Schools Online - Lee HS, Houston TX, USA

This was pleasant....

2010-06-30T13:16:00.002-05:00

Spring Break 2010 Departure

2010-06-30T13:13:00.001-05:00

Where the computer is, a Ipad has taken its place!

CHALK

2007-09-25T21:59:00.001-05:00

I just found this at the video store. Great mockumentary about modern day teaching. Many of the facts and facets of real teaching experience are there, they just figure out how to have it all between 4 newish high school teachers.

If you are a teacher, or know naything about th ehigh school experience, you got to watch this!

Bonus: It was filmed in Austin, so it set in a Texas High School.

Travel Update

2007-07-07T17:23:00.000-05:00

Returned July 3rd from Europe.

We actually ended up doing Amsterdam to Berlin to Paris to London, about 3 days in each town.

I left at Midnight to drive 600 miles to Fort Davis. I could have left later had I known it was 80 mph on I-10 as the legal speed limit. I wanted to have enough time to make it there by 3pm, but I made it quite early.

Be up here through the 10th at an "Age of the Milkyway" workshop.

Visiting Huntsville

2007-02-28T16:03:00.000-06:00

It you look at bottom of image you an see Halima and McKenzie

The Sam Houston Statue was designed and constructed by artist David Adickes. He dedicated the statue to the City of Huntsville on October 22,1994. It is the world's tallest statue of an American Hero at 67 feet tall on a 10 foot sunset granite base.

After visit to statue, Halima visited McKenzie home and got to meet her horses.

Halima visits Houston Zoo

2007-02-25T13:24:00.000-06:00

Watch this video hosted on YOUTUBE of Halima's visit
to the Houston Zoo

And after the zoo, we took a train ride around Herman Park
It can be boring, so I speed it up to take 1/2 the amount of
time - so it might sound funny too!

US - Tajikistan experience continues

2007-02-16T08:14:00.000-06:00

Next Wednesday, Feb 21st, a teacher fromteh town of Isfara will be arriving in Houston to spend a few days at school and a weekend with me and my family.

She is from the town of Isfara, where my partner schools are.

Good for me, I can use her as courier to take some items back to Isfara for my partner Ibrahim.

I'll try and document the visit with pictures and now videos, since I have digital video capabilities and the rise of youtube.

If you visit YOUTUBE.COM and search for videos with keyword TAJIKISTAN, you can found about a dozen I have uploaded so far from my visit last April.

Our future guest in middle.

Teachers are off for the summer

2006-07-13T06:13:00.000-05:00

So I have two choices being off for the summer.

1) Find another job for the summer to make extra money (I have my normal pay divided for yearly pay, I get the same paycheck every two weeks for the entire year).

2) Recreate

This year I decided to spend most of it on #2. I did some paid training for first two weeks after school, but the rest has been VACATION. To keep up with my activities for that you need to visit my other blog, Vicarious Moses @ http://teachmoses.blogspot.com

definition vicarious: Felt or undergone as if one were taking part in the experience or feelings of another

The big news, I'm suppossed to go to a different school next year, but I decided to accept a position at Lee High School, so I'll be here for another year!

FACES OF TAJIKISTAN - photo project

2006-05-16T10:01:00.000-05:00

Over two hundred faces curently, will be picking top 30 and doing a physical exhibit in near future I hope.

http://snapshot.hopto.org/faces/face/faces001.html

Feedback appreciated - like which is your favorite image

Wife in Tajik Dress

2006-05-15T07:06:00.000-05:00

On Mother's Day, Sylvia dressed in one of the Tajik dresses I had purchased for her. Thats all hand-done stitching. This isn't typical daily dress, but for special occasions, and Mother's Day qualifies here!

Below you can see some Tajik girls wearing dresses of the same style I photographed in Chorbogh.

Daughter in Traditional Tajik dress

2006-05-07T11:05:00.000-05:00

after 50 hours

2006-05-04T10:39:00.000-05:00

Fifty hours after I left Tajikistan, I walked in the front door of my home, removing my shoes of course.

It was pleasant memories to tell of the gifts I was given as they were unpacked. Only two items broke, one a gift, the other a purchase, but glue should make things better.

I dressed as a Tajik man would dress for class today. I wore my long coat I purchased, a sash that was given to me at the school in Isfara, and a hat I recieved in Sarband.

Thank everyone for the memories, I will begin work soon on expanding the connections between my school and the Tajik friends I made.

Moses

Sunday Night - less than 48 hours left here

2006-04-30T11:01:00.000-05:00

Its Sunday evening in Dushanbe, and we have come to the Relief International office to use the Internet connection. We waited to arrive late so we can use Skype to call home and it will be Sunday morning there. Even if we wake up our wives, we all know they are glad to hear from us.

We arrived back in Dushanbe Friday by plane, and then relaxed a little before back to work. We did some shopping at the big store that has “everything”, I’m not sure how its spelled but its pronounced ZOOM. That is where we hit the Lapis stall and made sure are wives will be content. I’m buying one of everything to make sure I got the right one, Andy buying the lightest to carry, and George knows exactly what style his wife likes so he buys based on that! It is fun because this is one of those places where price is negotiable.

That evening Andy wants to work, so George and I walk to a not too distant Chinese restaurant. Our first Chinese food in country. It was good, especially the fried noodles. We walk back and venture into a store to see what is available, I picked up some blank cdroms for 1 somoni each. One dollar equal about 3.2 somoni.

Back at the apartment, then we start working too. It rained that day, and because of the old pipes in the city water system, soil leaks in, so now our water is coming out the color of coffee or chocolate milk, its tough to decide. We don’t even know if we would come out cleaner than when we went in if we take a shower?

There is a store nearby and we buy bottle water for everything. I bought some chips there that have flavors we don’t. I got a “ham & cheese” bag and a “shish kabob” flavor. Both were GOOOOOD! I bought some type of carbonated peach drink, I’m not sure if it was alcoholic or not, it was in that section, but there weren’t any indications of % content on the bottle. For beers here, the big brand is “Baltica” and you can buy Baltica 1 thru Baltica 9. There is some variation is appearance, like a 4 looks like a ‘dark ale’, but basically the number is the % alcohol. We are generally too dehydrated to get to take advantage of the beer. That would really mess us up if we drank that and our bodies were expecting water!

Saturday we went to the museum that has the “Sleeping Bhudda”. It’s the largest sleeping bhudda in this part of the world. Our group was the only ones at the museum, so the docent would take us to a room, turn the lights on, let us look, then go to another room, turn its lights on, point for us to go that way, then go behind us and turn the lights off in last room. They actually had some very fine pieces in this museum, including some hominid skulls that were in quite interesting states. Unfortunately, no photography was allowed in museum. I scoped the place out and determined that they didn’t have security cameras, 1 point for me. So then since the docent had to come and go, I knew I could be ‘unobserved’, another point for me. I had my camera hanging on my shoulder, so anything I did would have to be shot from the waist, hopefully pointing in the right direction. So I asked George to cough and I would shoot then so his noise would cover my camera noise. We did this once or twice, got some shots, but I overshot the bhudda, so I have to be happy with the postcard I bought. It was worth a try!

Today were worked in the apartment, and then met our handler at the Chinese restaurant. George and I liked it and Andy hadn’t been, we order and shared and it was another wonderful meal. Unfortunately they were out of those fried noodles, but the steamed dumplings we substituted were great too!

I was fairly done with my Monday presentation, so my partners headed back while Susie took me to the Green Bazaar (it has green gate at entrance). Got some dresses and some “atlas” material for dress making. Also bought some fresh cherries, 5 somoni for 0.5 kg, you do the math! I ate all the cherries in one sitting, they were delicious!

After the green market we hit these two little antique shops. There was this well done, ornate, but old jacket/coat there that caught Susie’s eye. The first price we heard on it was about $110 dollars. We bought various little items, and I was excited because I found my soviet era stuff, I have been wanting, but between every transaction/negotiation, they tried to sell her that jacket. By the time we left, she got it for $40. I was happy with all the things I found, I even got a cool soviet military officer’s hat for $10. I bought some rubble coins, Lenin banner, hammer and sickle flag, and a very antique pearl necklace for a price that will never be disclosed! I even got a Soviet pin from the 1980 Olympics. I basically spent almost all the money remaining in my wallet! Not sure if that is good or bad, but I love all my purchases.

Tomorrow we do our final presentations to the Dushanbe Deaf School, as they also have an ILC there. I'll do mine primary as a photo essay on the Faces of Tajikistan. I got enough great images I need to select about 25, get nice matted large prints done, and work on getting an exhibition somewhere like the Houston Center for Photography or a local library. I also put together a short but sweet presentation on “10 things I learned in Tajikistan”. I learned other things that aren’t in the presentation, like how to sleep on the floor, how to take a shower one cup of water at a time, things like that, but I don’t have good photos for, so they didn’t make it to the final ten.

All you readers, please remember, once I am back, I will be adding so many more images to this blog, back into the existing entries; so please remember to check back often so you can see some of them.

It is very strange to feel like I have two homes now. It also is going to be very strange to apart from Andy and George. We have spent almost all our waking hours together for almost 20 days. I have been blessed be every acquaintance I have made on this journey.

If you have never been, you should consider an adventure in Tajikistan. Pack light, bring a extra bag for things to take home. You won’t need a hotel, just go meet some people and someone will always invite into their home. This is no joke. I was walking in Khujand, taking pictures of the mosque. A fellow photographers comes up to me and wants to know if I speak English (the red/white/blue bandana on my head was a good clue). We met, exchange names, a little background, next thing you know he’s introducing me to his friends and wants me and my group to come to his house for dinner. He’s known me for less than 10 minutes! That is just the way people are here. I am looking forward to the day that I come back to Tajikistan!

More pictures from Isfara

2006-04-29T01:11:00.000-05:00

My 'Tajik brother' Ibrahim, has posted a collection of photos from his camera online

you can click on this link

Thanks Bro

Day Fifteen - Dushanbe

2006-04-28T07:51:00.000-05:00

We arrive back via plane to Dushanbe.

No official school visits, but we did visit the ILC placed at the Islamic Univeristy here in the capital. The director gave us a wonderful tour of the adjoining mosque.
It is friday and the midday friday session is the biggest one of the week, so we got some photos a little while before it started.

I had never been in a mosque until the day before, and this was the first time I have been in one while "in session". I guess because of american television's impact on me, I get this uneasy feeling someone is going to yell "INFIDELS" and they all come after us and thats the last you hear from me.

What happens, I make eye contact with this one guy praying and I had the urge to offer my hand to shake, he shakes, jumps up, smiles,
and indicates we are to have our picture taken together. Turned my stereotype 100% around!

Reminder - we all all married, so we did some shopping with our wives in mind

Day Fourteen

2006-04-28T07:46:00.000-05:00

Khjundand in pictures

Day Thirteen - Istaravshan

2006-04-28T05:10:00.000-05:00

We are welcomed at another school. This time we had the Tajiki drum we love so much, but a boy also was playing this huge horn.

We are greeted with the bread and salt,

but we’re also given these purple live flowers that just had an amazing fragrance.

Children on both sides of the walkway lined up waving flowers. Smiles, cheers, “Welcome”. This is like the 10th time we’ve been welcome but its still totally overwhelming.

I straggled behind the group and played photographer – smiles in any direction I was pointing. We made it up the steps, did some group photos with the school staff,

and then into the building, so we can sit at our usual “feast table”. We were treated to poetry,
a song,
dancing, then we had to dance, we were each given a student made stuffed animal by the student who made it (I got a cool purple dog). They showed us the traditional process for their special cradles they use for when the baby’s first nights.
After all the presentation we head to the ILC for our turn to do presentations. I had the day off, since I had done the last two. This was actually one George’s partner schools, so he had goodies for them from his students. Andy also did a great student experience with his leadership activities.

He had a large excited, ‘gung-ho’ group of kids. I photographed and assisted Andy as much as possible. Every now and then, about 3 or 4 times, I would wonder off into the school yard and start playing with the chain and ring. The crowds were so massive I could feel them on 3 sides of me. Everyone within viewing distance joined up. Then on echild brought me a postcard and wanted to sign it. So I printed my name, signed my name and added ‘Houston, Texas USA’. Then comes some papers, then notebooks and before you knew I had signed 50 or 60 autographs. I needed to go in an check on things, and everything was good so I went back outside and ended up doing another 50 plus autographes. This time their was this one little girl I made a connection with so I played with her a little with everyone around and ended up putting my McDonald’s bandana on her and given her a kiss on top of the head.

The noise at that point was incredible. The phrases I have found all Tajiki kids know in English:
“Good morning” – they say it anytime of day
“What is your name?”
“One, two, three, four”

One student had camera, and wanted picture with me. It took me five minutes to get the crowd to open a path between the photographer kid and me and the student, and I bet she still gets 25 extra kids in the shot! A teacher comes out and runs the kids to wherever so I go back inside.

Things are still good, so I go back outside again with my digital camera, but I got to a different side of the school. Next thing you know I am swarmed, but since I got the camera, they are telling me they want their picture taken with me. So now I got kid photographers fighting over who go to use the camera (these are elementary age kids) and kids fighting over who is going to be in the photo or where they get to stand. We get some done, unfortunately, the kids are the best photographers and heads get chopped off and things like that. We do this until the batteries go out.

I go inside and put the camera away, and my partners are doing fine without me, so I stat walking around and here they come with their pens and paper. So I go into a classroom so I can sit at a desk, and do autographs until there is no one left wanting my autograph. I write nice little comments now since I had the time so when they got it translated they would feel good or special. By the time I was done, I probably autographed over 200 items. Never in a million years would I have guessed I would experience that.

I was talking about this experience with my partners, trying to figure out anything that would be equivalent. A visiting foreigner would not have the sameeffect in the US, because students have foreigners sitting next to them in class sometime. The best comparison would be if we told the students a Space Shuttle Astronaut was visiting. Even though the kids may know nothing about the person, his job/title makes him special. And the astronaut probably doesn’t feel that special because he’s just doing his job when he’s in space. Here we are just teachers, but because we come from the other side of the world, we are treated like very honored guest.

So now I’m in the gym with Andy’s crew photographing them, and its time for the “crossing the river challenge” which is going to be done outside. So in the gym he breaks them into four groups tells them he’ll instruct inside so they can hear better. We finally go outside and I don’t believe. This is this huge crow of people in this oval shape. Reminded me of a bunch of people waiting to watch gladiators. They see we are coming and their cheers and claps like the home team just came out to defend the championship at a major sporting event.

I climb up on a water fountain a decent distance away to get above the crowd shots in the inside. The crowd is so big, I can’t fit them into one picture! So I work my way through them into the middle for good action shots.

To be continued…

Day Twelve - 2nd Day in Isfara

2006-04-28T05:07:00.000-05:00

I started the morning outside carving erasers, to prepare for my letterbox activity. Before you knew it, all four children are around me checking things out. So the first stamp I made was a butterfly, so after inking it and testing on paper, I did the top of everyone had. They were so happy. Well, I had more stamp to do, so basically by the time I was threw all the ids had 4 “tattoos” on the arms. Then I got called in for breakfast. They fed us great, I don’t think they know any other way.

We started our schedule with some sightseeing. We went to the sanitarium, which has a famous teahouse located on its premises.
This is more of a ‘de-stress’ type location instead of a proper medical one. They even had a pond and paddleboats. Of course we had tea in the teahouse, admired its wonderful architecture and just relaxed a little bit. The sanatorium is located next to a river and is a pleasant place. Then we were off to see a famous woodworker. We arrived and he had samples of his work laid out for us on a kot.

We examined and had stories told to us about the pieces or the woods they were made from. He also showed us the sharpening stone that had been in his family for 7 generations. His family had been doing this for quite a while. The he showed us his little setup that was his ‘no electricity’ workbench. Basically the guy had a hand powered lathe. It was quite ingenious and looked over 100 years old besides the rusty bolts that maybe have been a little less then 100, but definitely we added later as an upgrade. What was kind of neat was this setup required both hands and both feet. He operated it in lathe mode and drilling mode. All I can say was it was too impressive to see how this simple thing worked so well. Sharp tools are an essential, we determined, and that must be why he was so proud of the family sharpening stone. We were then back to the kot to started trying to buy his goods. Unfortunately the majority of the good stuff was not for sale as he had a competition he was going to soon and needed those for the competition. I ended up getting an unvarnished non-stamp, as they traditional use a device to make patterns in the top of the non here. Bread is a big deal here and one of the custom I read about was don’t lay the bread upside down, and I’m thing how can you tell the top from the bottom? When I got here, I was educated, they mark the top with patterns before baking. Since my was unvarnished, I asked that he sign his name, expecting a pen or marker. Nope, even better, he used is wood burning tool and signed his named and added the towns name. I heard the nearby street is named after his family. Got some fabulous pictures of his elders, and his daughter, typical dress, in a nice environment. All the other stuff I wanted to buy was not for sale.

We were off to lunch, but not at a restaurant, but at another school in town. Again, wonderful greeting, plenty of presentations in English, very cute children. The two things making this one unique was they actually had a redish carpet rolled out for us, and among the presentation, they ‘performed’ Little Red Riding Hood in English with costume. We had lots of laughs on this one, it was so entertaining. When everything was over, we headed into the school for lunch, but unfortunately the staff wasn’t able to eat with us because the Ministry of Education people had shown up for an ‘audit’ and they were busy with them. After lunch we hoped in the car and headed back to Ibrahim’s school.

This time our presentation were for the teaching staff, primarily what they call the lead teachers. George and I were doing them simultaneously. Mine was on two main areas; resources on the internet for doing simulations, and online educational content and online college courses. All internet resources were free. I wasn’t on a projector, so my audience of 5 gathered around my laptop, but it was connected to internet so I could demonstrate some of the sites! I found it a pleasant experience.

I had double duty today, as mentioned these are my ‘Tajiki’ kids, so I was allowed to interact with them a lot. [Thanks Susie] So the next thing I did was the letterboxing activity with the students while Andy hid and documented the clues while I was doing the presentation. Most schools have little vendor stalls right on campus or next to it, with snacks and school supplies. I bought 15 extra erasers when we were walking back from lunch earlier, to be sure with my supplies everyone would have one to carve. My presentation went very well, and the kids started carving as soon as the tools were in their hands. I had a departure deadline last school we did this at, so we only had time to go out together and find one, using the one I had carved earlier on that day.
Well, during my presentation, Andy went back and check on his placement, of the four, two were already missing, so we took my fifth and put it out, and as part of my demonstration, I started a sixth and let a student finish it. We were using 35mm film canisters as our letterbox containers. These kids were impressive carvers, many doing both sides of their eraser, and also planning multicolor designs. Well, we had 4 teams worth of students, so we had 3 teams go after the 3 remaining boxes, while team our planted the new stamped the student finished for me. These group totally got all phases of the experience and totally understand what the activity is like, so hopefully they will continue. I had all the finished stampers stamp in my logbook and put their names for me, so I could be reminded of this fun experience. Because of its low investment to participate, this hobby actually works well in this environment because they also have plenty of green spaces and also places with holes in walls, to hide letterboxes. I am curious to see how things are six months from now, maybe they’ll start a letterboxing club at the school or even setup a Tajiki language letterbox site with clues!

More pictures and this time I had them do the names and faces picture again. Fun activity for them because now they are posing. I was surprised how individual students throughout the afternoon would bring me gifts or gifts they told me to give to McKenzie. Since I had been there they day before and did the home and family presentation, I guess a few of them decided to find gifts for me they could give on my second visit. I was given all sorts of things; from a large Tajiki dish to bracelets and books. [If Isfara students are reading this – you are #1] I also gave out a few more things I had, and if anyone gave me a gift, I tried to give one also.

The disappointing thing, and all three of us teachers really wanted to do this, one of the students the day before had mentioned she and her family would be honored if we could visit their home. This is one of our favorite things to do. We are here to learn about typical Tajikistan, and the home visits have been so enlightening. Unfortunately, because of prior commitments, we couldn’t go, but we weren’t able to find the young lady to give her the unfortunate news until late in the afternoon, and I’m sure her family had already made preparations for our visit. Disappointing this girl has been the only low point of our entire trip so far. We have made so many efforts to put smiles on people’s faces any chance we’ve been given. And I knew her’s was fake as she was given the news.

The girl we had to turn down.

Well, as mentioned though, the day was a super success in all of our opinions, so we wanted to celebrate and find the appropriate place for a “cold one”. A ‘cold’ beverage is a rare commodity in this country as mentioned. We found the beverage, but temperature was typical, but it was the symbolism that was important. We were up on a elevated platform and just below us were three Tajikistan Army officers, based on all the stars. I said “I wonder if I should go down and entertain them”. Susie, our supervisor said “I’d like to see that”, she was expecting I would do it. If you know me, you know I did. I got three new comrades from that experience! Stop and think, you got three high ranking military officials enjoying dinner, and here comes a red/white/blue bandana wearing “Amerikanski” sit down, doesn’t say and word and starts working with these guys to do the ring and chain trick. We had some laugh at the table, so good hand shakes, smiles and I left the trick with the guy with the most stars!

My group quit worrying about me when I returned to the table. They were all totally in shock, especially the locals. The ring and chain have made me invincible in this town. As soon as people figure out I am doing something to put a smile (or puzzled look) on their face, I am their friend!

After our beverage we returned to Ibrahim’s home for dinner. It was dark by now and when we drove up, I noticed 3 children outside playing. I went inside, put my stuff downand got three of the glow bracelets and headed outside, followed by Ibrahim and his mother both probably curious what I was up to. I made a little drama with the boys and then got each one a glowing bracelet. They have never seen anything like these so they were total in awe of the presents they got for no reason at all except that they crossed path with an American. When we got back inside his mother brought out gifts for us, to our total surprise. First, there was a handmade dress for my daughter. Then she gives me a full length coat, again handmade, traditional styling. I’d hate to put a price on this thing. My shoulders are a little broad, and the circumference is a little short, but I think with minor adjustments, this will fit my wife wonderfully, and she’ll have one of the few coats like this in North America. We were also given the waist scarves that men wear. Ibrahim gave me one his personal Tajiki Ties, and some Chinese papercuts from his collection and gave each of us a cdrom full of Tajiki mp3 files! Dinner was a tasteful and social event, as usual!

Day Eleven - Isfara

2006-04-28T05:03:00.000-05:00

I guess this was the high point of my trip, regardless of how great it was before and how it will be after, because Isfara is where my partner schools are. As soon as I knew I was coming to Tajikistan I started preparing items and supplies to bring and to leave. As I have mentioned earlier, I was able to get nice equipment such as the Classroom Performance System, plus sensors from HOBO and Vernier. I got posters and other materials from a multitude of sources. I also bought many items I hoped would be enjoyed here, and I guess right. Simple things like the ‘glow stick’ bracelets, the kids here have never seen anything like that. I had about 25 of those to give away. I was able to include a laptop as part of the CPS system, so it would be a dedicated system that could be moved between rooms. I was also able to give my previous laptop, to my main contact, Ibrahim.

Well, we flew out of Dushanbe about 9am over some mountains. I was in the last row of the plan, and I didn’t have a window. George was in front of me, so he would take a picture with his digital camera, then show me and Andy the LCD screen so we could see what was out the window. Kind of funny, but we were better off then the 4 people behind us who didn’t have seats at all! We think they we crew related. We think one guy had the bathroom door open and sat on that seat.

We arrive just fine, as did our bags. We see some people waving, so we assume that some people from the local school; it was. We go out the front of the airport and we get the ceremonial welcome treatment, with 5 beautiful girls in traditional dresses presenting us bread (non) and salt. We were given flowers and recited poetry. This was strictly an airport welcome as we were off to Isfara. The local school did all that just so we would have a welcome. Are these people great or what?

After a very scenic journey, and a small ‘misunderstanding” at a checkpoint (and I was asked to erase certain images from my camera, we made it to Isfara. We arrive at one school, minor attention from locals, then walk to another for an outstanding treatment. First the confusing part. The ILC had been setup at a public school. Just the week before, the director of that school and all the staff basically went and formed a private school (teachers go because they pay better). So we walked to this school from the school where the ILC was, because the ILC is where Ibrahim works.

The ceremonial bread/salt, flowers, recitations in Tajik and English, cheers and claps from the two long rows of well dress students. Luckily I was playing photographer because the next event was teaching Americans Tajiki dancing! I got great shots of George and Andy and the crowd with big smiles on their faces.

Now comes the impressive part. These schools each somehow manage to present something original to us, and none have coordinated with each other, which impresses me. This time our unique treat was we were treated to a martial arts demonstration. These students were great. I got another one of my favorite images, a girl in the front row was trying to be very serious and a friend was at a window in front of her and somehow made her laugh and I captured that moment. Such natural joy and beauty combined in one image, I am proud of it. They did part of their routine to a Mortal Kombat theme, too cool. They even broke tiles. Then to top it all off, we find out from their instructor later, they have only been doing this for one year.

We are treated to a sample of a Physics class and a history class. I thought it was impressive that a section of the class learns in Tajik language and the other portion learns in Russian in the physics class. So he had students come to the board and do Speed/Distance problems. The two girls that came up each did it one in Tajiki and the other is Russian. After the history class, was a typical multi-course feast. You have to understand, when we arrive at a table, there is barely space for your tea bowl, the table is plate to plate of nuts, fruits, cookies, veggies, candies, bread, jams, raisons, everything! Before you know it, you have to start shifting things and make room, so you pile stuff on top of each other. We ate with other teachers and had a few interesting questions, and a few laughs as usual. People every meal tell me to eat, like I don’t know how, too funny.

After lunch, some dancing by the young girls, seven of them. Was a wonderful thing to view, and again, totally different routine, nothing we had seen before. I think we walked about for a few minutes then headed back to the ILC. I get tons of pictures this way because students will be on courtyard and just freeze when the new visitors come by; snap snap!

We enter the ILC and guess what, a traditional greeting with bread and salt! These kids were especially happy to see us because they knew I was their stateside partner. It was planned that I would be doing presentations for these students for this reason. I did the the PowerPoint about my students, school and home, and then answering questions. Then for the biggy, I got out the CPS system and we did a 10 question test, most questions had illustrations this time. It was designed for a younger crowd, but the English was enough of a challenge to keep these kids involved. I gave the e-instruction hat to the highest score, and other e-instruction items to two students tied for second. Then I used the random student selection feature to distribute the rest of the e-instruction bracelets and pins. So after all this I ask the class if they liked it, they understood my English and responded back in English. So then I asked should I leave the system there or take it back to USA? They excited replied to leave it! So I told them I was going to, but they must use it and Relief International was going to check up on them. I let them know how special they were to be using it and they were the only people for over 1000 kilometers in any direction to have that technology available for their classroom. They were extremely pleased at this point. So now I spoke through a translator and told them how lucky I felt to be there and how it was like a dream to come true for me, and unfortunately I was getting “emotional”. We’ll I continued on and told how I had been communicating with their leader and he had expressed that his dream would be to have his own laptop, and I told the class I was going to make his dream come true also. I whipped it out of the bag and held it out to give to him amongst many cheers and claps. He was even more emotional than I was and hugged and cried and squeezed tears of joy from me too. This had everyone on their feet clapping for him. After everyone finally calmed down, he made a moving speech about dreams and tried to inspire the students, and when it got translated, he had said everything additional that I was going to say. This was absolutely great to me of course to be able to give so much to my partner school.

We interacted with the students, did question and answers formally and then individually as students wanted to talk to us. We did our “can I take a photo with you” images, gave and received emails and so on until it was our scheduled departure time. Everyone was happy when they left, as almost everyone in the room left with some kind of gift.

Ibrahim, the ILC manager, was going to host us for two night at his house. So the first night we met everyone but we treated to an exhibition on how they make their non (bread) because here in the north, the have a ‘side load” over instead of a “top load” oven, and I have seen both and its quite different. Every home we have stayed in seemed to have at least 3 generations present, plus a brother or sister with their family. This one was no different, and that what makes it great, there are people or children everywhere, and everyone wants to make sure you are comfortable and enjoying yourself in their home. We were also excited because it was semi-indoor plumbing, so I got to enjoy a “Tajiki Shower” and was quite refreshed.

Ibrahim’s mother is at the top of the family pyramid in the house and she is fantastic, wonderful sense of humor and very caring. She another one of the people who decided I have a “Tajiki” look about me, so translated that means I look like family! So I was treated great, like Ibrahim’s brother. Well, everyone sleeps on the floor, on mats, so they were making up the ‘guys’ room for the 3 teachers and Ibrahim. They were stacking the mats so we would have cushioning. She when to mat #2, and unfolding the mats the younger women had to folding in thirds, folded in back in half in stead, put it back on the ground, and told me that was my bed because it was wider! She said this without a word of English but all 6 people in the room including myself were absolutely cracking up laughing. The rest of the evening was all pleasant like that and I gave the kids coloring books and painting books. Sleep came soon after.

Day Ten

2006-04-28T04:56:00.000-05:00

Earth Day “Weekend”. We got a taxi and got a ride to the Dushanbe Arboretum, to participate in a Earth Day activity with Dushanbe School #10, the first school we had visited. There was a group of about 7 or 8 students and the ILC manager. We joined them in the trash pickup competition. I think we should have won since two of our boys found and old metal radiator, and it looked heavy and they were awarding points based on weight. They official you would hand your trash bag to would hold it up and announce the weight, and he would say “8”, and I’m thinking that is way more than eight pounds. Then I remember where I am at and must multiply by 2.2 to get kilograms, then all the weights start making better sense.

Where met American workers there from various NGO and Embassy staff, all very pleasant people. We also got the privilege to meet FLEX alumni students, these are students who spent a year in the US as an exchange student. The majority of them went for their senior year. Actually, they only go to year 11 here, so all had already graduated locally, but they got to graduate again in the US 12th grade. All spoke the most wonderful English, so it was easy to ask and answer questions. We all went to a Turkish restaurant together, and I barely remember what I ate because I was having a good time joking around with the students. Most are in university now studying for roles of leadership, such as International Business, Medical/Pharmacy School, and Economics. Tajikistan is very lucky to have the future of the country in the hands of young people like this.

We finally got to do some shopping. Unfortunately the first bazaar we went to could be described as “Made in China”. One of the most common things the garments are made of here is called Atlas Cloth, the beautifully colored patterned material used for the dresses. They even had fake Atlas Cloth there, where it just dyed onto white fabric, so its one sided. So we only picked up one or two items them, mainly Tajik produced beverages.

We headed back to the office to do some work now. Waiting for us was a lady and her daughter who had the real goods. Cloth, rugs, mats, clothes, purses, key fob and jewelry.
I picked up quite a few items, and it was a ‘negotiable’ experience, so that made it fun. She produces many of these items, or collects them from village women. What happens is these are made and are often given as gift, but get put away and sit there for ages. So these old people I guess sell them to her for some amount. Andy bought some type of rug that was over 100 years old, I bought a tablecloth that is over 35 years old, a purse that is 23 years old, this one I know exactly because 1983 is in embroider into the purse!
All had the most intricate handwork. I am looking forward to another experience like this as we travel tomorrow to the north. We leave in the morning to catch a plane to the north and I’ll get to visit the schools around Isfara that I have been teamed with. I have many things to leave with them.

We had dinner with a Relief International worker, Shukrat, and his family. This was nice to get to be in the home of one of the people who has been helping us make things happen. He has 3 beautiful children.

This is starting to drive me crazy, I have to keep saying “beautiful, wonderful, happy, great” for everything I describe. But it is true, so I guess that is what the rest of the week will be like.

Back at the apartment we started making preparation for our trip, we’ll be gone 5 days/4 nights. We finished/started laundry. Started packing suitcase and organizing our little tokens of “Americana” that we can leave behind to help with people remember our visits, but I don’t think our stuff is as memorable as the time we are spending with the people because of all the interactions with everyone directly, plus all the photos to prove we were their.

I think I leave my bandanas behind, besides the one I’ll be wearing. We’ve decided that makes me more American when I have that on.

Well, time for bed.

Faces of the North

2006-04-25T00:16:00.000-05:00

We flew North of Dushanbe on Monday, and I wish to share some a the few faces I saw on this day

Day Nine

2006-04-23T07:14:00.000-05:00

I didn’t know today was Saturday until someone told me. I don’t try to keep track of the date, just count what day we are on. Since it is day 9, we are approaching the midpoint. Well, we’re in Sarband as mentioned before staying in a very nice apartment complex, by my standards, not US standards. George and Andy had beds last night, but I had the shower!

We awoke ahead of schedule, we live the whole day on a schedule. So before you know, George and I are messing with our computers, writing or editing pictures, organizing files…just trying to stay up to date. I opened the window to bring in the items I put out on the line. It was one of those circle lines one a pulley, I’d never used one, so I used it to air out my shirts! After a while we started packing up and getting dressed. I got my camera ready, because I try to carry it all the time and photograph everything. Today’s bandana was a Texas flag, has all the right colors for USA without looking like I’m disgracing the flag of my country. I’m in a country wear most women where scarves on their heads and the men wear a skullcap style hat, so me wearing something closer to a bandana is very attention getting, but I also have my sunglasses and goatee so everyone looks at me, as they know “I’m from out of town”. Which is great, because they are then facing the right direction for a photo!

Well, we went to breakfast just a few minutes late, and it was very pleasant because they ate with us. It was Sebo and her mother and other relatives plus the Afghan/Tajik woman. A big bowl of the rice pudding thing with butter and sugar and I was set for the day. We walked to the school area and met up with the students who we were going on a hike/picnic with. I think there were about 15 of them. From there it was off to this wild area, near the river. Very pleasant walk except for this ‘bridge like structure’ that George and all the students crossed. Andy and I decided he was officially “Crazy George after that”, and when you see the pictures, you decide if you would have walked across!

George had brought enough ball caps to give all the students one, so they kind of looked like a Tajik/American hybrid. The girls looked especially cute in them. They were donated from various sources, so I actually don’t think any two were alike. We walked to our destination and George and I were last because he kept searching the plants for unusual specimens, and I kept stopping to photograph things.

The picnic was nice and we had some very good discussion with the students. We actually generated most of the questions, and would go around the group to get everyone to answer. We also played “two truths, one lie” which was a good ice breaker and English exercise for the students, as coincidently, most of these students are in the English Club. Let me say the same thing I do almost everyday, I just love the appearance of these people, so I really enjoy getting the up close photos of them. Especially with the caps on today!

Oh, I forgot to tell you about the cobra. Well, let me just include a photo or two and you make your own story!

We eventually made it back, thanks to Andy and 5 of the guys pushing the van up a very sandy incline. I would have helped, but I was photographing the event! Andy is the unofficial spokesman for our group, George and I decided, and if he ever reads this, he’ll know too! So we just let him get in there and mix it up with the kids, and he is great at that.

We went back to the school and it was an “Andy day”, coincidently. He does teambuilding and other activities with them. Thinking and/or physical activities that put them in situations where they interact with each other in very new ways. We actually had a gymnasium available to us, so we were in there. He did some total group activities, and when it was time to work with smaller groups, George and I assisted. Later it got down to three groups and at one point I had a group around me doing the ”chain”, as they had already done Andy’s latest challenge, Andy had a group and George had a group keeping them entertained.

This visit, just as every other was a good time because these kids were just laughing and smiling all the time. We don’t know what their typical day is like, be we don’t they have ever had this much fun with “teachers” before.

There was some point that I was also with a big group of kids outside the apartment again, I can’t remember what it was before or after! I played with the chain for a while, and had a lot of fun. After that, I took a stick from a boy and wrote “1 2 3” in the dirt. I had about 20-25 new students. Many could tell me what they were when I pointed to them. Then I drew a square, circle and triangle. No one could tell me them in English. I am squatting down at this point so I am lower then most of them. I point to each individual shape and say it name in English very slow. They repeat wonderfully. We get through them all, and I try and try to get them to tell me the names in Tajik. They weren’t understading my request, but luckily Sebo’s mother, who also teaches (and speaks it wonderfully) had just walked up and assisted, told them I was asking for Tajiki names. I did square pretty good, but somehow I really slaughtered the pronunciation of circle because 40 people just started cracking up. I eventually got it right, and then finished the shapes. I gave the little kid back his stick. I then had everyone pose by the wall with me and we got some great group photos of me and my “fan club”. Actually they are very excited to have their picture taken in these group situations, whether I’m there or not.

When we have asked the students here the question, “If you were to come to the United States, what is one thing you definitely would like to see or do?” guess what the most common answer was? I was thinking mall, eat something specific, Grand Canyon, Disney (we did get one or two Disneys), something any teenager would say. I was totally surprised how many children said they would want to see the Statue of Liberty. Really! Even had one kid describe the pose saying the “big one with the fire and book”. The fact, I think they wanted to see it for what it represents, more than its an impressive statue. It is that mentality that put these kids on a higher level than the typical student I deal with.

The sad thing we are slowly hearing, is that there are girls here, who may get perfect grades in school, and be able to get the equivalent to a scholarship where University would be paid for, and their parents won’t let them go, basically because they are girls.
But times are changing slowly here is Tajikistan and maybe that will become less a common occurrence. We were told that 40% of the population of the country is 17 and under, so these school kids will soon be the dominant force in the country over the next 10 years. They have basically grown up in the country while it has been Tajikistan, not part of the Soviet Union, so they are the ones with a strong sense of pride, but also a strong global awareness because of the Internet and programs like Schools OnLine. So it is great that many of these schools also have leadership type activities.

Fri-Sun is Global Youth Services Day. One of the things we got to participate in with the students was the planting of two trees in their courtyard. I committed to them that I would come back to Tajikistan and see those trees again before I die, and I meant it. After the tree, we were back inside for dance lessons, and exchanging emails, plenty of picture taking. I got out an extra bandana and the kids just had a blast taking turns having their picture taken wearing it. It was sadly time to leave again.

They have this huge main street here, “Rudaky”, and if they put a couple of hotels with western amenities, they could start handling some tourist. Oh, due to the destruction of the two giant bhudda statues in Afghanistan by the Taliban a few years back, the largest bhudda statue (the reclining Bhudda) is actually here in Dushanbe. I can’t wait to see that! They have museums in town, and beautiful country side. Its really strange, but this country has so much potential if they can just figure out how to modernize a minimal of things. At all the little towns, again if they just built a 20 room hotel with modern plumbing, they be good to go. There are plenty of places to eat, the food is delicious, the people are nice. They could organize bus tours and they are often to bringing the tourist dollar in. I guess they need to send some of their citizen to Costa Rica and see how the “country” is used as the tourist attraction. This would actually be one of those great countries that you move to after you retire. Buy a home or two, rent one for some income. Start learning the language. They have TV and movies here, but just live here with the people and all will be well.

We rode back to Dushanbe and “Crazy George” volunteered to ride in the cargo part of the jeep. Basically it has the jumper type seats in the back, so it was him and all of our luggage. But it had a nice rear window so here never really complained a bit. We stopped at a road-side vendor to look at mushrooms. Was told prices were too high. Susie traded with George here, and we made the rest of the journey home. Did you see that, I called Dushanbe “home”! Of course, we are a dedicated bunch, and we didn’t go straight home, we headed to the office so we could have connectivity and get online! I was three days behind posting, and the other guys a few days themselves, plus we all wanted to upload an image or two. George called his wife using Skype, so Andy and I each begged for the same privilege with ours. It was Saturday around 8:30 am for my wife, 6:30am for theirs since they both live on the Pacific Coast. Everyone sounded happy to hear from us, and I know how happy we were to tell them we were fine, all in good health and how much we missed them, we could have almost prepared a written statement because we said so many of the same things and were asked the same things by our wives!

We had dinner in Dushanbe, at a restaurant called SALSA. It was a western meal, Andy and I had Fajita's and George had Enchiladas. This was as typical as American restaurant quality. Good eating, and then we went to a local grocery store for bread and a few items. I bought some local Pepsi with the cool writing on the cans to take back. I bought other food items I liked the label on, and a few things of juice for consumption. It was so weird after being in villages with outdoor bathrooms and mud fences, to be somewhere where they wee scanning barcodes on my groceries. The funny thing was I was supposed to get like 90 dimars back (a dimar would be the same as a penny to us); they gave me a 50 dimar note and 2 chicken bullion cubes. It happened to George too so we figured those are supposed to be our 20 dimar notes! I bet if we tried to get on the bus with a bullion cube (the fair is 20 dimar, things would get crazy!

Don't Forget!

2006-04-22T08:55:00.000-05:00

You can click any photo for a larger version of it!

Day Eight

2006-04-22T08:48:00.001-05:00

This is a smaller town, or should I say village. Have you ever been greeted by an entire village? I was for the first time today, and I have the photos to prove it. It was like being in a parade, but instead of being in a parade, you are the parade. Everyone is there to see you, to say welcome, or to shake your hand. People want to have their picture taken with you. Multiple people are taking your picture! Of course on the flip side, some person from the other side of the world with a big camera wants to take a picture of a simple person like you. I have photographed at least 500 to 1000 faces since I have been here and its not even a whole real week yet!

Okay, from the beginning. We had spent the night at a house in Chorbogh. So we freshened up a bit, ate some breakfast. They have a dish that is like a rice pudding, but much more rice, it may be a rice/yogurt mix. They serve it warm, with a slab of butter in the middle. The serve everything, beside soups, communal. One big "dig in" set in the middle of a seating section. It is for you and everyone who can reach it. If you have been given a small dish, you take a portion for you, but typically, you either use your spoon and eat from the big-dish, or you tear a piece of naann (their flat bread) and dip/scoop up whatever it is. The national dish is traditionally eating with fingers, no utensils. But before serving that, someone comes to you with a pitcher and bowl and you rinse your hands at your seat. Its not just a “tradition” written about, its real because I've done it more than once! Back to breakfast, your juice, fruit, nuts, yogurt, breads, cookies, coffee, and tea are of course on the table, as they are on almost every meal. Well, I shouldn’t say table, because its on the floor if indoors, or on a kot if outdoors. Basically food is around on a rectangular cloth and then long cushions are placed around, and regular cushions if you want something to put behind your back or to lean on. If you have good knees and good circulation, this is fine. If you don’t you have to keep changing position every 10-15 minutes.

Traditionally in the home here, shoes come of before you enter or right at the entrance. I guess I keep saying “traditional” when I should say the ‘Tajik way’ because its not a thing of the past, its how most people here do things.

Well, lets leave breakfast, off we go to the school, but we don’t make it to the school, at the end of a street there is a gathering of people, so we have to stop. Upon closer inspection is a welcoming party! The girls were dressed in their beautiful Tajik dress, we were greeted with the bread and salt, and then came our drums. They played the drums and we were mesmerized by 5 tiny dancers. As usual, there is always one that even though some low age, they look like they been dancing twice as long as they been alive. And they don’t really have dance school here, they learn a little a school, but more at home and with friends and elders. Speaking of elders, they was a lady their with medals on both sides of her jacket. She been around and served her country well, though I a guessing it was during the soviet era.

After the small presentations, we walked by the school, to an old watermill still in operation to grind flour. Then we took the scenic route back to the school. This school also prepared a mock wedding and also a demonstration the national cradle used for first day, to bring good luck. They put a real toddler girl in it, strapped her in and then the one playing the mother did a wonderful lullaby. They showed us the other parts, the dress, the old and new style groom outfits, and as soon as we hit the foyer, there is the old lady showing her Tajik dance skills, and the 5 little ones join her after a bit. One of my favorite things is watching the Tajik dances. I have had to do them twice, and I’d much rather watch.
After finishing the outdoor part of the wedding process, the kids start wanting to take pictures with us. We honor all request without hesitation. Then our handlers rushed us off for another walk to actually see how the Tajik breads are made.

This was also fun. First we have to walk through the village and people are again coming out to see us walk by, great photo opportunities for me as I’ll lag behind the main group. We get there and she is making bread, demonstrating the different type and such. She also has been librarian somewhere for a long time. Andy volunteers to be the American bread maker. To the great smiles of the crowd he went through the paces. He didn’t have the ‘slap it up against the side” thing down so well, so he started doing something wrong and sliding down instead of cooking. I guess it was well described by someone because all onlookers were laughing now. The baker lady was making comments about women vs men and such and I can say is there was no one who wasn’t smiling. We also got to try it freshed baked for the first time – what a difference. These things are larger than a large pizza, but I bet if I had enough beverage, I could eat the whole thing – it is delicious. I am so glad we got to experience this.

Let me make something real clear to my readers back home, it like comparing “going to see the Alamo” to “visiting the Alamo while a real battle is going on”. That is what most of our experiences are like. We are doing and experience things that most people only read or see a picture of. These are not actors, this is real life!

After the bread, guess what, someone had a drum and here comes some more dancing, but these were the neighborhood women. Remember, we are three men, so they are ready to show off for the visitors! Its just plain fun.

We finally get to go to lunch. So we walk to this guys house who used to be a professional wrestler, like an Olympic type, but I assume during soviet times, that was a paid position. He was 62 and solid as a rock, lots of gusto for life. The man had 10 sons and explained how strong, hard working men produce boys. He was a character. Not all his sons are married so he was teasing the two female members of our party, doing a matchmaker kind of thing. All in good spirits. There was a lady making fresh butter by hand right outside the front door when we got there. After lunch, this guy was quite proud of his garden ( 13 different fruits produced) so we did a walking tour with him.

Finally we are off to the school. Andy did a team skills presentation and it went over well. I did my first one on letterboxing, and since I was preparing during Andy’s it went well too. Our projector was working good, so we had good displays. I explained the process and then we were off to find our first letterbox. This was actually a historical event, because it is the first letterbox ever in Tajkistan! I had hid th eone I made during Andy’s show, so I would have to say, I think the kids understand what they have to do now. I left carving tools, erasers, markers, notepads. All they had to do was start carving and start hiding. I hope it goes well. It’s a hobby that will work fine within their socio-economic situation.

Time was a little more critical, as today it was expressed that our driver’s mother had become deathly ill. So we rushed off to the next town so that he could drop us off and head home.

We arrived ina complex of apartments, later in the day when everyone was home and all the kids were playing in the central park area. I had been wearing one of my ‘american flag’ type bandanas. This got attention everywhere and the town does not often get visitors so we were quickly mobbed by little children who just want to see what we looked like or to say their 1 word they knew in English to us. I started pointed my camera and it like when you throw feed out to pigeons, every single one in the area swarms! They all wanted to appear in a photograph they would never see! We were shown where we would be sleeping and dropped our stuff their, and then head to the net building for dinner. Now the children were outside waiting for us. I got George to use my camera and take a few shots by telling the translator to announce I want all the children around me. The photo tells the feelings I had!

Here, we stayed with the family of the ILC manager. Two years ago she did a similar exchange and had spent 3 weeks in California with other teachers from Tajikistan. She says it as like a dream and if she didn’t have the photos to prove it wasn’t she would still think it was only a dream! That is a great way to describe this visit. Besides managing the ILC, she also teaches English to the upper grades, and her mother is also a teacher of English at another school in town, to other grade levels. So they are able to converse with use in English. Also, the manager had her best student there, who also spoke very decent English to us. I guess the funniest part of the whole evening was that a friend of the family showed up, a women of Afghan roots, but raised in Tajikistan. I often caught her and the daughter-in-law looking at me and discussing something. Then our translator and the mother got into the conversation, often with looks in my direction, so I announced “is there a question” as I was very sure they were talking about me. The translator said that they had expressed that I look very much like a Tajik man, more than American. I explained that I come from Puerto Rico and we are a darker people, so I probably do look more Tajik, especially since I have been in the sun the last few days and have been getting color. Then the Afghan-Tajik woman said something that got translated “she is glad to meet me and would be pleased to cooperate with me” then the women made some kind of wise-crack in Tajik and the 4 of them could not stop laughing, our translator was laughing so hard she had to leave the room and was still laughing when she came back. Apparently it related to the type of “cooperation” she meant, and one had ventured a guess. Of course everyone who didn’t hear any of the comment was laughing because our translator was laughing so hard, as well as the other women in on the joke. This atmosphere and the English conversation made dinner very pleasant for everyone.

Soon we went to the apartment we were sleeping in. Here, I received fantastic news. The had a ‘western’ style toilet. That does not mean there are picture of cowboys and indians on it, it means it look like one at home, instead of a hole in the ground! The best news of all, there was a shower. I had not bathed in three days at that point, so who cared the water felt like ice, it was clean and very refreshing.

One thing of note, before yesterdays photography, I made CDs of my photography so far and gave to my co-teachers. It seems I had shot over 2100 images since arriving in California, and yesterday I shot over 450, and it is not the midpoint of the trip yet. I had predicted I would shoot around 3000. This appears to be an underestimate! I’ve got my camera setting more optimized and I got a decent technique for shooting in the moving car. The other two had voted, since we are all sharing our pictures with each other, I would always sit in the front seat and do my photography because all three of us benefit that way. Works for me too. I brought a all in one zoom lens, wide angle to 10x zoom, but in digital is 1.5 more magnified, so its not as wide, but zoomed all the way out they are 15x closer than a normal lens. I am able to get great face or head and shoulder shots of the people here.

One of the things I definitely have learned and need to share to so maybe others can learn too. I knew very little about this part of the world in general, just some geography from my days of stamp collecting, or my involvement with cameras from the Ukraine. Well, if I saw people dressed in typical clothes as I see here on the news or photos, I had always assumed they were simple and uneducated. This is untrue totally. I will never again “judge a book by it cover”. They have reason for all their clothes and they are a culture with 2700 years of history, that’s more than 10 times our history. Their fashion meets the needs of their climate and beliefs. Just as at home I know if someone wears a cowboy hat doesn’t mean they have ever ridden a horse, the clothes do not tell you everything about the wearer.

This country is beautiful. We have been in at least 5 cities since we have been here, and this is supposed to be a poor country, yet I have not seen a beggar! I have the photos online showing the homeless guy in California. I have traveled to poor parts of South America and saw beggars everywhere. I had been to restaurants down there where children wait by the trash receptacle to prevent you from throwing any uneaten food away. No one seems without a home here, nor have we seen anyone begging. Apparently everyone takes care of everyone. I think it was expressed that it would be an embarrassment to the family if a member had to beg.

Oh, and these are some hard working people. This country does a lot of agricultural the way it was done 50 to 100 years ago. You go by a field and there is a group of people each with their own hoes tilling the soil. Everyone goes out and collects sticks for burning. Everyone cuts grasses and such to bring home to feed the animals. There is not as much trash as one would imagine and I think this is because they are not wasteful. For instance, they grow cotton in many areas. Its mostly picked the old ways, by person with bags. But the plants are not plowed under; they are left to dry and then used by the people to burn, either for heat or for baking.

All their live stock is free-range. So chickens, sheep, goats, turkeys and even cows, wonder about to eat and the children are often the herders and observers. Everyone works hard here! That is probably why no one looks like they have my body shape!

Day Seven

2006-04-22T08:35:00.001-05:00

Over the mountains to Koylob. We arrive and there is two lines of elementary students, the girls with wonderful big white bows in their hair, everyone holding a flower. As soon as we get near them, “WELL COME, WELL COME, WELL COME” They emphasize it like it is two words, so I wrote that so you could imagine better. Then here come these older girls and boys with bouquets of roses of various colors. They give us one or two bouquets each! Remember the royalty thing?

So we walk along the lines and here comes the “WELLCOME” again until we are inside. There the head of the school give us a tour and the local ILC manager is serving as our translator. They start taking us to classrooms, we’re all excited about that. Each class demonstrates their skills to us. We saw a 3rd and 4th grade English (language) class. Students would stand and rip of list of words they knew in English by hard. Absolutely adorable, as they were so eager and so proud to show us what they could do. We also visited a Physics class and a Geography class. Again, the student performances were a blast. The geography class had us point on maps where we teach. I was impressed with their science program, so next year I had planned to partner up with some schools to do temperature studies for a global warming experiment. I plan on adding this school to my list. I have t work on the company that produces data collection units and try to get at least two more so I can have at least 3 schools participating with their own units.

We then saw their science store room and had some student generated products. We later found out this is a private school, students pay about $17 month to attend. So they have established a value on education in their families, so it seemed they may perform a notch above the typical and the school seemed a bit better supplied than the others, especially in the science.

The biggest problem all these schools have is finding good teachers. University is not free, and it requires 5 years of university for secondary teaching and elementary requires just 2. Regardless their salary for a starting teacher is between the equivalent of $10-15 dollars a month. I did not make any mistakes in my typing! I get paid more per hour than they get paid for month. Almost every teacher in the country has to have an additional job. We have heard this one way or another during our discussions at each location. Many will tutor at home and things like that. One big difference we found out about here, its very untypical to use a bank for loans. People save and buy their house or vehicle, paid in full. I wish I could figure out a way to come back here and either do some teaching or something. Maybe I need to change my “Fund for Teachers” grant request from Italy to Tajikistan. We also learned from the embassy guy there is work on getting Fulbrights established to Tajikistan.

Well, after touring the classes, it was time for lunch. And then after lunch it was time to visit the ILC and we do do our projects. But we were welcomed again and had a presentation put on for us. About a dozen students came out dressed traditionally. Then half go away and there are about 8 little girls who are going to show us traditional dancing. Then all of a sudden they start coming to us 1 at a time and taking us out to dance with them. All I can say is the song was too long. The audience had much laughter. They had some more student presentations of various things, all either making us laugh or making us clap. Eventually it was the time for us to do our parts. This time it was my turn to do a presentation. They asked that I do one about my school and students (and I added a little about home, because they seem to like that stuff). Our projector worked fantastic this time once I hit it just right one time, and then we were very, very gentle with it. It received some type of damage in transit, and daily it bounces around (even in the suitcases) in the bag in the back of the SUV. We determined sometimes squeezing it or slapping it can get things back in order. We are not sure if somehow this relates to the 220volt/50megahertz power supply here or not.

Mine was followed by George’s on using technology to teach, using math as an example. His was for teachers, so they ran the students outside. I took this opportunity to play with the rings and chains, and the numbers trick. They liked as usual. I got to leave a ring/chain because Relief International had gone to stores and found supplies for making around 10. I’ve been able to leave one at every stop. Tomorrow is the day I introduce the country to letterboxing. It so profound to think that some of the things we doing are actually the first time that have probably ever been done in their nation.

After everything was over, the school director demanded we take a tour of the botanical gardens. A worthy journey, they have some very unique and beautiful species of flowers in their collection. Sadly we were told that they used to have over 1000 species of plants there, but during the revolution, fences were torn down and cows and people did much damage and they lost at least 400 species. The main director came and he was a wonderful petite man. I figured this helped him be such a great botanist, being closer to the ground. Even though he spoke Tajik, and George didn’t, George has a background in plants as he has done research in his area for rare species. Well, the botanist (he also is a university instructor) director starts naming plants in genus species; well those are the scientific/Latin names. Those are universal; there is no translation, just maybe pronunciation differences, so at that point they can speak the same language, the language of science! Pretty cool, huh!

Back to the school so we can use the internet for a while, to update our journals, or answer emails. I actually had to pay my credit card bill online. I had lost track of days here, so it was a late payment sadly!

First thing I am going to buy when I get home is a additional battery for my computer. I have now found I can easily produce more work time than battery life. Speaking of batteries, I didn’t bring my double AA charger on the little trip, left it back in Dushanbe, because I charged all my batteries before departure. Something has happened because all 12 of them are dead! I need to get them to find someplace selling some double AA today. I’ll probably buy 16 because I use them 4 at a time. I’m taking lots of pictures out the window these days as we travel down the road. I have gotten my timing pretty good and I get my subject in frame.

We ended the evening traveling to another village. It is cool, there really are villages here! This was to put us at the home we would be staying for the night. It belong to the family of an ILC student for the ILC we would be visiting the next day. Including drivers, there were 7 of us in the group. Life is semi-simple, so it apparently is not that big a deal to have 7 extra people in your home as long as you have enough plates and enough bedding material.

Day Six - Nurek

2006-04-22T08:34:00.001-05:00

We ventured to the south of Dushanbe to continue our visits. This time we went to the town of Nurek. This town is famous for it huge dam and hydroelectric production. We got to tour the facility because the local head of education has pull, so he actually took us in his car. We weren't allow to photograph inside. We did go inside and see the turbines, as well as the main control room. If you find an older James Bond movie and find a control room run by Spectre, this is it. All the gauges were needles, and the readouts on top we’re numbers made out of light bulbs. You might even think there were vacuum tubes inside. Regardless, this thing was within 1% accuracy for measure the Megawatts being put out. They have never done major upgrade or maintenance since its been installed, they have just added more units as they have added turbines. The facility supports up to 9 turbines. A solid soviet work of engineering. We then toured the dam itself and around the dam for some spectacular views and pictures. The water on both sides has this wonderful blue coloration, it looked quite inviting to jump into.

Lunch was in a local restaurant, then onto the school. Outside the ILC, they were waiting in traditional dress with a large bread that had the words WELCOME on it, baked into the shape. Tradition is that guest such as ourselves break off a piece of the bread, dip it in salt and then consume. It reminded me of a good big salty pretzel.
We went in the room and sat at the Kings table, there is always a table and we a treated like royalty every time we got to one of these schools, so I can only assume that what it would be like to sit at a table as a king.
This was fun. They had some history and other presentations in English, but they also had some riddles for us to try and solves. I got one right and was rewarded with a Snickers bar, which was exciting because all the rest of the writing on the label was not in English, probably Russian. One thing I am slowly getting used to is the no ice – drinks at just below room temperature. Luckily the fruit sodas here are great. We have had peach, pear, apricot and apple. But back to the good stuff, the kids!
They had some dancing for us. At this school my heart was totally stolen by a little 5 year old girl. First she performed an Indian style dance with amazing yellow costume. Then after a performance by a teenager of traditional tajik dancing, the little girl teamed with a little drum player and performed traditional dancing also – it was amazing, I was wondering how could I afford to pay for a performance like that. As soon as the song was over I zoomed out to our vehicle, got a teddy bear my daughter had donated (she had won three at a festival in Houston, left them wrapped so I could take to Tajikistan) and brought it in for the dancing girl. I’m sure McKenzie would have approved of my choice. I have some close up pictures of this child and she is just stunning. But which of these kids aren’t?

George, the teacher from Washington state, did his powerpoint on using the computer and internet in the classroom, and also on his hometown and school. That is actually a big deal here. They want to know if things they have read about America or American schools is true or what do they have in common with themselves. After that, our projector quit working again, as I was going to use the CPS with them. Did it anyway, just had to use my computer screen. We got by and got some good photos probably. They were the first students in Tajikistan to use that technology, I hope they understood that! It also has a random student selector, and we used that feature to give away some prizes.

We then broke into individual groups, and George talked about the software used to put together the multimedia presentation his students use. I was entertaining a group with the chain and ring and Andy was doing something with the teachers I think, plus answering questions from a small group.

We then got pulled to the internet and participated in a live online chat between ourselves and the other schools in the country. It was hectic, but fun. We took turns using the two computers between the three of us.

Next some girls said they wanted to take a picture with me. I said ok, then they said in the courtyard, and once in the courtyard they said over to the side of the school, I said ok, then they said over behind the school, and then over by the wall/fence, and then on the other side of the fence, then over toward the river and then down the steps and I was trying to figure out how can I tell them this is called “kidnapping”, but then they said down by the river and wanted to go down the steep embankment, and I indicated I didn’t like that idea, so we walked down to a jetty type structure. We got our pictures, and they asked fun little question coming and going. One of them spoke pretty good English, but wouldn’t speak to me, so the other four would ask her how to say something and then they would ask me. I almost felt like I had a fan club but the whole thing was about getting me to find boys to email them! On our way back, I got some of the lip products my sister sent from her company, they seemed quite pleased by the little special gift each of them got.

We got back inside for more pictures with different combinations of people. I then went to the car again, and brought my little white board and dry erase markers in. The each student would write their name, and hold the placard and I would photograph them so we could put names and faces together much easier.

We then got online and I showed them my wedding pictures, as wedding are a interesting topic to girls of course. The translator hung out and helped with questions and answers, thank god for her on this trip, she is invaluable.

We then leave to go to the home of a student to spend the night. They feed us dinner and breakfast. As welcoming and hospitable as everyone else we have met.

Day Five

2006-04-18T23:25:00.001-05:00

Another day beyond my dreams. We had our usual morning pickup by the driver and we went to office get our RI-SOL teammate/translator. She is really nice, but I don’t think she knows how much we are really enjoying this adventure.

I had always kind of joked around back home about this trip that it would be like National Geographic. Today was! We began our day with a journey to Gissar. On the way, we stopped at a village that had been destroyed in a 1989 earthquake. Everyone was killed beside an infant found in her crib. The village was next to a small mountain, which the earthquake caused it to break and turn into a landslide, crushing or covering the entire village. The little girl had no remaining relatives, so I don’t remember who they said took her in, but they named her after the village. The village has been rebuilt, but you can see where the land mound broke, they mine sand there now for brick making. While exploring around we caught the attention of a few locals, greeted each other and got them to pose with us for a group photo. I hope we made a positive excitement in their day.

Because of being under Russian control for a long period, many of the Tajiks speak Russian. It funny to hear us referred to as “Americanskis”.

After the village we made it to our first stop, the area known as Gissar. This area has a fort from the 1400 years ago there, or the reminants of. The main gates were reconstructed, and are beautiful. Actually, on their currency here, the back of the 20 has a image of this fortress. If you think about the locations on the back of our, you know how important it is. The town also boast the first mosque built by the Arabians in the region of the world. The town was significant because it is on the ‘silk route’. While exploring the fortress, their were many children there, some even followed us in because we were ‘different’. While taking photos, I started interacting with the children. Luckily the translator was with me, as the other guys went up the mounds out there. They had made soapbox cars without the box, they were riding these down the slopes, and having a good time.

One of the boys yelled out “Papi chulo” to me. I didn’t think I heard him right, so I said it back, and he repeated it exactly. So I wasn’t still sure I heard it right, maybe it just sounded like that. Remember, I’m on the other side of the world, and in a remote village at that. I got the translator involved, and sure enough, these kids have heard some Spanish rap! Too funny. So now we are conversing with the kids because of this and watching some also play with turtles, which apparently are very common out there. I happen to have a pair of “ring & chain” setups in my pocket, so time for some magic. It is great when I do it and have another person trying at the same time. I had 10 kids around us in no time at all. Even had a ‘village elder” come to see what all the commotion was about and he requested I do it for him. He asked if “magic” was involved! He said he liked the trick. The kids and I had a lot of fun. I regret that I didn’t think to bring a bunch of these, and especially that I didn’t raid my daughters magic kit to bring some stuff with me. I remember watching a David Blaine special about street magic where he went into ‘poor’ non-english speaking areas and was just bringing huge smiles onto these people faces. I could have had a lot of fun with the children doing a few very simple tricks! We are trying to get me more rings/chains, so I can start leaving them at each school. I bought enough in California, at the last minute, to be able to make three, so I only have two left, but 10 more schools to visit. Pray they find me some rings!

We left the fort and went across the street to the museum. Got our own little tour from a very knowledgeable guide. The majority of the artifacts are just there, we even had permission to touch a few. Remember, I am learner, so I was having a great time, and I got to photograph stuff too.

We finally left to head towards lunch. We at in a restaurant, that apparently also has a bakery, the smells were absolutely incredible as soon as we stepped out of the car. Two little girls were walking down the street towards us, who had made wreaths to wear on their heads from some plants they found, they were just adorable as I took their photo. An unexpected result for them. Its funny, if you take a photo of a kid and show them it on the digital, they’ll tell you thank you, as if you did something for them. I really wish I had also followed another piece of advice I have know about. When going to areas like this, and you’re a photographer, its highly recommended you bring a Polaroid type camera so you can give them a photo to keep. My nexty adventure I’ll remember that one! Well, lunch was grand, a multicourse thing, and the final course were like four sausage shaped meat-loaf texture meat things. Tasted good, but I could only get one down because I had filled up on the prior courses, all meat related! You know I was happy. Actual quote from me: “Hey, there is a brick of meat in my soup”. It had these really big chunks of roast like meat. That was followed by a meat filled pastry, about the size of a typical turn-over.

We had one detour before the ILC, we needed some bricks and boards for a teamwork activity Andy was doing with the teachers and students. We raided some friend of the driver’s and borrowed some. We got there and we greeted by a drummer and clarinet(?) It was the second time we were great by the drum, so now it feels like “our song”. We are treated with a great amount of respect and reverence here, and it a new feeling to me, and I think to my teammates. Its amazing, to have this room full of strangers so excited and proud to have you visit. Each school it seems has prepared something for us to observed. The first time was the mini wedding with mini feast, including music and dancing. This time we got great by a musical performance outside. Then we get inside and the students give us a history of Tajikistan lesson in ENGLISH. That is followed by a demonstration of Tajiki dancing to music played by the students again.

Well, its finally our turn to do something, so we started to get the computers and projector ready. The schools computer room has its own electric generator provided by RI-SOL, but something about it wasn’t compatible with our projector, so we finally gave up and Andy was just going to do it holding up his laptop screen and walking around the audience. This was supposed to be a lesson for the teachers, but we had another 35+ kids there, so he modified as needed. There were a lot of team building activities, indoor and out. We didn’t know how apprehensive they would be about touching each other, or mixed gender touching. They did everything with eagerness.

Of course, after a while, I got out the chains and the students (and some of the teachers) were very entertained. Then it was picture time. And certain students were fighting about which got to stand by us. Back inside, individual students would request for pictures with us. Some wanted email, one just wanted autographs. We had had our usual question and answer session. The students often want to compare some aspect of their school to ours. This time they wanted to know how realistic high school movies like AMERICAN PIE were…ahhhh! It is sad to think of the stereotypes and such we promote worldwide with some of our movies.

After the school visit we were invited to the home of one of the students, Inobat. Her parents hosted us for tea and sweets. It was such a down to earth – real experience. We had been told ‘the people of Tajikistan are very hospital and they will accept a stranger into their home and offer them tea and sweets and often will feed them”. I thought of that as a nice “fairy tale”. It was amazing to find out it is 100% true. We were treated like neighbors and friends. We asked questions, they asked questions and we had some laughter. It is another on the long list of things I will never forget. We even got blessed by the babooshka.

For dinner that night we went to a Georgian restaurant. If you don’t know your geography, this has nothing to do with the state near Alabama. It is a region of Russia, such as Ukraine. I ordered a recommended dish. Don’t do that! It was chicken covered in sauce, but the sauce was so thick you could not tell what was meat and what was bone. The appetizers were splendid. First was a cheese bread, kind of like a sauceless pizza. The other was like a baked pastry with cheese inside.

The next day we were off for a 4 day/3 night trip. We spent the night packing and preparing the supplies we would need for a presentations during this period. Most of us went to bed around midnight.

Day Four

2006-04-18T09:03:00.001-05:00

Woke up kind of early, internal clock not set yet. Finished watching SPEAK, a movie I had on my computer about a high school girl who won’t talk much. Then started watching a documentary about the Da Vinci Code, and that put me back to sleep.

Woke up again around right time. Was first to take a shower. I opened the faucet and prayed the water would change back to colorless. After a short while it did!

We had bread and jam and tea and coffee at the apartment for breakfast. Packed our cameras and computers and set out for the day. We got to RI-SOL and I marked their location on the GPS, coordinates coming soon. We got history of Tajiksitan lesson and some info about its culture, and then had a short Q&A session. Then another speaker told us about history of the program here, where we’ll be going, what we’ll be doing. We had lunch and had this very interesting fellow from the US embassy join us and we just had a question and answer session, very informal, but extremely enjoyable. He gave us cool pins made with a US flag and Tajik flag together. I like to get pins of where I go, so this one will be highly treasured.

We finished eating and got ready to go to our first Internet Learning Center at a school in Dushanbe that is within walking distance. We get there and guess what, they prepared a mini feast for us (remember, I just say we just got finished eating!)

The performed a mini-wedding Tajikistan style. This was great and educational. We did other activities with the students, we even danced.

I will never forget this visit or any other visit to schools of Tajikistan. I wish to trade my students for a group of Tajikistan students, but I don’t think the government would allow it.

I will be putting pictures up from the visit very soon. I also hope to find a way to put video on the internet, we made movies from the student performances.

Every day I spend in Tajikistan is like finding a treasure.

HAPPY EASTER

2006-04-16T06:09:00.001-05:00

Today is Easter Sunday. My first granddaughter is getting baptised and I'm hoping to get photo's emailed to me.

I haven't seen an easter egg, or any other traditional thing you think of on Easter today, and doubt I will. That is kind of a weird feeling.

They took us all to the local Relief International office, within 5 minutes you had 3 laptops online and total silence except the noise of keyboards!

The only thing we have asked for is WATER! When was the last time that is the only thing you needed to be happy?

You readers need to figure out how to send me questions, so I can start answering them!

Hugs and kisses to all my family members, hugs to everyone else!

Day Three and a half, or 3.5 for the rest of you

2006-04-16T05:46:00.000-05:00

We made it to Tajikistan.

We explored Kazakstan for an hour or so before leaving. Took around 100 photos, but not all good, but hope the good ones will be on the BLOG this week, Monday?

We made it out of Kazakistan and into Tajikistan. The mountian range we flew over was absolutely amazing. The plane we flew on, no American would pay over $20 to fly on back home and the majority would turn around and walk right back off! I'm a stronger person since.

The Airport in Dushanbe is the smallest international airport I have ever been in. The guy from Relief International was there to greta us and he was great! We all felt good to have someone happy to see us. We're all married and probably do that 'honey I'm home' thing when we at our houses, so this was as close as we've gotten on the last few days.

OK, here's the time report Texas is now 6am Sunday and Dushanbe is 4pm sunday, so its exactly 10 hours difference. We are here for two more days and then the "NATIONAL GEOGRAPHICS" adventure kicks in!

[photos coming, I got interior and exterior plane shots!]

Day Three - very early and HAPPY EASTER

2006-04-16T05:45:00.001-05:00

It’s 3:30 pm on Saturday in Texas as I write this, but its 3:30am on Sunday where I am, so this message is coming from your future if you live anywhere west of me!

We arrived at Kazakistan airport without much incidence at 12:34am, just after midnight. So that means in California its 10:30 in the morning Saturday, but we left there at 2pm on Friday, so that about 20 hours of traveling. This flight was full, so the seat next to me was empty so I got to spread out, so I actually slept. I missed the in-flight meal because I was sleeping, so you know I was out! We wait to go through custom to find out we have to go to the consular window to get a visa. We knew we had to, but we didn’t know where. There is a big WELCOME TO KAZAKISTAN sign in the airport, but your not allowed to photograph it!

After we each paid our $25 for our visas we only need for 12 hours, as we leave around noon, we grab our bags and find the guy with a sign with our names. We were the last one out and the first sign we saw was for us. As soon as we are out the airport door, we encounter our first beggar boy. Followed out through car repeating his little chant along side George with his hands out, then when George reached the car, he started on me. We loaded up the van and the guy told me to get in the front seat, so I was going to go around the van and he starts telling me something forcefully. I hadn’t noticed it was a European van, and the other side was the drivers, not the passenger side as we are used to!

We got dropped at this fairly nice hotel. We lug all my heavy stuff up the stairs and try to check in. They can’t find us, anything about Relief International, nothing. I look at the paperwork we have and suggest we ask if this is the hotel Grossgzy and it the hotel Aliban. The driver’s paperwork was wrong. So a few phone calls and about an hour after arrival, we’re checking in at the correct hotel. The desk staff are females at both hotels, so since its Easter, I give them some lip products from UrbanDecay/Hard Candy, donated by my sister. At the first hotel, 5 minutes after I had given it to them, I hear one of them saw “WOW” in a loud surprised way and then both start giggling. They seemed to be enjoying the little trinkets.

The hotel room is quite nice. Little twin bed, TV, A/C, and huge bathroom. I went to take a shower and when I turned on the shower, there was actually so much pressure the shower head lifted up a few inches and hit the ceiling. This was going to be a good shower!

Well, I’m off to take a 3 hour nap now!

[will update with pictures from Kazakistan next time I'm at PC]

DAY TWO - Afternoon and then some...

2006-04-16T05:40:00.001-05:00

We made it through traffic and all the security check points to get to our gate at a comfortable pace. At the last minute I stopped to by some cinnamon candy, as the last thing I had consumed was coffee and I was starting to get an aftertaste. What could happen? How about I cracked a tooth! I think (or atleast I hope), it is a tooth that has had a root canal, so it dead and should be without pain. I know it has a huge filling in the middle of it, so I might be lucky. I was able to eat and drink cold and hot beverages without sensitivity on the plane, so I should be fine. I basically broke the corner of a molar.

The plane has a large group of students from a California HS going to Spain for a week, I guess it coordinates with their spring break. We have about six hours left on the flight.

I was right when I guessed that the meal will be chicken or something else. I had the something else. I also tried a Warsteiner, not bad.

I’m too big for my seat. Not in width, but “girth?” My laptop has a good size footprint so when I put it on the tiny table, its so close to me I have to lean the screen forward. So it is weird looking at the text from above. I’m praying the Belgian fellow who speaks eight languages doesn’t decide to recline quickly. I think he’s having fun flirting with the 17 year old girls.

Their chaperone is sitting across the aisle from me and he had told the stewardess no alcohol for the kids. A boy in the row right on front of the teacher asked for wine when they offered it and the teacher busted him. The stewardess asked him three times if he was with the group and he told her no each time, so she poured, and then the teacher reached over and took the glass away. His classmate couldn’t stop laughing.

The in-flight movie is Dreamer, it is a ‘horse’ movie so I’m not that interested. My battery isn’t strong enough to last a movie, so I’m limiting myself to work instead of entertainment. [I ended up watching the last half anyway] Maybe I can recharge in Frankfurt during our layover.

George got SKYPE working this morning on his computer. It’s a service that lets you make phone calls over the internet to other SKYPE users, FREE! Our jet actually has wireless service, but for a price. $9.95 for 1 hour or $29.95 for entire flight. I guess he dropped a few bucks because we had his headset on and was talking to someone a few minutes ago. That is some pretty cool technology. George and Andy are Mac users. Oh, I’m delivering two used laptops to Tajikistan, one for my partner teacher and one for use with the CPS system. During our pre-trip emails, those guys found out and each of them is also bringing their previous laptops to donate to someone too!

All my luggage comes in at around 82 kg, and we are limited to 20kg, with it being like $2 per extra kg, so I am hoping they cut me some slack when we board that last flight. The previous teacher said they didn’t charge him coming in, but charged him going out. That’s around $120 if they do hit me up. [Andy and I checked in as a pair, so they alotted us 40kg, but my stuff was 75kg, so I paid about $70 to get the stuff in]

Will update the story with pictures shortly!

Day Two - Good morning.

2006-04-14T08:24:00.000-05:00

Its 6:20 in Cali and I jut finished my shower. When my next one will be???

According to our briefing yesterday, these are the things I am likely miss while in Tajikistan (besides my family):

Toilets that you sit on! I think this is a hole in the ground kind of place.
I do here they have a RC Cola plant in the country though!
I'm taking this role with me!
They have sinks, but apparently the stuff that comes out is not CLEAR!

It was decided we didn't need a fancy breakfast, but a solid breaksfast, so I think we'll all end up eating at Denny's, as it just down the block. I think this is where I really enjoy a classic English breakfast with all the meats, beans and such. I hate pork-n-beans, but it England, the same bean is served as part of breakfast, but in a slightly different base, almost like a ketchup with a little kick. This is what a typical FULL ENGLISH BREAKFAST looks like:

I really got into eating them! That was last July, haven't ate a bean since (unless it was in a burrito).

Day One - Afternoon

2006-04-13T20:55:00.001-05:00

After lunch our local contact, Tatiana, came to get us so we could go to RI-SOL local office and get our tickets and meet a teacher who went last year for a presentation and Q&A session. This was great, as we got the real low down. George and I didn't look at our agenda, we want to be surprised. They have Andy committed to a lot, so he looked to see what they signed him up for. I'm only scheduled to do two different presentations. The first one will be on science resources on the internet. I'm halfway through putting it together. I'm only to do it once. I'm scheduled to do a presentation for students twice, it will be on letterboxing. I brought supplies to get them started!

Here's an interesting photo, depending on where you go. This is a local homeless man camped out in front of a 7-11. I was practicing my covert photography, came out better than I expected.

Here is a view of our little hotel. Rooms start at $60, free coffee and tea!

Remember, you can click any picture for a larger view!
Off to dinner and another adventure, hopefuly no exploding peppers on this time (ask me about the exploding pepper when you see me!)

I've been up 12 hours and its just 1pm here!

2006-04-13T14:54:00.001-05:00

My day started at 3am. My alarm was set for 3:30, but I woke up so I said 'what the heck' and got in the shower.

Here's the current exchange rates, so I can compare 3 weeks later. Also, gas was around $2.71 on average when I left!

The famous landmark of LAX airport.

Something I learned. If you take one of these
up an escalator (you should really use an elevator), don't let the weight shift to the single wheel up front at the top of the escalator, you end up flipping it and putting all your bags on the ground. As I said, it was something I LEARNED, not saw.

Met my traveling companions, Andy and George, I think we should get along marvelously. We had lunch at Westwood Brewing Company, who doesn't brew anything, anymore! None of us left anything on the plate.

We were are staying (A) and where we ate lunch (E)

We have our indoctrination coming up shortly...more later.

Vernier helps out too!

2006-04-08T21:23:00.000-05:00

I was able to get extra posters and handouts to take to Tajikistan, but another vendor came through with a probe for taking temperatures. It is called a Go-Temp! If you are a teacher, contact them and they'll send one to your school!
We'll definately always know the temperature in Isfara, Tajikistan now!

The biggest gift of all is from the great people at E-instruction! Its a surprise, so I''ll give details. They also gave me so nice litle trinkets for the kids over there.

Just five more days!

I met some really wonderful teachers over the last three days, and I hope they able to use in their classroom any tidbits I was able to give them!
And a shout-out to my newest acquaintance Grace! Enjoy your future visit to Houston.

Science Convention

2006-04-06T17:47:00.000-05:00

I am in Anaheim, California at the NSTA convention. Our hotel is directly across the street from Disney! I hope to find the time to visit, as I have never been to this Disney.

Thanks to the people at http://www.iscienceproject.com/ I have a set of HOBO data loggers to take and leave in Tajikistan with my partner school! We'll have our students do about three temperature monitoring experiments lasting around two weeks each. Each kit contains two loggers. So I was thinking of having a experiment where temperatures are taken every two hours. One time they could have one in shaded area, and one in open area. 2nd time, one on dark surface, one on light. 3rd setup would be having one in air, and one submerged in water (seeing how water temperature should be slower to change in water). First readings would be our daily zero point and the change ever two hours (our delta) would be the values and we can see if there is any correlation between our temperatures and theirs because we are both at around the same latitude.

If you think you could find a project to do with your students, you can go to their website and sign up for a loaner for 2 months! You can earn them by submitting a lesson. I haven't looked, but I think they have 300 projects available. They are really nice bunch of people to work with! Check them out!

Wide Photo of our school

2006-03-31T13:26:00.000-06:00

I used software to put 5 photos together

Click the image to see big version

This is the school from above

Miles and Kilometers

2006-03-30T16:04:00.000-06:00

14 Days until departure.

Click any picture for larger image

Countdown begins

2006-03-27T08:59:00.000-06:00

April 13th I leave for Tajikistan. 18 days

I got turned down by Fund For Teachers for my Italian Summer Exploration, so my wife and I are going to choose another destination. We try to go abroad every summer.
We are narrowed down currently to Spain (Madrid or Barcelona), Ireland, Scotland or Australia. We like the idea of a english speaking country, since we enjoyed London so much last summer.

We both speak a little spanish, so we should be able to survive in Spain. We did well in Paris and Prague where we didn't speak local language at all, thank goodness almost everyone who wanted us to spend money with them, could speak some english!

Fashion Shoot - Project

2005-11-18T20:04:00.000-06:00

The kids at our school have a variety of styles, but there isn't any one name for many of thier styles, and they mix and match items commonly. In the two days before the photographs, the temperature had dropped over 30 degrees fahrenheit, as our winter weather was approaching, and some of the students started wearing coats and jackets.

The following twenty images are the students in their normal clothes on an average (cool weather) day. At our school, students are required to have their school identification card worn, so you will see many wearing them around their necks in the photos.

All the students had fun being fashion models and hope that you enjoy viewing the images.

Thursday September 8th

2005-09-08T10:25:00.000-05:00

We've had another student join our class. We've had 3 new students this week. A drop-out who has dropped back in. A student who has relocated from New Orleans. And today our newest student was a transfer student from a nearby area. Our class size is about 30 students now.

Today in class we did two major science experiments.

In the first experiment the students used devices called "RANGER" that use sound waves to determine distance, like a bat would (or a dolphin under the water - sonar). They had to move to produce a time/distance graph, by measure their distance from a wall.

It was the first time they used the equipment, so a new and confusing experience.

On Tuesday and Thursday we meet for 95 minutes. So we had a second major activity.
We collected data for future use. This time we used wooden cars and ramps with electronic photogates (light beam switches/sensors). We timed the car over 3 distances, three times at every distance. This activity we had enough equipment to allow one at every table. When we learn how to calculate speed and acceleration, we'll be able to use the data we collected.

Classroom Photos

2005-09-02T11:09:00.000-05:00

As a science class, the students usually learn best when doing lab actvities or experiments. Here are some photos from the first three weeks of class.

Learning about physical properties by polymerizing elmers glue with a borax solution

Students using individual remotes to answers questions, part of the Classroom Performance System from E-instruction

Welcome to Mr. Moses IPC class at Lee High School

2005-09-02T10:47:00.000-05:00

Without going into major details, I am participating is a special program as a teacher and this year I only have one class, as opposed to the normal 5-8, depending where the teacher works. Our class is located at Lee High School, in Houston, TX. We are a first period IPC (Integrated Physics and Chemistry) Science class. We meet first period, Mondays, Tuesday and Thursday. The majority of the students are freshman (first year high school).

My class and I have decided to participate this year with the Relief International - Schools On Line program. We will be having a sister school(s) in Tajikistan that we'll be doing coordinated projects with. Our students will do something that theirs will do something similar, we both put our "results" online and then everyone can see.

I feel confident that my students will all get something out of this opportunity, as I definitely will.