Shame befalls Ak-Tilek High...

Its been a bit of a bad PR week for my school. It started last Saturday when a news crew from one of the Kyrgyz television stations made an unannounced visit to do a story on classrooms being too cold for students. It is true that, while Ak-Tilek does have a working heating system, it does little good to actually make classrooms warm. There is perhaps a ten degrees difference between a classroom and the outside. Some rooms are better than others of course - a room with a window facing the sun is a bit warmer than those on the other side of the school, but regardless, both teachers and students endure class wearing heavy coats and scarves at all times. To combat this problem, for the entire month of January (and I will assume most of February) classes have been shortened to 35 minutes each. The shortned class, coupled with the fact that I only teach each section twice a week, gives each student but 70 minutes a week of English study. Anyway, the news crew came and interviewed some students, as well as my director and his wife, who is also a teacher at the school. It was made clear that the classrooms were much too cold for the poor children to study and that they would inevitably get terribly sick because of it. I didn't get to see it in person or on television as I was away in Bishkek, but I was told by my host father, as you will remember is the assistant principal, that it was quite shameful. I must add, however, that this is a major problem at every school in Kyrgyzstan, yet only mine was singled out.

In regards to the children's inevitable sickness, this too has come into fruition (is fruition the correct word to use here?). Whether in response to the cold classrooms, or as most people have decided, to the dirty potato biscuits served in the mess hall, there is now a jaundice outbreak.
I say jaundice, but maybe its yellow fever...its something that makes you yellow, I've never gotten an offical translation. Now I really know nothing about jaundice (which they call here sarik, because the word for yellow is sari, and the disease apparently turns your face yellow), but I'm pretty sure it's bad. Anywhere between one and four students in the school now have jaundice or whatever this really bad disease is that makes you yellow (I've been given different figures on several accounts) and the school has taken steps to quarantine. I say steps, but really it is one step - now the teachers travel to different classrooms to teach their respective subjects instead of the students. Whereas before the different sections would come to my classroom for English, now I walk all over the school to theirs. Whether this action will quell (also correctly used?) the outbreak remains to be seen. Luckily however, this problem has not made the local news, yet.

Please don't worry about me, though. Now I am fit as a fiddle and if I begin experiencing any symptoms, I will of course call Peace Corps immediately and acquire the necessary medications. I also plan to look up jaundice on the internet before I leave this cafe cause I thought you got it from alcohol.

Bye for now,
Take Care,
Rick