Ahhhh working again
Trip Start
Aug 05, 2007
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Trip End
Oct 01, 2007
Brasov, Romania
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
As a side note, if you've ever wondered what happens to all of the old keyboards around the world... apparently they get sent to Romanian internet cafes because these are crap! Sorry in advance for all of the typos. And its like a night club in here... techno is up full ball.
We went out t the daycare centre yesterday afternoon. Julia (the other newbie) and Daniella (our coordinator) and I all travelled out there on a couple of buses. Its definately out in the country side. There were horse drawn carts with the standard eastern eurpean old couple you can imagine... the old guy in his hat and woman in black dress and scarf. It was very cute. The weird thing was that as we driving through this country side on our little public mini bus, the driver was playing techno music loud on the stereo. it was very surreal.
I have to say i was quite nervous about what to expect with the kids. but they turned out fine. There are about 20 kids there and we sat with a group of 6 older boys (10-12 yrs old). Daniella told us that today we would need to take them on our own for their english lesson. We would have 2 hours with these older boys and 2 hours with the younger kids. Fair enough.. nthing like a stretch work task for me. When we got back to town i came up here to the internet cafe and searched for lessons and games to play. i felt like i had a work task again... back in my comfort zone :-)
I went back home for dinner and Piri made mea great meal. Only problem was that there was nothing to drink. So I ate everything and then decded to go out to find somewhere i could get some wine or beer to take home and drink while i fiished preparing for the lessons.
I got sidetracked however by the neighbours cat. There are 2 houses on one house block kind of thing and so i have to walk past the neighbours before i get to the outside gate. There is this little kitten which is just the cutest thign. looks like mali but grey and... shes actually very affectionate. I sat there patting her for about half an hour. so now i pat her everytime i go out. she's always sitting in the same place.
So then i went outside the locked gate and expected to have to walk half an hour or so. Turns out that right next door, the nieghbour has a little shop setup with a window onto the street. how cool, i can get beer right next door!
This morning i had vegetarian pate and stale bread for breakfast. by the way..the bread isnt actually stale, they just like it dry like that. the pate was awful, bu tshe seems to get upset if i dont eat what she gives me. so i took out osme of the pate and put it in a bag and threw it away when i went outside. the equivalent of giving it to the dog i guess... except no dog would eat that. it was disgusting.
I decided that my main lesson today was going to be the memory game... you know where there are pairs of things all laid face down on the table and you keep picking them up 2 at a time until you find the pair. So i wnet and grabbed some cardboard of various colours and then went back to the office to print off some pictures of things they know with the english name. Took me a while to get it all done and then Julia and i headed out to the centre. We planned out a whole stackof stuff to fill the 2 hours with each group.
When we got there,Gabi,the only person there who speaks english said that we only had 1 hour with each group and that the groups woud be bigger than we expected.So all our prep went out the window. We played a bit of the memory game and played a few other bits and pieces. It ended up being alright really, but i really didnt need to spend so much time preparing for it. I guess i was expecting a critical audience like when i do an AX demo ;-)
I even sang for them. I sang the rainbow song.. red and yellow and pink and green etc. I had coloured cards that i put up for each colour so they could sing with me. Was quite cool having them all standing there around me tryng so hard to sing the song.
They are lovely kids though, the girls all fight to sit next to us and give us hugs. They are all dying to tell us their names, count in english and name animals and colours for us. The boys are rough and tumble and like rolling around laughing and hitting each other, as boys do. When we left they all waved and said goodbye, even screaming goodbye out the window to us when we were walking down to the bus stop.
ok, now they have folk music on in the internet cafe and theres a load of people singing, clapping and dancing. this is really bizarre.
Now that im not just looking at the ground and being miserable, ive noticed that brasov is actually a beatiful city. its very bright and has that typical old eastern european look. it has abig mountain as the backdrop with a hollywood style brasov sign. i'll start taking some photos soon andpost them up here as well. I went for a beer this afternoon in one of the oustide cafes and it was nice jst to sit there and take it all in. In general though, the people dont seem to look very happy. ive started just smiling at themanyway. The women and children that is. The kids usually smile back. Sometimes i get an embarrased smile form the oldies. And the 20-50ish woman just look like they are constantly scowling. I was talking to Julia about it and she siad she wouldnt expect anything different in switzerland.. i guess australians are unusally friendly then. Anyway, imgoing to keep smiling at them. maybe i should start keeping count of how many smile back.
Things have been going ok with the family here. I think their son came home last night. I heard them arguing with some young guy, so probably their teenage son. I was in bed by then though so didnt bother to get up. I shoudve really because i need to do some washing. I just keep buying new clothes when im here in town instead of working out how to ask them to wash them for me. They have this weird thing about wearing shoes in the house. i keep walking around barefoot and she keeps telling me off for it. I've had to start wearing my thongs around the house. Im not sure whether she thinks its because i'll get cold or she finds it offensive. Apparently they are all the same thoguh, the other girls sasid they had to start wearing shoes to.
So anyway, as i left the office yesterday after writing up yesterdays blog entry, i had my first laugh about it all. Which is half the reason that i wrote it all down, i knew at some stage i would read back over my first day and laugh. Things are getting better. :-)
