I'll be living in Dhaka, Bangladesh this year while working at the American International School there. I'll do my best to document my *hopefully* exciting adventures here!
Today was United Nations Day and school! Everyone dresses up in their national dress or cultural clothing. There's a parade of nations, kind of like entering for the Olympics, where you march around the futbol (soccer) field behind your flag and banner. After that, there was a performance with singing and dancing from different countries. Even the new US Ambassador to Bangladesh came to speak! It's always so great to see everyone dressed up. AISD is SO diverse and that's hard to forget when you see over 60 countries represented! It's a beautiful thing! I was a little upset though because the US walks in second to last, with Bangladesh being the final country, so we don't get to watch everyone else! Haha, luckily my co-teacher is Canadian so she got lots of good pictures I hope!
After the official UN Day festivities, grade 5 went to one classroom where we had cupcakes and a sing-a-long! One of the other grade 5 teachers, Lloyd played guitar and we sang "Wave Your Flag" from the world cup, and "We are the World." We also watched this amazing speech a 12 year old girl gave to the United Nations about 15 years ago, and talked about ways we can make a difference. She was amazing. You should definitely watch. Powerful stuff. 6 minutes of your life NOT wasted:
Each student and teacher made their own flag to add, so this represents grade 5's diversity!
It was also really interesting to see how students identify themselves. So many students have two nationalities, or their parents are different nationalities, or they've lived in a third country for most of their life, or they were born in a certain country. They have such a different view of their nationality, heritage, culture, than I've ever understood. Even their definition, understanding of "home" is so different. Interesting to see and talk to students about things like this.
One event really upset me however. On the way to find where the United States group was gathering, I found one of my Kindergarten students in tears. He was crying because he's Palestinian and he couldn't find the Palestine group. I grabbed his hand and told him I'd help him find it. We walked around for a while before I realized that there was no Palestine group, no flag. The UN doesn't recognize it as a country. Mohammed was so sad and just didn't understand. "But where's the Palestine flag? Why isn't there one? Everyone else has their flag and gets to walk with their country!..." I told him he could just hold my hand and walk with me and the United States. We also found his sister in third grade and she joined us. I told him everyone would still see his flag and outfit, he would still be able to be proud of himself and get to march and see all the other flags. He cheered up a bit and was back to his smiley self pretty quickly... but wow, what a harsh reality for a 5 year-old.
Yay My grade 5 class! We were representing Norway, S. Korea, Greenland, Denmark, UK (and Scotland obviously), America, Morroco, Philippines, Canada, India, Switzerland, France, and Bangladesh.
Nathan, one of my 5th graders, wore his UVA shirt! He's from NOVA!
Aren't they beautiful?
Brother and sister! They have a brand new baby brother too!
Farthest on the left is one of the boys I tutor and that's his little brother in the matching outfit. Natasha is one of my kindergartners and that's her big brother. Representing Pakistan!
Ruuuuuuubbbbby
More Kindergartners
My other tutee and his little sister, also a KG (They're from NOVA too!). How sweet are these two?! Nicest kids ever.
Mohammed and his sister
Me and my buddy Mohammed
America!! Heck Yeah!! (Mohammad took this)
Fellow Americans behind me in the parade!
All the flags representing students at this school!
There have been a few changes in Dhaka these past few days, mainly the appearance of hundreds of thousands of cows... everywhere. They import them from all over Aisa, a lot from India and Nepal. This is mainly due to a holiday tomorrow, Eid al-Adha. It's the second Eid Muslims celebrate, the first celebrating the end of Ramadan. This Eid, is also known as the Festival of the Sacrifice because each family makes a sacrifice: a HUGE cow if your family can afford it, or a smaller cow or a goat if you can't. It's how families show off their wealth. Apparently it's "the Bigger the Better!" and believe me, there are some monster cows just tied up on the street (and in the garages) in my neighborhood! Actually, I can here a goat bleating from next door as I write this (I don't think he's very happy. Maybe he knows his fate?) I asked my friends' driver how much cows sold for and he said about 40,000 taka or $500 minimum, but there was one in the news paper that sold for 800,000 taka, over $10,000!! Once they've make the sacrifice after sunrise tomorrow morning, each family will keep 1/3 of the beef, give 1/3 to family and friends, and give 1/3 to the poor. Many families travel to their home villages to be with family, so actually, Dhaka's pretty quiet compared to what it usually is like. That being said, millions of cows and goats will be sacrificed tomorrow in Dhaka alone! Apparently, it's typical to walk upon random cow parts, cow heads, blood in the streets and men wearing white, covered in blood tomorrow... maybe I'll sleep in... Friday, a few friends and I just walked around a local neighborhood, Bashundara, to check out the cow-filled streets and the cow auction. Pretty cool. It reminded me of the fair/stock sale back in Virginia actually. (Is it weird that cows seem to make me a bit homesick?) Well cows and goats of Dhaka, enjoy your final few remaining hours of life!
So many cows! It was like this down street after street!
So sad. They'll all be dead soon :/
They give the cows necklaces and masks and other shiny things!
Well, I've made the move from Kindergarten to Grade 5! I'm still in a bit of shock! They are so independent, it's great! The first day I was in the classroom, they worked on a piece of writing quietly for a whole hour! After having to change activities with the kindergartners every 5-15 minutes, that was an amazing thing to watch! Already Nadine is not hesitating to get me involved in the classroom, introduce activities, lead lessons! I'll start out by planning and teaching the next math unit and gradually pick up responsibility from there! I'm busy already! I can tell I'm going to learn a lot from her. I'm sure I'll have more to share about the class later, but here's a link to the 5K Blog. They are super active, working and commenting on it almost every night! The current blog is my introduction! Enjoy!
