Rotary Rotary Rotary

It's official. I LOVE Rotary. They have ridiculous connections.

It's become apparent that the past few weeks, though action packed and ridiculously amazing, weren't really reality. Having fallen into somewhat of a routine I realized (days ago) that I was in need of some regular activities to keep me busy and more importantly allow me to meet people. And so I set out on a mission to find some things to fill my time. And boy oh boy did everything seem to just fall into place! I love it when that happens! Now I think I might have too much going on!

It all began one day (Tues I believe) when I noticed an article in the local newspaper. I always enjoy looking at the paper although I can never really understand what it says. I like looking at the pictures though and it makes me look busy while I sit awkwardly at the kitchen table waiting for dinner sometimes. This is however, beside the point. The point is I understood the heading of one of the articles because it read "something in Slovak and.... Helen Doron's School of English for Children". And then it suddenly dawned on me... 'Hey! why don't you see if you can volunteer there, I mean it's english and teaching and little kids, three things you know and understand!'. So within minutes (because you all know I like to get things done and I was really excited at the prospect of being able to spend some time with little kids) I was emailing the organization.
Now I had no idea what kind of response I would get or if I would even get a response at all. I mean I think I would of understood completely if they ignored my inquiry because think about it: there is this girl from a foreign country emailing you in another language asking if she can help out with the kids and claiming she comes from a ridiculously large family of nine children! But since I slipped in the little but apparently extremely useful word 'Rotary' all was well. It turns out that the main lady of this organization is friends with my rotary counsellor! Needless to say they are more than happy to have me help out around the centre and have offered me some really awesome opportunities! To start I will go there once a week for a couple of hours after school. They said I am welcome to attend some of the classes, to see what their method of teaching is all about. The method is actually very similar to how 'Signing Time' works for those of you who are familiar with it. It uses a lot of songs, and pictures, and actions in order to keep the kids attentive and to help them remember the words. I got to sit in on two classes on Thurs evening and I really enjoyed it. The kids are so cute and it was really fun getting down on the floor with them and playing. Plus I think it will be excellent practice for me because they speak simple slovak and they could care less if I make a mistake, so i can practice my slovak on them without being humiliated at the same time!
Aside from helping out in the classrooms they also said that if I was willing they would arrange to have a free drop in class with me 'a native english speaker' for the parents and the older students. This way whoever is interested can come and ask me questions, learn more about exchange or Canada or whatever else I decide to talk about, and practice their english. All in all I'm pretty excited about this opportunity and I think a lot will come of it!

The second awesome thing that clicked into place had to do with soccer. I had been asking around if there was a girls futball team anywhere in Zilina, and more specifically one that played just for fun. I hadn't received much of a response from anyone however until I asked one of the Rotex girls and they said they knew some girls on a team. So I got a chance to talk to these girls and they said they would love to have me on their team. Most of the team members are only 16 but I'm okay with this because it's either I play on their team or I play for the women's league which is apparently really intense. They meet tues and fri at 3:30 for practice for now and then once the season starts I'm not sure when the games will be. But I'm happy to be able to be a part of a team and it's really nice to be in my position. You can try new things and if you're terrible at it (like I am at most of the things I've tried here) it's all good because a)nobody cares and b)nobody knows you well enough to say anything and c)everyone just assumes you've never done anything like it before and that you don't have that in your country. It's Fantastic!

And the third and final thing that fell into place (thanks to my amazing counsellor once again) was church. She took me to this presbyterian church down the road from where I live and introduced me to all the people there. It was really good but funny at the same time. They of course asked me what church I attend in Canada and I had to try and explain to them what the United Church was. This would have been difficult in itself. let alone the language barrier! But after some interesting descriptions and some googling they seemed to understand. If you could all have been flies on the wall I'm sure you would have found it quite amusing. I know I was laughing on the inside.
The church is a very new building (and beautiful) and it turns out they offer a lot more than just sunday services. They have youth services and a whole swack of programs running all year long. By the looks of it they offer a whole bunch of different youth group activities so I'm pretty happy about this as well. I think it will be a good way to meet some people my age who aren't busy drinking and smoking all the time. It has been a little difficult up until this point finding people who I really want to be friends with, people who are my kind of people, but I think I will be able to find some here for sure. And they didn't all look like extreme church folk either which is always a good sign. I am most excited about some of the classes they run though. They have a cooking class and they asked if I would be willing to teach some of the youth how to prepare some Canadian dishes or desserts. I said of course, but then I realized I'm not too sure what dishes are Canadian. SO if you have any suggestions they would be greatly appreciated!

As always I will keep you updated. We will see if these activities turn out to be as good as I hope they will!

love,

p