The Unibrow-A thing of Beauty?

If you were to google "unibrow" in the US, you would probably find thousands of links and ads to waxes and tweezers and most definitely how to get rid of the bushy caterpillars above our eyes.  In Tajikistan, the unibrow is a thing of beauty.  If you were to google unibrow here in Tajikistan using a Tajik browser (which doesn't exist, but if it did...) you would find loads of links to buy a type of paste to darken up those beauties.  The popular herb called Usma, which is dried in the sun for a couple of hours, ground up into a paste, is rubbed into your eyebrows (and the space between!) to give a dark, rich look.
I have also learned that women here will leave their eyebrows unkempt and unplucked until marriage. After marriage, they will begin to tweeze them.  On a personal note, if it were me, I would pluck until marriage and then stop!

Here is a picture of a woman at the bread store. She looks angry, but I think it's just because of her eyebrows. 

Great Eights and Nifty Nines!

Since I spend 60 percent of the week at school, I thought I would talk about my experiences here at work.

Let me start off by saying, that I have the best job in the world.  I love working with kids.   By American standards, I teach 3rd and 4th grades.  Since we are an international school, we call them 8 year olds and 9 year olds.  

If you are a teacher in America, you may want to stop reading.  You will hate me after you read about my experiences here.  If you are thinking about working overseas, please read on, you will be convinced to leave everything behind and teach abroad. 

I have eight students.  Yup, eight.  I once had 8 in a reading group at a previous school. Now, I get to have 8 students all day.  I have two different curriculums to teach, but it's amazing what can be accomplished and learned in a day with 8 students.  I have always differentiated for reading, writing and math.  The hardest part has been differentiating for social studies and science since they have completely different material.  Since I have two different ages to teach, I have been given an assistant.  So to recap, I have 8 students plus an assistant.  I may never teach in the US again!

My classroom is small and lovely.  I put some things up on the wall, so now it looks like my walls are covered just because I don't have a lot of space.  The kids are terrific.   We have a very diverse group of kids.  We have a big population of American, German and Tajik students here.  I get to use an American teaching curriculum here.  This is extremely beneficial because I am already familiar with the American standards.  

Materials can be difficult to get here.  Reading books are especially difficult and hard to get. They have to be shipped from the US which is costly and timely.  Our school was thinking about ordering some playground equipment from China.  Can you believe it is more expensive to ship it to Dushanbe than it is to America and Tajikistan is RIGHT NEXT DOOR! There are a lot of mountains between the two places, and the transportation system is not very good, but I was still surprised when I found that out.  

Well, I do love my school.  I have fantastic parents and even more amazing students.   I feel so lucky to be here.  Now, if I could just pick up the school with the kids and send it to location like Greece, or any place with a beach, I would have the best job in the world!