Toucans, Taxes and Thailand Tomorrows

Life gets busy so easily. I feel like I'm in a continual battle with that and busyness has been winning lately. There's been little time to reflect, and therefore little time to add any pictures or thoughts to this blog. Life has been wearing me down and adding wrinkles to my face, so I've declared this weekend to be a mini vacation and I'm not doing any school work at all and am trying to relax and be refilled.
Here's some pictures from some of the things I've been doing lately:

Local Art Show: My friend R and some other young women displayed their art at a local high school recently. It was interesting to see their work and hear their opinions about politics and the treatment of women in this country. It is exciting to see that they have the freedom to do this now.


My friend R with her painting reflecting Suffi Muslim beliefs, which is a more mystical branch of Islam.

I really liked this painting. The women are being herded in one direction toward the darkness, but you can see that their faces are turned the opposite way toward the light.




Rainforest Unit: My classroom has been developing into a jungle lately. Look closely and you may even see some rainforest wildlife (besides the kids, that is!).



Our Reader's Theater "The Great Kapok Tree" that we did for the first graders. (That's a boa constrictor crawling up the tree!)


Making toucans that we hung from the ceiling/ canopy layer.


My English class (for a week) in an old, bombed out school.


An apartment building next to the school. There are lots of buildings that still look this war torn and people do live in them, even during the winter.