Life Update II

     Since I haven't written about my actual work in, well, a while to say the least, I figured I would summarize all of my happenings in the past few months into one blog post because procrastination is fun! Stephanie and I have finally established a stable schedule at Hilmi which includes 4 classes a day with some small groups mixed in. We try to play as many games as possible with them, some succeed, some don't, but slowly we're learning what works. Sometimes the teachers ask us to work with groups on the assigned chapters, but these lessons don't tend to go very well. It's hard to keep a young group of energetic students focused when you can't even yell at them in a language they understand. I have started giving extra material to the more advanced students in the form of short stories, but one of my students in the 7th grade took it upon herself to read Harry Potter and the Deadly Hollows all in English! I was very proud. I am also working on methods to bring up some of the weaker students that can't even understand me when I ask why they aren't working. The teacher is sympathetic to them but doesn't know how to help these few while simultaneously teaching a class. But I figure that's where I come in! I just have to figure out what to do now...

     We had a short bout with one of the high school teachers that turned out to be just another one of the absurd examples of miscommunication or rather complete lack of it. Maheera is apparently our "coordinator" in quotations because our original coordinator doesn't do her job so well, so she was the unofficially appointed boss. All of the scheduling that is posted is in Arabic, except the middle school classes (my classes) that are posted at all, and constantly change from hour to hour. How teachers plan lessons, that is a question I'm still working on... We had talked to all of our teachers one day and found out that we had no more classes, so we left, after many attempted calls to our "coordinator" to no avail I might add. After about 3 hours, we got a very angry call from Maheera saying we were not allowed to leave apparently and that she was very dissapointed in us. If you've never been screamed at by an Arabic mother, you just cannot understand the terror involved. Anyways, we worked it out in about one day and she was happy go lucky and smiley again the next time we saw her... Roie says the Arabic culture is just kind of loud. Humph, kind of.

    Right after our 8 day Hannukah break, the Arabic schools went on winter holiday. Meaning we had about a month and a half if not more of no school. And since we just love our students too much to let that happen, we worked out a small group of students that would come at the usual time for extra English practice during the break. One of our most excited and ambitious students, Saed, was even more helpful than the teachers in setting up the group  because of how badly he wanted it. He even made his family come back from visiting Haifa early in order to come to our sessions. Stephanie and I tried to plan about an hour's worth of activities, and I got really creative with murder mysteries and scavenger hunts. But the kids ended up staying for four hours every day and we filled the rest of the time playing board games and talking. I started mastering the art of Rummikub along with another very strange Israeli card game with queens and kings.

Scavenger Hunt list... They didn't do any of the really fun ones! 

"Make a mummy out of your partner" Challenge!

   At Manof, I attended a class field-trip to Mt. Meron where there was snow! We drove for about an hour and 15 min each way for about 45 minutes of play time, but it was worth it. The rest of the volunteers at Manof were having a hard time with the faculty and students (as in they had none), so Roie switched us to a new placement at a kindergarten (Gan)! I was really excited to play with little children, but I realized I couldn't leave the Manof kids. Unlike the others, I did meet a small number of kids, and I felt too guilty to leave them considering they want and need my English so badly. When I went back to Manof after a short break, I knew I made the right choice. Everybody missed me, and noticed my absence. I'm sure it would have felt awful for them if I left and never came back without any notice (not by lack of trying on our party but because again.... no communication in this country). The kids really want to know me and immediately everybody starts speaking English and encourage others to come talk too, which is really amazing. Normally, I have to remind the kids over and over to speak English and not their mother tongue, but at Manof they are so eager, which makes my job pretty easy :) (In case I forgot to write what Manof was about, it's a youth village for students with rough pasts... criminal records, drug problems, etc. It's a boarding school where the students are heavily supervised, but have a good amount of help from soldiers and trained professionals).

Manof kids in the snow on Mt. Meron.  Those boys can pick up 

shockingly large blocks of ice. A whole new meaning to snowball fight.

     On the other side of the country, my druze classes have semi-started! I've had two meetings with one class and one with the other. We did DNA models made of candy and strawberry DNA extraction. A group of donors came to visit on my extraction day and they were very impressed with my group and how smart they were on the subject and I was so proud! Unfortunately, they had also a long winter break in which I had no classes, and immediately after break for some reason none of the Americans can figure out, they began exams. So now I am at a standstill until the beginning of February. Oh well, what can you do? No druze for you!! (Compliments to Roie). The Druze lessons are by far my favorite so far though. The students are well behaved for the most part and are even more eager to learn than the Hilmi students if possible. AND I get to do fun science experiments, so really what could be better?! Even when the projects don't work so well, they are still fascinated! Basically, I've got a pretty good thing going... During the break, we still drove to the villages each day in case students would decide to show up. Of course, nobody did. But there were random students there from another class who were really excited to talk to me. One girl in particular has really weak English, but I can really appreciate how brave she is for trying to speak SO much after my occasional bumbling attempts at Hebrew. A prime example of the Druze generosity that we've seen everywhere so far, she has given me a bracelet, a large candy bar, two Arabic-English "dictionaries" and a drawing she made just for me!

   Side note: After Hanukah I went to Prague and Munich to meet my parents and brother! FYI - Turkish Air is amazing. Free Turkish delights and a meal and free alcohol on every flight? say what? It was an amazing trip and really gave me the travel bug. I'm currently planning my next trip to Italy with Gil over Pesach :)

Here are some random pictures:

 

Working at Manof also means working with the kids at the farm.
 Here we fed the sheep, both mamas and babies (from a bottle)!

My walk back from Manof in Akko

Homemade LB-Agar plates from gelatin and chicken stock (hence
 the green herbs...) for the Druze class

Looking through our new microscope at a variety of samples we found outside!

Just a fun view of my everyday walk back from school in Akko

Stephanie is all set up for our movie with her variety of
snacks! We watched Alice in Wonderland with Arabic subtitles

This is not what I expected from the Youth Center's after school art class in Mr'ar (Druze village)....

Maggie and I built an improvised Jesus cave for the Druze Christmas party!
Druze don't celebrate Christmas but Mr'ar is a mixed village with
Christian, Muslim, and Druze. Everybody was very impressed.... sort of.
 Improvisation is definitely a skill I will boast about on my resume once I finish
this program... And heaven help the interviewer who asks me to give an example of a
time I was asked to improvise. How long is this interview supposed to be?

The Charles Bridge in Prague :)