things that go __ in the night

I haven’t been sleeping well, have been having dreams about our sneaky vice principal falsely accusing me and wiggling his mustache (exactly what happens in real life, the weasel). I have also been hearing mice. The night before my birthday, I turned on the light at 3am and started hitting mouse-friendly places with my umbrella. I was standing on the bed opposite mine, waiting for the sound of little feet, when I heard the noise. What horrid sort of beast is that? I wondered if I should get something more lethal than an umbrella. I expected to have to deal with ROUS’s. I looked everywhere. I waited silently. I suddenly hit furniture with the umbrella after long periods of inactivity. Nothing – except the noise. In the end, I was just too tired to pursue something that was apparently invisible. I lay down, listening to Kanipa Apa snoring. The sound began again, in earnest. The place must have been seething with them, snorting to each other. Running wild. I fell asleep in a defensive position. In the morning, I suggested we get a cat. “Why do we need a cat?” Apa shouted. “Because we have mice. Big mice.” “Oh, that’s just the neighbor snoring!” She imitated the noise perfectly. Which was really a relief, although it’s a problem that’s much harder to solve than mice.

and finally - my very own nasty outhouse story

My keys fell out of my pocket into the bottom of you-know-where. . . I went and got a pole, but after a few minutes, I could see that it was not going to do the trick. I asked the cleaning lady for help. She looked at me, unbelieving, but came to the outhouse and attached a very useful-looking wire hook to my pole - very loosely. Well, I thought to myself, surely from time to time they have to do this. Maybe she knows from experience. “Will it hold?” I asked, “You don’t need to tie it to the pole?” “No need.” she said and angled the pole into the hole. The hook slid off immediately, with a sickening plop. My keys sparkled at the bottom. The cleaning lady made a face and walked away. I went out to the sidewalk for some fresh air, hoping that my keys wouldn’t get sucked under too quickly. As I stepped on the path, the bell rang, and the seventh-graders poured out and swarmed me. “We missed you!” They said, and asked a million questions in Kazakh, with each step coming closer to me, so that about 6 of them were in physical contact. Janna, who likes to take my arm and work down to holding my hand, started off at my elbow. I made my hands unavailable by clasping them behind my back, like a socially awkward professor, and decided not to explain to them what I had been doing. Two 11th graders showed up. “Do you know how to get keys from the bottom of the outhouse?” I asked. “No,” they said, laughing. And walked away. But, bless them, they came back about 10 minutes later with a hook. We firmly attached the hook to the stick and began work. “I’ve got them!” said Manas, but he pulled up something that was definitely not keys. “Fooo!” He said, and spat. Whenever he said, “foo,” he spat on the ground, barely missing my head a few times during the following hour. The keys had begun to sink, and the ahem conditions meant that we couldn’t hear them anymore, either. So it took a while. But, bless him, Manas did manage to pull them up. I washed everything with soap and then vinegar and then soap again, then waited a few minutes and repeated the whole process. The End.

cute students

One of last year’s English teachers, Svetlana, will teach some classes on Fridays and Saturdays, late afternoon. Her Saturday lesson is for the 11th graders, those who want to take the subject test in English at the end of the year. But, in her class (from 3:30 – 5:40) sat Duman, a ninth-grader who understands almost no English at all. She asked him why he came and if he understood anything. He told her that he didn’t understand anything, that he just wanted to sit and look at her for a while. So she let him.
Most of the 9th graders are impossibly cute. Some sat outside my classroom and watched through a crack in the door yesterday. They said they wanted two English classes (or something else related to English which I have not yet determined, probably the computer, or Set) instead of one. One of our exercises yesterday was to talk about what a perfect classroom would be like. The first answer was from a front row boy: “many flowers.” And, after the usual (lots of books, a nice teacher, good grades), he said, “chocolate.”

I'm back

I was only gone for a week, but I've had a hero's welcome from the students. A 10th grade boy told me (in Kazakh) that he had turned yellow as the leaves waiting for me.

And, I've written a little, but forgot to put it on my disk. So, until next time . . .