2015-10-03 TNKR on Saturday: What have I done? :-)

Many South Korean office workers look forward to the weekend--so they can sleep! At least, that's according to what many of them say, when I ask, "What do you usually do on weekends?"

Well, Eunkoo Lee can't answer like that anymore! Before we got more serious about TNKR, she would sleep or watch baseball on weekends. But now almost every Saturday (and some Sundays), we have some type of an event related to (TNKR) Teach North Korean Refugees.

Ah, but yesterday, at last, I was going to have a Saturday off. My Korea Times column is due, I have several other pressing projects. But it was Eunkoo who was telling me that I should come out on Saturday! That's because she was going to be at our new study center in Itaewon to meet with some of the refugees studying in the program. I was making up excuses why I couldn't join, but she didn't want to hear it!

I started yesterday by shooting some hoops. After that, I joined up with Eunkoo. We all had a great time, talking, eating. One refugee started our program at the ABC level, but he has now gotten to the DEF level. Yesterday, we pushed him to utter some phrases in English. He hesitated at first, insisting on Korean, but after a lot of prompting, pushing, and teasing, he did it! He looked up some phrases, perhaps some he learned from his tutor, then he began asking questions.

And the young lady who joined us yesterday has been studying in our program for several months now. She is really eager, not the least bit shy about trying English. She said, "I always think about the nice TNKR volunteers who help North Korean refugees."

So yesterday, Eunkoo got me! I came out on a Saturday when I had planned to act like a Korean office worker, sleeping until Monday arrived.

The next few weeks we will be REALLY busy. I'm sure that the people who don't read messages closely will get confused and go to the wrong places or not properly apply.

October 10: TNKR Open House (Itaewon)
October 17: TNKR Orientation for tutors (Itaewon)
October 24: TNKR English Matching session (Bangbae)
October 31: TNKR English Rematching session (Itaewon)

In addition, we have several private meetings planned.

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