Happy Turkey Day from MK

Despite their being a word for "Thanksgiving" in Macedonian, most Macedonians have never heard of the holiday and if they have heard of it, they know very little about it. I had one teacher at school approach me to tell me an early "happy holidays" for Thanksgiving, however, she told me "Среќен Црн Петок", or Happy Black Friday. Ahhh... apparently the news here focused more on Black Friday than it did on Thanksgiving! I decided to take this opportunity as a chance to teach some of the kids about Thanksgiving. In 1st grade we made turkey hats that were pretty adorable. There wasn't time in any of the other classes to talk much about Thanksgiving, but I did probe the kids asking them what they are thankful for. Many of the responses were along the lines of: cell phones, Facebook, and friends. With my adults we read a mini book about the history of Thanksgiving and I did the same with a little 4th grader that I tutor.

Working on turkey hats

Typical- no smile

This kid is quite a character. His English skills are quite impressive for a first grader, but he often only pulls them out for me. I work with his older sister in fifth grade and she is quite good at English, so clearly the family is doing something right at home.

My counterpart and all the little 1st graders. The boy sitting outside of the group without a hat was the most excited about making the hats, but couldn't make his feathers as nice as mine, so he threw his hat away and pouted.

Four of the boys decided it was their job to crawl on the floor and bawk like turkeys (chickens).

As far as my own plans for Thanksgiving, as with everything in Macedonia, plans changed last minute. I was going to go to Bogdanci (a small town on the border with Greece) on Thursday for casino night (the Greeks have built several large casinos down there) and then we would have Thanksgiving dinner on Friday, however many people cancelled on Thursday last minute, so I ended up just going to Shtip to see Phil. We spent most of the day enjoying the nice weather walking around town and running a few errands, including getting me my first Macedonian haircut. Phil's landlord's daughter owns a beauty salon in Shtip, so we decided to go there to 1) get him brownie points with his landlords and 2) I decided I trusted her more than the random old guy with no hair I had seen cutting it in my town. While I don't have a picture, it is quite a bit shorter than I wanted, about chin-length, but can't really put hair back after its been cut. She did a pretty nice job, other than the fact that we later discovered about 10 hairs randomly that hadn't been cut. 

We then went back and started our cooking for Thanksgiving, which turned into an 8 hour process that finished about 3:30 in the morning! However, some pretty epic food was created- two loaves of homemade wheat bread, hummus, thai peanut ginger dip, and homemade crackers. Tied into the cooking was a Skype call to Phil's parents and family. I had been prepped that the next time I went to Shtip, I would be meeting his parents over Skype and so I figured I might talk to them on Thanksgiving, that day I was informed that it wouldn't just be the parents, but also his brother and sister-in-law, the niece and nephews, some cousins, and an aunt. Clearly since I am writing this, I survived! It was so easy to talk to them. One of Phil's cousins was a PCV in Nicaragua a few years back, so there were lots of jokes exchanged about how "easy" we have it over here in MK (Phil didn't really help the cause by sitting there drinking a Guinness).

Friday we had one more errand we wanted to run before going to Bogdanci and that was to get to the Bargala Shoe Factory in Shtip to see if we could find some boots large enough for skis like mine. Most stores don't sell women's shoes larger than a 39 (US 9), but the factory was wonderful enough to make size 41 so I bought myself an early Christmas present- brown leather riding boots. I don't think I have ever owned shoes this nice, so I am a little protective right now! After the factory we headed to Bogdanci by way of Veles and after a bus never appearing, we had to take a taxi down, but made it in time to do last minute preparations for the meal. Turkeys were found here (they are very rare and most Macedonians have never eaten one) as well as ingredients for stuffing, so we had some of the typical T-day foods as well as some Macedonian dishes. All in all, a good second Thanksgiving in Macedonia. It is up in the air as to whether or not I will have a third one here or not as my COS date will be sometime in November of next year.

What would we do without Google?

Being a PCV means you assume the role of 'expert' lots of times when you shouldn't. However, sometimes, you need to just hold off answering until you have access to Google. And let me just say, I don't know what I would do without Google! My two most recent Google searches: "what are penguin arms called" and "parts of an ostrich". For those who care, penguins wings are called flippers and ostrich arms are classified as wings.

Today, the 7th graders finally got their new books. You know, its only two months into the school year and the Ministry just released which books they are using. The craziest part is their English books are the first books they have received, so teachers are having to use the old books until the new ones arrive, but are still expected to accomplish the same standards (aka finish the book) but in much less time. I don't think I could be a real teacher here. The penguins and ostriches tie in here. We started using the new book today and there was a fill-in-the-blank question about can and can't with penguins and flying (Penguins ________ fly.). The kids all knew penguins couldn't fly, but then we got into a discussion about what their arms are called. Are they wings? Aren't wings for flying? My counterpart wasn't even sure what they are officially called in Macedonian, so we couldn't even attempt to come up with a translation for the kids. I spent about 20 minutes of class sitting there thinking through what they would be called. They aren't exactly wings, but they aren't flippers. I wasn't sure. Then we brought up ostriches. They don't fly either, but they have wing-like arms. I think my counterpart and I were more curious than the kids were, but I was determined to find the answer, hence the Google search.

 I also had to be an expert on pronouncing numbers today. That doesn't sound too hard does it? Try it: ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, one hundred. How did you pronounce 30? Thirty or thirdy? Seventy or sevendy? Ninety or ninedy? They are written with a "t", so logically it would be a "t" sound, but it really is more of a "d". Which lead me to my current Google search of "pronounce numbers + english".  After lots of searching, my cconclusion is that people pronounce the numbers both ways. Everyone knows they are written with a "t" but the sound might be more of a "d". 

 My last Google search was about the popular "gangnam style". I have heard people talk about this, but due to my blockage of YouTube, I didn't actually know what this meant. (Clearly I don't know much about this since my Google search was for "gangham style" and Google had to correct me- gangnam style). This search came about by walking into a classroom of 7th graders where 5 of the girls were in the front of the room all doing some sort of dance. When asked what they were doing, they said they were doing the "style dance". I first checked out the Wikipedia article to learn about this and then, finally was able to watch a short clip of a video before it told me I couldn't. Apparently Gangnam style became popular in August. At this point, if I mentioned it to my parents, I think they could tell me what it was. That is how out of it I feel over here sometimes- when you parents know what a popular trend is and you don't. #peacecorpshardship# (I think this is a "cool" thing to do too- with the #s. I gotta show I have some street cred). Yes, that is what my girls were doing. Yes, I did then feel the need to practice in my room to see if I could do it. And yes, I do feel like a cool kid now that I know what this thing is.

Recycler Art

The Ministry of Education now has/now is pushing ecological standards for schools. My school decided today was the day to take a step forward on attaining the ecological certificate (certificates are everything in this country). A few of the teachers worked together to put on a workshop about how to create new paper out of old. As usual, a picture is worth 1,000 words, so here are 20,000 words!

The kids loved the first step of ripping up paper into small pieces.

One boy was joyously ripping up his English notebook from last year. Not sure how I feel about that- Thumbs up for recycling, Thumbs down for 4th grade English.

Of course we had to take a break from ripping paper for a little "photo with Sara" time! I can't attend any event with my students without this happening. These are some of my fantastic fifth graders- for real, some of my favourites!

Look at all that paper!

Had to play around with the camera settings a little.

Two of my 5th grade boys. The one in light blue is one of the funniest kids I have ever met, but 98% of his funniness isn't planned.

Two of my 6th graders reading about how to make new paper from old.

The school Director making some new paper.

One of the 1st grade teachers making paper.

Dip the screen in the watery paper pulp.

Lift the screen out and flip the paper onto a sheet to dry.

Sponge off the extra water.

One of my 6th graders making her paper.

Sponge off the extra water.

Scoop up some of that paper pulp.

One of my fifth graders getting ready to flip her paper.

Flip that paper!

The finished product