I killed a mosquito with a squeegie.

It deserved it. I woke up yesterday morning with four mosquito bites on my arm. Unfortunately, mosquito bites here aren't like normal mosquito bites. They look like big ugly purple golf ball welts and they take a while to go away. Having four on the same arm makes me look diseased. So when I saw the mosquito buzzing around the bathroom that morning I knew I had to get my revenge. It landed on the ceiling so I grabbed the squeegie and acted fast. I guess its a good thing that the showers here are weird and flood the bathroom requiring one to squeegie the entire bathroom floor after each shower. If it weren't for the squeegie, who knows, I could still be falling victim to the vicious bug.

In all seriousness though, I actually have a lot of exciting real news for this blog post! The ceiling next door finally got fixed so on Monday I said adieu to my temporary roommates and welcomed Leah who I will be living with for the remaining nine months (I can't believe I've been here for a whole month already!). It is very exciting to finally have space to put things, but since I have already lived in the room for a while I am finding it hard to motivate myself to unpack everything. I have the next two weeks off for Sukkot though, so I will have plenty of time to do so soon.

Last week I got my school assignment. I will be working at the Rimalt school in Poleg, the wealthy southern part of Netanya. I was confused at first as to why I wasn't placed in a low-income school, but after working at Rimalt for a few days I realized that everyone needs help. Just because students go to a better school doesn't necessarily mean they are motivated and excited to learn English, and it doesn't mean that I won't make a difference at Rimalt. My teaching partner, Casey, and I will be working there with two of the English teachers and will be working with students in grades 4-6. Ester, the English teacher I will be working with has Tuesdays off so I will only have a four day work week (Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday). We got really lucky with our placement, as the school is really nice and the people who work there all seem friendly.

The first day at the school we were welcomed with a small but nonetheless exciting concert. We walked into a classroom with a welcome sign all the students had autographed. The chairs had been placed in a circle around the room and we were told to sit in the middle. It was actually a bit nerve-racking to sit there with a bunch of Israeli children staring at you, but luckily the presentation was entertaining and I laughed through most of it. First the students sang a 10 minute rendition of Bob Marley's "Don't worry." Next, a few students read a speech in English welcoming us to the school. The final part of the show was my favorite. They had choreographed a hip hop routine just for us. It was to modern American hip-hop songs, and the students went all out for it. We have it on video but I'm having trouble uploading things at the moment. When I get everything sorted out with my camera I will post pictures and the video. After the big presentation, we were fed chocolatey goodies the parents had baked for us. Then we were taken on a tour of the school.

The second day at the school we observed in the classrooms. It was so great to finally be able to help out the students a bit and start getting to know them. We were told that for the first few months we will only be given the advanced students who are bored in class because their English is already pretty good for their age. During the observation, I was able to help a few students out during the lesson. I thought it was really cute that a few of them tried really hard to impress me with their English skills. I met a student who was born in America and speaks English with her parents at home. She is super advanced and I can't wait to work with her more, even though one of the other students felt the need to warn me that she was crazy.

Even with the students that speak English really well, there are also students on the opposite end of the spectrum who have no English skills whatsoever. In one of the classes I observed, there was a little boy who knows literally one word in English. What is that word? "Igloo," of course. I don't know where or why or how he learned that word, or why it is the only one he remembers, but he uses it to describe everything. If he wants to get my attention? "Igloo." If he wants to tell me to use Hebrew instead of English? "Igloo." To be quite honest, I'm not even sure he knows what it means, but the first time I heard him use it a bunch of students laughed so I thought it had another meaning in Hebrew and made sure not to repeat it until I checked with the teacher. Apparently it means the same thing here as it does in America, so I am still clueless as to the significance of "Igloo."

That's all for now, although it is important to note that this post was started about a week and a half ago so ignore the time frame I provided in the beginning. Also, I should say that I now have nine new mosquito bites on my legs from a different but equally evil mosquito who I expect to find and squeegie attack as soon as possible. I will post soon about my Sukkot holiday break.

Bye! Igloo!
Melanie

School interior. My classroom is upstairs to the right.

Partial view of my classroom before getting spruced up a bit.