Ina Teacher

The school year started, the kids are back at school, and Ina Teacher is yet again going to attempt getting through to them. I am teaching 5th and 6th grade again with the hope to set up a strong base for when I leave and they go back to soviet system memorizations and dictations. Teaching is definitely not my calling and I am looking forward to ending this year and never doing it again! GAH!! I am being useful though. Really! I am currently in the process of planning a Halloween event which will take place on November 3. We are setting up a number of activity stations, will have a play, ghost story readings, trick or treating, and a costume contest. I never realized how much planning goes into a 3-hour event, especially when resources are scarce. Wish me luck!

When it comes to my personal life I recently received a legitimate marriage proposal. I was at the post office, where I go often to receive my mail, packages, and to send faxes. I was there on my biweekly visit when a man from the fax window called me over. So I went, thinking they may let me use the fax for free, and he proceeded to invite me into the booth with him and a bunch of old women. When I got in there he pointed to one of them, presumably his mother, who is my fax lady and started explaining to me how she has another young, muscular son who is ready to get married. I immediately regretted going back there and went into my usual spiel that I don’t want to get married, too young, going back to America and so on. He was like “That’s ok! You don’t have to get married, just get engaged! We’ll get you a ring and then both of you can go to America!!” His mom was just sitting and occasionally responding to my digressions with “But why???” I just figured that at my age I must look quite desperate and that no, actually means yes to them! At that point I did a U-Turn and straight ran out of there. All I have to say is that sending faxes will never be the same! They will never learn…

I had another adventure (not a good one unfortunately) the past few days with Kiwi, my puppy. Towards the end of last week she started getting sick, she wouldn’t eat or drink and at first I assumed she just ate something bad. However she proceeded to get worse and worse, and finally put her in box and took her to Genja (which is the 2nd biggest city and a little over and hour away). There through the volunteers we ended up finding a veterinarian in a scary dog training facility who told me she had a 50% chance to make it, and put her on an iv for 4 days. I just found out today that she is going to make it and I can go pick her up in 2 days. Apparently she picked up some sort of stomach infection which severely dehydrated her and had I brought her in any later she wouldn’t have made it. I am so happy that I get my puppy.

So this is it for now. This month I head into Baku for my Mid-Service Conference and am officially starting to count down the days till the end. Keep writing those emails!