New Year's Party

The head doctor at the psychiatric hospital called david the other day and invited us to a party that they were having at the philharmonic building downtown. She said the kids were invited too but we assumed it would be more of a fancier adult type party but seeing as we have no babysitters or coworkers or relatives here to watch the kids for us we all got fancied up and went together.

Good thing we brought the kids because it turned out to be for kids! Grandfather Frost and the pig and mouse and the snow princess were all there to dance and play games with all the kids around the New Year's Tree... People must have wondered why we weren't in costumes....next year we will know. If there is a party around New Years's Eve here, your safest bet is to wear your pig suit or bunny ears not your best dress.

David and I were a little disappointed as we were hoping to spend the evening getting to know some other adults and having some good food and drink (it was at dinner time but nothing was served)... We did have a good visit with the doctor though and that is when she gave us the newspaper with the article in it. We got bags of candy- like you would at hallowe'en though it is given to you by their Santa Claus type figure. The robe that Grandfather Frost wears reminds me of something that Elvis would wear. I took a lot of video because they really danced a lot- not your average Christmassy music but club music! I didn't join in- Huddy and Josiah were a little scared of the adults in costumes and the loud music, but David and Emma danced around a bit and joined in the games too...

Making Headlines....

We made it into the local newspaper this week! After we did the project at the hospital the head doctor asked if she could thank us/write an article for the paper. The reporter met David and interviewed him and collected some of the pictures that we had of the project. The reporter also planned to meet the whole family but before we knew it the article was already in the paper- we were supposed to see it before it got published to make sure we liked it. We are glad that there aren't too many mistakes. The only real mistake is that she has our co-worker David as being from Canada too (instead of Germany). She didn't put in any pictures but that is a good thing we think- we don't want to be too familiar as we walk around town:)

I've put some pics of the article up- you russian readers can read it yourself. For the others I'll briefly sum up the parts I put on. The article is longer than this but these are the parts that are more directly about us.

The above headline reads- Gift from Foreign Charity Workers. Two Canadian citizens- david s and david j, gave a gift of blankets etc. to the psychiatric hospital.
One of the charity workers, David James said, that he and his wife and three kids moved to russia 2 years ago, lived in moscow to learn russian and moved here in Aug. His partner David S. also came here with his family.
Big longer quote from David about coming here and seeing the many needs and deciding that we wanted to come help... It explains that we will soon have an organization named Sholban which in tuvan means morning star...and then the last paragraph is the doctor encouraging the people of Tuva to follow the example of the foreigners and help out their people. There is more where she talks about more needs at the hospital and more history about the hospital and our involvement. We are glad that we are getting noticed and in a positive light!

more ice pics

My guess is that the carvers are from Kyzyl- some of them look like they may have been found at the local bar...they do a good job though!
Jo and Emma in the maze- Josiah loved it, he is falling in this picture..slippery when you go fast around the corners!
getting into the maze. Huddy liked going in and out the door but didn't like it inside the maze so much.

Downtown Kyzyl is starting to get a little more festive looking....

Today we walked downtown to see the sculptures and slides that they are working on. They are starting to put up a few lights for New Years Eve too. It was so much fun for the kids- they hardly noticed how freezing it was:)

Sculpting Tools- axe, chisel, and vodka:)
Ice Maze

A few of the Ice Sculptures

Emma loves Dolphins (like Grandma Charlotte)
Grandfather Frost
A Siberian Camel
Year of the Mouse!

Every store is filled with stuffed mice animals, figurines, candles, keychains...everything with mice on them. The animal of the year thing is very important to them here.

correction- you are right Laura- it is the year of the Rat not Mouse but I just keep hearing them use the russian word for mouse instead of their word for rat...not sure why that is. They are pretty into astrology etc. here- they all know what year they were born in and the predictions for the next year etc. Really strange how they buy so much stuff with rats on them.

Ice Slides

Some of the pictures I took today at school...

Looks like Emma and her favorite boyfriend Daneel wanted to sit together... they really like eachother:) It was really fun going to school for a little while with Emma today. Her teacher wanted some pictures of them playing in the different areas of the room. The teacher had gathered all the good toys and furniture from all the different classes in the school so it looks like there is a lot in their room but really they have very little. Emma will miss going to school next week as they will have their holiday break soon. School will start again on the 9th though.
Emma's best bud Daneel

Emma being the storeclerk
Emma and Deeyana playing with the castle
Sanjay and Daneel setting the table for lunch
Saidana

Huddy and his new toy...

Here are some pictures of Emma's program today. I took a lot of video instead of pictures...but unfortunately with our slow connection I doubt I can post any of them.. Emma did a great job for the snow princess dance. There was also gypsy dance- Emma told me there was going to be what she calls a "saxy" dance- she was right...not your typical Christmas program!!

Josiah and Huddy's Tuvan Friends

Here are just some of the pictures I took of the program that Huddy and Josiah's class put on today. It was good but not that fancy- the kids are too young to be able to really dance...Huddy and Josiah were too scared to do it so they just sat with us. Most kids went up without tears but didn't do much more than stand and looking cute- perfect for picture taking:) A few of the girls were really good dancers though- they looked so sweet in their pretty dresses. We are sad that Jo and Huddy won't be playing with these kids everyday now...The sign in the background says basically Happy New Year 2008. The tree is a New Year Tree- not a christmas tree.... and the decorations are all sorts of colours as you can see- not just red and green. Dressing up in costumes is a normal thing to do for New Year Celebrations. Their New Years Eve is like our Halloween and Christmas combined. Tomorrow we go see Emma's class do their program- should be pretty cute. And the day after that (27th) the teacher asked if I could go to school with Emma and take pictures of them doing all the different things they do in class like paint, exercise, read etc. so that she can put together a little album or something like that. It is all great for language and culture study!

Just some pictures of our Christmas morning. I'll put some more on later. We just stayed home with the kids in the morning as the teacher thinks the program will be at 3pm now. So the boys are just resting after the busy morning of sliding and playing with their new toys and then we will all head over to their school soon to watch their New Year's Program. They will have to say goodbye to their new friends as it is their last day:( Josiah introduced me to one of the girls in his class yesterday. He said "this my ladygirl.. she's beaudiful!! So cute.