April 13, 2012

I only had five students for 8:00am class and wondered what kind of “punishment” the dean had meted out that they had chosen to simply ignore it. He came in to apologize, I think, and tried to mumble something about the students having really bad habits. When he asked me, rhetorically I think, what I’d do in that case, I told him I’d have the students expelled since they weren’t accumulating the hours needed to graduate in June. He laughed so hard that I was able to see the gold crown in his last molar probably thinking about the money exchange that is due to take place in two months.

The students were finishing a worksheet with the game “Odd One Out” and startlingly argued that a turtle was not an animal. When I asked them if turtles grew on trees or were dug from the ground, you could see the gears in their brains gyrating trying to locate the precise origin for this item. When another student affirmed that snakes were not animals, I simply gave up. It reminded me too much of my other class when the students defied my categorization of human beings as animals. The teacher group continued our discussion on what makes a place a good to live and we all had to holler when a student’s argument as to why Dushanbe was a great place to live was that “his navel had been cut here”.

I enjoyed the great weather while walking to the printing place to get the certificates ready for the corresponding signature at the embassy. Nigina came in as usual to help me out and I printed a few more handouts for next week. Corrie and I found out last night that the workshops in Khulob are to be geared to college students in the morning and high school students in the afternoon. As a result, I dropped my PPT and the handouts I was working on and we plan on just playing games and conversations. Nigina suggested we plan a picnic for May 9 when some kind of holiday is being celebrated here.

                             Fruit trees in full bloom on the way to the American Councils.

I went next door for my usual lunch of plov, but was told the chef was sick and only soup was available. I had a watery mix of grains and vegetables and probably some dried beef, but there was not even salt in it. I walked back to get in the mini-van to get to the embassy where I found that Tahmina was already gone, Sandy had not returned and Vali was on vacation. I dropped the certificates for signatures and was given the ones I need to sign and then take to the American Corner. I retrieved the letter my sister had sent me, cashed a check and brought the latest Forum magazine for the teachers at the PedInst.

Elbek came in for his class and we ended up talking about his father that currently works in Russia. It got late and I got hungry, so I decided to skip meeting with Ruth for dinner at the Al Sharma restaurant before heading to the Iranian film on women forming a rugby team as still needed to pack for the next morning and gather all my materials for the session at the American Corner. It had been another exhausting day.