Friday, July 6, 2012

Creating Towns and Countries


Once again, church bells, singing birds, crowing roosters, and bright sunlight shortened sleep time for many of us. The usual delicious breakfast of yogurt, eggs, cereal, and tomatoes was enhanced by the addition of a wonderful kielbasa.

Classes started at the usual 9 AM.

Martha’s students drew an excellent design for a church which included a steeple, cemetery, stained glass windows, and paths. Everyone is invited to come and see what a nice job they did.

 In conjunction with Kathy’s class, the students are creating a town, complete with its own coat of arms. The students also developed a tourist agency for this town in order to persuade people to come a visit. Kathy’s class also prepared a map of the Mazovia region of Poland so students could locate their home towns. Kathy talked about rock music also, while Martha told her students about Global Volunteer work.

The students of Brandon and Beverly also created a mythical country, complete with features such a type of government. They also drew the Polish flag and noted the concepts associated with the colors of the Polish flag.  

The students taught by Val and Gillian also created a country. Val and Gillian also discussed idioms and slang words. The card game, Macao, was played. Indeed, several groups appear to have played Macao, a card game whose rules change depending upon who plays it. The game, Apples to Apples, seems to have universal appeal for everyone, and Scrabble is a continuing favorite.

Lori has a collection of interesting pictures. She has her students write descriptions of them.

After lunch (I do like those soups each day), the students, along with Kathy, Martha, Val, Gillian, and Jackson set off for a hike. Their plans changed when a thunderstorm developed right at the trail head. They instead hiked the Strażyska Valley trail instead and plan to hike the trail starting at the ski jump tomorrow. Even with the change of plans, all return wet, wet, wet!

Beverly, Nancy, David, and Lori went to the Zakopane; they traveled with the students into town and got dropped off at the bus parking lot. All got appropriately wet in the rain that started just as they left the bus. However, a couple hours later all were enjoying ice cream after visiting the old cemetery, the adjoining church, and doing some shopping.

Dorota arranged to have laundry done for the volunteers. Several set off with laundry bags to a nearby home prior to the evening meal. Jackson overslept and missed kolecja, but Dorota saved him some food. He enjoyed this during our evening volunteer meeting.

The students went to an athletic field at a nearby school to play volleyball and basketball. The returned at dark. Fortunately the rain stopped at 6 PM, and the evening proved to cool and clear.

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