I am still safe and sound in Atkau. I had a new student for 7 days that turned my sweet teaching job upside down. I knew within the first half hour that he was a special needs child, somewhere on the autism spectrum. I will call him Dustin to protect the innocent. (If I had a boy I wanted to name him Dustin, but I will never know if the name would have passed or not.) Both Dinara and I were exhausted around noon of every day. Dustin needed one-on-one constantly - he had no clue how to sit on the rug without falling over on another student, he was always running into students and knocking them down, pushing, pinching, punching, crying, and making loud noises. He was bigger than any of my students, so could easily knock down 3 of them at playtime with one run! He would make a great football player. I put him in a time-out chair whenever he did the above and he HATED that chair, so I was wrenching my back trying to get him to his chair. His favorite thing was just flopping down and refusing to do anything.
The biggest mystery was that his parents claimed that he he has been in preschools since he was one year old and nobody ever had a problem with him. I guess they wanted me to believe that the minute Dustin took one look at our classroom he decided to try out all these new behaviors. My director set up a meeting with the parents, but they came a few days early and we hadn't really worked out a plan yet. So when the parents came I took out a piece of paper to write down a special plan for Dustin and within 15 minutes Dustin was withdrawn from the school. The director said something about our school not having special facilities for children like Dustin and the family decided to move on. They claimed that nobody had even mentioned that he had special needs. Anyway, I should have felt relieved, but Dustin had already gotten into my heart and I thought I could make a difference with him. However, in the meantime, my class was starting to imitate some of his behaviors. It is really nice to be back to my sweet class again.
I went to a Russian Christian church for the first time today with Nick. He told me that there are 4 Christian churches in town. Two of them are held in people's home. Also, one of them had been closed down by the government and had to meet in secret. I couldn't understand a word of the sermon, but Nick was trying to translate as best as he could. I enjoyed listening to the music and the beauty of a different language.
On Saturday our group went to the new bazaar on the city bus. I call it the yellow bazaar. I could go every weekend. I just love the atmosphere at city markets. I got myself a long sought out dish drainer rack, a few Kazakh traditional things, and some fabric to make tails for my students for the Christmas program.
So my life may seem boring to you this week, but everyday I get one or two more smiles.
Love, Rachel