neighborhood fun and an Easter recap

Okay, time for an actual post, as opposed to the "Oh my word! I have Internet!" postings that I've been doing the last couple of days.

First, Friday afternoon. I had some of my neighbor girls over after school to dye eggs with a kit Tif sent me. It ended up quite the experience...five girls by the time we ended with brownies and Go Fish, donated eggs that we thought were boiled but weren't (fortunately, we didn't break them...but we'd already dyed them), and a cooking pot that will always have a tinge of green from now on. I felt slightly like Miss Hannigan by the time we finished (Little girls, little girls / Everywhere I go I can see them / Little girls, little girls / Night and day, I eat, sleep and breathe them), but really, it was fun. I have pictures, but I'm having problems uploading them...not sure if it's Blogger, my computer, or my Internet. Will try again later.

On Saturday morning, I went to church for what I thought was a pre-Easter service, which made me think about what it must have been like for the disciples on the day after Good Friday, how that must have been almost a sadder day for them as it truly sunk in. However, it turned out that the service wasn't for Easter Saturday but instead for the Annunciation (when Gabriel told Mary that she would have Jesus), which apparently is more of a holiday over here (and falls at a slightly different time than in the US). I confess I was very confused at first why all the Scriptures and sermons seemed to be about Luke 1, but it eventually clicked.

Yesterday was Easter...Kathryn came down from Kharkiv to visit me and we went to church with the Ys. She and I sang a duet for "How Great Thou Art" with me on the piano, and I sang "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" acapella, as I don't have the piano music. Afterwards, we went to the Ys for dinner. When she went home, I came back to my apartment and found out just how nice it is to have Internet at home. Talked with Greg and Jason on Skype, which is just about the coolest thing since sliced bread (which you have to specifically ask for here).

Today my neighbor boys gave me a soccer (football, over here) lesson. They taught me different ways of kicking the ball and how to aim to compensate for being left-footed. It was a lot of fun...I'll never be a great athlete, but I did okay, and they were very encouraging and patient. (Although Dima asked at one point, "Do people in the US play football?", so I had to explain that yes, they do, but I was a nerd back in school and didn't play sports.) We also had a teachable moment that while the Russian word for having black skin is very similar to the n-word, it's not appropriate to say in English. I think I'll play again sometime.

And then, of course, because there was no school (Easter Monday), who came over this afternoon to play Go Fish and Uno but...little girls (and one boy)!

Some women are dripping with diamonds
Some women are dripping with pearls
Lucky me! Lucky me!
Look at what I'm dripping with...
Little girls!

Seriously, though, I love having my neighbor kids over. (During the writing of this post, three little girls showed up to borrow Go Fish for the evening.) It's fun to interact with kids that don't see me as a teacher.