Saying Good-bye

We are discovering that a fact of life overseas is that people are always coming and going. The going is the difficult part. This year Kate has had to say good-bye to her closest friend at school and we are having to say good-bye to close friends who have worked with us at the school. Most of the high school staff is staying on for another year but many are leaving from the elementary staff. (Both Kate's and Will's teachers are returning to the States.) We had party to say good-bye to leaving staff. It was a snack pot-luck and games night. We had a good turn-out and everyone had a lot of fun.

Sports Day

The school year is winding down and with that comes the all important Sports Day. At our school, every student family is put into one of four "houses" at the beginning of the year, named after famous Kazakhs. We are in Zhambul; the other three are Abai, Auezov, and Sefullin. Throughout the year the students and families get points for a variety of things. One of the big points events is Sports Day (especially since it is near the end of the year when the competition is heating up) and all the students and families participate in events.

Unfortunately, we are on a decidedly unathletic team so our team came dead last for the day. But we had a great time, despite getting rather sunburned. We all ran in 100-meter races of some sort: Kate and Thomas ran 100-meter races, Will and I ran both 100-meter races and 4 x 100-meter relays, and Karla ran in a 4 x 100-meter relay. It was a strange coincidence that in each of our 100-meter races, all four of us (not including Karla) came in second place! But the best race to watch was definitely Thomas' race -- look at his great form!

Will and Kate participated in a lot of different events, while Karla and I were "house leaders" -- which meant that we were constantly running around making sure that all of the Zhambul kids were at their events at the right time. A busy but fun day!