Jordan for Spring Break

 The school year is progressing well.  We just got back from a great spring break trip to Jordan (with a day each in Frankfurt and İstanbul en route).  We traveled with our friends Brock and Cathy and had a super time.  We visited a friend from Oakland who is now teaching at an international school near Amman.  We floated in the Dead Sea (weird feeling!).  We saw where Jesus was baptized and stood two meters from Israel along the River Jordan.  We explored the amazing ancient city of Petra, which Brooke has been wanting to see since she was little.  We snorkeled in the Red Sea in Aqaba in view Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Israel.  We rode camels through the desert in Wadi Rum.  THE FOOD WAS DELICIOUS!  It was a great trip (and I didn't even mention Frankfurt or İstanbul)!

I think spring has arrived (I say cautiously) in Almaty.  While we were away, most of the snow melted -- leaving the ground saturated and dirty looking.  I'm hoping to see flowers and leaves on trees soon.

Saint Patrick's Day, and Mr. Wolf's birthday!

Today was, as stated, Saint Patrick's Day, and Mr. Wolf's birthday!

Mr. Wolf is my class mascot.  He's a felt hand-puppet from some fairy tale set of characters, though I can't tell you how old he is or where he's from.  Michael rescued him from an abandoned box of supplies, and for four years, he brightened Michael's office.  Now that I teach elementary, Michael thought it best that Mr. Wolf came to my classroom to help me.  He's great!  He sits on my whiteboard, greeting students, reminding them of special projects, telling them how many days until Spring Break... the kids ask questions about him and gleefully play along.  We write stories about him.  I often show them sample work by Mr. Wolf -- posters about habitats or narratives about his travels.  He really is a part of our class. 


So, I decided that he should have a birthday party, just like everyone else! To my surprise, several students brought presents for Mr. Wolf.  One girl (she's so adorable) made tiny paintings of the tundra/forest and Mr. Wolf in different places "for Mr. Wolf's desk, so that he can remember his habitat and places he's been".  She then made him a leprechaun hat, a birthday hat (and matching red bow-tie), and a third outfit "for the last day of school!" (a Hawaiian shirt, sunglasses and a suitcase).

 Other kids made cards or brought special treats for Mr. Wolf "to eat when he's hungry".  They asked how old he was and what he wanted for his birthday.  We made rainbow murals with pots of gold hanging off of them.  I brought in cookies and frosting (I made the night before), then dyed the frosting all the colors of the rainbow -- right in front of them, like magic!  Then we decorated them.  The kids sat there, eating the cookies and smiling.
"This is the best birthday party ever!" "Well, at school anyway..."  "Yeah, at school!" 


Yeah!  Best birthday party at school.  Yay me.  Happy Birthday, Mr. Wolf!  Maybe we'll celebrate on February 29th next year, just for fun. :)

"NAURYZ, NAURYZ!", and other classic songs about the Kazakh spring festival

We just had a school-wide celebration for our Kazakh spring festival, Nauryz ("nar-eeze").  The Kazakh kids (with Kazakh passports, who are learning Kazakh language and history as part of the mandated requirements for a Kazakh diploma) dressed up in all kinds of beautiful and intricately-patterned national dress, performed songs, dances and plays about the spring festival and traditional life on the steppe.  The ending finale had all the students singing together... it was some singing that only a mother, or teacher, could love -- but boy, did they sing with passion!  The only part I could hear was the chorus, which was, as you may have guessed "NAU-RYZ, NAU-RYYYYYYZ!"  I loved it!  I wish this kind of stuff could happen more often, so that I could feel the old culture of this big city and not just the exhaust and detachment of productivity and modernization.