to speak English, please

So I'm sitting in an Internet cafe in Kharkiv, waiting for my train to take me to Kyiv (and then by bus to Zgurivka tomorrow!), and three people (Tara from Quiz Bowl, Erica from Brockway, and Wan-Lin from freshman year) all started IMing me. Much fun to catch up with people.

Inevitable Y kid stories, because I love to tell them. Hopefully you all enjoy/put up with them as well.

So I get there yesterday afternoon, and Valery comes into the living room and informs me that he has started a school with all the younger kids as students, I am the English teacher, and that I am expected to come teach a lesson when he rings the bell. The bell rings, and I go read the kids a book I'd brought. (I read to the kids a lot, usually in English. They like the pictures and the attention, and I live in hopes of encouraging education.)

Oleh has decided that he likes speaking English (w00t!) and kept bugging me to speak English with him last night (the post title is from him...I need to figure out how to explain infinitives and when not to use them). I'm so glad, because he seems to understand the concept of the Commuicative Method of language teaching...you take what you know and speak, not worrying about errors. Plus, he likes hanging out with me. I have high hopes for his language development.

Nadia and I were talking about the kids yesterday, and about what it was like for her growing up school-wise. If I was following what she said correctly, as a Christian, she wasn't a member of the Communist Party, which pretty much ruled out most higher education and "better" professions. She said that because of this, Christians generally were thought of as ignorant and poorly educated, and she's glad that her kids have a better chance than she did. (FYI, she worked in a factory making clothes, which she did enjoy, but they moved to Balaklia because of Chernobyl, there weren't clothes factories here, and now she has 10 kids, which keeps her rather busy.)

I owe Mom a post about the Day of Health today at school, but that will wait until I get to Kyiv sometime over the next few days, as this keyboard is sticky and I'm tired of typing.