So usually not a lot happens in 4 days in Ukraine, but like I’ve said before, every time you fall into any sort of routine, something happens that turns all your plans upside down. So after writing on my blog on Saturday I went to the main library where they were having a movie showing in English, but since I was basically the only one there, and didn’t like the movie they were going to show, I got to pick, and decided to watch Grumpy Old Men to remind me of Minnesota. About half-way through the movie (which the Ukrainian girl who was running the program thought was pretty funny) I looked outside and it was snowing, so that made me feel a little better. Didn’t do a whole lot on Sunday, just did some lesson plan and some reading.
So woke up on Monday to go teach some 3rd grades at another school close by. Walked in a couple minutes early, and quickly noticed that there weren’t really any students about, but I thought hey, maybe they are all in class. So I stood there for about 5 minutes looking completely clueless, till luckily the teacher I was going to be working with walked in and said that the school was on quarantine due to a flue going around (which happens at least once a year in Ukrainian schools, the school closes for about a week so the virus doesn’t spread, and almost all of the schools in the region closed on Monday but ours stayed open) and while she had said something about it a few days before, in English, I still didn’t quite the message, so I was like, woops, oh well. Went back to my school and decided to say hi to my counterpart. She quickly told me that AROUND 1 or 2 we were going into Lugansk to go meet with a boy and that I would probably miss some of my classes.
“What boy” I asked. “Just some boy that is the son of one of the headmistress’s friends.” She replied.
“Why are we going?” I asked. “When the headmistress tells me to do something, I don’t ask questions,” my counterpart replied.
“Ok, good enough for me.” So at about 1 I got a call from my counterpart to meet her in front of the school. So we got on a marshutka and took it to almost the complete opposite side of Lugansk, near the largest university in Lugansk. There we met up with the headmistress who had been downtown shopping. We went to her friends apartment, but no one was there, so went to a nearby cafй. Well, I don’t usually eat breakfast (sorry mom) so when the first thing we ordered was a beer, I thought “this may be a problem, I haven’t eaten anything today, and I have to teach after this.” But my headmistress said Сhu-Chut (a little) so of course we got 1/.2 litres of beer and I got some crab salad (which is amazing here) and my counterpart and headmistress proceeded to talk for about ? hour occasionally with my headmistress asking me questions and my counterpart translating…
“Do you have a girlfriend? Why not? How old women do you like?” it was an interesting conversation. Then we went to the friend’s apartment where I was introduced to who I thought was the friend and her son. So we sat down and had the usual chai, and was told to speak English to the boy to get him to practice. So my counterpart and I asked him a few questions, and after about 5 minutes, the actual mother, uncle, and 2 aunts showed up. I learned the woman that I’d first met was another aunt who had lived in California for 4 months almost 20 years ago after a horrible earthquake in Armenia (which is where the whole family is from, and they moved here 13 years ago to study at the university and stayed) where she was crushed under the school she worked at and was taking for rehabilitation. They are an inspiration to me because when they first came to Ukraine they didn’t speak any Russian, but now they all speak fluently.
So, as a guest, I was force fed tea, Coke, cake, and then later champagne. I found out that I was brought to meet the boy and maybe practice English with him a couple of times awake in exchange for speaking Russian with the rest of the family and awesome Armenian food. So we left after about an hour, and with a slight buzz (even with the cake and salad I hadn’t eaten a whole lot during the day) I went back to school and had about 20 minutes before I had to teach a class. So I taught the class, and when I went to find my next one, there were only 3 students in school so I cancelled class. I found out that of 250 students that go to my school, 120 of them were at home ill.
So, day 2 of my adventure… I woke up at 7 this morning to teach my class, and waited Ѕ hour to find none of my students came to class… good times. Then at 10 I was picked up by the uncle of the boy I am working with and we drove through horrible traffic to the apartment (apartment #2 though, the whole family lives together but they have 2 apartments a few blocks away from each other that they go in between) and I worked with the boy for about an hour on English. After that tea was brought out again, and then the meal began… (after of course they let me use the internet in their house, which is really fast) there was baked chicken, potatoes, sausages, and of course bread. I didn’t want to offend them by not eating it all but they gave me so much, it was so good. I was able to speak some Russian with them, and we talked about Armenia a little and America more. Very interesting. Then I was told Thursday they were going to make me Armenian Shashlik (like Shwarma or Kebabs), so I am pretty excited about that.
Got back to school about 10 minutes before I was supposed to teach a class, and of course my students were late, but I taught a pretty fun class, I think they enjoyed it even though they were all half-asleep (I think a lot of them were sick) and while waiting for my next class I found that MY school had been put on quarantine. My students were really happy (I guess for the healthy ones its just a big party for a week) So in the last week I’ve taught about 4 real classes, and were not sure when school will open again…
So that’s my life over the last 4 days in Ukraine, hope all is well, miss you all.
With love,
Seth
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
seth;
great blog entry as usual, keep them you will want these down the road, great descriptions of day to day life and what you are doing, very impressive. fun to read. it sounds fascinating, a really interesting experience. you are so fortunate,even if it does not always feel that way, it is amazing.
good job boy..
dad
Post a Comment