A busy week for all

Our soccer team arrived last night and hit the ground running! They got in a few hours later than planned and finally got ready for bed at 1:30 this morning. They were up eating breakfast at 7:30 and then were out at the soccer field at 8:30 ready to go. The first morning was so successful! We talked to our Father 3 times as a whole group and even got to share a few of His words. I was so excited about that part! One of our friends is a translator, so he will be exposed to it all week! There are 19 people on this team, all of which have had experience in soccer. All of the students play or have played competitive soccer. We will start our "special" English classes tonight. It is only for our advanced students that we had the first two sessions. Tonight we are doing our own version of speed dating in class. We will be setting up stations for all of us to sit at, when a student comes to a station they will talk to the teacher at their station for a set amount of time. When the timer goes off they will move to the next station. Katie came up with enough topics for 10 stations. We are also excited to have the soccer girls helping us in class this week. We also get to act as tour guides for the team this week. Since we summer girls have become so familiar with our city, we are going to take them around in taxis to site see and shop. I don't know how regular my blogs will be this week, but hopefully I will get a chance to blog daily!
Thanks for all you do!

Finally a kind of sort of lazy weekend!

Well not much has happened this weekend. Which is a good thing after our busy week! Yesterday we slept in and then got a text asking us to come for lunch at our neighbor's house. We quickly got ready and headed across the street. We had a 3 course meal! We started out with a soup that was pretty much chicken noodle soup. For our meal we had a chicken casserole, french fries, rice, and peas and carrots. The peas and carrots presented a PROBLEM! I don't eat peas or carrots, never have! Except for the night I couldn't keep my mouth shut as a 7 or 8 year old about how gross I though peas were! So my Momma solved that problem by making me eat a WHOLE plate of them, or at least I remember it being a plate, she remembers it a little differently! I couldn't bring myself to eat them, so I had to return my plate with peas and carrots shuffled around it. After our main course we had a really good cake with a homemade apricot filling! We watched Step Up with our friends after lunch. Their "shy" 19 year old brother decided to come out from his hiding and watch the movie with us. The 3 siblings (two of which are the sisters that we have been hanging out with) were so funny when their Mom spoke English. She speaks very broken English so anytime she said anything, her children were very quick to correct her. Last night we had supper with our bosses' and their three kids, who finally decided to come back home!
Today we had a picnic in the center of the city. Our bosses think we are sad because we bought hamburgers from McDonald's to take on our picnic! We thought it was a genius idea! When we left McDonald's we headed toward the park, walking of course! We thought we would never make it to a suitable tree to sit under. Our 17 year old friend just wasn't happy with anything but the best for us. She told us 3 times it was just the beginning of the park as we kept asking how much further we had to walk with our McDonald's in tow!
We are excited because we have a team coming in tonight to lead a soccer camp for 100 kids in our city! We are supposed to be meeting them at McDonald's at 10:30 tonight so they can start their week off with an American meal! We really don't eat every meal at McDonald's as much as it sounds! Haha! This will be a busy week for us summer girls! We have soccer camp in the morning and then English class at night. Thank goodness the weather is not going to be as hot as it has been!
Thanks for all you are still doing to make this trip successful! Oh, Amy tell everybody at your office I said hello! Momma told me you read this to them every morning! Y'all need a little more excitement in your lives!

I don't know if you have noticed or not, but on the days I don't have much to say I post pictures! Tonight we had our American food party for our final night of this session. This class was far more comfortable with eating than our last class was! There were no brownies left and just a little bit of chips and dip. The chips and dip we had left we sent home with a student! For our dip we make it with Ranch dip seasoning packets. We brought them over with us of course!
It is hard too believe that tomorrow marks our halfway point. We have been here for five weeks. Intercede for us this week. The other two times I have traveled for the summer the first week and the middle week were the hardest. I guess its because you realize that half of the summer is gone, but then at the same time you are only half way through. Don't get me wrong, I am in no way homesick or counting down the days! I just know from experience that the enemy loves nothing more than to make us weary or to make us yearn for our familiar comforts at home. I know your thoughts would be greatly appreciated by us summer girls!!
I was glad to hear tonight that the GRACE team made it safely!

This is indeed her third run on my blog, but I don't think anybody is tired of seeing her cute face! She cried when her sisters went to leave home for class tonight, she wanted to come with them...smart girl! It was party night and she was more than happy to take home what was left of the Shokata.
The advanced English teachers with their American food feast. Brownies and chips and dip!

This is a group picture of both classes, minus two students. As you can see, we were heavy on the girls this week and we had SO much fun with them!
The advanced class plus an extra. No one minded her being there, she was so good. She just colored the entire two hours.

This is one of the really cool paddle boats we rented, yes that is a slide off the back! (Uncle Chris and Aunt Patty, you should check into these! Unfortunately, I don't think they sell them in Missouri!) Our fun loving 10 year old neighbor/friend/student has the appropriate colored red hair! As you can see she has quite a fiery personality!

Our brave train riding group. I don't know what the red-head is doing, we never know what is going to come out of her mouth! Here's a funny story for you about her. The day we rode the train she decided she was going to be "The little English girl". She declared she would only speak English for the day! She does speak it VERY well. We went into a souvenir shop to look at t-shirts and I needed her help translating. I asked her to ask the cashier how much a t-shirt was, she looked at the cashier and said in her best English "How much is this?" and walked away!! I just looked at her and laughed! I had to get her sister to help translate because she refused saying "I told you, I only speak English!"

We were the only ones smart enough to get these fresh, chocolate pastries for breakfast. Everyone else was quick to taste them though! :) If only I could bring a dozen of these home!

The amazing country side on a foggy morning. Once again no desert Mrs. Diane, sorry! Although it looks nothing like this in the capital city where we live.

Trying to make sure we took pictures of everything we did that day! This is us, minus one, riding in our box seat (there were 2 rows of seats facing each other in each box). I don't know if you have noticed yet, but I have quickly become European in my make-up wearing! Most women wear little, if any, make-up over here, so I have decided to join them in the past couple weeks. I don't think I'll ever go back to being a steady make-up wearer again!

Katie teaching about giving directions on a homeade poster. We gave them two locations on the map and they had to give the directions on how to get from one place to another.

Our rule that we constantly have to remind our classes of the first week. By the second week we rarely have to remind them, probably has nothing to do with the fact that chocolate is involved! Mr. Wilson and Dr. Hornsby know how well I can bribe a class! Haha!

This is the life!

Today has been the best day of my trip so far! It is probably going to forever be in my top ten days of my life! Today, we marked off another assignment in our "Amazing Race". Our assignment was to ride a train into a tiny city and kick it for a while. Our bosses gave us no to do list once we got there! Once again, they think they are real smooth!! We decided as soon as we got the assignment list that there was no way we could do some of the things without the help of our national friends. This assignment was one! We started off this morning with three of our friends in tow, I won't lie it did start off a little rough at 5:30 a.m.!! A time I never wanted to see again after my student teaching was over! :) 5:30 came a lot sooner than any of us had hoped. Once we finally made it to the train station, it was touch and go there for a minute trying to find what train to hop on and what time it came with three languages being talked at any employee we could find. The train ride was so neat, it was my first time to ride a train. After about an hour we arrived in our city. There was one strip of stores and restaurants through the middle of the city and a lake. When we got off the train, people kept stopping our friends to ask why we were there. I told my Daddy it would pretty much be like a group of Europeans flying in to Mobile and then going to Dauphin Island to see the beach (a small island with so so beaches good enough for us that live on the coast, not a big tourist attraction for those of you who aren't from the coast) instead of driving an extra hour or so to Destin. There is a big tourist area in another part of the country, with a lake, where everyone goes. But when we got to the smaller lake we knew we had come to the right place! We had the entire part of the lake where we were to ourselves! We rented two paddle boats to get to the middle of the lake so we could swim. The outsides of the lake are slimy and grassy. The cool thing was the paddle boats had slides off the back of them! We had so much fun. Our friends then had the idea to paddle across the lake to a hotel's private beach, promising we would be able to use their beach. I didn't believe them, hotels at home don't let you. This hotel did, they even welcomed us to swim in their swimming pool...for FREE! We were there for about three hours, long enough to swim away all of our energy, get sunburned, and eat pizza for lunch! Needless to say, after finally making it back to the train, our ride home was much quieter than the ride over! Haha! On the way home one of the 15 year olds kept telling us how much fun she had throughout the day. When we got to class an hour later, she told Katie and me she felt like the day had been a dream. The swimming pool alone was enough to set their heads spinning with excitement, then add a train ride, paddle boats, and a little bit of purse shopping to the mix.
This crazy week of going has been fun, but I am happy to know that we have only one assignment left! We have not had a down day in more than a week. We will also be happy to see our bosses come home Saturday! We have been the only Americans in our neck of the woods for a week now!
I hope all of you have a great Friday. I am thinking about all of you who are heading out tomorrow morning for Guatemala! I am also more than a little jealous! Bro. Teddy, you better get my blog to my Daddy while y'all are there! If y'all go to Casa, be sure to give Joey and my brother from another mother Josue a hug from me! I would appreciate it! Have fun at the packing party!

Not much going on today.

Well there really isn't anything exciting going on in the lives of us summer girls today. We did have to complete another mission on our "Amazing Race" list. We had to ride the bus route from one end to the other. Last night we decided to get up early to try and beat the heat! We got to the bus stop at 8:30 am, record timing for us to be anywhere here! We thought we had beat the heat at first, but then it found us at about 9:00. When we got home at 10:30, we ran to our bedrooms to take naps!
Tonight will be an early night for us. We have to be at the train station at 7:05 tomorrow morning! We are going to a small city, where we have been told there is nothing to do! There is a man-made lake there that we hear we may be able to swim in. We are anxious to see this city! Two of our friends are going with us, so we are excited about that!
There are new pictures below. Sorry there wasn't much excitement in today's episode! (Especially to Mrs. Diane Bryant!)

This is one of the many Mosques in our city. The tall tower is where the call to prayer is given 5 times a day. You can't see them, but in the middle of the tower there are speakers, so the men can hear the call. Every Mosque gives the same call.
Our early morning bus riding assignment. We had to catch a bus, ride it all the way to one end, get off and catch the same number bus to ride to the other end. Can you tell mine and Jessica's smiles are fake! :) It was too early for picture taking!
This is the closest bus stop to our house, sorry its just the sign.
The sunflower seeds that you eat everywhere you go. They are usually not mixed, we just mixed them in the popcorn bag because they come in paper cones (which aren't too stable).

Our friends and us hanging out at the park!

In front of the City of "Sorry, can't tell you" Museum, haha! The big jar thing is something they dug up at the fort here in town.

Just one of the many entertainers at the concert Monday night.

The faithful fire department here. Some grass had caught on fire on the side of a cliff. What you really can't see is that the driver is smoking a cigarette! Guess you get your break here no matter what!

Good thing it isn't really a race or we'd lose!

Things are just not going our way for our assignments that we have been given by our bosses who think they are so smooth! :) The museum, that we got into upon our second attempt, did not have the exhibit we needed to see and the mosque was closed for repair! The museum has recently gotten two new exhibits. One exhibit promotes tolerance, it is posters from all over Europe. Tolerance is DEFINITELY something people could use a little more of over here. We get so upset every time the more prominent people group bad mouth the people group we are working with. Today, one of our taxi drivers felt the need to degrade our people group to us. Well, Katie had heard enough of it and said "Don't you think that any of them are nice people?", he said "hmm" and changed the conversation to where we lived. He wasn't happy with that either, because the town we live in is primarily made up of the lower people group. The more we observe the situation here, the sadder it is. It is exactly the same situation that the south was going through in the 60's. I guess I was just naive enough to believe that people had moved passed that way of thinking. I was wrong.
On to more fun things! We had "lupper" as Katie called it (lunch + supper) with a friend of ours after our defeated morning. Going back to the "lupper" terminology, I was surprised after thinking about it, that I had never heard that one from my Daddy. He is pretty good at that kind of talking as all of you know! :)We ate at our favorite Italian place here in town. It is a treat to get any food that is not the traditional food for this country. When we eat out, we eat a lot of pizza (don't get excited I am not in Italy I assure you), grilled chicken (mmm, my favorite)and beef, and salad. The traditional salad here is called a Shopske salad. It is a salad consisting of diced cucumbers and tomatoes, shredded feta cheese, and ONE olive (never 2). Lettuce is a delicacy! We are landlocked and they depend only on what they grow and can supply. Which I guess is good in theory. Our friend that we ate with is such a sweet person. She is very quiet, but speaks and understands a lot of English! We usually try to catch her by herself so she can open up.
Our classes continue to go well. This is the last week of this session. We are still averaging about 12. Mine and Katie's class was struggling with practicing their English during class, so I came up with a little strategy. At the beginning of class we gave each of the four girls an envelope with 10 playing cards in them. The rule was, if they spoke in their language(s) they got a card taken away. The reward at the end of the two hours was if they had at least three playing cards left in the envelope they got a chocolate bar. At the end of the class all four girls had 10 cards left! Very exciting!
After class tonight we walked down to the park with some of our friends/students to hang out. I was shocked to see what hanging out at the park meant. There were people everywhere! People were riding scooters up and down the sidewalks, riding bikes everywhere, there were no empty benches, they were laying on blankets, and there were kids all over the small playground. The best part was there was a man selling cotton candy!! I ate some just for Whitney Bryant! I must say its the first time I have ever seen the sugar being turned into cotton candy by fire. It kept sparking while I was waiting for mine...sure it was a completely safe machine!
Well it's about time for me to head back down to our house. It's 1:30 a.m. here and we have an early bus to catch, hopefully successfully! Oh, and there should be more pictures tomorrow.

A good day in the neighborhood!

We have had a busy and fruitful two days at our house. I was SO happy to find out Saturday night that we were going to be able to go to a fellowship Sunday morning with some worker friends of ours. It was AMAZING to be among family! It was such a blessing to be able to have that fellowship that I was missing so much. Call me crazy but we got the invite a little after my blog went up about missing my fellowship...hmmm, a little interceding maybe. Thanks to whomever you are! :) After the fellowship we went and got Sunday dinner at the Ramstore (the new mall here in town) food court. We met up with some new worker friends who invited us to help them with some of their jobs, we are so excited!
This week our bosses are out of town, so we are trying out our independence. So far it has all ran smoothly. We joked with them before they left, you know while the cats are away the summer mice WILL play! Hence the reason we have unlimited Internet this week! PTL (gotta figure that one out on your own!) They left us a list of assignments to complete while they are gone. The purpose is for us to get out and do a little digging on our own. It is kind of like a mini Amazing Race! So far we have failed!! We went to complete an assignment this morning at the city museum, well we go be-bopping in like we know what we are doing. We were promptly stopped and told that the museum is CLOSED on Mondays, and its the only day its closed! So we called our taxi driver friend to help us with pre-purchasing of train tickets for Thursday, our most anticipated leg of the race!
Tonight we went to a concert at the Ploshstad. All we could figure out is that is was a concert celebrating the recent presidential election. I think it was pretty much an attempt to raise morale after their still fresh wounds from being rejected from the EU. About 10 singing artists from around the country sang, it was interesting to say the least. We snacked on sunflower seeds (the popular snacking choice) and acted like we had a clue what was going on! My Momma asked me the other day about how much language I had picked up. I am doing decent picking up some language, but the problem is that there are 2 languages to be learned. A river separates our city, separating the more popular heritage from the looked down upon heritage. Different languages are spoken on both sides, and unfortunately they sound NOTHING alike! We have to be careful because if we speak the wrong language to the wrong person, we get scoffed at.
Also just so you know, we are working with the "lower" people group. And for those of you like Mrs. Diane, no we are not in a scene from Indiana Jones! Haha! It is not the desert here, it is mountainous, even though it doesn't feel like it. They really do get the short end of the stick when it comes to weather they get bitter cold winters and smoldering summers!
Before I end this I wanted to tell Rhea Wilkinson welcome to the family! I also want to thank Katelyn Jackson for her obedience, we do have a persistent Father!

Some pictures of what has been going on

Summer girls gotta have a little fun somehow! We just can't tell you how, its a secret!

There are two things we take very seriously in English class 1) PARTY day and 2) Keeping score

Me and my partner deep in strategy talk during a Cranium type game during our English class. For those of you who know how I like to play games, you'll have no hard time believing that I got caught cheating for the girls a few nights before. I don't know but does the quote "Cheaters win and winners cheat" ring a bell to anybody? Maybe my Daddy! Haha!

Having popcorn at the Ploshstad with some friends. We were supposed to be modeling for the popcorn...Katie and Iris didn't listen!

Our youngest student yet! If she looks familiar, it is because she already has a picture on here from her birthday party. She had to come to a class with her older sister.

Katie, an American friend, and myself documenting one of our fun taxi adventures.

One of classrooms at Rejko, the school where we are holding the session we are now one week into and then one more.

Our humble abode for the summer (our den). We get to look out at the Swiss Alps everyday! Haha! Unfortunately you can't see the cow skin rug we have in the picture. Very nice! :)

These are just a few pictures that show a glimpse into a summer girl's life. Both the serious and the fun! Just in case you didn't notice, there is a new blog below! Thanks for your support, you made it possible!

Lazy weekends...WHATEVER!

At this point today I have no energy left and I can honestly say its because I am shopped out! Something I thought would never come out of my mouth! This morning the four of us, a friend of mine from Carey (she is a Journeyman), and two of our friends went to Shutke. It is the biggest clothes and shoes market I have EVER laid eyes on. It is table after table of shoes, dresses, skirts, shirts, and any other clothing item you can think of! There was probably 500 vendors! It is in a Roma (gypsy) part of town and they are able to buy things without paying taxes...who knows?! We got there at 11:15 and walked around until almost 2:00. It was a really good way to build relationships with the two girls that went with us. I mean most teenage girls love nothing more than shopping! :)
The heat has really kicked up here in the past week. We were getting used to the weather being in the high 80s in the heat of the afternoon. The 80s are long gone for us! We have been told that in a few weeks, it will still be 95 degrees at midnight! Not looking forward to that. The weather here is a lot like it was in Vegas two summers ago, HOT and DRY!!
A few days ago us summer girls, the name we are beginning to be known by around town, were talking about what we missed most about the states. I said having the ability to jump in my car and conveniently go places, which I hear is something all of you are losing too because of gas prices. Jessica said adequate amounts of hot water whenever you need it, the traditional thought here is to turn off hot water heaters when you aren't using them to save electricity. Crazy I know! Being that the switch to the hot water heater is in our land lord's house makes things interesting. I think the thing I miss most, besides family and friends, is my Sunday morning and night and Wednesday night fellowship with family. It is something that we don't get here. I think it is something that you forget is so precious until you don't have it. Or at least until you see how real and how personal it is compared to the other types of fellowship. Something to think about next time you think you have something better to do on a Sunday night than fellowship. (Get out your steel toe boots if you don't want your toes stepped on, I already had my turn!)
Oh back to the gas thing, here's a little fact that should make you feel better. At $6.00 a gallon here, we clearly are the lucky ones!
We are experiencing some very exciting things when it comes to doors being opened. We have begun doing little things in their presence that begins the questioning. Things like listening to music that glorifies Him, and thanking Him for our meals, even leaving His book out on our coffee table for a friend to see and question. (Can't really take credit for book, have no idea how it got on the table because its not where I left it.) I was telling my daddy that there are days that I know that someone at home is interceding. It is the most amazing thing! Right now I ask that you intercede for us to understand His ways to share.

We had to make more cupcakes today. I had Mrs. Diane e-mail me some icing recipes last week, but I guess you just have to have the touch and I certainly do NOT! :) The icing tastes very good, but it is grainy. I was told it was because the powered sugar is not as fine here, so I guess I will blame it on that!!
We have big plans for the night! You'll never guess what we are going to do...go get coffee! Haha! I am hoping that we go to an ice cream place that we found last night. We went out with a friend who is leaving for the states for four weeks tomorrow morning. She took us to an Italian place that serves gellato. It was possibly the best ice cream I have ever had!
We are mixing up our plans for the next few weeks. We have one more week of this English session, and then we have a team coming to do a soccer camp. Instead of doing a normal two week session, we are going to do a one week session with some of our students from the first two sessions and then do a week long session with new students. We are changing it up so the soccer ladies can help us the week they are here.

Things are looking up around here!

Things are finally looking up around here! People are getting better. Jessica is fighting a sinus infection and an upper respiratory infection. But after the past few days that is nothing!
Today Monica, Katie, and I went to the American Embassy to get tickets for a 4th of July picnic that they put on for the Americans in the area. We will get to eat Ballpark hot dogs and real hamburgers!! Since the hamburgers here are a strange sausage type patty and the hot dogs are UNSPEAKABLE we are beyond excited! Not to mention that there is a chance we can get Dr.Pepper! When we got to the embassy we were told to come back in 2 hours. So two hours and a very good lunch later we got our tickets!
Last night we had 4 students in the advanced class and 8 in the intermediate class. We were very happy with the turn out. Monica and Jessica should have fun with their class, 4 of the students know very basic English. They are going to have to split their class into 2 groups to teach their lessons.
Sounds like things are going good at the house. Thankfully I get to call home just about everyday. Between Vonage and Skype I am able to call for free! PTL!! It has been a blessing to get that encouragement.
Tonight we are going out with some students to try and find some more contacts. We are hoping that we can find people to begin relationship building at this school like we were able to do at the last school.

Things have been pretty yuck around here the past two days. So far 13 people have been hit by the stomach bug! Katie, Monica, and Jessica have all gotten it. Jessica and Katie are finally on the down side of it and Monica is fighting it now. It is some pretty ugly stuff. Momma asked me last night if I was feeling sick, I told her no and that I had no intentions of being sick either!! I had already talked about it with Him! Thanks to Bro. Teddy and the youth for intervening.
Our number of students almost tripled last night. We had five students last night. We are expecting our classes to be filled tonight. A friend of our bosses came by last night and got 30 fliers to post around the city for us. He also registered his three children and said he could easily find 10 more students.
We have been recruiting kids for the soccer camp that a team is coming in from Tennessee to do in July. So far we have signed up 84 kids. We have spots for 100 kids. Each child will get a free t-shirt and soccer ball. All of the kids are so excited! We can't wait until the team gets here!!
Remember us as this nasty virus is hopefully passing!

We have the first class of our 2nd session tonight. We are hoping to have about 10 students in each class. The original intent was to have 20 students in each class, but after having app. 10 students in each class for the last 2 weeks we have decided it is much better to have a smaller number. It allows for more conversation time in the advanced class and more one on one time in the intermediate class. It also helps with relationship building.
I also have a huge favor to ask of all of you. We need some interceding to take place on all of our behalf. My bosses had a volunteer come in for a couple nights to hold some meetings with their teams last week. Well little did any of them know that the volunteer's daughter, who also came, brought the stomach bug that is going around in the states. So far 4 people have gotten it, my bosses' 7 year old and 6 year old daughters, and two of their neighbors who were also in the meetings with the volunteer. We are hoping that this is as far as it goes. It only lasted about 18 hours in the first person, and the other 3 are fighting it now.
Nothing like writing home about fun stuff! I hope all of you have a great week. Thanks again for the cards! I open one a day so that they will last all summer! They are such an encouragement!

When in Greece act as the Grecians!

Our team took a day trip to Greece yesterday! It was amazing! It is about a 3 1/2 hour trip to Thessaloníki. It is a large Americanized city. We had Starbucks in the afternoon and T.G.I. Friday's for supper. For lunch we had authentic gyros at a local restaurant. The picture in the left hand corner is of the three pork racks and the one chicken rack (you can't see the chicken rack). When you order your gyro, you pick your sauce of choice and then they carve off the meat you choose, and then they put it all on a homemade pita. If you order fries they add it to the top of the pita.
In the right hand corner is a picture of our team. I have instructions to tell you who is who. From left to right is Jessica, Katie, Me, and Monica. Jessica and Monica are from Memphis and Katie is from Hartselle, AL. We are in front of the Aegean Sea! It was very clear, a little like the Pascagoula Beach! Haha!
Back to the real reason we are here. :) We had the last class of our first session Friday night. We had an American party, with American food (chocolate chip cookies and chips) and American music. We were supposed to go out Friday night but our two students with cars could not go. We had to make a rain check with them. We start our next session Monday night. We are holding the next two sessions at a school closer to us.
I am going back and adding pictures to some of my old blogs. Hopefully this week my blogs will be a little more consistent, it all just depends on internet access. I want to thank Bro. Teddy for making sure my Momma had a good Birthday and singing her a little Birthday song that he had written just for her. Haha! Also...Happy Father's Day!
Thanks for interceding on our behalf!

So today we made up for any extra sleep we got the night before. After our night that we thought would never end at times, we finally laid down at 4:15 this morning. I watched the sun rise through my bed room window! When we arrived to our landlord's daughter's birthday party last night, we found out that they had made poor Adrina (who turned 4) wait an hour for us to arrive before the party could start! Instead of eating chips and dip, we ate flej. Flej is a traditional bread, it is cooked layer by layer. It takes a long time to cook and is a very intricate process. It was so good! After the birthday party we finally made it to our movie night. We watched the movie with some of our new American friends. After the movie one of our friends spent the night with us. So back to going to bed watching the sun rise, time flies when you have five girls sitting around talking!
Tonight is our last night with this group of students. We begin at a new school next Monday. Hopefully most of our students will be able to go out with us tonight for fellowship. We hope that we will still be able to spend time with some of our students that we have built friendships with. There are a few girls that each of us have burdens for.
Tomorrow us four girls and our bosses' are going to Greece for a day trip. We are leaving early in the morning, it is a 3 hour drive. We are going to get some sight seeing and shopping time in tomorrow. I told them I might not get any sleep tonight because I will be SO excited!
Remember us as we meet with this group of students for the last time tonight!
Thanks!

No rest for the weary? Maybe not so true for our summer team!

We have been so busy the past few days!! We have not stopped for long. Last night we had supper with most of our students, some teachers from the school, and the director. We took three car loads and one taxi to the mall after class. I felt more immersed in the culture on the way to the mall last night than I have since we arrived. The four of us split up to ride in different cars and the taxi. I rode in a car with one of the teachers and three of my students from the English class. It was so fun listening to conversations in Albanian and then trading over to English so I could understand.
After we got home we decided to borrow a movie from some American friends we have made. Katie, Monica, and I watched "My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding" on Katie's lap top last night. It was a much needed movie/TV fix!! After watching the movie and starting a conversation we finally went to bed at 2:30. (We always seem to have something to talk about, imagine 4 girls living together! Endless conversation!) Next thing all of us knew it was 3:00 this afternoon!! We were all happy to have the chance to get that much needed sleep! No worries about missing out on too much though! We are already in town with a student 2 hours later, we have class tonight, a birthday party tonight, and a movie night after that with more friends! It never ends and that is something we are thankful for!
I am at an Internet cafe and my time is quickly disappearing! I will write more tomorrow!

Do you speak English?

Sorry it has been a few days since I last blogged! With the four of us having to share 2 computers and 1 phone at our bosses' home we have to prioritize our time! My priority is always to get to the phone to call home!! You know I have to talk to my Momma and Daddy every chance I get! And Mark, although he usually just passes the phone on! We all know he is a man of FEW words!
We are wrapping up our first English session this week. It has been bittersweet already. We are happy to get to move to another school and get a new chance to teach and share, but sad that we have to leave friends that we have made. Today we began our recruiting for our next 2 week session. We walked the streets in front of the local Economics University (they are all separated by degree types) asking students if they spoke English. I figured they would ignore us or walk the other way, but they didn't. They either politely said that they didn't speak English or stopped to talk. At home we are so busy that we would never stop and listen to foreigners talk about a language school. Partly because we have to be so leery of everything. The culture here is the total opposite. Young kids walk down the streets at ten o'clock at night. Now how many of you would let your kids do that?
Last night after our classes we found a taxi driver that spoke very good English! We were ecstatic! We had recently been charged a few extra dollars by getting into taxis that had no meter and then not being able to say anything because we didn't know enough of the language. Our new friend Mehot is going to be our personal taxi driver this summer! We have exchanged numbers and set a schedule. It works for everyone because Mehot gets to practice English and we have someone we can trust. What a blessing!
Today is the last day of school for all of the schools around us. We are supposed to all be going out tonight to get coffee and ice cream. Us summer girls have become quite savvy about getting around town! We now know the "cool" hangouts! Our students just laugh at us when we try and learn the younger generation's lingo. All of us have really come out of our shells in the past week! Our students and us both!
I will try to blog tomorrow! Thanks for remembering us!

What a night!

We had such a good night last night! Our topic in class was American traditions. We talked about birthday parties and weddings. First we had a birthday party and then we had a mock wedding with a bride, bridesmaids, and all! We even had dresses. Not too long into our American wedding, it turned into an Albanian wedding...which are SO much more fun than ours. All of the guests sing and clap when the bride comes in. Then everyone gets in a circle and dances one of four traditional dances. Before we knew it we were in the school parking lot dancing to music blaring out of one of our student's car! We do have it videoed, but we are hoping that no one will EVER see it!
We went out last night with some students, our bosses, and a friend of our bosses' last night. We went to a coffee/ice cream bar. The place we went to is known for their ice cream. It was so good!! This place was built with a submarine theme, there were window type things on all the walls with fish inside them. Every time we meet with our new friends we get more and more excited about what the future holds!
Today we are meeting with our students at 6:00 to get coffee again. There is a festival going on down town this week. There are fire breathers, tight rope walkers, and mimes all over the place. We saw some last night, it was very interesting to say the least!

We are the Cupcake Bakers

Well who would have guessed that the four of us would become bakers over the course of the summer! We had to bake cupcakes and make icing from scratch this afternoon! Watch out Mrs. Diane, you could have some competition when I get back! (No worries, they are no where near as good as hers!) We are talking about American traditions tonight, so we decided to have a birthday party for our classes. Y'all know I will do anything to get food involved!
Because we have food involved in every aspect of our day we have decided to go jogging/walking every morning. We turned quite a few heads this morning. Three American girls running around our city's streets is not the norm here! Especially when we did three laps around the park, a kindergarten class got a kick out of us!
Mine and Katie's entire class is going to get coffee tonight after class. We are going to a strip of coffee bars in the down-town area of our city. I guess we will be hitting the bars tonight...coffee bars that is!! Haha!
It has rained everyday this week, but we are hoping that it doesn't this weekend. We have a packed weekend of activities with new friends we have made. We have the picnic Friday and our weekly get together with our bosses and other friends on Saturday.
Remember us as the weekend progresses! We appreciate it!!

Coffee anybody?

Well guys I think the days of us having Internet in our apartment are long gone! We even laid hands on Kaite's computer last night!! :)
Last night was our first try at the coffee bars around here. Now when I say coffee bar, its not what you are thinking! Its their version of Starbucks. They are very loud, there are TVs on every wall, and you sit at tables or booths. You do not go in and grab a cup of coffee and leave either. Our coffee fellowship lasted three hours! We had a lot of fun though! We went with two students from mine and Katie's advanced class last night. They are brother and sister and are very nice. We rode to the coffee bar with them and then they wouldn't even let us get a taxi, they drove us home. Which we were very grateful for! We are all a little nervous still with the whole taxi idea! Being that drivers only speak Albanian and we speak maybe 10 Albanian words with all of us put together! I am excited to see where our friendship with our new friends leads. I have a good feeling about it, especially since they are not very strict in their practicing religion.
Last night we talked about Holidays with our class. It is an easy way to talk about Christmas and Easter. It was interesting learning about the holidays that they celebrate in their culture.
This afternoon we ventured out with our tour guide and translator Kaylee (our bosses' 7 year old daughter). She has been very good to us and we have enjoyed turning her into one of the summer girls! We sneak her pretzels and Nutella, chocolate, and Prinlges every chance we get! :) We got caught yesterday when her Dad showed up while we were eating dessert! We couldn't keep from laughing at the chocolate Kaylee had accidently smeared across her lips! The fun never ends!

Getting busier as time goes by

Still no Internet at our apartment. We come to our bosses' house for any reason we can think of to get on their Internet. We ate supper with them tonight, so we ran to the computers when we were done!
We have our third class tonight. Mine and Katie's group is much more advanced than we had planned for, so we are doing a lot of conversation. We played Taboo last night at the end of our class. They are VERY competitive!!
Hopefully we are getting coffee after our class. This is our chance to share with our students. So remember us tonight!
Sorry this is a short one but we are leaving to head to the school!

No internet connection makes for unhappy summer workers!

Sorry it has been a few days since I last blogged! We lost our Internet connection Saturday and we have been separated from the outside world since! :) Lots of stuff happened this weekend, mostly Sunday. We had elections here and they did not goes as well as the citizens had hoped. Throughout the day one police officer was killed and 7 citizens were shot. Needless to say we didn't leave our apartment all day. Things have settled down and people are beginning to carry on with normal life again. The bad thing is that because of election violence, the country has once again lost its bid to the EU. The EU would ensure security for jobs and bring in revenue for the people here. This is the third time they have lost their bid, so it is not looking good for them. Our country did make CNN news Sunday! Which only led to some added worry on all of our parents part! But I assure you that we are safe!
But on to happier things, we taught our first English class last night. Katie and I only had 5 students. Schools were closed yesterday, so students assumed we were not meeting. Our class went very well. Our students' ages range from 14 to 36. They are a good group and like to have fun. They pitched a fit when we were leaving because the intermediate class got to play games with a beach ball and we were all business!! We promised them a beach ball tonight! Their English is amazing! The only word that none of our students knew was cucumber!
If all goes well this week and the rain holds back we have a picnic planned Sunday. We have been invited by one of our bosses' friends. We will travel up a mountain and cook out over a fire! I can't wait!
Congratulations to Casey and Eli!! I tried to talk Casey into waiting until August to have Kylie, but she wouldn't go for it! She is gorgeous! I am sure Kam will love having somebody else around...Yeah right!
Hopefully we will be able to get another Internet connection soon. When we do I will post a picture of our team. Katie also has a blog at katiejames2008@blogspot.com. Her blog has a picture of our team on it. She is from Hartselle, AL.
Please continue to remember us! We all appreciate it!