Pen Pal Project

Pen Pals

Our Pen Pal letters from America arrived this week. I took them to school on Tuesday to hand out to the students. The students were so excited. They were yelling, laughing and jumping up and down. The class was out of control. I called students names to get their letters. Suddenly, I was almost crushed by students ready to grab their letter as soon as I called their name. They immediately wanted to know if their student was a boy or girl. They looked through the class pictures to find the picture of their student pen pals. If they could not find their pen pal’s name, they were yelling “Mrs. Linda, Mrs. Linda” trying to get my attention to help them find the student that was their pen pal. When one student found one of their pen pal pictures they had to yell at other students, “Look! Look!” It was so crazy! We only opened the letters from one of the two teachers the first day. It took the entire class time. The American pen pals had sent some CDs of their favorite music. They wanted to hear it right then. Some insisted that they should take home a CD to listen to that night.
The next day we distributed the pen pal letters from the second teacher. I was more prepared and had the class pictures spread out around the room so they would not be stepping on one another to get to the class pictures. I insisted that they all be seated and only come forward to get a letter. That idea lasted a few minutes and then they were all up ready to grab a letter and hurry to find a picture. I realized that there were other students in the room – other 8th graders and even 9th and 10th graders. It seems that they had heard about these 8th graders getting more pen pal letters at 3rd hour class. They had asked teachers if they could go to the bathroom but instead came down to our class to see the pen pal letters and pictures. Metanet (my Azerbaijani teaching partner) and I had to chase them out of our room.
Now they have to write back to the pen pals and I will e-mail their letters to the teachers in Harrisonville, Missouri so the Missouri pen pals will get a return letter before school is out. They are talking about what to tell their pen pals and asking about sending pictures. I said they could only send one picture because they were each wanting to send several pictures.
The Azerbaijani school curriculum is weak in writing goals. The textbooks have few writing activities. Most Azerbaijanis do not write letters because all their family and friends live nearby. It appears that this pen pal activity will be a great motivator for practicing writing skills.

The pictures are of three journalists who live and work in Shirvan. They attended the morning session of the Citizen Journalist Seminar. When they left, they thanked me for being an American in Azerbaijan and being interested in the political needs of their country.
The second picture has a bit of a story. The last activity of the seminar was the discussion of any important issues in Shirvan. As you have seen in past pictures of the water out of the tap in Shirvan is pretty dirty. As a joke in my conversation clubs I always ask “what color is the water in Shirvan”? Well, the journalist interviewed us, and wrote an article about the problem in Shirvan and included our interviews on radio website. Speaking about problems publicly is not encouraged to say the least. I said if I go to jail, we all go to jail together. So I linked arms with Lale and Nigar and we all committed together. Lale then asked, “will we get clean water in jail”?
The final picture is a great photograph. Next week in 3 Azerbaijan cities, Baku, Sumqayit, and Shirvan programs will be presented and information distributed on the issue of Human Trafficking. The victims of human trafficking are mostly women. The information combines the crimes against women in trafficking and domestic abuse. The best part of the events are they are being carried out by volunteers. Volunteerism is virtually missing in Azerbaijan. One of the volunteers is Nigar, a college student here in Shirvan. She is being assisted by another participant of the programs at the library, Lale.