So 2009 is off to a good start. To celebrate this, here is a picture of a cow outside of my apartment building. Yesterday I attended a basketball practice for one of the local schools and the coach asked me to come help out every week. I will be assistant coaching at least one day a week and I might see about adding another night to the practice schedule. One of the kids who plays on the team lives next door to Laura and is really close to her host family so he always comes over and hangs out at Laura's. He is obsessed with basketball and the NBA so he's always excited to play ball or even just to watch basketball videos on youtube.
The first day of 'practice' was fun and it was nice to mix it up on the court with the kids and the coach but as someone who played basketball most of my life, I can say that high school basketball in Mongolia is a lot different than in the U.S. The kids definitely need some good coaching and a bit of schooling in the sport of basketball. Many of the kids are athletic and they have a lot of enthusiasm when playing but they definitely need to work on the fundamentals, particularly the concept of teamwork. They watch a bit too much NBA but that's ok. I'm not planning on turning the kids into an all star team or anything crazy like that but I definitely want to work on some drills with them to help them improve their dribbling and ball handling, shooting, passing, defense, and the other basics of the great game of basketball. I am not sure what the schedule is like as far as playing games against other schools but when I find out more I will post it.
Speaking of basketball, at the end of the month I am actually going to be making my way back across Mongolia to participate in a basketball tournament in a town called Sainshand in the Gobi desert. The tournament is supposed to be a pretty big deal and there's a lot of teams from around Mongolia participating. Jacob, another Peace Corps volunteer from last year's group(M18) has organized most of it from what I understand and he's assembled a team of Americans consisting of myself, a few other M19's, a couple M18's, and a couple of Jacob's friends. The tournament is the first weekend of February and I get the pleasure of taking a two day bus ride across Mongolia in the coldest month of the year. :) I'm looking forward to that glorious experience.
In other non basketball related news, my sitemate Laura and I are supposed to be starting my physical education/sports class project next week. This week I organized the time with my work to use the facility and we are going to make signs and post them around town. With how enthusiastic some of my students have been about playing football and ultimate frisbee after English class I am hoping we can get a lot of students to come to this class on a regular basis. This week I got back to teaching my English students again and I am looking forward to working on some more interactive lesson plans and trying out some new games and activities. Today I started with a new Kazakh language tutor. One of my English club students knew that I needed a Kazakh tutor who speaks English to explain the grammar and other intricacies I am having a hard time with so she put me in contact with a lady she knows. My new tutor's name is Amaka and she is studying at the teacher's college in Olgii and also teaches Kazakh. She is very nice and our first lesson went well so I am hoping that in the next few months I can improve my Kazakh skills quite a bit. Not having an English speaking counterpart or coworker at the children's center makes things a bit difficult but luckily a few of my students have a good enough grasp on English to translate for me at times.
Other things I am hoping to get started in the next couple months are an English geography club, an arts and crafts class, life skills courses, and I'd like to get the ball rolling on funding and plans for a new children's center in Olgii. This is a pretty lofty goal but I believe that if I can generate some enthusiasm in the idea and start the planning, it could become a reality. The current children's center is a small area of the soum(town) government's building consisting of four offices. We also have access to a large room/hall next to the building that has chairs, a few desks, and a stage. It's a great room for events, meetings, classes, and some indoor games but it's not available all the time. I'd like to work towards building a real children's center similar to the Boys and Girls Club's we have back in the U.S., a place where kids can come to play, learn, have access to computers, books and other resources, form clubs and organizations, and be around positive adult role models.
Anyways, that's all for today...I had some more things I wanted to write about but I lost track of my thoughts. Keep the people of Gaza in your thoughts and prayers.
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