March 30, 2012

Another sleepless night spent coughing and expectorating non-stop. I was glad to see daylight and got up early to organize my materials for the teachers’ class. I peered into the limbs of the tree outside my kitchen eager to see some sign of growth and could tell that something like little tuffs of hair had appeared at the tip of most branches. I had the students play “Concentration” and the dean came in when the students were really excited and shouting avidly among themselves. He had some information to deliver to some of them and mercifully left very quickly. As a follow-up task, I had them complete the “Best of Everything” worksheet to continue to practice the irregular verbs in the simple past and past participle.

                                  Spring has sprung - The first signs of cherry blossoms

The weather was fabulous and I was so exhilarated to be out of the institute by 11:00am that I felt like skipping my way back to my apartment where I had a light lunch and put the finishing touches on my presentation for Saturday. I had an appointment to meet with Tahmina, Ruth and Corrie at 2:30pm and left my flat earlier to drop my shoes at the cobbler to fix the heels again. As usual, I was too early for my pick up time and went into Thim, the supermarket that caters to ex-pats, to buy Nutella and tomato paste. I wanted to buy a good gel for my hair now that I can leave it wet, but none of the labels had any English words in them and the clerk spoke no English either.

The embassy driver took us to Multikids, a dreadful, dark, and cold warren of offices with no natural light except in Manzura’s office, the director of the program, who happened to be absent due to a family emergency. Evidently, no one thought that the meeting should have been cancelled in spite of the fact that her assistant could not find the information we needed to discuss the ETM coming up in April. I reminded Tahmina that Sandy had agreed to get me out of teaching at the PedInst for the three days the ETM would last and she replied she knew nothing about that and was only asking us to help out as our schedule allowed. I insisted that my conversation with Sandy had been to the effect that I’d be present all three days at the seminar and for her to look into it. It’s simply inconceivable that the seminar is going to run itself since Corrie and Ruth can only be present one day each.

Aziza promised to send us the information needed via email and we promptly left the building with Corrie and I getting into a mini-van to head back to my flat. I picked the medication Ryan had recommended at the pharmacy and bought some flat bread. We had some of my curried lentil soup while discussing the remaining seminars we should carry out before the end of our contract. Corrie plans to travel to China in mid-May. We agreed to do a seminar at the end of April, one in May and a final one in the Pamir region in mid-June to insure good weather. I was very pleased to get this task done as I can now focus on the remaining weekends here to make the most of it in terms of visiting places or having lunch or dinners with acquaintances.

I watched the movie, “Raising Arizona”, one I had borrowed from Tojiddin in Qurgonteppa and needed to return. I’m not quite sure I got it.