From Blue Sky Days to Blackbird Fields: Back to school in Kaçanik...

We started back to school on U.S. Labor Day, as it is not a holiday here. May 1 is International Labor Day and that is when it is celebrated in Kosovo. I told my counterpart, Gazmend, that I don't normally work on the first Monday in September and it turns out that even though I was school, I didn't really work. We only have one group of kids on Mondays. We have them for two class times, first and second hour. On the first day of school, they spent that time with their main teacher (sort of like a homeroom or advisory teacher in the U.S.). We only met them, introduced ourselves, and talked to them for a few minutes. Then we left for the day.

A tree outside of the teachers' lounge, there is a paper airplane underneath it.

On most days, I am done before noon. Tuesday and Friday are longer days, but even then I am done before 2 pm. Most of our groups are blocked and we see them back to back with a 5 or 10-minute break between classes. Classes are only 40 minutes long and that goes by pretty fast.

It is different teaching English versus computers. Before I taught in a computer lab with interactive whiteboards and projection units. Here, there is only limited technology. The classrooms are really sparse with just a single blackboard, desk, and chairs. I don't even remember the last time I taught a class and used chalk and a chalkboard. Maybe, it was in 2008, when I was doing the English Camp in China. For the most part, the kids behaved well. But there are definitely a few with decent English skills who don't know when to be quiet. Fortunately, the classes were easier than the English Camps that I did in Ferizaj this past summer.

It is still fairly hot here and there is no air conditioning. The classrooms got the morning sun and they were really hot. There are cooler temps on the horizon, so it should be better soon in the coming weeks.

Student names will be a challenge to learn as many are very different from student names in the U.S. The enrollment is declining in the schools in Kaçanik, so our classes are mostly under 20 students each. While I am not glad that enrollment is going down, I am glad that I will have fewer names to learn.

One of the things we did with the students was to fill in my really poorly drawn U.S. map with city or states that they had heard of. Most classes knew of New York City, California, Florida, Los Angeles, Miami, and Chicago. Some knew Ohio, because of some YouTuber in Ohio. It was fun and it broke the ice.

Monday was an easy day and when I got home at 10:15 am, Thom was gone. Sami and Thom were working on something and Valon was off for Labor Day. Thom called later and said that they were all going to Ferizaj and having coffee with Sami's wife during her work break. He said that they could pick me up in about 15 minutes. Valon's wife came as well and we had a nice afternoon out. I didn't realize that Sami's wife recently started working at Resort Milenium. We go by this place every time we go to Ferizaj. When we got there, Sami's wife showed us the trampoline room and then we sat in the lounge area to have coffee. Along with the trampoline area, there are ball pits for younger kids. Outdoors, they have a water park and go-carts.

After coffee with Sami's wife, we drove back through Stagova and stopped at a little outdoor shop for cold drinks. Sami has family members who have houses in Stagova and we drove by several. It was a fun afternoon and a chance to see another village near us.