The World At Large

Rainy day at Akatov-Alexeyevsky Monastery

 We are in Voronezh, Russia. 

The city is lovely and those that we met are even more so. We have been here a week and I feel like we have done so much already-too much to remember that is.
If you notice the map at the beginning of this post you see our city just below Moscow. We took an 8 hour bus ride from there and my group of 7 met their host families and it was "bon voyage" until the next day. I had only slept 4 hours in a 30 hour period so I was relieved to have a day to rest.
That same day the hubs did his best to keep me awake and we went out for lunch with our coordinators. They have been so wonderful so far and have done so much to ensure our semester starts off on the right foot.
So with a week under our belts our group is getting used to the idea of teaching English and are working so hard to prepare lesson plans and enforce the rules so their classes run smoothly.
When English class is an after school activity it is hard for many of the teenage students to really care. This might be the hardest thing about teaching for many of the teachers to get used to. All I can do as their mentor is to encourage them to plan interesting lessons with a lot of speaking-centered activities that catch their interest.  I know that the more they get to know their students they will recognize their needs and also their interests and this will help in planning as well.

Although teaching English has been the highlight of the first week we were already able to see some incredible pieces of culture and history. Above there are some pictures of our outing to a cathedral and a monastery ( this one being a the turqoise colored one).
They were so beautiful and so full of history; so much to take in all at once. A cultural tid-bit, when women go to visit a religious place they are required to wear a scarf over their heads in respect.

Voronezh has so much to offer through it's architecture and it's people. More soon, off to write my lesson plan! I start teaching 4th grade on Tuesday!

Poka!