4th October

4th October

I think I have been expecting too much from my English teachers here, and a small step back might help us all. Most Peace Corps volunteers, at least in the first year, only assist the English teachers, and plan a game for each lesson. That is it. I have tried to fundamentally change how they plan and think about teaching, and in hindsight I can see how this is scary, and why we might be finding the whole thing so frustrating.

While I can never just be a teacher’s assistant here – there are too many problems that need addressing – I think that picking one battle at a time might be the best idea.

So with that in mind, the quest for books is the primary goal. The idea to share the cost over a number of years hasn’t worked. I think the concept is just too alien. Instead, the Director will shout at the children and tell them to buy books, in the classic Kazakh way. This will most certainly result in more kids having books, but the result will be frustrating in another way - we will still be planning lessons with the 2007/2009 books, while a portion of the class will now have the 2011 books. I guess beggars can’t be choosers and I should be grateful we have (flawed) books at all.

5th October

There is a football tournament in the village today, with 5 teams taking part. All are from local villages and the kids seem to be from the 9th, 10th and 11th classes. It is nice to see such organisation in Beskol! The goals actually have nets, the white lines have been redone, and there are flags at the corners. And at least the white lines will remain after this as well.

This is the kind of thing that I was expecting to have to put together, so it’s great that I don’t have to. Of course, that now means I have to think of something else to do. Frisbee is fine for the 4 schools in the area that have volunteers, but as you cant buy the disks here, we cant expect other schools to take part, making it rather limited, and not at all sustainable.

Something that struck me at the tournament was how each team addressed the issue of uniforms. Only one school had a real kit, and 3 of the others made an attempt with colour co-ordination. Beskol however, made no such attempt, and I was trying to think why. Maybe it was just that the home team doesn’t have to, but I doubt this. Which either means that maybe people here really ARE too poor to buy such things, or that the attitude in the village is such that people just don’t care. It is impossible for me to know the answer, but it gave me something to think about, especially as I am still trying to work out what to do for community projects here. I can apply for grants for many things, but the community has to come up with 25% of the money, and this might prove impossible, either through poverty or apathy.