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Salom Girls and Boys,
So much has happened, and there have been so many adventures, I don’t quite know where to start.
Everywhere we go people come up and talk to us. We go places where there are many boys and girls on school outings. The boys are all together, and the girls are all together. The boys all wear western clothes like you do. The young girls wear uniforms. I’ve seen the young ones in blue pants and a shirt/jacket top of pink, and other groups of girls in light blue. All girls these ages wear a white one piece scarf that has an opening for their face. I’ll show you one I bought in black that grown up women to wear. When girls are older they wear black scarves and long coats and black pants.
These bunches of children come running up to us wherever we go. Of course, if girls are gathering around, there are no boys, or vice versus. “How are you?” they ask. “Where are you from?” Sometimes that’s as far as we get. Other times they may have more English and then they ask us other questions, “How do you like Iran?” ”What is your favorite color?” “What is your name?” Of course, that is more English than I have Farsi.
Then I pull out your letters. Wow! Do their faces light up. They run off and show each other what they got. Then I get them to line up holding their letters so I can get a picture. We are making friends.
At a park in Esfahan I was stopped by a group of young high school girls and their teacher, all dressed in black. They all spoke English, and their teacher was especially fluent. I passed out most of the letters from Mrs. Kingsbury’s class because you boys and girls are older than Ms. Taylor’s class, and so there was much writing for these English speaking students to read. They were so excited. They asked for e-mail addresses. So I gave the teacher Mrs. Kingsbury’s e-mail address. She gave me her address. It is rborghei@gmail.com. Perhaps she and her students will write you, or you might want to write them.
I don’t think I told you about the passport story. The visa applications had to go to Washington, D.C. to the Pakistani Embassy’s Iranian Room. We had to send our passports with the application. Everything was going fine until the Presidetn of Iran decided to extend the Iranian new year called No Rooz an extra week. For two weeks it was holiday all over Iran. It was also the two weeks before we were to leave for Iran. Would we get our passports and visas back in time to go? It was nip and tuck! My passport arrived at my house on Monday at 8:00 a.m. Two hours later I left for the airport! That was cutting it close. Little adventures like that make traveling fun.
I will answer two questions you asked, one was about food and the other was about sports. The children here love ice cream, in bars, in sugar cone bowls, in ice cream sandwiches. They drink Cola and Fanta. Every meal has rice with saffron. Special yummy sauces are made to go over chicken and lamb. Salads are really delicious and they always come with a pink dressing. Yogurt comes in different ways. There is a yogurt drink that is rather sour to my taste.
We ate one meal in a Persian restaurant. We sat on a raised platform, leaned against bolster pillows and did our best to tuck our feet in and eat from dishes placed on a plastic sheet over the carpet that covered the platform. I watched Iranians eat this way with great ease and enjoyment. They spend much more time sitting on the floor living their lives than we do, and so are more limber.
Sports: Soccer. Boys and girls play on separate teams. For professional soccer, if women are allowed to watch, it is in a special section. Basketball is popular, bicycle riding. Chess in the form we play today came from Persian (Iran).
That’s all for now.
Travelin’ Grandma, Diane
Sometimes, things work for a while and then they don’t and you have to figure something else out. This spring we all began to feel a little stuck; stuck in schedule, stuck in reacting, stuck in our way of being.
So, we changed it.
Paul and I have both been struggling with morning meeting because we have kids arriving at such different times – school starts at 9:15. Some kids were having to wait up to thirty minutes to start circle – that is way too long when you are 5, 6 or 7. We were also struggling with getting everything packed into our focus times with snack and outside smack in the middle.
Our new schedule alleviates ALL of these issues and as I have said, it really gives the kids more choices, more power and puts their education in their own hands (to some extent – I do guide them through the morning to make sure all stations are visited.) It also gives two different approaches to the two main subjects (math/language arts) each morning.
We also have found that not going on the hill (our yard is a new adventure now anyway with the remodel) where we couldn’t hear what was being said or being planned and keeping all “battle” type play/drawing out of the classroom has brought about more respectful communication and a new intention in the classroom.
There have also been some consequences instated including losing privileges such as open classroom if any of the “main” rules that we have set as a class are broken. (Of course there are special circumstances and fair warnings.)
It’s a fine balance between letting the kids bring to the classroom their interests and passions and keeping at bay some of those passions that lead to antagonizing behaviors and upset for the community.
Today we had a discussion about the new rules and schedule at circle and everyone (but one) thought it was much better. They like looking forward to starting their day with what they love most in the classroom (stations anyway,) they like running their own snack in the studio, they like moving through the morning at their own pace, they haven’t been missing the hill or frankly playing or drawing “battle”. (There is one I haven’t convinced yet.)
We are challenging ourselves to find “other” interests when drawing, such as, cargo ships, ocean scenes or cities as well as meeting the challenge of coming to one another as Explode the Code buddies or game partners instead of foot soldiers vs knights or Army guys.
Imagine. Can we do it?
I say “Yes we can.” “Yes we will.” We already are.
Thank you for all of the support we’ve been given during this transition. We want our class and our community to be an inclusive, non-violent, exploration of life and LEARNING.
Last windy Thursday we hopped a bus to Fire Station No. 32.
We were so excited. Only Jacob knew what the “watch office” was called where the calls come in.
We learned the difference between a fire engine (with water.)
And a fire truck with the ladder.
We learned about wearing air when fighting fires.
Jorge was VERY popular – everyone wanted to take a ride down the pole.
Isabel puts out a fire.
Justin licks it.
Jackson tells his harrowing story of transferring from Swedish to Children’s via ambulance.
A perfect day. So totally fun. Thank you Jeff, Kathleen and especially Krista for helping us out.
Asher said this just after Jackson told me a story and then said, “You’re not going to put that on the blog are you.”
Your wishes are my commands dear sirs.
Photos by Michelle & Harriette
We have been struggling with transition, so we revamped the schedule to give the day a little more flow:
_____________________
The New Scheule
9:15 – Come in and choose a station (snack is available in the studio)
- Math
- Explode the Code
- Journaling
- Games
(Everyone visits each station)
11:30 – Outside is available
12:00 – Story/reading time with Michelle
12:45 – Lunch with Paul
1:30 – Stations available + other classroom activities (special art workshops)
3:00 – Closing Circle
______________________
We are also taking a break from any war play as well as play on the hill (the hill will reopen soon.)
Salom Boys and Girls,
I’m writing this from Esfahan, Iran, and I want you to know I been passing out pictures you sent me. I’ve taken picures of the children they’ve been given to, to share with you when I return.
However, I am going to start this first e-mail with boarding Northwest/KLM for Amsterdam, about a ten hour flight. Whew! I started on Monday afternoon, and arrived in Amsterdam on Tuesday morning. I have purchased some homeopathic jet lag pills, and even though it was somewhere around 1:00 a.m. in Seattle, but 8:00 or thereabouts in Amsterdam, I didn’t feel jetlagged (groggy and as if I was in morning sunshine at the wrong time.)
Holland is a very small country, and totally flat. You can drive from one end of Holland to the other in two hours! Two hours won’t even get you from Seattle to Portland!
The airport was so quiet and people moved at a leisurely pace. There were no constantly repeating loud speaker announcements like we find in American airports. I don’t know about you, but I usually quite listening to being told to watch my bags, what I can and can’t take on the plane, and whatever they talk about in our airports. And it was very nice to find things so peaceful and quiet.
That is one of interesting things about travel, you get to find out first hand how people live and do things in other parts of the world first hand.
We had ten hours in Amsterdam, so we took the train into what is called Amsterdam Central. When we left the train station, after figuring out how to change American dollars into Euros, we were facing a canal. We took a streetcar type train to go the Rijks Museum and crossed over canal after canal. It was very pretty. The Dutch people ride bicycles, not the mountain bikes and fancy long distance bikes we ride and see in Seattle, but bikes with large wheels (not balloon tires), mostly old and beat up, and hardly ever locked up! The bikes were lined up all over the place for this is how most people get around in Amsterdam. How clever, no fumes, no smog, and bicycles take up much less space to park.
(I know Isabel, this is probably pretty boring, Grandma going on, but I can’t show you pictures yet, so bear with me!) It was 48 years since I had been to the Rijks Museum and I had two paintings I wanted to see, A Woman with a Pitcher by Vermeer and Night Watch by Rembrandt. I’ve got postcard pictures to show you when I return. And yes, my favorites were still there, this time in much more elegant and appropriate framing, and cleaned of hundreds of years of dirt. In the case of the Night Watch, what I saw 48 years ago was a big big very dark and boring painting with only a couple faces showing. In the 70s they had cleaned this famous painting, and now it was filled with people all doing something interesting with Rembrandt’s unique way of have light seem to come out of a person’s face!
It was Tuesday, after lunch, and the museum and nearby park was filled with Dutch people leisurely enjoying their city! Marci, the friend I’m traveling with and I couldn’t get over how crowded the public places were. In Seattle, the museums and parks are empty of people until Saturday when folks are off work! This is what I mean, you learn how other people live differently than you do back home.
Back on the plane, more homeopathic jet lag medicine, and around almost 2:00 a.m., Iranian time, the lights came on, the plane landed, and I donned the blue coat (I had dyed it a darker blue because we were told dark colors were more acceptable), and tied on my scarf along with all the other women. Turns out I didn’t have to cover my bangs all up after all, the rules in Iran are not as strict as they were.
There is a fascinating story about getting through customs, being fingerprinted, waiting a long time, but I will wait to tell you that story when I see you in person.
At last we got to our hotel, figured out the unusual system of getting lights to turn on in the hotel room. You have to put your plastic “key” card in a slot, and then when you push the light switches, the lights come on. If you take out the key card, in a very short time, the lights all go off! One way to conserve electricity.
Tehran has I believe 10 million people. Gas here is very cheap, 10 cents a liter. After all, this is an oil producing country. So everyone has cars, the roads are very crowded, and Tehran, which sits in a valley, is pretty much covered in smog. However, on the day of our first outing, we drove up into the mountains surrounding Tehran and had a lovely clear rare view across the valley over Tehran.
On Iranian weekends, Friday is like our Sunday, and the weekend extends over roughly three days, these totally barren mountains, no trees, will be filled with people, men and women and children climbing into the mountains. On the other side of the mountains (which we couldn’t see) people come up in the winter and go skiing. This winter was particularly hard in Iran. Our guide couldn’t get out of his house for two days because of the snow that was piled up outside his door! The winters are quite cold here, spring, the season we’re in now a comfortable warm/cool, and summers and falls very hot. We are in a desert climate.
By now, my blue coat was feeling very hot, the scarf I had worn to your classes was quite warm, and none of us women looked like what we look like without our scarves! The men in our group were in shirts, some short sleeved and looking cool and comfortable! Many Iranian women were wearing long black chadors, like a loooong scarf that covers you from head to feet. Others in a manteau, a coat that comes in all kinds of stylish looks, some even of light colors, and scarves of fabrics like silk. Today as I write this, wearing the scarf feels more “natural” and seeing women in the covers like I just described seems much more natural and normal.
I’m going to stop here as my group is gathering to go out today. There are many more adventures to share.
Khoda hafez, Traveling Grandma
(Goodbye, or Allah go with you)
Dear Girls and Boys,
I enjoyed visiting your classes very much, and seeing how much you’ve
grown since I started out last fall as Galapagos Grandmother. Your
pictures and writings about yourself are just awesome. I look forward
to sharing them with people in Iran.
Tomorrow morning between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. I am supposed to get
my passport and Iranian visa delivered. They better get there then
because I leave for the airport at 10:30. I’m supposed to hear the
story of what happened that it took so long to get them through
Iran’s process when we get there. Whew!
I reread about the need to wear dark colors in Iran, so the light
blue coat you saw me in, along with the scarf, have died a darker
blue. I’m curious to see what it will be like to wear a buttoned coat
and scarf all the while I am there.
I am taking your questions to ask people. I hear the weather is quite
nice. And, the adventure is about to start!
Travelin’ Grandma Diane
Last Thursday we decided to go on a walk to find a new park before we headed over to the nursery. We wandered up, down and around and after asking many of our neighbors on the streets, we found Seola Creek Watershed. As we were walking through a canopy of trees, Amalie said, “I think we’re in a different country.”
It was steep but we made it, a little wet but exhilarated from all the nature.
Asher said, “I think piranhas can live in here!”
At one point, Jackson said, “If I don’t make it out alive, tell Clara I love her!” What a crack up.
Ella helped us all up the hill, our very own adventurer.
Bees!
The land behind the nursery is so wonderful. I wish I could live in these trees.
Of course Flynn is drawn to the chickens.
Then we picked out our veggie starts.
Whenever nature is involved, we have a blast. Even though we nearly walked our legs off, it was such fun!
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