And the teaching continues

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My time in Crete has been a learning experience for all. My kids are learning some things. Now when we play baseball during recess, fewer kids are fielding their own hits and more of them are running in the right direction. They have "duck duck goose" down cold, and have perfected the cry of "I have bingo." And when I ask them to do something, rather than just raising their eyebrows at me (the universal sign for no in Greek), they actually say the word "no" now.  Success! As for me, despite my earlier protests that Raki was only for hairy Greek men, I am learning to like the stuff...or rather not detest it (the secret is to shoot it, not sip it). And I have also learned a Greek dance or two. I am practically a Cretan.

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School is going well...mostly. There was one day this week where the kids -- all 150 of them at the school -- collectively went insane. That was a tough day. But orderly behavior and quiet are not, as we've discovered, key characteristics of the Greek culture, so a little craziness is to be expected.

I've been enjoying sight-seeing in Crete as well, in my little spare time. This past weekend, I went with some other volunteers to Chania, in the west of Crete, which was absolutely beautiful. I also went to Knossis, which is a famous excavation of a Minoan palace dating from 1700 BC. Its where King Minos is said to have held the Minotour hostage in his labryinth. Turns out the labryinth is actually the entire palace - built to be easy to get into, but impossible to get out. Its impressive -- Europe's first flushing toilet, first road, first water piping system -- all almost four thousand years ago. The museum had some amazing artifacts too, many dating from as far back as 6500 BC, which just seems crazy to me.

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Last night, all of the volunteers went to a local kind of mock traditional Cretan village for dinner and a night of traditional Cretan dancing. Predictably, given my luck, I was pulled on to the stage to dance...but it was actually one of the dances that I had learned the other day, so I knew what I was doing (well, kind of). At least I knew more than the French man who was dancing next to me and nearly catapolted himself off stage. So I count it as a success.