Hello, Thoreau!

Something else that I have been working on that I am quite proud of is the pen pal program that Mrs. Dressler, a first grade teacher back States-side in New Mexico, and myself established last Fall. Her first grade class and a couple of my 7th grade classes have been exchanging e-mails, letters, pictures, and even movies for the past several months now.

On my end, my students are completely stoked to be able to communicate with "their very own Americans." Despite the age and language differences between the two sets of students, they seem to be able to communicate effectively. It helps, I think, that the students in New Mexico are mostly Navajo -- Native Americans, Mongolians, and Kazakhs share many cultural similarities.

While mail between our two schools can take up to 6 weeks to reach one another, every day my students ask if there are any packages from America. Mrs. Dressler is extremely kind and she usually includes small school items (stickers, color pencils, and other novelties) along with her students' letters. She is quite popular among my 7th grade students.

A couple of my counterparts, Bahitgul and Sophia, also share in my enthusiasm for the program. They have even decided that they want to correspond directly with Mrs. Dressler via e-mail -- this gives me hope that maybe this kind of program will continue even after I leave Olgii. In our last package from Thoreau, Mrs. Dressler included a day planner with her school's name and mascot on the cover. On more than one occasion, I have seen Bahitgul walking around the teacher's room showing the small book to people and explaining how it was a gift from her "American friend."

The last package from New Mexico also contained a short video in which Mrs. Dressler gives a tour of her school and her town. Just before the school break, Bahitgul, Sophia, and I managed to take hold of the computer lab to show the video to our students. They were absolutely enthralled. They loved the look of Mrs. Dressler's classroom -- especially all the decorations on the walls, and when they saw parts of Thoreau, they couldn't believe how fast cars travel on the Interstate.

Here's some pictures of us showing the movie.




The woman up front in the pink sweater is Bahitgul.


Left to right, this is Anar and Sophia.



Hopefully we can put together our own video in the very near future so that our friends in Thoreau can get a little taste of Olgii.