Remembering 2004!

Well, the "reshelving" project continues. I worked on cleaning out materials from the old shelves that we had moved the evening before so they could be taken away from the work room. One group of shelves held reports from the past 15 years. I didn't know if the reports should be saved, but I went through the books removing all the other materials such as the handouts used by the teaching volunteers -- those certainly don't have to take up shelf space in the future. In so doing I found one of my own reports!

This one is from 2004! This was the first time I had come to Reymontowka for the school teaching project. Before that I had volunteered in Zakopane in the summer language camps. I was concerned I might not like Reymontowka and the flat plains area of Poland after experiencing the beauty of the mountains. Instead, I learned that I like this area very much!

I remember this group of students. Note my handwriting says these students had not studied English before. This was before English lessons were introduced into the primary school curriculum in Poland. Thus, I was at the very basic, such as teaching the pronunciation of the English alphabet. One day I had extra students -- something about the lack of transportation to get them home from school. And I need to explain the students I had were staying for English lessons after their full school day.

We were going through the English alphabet and the extra students sat there with stunned looks on their faces as their classmates made what they considered weird sounds for some of the letters.

One day when doing this, I mentioned that the L card had a lion and there were no lions in Poland. The kids suddenly all disagreed with me. After much funny communication, I learned they meant the Lion in the horoscope system.

Because these kids couldn't speak much English, I asked Dorota, the Global Volunteer Team Leader, if she would come one day for an "Ask Pani" session. In the course of that questioning period, they asked where I was born, on what day, and at what time. Ah! They are trying to do my horoscope! Volunteers do get paid with fun and marvelous memories!