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.
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