Tradition, Teaching, Technology

It seems that new village traditions pop up every couple of weeks here! Last week we had the farmers market where Ritchie was fascinated by the tractors (old and new) and I was more interested in the horses. Very cool to see some of the huge, expensive farm equipment as people prepare to harvest the corn soon. Also, since it's autumn, everyone now has pumpkins outside their doors. Why not I guess? Definitely some strange varieties of pumpkins around and none seem to look like the ones we have at home...


Manuela and I have been trying a different church each week and so far I haven't found anywhere I like. It seems that the most modern thing churches here have done in the last 100 years is to say mass in English instead of Latin. But hopefully I will eventually find somewhere. I'm also nearly registered as a student at Düsseldorf Uni so maybe there will be a Christian group there I can connect with.

Teaching is in it's second week and I am more than ready to start doing stuff. Just sitting in class watching has got rapidly very boring and I'm looking forward to being the real thing next week. Looks like Drama won't be happening as organising it got too complicated and I'll be running conversation classes for teachers instead. Got to admit I'd rather be doing the Drama! I missed my bus this morning by about 10 seconds and the only option for getting there on time was to bike. Now, we are all aware that I haven't been able to much exercise for the last year because of the knee so this was a bit of nightmare. Plus I think the 8km to school is probably the furthest I've biked ever. In my life. AND, school is at the top of the only hill for miles around. Typical huh? But I managed it and apart from the sore muscles thought it was quite a nice ride. Perhaps I should do it more often...

Probably the thing that has surprised me the most here is the technology. Or rather, the lack of technology in school. So far the music room is the place I've seen a whiteboard, everything else is blackboards and chalk. I think only a few rooms have data projectors and most others have overhead projectors (I'm not sure I even know how to use one of those!). I think there may be one computer room but I haven't been there yet. It means I'm having to review my thinking about lessons and what resources I can use. Not being able to show videos and pictures makes things just that little bit harder.