I woke up again around 700 AM and Balot, I and Gary headed out for the morning jog. Gary was in good shape and kept pace with Balot the whole time. I believe they ran 8 km (~5 miles). I fell behind them on the hill again and repeated the 3.0- 4.0 km (~2.0-2.5 mile) run as the day before.
We returned to the home-stay, took our turns in the Banya/bath house, ate a breakfast of bread, jam, fruit and tea and relaxed while waiting for Miraj. We were supposed to be at the school located in the Borbash and Bel information Center, at noon.
It was 1145am, and Miraj had called saying he was unable to get his family’s car to drive us to the school. It was one of a few times something like this would happen. Balot, Gary and I started to walk to the main road through Borbash/Bel. We would undoubtedly be quite late on our first day of teaching/assisting at the school.
As would happen many times during our stay, a stranger driving by offered us a ride to the main road. It was rural hospitality- an unwritten code of compassion. This saved us at least 30 min, and we met Miraj at the Bus stop or rather Mashrutka stop.
We arrived at the school 20 min late. I was not very happy about this as I always expect others to be punctual and don’t like to be late myself. Kunsulu, the head teacher reminded us that we were late, and Gary and I apologized. I didn’t feel the need to explain the circumstances as “late is late” and thus no need for excuses.
They were in the middle of a lesson and I was impressed with the English level for the beginner’s course. The kids all had mastered the alphabet, could form basic sentences, but seemed to struggle with comprehension and speaking. Kunsulu continued the lesson which involved dictation of a story about a trip to the supermarket.
Gary and I introduced ourselves, talked about our backgrounds, etc.
Both, Kunsulu and the kids were intrigued that I was working on an artificial kidney project back in the USA. I had learned that morning that
many rural villages, including Borbash and Bel, struggle with access to clean water. I will have to write a separate post about this later. As a result of poor quality drinking water, many of the local resident suffered health problems including kidney ailments. As a matter of fact one of the teachers from the school was currently seeking treatment for kidney disease in Ankara, Turkey.
The theme then, for the rest of the lesson, would be “health and body parts”. I listed the names of body parts and organs on the whiteboard. We had a little discussion about diabetes and general health as well.
Gary had a song from England called “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” that he played with the kids:
Much to my surprise, the children absolutely loved the song and learned it quickly! I did the best I could with the game of “Simon Says”:
Well, after a shaky start, the first day was not that bad. After class we meet two other volunteers: Thuha (of Sweden) and Fabian (of Switzerland).
We discussed scheduling and activities for the week. Gary, myself, were to go into Nookat (the closest town) to look for board games and whatnot.
Later that afternoon we commenced to Nookat with the help of Miraj. Balot also joined us. I’ll cover Nookat in the next post as it was very interesting and deserves its own page!
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-The Rover
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