Teacher's Day

This past weekend teachers in Kazakhstan celebrated a holiday just for them. This was quite an exciting day! We worked in the morning and then in the evening we went to a café where there was music and, of course, dancing! I tried to teach the “open mouth” picture which just erupted into LOTS of laughing. I love the teachers at my school. We said lots of toasts. My friend Rada assisted me in writing a Russian toast. Usually, I reuse, but think that eventually my school will catch on and demand a different toast from me. After reading my Russian toast the ladies at my table shouted, “Now in Kazakh.” I stood silent for about 2 seconds before my memorized Kazakh toast (for these particular moments came to mind) and with confidence I continued; I got lots of claps afterwards and then we celebrated with more dancing! The night ended at 1am when the café closed. Some of my coworkers continued their party at another place where they played billiards, I went home…I know, LAME, but we still had to work on Saturday!

Saturday is normally a work day in Kazakhstan. Teachers and students go to school Mon-Sat, this was a bit difficult to get used to, they have a 1 day weekend! Crazy! But this particular Saturday did not include any lessons, but rather a concert put on by the children for the teachers, although some teachers also had acts. I didn’t understand very much of it, but it was still super fun and one of teachers said something about me during his song (it was in KazakhI just smiled and gave the thumbs up sign). After the concert many of us went to lunch where, yep, you guessed it, there was more toasting! This time I did just say the same thing I said the night before.

Later that evening I went to the Theatre that was here at site called, Old Son. It was entertaining; there were some parts that I didn’t understand and was unable to follow, but when that happened I just made up my own plot. At any rate I was excited to show off my 50 tenge pearls, that clearly look like they were 50 tenge, but I didn’t care. I love them!