Summer Plans

Happy Memorial Day everyone!  It is finally beginning to feel like summer here in Greece.

These are my plans.... after 3 years of living in Athens, Greece I will be departing on June 19.  I fly into Dulles (Washington, DC)  where I stay overnight at my friend's house and then catch an early plane down to Savannah, GA as my parents live near that airport (though they live in SC).

My grandmother now lives close by so I am looking forward to seeing her... and my niece and nephew are coming down for the last week in June - I am very excited to spend time with them!

July 6th I fly back to the Washington, DC area.  I will be staying with my good college friend JT in Alexandria for 4-5 days, then I will be staying with my good friend Courtney in Kensington, MD for 4-5 days, and then I will be staying with my good friends Kirsten and Geoff in N. Potomac until I leave on July 20.

JULY 20TH I leave to move to Singapore and I arrive in Singapore at midnight of July 21.  The school puts me up in a hotel for up to 10 days while I find a place to live. 

Orientation for new faculty begins on August 1 and school starts on August 15! 

So hopefully I will be able to see many of you in my quick month on State side!!!!!!

Tanzanian Project

Raffle Gift Baskets

I have been working hard this past month getting ready for my fund raiser event at the ACS Spring Fair.  It was a beautiful day here in Athens this past Saturday for the Country Fair!

The theme was a Country Fair which included a chilli cook-off, cotton candy, games, Marine Boot Camp, American food, as well as Portuguese food, Korean food, Israelite food, and many other international countries represented by the student population at ACS.

The PTO of ACS graciously offered to donate 10% of the Spring Fair proceeds to my Tanzanian Project.  Last year, the elementary school raised enough money through bake sales and other donations to send 5 Tanzanian girls to school near Moshi.  The Noonkodin Secondary School is where I volunteered for a week in August 2009.  There are about 200 students - 60% of them girls.

·    Most of the Maasai families will not pay the fees for girls because some of the girls have run away from home (because they don’t want to go through FGM nor marry older men, especially because they are only teenagers and they want an education).  Maasai families would love to send all their children to school as they do value education as a ‘door opener’ for the future, but if they are very poor, the girls are valuable for getting them married in exchange for cattle and they do many chores (ie: fetching water from miles away, collecting fire wood for the daily meal).

i wanted to continue to sponsor the girls so they had the opportunity to continue their education.  However, since I wasn't teaching at the school any longer I was having a more difficult time figuring out how to raise the money.  

At the Spring Fair, I had 4 raffles for the 4 girls we were trying to raise money for (the other 2 girls had to leave the school).  I also sold some patchwork quilted items made in Tanzania.  In hindsight, I think I had too much going on and should have just sold my cards and asked for donations.  However, I raised about 150 Euros and the PTO raised...

Birthday

I had a wonderful birthday this year.  My good friends' parents were in town Tom and Mollie and another couple John and Paula - Athens was their last stop from their cruise from Istanbul.

Wednesday we climbed the Acropolis, walked around the Plaka and had dinner near the Agora.  It was nice to visit the sites ONE more time with tourists!


Although Thursday (my birthday) was an unusual cool and rainy day we were all troopers!  We saw the changing guards at Parliament, walked through the National Gardens, went inside the Zappion, went to the Temple of Zeus and I left them at the Agora while I went to work.

We all reunited that evening at the Grande Bretagne Hotel where we were having dinner at the Roof Restaurant with a beautiful view of the Acropolis.

Tom, John, Jill, Mollie, Paula

Then on Saturday I went to a restaurant called Costa Nostra - an Italian restaurant in the Monastiraki area with 8 of my friends.  Great dinner!

Susan, Christy, Jill, Miah, Cat, Kim, Lacey, Dave, George