What to Send…What to Send…

September 16, 2008

I sometimes get emails from people asking me what they can send to help out over here, so I thought I’d write a blog about it.

Things that would be helpful, if you have any types of these things hanging around unused at home:

Games (anything that would be helpful to educational development, especially) like Scrabble, Taboo, Balderdash, and others. And games that don’t require a ton of English to play would be cool. Like Uno cards maybe?

Frisbees (they LOVE ultimate Frisbee out here)

Books (children’s or young adult- nothing too difficult)

Any types of short stories, poems or plays (junior high level, nothing to difficult) found online printed out (8 copies would be really cool…it’s expensive to print and Xerox anything here)

Honestly, I think that last one would be the best way to help out, if you have the time to do a Google search for some stories, poems or plays online and also any discussion questions to go along with it.

I am completely and totally aware and adapting to the idea of using my own creativity to create an interesting learning environment, and trust me I’ve done my share of adaptation here.

Every time I get ahold of a magazine of some sort it is turned into a lesson plan…every piece of cardboard from a package I receive is used to create fake clocks, or other types of visual aids for my students. Every piece of paper is double used for something else and I keep every cover of the notebooks I go through so that can be used also. I’ve spent hours drawing, coloring, cutting and gluing stuff together for lesson plans.

I’ve dealt with having no chalk, no books, no classroom, even…they’re just things that have to be dealt with.

But sometimes I get frustrated because my brain can only be stretched so far…which is why volunteers rely on each other and the outside world so much for ideas.

Here’s the address:

Angela Generoso/PCV
Mailbox 24
Central Post Office
Mary City, 745400
Turkmenistan

And a nice little story for ya:

Two frogs are in a jar of cream, and they try to jump out but fail. One frog says its hopeless and sinks to the bottom. The other keeps trying until the cream turns to butter, which lifts her to the top so that she can step out of the jar.

Keep on, keeping on…