Family, food, faith and classroom fun

My host family includes a mother, father and three children (two girls and a boy.) On the first evening, the father asked me to call him "moxanim" meaning minister. He asked me to call his wife "hyunsuk," which means "wife of noble character" as in Proverbs 31. The oldest daughter, Kimchihey, is about 18 years old and speaks English fairly well. She goes to school from 7:30ish until about 5, and then again at 8 p.m. for math. Korean children are much more studious than American children. Although, I believe the parents and the school system has a lot to do with this. (They're not naturally more studious.) The second oldest daughter, Kimjimin, is about 15 years old and also speaks some English. The third child and son, Kiminwoo, is 13 years old. Korean children use their surname when they introduce themselves. In this case: Kim. Today, a child in one of my classes said my Korean name should be Kimsally. I thought that was pretty clever.

I always considered myself an adventurous eater, but I have to admit the food will take some time to get used to. I even told some of you that I wasn't worried about this part. I really like kimchi and bulgolgi and several other common Korean foods, but eating rice at every meal is a little bit hard on my digestive system. Sometimes my appetite is not at all aroused by what is in front of me. I realized that eating international food every once in a while is different from eating it all of the time. But I think I will adjust. Food is an adventure. (This evening I ate crunchy, spicy, baby crabs as a side dish at a restaurant. Hehe!)

A stomach ache convinced me to try my first Korean sentence on Hyunsuk, lest I invite more trouble for my body. "Yeogiga Apayo." It hurts here, I said. Then I explained that for "achim siksa" (breakfast,) I would need a something light. (This was not with any sort of fluency of course, but with long pauses as I fumbled through a Korean-English pocket dictionary.) I took pride in my first attempt to communicate with her language, but hoped sincerely that I didn't lead her to feel bad about all the beautiful meals she has prepared so far.

A few minutes later, Hyunsuk relayed the story to Maxonim. He prayed over my belly. Though I couldn't understand the words, I could sense sincerity in his prayer. And my pain was taken care of. I'm impressed by his faith in God. On Sunday, I will attend their church.

Today was my first day to teach a class. I taught a few "science" classes. In the first class, we read about "resources" and "woodland habitats." Then we reviewed the terms they had learned so far and played a game during which I defined the term and a person from each team would run up to the board to write the correct term as fast as they could. I think the reading made them feel bored, but the game woke them up.

In the next class, I introduced myself and drew a picture of the United States (well, sort of) with a small box to represent Iowa. We read about the cycle of life for a frog, which consists of three steps: 1. frogs, 2. eggs, and 3. tadpoles. The students then drew frogs, eggs and tadpoles with arrows to demonstrate the direction of the cycle. They had fun with the drawings. One girl drew two tadpoles with a heart in between them. It looked pretty funny! Aren't tadpoles too young to be falling in love?

This evening I observed a guy name Chris. He is a Canadian, but has lived and taught in Korea for seven years and married a Korean woman. Chris really put me at ease about teaching. If I even become half...no...even one third as good as Chris is at teaching, then I will consider my time here a true accomplishment.

I left my house today at 8:45 a.m. and returned at 8:30 p.m., so I'm pretty tired. Tomorrow is Saturday! I will sleep as late as possible. Then in the afternoon, Jean, my boss' wife, and Emma, one of the managers, will take me shopping.