Perpetual Change

First days in my Training Cluster

Ok, I've been here 3 days and it seems like two weeks. First, I know almost as much Ukrainian as I did Italian after a semester of Dr. Hillary's classes.

Second, Ukrainian Spring. My brother, Paul, wished me a true winter someday and he got his wish. Yesterday and the day before was very grey, below freezing, strong winds, and constant snow. I have seen so many different types of snow. And ICE!! Then it rained at night and left and incredible quantity of ice in the morning. It made for quite and interesting walk to class today. All the sidewalks are covered with a whole winter's accumulation of uneven ice (at least 3 inches). I even saw Ukrainians slipping, though it doesn't stop them from wearing high heels. Their perseverance is amazing.

Tomorrow is Internatinal Women's Day: celebrated only here to the best of my knowledge but quite a day. Monday and Tuesday are holidays and chocolates and flowers are a must for all women in your life in a combination of Valentine's and Mother's Day. We are headed to babusya's house (grandma) with my host family (Mom, Dad, 16-yr old brother and 20 yr old brother who is home from university in Kiev for this holiday.) I am looking forward to it. The food is good- homemade parogi's, mashed potatos, and of course Borshch being the best.

But I am also looking forward to when the ice breaks up on the river that runs outside my window. My host mom says spring is her favorite holiday. I think, Mom, that you two would get along very well.

PS. In my training cluster (where I and 3 other trainees live in a community with host families and a Language and Culture Facilitator) we have classes Monday - Friday for 6 hours to work on learning the Language. Our LCF (PC is big on acronyms) is named Katia and she is lovely and married and speaks wonderful English. She is a very good and enthusiastic teacher. On Saturdays we go to a neighboring town to meet with another Cluster (who is learning Russian instead of Ukrainian like me), where we have technical (how to teach) and cultural classes. In my town there is internet and my home not only has indoor plumbing (which means we don't have to pull water from many of the neighborhood wells, and that we can throw our toilet paper in the toilet [remember Athens, Sando?] which is much like the brown paper you used to have in grade school for drying your hands, but we also have hot water, and can control the heat (many soviet apartment buildings had one heat setting for the whole building, or town!) Not all the trainees can say all these things. I feel quite lucky and I even made a list the other night of all the things I am thankful for here. But I miss all of you. Hope all is well. Feel free to ask questions...

posted by jjs @ 11:06 AM