So I went to Zenica, Bosnia, to teach English under the
Swarthmore Bosnia Project.
I'm too lazy to write (as always) so I'll let the pictures tell the stories. :)
Zenica is the third largest city in Bosnia, according to Wikipedia. It is also the poorest canton in the country.
The "c" in Bosnian/Serbo-Croatian is pronounced like a "tz," like the "zz" in pizza.
The river looks really pretty in the picture but in reality it was too polluted to swim in :(
Bosnian buildings reek of communist architecture from the old Yugoslavia.
I taught here: Skola Edhem Mulabdic.
Cevapi is one of the most amazing things in Bosnia (and the Balkans).
There was basically one long, commercial road where people hung out; to see and to be seen.
Bosnia is a country of contradictions. I like ;)
Picking her nose hohoho
This is Valerie, one of the other six teachers from William and Mary.
This is going to be my theme for the next few posts so you guys better like pictures of little kids.
I still remember all their names, but no names here for the paeds. ;)
The cleaning ladies were so nice! I was coughing really horribly the first week because of I-dunno-what allergies and they made me mint tea ;)
This was when I taught them about Chinese New Year -- we needed something fun so I made up a rhythm for lion/dragon dances and we danced around the room while kungfu fighting. They liked ;)
The sticks were also used for the Malaysian stick dance! Which is the best cultural activity one can ever do -- the kids were really hooked onto it, especially after they mastered it and when we moved on to more difficult routines. Throughout the four weeks, they kept asking for "in in out," which was how I taught the stick dance (partly to imprint the concepts of in and out and also partly to make the instructions stick to their minds. no pun intended.)
I also taught them pseudo taichi (one big watermelon 一个大西瓜... cut into half 切成一半... one for you 一半给你... one for you 一半给你... etc) hehehe.
We also made figures out of pipe-cleaners (furry wire) for arts and crafts! I made a football player out of my wires, and he liked it so much that he borrowed my figurine back home and copied it. :)
I like smart kids. So I asked my kids these:
Which country's football uniform is made out of a red shirt and green pants?
(Portugal) So whom did I make with my pipe-cleaners?
(Christiano Ronaldo!)And it was really nice feeling for me when even the youngest kids could answer this question -- because it definitely took more than a little outside-of-school thinking. Very nice communal ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh moment.
We did International Day on Wednesdays -- and we learnt about countries around the world. This was Mexico...
... where
I learnt about sombreros and maracas. ;)
I made faces at them and they followed. :(
And my art teacher would be proud because I taught them crayon
etching! Which was something we learnt back in Form 2.
Of course being so kiasu I had to one-up everyone lah.
Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!! Etching was done on Halloweeeeeeeeeen -- we did Holidays on Friday.
Goldilocks and the three bears! So gobsmackingly cute.
Pocahontas
This is Jusuf, the cutest gypsy boy ever (gypsies are really discriminated against in Europe) and Lisa (my teaching partner).
Deivid (another Swat teacher) wanted to adopt him :)
I can speak a little Bosnian -- Znam tako malo Bosanski -- albeit with atrocious grammar. :)
