the last few days (with side notes on the Romani and Harry Potter)

Olympiad results, because I'm sure you're all dying to know:

11th form: Olena and Katya finished up somewhere in the middle of the pack, which is a distinct improvement over last year, where they were at the bottom.
10th form: Zhenya tied for 3rd place in the rayon, and Oleh B tied for 4th place. Yay!
9th form: After 4 1/2 hours of checking papers (and correcting the incorrect official answer key), I left before the teachers checking the 9th form papers were done. Since that was last Thursday and I haven't heard anything, I doubt we did spectacularly well.
8th form: Oleh Yukhymets came in last place. :( He hadn't prepped for the olympiad, since we hadn't known that he could compete, and he goofed up on his writing--he was supposed to write about a short story competition. Instead, he recognized the word "competition" and wrote a page about a running competition he was in last year. He also apparently didn't do well in speaking. My goal since Thursday night has been to try and avoid talking about the results with him beyond "you didn't do very well," because I can't find it in me to tell him just how badly he did.

Friday was my last day at school. My kids all wrote me goodbye letters, which I have somehow misplaced in the half-packed mess that is my apartment, and the only one I remember right now is Lyuba, one of my sweetest and shyest 11th form girls, who wrote that she was sorry for not listening to me sometimes. Of all the children I taught (how odd to put that in the past tense), she's one of them who least needs to write that!

We had an assembly on the first big break. The director made a speech, Nelya made a speech, Natasha, our school president and one of my 10th formers, presented me with a gift from the student body (which, as faithful readers remember, I picked out), the little kids sang several songs for me, and I said a few words in Ukrainian and sang "Yesterday," because the music teacher knows how to play it. And lots of people cried--the director, Nelya, various students (including Vitaly Yukhymets, who told me this later, adding, "But I don't know why"), me (when we started singing the school song), and a very large number of the 4th form girls, who were convinced that this was an awful tragedy that Miss Sally was leaving, which made me cry all over again. I especially feel bad for Dasha, whose mom isn't in the picture these days and who lost one of her grandmothers over fall break. She just bawled, and I know it's not just that I'm leaving, but this is one more Big Person who's leaving her. Of course, Valera Y was also standing there, saying, "This isn't the last time I'm going to see you. We've still got church. Can I see your digital camera?"

After school, we had a teachers' party in the cafeteria. Robert had helped me go to the supermarket that morning and buy enough food for sandwiches, fruit, candy, and beverages for 35ish people, and I had baked three cakes--a chocolate chip torte, a carrot cake with maple-flavored cream cheese frosting decorated with walnuts (let's not talk about what happens when a oil-based cake recipe baked in a pan with removable sides drips down into a gas oven...my smoke detector works!), and a sour cream cake with orange juice-and-vanilla-flavored cream cheese frosting decorated with ABC 123 sprinkles. Everyone liked the cakes and wanted the recipes.

Once again, lots of nice speeches and toasts, and the teachers presented me with a traditional Ukrainian rushnik, or embroidered towel. It's the sort that's used at Ukrainian weddings when the parents present the newly married couple with bread and salt, is probably at least three feet long and decorated in red and black counted cross-stitch, and is WONDERFUL. They also gave me three napkins embroidered in traditional patterns, and the grandmother of one of the fourth form girls had embroidered a--wall hanging, I guess--of a bird sitting in a tree. I love embroidery, and it's very packable, which gives it big bonus points these days, as I struggle to fit two years' worth of memories into a suitcase, a duffel, a backpack, and a computer bag.

On Saturday, I slept in (first time in ages) and in the afternoon, went to a concert celebrating the 45th anniversary of the Balaklia Music School. The music was good, and I was amazed how many people I knew there. Seriously. It was a good way to mark how much community integration I accomplished.

At church yesterday, we had a group from a Romani (traditionally known as gypsies) church near Kharkiv come for the service--they sang in Russian and Romani, preached, and gave their testimonies. My church has been doing a lot of outreach with the local Romani population over the last year. We had several Romani there yesterday who don't usually come, and two of them prayed to accept Christ at the end of the service!

[Let me interrupt this post to say how much I love my church here, and this is one of the biggest reasons. The Romani have a reputation of being shiftless and dishonest, and our church, as far as I know, is the only church in town where they attend. On any given Sunday, it's quite likely that you can hear people singing in Russian, Ukrainian, Romani, and English at our church. Quite multilingual for a small-town church!]

After church, I spent the afternoon at the Yukhymetses'. I gave the kids a bunch of my stuff, which I was pleased to see they all liked. Nadia unknowingly made two of my all-time favorite dishes of hers, plov (a baked rice and chicken dish) and a salad of chicken, pineapple, mushrooms, cheese, boiled eggs (?), and mayonnaise (of course). Then she asked me what I want for dinner next Sunday, and I was like, "Well, we had it all this week!" So I think next week is going to be borscht and mashed potatoes and meat.

In the evening I went to the Kotlars' church, where I hadn't been in a very long time, because I know a lot of people there and wanted to say goodbye. I was glad I did--everyone was really friendly, and the pastor prayed for me at the end of the service. I'm not sorry I stopped attending there regularly after my first summer--getting home afterwards was always a challenge, and they're more conservative and separate from the world than I'm comfortable with, but they've always been very kind when I've visited and never suggested that I'm not a Christian because I don't believe exactly like they do.

Afterwards, I went over to the Kotlars, which was a nice visit, with 7 kids all around. (Guisella wanted to know if the Y kids are better behaved. Humph. Not particularly...wait, make that not at all.) The only awkward moment was when they were talking about how bad the Harry Potter books are, how they were written by a Satanist in order to lure children to the occult, and I just bit my tongue in the same way I would in the States.

(Sally's Official Position on Harry Potter: I don't find fantasy novels inherently evil. The books, especially as the series go on, get too intense for little kids, but I would have read them at that age anyway. They're not the greatest writing, and I think the issues of respect for the rules and authority are at times more of a concern than the magic, but I've read them all except Book 7 [ah, the glories of the US public library!], and I enjoyed them. Rowling does a good job of creating a world, and her little details are what make the books so much fun. Okay, random moment over.)

Anyhow, it was a good evening, and I was so glad I'd gone over there.

This week includes: Vlad (last tutoring session), Shevchenkos from church (taking a load of clothes over for Tanya), Andrey (last tutoring session), Robert's birthday party, a visit to Chervoni Donetsk Gymnasium (a school in a neighboring town), cleaning, packing, and who knows what else!

update

Since some of my friendly audience of readers have been asking me why I haven't been posting much lately, I figured it was time for a post. The short answer to why this blog hasn't been updated is that I've got two and a half weeks left before my Close of Service (COS), and there have just been too many things going on. Between school, Peace Corps, daily life, grad school applications, cleaning out my apartment, starting to say goodbye, and watching Doctor Who episodes on YouTube as a way of relaxing when I can't take the rest of it anymore, I haven't had a lot of time for blogging or a lot of brain power to write intelligible thoughts that aren't connected to my Description of Service for Peace Corps or my Statement of Purpose for my grad school applications.

We celebrated American Thanksgiving last Friday night (worked better for everyone's schedules). Robert, Andrey, and Ira all came over for an American-style dinner of roast chicken (which in true family style wasn't done on time), stuffing, mashed potatoes, applesauce, shrimp dip with crackers, and carrot cake with maple cream cheese frosting. It was fun for the Ukrainians to try American foods, and I had the small pleasure of having Andrey say he possibly couldn't eat any more, which is always what happens to me at Ukrainian social functions. We then played a few games of Uno, and Ira went through the pile of things I'm giving away. She looked like Christmas had come early, and they left with three bags of stuff. Yay! (I keep giving huge amounts of my possessions away. This place should look much more empty than it does...)

On Saturday, I went to School 2 for the English Olympiad. We'd originally been told that 8-11th formers could compete, but then were told that it had changed to 9-11th formers. As Nelya had told Oleh Yukhymets that she was planning to enter him, I had been disappointed that he couldn't compete, but that was how it was. Well, when we got there on Saturday, we found out that eighth fomers were in fact eligible but that no one had called us to tell us that this had changed. Nelya looked at me and said, "Why don't you call Oleh?" So I called their house and Nadia said he wasn't completely up yet, but if I thought he was prepared enough to compete, she'd send him. He showed up half an hour later, saying, "You told me I wasn't going to compete, so I didn't prepare and I don't know what's going on..." We found him a dictionary, gave him a pep talk, and sent him off to compete. We don't have the results until Thursday, but he thinks he finished in the middle of the pack. Apparently his speaking topic was about a car of the future. Wish I could have heard it!

I was on the jury for the 10th form, where we heard many, many speeches about the Harry Potter books and movies and that English is the language of shipbuilding. O-kay, then.

Today at school I had a conversation with my director, which, as usual, was not the highlight of my day. I got the impression that my landlady had had a lot of issues with the way I kept the apartment, but my director kept saying, "Don't worry, we'll fix the place up after you leave." I hadn't been worrying, honestly. Yes, I could have kept the place neater at times. But apparently she didn't like that I had hung posters up (with sticky tac). So why didn't she tell me this? If it bothered her, I didn't have to have them up! She apparently also was bothered that the wallpaper had peeled in spots, which has nothing to do with me and more to do with the pasting job of whoever put it up. And as I have no idea where one would buy wallpaper paste (or do they just mix flour and water?) and all the loose paper was up by the ceiling where I didn't interact with it (can one interact with wallpaper?), I hadn't done anything about it.

The director also told me (we have such cheerful conversations) that there had been an anonymous letter circulating at one point that I was here to teach her daughters English for free. As I met her girls maybe four times during two years and I don't believe we ever spoke English to each other, this seems laughable. She also told me that the secret police had kept a file on me during my time here. The head of the department for our area had shown her a paper where comings and goings of my visitors (particularly those from out of the country) were recorded.

This all left me with mixed reactions. One, it's a little weird to me to realize how little privacy I had. (How did they find out Jason's last name? Were people keeping track of who sent me mail? Who were the people gathering this information? What all did they know?) Secondly, as an American, it's weird for me to think of regarding foreigners with that much suspicion (okay, yes, I forgot the Patriot Act), but I realize that this comes from the Soviet legacy. However, my sense of humor helps--I can't help but feel that if they were expecting to find some nefarious American spy, they must have been disappointed. I taught school, made a few friends, and went to church (which was probably the weirdest thing I did here). I can honestly say that my conduct as a PCV was above reproach, and I had nothing to hide.

I leave Balaklia in two weeks. I fly home to the US in 17 days. These twenty-seven months have gone so fast...

cooking is fun

Discovered while reading over Sean's shoulder at the office: a blog devoted to Soviet propaganda posters!

Last night, the five of us in our apartment (me, Erin, Jessica, Robert, and Matt) went on a shopping trip to a HUGE western-style supermarket to buy fixings for dinner. It was quite the experience, whether running around looking for the best deals on Parmesan-esque cheese, trying to decide between chicken vs. shrimp, and the ongoing discussion about whether or not olive oil was worth the exorbitant price that was charged. (We decided against it, which made the cheapskate in me happy. And I still don't think our food was lacking in any way.)

So then we came home and cooked. We did a big pot of vermicelli, and I made sauce--sauteed onions and garlic in butter, then added tomato paste, a little water, and Italian herbs, and chopped tomatoes. At the very end, after that had all simmered, we added in a small container of shrimp (the amount of which were very "shrimpy" in comparison with our huge amounts of pasta and sauce). Also, we found garlic/dill bread, which was a nice side dish. Yay cooking!

Today, we slept in, made omlets for brunch, and now I'm at the office. I officially don't have TB, if any of you were in the least concerned. (I wasn't.) I'd hoped to get an apartment with people again tonight, but it didn't work out, so I'm at the Bratislava tonight. Oh, well. At least they have hot water.

Tif, Harry Potter 7 is out in Russian. :)

not my most interesting post, but bear with me, dear readers

Today was fun. Sveta, the English teacher for the primary kids this year, is apparently not around for the rest of the month (college classes of some sort, I believe), and I'm teaching the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th forms twice a week each. They're so much more fun than my older kids, and their behavior's better, too! (Well, not always...but writing in their daybooks or putting their name on the board--in English--in order to tell their class teacher about it proves much more effective with 8-year-olds than 16-year-olds.) They're all excited every time they see me (we're on week 2 of 3 together), and it just makes my day.

(It makes me cringe just a bit when I realize that probably my older kids were once this sweet and enthusiastic as well and that these kids will eventually develop attitudes and no longer automatically think of school as "fun". Sigh...)

Really, my life is fairly uneventful and I don't know what to post. I bought two books of the non-graphic-but-still-stupid-but-I-want-something-to-read-British-historical-romance-novel-variety at the second-hand store today. I've bought several of the genre by various authors over the last year, and I'm beginning to think that the defining characteristics are a) coal mining is involved, b) someone (not necessarily the protagonist) has an illegitimate child, and c) household maids will, in fact, end up marrying the master of the house after his first wife dies. I cannot wait to be in a country with a decent public library with books in English and interloan services.

Let's see...what else... Oh, I've been trying the Curly Girl method with my hair, with mixed results. I definitely get curls, but I'm so used to brushing them all out every morning that keeping it curly tends to look a little strange to me. But I've been having fun experimenting (I bought hair sticks!) and have gotten several positive comments from kids at school (plus Oleh Y's "How did you do that?" Me: "It's a female secret. I'll tell Vlada but not you.").

Tonight I experimented, not with my hair, but with cooking. I made pizza sauce, sauteed a very small onion, diced up kolbasa (hard sausage) and tomatoes, grated some mozzarella cheese, boiled penne pasta, mixed it all together with a bit more mozzarella and Parmesan on top, and baked it "until bubbly", as the cooking websites I checked out for baked penne said. (I also made garlic-cheese bread.) The result was really good, except that I misjudged the amount it would make and had more than I could eat. Nice hearty food for a cool autumn evening!

I really should go work on my statement of purpose for graduate school...

perhaps biting off more than I can chew, almost literally

Mom and I were talking last night about people making irrational/poor/not well thought out decisions. Well, here's my decison of the week that has the potential to fall into that category (although not necessarily).

For the harvest festival at church next Sunday, I signed up to bring enough cookies for 100-110 people. (According to Mom, 12 dozen should be about right. I think that's gross. Yes, I like puns.)

I volunteered at church yesterday, and then afterwards, when I got to the Yukhemetses', Nadia, who had stayed home with the little kids, was basically like, "You're crazy. Call Tanya (the woman who's organizing the food for the harvest festival) up and tell her you've changed your mind." But I have to remember that this is coming from a woman with 10 children, who would be crazy if she tried to bake 12 dozen cookies (at least, over and above what she already cooks).

Vitaly put in a request for no-bakes, and I found a no-peanut butter version. Making cookies that don't involve peanut butter, chocolate chips (although I can cut up chocolate bars), and much brown sugar (I have maybe a cup and a half left, and getting more would involve going to Kharkiv) makes life challenging. I'm leaning towards half no-bakes and half either applesauce cookies or something to be determined. Does anyone have easy cookie recipes that make a lot?

accomplishments

Things I've accomplished today:

~bought my ticket from Kharkiv to Kherson
~got ahold of a PCV in Skadovsk who knew how to get from Kherson to Skadovsk
~filled out my Peace Corps Activity Report for the January-August period
~booked hostels in Odesa and Uzhgorod (there's your links, Mom)
~bought a navy blue tank top for 5 hryvnia at a second-hand store in town, originally thinking it was black (due to poor lighting in the shop) but being pleased to discover its actual color
~made homemade granola
~hung out with Andrey for English conversation
~registered for the GRE

I'm tired. And SO thankful that I have Internet in my apartment! I can't imagine trying to do all of this at the post office!

a week of math. what fun!

Tif told me to update, so here I am.

It's not been a very exciting week...lots of GRE prep and looking up various MATESOL programs online. MSU's still the one I like the best (I'm familiar with the area, I really like the English Resource Center where I would hopefully be a TA, and their website's easy to navigate...a big plus after reading 20-some sites!), but a few other places have caught my eye (if they offer Ukrainain classes, should this be a factor?).

I dunno. It all seems very complicated, and there's the question of whether or not it's a good idea to only apply to one grad school, in case I don't get in or the financial aid isn't as much as I'd like.

(And then there's the random programs unconnected to TESOL that catch my eye, such as Kansas University's MA in Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies, which really has no practical application for me, but just looks really cool.)

The GRE prep is paying off...I took another practice test yesterday, and in a week of studying math, both the math and the verbal went up 70 points each. It's interesting...as I look up GRE stuff online, apparently it's more common to have a higher math than verbal, and I'm the other way around. Huh.

Last Saturday, I went back to the village where I'd been on Sunday, this time to celebrate my friend Andrey's 28th birthday. Once again, we went swimming in the river and ate shashlik. Before that, Andrey and his friend Alosha fixed the light bulb in my bedroom, which had been burnt out for quite some time. When I'd tried to change it, I'd found that the metal part of the bulb had corroded and was therefore extraordinarily difficult to remove, and in trying to do so, I'd made it harder. Andrey's comment (with a smile) was, "Next time, don't try and fix things yourself. Ask someone who knows what they're doing." Point taken.

That whole "I'm not going anywhere until COS Conference" idea seems to be out the window, but I'm waiting until I know for sure (tomorrow?) to post details. :)

I found a baguette (spelling?) at the store yesterday, so I made French bread pizza. It was good. I also made applesauce tonight to use up some apples Nadia gave me.

Iced Tea (when you don't have ice)

Because Mom asked, my recipe for iced tea (makes 1 liter):

3 strawberry-flavored tea bags
1 mint-flavored tea bag
1 liter of water
sugar to taste (I use 2-3 tablespoons)

Bring the water to a boil. Pour into 1-liter jar (or, for those people not dependent on the metric system or with a better equipped kitchen, a medium-sized glass jar or pitcher). Tie tea bags together by the strings and place in hot water. Stir in sugar. Leave the jar on the counter for an hour or so to let the tea steep. (I usually leave the stirring spoon in the jar to weight the tea bags down so they don't float on top, but I don't know if it really makes a difference.) Put the jar in the refrigerator. After a couple of hours, your tea is ready! I suppose you could add ice cubes when serving, but my freezer doesn't keep things cold enough for me to make ice.

~*~

Anyone have good ideas about what to do with goat milk? My friend Natalia gave me some, and I'm not crazy about the flavor when I drink it straight. I've been using it in strawberry shortcakes this week, but I'm open to new ideas. (As much as I hate to admit it, there may be a limit to how many times a week a girl can eat strawberry shortcake.) Googling "goat milk recipes" got me lots of ideas about cheese and fudge, but they generally either called for ingredients I can't get (rennet, corn syrup, marshmallow cream, etc.) or involved cooking thermometers.

the strawberry post

Ahh...I went to the bazaar this morning and came back with a kilogram of fresh strawberries, a kilo of onions, a bunch of dill, and a bunch of tiny new carrots. I love summer produce!


~*~


Yeah, I know I haven't posted in several days, but I was out of town this weekend. So here's my recap.


Thursday night, I visited the Shevchenkos, a family from my church who had invited me over for dinner when they saw me buying strawberries at the bazaar the previous Saturday. They told me there was no need for me to buy strawberries when they already had them in their garden. I went, but I also bought my own strawberries. :) We had borscht, strawberries with sugar, and varenyki (similar to ravioli, dough with filling that's either boiled or steamed) with cottage cheese and strawberries, with a side of sour cream. There are two little girls in the family, Maharita and Nastia (just finished 4th and 5th forms), and although we've been going to the same church for over a year, we got properly acquainted that night. At first, I was worried, because the girls seemed shy, but very soon that turned into, "And this is our room--this is Nastia's side and this is my side and this is my photo album and this is a picture of my best friend and do you want to put together a puzzle and here are our dolls and this is the cupboard where they live and Mama made these doll clothes but we made these ourselves..."


I really liked seeing that the girls made doll clothes...I love the Y kids to pieces--they're my family here--but I could never see any of the girls there sitting down to sew doll clothes. Someone else would go over to them and destroy the partially completed project, and then they'd start arguing, and in the meantime the needle would get lost and someone would step on it... I think the next time I go over to the Shevchenkos, I'm taking an old skirt lining I have and we'll learn how to make drawstring skirts for dolls.


Friday evening, I took the elektrichka an hour south to visit some other PCVs. The PCV down there had had a camp last week, and on Saturday, the counselors were all going on an excursion to Sviatahorsk (Holy Mountain), an Orthodox monestary just over the border into Donetsk Oblast. My friend Erin McS was coming to visit me after camp ended, so I had the chance to go on the excursion also. Friday night, we all (1o or so of us) went out to a cafe in the town and went dancing. Some of the American guys had had a bit much to drink (to put it mildly), and they were very active dancers to begin with...they were trying to dance with Ukrainian girls, but the girls were somewhat freaked out and pretty much kept fleeing the dance floor. Entertaining for those of us who were sober. Also fascinating was that in the center of the dance floor, there was a post with mirrors on all sides of it, and when the Ukrainians danced by themselves, they all watched themselves in the mirror. Cultural differences...


We got home around 1 am and then I got to take my first hot shower since February or thereabouts. Ahh, bliss...


Saturday morning, we got up and took a van down to Sviatohorsk. I had looked it up in my guidebook the day before and knew that, as a woman, I had to have a headscarf, but we stopped by the bazaar to get scarves for Erin and Jessica, the other girls. We had to have our heads covered, something on our shoulders (no tank tops), and skirts that were knee-length or thereabouts. The bazaar had all sorts of filmy-type scarves, and many people there were wearing scarves wrapped around them as a skirt, if they'd come in shorts or something. The guys were supposed to have long pants.


We saw the lower monestary and were able to go in for the end of the service that was going on, which, as always, was beautiful with everything being sung acapella. Then we went on a short tour and had a picnic lunch on the other side of the river. It was an interesting comparison, because everyone had to be so covered up at the monestary, but in the picnic area, the same people would strip down to bikinis and Speedos.


After lunch, we were feeling overwhelmed by Ukrainain hospitality and over-organization of what was supposed to be a relaxing day, so us girls took off to the bazaar by ourselves to go shopping. I bought two headscarves, a filmy white one and a navy blue one with gold flowers, and two candlesticks made of clay that I was told was from the mountain and glazed dark blue. The candlesticks, unfortunately, broke on the way home, but they were only about 40 cents each USD and since they broke cleanly, I think I can glue them back together.


Then we went on a hike up the mountain and back in the fields to a grave of one of the monks from long ago...during Soviet times, the monestary had been a hospital for psychiatric patients (I think...), but this grave had been hidden and wasn't discovered. Then we went to the upper part of the monestary, where we could see all the way back to the town where we'd been staying, a forty-minute drive away.


Facing the monestary on a different cliff was a huge Soviet-era statue of the first Party secretary, or someone like that. One of the Ukrainians who was with us commented that he found it poetic justice that the area around the statue is eroding, while the churches are being rebuilt.

Then we all went back to the town where we were staying, went out to a cafe for dinner, hung out at one of the houses where some of the guys were staying, and then went back to the cafe where we were the previous night. Our apartment decided not to stay late, so we had french fries and then went home for more hot showers.


One of the really neat things about the weekend was that Ethan, one of the PCVs who was in the apartment I stayed at, is a Christian, which is always encouraging to find out here. He went to Liberty University, where he majored in biology. We've had dissimilar experiences here--unlike me, he was involved with a church in his town during training and made some good friends there, but when he got to site, there's no Evangelical church there, so he hasn't been able to go to church for five months. We were able to chat a bit about being believers out here, which was really cool.


Sunday morning, Erin and I got up and took the train back up to Balaklia. We had a fun time--the highlights included watching the brass band in my town rehearse while a dad and his two little girls danced on the outdoor stage by the Palace of Culture; making the ultimate sacrifice when the electricity went out and we had to eat a half kilo of vanilla ice cream with strawberries; making homemade pizza; and watching Walk the Line.


Yesterday we went up to Kharkiv, got Erin her train ticket back to Kyiv, and then went out for Italian food (yes, food was an important part of this visit!). We wanted to go to the second hand store I really like, but it closes early on Mondays, so we went to a bookstore instead, where I found a children's jigsaw puzzle that's a map of Ukraine and Erin bought an armload of ESL story/fiction books in English to use with her kids.

So it's been a great weekend, but I'm tired.

and the rest of the day...

So that batch of strawberry iced tea? Didn't last more than an hour after I finished typing the last post, as my little neighbor girls came over for Go Fish and a tea party. We ate most of the junk food in my apartment, which is good because I can't snack on it, but bad because I don't have junk food.

I currently have a batch of strawberry-mint iced tea brewing. Yum.

Also this afternoon, I installed my first window screen from the kit that someone sent me in the Brockway box last fall. We'll see how it works...it stays up by this tape stuff that's sticky on one side and like velcro on the other. You take the window netting and stick it to the velcro. I think that the kit was designed for people with smoother window frames than mine, but we'll try it. If it means I can have my windows perpetually open without fear of bugs, I'm all for trying.

It was a bit cooler today, and the evening was very nice, so I went for a walk. I was walking through the park, when I heard what sounded like Christian music in Russian. On my way back from my walk, I investigated, and it was a group of young people from Andrey's church (he's the guy I hang out with and help with English, in case you forgot) playing volleyball and badminton. I joined them and ended up playing badminton with one of the girls. I'm not particularly athletic (is this a surprise to anyone? I doubt it), but by the end, I was hitting the birdie a bit more regularly. Apparently they do this fairly often now that the tweather's good, and I think I'll try and join them occasionally. I could stand the exercise, and they seem like an unintimidating group to make an idiot of myself in front of.

Conversation between Andrey and me at the end, in Russian/Ukrainian:

Someone had asked where I live.
Me: On [my street name], in the swamp. [This is literally how the taxi drivers describe where my building is.]
Andrey: *laughs*
Me: What's so funny? That's how the taxi drivers say it!
Andrey: You know who lives in the swamp?
Me: Who?
Andrey: Shrek!
Me: [pause] Well, I'm Princess Fiona!
Andrey: I can see the resemblance.
Me: First movie [when she looks like a princess] or second [when she looks like an ogre]? Never mind, don't answer that!

a kindred soul, somewhere in cyberspace

Found while surfing the Internet:

Nobody who can read is ever successful in cleaning out an attic. (Anonymous)

This explains my cry of horror when Jason told me a couple of weeks ago that he was going through his bookshelves and getting rid of a few books.

"You can't! I'm not coming back until December! You can't just get rid of books without giving me the chance to browse through them and borrow them!" I then explained how that, when I was growing up, Mom, Kate, and I all had to get each other's approval before getting rid of any books...which often just meant a transfer of ownership rather than any books actually leaving the house.

Jason assured me that the books he was getting rid of weren't anything I'd have any interest in reading, and since he is a trustworthy individual, I'm going to believe him.

~*~

Today's batch of iced tea is strawberry-flavored. If it turns out well, I think I'll combine these two attempts and have my third batch be strawberry-mint. The weather's a bit better today...still warm, but there's a good breeze.

and a little child shall lead them

The Y's van isn't working again. Apparently, it broke down last Sunday just as they arrived back home from visiting another church in the oblast. (The Baptist churches in various towns and villages around here are taking turns visiting each other this summer...I wasn't able to go this time, as I was in Kharkiv with the other PCVs.)


Serojia Y's birthday was this week (he's five now). At our church here, when it's your birthday, you go up front, you pray, the pastor prays for you, and then everyone sings "Mwe Vam Bazhayem," which is a song where you wish someone happiness, peace, joy, and love in Christ. (We don't just sing it for birthdays...it happens whenever you want to congratulate someone for something.) Anyhow, Serojia's prayer was, "Dear God, thank you for Mama [Nadia] and church. Amen." I don't think I could have put it better myself.



Mom said that I should post about why I didn't have to teach the 11th formers on Friday, so I will. It is perhaps a sign of how much I've adjusted to living here that I didn't think about it as a blog topic until she suggested it. Anyhow, guys in Ukraine generally serve two years in the army after finishing school, as best I understand it. (I have yet to figure out how this connects with university, as they don't wait until the two years are over to finish...I should ask Sasha the next time I'm in Zgurivka.) So when I got to school on Friday, I saw most of the 11th form guys outside talking to the music teacher (the one male teacher on staff, who also teaches the older boys how to do military marches, in addition to teaching the younger kids how to sing)...and they were all in fatigues carrying guns. Apparently Friday was "Anton Get Your Gun" Day. As I entered the building and was walking down the hallway to the teachers' room, I saw Sasha, one of my 11A boys, in the hallway with his gun slung over his shoulder, talking to a teacher. After that, I didn't see the 11th formers (guys or girls) for the rest of the day. Still not quite sure about what happened. But apparently you don't get expelled here for having a gun on school property!



Nor is there apparently any disciplinary action when a 9th form boy tickles a teacher (me). This is a kid who I've been wanting to strangle the entire two weeks I subbed for his class. On Friday, they were taking a test, and Ihor was blatantly copying something out of his notebook. I requested that he give me the notebook, and he refused, putting it in his bag. Having had him for two weeks now, I knew that as soon as I looked away, he'd have it back out again, so I repeated my request. He handed me a different notebook. I took his schoolbag and started to remove the actual notebook in question. He started trying to play tug-of-war with me for it, and in order to make me let go, tickled me under my arm. This is NOT COOL. I was appalled. I never did get the notebook, but he didn't try and copy anything more out of it...instead, he took the notebook of the girl he was sitting with and started copying her work. After class, Ihor came up to me and tried to offer me free Avon samples (he sells Avon in his free time...don't ask) to get back in my good graces. Nope. Didn't happen. After school, I tried to explain what had happened to Nelya...i.e. that it is not okay for a student to tickle a teacher. It took a bit of explaining to make her understand what had happened, and her response was, "Don't worry about it. Ihor's rather strange."



Still...it seems strange and wrong that something that would get you suspended in the US has absolutely no repercussions here. And for the record, people who currently have tickle privileges (granted, some of them can't take advantage of them right now, as I'm here) are all Y kids from Valera on down (Liza and Valera know "tickle" in English, although it's strictly an outside-of-school thing), Jason, and any immediate family members who would want to tickle me. The list can expand if need be, but it's not going to include my older students!



FYI, my mint iced tea was very good. I made a liter jar full and drank it all in less than a day.



Yula and Serojia's wedding is June 24th. Tif, I said I'd help decorate for the reception on Saturday if they need help...you can either join me or sleep off jet lag, if you haven't by that point. And yes, I'll take the skirt. :)

Sumer is icumen in, Lhude sing cuccu!

Not having any big plans for the day (it's too hot), I went to the bazaar this morning in search of fresh produce. I was hoping for strawberries, but it's a little early yet...a couple of stands had them, but they looked small and squished and were an outrageous 25 hryvnia/kilo. However, I did find baby potatoes, radishes, fresh dill, honey, mushrooms, and two hair clips (a black claw clip and a big pink barrette).

Then I came home and boiled the baby potatoes and then added melted butter, garlic, and a bunch of the dill. Yummy.

It's so hot here...it's been up above 90 for the last several days. I need to go do laundry at the Y's, but the thought of lugging a big bag of laundry over to their house, plus coming up with the energy to be social for the two hours it takes the washing machine just seems like a lot. I might do it on Monday, although I need to find out if this upcoming holiday (Trinity Day) means that people don't do any extra work around the house.

Or, I might just make a liter jar of iced tea and sit around the apartment doing not much of anything until I go tutor Julia at 5 pm.

Weekend update/picture post!

It's been a good weekend. Yesterday, I went to Kharkiv for a going-away party for one of the PCVs in the oblast. We had a picnic out in the woods in one of the larger parks, and it was a nice chance to visit with people. Over 20 people showed up, a mixture of oblast PCVs, visiting PCVs from other oblasts, and foreign exchange students who live in Kharkiv. I took no-bake cookies, which were a hit. Pictures are here.

Question for all of you: do you know what no-bakes are? A lot of people yesterday (Americans) hadn't heard of no-bakes before, and I hadn't thought that they were a regional thing.

Today, I was the pianist at church because our regular one, Inna, was at a wedding with her mom (who is also our best soprano...we were slightly lacking today). I started out rather shaky, but felt moderately confident by the end.

The weather was gorgeous today, and I took pictures of various Y family members after church, including Nadia, who's never let me photograph her before. Pictures are here.

Oh, and for people who like to keep up on news, Yula and Serogia are officially engaged now and getting married at the end of next month. The date's not set yet, but they have two possible weekends.

the best laid plans of mice and men and sal...

I'm sad.

I baked my salmon fillet with a little bit of butter, fresh dill, and lemon slices. I made a small batch of rice to go with it. I grated up some radishes and added a few drops of oil and vinegar for my side salad. I even added a couple slices of bread on the side.

And my salmon wasn't fresh...it was preserved in brine (which I hadn't known prior to baking). It was too salty to eat, and half an hour later, my mouth is still puckering from the thought.

I was going to have such a nice supper, too!

~*~

Today at school we had an outdoor assembly for Victory Day, which is on Wednesday and celebrates the ending of WWII. In Ukraine, which was a major battle ground, the Soviet Army were the winners, so everyone had red flowers and we had a red star with candles around it. In some ways, it was if we were celebrating the triumph of Communism over Nazism, which seemed a little odd to the American. But it definitely would have been the better choice in 1945.

Anyhow, we had our assembly with our veterans--one old man in an army uniform with a chest full of medals, and two babuskas with head scarves. All the classes either had to present a musical number or draw a poster. The results were varied, but interesting.

Yesterday at the Ys, Vitaly, who was not blessed with an artistic gift in the slightest, was trying to draw the 10-B poster, as none of his classmates had volunteered. (Viktor asked me, "Do you know how to draw a star so that all of the angles are exactly even?" Since I take after my mom more than my dad, the answer was no. Nadia's comment was that Vitaly shouldn't bite off more than he can chew...or at least, the Ukrainian equivalent.)

We had various musical numbers--mostly Soviet war songs, I think--by the kids. My favorite was my 8-B form, who apparently had raided all the available attics. A group of them came out in various costumes based on old army uniforms--we had Alyona as a nurse, Slava in a long khaki trenchcoat, Alosha as a sailor, Vitaly with a parachuter's helmet, Zhenia in an army jacket with a bloody bandage around his head, and Firyuza looking like a guerilla fighter who had acquired everyone else's castoffs (my personal opinion). Plus Olena, Vita, and Natasha, who weren't in costume but were there for vocal support. They sang a verse of a song and then had a little skit. I liked that they didn't do the same sort of thing as everyone else.

The other performance that I found notable was that of Maksym and Andrei, two of my 6-A boys. With the music teacher accompanying them on his accordion, they belted out two Soviet army songs with more noise and energy than accuracy. The first song was a lively one with a traditional "Russian" sound about partisans out in the forest, and it hit me that during WWII, boys that age would have been involved in the war in various ways and singing the song in much the same way. It gave me goosebumps.

And I got some of the extra tulips that were left over!

something fishy is going on

Today when I was at the supermarket, I picked up a salmon fillet for supper, as I wanted something different from my usual fare.

So of course, I've been looking up recipes to figure out how to best use up various things in my fridge to go with it.

And what should I find but "Cooking Salmon in a Dishwasher." I can't try it, of course, since I have no dishwasher, but I really want to know who thought of doing that in the first place.

And I'm also greatly amused that they specify that no detergent or soap is to be added...

happy Soviet Labor day!

Wow, it's a small world.

I'm chatting on MSN Messenger with a guy I worked with almost six years ago when I had just finished high school. We were camp counselors together and debated theology in our free time.

It turns out that he has converted to Orthodoxy (which he was considering back when I knew him) and is moving to Ukraine this summer to work as a long-term missionary in an orphanage out West. Small, small world...

~*~

Today's been sort of chilly, so I've been cooking to keep the apartment warm (and so I don't go hungry). I finally got around to making pizza with onions, mushrooms, and chicken, which was good except that the dough didn't really rise, since the apartment's not all that warm. Then my little neighbor girls came over and we made carrot bread with the last of my carrots...they got to grate the carrots, crack the egg, and stir things, which they enjoyed greatly.

(Tim, this fits in with my suggestions to you of things to do. Invite your neighbor kids over, cook something, and then blog about it. See, I can combine them!)

It is now 15 times cheaper for me to call the US!

Please pray for the Y family...their van broke down this week, leaving them without transportation, which is a problem when you have 10 kids. I didn't quite get the details, but it isn't running at all right now, so they're going to have to try and get it fixed, I think. Nadia told me last week that they'd really like to sell this one and buy a new one, but I don't know how that works out financially.

Went to a concert at the Palace of Culture today, which was very nice. A lot of Ukrainian concerts feature flashing lights and large troops of scantily-clad children dancing to songs with random English lyrics, but this was a lot of love songs in Russian (and Italian!) with flowing piano accompaniment. And no flashing lights.

I am deeply impressed by the MSU Credit Union. I used my debit card tonight for the first time in close to a year to put some money on my Skype account. Apparently within an hour of doing this, someone from MSUFCU called my parents' house to confirm that I was, in fact, the person using the debit card. I'm amazed that a) they deal with this sort of issue this quickly and b) especially on a Sunday. As Mom said, they seem concerned about the security of my money.

Decided to clean out random things in my fridge tonight and ended up making a dip for crackers out of cream cheese, sour cream, imitation crab, green onion, and a little bit of Worcestershire sauce. When I told Grandma about this on the phone, she wanted to know if I was having company. Nope, but maybe the neighbor kids will help eat it. Tomorrow's cooking plans include pizza with chicken, onion, and mushrooms. Or maybe a couple stuffed mushrooms with a little bit of the cream cheese and crab that didn't go in the dip. I like cooking! (And I like reading recipe sites online now that I have Internet...but so many things call for ingredients like Mozerella cheese, which is only available at one store in Kharkiv and is rather expensive, comparatively speaking.)

As I mentioned, I put money on my Skype account, so now I can call US numbers (and maybe Germany also?) for about $0.02/minute, as opposed to the $0.30 I was paying before. Am trying to catch up on calling everyone...if you want to be considered part of everyone, let me know.

the Ents go marching one by one

I made what my cookbook calls "Salmon Cream Sauce" last night. I think I'll rename it "Milk-Based Soup with Salmon Bits" and it would be a lot more accurate. Somehow it never thickened.

I also made a chocolate-chip torte, which was made more difficult by having to chop dates, chocolate bars, and walnuts by hand, as I have neither chocolate chips nor a nut grinder. It turned out okay, I think...I'll find out tonight at the Y's. I'm spending the night there tonight...Valera had asked if I was going to spend the night again next New Year's Eve, and it didn't seem necessary to wait that long (plus I won't be here). So it's sort of a belated birthday celebration.

I'm worried about Valera. He's falling behind in English (I think he has some learning difficulties), and he keeps saying , "I don't care if I get bad grades." I know it's hard for him, and he doesn't do well with Scream and Translate teaching. I understand that he has trouble learning...I just hate to see him developing a "who cares" attitude about it. I see enough of those in the older forms.

Ran into my friend Natalia after school today, who I hadn't seen since before Christmas. She invited me to come to a performance (?) of Balaklia's writers on Tuesday at the college where she works. Of course, I'm also supposed to read a poem in English (whether or not one I've written I couldn't tell). Should be fun.

I've been watching The Lord of the Rings this week. It's scarier than I remember. Also scary but in a different way is how much of the book dialogue is lodged in my brain...as I see a scene approaching, the book dialogue plays through my head. A mis-spent childhood, I suppose... :)

they keep dropping like flies...okay, like sick children

Today is not one of the Internet's happy days, as it has already kicked me off multiple times, to the point where the behind-the-counter ladies called in the Programming Guy. He fixed things, and the comment was made that the computer listens to him. :) I guess you just have to show it who's boss.

The flu continues, with 84 kids absent from school today (out of 270-odd). Kharkiv is also in quarantine mode right now, and I wouldn't be surprised if we'll be there soon. I've been told when 1/3 are absent, but I think the decision has to come from the raiyon administration, rather than from school staff. Having only half my students makes the lessons so much easier!

Apparently the education inspector for the raiyon is supposed to come watch me teach this week. I was sorry she didn't come today, as all the lessons went well. I'll be surprised if she comes, because she's said several times she'll come and then never shows.

The Y family butchered their pig this weekend. I went over to do laundry on Saturday and Nadia and her mom had the kitchen table covered in pork that they were packaging. It felt like home. :) She sent me home with a package of fresh pork, which my freezer is actually keeping frozen. (Yay!) I made pork stroganoff last night, which is a fancy title for pork, onions, mushrooms, garlic, and sour cream, all over mashed potatoes. Yum!