3 September
It’s been an eventful few days here and I can only hope to try and get some of it down now for all of you to read. Firstly is the first of September, which ushers in the first of fall, first day of school and so on. The first day of school is in itself quite a celebration. They have all the students dressed up in their best at the school, parents attend and it made for quite a crowd. There are speeches by the director of the school, someone from the district (I think) and the mayor spoke as well. More people spoke too, but I couldn’t pay attention to all of it, plus it wasn’t all interesting, I’ll admit. Felt like a lot of pomp and circumstance, but that is life here for holidays. Afterwards, I met up with a lot of the English teachers and other teachers and we celebrated the Day of Knowledge, which conveniently is the same day as the first day of school, ok, I’m sure it’s planned that way. So that basically involved a lot of eating, drinking and dancing with the teachers of the school, from 3 p.m. until 10 p.m. Made for somewhat of a long day, but that’ the way it goes around here, what I do for my country ☺. I had a good time (even was told I am a good dancer), however, and it was a good time to reestablish relationships with especially the English teachers as well as other teachers to make sure they knew my face.
(Quick note on dancing,I've been told I am a good dancer here. As far as I'm concerned nothing has changed and I am as bad as ever, only most people are worse dancers here. That and having people stand in a big circle and dance is still the thing to do around here.)
Still don’t know what I will be doing exactly at the school as far as a schedule, but I’m pretty sure it will involve my journalism, student government and technology teaching. If anybody knows how to use Access, a Microsoft program, or has even used it before, drop me a message, cause that was one program the director wanted to be teached and I have never ever used it for anything. Wondering how useful it would be to even bother teaching them, but I don’t write curriculum. Oh well. (Update on that too, all of that is true and I will be doing those things. Not sure about Access yet.)
Saturday saw a quieter day where I went to the bazaar in the morning where I found some excellent bread, still eating on that and bought a couple other things I had been wanting. Haven’t completely outfitted my apartment yet, but it is getting there. It is just tough to start from pretty much scratch here. Every other time I have moved in, I have at least had pretty much the bare basics to start with. I’m at bare bones now with hopes to improve it to a point where I can at least feel as if I am comfortable with the tools I have. In the evening I went out with my former host family (they were upset I hadn’t made an appearance at their place since I only live one floor above them, oops) at their friends who has become a mutual friend, Stepan Michaelovich. What made this night memorable was that he had purchased some Tabasco sauce. I guess it is expensive here since he paid close to $10 to buy a small bottle. No way you could get me to do that, although if you sent me some, I’d gladly accept it. It was quite the experience as they got a chance to try it out and see the spiciness of it. I had to almost stifle my laughter. Never been a huge fan of it and it’s spiciness, but it was a nice change to say the least. But I gotta admit, having Tabasco be something of a delicacy was fun.
Today saw me out on the road again going to the village of Hirnik, my apologies to however thinks it should be spelled differently, please correct me and I can change it. There I met up with a friend of mine and her sister to go explore some places where there had been coal mining in the past. It was definitely interesting, I’ll try to get some pictures up from the trip. I’ll be honest, I was hoping to explore caves, but this is more of a strip mining operation from what I could tell, so no exploring mysterious caves that could spell my doom. So much for my attempt at being the next Indiana Jones, maybe another time. The only man-eating beasts I had to deal with were mosquitoes who were thick. The genius I am wore shorts and did not bring bug spray to fight them off, result, I counted 16 different mosquito bites on my legs.
But it was still a lot of fun seeing what I did and hanging out with them, trying to pick blackberries and talking with their mother. Also got to pick on Oksana a little bit in front of her older sister and mother when they were preparing lunch, her mother got a kick out of that. I, of course could do no more than sit and observe, and make incisive comments, such is life as a guy. Another thing you will probably see reflected on in the pictures is we, well I, found a sparrow in the middle of the road I almost stepped on. Ended up picking it up and we were all concerned about the health of it, maybe a broken leg, wing, or both. I saw what looked like something had attacked it on it’s head. Oksana and Ira tried to give it water and got it out of the sun, I basically watched, gave my two cents and thought to myself the poor bird was a goner although I also took the most pictures. We were about ready to set it down and proceed in our rather vain attempt to collect blackberries, didn’t get very many, when it almost flew out of Oksana’s hands. I took it from her and it proceeded to leave a present on my hands before flying across the road. Ira’s only comment at that point was, “well, I don’t think any of us expected that,” I’ll agree with that. But we were all able to leave the situation happy and not worry about a cat eating it immediately or trying to take it home.
Straight from there I went to meet up with Stepan and my host mom to watch a football game, which the team we were rooting for ended up winning. After the game it was some tension, although I couldn’t exactly follow what happened, something along the lines of my host mother didn’t like what our coach had said, but no guarantees on that. Went out with a group afterwards at a café where I got to meet a bunch of new people who I don’t know the names of and spend time with them being the American. My favorite game. Got a ride home with Stepan in a car and got grilled by the driver for not sure exactly what, something along the lines of politics and my being in Ukraine, maybe it’s better I don’t understand everything, but at the end of the ride, the driver was better, I think, and we left with him inviting me to his house, or something along those lines. Just goes along the lines of people wondering why Americans are living in their country doing what some people may see as insubstantial. But it can also be seen as building grass roots support for ideas and people that wouldn’t otherwise be there. I think he had some interest in politics too, which as a Peace Corps volunteer we’re not supposed to delve into and I just don’t have enough information to provide a solid answer anyway. It made for an interesting conversation nonetheless. Well, it is almost 10 here and I have been going all day, hopefully I can get this posted quickly so you can all get your update. Best wishes and as always, feel free to drop me a comment, email, etc. I always love to hear from anyone and everyone.
Monday, September 04, 2006
Thursday, August 31, 2006
30 August 2006
I am almost at a loss of where to start here, things have been moving at a quick clip here and a whole host of things has happened. So I will just try to go through my memory and write as it comes, no guarantees to anything extremely organized or chronological. My only worry is it will turn into a mini book, so I’ll try to break it up so you don’t have to read it all at once either.
First of all, let me start from the present. I am sitting in a location different from where I have written previous posts, mainly meaning that I have moved into my own place. I’ll try to get some pictures up for you all to get an idea what my living space looks like, but it is still a little messy from my moving in and I haven’t got things organized to a satisfactory point yet. When that gets done I’ll try to get some photos up. It is definitely no palace, but it does have two rooms, plus the kitchen, toilet and bath. Yet, because the previous residents moved out the day I moved in (they are moving to a larger apartment in town) I have the bare minimums of living here. Basically the second room has one, no now two, pieces of furniture in it right now. I moved a small coffee table in to accompany a small couch. That is also the larger of the two rooms, but the majority of furniture is in the smaller one, which includes my bed, desk, and storage for my clothes. Peace Corps gives us a list of the bare minimums of what should be in our apartments, that’s what I have in my apt. right now, with maybe a couple extra forks. I cooked dinner tonight and realized I had no storage containers to put the extra rice into. I put the pot in the fridge. It is a strange way to start off, with almost nothing, in all my previous moves I knew I brought a lot of stuff, but now see, especially in the kitchen, how all of that can make life so much easier. But the evening was better than the morning. I spent the second half of my yesterday helping the previous residents move out and move my stuff in, which meant it slipped my mind to actually buy some food to eat. This was after I had already dropped a good chunk of change the day before buying necessary things like toilet paper and cleaning supplies. Thankfully my former host mother took pity on me, she only lives one floor down from my current place and fed me breakfast and gave me a few kitchen items. Still need to get a hold of a spatula. Then I went and dropped another load of cash to buy just the basics to get me started around here; we’re talking as basic as salt and pepper. But I was able to cook myself dinner tonight so no one should worry about me starving. I still have a lot to learn about gas stoves, however. I get the feeling like there is no low setting like on electric stoves, just hot and really hot(update, this morning I have have found it, no guarantees). Made for an adventure trying to cook my rice, which is supposed to sit on low heat. Also trying to get chicken cooked without spraying oil all over the kitchen, I failed at that. And yes I know I could cover it, but didn’t have a lid of any sort to do that with. The other observation is how silent it is. Thankfully I got mail from the states so I spent some time reading through that, but this will be another part of my adjustment I’m sure. I was used to living with families and always someone around or something going on. I had been wanting to not feel like I had to put on a show of any sort, but it can be lonely at times to, I’ll admit.
Well, moving on, I want to preface the next part by saying today has been a sad day because I heard the news that a former volunteer that I had seen just this past weekend died Tuesday night. John Zvosec was a volunteer in Ukraine for six years before ending his service this past fall. He was a retired architect and stayed in the country with his Ukrainian wife. I first met him on a project I have been working on to plant trees in my community. He was a man that gave a lot of himself to this country and had an abundance of patience with a newbie like me in the country. For a man of his experience I never felt stupid in front of him and he seemed to generally care for the country and the work he did as a free-lance volunteer in the country. He undoubtedly had a profound impact on the country of Ukraine and his adopted city of Ternopil. I’m still in shock, as are many others who knew him.
A little of what him and I had been working on. My regional manager approached me with a potential grant to plant trees from an American organization and I said I would do my best to put together a grant, almost immediately feeling overwhelmed, you can read about it in a previous post of mine. But this past weekend I went to Ternopil, a few hours east of Lviv by train, and we finished this proposal, which I know I could not have done on my own. The city, by the way, is beautiful. I was told it is one of two cities in Europe formed around a lake, the other being Geneva, on further thought, that may be stretching it a bit, but the town itself was charming. I was there on a rainy day so I didn’t get to see as much as I would have liked, but liked the atmosphere there and definitely want to return and spend more time there. As for the prospects for the grant, I have no idea what to expect, mostly I’m just glad to have got it out of the way for the moment; I have plenty of other things occupying my time as well.
One of those other things you may have seen if you looked at my pictures recently. August 24 is Independence Day here and while I felt like Americans take their day a little more enthusiastically, I had my own part in the activities. The mayor had asked me to give a speech in front of the town, oh, in Ukrainian. Thankfully this time around I had time to prepare and practice, unlike the other time I got to give a speech to a town on Victory Day this past spring. With it threatening rain the entire ceremony, I was slated to be one of the last people to speak. To add to my pressure, people were getting tired and the ceremony was kind of dragging on, I heard people saying it was too long, with even more speakers to go. Thankfully I had prepared only a very short speech and it went rather well (to read the text, go to my supplemental materials). I started off a little nervous, but was able to settle down by the end and it went all right. The day went on to a concert featuring local musicians and some other group that at least none of the young kids had even heard. Then it was the outdoor disco that brings a lot of the town together and ended with fireworks, made for a long day.
That’s probably way too much reading for any one person, but I hope you make it through eventually. I’ll try to keep them shorter, and for better or worse, I know there was more I had wanted to write at one point or another. But I can save those stories for another time. It is 11 at night and I need some sleep, have English club tomorrow and no idea what to yet.
I am almost at a loss of where to start here, things have been moving at a quick clip here and a whole host of things has happened. So I will just try to go through my memory and write as it comes, no guarantees to anything extremely organized or chronological. My only worry is it will turn into a mini book, so I’ll try to break it up so you don’t have to read it all at once either.
First of all, let me start from the present. I am sitting in a location different from where I have written previous posts, mainly meaning that I have moved into my own place. I’ll try to get some pictures up for you all to get an idea what my living space looks like, but it is still a little messy from my moving in and I haven’t got things organized to a satisfactory point yet. When that gets done I’ll try to get some photos up. It is definitely no palace, but it does have two rooms, plus the kitchen, toilet and bath. Yet, because the previous residents moved out the day I moved in (they are moving to a larger apartment in town) I have the bare minimums of living here. Basically the second room has one, no now two, pieces of furniture in it right now. I moved a small coffee table in to accompany a small couch. That is also the larger of the two rooms, but the majority of furniture is in the smaller one, which includes my bed, desk, and storage for my clothes. Peace Corps gives us a list of the bare minimums of what should be in our apartments, that’s what I have in my apt. right now, with maybe a couple extra forks. I cooked dinner tonight and realized I had no storage containers to put the extra rice into. I put the pot in the fridge. It is a strange way to start off, with almost nothing, in all my previous moves I knew I brought a lot of stuff, but now see, especially in the kitchen, how all of that can make life so much easier. But the evening was better than the morning. I spent the second half of my yesterday helping the previous residents move out and move my stuff in, which meant it slipped my mind to actually buy some food to eat. This was after I had already dropped a good chunk of change the day before buying necessary things like toilet paper and cleaning supplies. Thankfully my former host mother took pity on me, she only lives one floor down from my current place and fed me breakfast and gave me a few kitchen items. Still need to get a hold of a spatula. Then I went and dropped another load of cash to buy just the basics to get me started around here; we’re talking as basic as salt and pepper. But I was able to cook myself dinner tonight so no one should worry about me starving. I still have a lot to learn about gas stoves, however. I get the feeling like there is no low setting like on electric stoves, just hot and really hot(update, this morning I have have found it, no guarantees). Made for an adventure trying to cook my rice, which is supposed to sit on low heat. Also trying to get chicken cooked without spraying oil all over the kitchen, I failed at that. And yes I know I could cover it, but didn’t have a lid of any sort to do that with. The other observation is how silent it is. Thankfully I got mail from the states so I spent some time reading through that, but this will be another part of my adjustment I’m sure. I was used to living with families and always someone around or something going on. I had been wanting to not feel like I had to put on a show of any sort, but it can be lonely at times to, I’ll admit.
Well, moving on, I want to preface the next part by saying today has been a sad day because I heard the news that a former volunteer that I had seen just this past weekend died Tuesday night. John Zvosec was a volunteer in Ukraine for six years before ending his service this past fall. He was a retired architect and stayed in the country with his Ukrainian wife. I first met him on a project I have been working on to plant trees in my community. He was a man that gave a lot of himself to this country and had an abundance of patience with a newbie like me in the country. For a man of his experience I never felt stupid in front of him and he seemed to generally care for the country and the work he did as a free-lance volunteer in the country. He undoubtedly had a profound impact on the country of Ukraine and his adopted city of Ternopil. I’m still in shock, as are many others who knew him.
A little of what him and I had been working on. My regional manager approached me with a potential grant to plant trees from an American organization and I said I would do my best to put together a grant, almost immediately feeling overwhelmed, you can read about it in a previous post of mine. But this past weekend I went to Ternopil, a few hours east of Lviv by train, and we finished this proposal, which I know I could not have done on my own. The city, by the way, is beautiful. I was told it is one of two cities in Europe formed around a lake, the other being Geneva, on further thought, that may be stretching it a bit, but the town itself was charming. I was there on a rainy day so I didn’t get to see as much as I would have liked, but liked the atmosphere there and definitely want to return and spend more time there. As for the prospects for the grant, I have no idea what to expect, mostly I’m just glad to have got it out of the way for the moment; I have plenty of other things occupying my time as well.
One of those other things you may have seen if you looked at my pictures recently. August 24 is Independence Day here and while I felt like Americans take their day a little more enthusiastically, I had my own part in the activities. The mayor had asked me to give a speech in front of the town, oh, in Ukrainian. Thankfully this time around I had time to prepare and practice, unlike the other time I got to give a speech to a town on Victory Day this past spring. With it threatening rain the entire ceremony, I was slated to be one of the last people to speak. To add to my pressure, people were getting tired and the ceremony was kind of dragging on, I heard people saying it was too long, with even more speakers to go. Thankfully I had prepared only a very short speech and it went rather well (to read the text, go to my supplemental materials). I started off a little nervous, but was able to settle down by the end and it went all right. The day went on to a concert featuring local musicians and some other group that at least none of the young kids had even heard. Then it was the outdoor disco that brings a lot of the town together and ended with fireworks, made for a long day.
That’s probably way too much reading for any one person, but I hope you make it through eventually. I’ll try to keep them shorter, and for better or worse, I know there was more I had wanted to write at one point or another. But I can save those stories for another time. It is 11 at night and I need some sleep, have English club tomorrow and no idea what to yet.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
It’s been a little while since I was able to sit in front of the computer here and pound out a little of what has been going on around here. A big part of the delay has been because I’ve been doing a little bit of running around, getting sick and even a little freaking out, but I’m all better now, except that I won’t be settling down much quite yet. A couple of things I want to touch on below. God is great and new airline regulations suck.
First about those airline regulations, there was another volunteer who went back to visit her boyfriend who was a PCV, but just returned home to Oregon. She asked me if there was anything I wanted from home. As I thought about it, the best thing I could come up with was a good bottle of Pinot Noir. For those of you who don’t know, Oregon has some of the best around and I cannot get a decent bottle of wine in this country. Yet, while she was there, those psychos in London tried to smuggle liquid explosives onto planes bound for the U.S. and as a result I guess you can’t take any liquids onto planes any longer. So no wine, it was a bummer. It is funny the sort of things that you can end up missing, in retrospect I might have asked for some coffee, it is real hard to get a good cup of coffee here too, but I am finding places where I may be able to get some good beans. But good wine, that’s a tough one. So basic decision, these new airline regulations suck.
As for the part about how God is great, don’t know if I should say that and risk having the wrath of Peace Corps and the American government come down on me, but oh well. I have been in the process of working on a grant to help plant trees in my town and there has been a need to move quickly on it, causing me a bit of panic and stress. Ends up that this guy who is a former volunteer and still lives in Ukraine I thought was going to just help me, will do the actual writing. Gives me a lot of relief and the ability to assist in every way possible running down information and leads while not stress about needing to word the document in addition to the other things that I have been busy with. He was out here to visit my site, which involved having the mayor drive us around almost the entire day and have a generally good time, but made for a long day since I made two trips to Lviv that day and ended up going to Lviv the next day as well.
The reason for the second trip because a girl who I had met at a summer camp where she was teaching English, she’s from Virginia but has family history in Ukraine, wanted to see my site and get a chance to help out with an English club. I had my first meeting of younger classes yesterday (sixth to eighth grade) so it was a good opportunity for her to come check it out. While she speaks Ukrainian much better than I do, helps to have it in the blood I guess and to speak it at home, I am able to move around the country a lot easier since I do it more frequently. So I made a trip into Lviv to pick her up and then turn around pretty quick to make it back in time for the club at four.
As for the club it went well, had more students show up for it than I did for the older class, which isn’t too surprising but am aware of more who will want to come but were out of town at the sea or in the country. One thing I found interesting is the interest parents have in ensuring their children would be able to come to the club if they were not there. Guess that just speaks to the culture here where things can be exclusive and doors can close quickly? Not sure but it was not an isolated occurrence.
As for looking ahead, I have a full week ahead planned and will not be slowing down yet, maybe in the foreseeable future. Quick rundown of my week, in case you care. Monday to Tuesday will be in an adjoining town interviewing an NGO about some of their practices to see if I can use some of their ideas. Wednesday will have the Country Director visiting along with me having another English club almost right afterwards. That will just be followed up with Independence Day here on the 24th where I will giving a speech to the town, in Ukrainian. Not sure how that will go yet, guaranteed to be interesting! Well that’s more than enough for everyone to read, hope life is good wherever you read this and hope to hear from you soon!
A link to a report by the Brooking Commission of suggestions for Peace Corps, actually can agree with a lot of it. Don't often do that with Brookings
http://www.brookings.edu/comm/policybriefs/pb127.htm
First about those airline regulations, there was another volunteer who went back to visit her boyfriend who was a PCV, but just returned home to Oregon. She asked me if there was anything I wanted from home. As I thought about it, the best thing I could come up with was a good bottle of Pinot Noir. For those of you who don’t know, Oregon has some of the best around and I cannot get a decent bottle of wine in this country. Yet, while she was there, those psychos in London tried to smuggle liquid explosives onto planes bound for the U.S. and as a result I guess you can’t take any liquids onto planes any longer. So no wine, it was a bummer. It is funny the sort of things that you can end up missing, in retrospect I might have asked for some coffee, it is real hard to get a good cup of coffee here too, but I am finding places where I may be able to get some good beans. But good wine, that’s a tough one. So basic decision, these new airline regulations suck.
As for the part about how God is great, don’t know if I should say that and risk having the wrath of Peace Corps and the American government come down on me, but oh well. I have been in the process of working on a grant to help plant trees in my town and there has been a need to move quickly on it, causing me a bit of panic and stress. Ends up that this guy who is a former volunteer and still lives in Ukraine I thought was going to just help me, will do the actual writing. Gives me a lot of relief and the ability to assist in every way possible running down information and leads while not stress about needing to word the document in addition to the other things that I have been busy with. He was out here to visit my site, which involved having the mayor drive us around almost the entire day and have a generally good time, but made for a long day since I made two trips to Lviv that day and ended up going to Lviv the next day as well.
The reason for the second trip because a girl who I had met at a summer camp where she was teaching English, she’s from Virginia but has family history in Ukraine, wanted to see my site and get a chance to help out with an English club. I had my first meeting of younger classes yesterday (sixth to eighth grade) so it was a good opportunity for her to come check it out. While she speaks Ukrainian much better than I do, helps to have it in the blood I guess and to speak it at home, I am able to move around the country a lot easier since I do it more frequently. So I made a trip into Lviv to pick her up and then turn around pretty quick to make it back in time for the club at four.
As for the club it went well, had more students show up for it than I did for the older class, which isn’t too surprising but am aware of more who will want to come but were out of town at the sea or in the country. One thing I found interesting is the interest parents have in ensuring their children would be able to come to the club if they were not there. Guess that just speaks to the culture here where things can be exclusive and doors can close quickly? Not sure but it was not an isolated occurrence.
As for looking ahead, I have a full week ahead planned and will not be slowing down yet, maybe in the foreseeable future. Quick rundown of my week, in case you care. Monday to Tuesday will be in an adjoining town interviewing an NGO about some of their practices to see if I can use some of their ideas. Wednesday will have the Country Director visiting along with me having another English club almost right afterwards. That will just be followed up with Independence Day here on the 24th where I will giving a speech to the town, in Ukrainian. Not sure how that will go yet, guaranteed to be interesting! Well that’s more than enough for everyone to read, hope life is good wherever you read this and hope to hear from you soon!
A link to a report by the Brooking Commission of suggestions for Peace Corps, actually can agree with a lot of it. Don't often do that with Brookings
http://www.brookings.edu/comm/policybriefs/pb127.htm
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Had my first meeting of an English Club today, part of me feels like I should have tried to do it earlier, but wanted to be fully available before I started anything that would have serial meetings. And that couldn’t happen until August, since I had been coming and going almost the entire month of July and June I was still adjusting to the site.
Working with my coordinator, we decided to focus on having classes 9-11. Hypothetically this means they have all had at least several years of English studies, how much they could speak, was to be determined. It was supposed to start at four, so at about two minutes till we had a grand total of three people. I was starting to worry a little bit and wondering if I was going to have to wing the whole meeting, since all of the plans I had required more than three people. But as it rolled to four the total number of people pushed up to about 10, and I sighed an inward sigh of relief. Now in all of their defense I will say it is summer, people come and go quite a bit, I know of at least three who would be here if they were in town. Plus, I printed up several announcements and posted them around town, it then commenced to rain and destroy every single announcement I had printed, which meant I had to print them up again and lost several days of eye-exposure in the process.
As we sat down, everyone looked like they were not sure what they had gotten themselves into and I knew I needed to move fast to keep their attention. To give you all a quick run-down what happened, I had everyone re-introduce themselves, played the game where they have to line up by birthdays without speaking to show them they can communicate without needing to always speak. Had them tell me things they talk about regularly and also with friends. I noticed students were trying hard to speak, but it was evident it was the first meeting and they (I’ll give a disclaimer: maybe some had) had not thought, especially spoken English all summer.
The last game got a thumbs up from my coordinator, however, I remember playing it at my college orientation for the first time, but the basic idea of the game is you say one thing you do, have, etc. and whoever is the same must change places. Whoever is stuck in the middle starts the game over. It became popular with the students as well, and I could see them stretching to remember words and be somewhat creative, or just plain calling out other people there to make them be in the center. Overall, I was very pleased with the results, hopefully the students thought the same. Although, as we were trying to decide when to meet next, I was reminded again it was summer, as we are not meeting next we due to the fact a lot of them will be out of town. But overall, I guess it was worth writing home about, since you have my account right here on your computer screen to read.
Working with my coordinator, we decided to focus on having classes 9-11. Hypothetically this means they have all had at least several years of English studies, how much they could speak, was to be determined. It was supposed to start at four, so at about two minutes till we had a grand total of three people. I was starting to worry a little bit and wondering if I was going to have to wing the whole meeting, since all of the plans I had required more than three people. But as it rolled to four the total number of people pushed up to about 10, and I sighed an inward sigh of relief. Now in all of their defense I will say it is summer, people come and go quite a bit, I know of at least three who would be here if they were in town. Plus, I printed up several announcements and posted them around town, it then commenced to rain and destroy every single announcement I had printed, which meant I had to print them up again and lost several days of eye-exposure in the process.
As we sat down, everyone looked like they were not sure what they had gotten themselves into and I knew I needed to move fast to keep their attention. To give you all a quick run-down what happened, I had everyone re-introduce themselves, played the game where they have to line up by birthdays without speaking to show them they can communicate without needing to always speak. Had them tell me things they talk about regularly and also with friends. I noticed students were trying hard to speak, but it was evident it was the first meeting and they (I’ll give a disclaimer: maybe some had) had not thought, especially spoken English all summer.
The last game got a thumbs up from my coordinator, however, I remember playing it at my college orientation for the first time, but the basic idea of the game is you say one thing you do, have, etc. and whoever is the same must change places. Whoever is stuck in the middle starts the game over. It became popular with the students as well, and I could see them stretching to remember words and be somewhat creative, or just plain calling out other people there to make them be in the center. Overall, I was very pleased with the results, hopefully the students thought the same. Although, as we were trying to decide when to meet next, I was reminded again it was summer, as we are not meeting next we due to the fact a lot of them will be out of town. But overall, I guess it was worth writing home about, since you have my account right here on your computer screen to read.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
For some odd reason I have the old dating show theme song running through my head right now, which doesn’t make any sense, since I’m thinking about cooking. But there just aren’t any good cooking show theme songs I can think about right now.
What I have come to realize in this country is that a man who isn’t completely incompetent in the kitchen in this country is something of an oddity. This started a couple of days ago when there was no one home and I need to make myself something to eat. Not exactly something in my mind all that difficult. However, my host family was rather worried and one of my host sisters made sure to peel potatoes before she left for the day. She actually peeled a lot, I don’t know why, must have thought I would be real hungry for lunch. So I came home that day with the full understanding I would need to cook, used about one and a half potatoes, grilled them on the stove and added onions, tomatoes, eggs, meat and cheese for a nice little meal. Something I would do with some frequency when I was living back in the States. My good friend Rodney once said it was one of my better dishes. So I did that, ate, washed the dishes and cleaned up, no big deal.
So later that night I came home and hear the same host sister tell my host mother it looks as if I didn’t eat anything at all. I pipe up and say, no I did eat just fine, I don’t think they fully believed me. I explained what I ate, and they were impressed. Then I proceed to hear from several other people they are impressed I can cook for myself. It happened again today. I haven’t entirely figured it out, but almost as soon as I got into this country I have had people worry about whether I will be able to feed myself. Sheesh, I have lived on my own and am here to speak about it. My only complaint at this point is that since I’m not in my own kitchen it takes a little longer for me to find things I want. Other than that, I am actually looking forward to when I can buy my own food and prepare it. Sure it may get old after a while and I will miss the good food my family prepares here, but I may not be going far. As for that story…
So it has been one long drama of trying to find a place to live since even before I arrived. There were two volunteers at my site before and there was some talk of me taking that place once I moved out on my own. The only sticking point was the price, which was high, but no other places had been coming up, until today. One of the ladies my host mother works with had asked me yesterday for how the word “management” translates into Ukrainian. So when she stopped by today, that was what I expected her to ask me, but she also dropped the bomb she had an extra apartment, she is living with it along with her family right now but is moving into a larger one shortly. Somewhere along the line a question just wasn’t asked and I guess she just found out yesterday I am looking. So I got a chance to look at it today and for my standards it was just fine and she talked with my Regional Manager and things seem to look positive. So yeah!
Small matter of making sure there will be a refrigerator when I get there, but that is a pretty minor matter, in my opinion. It was said it could be taken care of. Well this, is quite enough to read for a while, I need to work on a speech for Independence Day and think about bed.
What I have come to realize in this country is that a man who isn’t completely incompetent in the kitchen in this country is something of an oddity. This started a couple of days ago when there was no one home and I need to make myself something to eat. Not exactly something in my mind all that difficult. However, my host family was rather worried and one of my host sisters made sure to peel potatoes before she left for the day. She actually peeled a lot, I don’t know why, must have thought I would be real hungry for lunch. So I came home that day with the full understanding I would need to cook, used about one and a half potatoes, grilled them on the stove and added onions, tomatoes, eggs, meat and cheese for a nice little meal. Something I would do with some frequency when I was living back in the States. My good friend Rodney once said it was one of my better dishes. So I did that, ate, washed the dishes and cleaned up, no big deal.
So later that night I came home and hear the same host sister tell my host mother it looks as if I didn’t eat anything at all. I pipe up and say, no I did eat just fine, I don’t think they fully believed me. I explained what I ate, and they were impressed. Then I proceed to hear from several other people they are impressed I can cook for myself. It happened again today. I haven’t entirely figured it out, but almost as soon as I got into this country I have had people worry about whether I will be able to feed myself. Sheesh, I have lived on my own and am here to speak about it. My only complaint at this point is that since I’m not in my own kitchen it takes a little longer for me to find things I want. Other than that, I am actually looking forward to when I can buy my own food and prepare it. Sure it may get old after a while and I will miss the good food my family prepares here, but I may not be going far. As for that story…
So it has been one long drama of trying to find a place to live since even before I arrived. There were two volunteers at my site before and there was some talk of me taking that place once I moved out on my own. The only sticking point was the price, which was high, but no other places had been coming up, until today. One of the ladies my host mother works with had asked me yesterday for how the word “management” translates into Ukrainian. So when she stopped by today, that was what I expected her to ask me, but she also dropped the bomb she had an extra apartment, she is living with it along with her family right now but is moving into a larger one shortly. Somewhere along the line a question just wasn’t asked and I guess she just found out yesterday I am looking. So I got a chance to look at it today and for my standards it was just fine and she talked with my Regional Manager and things seem to look positive. So yeah!
Small matter of making sure there will be a refrigerator when I get there, but that is a pretty minor matter, in my opinion. It was said it could be taken care of. Well this, is quite enough to read for a while, I need to work on a speech for Independence Day and think about bed.
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