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Published: September 7th 2015
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Mega mall
If you want shoes, purses or clothes this is the place. Restful night's sleep.
We will be sleeping better tonight. Since we arrived in Almaty we have been so grateful for all the things the school has provided except... our mattress. It is the hardest bed we have ever slept on! We finally got a mattress topper. We asked around at the famous Almaty Green Market but we were misunderstood. One lady selling blankets and pillows got her son on the phone, who spoke great English and she wrote down on a piece of paper in Cyrillic what we were looking for. So a few stalls later we met Achmed. He was a doctor in Afghanistan and studied in Canada. He was more than helpful. In fact, before we knew it we were walking to his car and he drove us to a store - walked in and got us a great deal on a topper for less than $100 American. We waited for delivery today and lounged around the apartment while I did lesson plans for the week. Bad news, the door lock on our front door got jammed and we aren't able to leave the apartment without being locked out. The school was contacted and they will be over
Kazakh money
100 tenge = about 42 cents US first thing tomorrow to repair it. In the meantime we are watching Movies from YouTube on our big tv in the living room. A restful Sunday!!
Hockey last night!
Our friends from school invited us to join them for a hockey game- so we bundled up and rode in their Russian Lada to downtown Almaty. The game was free and our seats were great. We would've spent $40 for seats like that in Spokane right behind the penalty box. It was a Kazakhstan league and they scout from these teams to make the national team in the city of Astana, which plays in the Russian League. There was less fighting and penalties than in the US, but the crowd was Into the game. ShI-boo means goal!!! They won 5-4 and it was soo fun to holler Nit! and Da! (No and yes) A group of young ladies behind us and three older russian men in front of us, was just as entertaining as the game itself. High fives all around when we scored!
Russian car!!
Dave and I are considering buying a car! The weekends out of the city would be great and they sell cars
cheap. The school will finance the purchase and resale when we are done here doesn't decline. We have been given a parking place in our underground parking, so we will be venturing out to a Car Bazaar soon. We are not 100% sure yet! Traffic driving will be a big issue!!
Shopping for food.
Each time we go food shopping we are learning more about what is what! I never realized how dependent non-literate people are to pictures on items, until now! We have found yummy pastries, cookies and candy but are trying to stay away as we tackle losing that extra newlywed weight!
The retailers all seem to know we are American and show us how much to pay on calculators if they don't have registers. We don't hand money directly to them, but set it in a tray and they return our change the same way. We were surprised to see grocery bags available, thought they might not have them. Each shopping trip is measured by how much we need to carry home and how soon we will use the food. We find that the shelf life of food is short for three reasons: no
preservatives, no GMO's and the transport time to get it here to Almaty. We are finding a lot of the fruits and veggies are local grow, and bread and cookies are fresh baked
Malls
The Almaty culture is very materialistic when it comes to clothing. There are malls everywhere. They sell clothes, shoes, purses, clothes, shoes and more purses. The men wear tight legged pants, and athletic type jackets and leather shoes. The women dress up with heels, even on these uneven sidewalks, dresses, form fitting blouses and fancy jackets. I only see blue jeans on the weekend and still dressy with scarves, hair done up and makeup. We stick out like a couple of sore thumbs!! Dave said "NO" on the tight blue jeans.
School Day
For my teacher friends, let me just say that teaching fourteen kids that don't use English as their first language is like teaching thirty regular American students (like there is a regular right?). School starts at 8 and we move children up a grade or down if they need it for reading and math. If they are needing Intensive English (3 of mine!) they are sent to another class.
park
One of the many parks that run down the streets here. I have 10 children for a 1 & 1/2 hour block for reading, writing,and grammar. We have 50 minutes for math and I am responsible also for science/social studies. The children go to a World Language four days a week, music twice a week, PE twice a week, computer lab twice a week, art and library once a week. We are done by 3:15 every day and only have recess at lunch time. We have "extended literacy time" and "learning lab" times which are at my discretion. I usually do more math, or science, or project type activities then. I am responsible to assess their reading this week using Fountas & Pinnell tests, we did a writing assessment last week and I gave a "beg of year" math test after week 1. Open house will be next week- excited to meet parents- no children will attend. I hope I have interpreters. Korean, Russian, French, and Kazakh needed in my room.
That's enough from me!
I am loving this experience, so happy to share this with Dave. We are trying to laugh every time we learn something new!
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Karen Petersen
non-member comment
excitement and fear
As I read your adventures, I often have moments of that mixed feeling of excitement and fear that accompanies stepping out into the unknown. You must have that often, since virtually everything fits into that category when you are living in a new place, learning a new town, starting a new job, eating new foods, making new friends. It must actually be exhausting. No doubt you will strengthen your bond with each other and the newness will wear off, but what an intense experience.