Kids Say the Darndest Things

Teacher: Macedonia, Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, Albania- what are these?
Student: Коњи? (Horses?)

Teacher (pointing to the Leaning Tower of Pisa): This is the Leaning Tower of _________?
Student: Mona Lisa!

Student: Whores riding a bike.
Teacher: What?! Oh, I think you mean who's.
Student: Yeah, whores riding a bike.

Sara: Number 17
(student runs to the front of the room while the other kids are yelling "no")
Teacher: What number are you?
Student: седум (7)
Teacher: Sara said 17 and you are number 7.
Student: Јас сум блиску. (The Macedonian equivalent to "close enough")

Kiril i Metodij Celebration

May 24th, the day of saints Kiril i Metodij (the creators of the Cyrillic alphabet), is a big holiday across Macedonia, however, my town knows how to do the day right. The school where I worked is named after these two brothers and recently we just had a name change to include the "saint" aspect into the school's name. With the new name change came new school logos and everything with the school name had to be reprinted, just to include Св (the Cyrillic abbreviation for saints).

On May 24th, everyone has off work to celebrate, however, because it is my school's Patron's Day, some of the teachers worked a little, helping put on a school performance and the local Opstina had several employees working quite a bit. Their hard work, however, made for quite an enjoyable day for the viewers of this spectacular event. I will let pictures do the rest of the talking.

Some of the preschoolers I worked with at the kindergarten/daycare

Getting ready to perform a traditional dance

The choir- quite a few of these girls are my 6th graders

Brothers Cyril and Methodius, the creators of the Cyrillic alphabet (or adorable children dressed up as such)

A play by the youngins about the importance of learning the alphabet. This was one of my favourite acts of the show because I was able to understand it all, thus proving my fluency in Macedonian is at the level of a 1st grader.

Some of my 6th grader girls reciting a piece about the alphabet

A couple of my 4th grade girls recited a piece about the alphabet as well

More 4th graders

And a play by my 6th graders. I didn't understand a whole lot of what was going on here- they were speaking super fast.

Traditional Oro dancing

The opener's opener- a group from Kochani I believe called Shine

The opener- Dani who is supposedly a famous Macedonian pop star

Some of my students posing with Dani

The main star, Vlado Janevski, with some of my students. The openers had live music. This guy sang along to a CD player that I think had the words as well so if he forgot the lyrics.....

And despite the concert finishing around 11pm after events had been going on since 1:00, the day wasn't complete without a mini fireworks display. I think I will have many other PCVs coming to celebrate this day in my town next year!

How to Wish Someone a Happy Birthday

This post really will mean nothing to most of you, however, it is an important post none-the-less. Today is one of my friend's birthdays. I made it my mission, to wish him a Happy Birthday as many different ways as possible.

The ways in which I have wished Jason a Happy Birthday

1. Text- Jason received a Good Morning/Happy Birthday/Merry Tajmiste text this morning
2. Facebook- Following a text, his Facebook wall was graced with the traditional, "Happy Birthday" greeting.
3. Skype- Skype was the next method of communication (the message is still pending as Jason has not been online, but I think it counts)
4. Google +- A not as well known form of social networking, but Google is taking over the world, so why not!
5. Twitter- This one took a little bit of work as I never use my Twitter and was not following Jason. However, after some research, I remedied that situation.
6. Email- Why I hadn't done this method earlier in the day, I don't know!
7. Phone Call- I saved the phone call until I knew the boys would be out celebrating and that they were. While wishing him a Happy Birthday I was serenaded with "Tiny Dancer".
8. Card- While I have am not going to see Jason today, I made him a birthday card today (this counts too).
9. Dropbox- Jason and I have been sharing random fun facts with each other, so Jason received a Dropbox document with fun birthday facts.
10. Blogger- Finally, check out below....

HAPPY 25th BIRTHDAY JASON KINGSLEY!!!

(Peace Corps Volunteers are very good at coming up with activities to entertain themselves on slow days!)