380 School Days Later

Today was our last day of school in Tashkent. It was a great experience, and we leave with many great memories. The last few days have been tiring, both physically and emotionally. It was hard to say good-bye to so many wonderful students and truly outstanding educators.

Now it's off to the US for a nice 7 week break. In addition to seeing family and friends, I predict a few glasses or red wine, lots of good food and a few scoops of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. After we gorge for 7 weeks, it will be time to begin our Guangzhou, China adventure...and work off all that ice cream!

Now, it's time to sleep and get mentally prepared for our last time through the Tashkent airport.

Far too long...

Since we posted something. Just looked at the blog and realized I inadvertently posted a "school" post. Guess that's the problem with using blogspot for my school and personal blogs. Of course, now you all know that Paul's class is doing the exhibition, an incredible 8-week student-led inquiry unit. It's amazing to see students carry out their own inquiry. Fun stuff!

We are down to 3 weeks left in Uzbekistan. In addition to teaching and after-school activities, we have been busy with our transition to China. The moving company has stopped by to see what we will ship. We have located an apartment in China (30th floor of a high-rise) and signed the lease. We have our plan tickets from US to Guangzhou, and we are completing the paperwork for our Chinese visas.

We depart Tashkent on June 8 and spend a week in Maryland visiting Paul's family. Then we fly to Seattle to see Jeanette's family for a few days. Then it's off to Portland for 5 weeks. We're renting a place in the Pearl District where I'm sure we will spend most of our time drinking coffee, eating good food and drinking a glass or two of red wine. We have considered bringing a bottle of Uzbek wine back to share with everyone, but we'd like to keep our friends :)

We fly to Guangzhou on July 26. Our new school has a week's worth of orientation activities scheduled for us. Then it's a week of getting ready for the students to arrive. We're excited about our new adventure.

Exhibition Update

A quick update on the Grade 5 Exhibition. Yesterday and today, we began our "retreat" to kick-off the exhibition. Students have already selected their exhibition issue and have been grouped accordingly (please ask your child about this).

Looking at artifacts to learn about Transdisciplinary Themes and Key Concepts

Students reflecting on the process

 

We spent time working on the following items which will prepare the students for the work to come. Here are some things we did:

• Began brainstorming for "Group Agreements"--we looked at the Learner Profile and turned each profile into agreement statements; groups will use these statements to create group agreements on how they will work together
• Reviewed the Transdisciplinary Themes that guide the Primary Years Programme--we had students access their background knowledge about the themes and determine which theme(s) their issue fit under
• We also began generating inquiry questions based on the Key Concepts--students will narrow their list of questions down to a manageable number and use these to guide their inquiries

Next week, students will do further work on their questions and then create a research plan. They will also schedule their first mentor meeting.

Still here, and China here we come!

Sorry for the lengthy pause between posts. It has been a very fast-paced start to the year which has kept us very busy.

Life in Tashkent proceeds as normal: crazy driving, almost daily visits to Bon!, our local coffee joint, and way too many dinners at the Italian restaurant across the street. The weather has finally taken a turn; it has begun to get cold with some rain, and snow may soon be on the way. We can't really complain since our weather up to now has been so nice. The hope is that winter will be kinder to us this year than last. Add snow to the driving here and the blood pressure slowly starts to creep into the danger zone.

Life at school has been very busy. Paul is finally done with soccer. He coached the JV girls this year and had a great time. He had the only undefeated team this year, and the girls won the local championship. He has the medal and the hoodie to prove it! Jeanette is still busy with her on-line Masters program. She spent more than her share of weekends writing papers, but is finally done with her last one for the course. Now she has a break until we return from winter break.

The big news on our front is that we will be moving to another school at the end of this year. The recruiting process begins very rearly for international schools; we began interviewing in October. After speaking with 4 schools, we accepted teaching positions at American International School Guangzhou. Yes, we are returning to China and are very happy about it. The school has a very good reputation and is doing some great things that will push us professionally. We have friends who were there for 10 years and loved it, and some co-workers here at TIS know people there, and they say it is great. In addition to being excited about the school, we are looking forward to the 1 1/2 hour haircuts, foot massages, and all that great food.

If you'd like to read more about our new school, you can check out their website  http://www.aisgz.org/

That's it for now. Take care and keep in touch!

P and J

Back to School (said with a smile on our faces)

See, we really are smiling!

After a very nice summer break, we are back in Tashkent. We arrived a few days before the first teacher meeting in order to re-acclimate to the heat and the driving. We were met at the airport by Jeanette's wonderful teaching assistant Lyuba and her husband. It was a wonderful welcome back to walk out into the heat and dust and see some familiar, smiling faces.

We just finished our first week of school, a short 3-day week. We got a happy surprise on Friday and were told that Monday was a holiday (Eid). We will have on of those "rolling start" years; a 3-day week, followed by a 4-day, then back to full weeks. Our kids are great, of course, and we also have some new colleagues who are equally wonderful. We are at the same grade levels as last year, Paul at 5th and Jeanette at 2nd.

Next week we get busier. Paul will be doing soccer tryouts all week long after school. He is coaching JV Girls soccer and will help out with all varsity and JV tryouts. Jeanette is taking an on-line course and is the new elementary science lead teacher, so she''ll be busy as well.

Other than trying to get back into our normal routine, not much else going on. Bon Cafe is still open, so a large part of our routine is already set :)

Hoping our friends and family around the world are doing well. We love to hear from you all, so please keep in touch.

Year One In Uz'

Well, it's been a fast and furious 10 months since we arrived in Tashkent. It seems like yesterday that we were scrambling for a baggage cart at the Tashkent International Airport, waiting to get through customs and being blasted by the heat as we exited the airport.

It has been a really good first year in this place we now call home. Tashkent continues to grow on us, and we feel as though we have settled in nicely. The local coffee shop baristas know our drinks (double espressos with milk, please!), and the Italian restaurant waiters can put in our order before we find a seat. Driving in what seemed like utter chaos has now become rather normal and even fun at times. We also found a great place to hike, a lovely river about 1 1/2 hours from Tashkent. Jumping over boulders, sitting by the rapids and hiking among the cows reminded us of our hikes in Eastern Oregon.

Of course, not all has been peaches and cream, but that comes with the territory and it's easy to find humor in all of it. I mean, how hard can it be to find a shower curtain without purple and pink dolphins gliding through a pale green sky? Pretty hard as it turns out. But when you find that plain white one you've spent 3 weeks searching for, it's all the sweeter.

We're looking forward to year two and the experiences it brings us.

Bullet Train to Samarkand

We have been fairly busy since we arrived in Tashkent and have not had much chance to venture outside the city limits. We thought it was about time, so we bought tickets to Samarkand on the new bullet train purchased by the Uzbek government from Spain.

Buying tickets was the first adventure. Being sent to one ticket stand only to be told that the tickets for "that train" are sold on the other side of the train station. Then stand in wrong line for 10 minutes. Get in "right" line where no one is working. Jeanette stays in line while I try to find some one to help us. Some one finally comes (leaving people in THAT line quite upset, with us, of course!) and we get tickets. Fun stuff!

It used to take 4-5 hours by train, or longer by car, to get to Samarkand. But the new train, which reaches speeds of 220 kilometers per hour (132 miles per hour), gets you there in a snappy 2 1/2 hours. This makes it possible to do Samarkand as a day trip which is what we did.

We boarded around 7:45 and found our rather cozy "economy" seats. The train departed at the exact departure time, a minor surprise, but a welcome one. Shortly after departure, we were served breakfast, a nice little roll filled with potatoes and hot green tea. We soon noticed the digitial display for the speed, and were happy to see that we got up to 220 kmh. It's at this moment that two thoughts go through your mind: 1) Wow, it's so cool that Uzbekistan has a bullet train that can get us to Samarkand in 2 1/2 hours and 2) Do we really want to be on a train in Uzbekistan that goes 220 kmh? But alas, we survived and disembarked in Samarkand at the schedule time.

The rest of our day was spent wandering the lovely city with its wealth of Islamic sites. Many of them are some of the most important Islamic sites in Central Asia. You can see pictures at the following link:

https://picasaweb.google.com/coffren19/SamarkandUzbekistan?authuser=0&feat=directlink

We also wandered Navoi Park, had lunch at a small Italian restaurant (they really are everywhere in the world!) and enjoyed some ice cream to take the edge off the heat. We then caught a marshutka (mini-bus) back to the train station for the trip home. Back in Tashkent in time for a late dinner. A really good day!

Paris...20+ years later

Jeanette and I first visited Paris over 20 years ago when we were in our early 20s, a time when we travelled on a very limited budget, about $30 a day. Due to budget constraints and high entry fees, our visit to the “City of Lights” meant that we skipped many a museum and abstained from an ascent of the Eiffel Tower. We enjoyed our visit, but got out of town in order to to save money--baguettes, cheese and jam trumped the Louvre. 

When considering where to travel during our latest break, Paris came to mind. So off we went, only this time with money! And what a wonderful week we had. Lots of walking, great croissants, fantastic red wine and a few too many plates of cheese and double espressos. We visited the numerous gardens on offer, explored neighborhoods we neglected the first time, went on a great walking tour with a local Parisian and took a wine-tasting course. All in all, a nice little break.

The funny thing is, we still didn’t pay to get into any museums or catch the lift up the tower. I guess our (read: Paul’s) frugal side stays with us (read: him), and heck, it left more money for that last plate of Chevre, Blue and Brie. Oh yeah, and that final glass of wine!

Please follow the link for a few pictures. 


Paris photos 

The Next Light, Please

We have had quite a few encounters with the police lately while driving. It seems that they are on every corner--well, they are on every corner--and pulling people over. And we are no exception. Turn a corner, make eye contact with the policeman and out comes the "pozhalusta stick" (the "please stick"). We call it this because they wave a nice bright red stick to get you to please pull over; they have no cars so they can't chase you down, a fact we have used to our advantage.

We have seen the pozhalusta stick waved in our direction more times than we care to remember over the last week, and tonight we rounded the corner and were again waved down. Yet again, we thought. But this time, the policeman opened the rear passenger door stuck his head in and in his clearest Russian (even Paul understood) said, "To the next light, please." We obliged, of course. While we had little time to chat too much, he seemed nice enough and we're glad he's patrolling our neighborhood.

We're Still Here

Nothing much to report, but wanted to let everyone know that we are alive and well in Tashkent. It's that time of year when we are totally focused on the big push to the end of the year. Jeanette goes to Brussels next week for training (everyone together, "Poor Jeanette."), then we have Spring Break the next. When we return, we have10 weeks until the last day of school. Time flies!

Paul is still busy coaching basketball and Jeanette is having fun supervising Student Council. Paul just took his 5th graders on an overnight retreat to kick off the Exhibition, an 8-week culminating project for the PYP. Should be fun. Jeanette's 2nd graders continue to keep her on her toes, so she's looking forward to her trip to Brussels.

Hope everyone is doing well. Until next time!

Next Stop, Mall of the Emirates

Well, I (Paul) just returned from Dubai (or "To Buy") where I attended a fantastic IB workshop on science and social studies. This was my second trip to the Mega-Mall of the U.A.E. and this time my colleague and I decided to do one of the only non-shopping tourism activities in the city, Dune-Bashing/Camel Riding/Sand Surfing:

Some guy picks you up in a large SUV and drives on highways for about 50 minutes. An opening in the fence along the highway appears, and driver makes sharp right-hand turn through the gap. Without warning (no "Hey, your tour is about to begin!") he accelerates and begins bouncing, twisting and turning over the dunes. Passengers also bounce, twist and turn. After 10 minutes, the driver abruptly stops and announces, "OK, time for pictures." 5 minutes pass, back into SUV for 10 more minutes of bashing. Then a short drive to the company's "camp" where they keep their camels which you can ride. We did. And not surprisingly it was the tourist cliche that you now picture. After disembarking and regaining feeling to our bottoms, we were invited to sand surf which involves strapping on a snowboard and scooting yourself down a 50 foot dune. Not very thrilling, but it was good for leaving you with two shoes full of sand. Driver takes you back into the city where he drops you off at a mall, of course.

New Pad

Well, we are on the move, but this time just across town. While our first place was adequate, we decided that we would look around for more comfortable digs. After looking at approximately 12 places with a slew of real estate agents (more below), we found what we hope will be our home for as long as we live in Tashkent.

After living in what Jeanette called "a bachelor pad" (not that there's anything wrong with that!), we thought we would seek out more modern furniture, a bigger kitchen with more storage, a better location and toilets that worked at least half the time (TMI?). Jeanette's wonderful teaching assistant (full-time, for any teachers in the crowd) hooked us up with a real estate agent, gave him our budget and needs. After a few days, we set out on our search.

The most interesting thing you notice right away is that every place you see comes attached with at least 3 real estate agents, the landlord, the landlord's representative, a middle-man and some unidentified guy who stands around talking on his phone and smoking a cheap cigarette. If you think we kid, there were 9 people present when we signed the contract for our new place.

After looking at some of the good, the bad and the ugly that Tashkent has to offer, we settled on a Soviet-style high-rise apartment. Two big bedrooms, "modern" kitchen with dinette area, family room, and a huge formal living room area that we will only use for get-togethers. Pictures are posted below.

While we love the space, one of the best features is the location. We are less than 100 yards from Bon! Cafe, our local coffee/bakery hangout. And right above Bon! is Semo de Roma, one of the Italian joints we frequent far too often. A mini-market, pharmacy and the Mirabod bazar are all right outside our door, so we are never far from a bottle of Sarbast beer, bananas or laundry detergent.

Our hip new kitchen and dining area

We actually love the colors

Family room

Formal living and dining room

Master bedroom

Bathroom--exciting, eh?

Family room and entry way

"Do you live in a 3rd world country?" or 50 pounds of cheese

We are back from winter break. Surprisingly enough it only took us 20 minutes to get through passport control and customs at the Tashkent Airport, not the normal 2-3 hours. This seems to be some sort of record among our colleagues. We’ll see what happens next time.

One thing that people do while they are away from Tashkent is to stock up on things that are unavailable here or are expensive, like good red wine, cheese or certain products from the drug store. Like others, Jeanette and I bought a few items while we were in Maryland over break, enough to fill an extra suitcase for the return trip. On one of our purchasing trips to CVS (local drug store), we placed so many bottles of contact lens solution, packets of Emergency, multi-vitamins and ibuprofen on the counter that the clerk asked Jeanette, “What, do you live in a 3^rd world country or something?” We both chuckled, realizing that we do live in a pretty unusual place, even if we would not call it 3^rd world.

We arrived in Tashkent early Saturday morning, and had a get-together with colleagues to share stories. Like us, the elementary principal and her family did some shopping. One day they went to Wal-Mart to purchase some cheese, cheddar cheese specifically. As they stood in line, the clerk proceeded to scan their items. And after scanning 50 pounds of cheese, turned to them and said, “Ya’ll sure do like cheese, don’t ya’!” Indeed they do, and with 6 people in their family, they ended up with more than 50 pounds in their 11 bags. Needless to say, they did not get through the airport in 20 minutes.

UN Day, Halloween and an exploding blender

We just had UN day at our school, a fantastic weekend event where families set up in classrooms to tell others about their home countries. It was amazing to see how many countries were represented. I even got to speak some Czech!

I think we have mentioned that we are much more socially active here and that continues. We went to a Halloween party, something Jeanette and I have NEVER done before. Jeanette went as a pack of plain M&Ms and I went as M&Ms with nuts. Funny, right? Totally Jeanette's idea. We spent the night drinking, eating and playing Guitar Hero. It turns out that we both are pretty good at it.

We bought our first piece of furniture, a kitchen storage unit. After putting it into place and reorganizing, I (Paul) decided to make dinner. Plugged the blender into our voltage regulator, flipped the switch and heard a pop. Looked at the regulator and saw that I had plugged it into the 220, not the 110. Undeterred, I moved the plug and flipped the switch again. This time we got fireworks and smoke. I think it was an omen telling us that we should continue to eat out.

Break in Istanbul

We just returned from a great week-long break in Istanbul. Below is a link to photos for those interested.

Istanbul is a fabulous city with a great deal to do. We spent most days wandering the streets checking out the many mosques. It seems that there is a minaret for each person in the city. We visited some cisterns and used the public ferries to catch the view from the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn. We also spent time hopping between Asia and Europe.

When not getting our daily 10,000 steps, we lounged at too many local tea and Turkish coffee shops to count. We really enjoyed the Turkish coffee, at least once we learned not to drink the fine grounds at the bottom of the cup. Our gastronomic adventure also included eating some of the best food we've had since our trip to Peru. While kebabs are VERY popular (we even ate some, gasp!), being a vegetarian was extremely easy. Some of the best eggplant dishes we've ever had. And last but not least, Turkish red wines are yummy! We were introduced to some new types of grapes, our favorite being Okozguzu which means large bull eye (or bullseye) in Turkish. While not giving away exactly how much we drank, let's just say that our red wine fix was met.

Now it's 8 more weeks of work. Then we are off to Prague, Austria and Munich for winter break to do some cross-country skiing and more red wine drinking, of course!

https://picasaweb.google.com/coffren19/Istanbul2011?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Upgrading to Business Class--Uzbek Air Style

You're on your way to the airport, dreading the flight back home in economy class. No leg room, no food, and someone in front of you who MUST recline for the entire trip. "None of that for me this trip," you say to yourself. So, you decide to ask about upgrading to business class. You approach the ticket counter and ask for an amount. After consulting with the computer and his fellow ticket takers, he replies. Alas, the cost ($800) is well outside your alloted budget and you resign yourself to the fact that it's going to be another long trip home.

But wait! This is Uzbekistan Airlines and anything is possible. You decide to speak to the flight attendents as you board. "Is there a way to upgrade to business class?" you inqure. "Follow me sir!" she replies. And off you go to see the Business Class attendent who informs you that it is indeed possible, even at this very late stage, to upgrade to the land of luxury. "Take a seat!" she says with a smile, so you find a comfortable place in the empty cabin.

As you get comfortable and buckle your seat belt, the attendent arrives with the emergency landing "folder". She leans in close and whispers "100 dollars. Put it in here!". You extract the bribe, nay upgrade surcharge, from your pocket and do as you are told. The next time she returns, you wave the folder and offer your best thank you in Russian (Spasibo) and off she goes. Pillow, blanket, drinks and a hot meal of salmon, potatoes and green beans follow. Well worth the $100, you think, and enjoy the flight home.

But as you wait to depart, a little surprise awaits. As your fellow passengers depart on the right hand side, you are whisked out the other side with a special escort. You have no idea where you are in the airport but follow anyway. Your colleague, and fellow business class "upgrader", begins to worry, but you assure him that this must be part of the upgrade package. Then your escort takes your through security, the wrong way, and the metal detector dings and beeps. Now even you begin to consider that something not so benign may be happening. But the optimist in you wins out and you assure your friend that all is well.

"Down this hall," your escort informs you and you follow. "Now down those stairs," and again you go. "Now open those doors!" she says. You pull, but the door is locked. So you try the other, again locked. It seems that your friend is right and the next stop is the room with two chairs, a table and a naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling. But then, like magic, someone opens the doors from the other side. "Come!" he says and you go. As you go through the door, you breathe a sigh of relief as you are now first in line at the Tashkent passport control and customs line well before the other passengers on your flight arrive. And this alone, as anyone who has been through the Tashkent airport knows, is worth every cent of your 100 dollars

Car buying - GM customer service

A friend and I (Jeanette) decided to go to the local Chevrolet dealership this past weekend to buy cars.  You know what it's like when you walk on to the lot.  The sales guys are fighting each other to see who can nab the next customer.  Well, not exactly.

Urshka and I had done our homework.  We knew what models we wanted and a pretty good ball-park what the new prices should be.  As we stepped on to the lot, we wondered where the cars were. Oh, the showroom!  We entered and saw exactly what we wanted: a cute little blue Spark for me and a snazzy black Matiz for Urshka.  No sales people had yet approached us, but we noticed several men standing around.  Eventually I asked one of the men - does anyone here speak English?  Guy at the 2nd desk.  OK -  we went to the second desk.  He didn't speak much English, but we both know enough Russian to get by, so we mixed it up.  Already I am wondering why the sales people weren't swarming - we are foreigners, and everyone knows we are filthy rich!

Oh.  Forgot to mention that the cars in the showroom were locked.  We asked the guy to look at them and told him we wanted to buy.  He said "Come back in January."  No, no.  We have money and we want to buy now.  "No cars now.  Come back in January."  How about those cuties on the floor?  They even had the prices marked!  "No.  Those are the bosses.  Come back in January."  We asked if we could be put on the waiting list - a few locals had told us that such a thing existed, but they assured us that if we were waiving money that we'd jump the line.  "No list. Come back in January.  Maybe on the 3rd."  We persisted a little bit longer.  Long enough that we had a nice look in the cars and the salesman asked us what color we wanted and told us about the features, what the differences in the models were, and explained gas mileage expectations.   We ultimately left, completely degected. We were so ready to spend!

Back at school, I asked our local contact and he said even with his connections we can't get a new Chevy.  He let me know that even if we returned in January, that would simply be to get our names on next year's list and we should expect to wait 3 to 6 months from then to get a car.

Just for giggles, I wrote to GM customer service and told them my woes.  GM North America was kind enough to point me to GM Middle East.  GM Middle East was kind enough to point be back to GM North America.  I just sent my final 'customer service' letter back to GM N.A.  Yes, I was polite :)

Now, I've decided that I'm going to the car-bazaar with coworkers and the local contact guy in a few weeks.  I wonder what I'll be driving.  Lada, Zhiguli, or Volga anyone?

Beetle Mania

As Paul and I left for work Friday morning, we saw a lovely beetle outside our front door.  He was a nice shiny silver gray and about 1.5 inches wide and close to 3 inches long.  That evening, I found his cousin on my bathroom floor - he was slightly smaller and very black.  Paul came to the rescue and deposited beetle in the toilet.  Just to be safe, I put a kleenex on top of beetle, but he was determined to live and attempted to use kleenex to climb out.  Yikes!

We flushed as he was approaching the rim.  Unfortunately, our water pressure isn't that great so I stood guard for a few minutes waiting to flush again.  Before the tank had filled, I watched in horror as beetle crawled back into the bowl from the drain pipes below!  Two kleenexes this time - totally drenched with water so there was no way for bug to escape - and two flushes later I left the bathroom with some confidence that Mr. Beetle was gone.  On my midnight run, I did put my glasses on see clearly and inspected the whole room carefully.  This time I got off easy.

I wonder what I'll do the first time I see a scorpion in our house.  I've seen little ones at friend's houses and I'm convinced that our water heater space looks just as cozy.  

Tashkent Old City

We have today and tomorrow off; today for Eid, the Muslim holiday, and tomorrow we are off for Uzbek Independence Day. We spent today doing some sight-seeing around Tashkent. We rode the very affordable ($.25 per ride) metro north to the Chorsu market and walked a few kilometers north to the Old City which is the "pre"-Soviet area of Tashkent. Here we visited a madrasa, which, according to my on-line sources is, a building or group of buildings used for the teaching of Islamic theology and religious law, typically including a mosque. You have to love the internet!

Below are a few pictures of our outing.

Chorsu Market, closed because of Eid

Jeanette with local "non" seller. It's really good when hot!

Old City

Old city

Old city

Old city

Old city

Old city

Old city

Tile work

Old city

Old city

Old city

Brrrr... August in the Uzbek Mountains

The weather hasn't dipped below 35 degrees C here since we arrived and Jeanette is in heaven.  The only time she gets cold is in her classroom which is well refrigerated, but there she's moving most of the time.

Until this weekend... She decided to go out on a hike with the local club and a friend from school.  Here is a picture of friend Ursula and Boris the guide near the top of Little Chimgan.

Yes, Ursula looks like she is freezing because she is!  It was snowing!  Jeanette was only able to snap this one picture before she decided to shove her hands in her pockets :)

The rest of the hike was interesting.  Beautiful scenery, but that was drowned out by snow, rain, and fear.  The trail was one of the most harrowing she has been on.  Most of the hikers agreed that they felt like reaching the van at the end was more an accomplishment than the end of a hike.  

Today J is taking Ibuprofen and hobbling just a bit, but she's actually contemplating a future hike with guide Boris.  Insane?