Teaching at Jailoo Kindergarden
August 23, 2017, 06:00
Children, children, everywhere and who is teaching there? Of course, we volunteers from Austria, Portugal, the Netherlands and Taiwan! Amazing children, amazing landscape, amazing teachers – what else?
Jailoo Kindergarden Suu Samuur
Which kindergarden am I talking about? If you have read the Blog „Frog Head Men and Strong Women“ you know about Nasyikat Eje. This woman is running a summer kindergarden for children that are doing the jailoo (summer pasture) in the mountains. In Kyrgyzstan there are several of these kindergardens, all initiated by the Rosa Otunbajewa fund. Rosa Otunbajewa was president of Kyrgyzstan some years ago.
The thought behind these kindergardens is to advance the children’s education and to offer them opportunities of being active. During jailoo children usually do not have a lot to do, as there is no internet in the mountains and the yurts are built quite far from eachother. The Rosa Otunbajewa fund organises teachers and sends them where they are needed. Teachers rotate with other teachers regularly. This helps to optimize the programm. And Nasyikat’s task is to make sure that the kindergarden in Suu Samur runs well.
© Joana Patrício – Sayakat 2017
Obrigada and Obrigado
„The chilren are coming“, our project director announced. You could notice that all of us were a bit nervous – I mean we had to teach children aged 3-12, that could not speak English! We knew that our Kyrgyz friends could translate, but wouldn’t it still be difficult to connect with them? Many of these thoughts crossed our mind but at least we would have an easy start. The first lesson was to tell the children some special facts about our countries. Before that though, they needed to guess where we were from. Funnily it seemed that the only countries they knew were Italy and China.
© Ksenia Viktorovna – Sayakat 2017
After we solved the mystery and told them our countries, the children wanted to know some words in our languages. So we told them how to say „Thank you“ in each of our languages. In Portuguese the female form is Obrigada and the male Obrigado – the children loved it. I was amazed how quick learners they were!
Fun, fun, funnier
Learning languages, numbers and the alphabet can become boring after a while, right? That’s why we also played several games with them, where they could release all the energy they kept inside.
© Ksenia Viktorovna – Sayakat 2017
© Ksenia Viktorovna – Sayakat 2017
However, not only them! All volunteers got active, running and cheering while the children radiated more and more!
© Ksenia Viktorovna – Sayakat 2017
My heart got touched by the sight of little sunshines running and laughing around me. So cute! After a while we also played typical Kyrgyz games like rope-pulling.
© Ksenia Viktorovna – Sayakat 2017
You would be surprised how tough Kyrgyz children are. At the moment where I already needed to let go of the rope because of the pain I felt in my hands, they were still holding on. Confident, that they would win.
Twinkle, twinkle little star
After the children left, we all were exhausted. We lacked any energy. So we took a nap. Some hours later, our energy tanks were refilled. Especially when the sun set and orange light illuminated the hills around us. Promptly we ran to a hill and took many pictures to capture this moment. The moment of us being together. The moment of us having helped the Kyrgyz society. We knew that we broadened the children’s mindsets, that we inspired them to dream big. Maybe it is a bit too much to say that we changed their lives, but we definitely made a change!
Us on the hill. © Meerim Zhan – Sayakat 2017
When it got dark the night sky was phenomenous. Gazing at the stars, I could not believe that there are people who can look at them every night.
© Joana Patrício – Sayakat 2017
This made us realize in what a beautiful country we were. We knew before already, but seeing the milky way so clearly with the yurts in front was just incredible.
Here some more pictures of this amazing place during daytime:
Kyrgyz water is very clean, that is why we drank out of this river. © Joana Patrício – Sayakat 2017
I would love to go to this kindergarden with that view! © Diana Minnaert – Sayakat 2017
© Diana Minnaert – Sayakat 2017
When we needed to leave this place, for the first time, I was quite sad. This place meant a lot to me. I am very thankful, that I could get to know these lovely and lively children. For sure, they will stay in my heart and represent Kyrgyzstan in my memories!
© Ksenia Viktorovna – Sayakat 2017
