Our Second Year Abroad!

September 15, 2013

We're back in Almaty after spending the summer in Washington. We had a great time visiting Kenton in San Diego. We took my mom along and visited all the sites of the area including the beach where we FRIED! It took a month for us to stop peeling! It was exciting to see my sister, Karen and her husband Tom's, new frozen yogurt business in Sand Point, Idaho. Stop by Choices and check out their fantastic flavors and friendly atmosphere!

We left Spokane on August 10th and after a long 10 hour flight we landed in Amsterdam, Holland. We had a seven hour lay-over so we took advantage of the time and hopped a tour bus. What a beautiful city. The canals, bikes, flowers, fields, windmills...did I say bikes? There are thousands of bikes. All vehicles and pedestrians must yield to bikes. My impression...a calm, quiet place to live. Of course it was only a snap shot. Maybe those of you who have visited there have a better insight.

 It didn't take us long to get back into the swing of things. We set up our classes and readied our lessons. Terry has a great class of 15, 8 year olds (3rd grade). I have a class of 16, ten year olds (5th grade) and believe me they will keep me on my toes. One of my students introduced himself as, "A Walking Encyclopedia!" And he is. My students are from Russia, Turkey, Hungary, USA, Kazakhstan, and Korea. Terry's class includes students from Korea, Russia, Kazakhstan, and the USA.

Hurray! Almaty hosted one of the play-off brackets for women's volleyball the first weekend we were here. It was exciting and encouraging to hear the Kazakh people so enthused about the game.

 Thought I'd throw in a few pictures of our new apartment. 

School began with much enthusiasm. All of us gathered on our soccer field and rang in the new school year. Parents and students gave beautiful bouquets of flowers to their teachers. So much excitement! We love it!

Ringing the school bell.

Flowers from my students.

Soccer is a well-loved sport in Europe and Asia. Kairat, our local team, hosted Astana (capitol). The crowd was wild! We each received a really cool poster which folded up into a fan. The fan was a noise maker. Everyone chanted and hit the fan against their hands in rhythm. It was awesome and not as annoying as those horns at the World Cup in South Africa! Almaty didn't win but they battled to the end.

New teachers attending the soccer game with us!

Friends!

 While at the soccer game we noticed a men's volleyball tournament going on. Of course we had to attend. We picked up the final game of The 20th Nursultan Nazarbayev President's Cup. Russia and Iran were competing for first and second place. It was a fantastic game of skill and determination. Surprisingly enough, about half the crowd was rooting for Iran. It's interesting how sports seem to know, no boundaries. In the end Iran won the first 3 sets and took home the championship.

Today, the 15th, we went with some of our new teachers to First President's Park for an Apple Festival. Almaty means apple and is believed to be the place where apples originate. At the front entrance, dancers, performers, and dignitaries assembled for the festival preliminaries. It started out as a beautiful day. We walked among Kazakh characters, native dress, food booths, craft exhibits, multiple stages with performers, and an apple market. The rain started softly but soon we were soaked and had to give up. It's too bad. The city planned a wonderful event and the rain came too hard for those attending. 

 I'll end this rambling with a little bit of culture. Most days as we leave our school the neighboring public school is releasing children from one of their three sessions for the day. The driving here is more than difficult so we are very cautious. However, we always jump a little when we see this little girl "walking" across the street. The full size cut-out is so realistic it takes us back.