The Times and Places

Just today the weather really warmed up so now everyone is happy because it is like spring. The trees are blossoming and almost everyone in the city has electricity 24/7. This information comes from my students spread out all over the city.
I put one picture online of two boys flying a kite. Kite flying is very popular here for young boys. It's a great place too because it is often windy. I hear kites buzzing above my apt. bld. all night because they just tie them up and let them fly.
I successfully mailed a bag to the U.S. from here on Tues. it took an hour and a half to do and I had 4 students helping me but I did it. Interestingly I couldn't mail a hand drawn poster size map of Khujand that was done by two of my students. I've never seen a map of Khujand and it is going to stay that way for awhile because apparently maps are too sensitive to leave the country.

Two Americans came to talk at the American Corner yesterday. The first man was a Muslim American and he talked about Muslims in the U.S. and his experiences as a Muslim. It was a very well attended lecture. Standing room only. The second man talked about President Obama and touched on U.S. foreign policy. He got some really tough questions like, why did we "destroy" Iraq. But he handled it well. Then afterwards both men answered questions from crowds of eager inquisitive young men for more than an hour. A lot of interest. Before they talked I happened to have a discussion club and I guess I'm having good discussion clubs now because my discussion clubs are standing room only all the time too. About 30 young people or more. The American Corner is not too big. Anyway the guy from the embassy mentioned this to me and I just told him that I'm popular and doing as much as I can. One lesson after another.
The man that spoke about Muslims in America is based in Bishkek and his job is just that- to foster better relationships between Muslims and Americans. At the end he acknowledged how vital the American Corner was because he could see the overwhelming interest and the type of questions- but I face that everyday.
I always find it challenging to talk to both men and women here at the same time. Lets say for example that I'm walking down the street talking to a girl/woman. The men will shadow me and when I've stopped talking to the girl/woman or said good-bye to her they will step in and talk to me. This also works in reverse too. So basically I have to have one conversation with the women and then go over and have another conversation with the men. I personally don't like this I wish we could all just discuss things together in public. At discussion club men and women do both talk to me usually the women a little more than the men. Their English is generally better.
At the univ. I'm teaching wicked hard syntax. The indirect object, direct object, cognate object, prepositional object, complex object and then all the variants off of these and all the exceptions. I'm doing this with a book published in 1966 with examples from British Lit. and Soviet disarmament propaganda etc. Anyway I'm doing the best I can. I'll include some of the sentences they give me from the book sometime-they are ridiculous.