The Kids Are Alright

This time I was prepared. Like a Discovery Channel photographer lying in wait in the bush for weeks, I'd been studying the habits of this particular herd of children and knew exactly what to expect. No sooner had I given the routine flick of my hand and said "Готово!" (finished) then the kids charged, engulfing us in a monsoon of hugs. This is no exaggeration--forty children jumped up from their seats and bum rushed us. As Jillian said after, "I had to widen my stance to keep from falling over."

We walk to the center every Wednesday afternoon and enter the classroom to a booming chorus of hellos from the thirty or forty kids crammed in there. The room smells of so many unwashed children, so I open the windows. Safet arrives later and closes the windows, owing to the Macedonian belief that open windows cause various illnesses, especially if the draft touches your lower back or neck. Every child wants to greet us individually, to touch us, to shake our hands, hug us, give us a high five. So the lessons always start late.

The lessons are pretty slow going for two main reasons:

1. The kids insist on showing us every little thing they write. You can imagine how long it might take to reach "ten" when all forty students are intent on showing you the "one" they've just jotted down. I feel a bit of insanity coming on as I repeat браво or супер (bravo, super) for the two hundredth time in only ten minutes.
2. Sorry to harp on this, but there's FORTY kids in there! I think the first week there was something like fifteen. Then word spread virally around the Edinstvo neighborhood and by the second week kids were sharing chairs. Getting these three dozen bouncy souls to focus on the matter at hand is half the battle.

The snail's pace doesn't matter, not really, because it's not so much English classes we're providing as it is a positive activity. Unfortunately, not all of these children attend school, but even for those that do, the combination of antiquated teaching methods and the marginalization of Roma students means very little in the way of personal attention. They crave it. And we're delighted to give it.

When the hugs are over and the room has been sufficiently aired out, our next group arrives. Completely different from the previous class and yet equally fun, this group is made up of eight Roma young women, ages 14-20. Bubbly, positive and eager to get to know us, these ladies are a real joy to work with. Again, there's not a whole lot of English being taught and learned, but that isn't so important considering the relationships we've formed with them.

One of the young women, Sarita, who, at age 20, is the oldest of the group, recently discovered I have a brother. First she told me to pass on a greeting to him. Then she asked to see a picture. She was impressed--apparently he's better looking than me. She asks how he is and when Jillian says, "Sarita, you'll have to learn English to get to know him," Sarita replies, "Why do you think I'm coming to these classes?"

So, Matt, book your return ticket now.

These young women, like many in Macedonia, are particularly enthralled with Jillian's appearance; fair skin, green eyes and long red hair are generally unknown in this part of the world. Despite that very awesome Irish pub in the nearby city of Kumanovo, the Irish themselves are not well represented here. Many women in Macedonia dye their hair--in fact, one of the most expansive sections in our local market is the shelf of hair color dyes--and Jillian is often asked "what number" her hair color is on the product scale. A genetic number, ladies.

During class this week, our students decided to play dress up with their little Irish doll. To class they brought a traditional Roma wedding dress and had a blast preparing Jillian as if she were about to walk down the aisle. The dress itself seemed, to this male observer, to be an elegant mix of Queen Elizabeth and Battlestar Galactica.

Jillian was a great sport about the whole thing, especially later, when the girls insisted on dancing a traditional Macedonian/Roma step with her in the attire. What an odd scene: Jillian, in a Roma wedding dress, dancing with our new friends around a pre-school classroom while a Balkan folk song blasted from Sarita's cell phone.

That's way better than English lessons.


Click on "Our Photos" on the right sidebar to see more pictures from the center...and last, but certainly not least, a little video proof of Jillian's wedding dress dancing fun:

Before We Go...

Unfortunately this post has to be much shorter than I'd want. It's Friday night and we're packing up for our trip beginning tomorrow to all the former Yugoslav republics: Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Montenegro. We're renting a car with some fellow PCVs and looking forward to seeing the Balkans, an area brimming with fascinating history and recent tragedy. But for now we're just stressing and trying to cram everything we need for the 10 days into a single backpack (it'll be small car with no room for lots of stuff) and making sure the house is kitten safe for the next couple of weeks. A couple of of our students are looking after little Arye while we're away.

Speaking of those students, the season's first high school debate was held at a nearby town last weekend and our kids shined. Seriously. There was a great moment when the crowd was struck silent as one of our girls served up her rebuttal. As one of my other students (a first-time debater) remarked: "I didn't realize Tina could be so confident when speaking." Needless to say, both teams were victorious on the subjects of parental responsibilty when a minor commits a crime and the efficacy of Macedonia's new one-computer-per-child policy. But most importantly, the students from all the competing schools had a great time hanging out, getting to know each other and taking part in something a little different.

My debating superstars, Bube and Tina

The debaters, post-debate

Our other major accomplishment these last two weeks has been getting our adult English classes off the ground. We have beginner, intermediate and advanced classes. The beginner class is particularly fun, as we get to start from ground zero--the alphabet, greetings, introductions, etc. The adults coming to this course are very enthusiastic and have great attitudes about learning a new language. Jillian and I have tried to apply our own impressions as language learners to these classes, remembering what worked and what didn't when we were first learning Macedonian. The atmosphere is thus far very positive.

Sorry, I've got to stop there. The kitten is tormenting Jillian as she tries to do the last of the dishes. This mostly involves jumping into the sink and licking the suds. What a weirdo. See you in two weeks!

Forward

As the season really gets going (and cools down--did someone say mid-50s?) Jillian and I have taken up the task of greatly expanding the pool of English language learners in our town. Last school year was all about the elementary (Jillian) and high school (Dan) kids, but this time around we're reaching out in both directions through the community's preschool and our own self-started adult classes. At this rate, by next year we'll have our lessons included in Orthodox Last Rites and on womb-penetrating CDs, right next to Mozart.

Our adult classes start in earnest tomorrow, so for now let's just stick with the little ones. We teach English at the local community center/preschool for Roma children.

Ok, two things need amplification in that last sentence. First off, it's perhaps a bit of an exaggeration to say we're "teaching English." These little tikes have the attention span of our cat, so we can get in a few things (today it was "car, bus, bicycle, airplane,") before the restlessness boils over and they just want to play. Which, really, is totally fine. And fun.

And second: who are Roma children? As wild as this region of the world is for soccer, these are not children raised to be superfans of Italy's famous team, Roma. In fact they are part of an ethnic group that is well represented in Macedonia. Well represented, but not well treated. The history of this group is long and tortured (as in, many amongst them have undoubtedly faced torture over the centuries) and has left the Roma people on the fringe of society throughout southeastern Europe. They have hardly integrated and face intense discrimination. Is it there skin color (they originate from India)? Is it their language, Romani (though they also learn Macedonian)? Is it there customs, still preserved centuries later?

Broader questions like that don't seem particularly important when we walk to see friends and pass by the Roma part of town. In a community of 15,000, the Roma number somewhere around 500. The street is unpaved and dusty. Their homes have not been brought into the city water system, evidenced by the appearance of the few Roma children who attend Jillian's elementary school. No Roma children attend the high school, they've all dropped out by then. In a town (and country) struggling with unemployment, the Roma community here faces a virtual 100% jobless rate.

But one man who has a job is Safet. He is a one-man organization called Napredok-Anglipe--it's Macedonian and Romani for "forward." He operates a sort of community center that also serves as a preschool for Roma children. It's housed in the bottom floor of the preschool for Macedonian children and is (by local standards) a rather nice little spot. There are several cute rec rooms and a nice classroom with miniature desks and chairs and donated toys and games.

Safet came to us. He literally rang our doorbell one morning and asked us to join him at his center. He worked with another PCV several years ago and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. And while we're slightly wary of his enthusiasm towards our alleged ability to tap infinite (unnamed) financial sources--this is a recurring theme here--we absolutely love the opportunity he's given us to work with these children. What a difference from the high school!

[A funny aside involving Safet: When we were planning our work in the preschool, the original idea was that we would hold classes and activities with both Roma and Macedonian children in mixed classes. Well, this fell through...something about Macedonian parents wanting nothing to do with that. Anyway, when we went to speak to the director of the Macedonian preschool we found that we couldn't understand her at all. I mean, at all. She speaks ridiculously fast and shows no interest in slowing down for us. So Safet was translating into slower, simpler Macedonian (he's actually quite easy to understand). She would speak, and then he would speak and we'd get it.]

So we've been to the center a few times now. Like I mentioned above, we're not so much teaching English as we are simply playing with the kids while speaking English. Sure, we've had a few minor lessons with them--hello, stand up, sit down, make a circle, etc--but the kids seem to get just as much out of us sitting on the floor with them crashing toy cars (the boys and Dan) or drawing flowers on the chalkboard (the gals and Jillian). Ditto for us, as well. Being with these little children is proving to be such a wonderful experience and distraction from some of the frustrations with other projects, ideas and general life stuff.

This seems to be working out fine with everyone at the preschool. We'll just keep moving forward.