so I teach alone, which is, at times, nice because then I get to do my own stuff and make the lesson a bit more interesting. "Dream Team" is a fine book except the kids need more practice speaking English and learning grammar.
So I am at school about 25 hours a week in the classroom (which is a full teaching load in Macedonia) and then I have my afterschool English club. All the kids are welcome, but there are often just a small core group of about 8 girls who attend. We meet twice a week for an hour at a time and we play games, read books and sometimes listen to music, which gives them a chance to practice their English. I also have some crossword puzzles that the kids can also color, which are a real hit.
In addition, I just started up a Club GLOW at the local highschool. This is a club that is based directly from the girl's summer camp I worked at this summer. We just had our first meeting and we will meet once a week for an hour and learn about topics similar to camp like leadership, health, environmental issues, self esteem, etc. Think of it sort of like Girl Scouts. I never thought that I would enjoy working with highschool students, but I really love these girls, they are so much fun to work with.
Now if that wasn't enough, I also have lots of projects that I work on. I'm very involved with Peace Corps activities and I attend meetings often, and go to the PC office in Skopje about twice a month. The following are projects that I have worked on in the past or ones I'm working on now:
Member of VAC (Volunteer Action Committee), think Student Council
Head of the planning commitee for Field Day (last weekend, more on that later)
Coordinator for the National Essay Contest in English, including holding essay writing workshops at my school and the nearby highschool.
Member of TIP commitee (Human Trafficking, a big problem in Macedonia)
Working on getting the PC traveling photo exhibit to come to Kochani (next month)
Moderator of English Teaching Listserv for PCV's and Macedonian Teachers
Co-editor of "Pauza" the Macedonian PCV magazine
Writing supplemental curriculum (grammar focused) for "Dream Team" and having it available on the listserv (in the future will add it to the Resource room at the PC office)
Working on getting English books donated to my school.
In addition, I started attending the local Methodist church in town. It is very small, many people are surprised to learn that one exits here. The other interesting thing is that all of the members are Roma, there are no Macedonians that go. But just like Macedonians they are very friendly and welcoming. The second time I attended the minister asked me if I would teach the congregation English after the service. I was hestitant to agree (everyone heard the conversation), but I'll give it a try and see how it goes.
Lastly, I also hope to start a class to teach the teachers at my school English, as many have expressed a real desire to learn. So, if I can sort it out in my busy schedule that is also another secondary project I hope to start up this fall.
So, I guess I had more to say about work than I had thought!
Stay tuned for pics and info about the 2nd annual Field Day event that was last weekend.
Friday, October 06, 2006
Baths & Buildings in Budapest
“I’m on vacation” became the theme of our trip, whenever my PCV friend Stuart and I would question whether or not to splurge for desert, sleep in or have to exchange money with a lousy rate. (It also became humorous trying to convert in four different currencies; Euros, Hungarian forint, Bulgarian lev and Macedonian denars)
Budapest is an incredible city and for some reason I didn’t expect it to be crawling with tourists, although I can understand why. This beautiful and ancient city was once actually three cities divided by the picturesque river of Danube; Buda, on the west, O’buda in the north and Pest on the eastern side of the river. There are still Roman ruins nearby, although I didn’t have time to check them out myself. I did however enjoy seeing the very old buildings from the earl 1900’s on the Buda side of the river, including the medieval castle and Independence monument, with amazing views of the city, the Fisherman’s Bastion, Matthias Church and of course, relaxing in the fantastic Turkish Baths which are a true highlight of this wonderful city.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why Budapest is such a great place (some say it’s better than Prague, although I haven’t been there myself yet to say if I agree or not). However, with a mix of old and new, fantastic views and really cool architecture and beautiful buildings, there’s a lot to see and do. It’s also a huge city that Stuart and I ended up spending much time just walking around, especially up and down the river and across several of its picturesque bridges.
The original purpose of the trip was because my friend and fellow PCV Sara is running in the Annual Budapest Marathon and we were going to be her personal cheering squad. But unfortunately, due to an outbreak of violent protests two weeks prior, the Marathon was postponed until later. The protests were a reaction of Hungary's prime minister admitting he and other officials had lied about the economy. It was a tough decision, but I decided to stick with our original plan of going last weekend, especially due to the fact that I’d already booked my flights out of Sofia, Bulgaria and hostel reservation (Sara will go to Budapest with her visiting family two weeks later). I was concerned that the protests might flare up again and make it difficult to get around the city; however we swung by the mammoth parliament building on the last day and found it to be very mellow and peaceful.
Three days ended up not being enough time to see and do all that I’d wanted, but I enjoyed visiting the city and seeing all that I did. And who knows? Perhaps I’ll be fortunate enough to return for another visit after I finish my Peace Corps service next year. I wish I could have had more time there; a longer vacation. But isn’t that often the case when it comes to vacations?
Budapest is an incredible city and for some reason I didn’t expect it to be crawling with tourists, although I can understand why. This beautiful and ancient city was once actually three cities divided by the picturesque river of Danube; Buda, on the west, O’buda in the north and Pest on the eastern side of the river. There are still Roman ruins nearby, although I didn’t have time to check them out myself. I did however enjoy seeing the very old buildings from the earl 1900’s on the Buda side of the river, including the medieval castle and Independence monument, with amazing views of the city, the Fisherman’s Bastion, Matthias Church and of course, relaxing in the fantastic Turkish Baths which are a true highlight of this wonderful city.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why Budapest is such a great place (some say it’s better than Prague, although I haven’t been there myself yet to say if I agree or not). However, with a mix of old and new, fantastic views and really cool architecture and beautiful buildings, there’s a lot to see and do. It’s also a huge city that Stuart and I ended up spending much time just walking around, especially up and down the river and across several of its picturesque bridges.
The original purpose of the trip was because my friend and fellow PCV Sara is running in the Annual Budapest Marathon and we were going to be her personal cheering squad. But unfortunately, due to an outbreak of violent protests two weeks prior, the Marathon was postponed until later. The protests were a reaction of Hungary's prime minister admitting he and other officials had lied about the economy. It was a tough decision, but I decided to stick with our original plan of going last weekend, especially due to the fact that I’d already booked my flights out of Sofia, Bulgaria and hostel reservation (Sara will go to Budapest with her visiting family two weeks later). I was concerned that the protests might flare up again and make it difficult to get around the city; however we swung by the mammoth parliament building on the last day and found it to be very mellow and peaceful.
Three days ended up not being enough time to see and do all that I’d wanted, but I enjoyed visiting the city and seeing all that I did. And who knows? Perhaps I’ll be fortunate enough to return for another visit after I finish my Peace Corps service next year. I wish I could have had more time there; a longer vacation. But isn’t that often the case when it comes to vacations?
Budapest Photos
Parliament building
Hungarian Dolls
Matthias Church
View of Budapest from Castle Hill
Gate at Castle Hill
Church and Park
Chain Bridge
Basilica St. Stephen
Inside St. Stephen Church
Fishermans Bastion with Matthias Church
Colorful Buildings
Szechenyi Bath (by belgianchocolate at www.virtualtourist.com)
Hungarian Dolls
Matthias Church
View of Budapest from Castle Hill
Gate at Castle Hill
Church and Park
Chain Bridge
Basilica St. Stephen
Inside St. Stephen Church
Fishermans Bastion with Matthias Church
Colorful Buildings
Szechenyi Bath (by belgianchocolate at www.virtualtourist.com)
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