Getting into a routine

9/2/2011-9/20/2011: General Impressions

The last time I wrote, school had just started. Now, I am about three weeks in and have a settled schedule. I also started tutoring lessons with the Russian teacher at my school. On the second of September I changed host families because of some issues I had with the host brother in my first one. So, I spent the first week of the school year getting used to both a new living environment and a new school.

I like my new host family situation, although I will miss the indoor shower that my previous host family had. For the last few weeks I have been taking a bath about twice a week. There is a sink indoors, but no running water. Instead there is a kind of bucket that you put water in and then push this thing up to make the water come out. The thing does not hold much water so I am constantly refilling it from one of the nearby water buckets. There is a washing machine in the main house, but it is not hooked up to the water yet. I have been told that it will be hooked up sometime in October or early November. For now, when I need to wash my clothes I use a machine that I think was built during the Soviet era. Basically, you put water in the machine, add clothes and soap and then turn the machine on. Afterwards, I bring my clothes to a basin near the well and rinse them. After that I hang them on the line to dry. I don't think that will work in the winter, but I am sure I will be told where to put them when the time comes. Although the toilet is still outside, I am happy that everything else, other than the clothes line is indoors.

At my new home, there are two buildings. I live in the main house which contains four rooms and an entrance way. It is a nice house and my room is large. The only problem is that I have to walk through my host mother's room to get to mine. It makes sense because I think my room used to be the living room. Apparently my host mother will be living in the other building once the room is finished, but for now I have to walk through it if I want to leave the house.

In the other building is the kitchen, the bathroom, an entrance way, and the unfinished room. The kitchen is pretty small and heats up a lot when food is made. At least that means it will not be cold in the winter. As I mentioned before, in the bathroom is a tub, a sink, the soviet style washing machine, and the soba. I don't know if I have mentioned it before, but a soba is basically a wood stove that heats a few room. You put wood in the slot and light a fire. The heat radiates from the ceramics. There is one soba in the small house and two in the main house. My new living arrangements are very different from what I am used to in America. but I should be fairly comfortable for the next two years/ 691 days.

School is relatively straightforward. I have three or four classes a day and a break sometime during the day. On Tuesday I have three periods free in a row. Having that time is very nice. It gives me time to study Russian or to listen to music. My classes are okay. I wish the children spoke better English, but I suppose that is why I am here. Hopefully my two years here will make a significant impact. One thing worth mentioning I guess, is that unlike in the United States, children in primary school do not have one teacher for all the subjects. There is a teacher for science, another for history, and so on. They have a homeroom class and teacher, and they have some classes in their home room, but for other classes, they go to the respective room for that subject, even in the younger grades (forms). Students in the lower grades also only have English twice a week. I think this makes it harder for them to learn the English vocabulary and grammar. 10th-12th grade have language three times a week, still two fewer than in the US.

My classes are going decently. My fourth, fifth, and sixth form classes are the most difficult because they have the most students and the students make noise. I still need to come up with an effective strategy to make them be quite for longer. In my 9th form class that I teach alone there are three boys who talk to each other during class. Hopefully I will be able to think of a strategy to make them be quite soon.

My tutoring lessons are going well too. My tutor only speaks Russian which means that I have to use my dictionary a lot, but at the same time it forces me to improve me speaking and listening skills so that I can say what I need to and understand what she is saying all in Russian. I am sure there are some words that I will begin to understand even if I don't quite understand their meaning simply through her use of them. For the last couple of sessions we have been reviewing material that I already know. At the same time, it is usual  because over the summer we were given a lot of information over a fairly short period of time. I have created a mini-dictionary with all of the new words that I am learning. Hopefully I will remember all or at least most of them.