1st Month in Lithuania Part 2

Have I mentioned that this month flew by? Because it really has! But, I promised stories! So here they are:

First off, teaching. I mean, it is the whole reason I am here, to teach adorable kids! The kids really are great! But holy guacamole, sometimes they are so crazy! Between kids deciding that my name is Teacher Lisa Simpson, and how remarkably fluent they are in swearing they can drive me up the wall! But they really are total sweethearts!

We have two kids who are brand new to the program and have never spoken English before. They are younger, and they are cousins, which makes it really hard to teach them because they have absolutely 0 attention span and just want to play with each other the whole time! But, we are making progress! I love them so much! The other day in class, they were playing that game that kids seem to love where they throw something on the ground and make you pick it up like 5 billion times. But, I was trying to get them to speak English, so I wouldn’t give it to them until they said ‘please’ and then they had to say ‘thank you’ after I gave it to them, and they actually understood that and now they always say please and thank you if they want something! But the CUTEST thing was when they were being kind of disruptive so I leaned over to the little boy and just said “Can you be quiet? Sh.” and he leaned over to his cousin and repeated the exact thing (in English) to her! It was adorable!

So for Valentines Day, we decided to throw a party for the kids! This didn’t go so well, the kids were insane! But, I managed to make a friend! Rasa usually sits out in the hall and waits for kids to come and go between the groups that we teach. But, she had to run back to our apartment with Rachel (don’t worry, there’s a story behind this that you will hear). So she asked me to sit out in the hall and make sure kids got to their parents. As I was sitting there, one of the girls from our second group comes in bawling. So I just walk over and sit next to her and ask her what is wrong, she just shakes her head and continues to cry. So I give her a big hug and tell her how much I love her and that it will be okay. She just cries into my shoulder for a minute and then comes and sits over by where I am supposed to be sitting to watch for kids. After a minute she is doing much better and then it is time to go to class. So I send her in and sit out in the hall while the other teachers do opening because Rasa is still not back and we often  have kids come late. After a minute she comes back out of class and says she won’t go to class unless I am the teacher. And I think ‘oh no, I created a monster’ but I can’t leave my post until Rasa comes back. So I convince her to go to class and make something for me and that as soon as Rasa is back I will come  into her class. So when Rasa finally gets back, I walk into the class that she is in and as soon as she sees me she gets up and yells “Teacher!!!” and runs and gives me a huge hug! Then as part of the Valentine’s party, we had a dance party, and she just wanted to dance with me the whole time! She is the cutest!

Okay, so why was Rasa gone? Well, we have this washing machine who has been named Sparky. He got this name because if you have Sparky running and try to use the sink in the bathroom, you will get shocked. Pretty fun, huh? Anyway, Rasa was over the other day and was trying to show us something about Sparky, and the door fell off of Sparky and broke (RIP Sparky).  So, she got us a new washing machine and the man had to install it while we were in class.

So, freak shakes. Ever had one? The best place to have one is Holy Donut here in Kaunas. It is probably the best donut shop I have ever been to and the freak shakes are amazingly good! We may or may not go there WAY too often!

So, there is a restaurant right by our apartment, we don’t really know the name of it, but we call it Grandma’s Cottage because it is just the cutest little place! And the food is so good! I think we have eaten there once a week! And they have a lot of authentic Lithuanian dishes, so we make sure we are trying local food!

So the other girls I am teaching with are great. We have movie nights and eat our weight in chocolate! It is just a blast! And we love our cute little apartment with all of its quirks! We just got back from Greece, so watch out for all of the details on that coming right up!

Teacher Rachel (Teacher Reindeer), Teacher Kierra, Me, and Teacher Bailey (Teacher Baby) on our first day of teaching

I’m sure there are tons more stories that I just can’t remember right now, but when I remember them, I will make sure you know! In the meantime, I am going to go prep my lesson and wish I was at Holy Donut.