Hello—
What I previously posted is more or less a summary of the last few weeks. Now this is updated for today, the 24th of October.
I have never been so happy to use the internet. Seriously, I had an actual dream a couple nights ago about using wireless internet. How pathetic is that? It’s kind of nice being disconnected from the world and not be completely dependent on technology. But I gotta say, I am loving me some internet right now.
Life in Ukraine is great/stressful/fun/crazy… every emotion and feeling. I have been here for pretty much a month. This has been a good week. I co-taught a lesson in the local school to 7th graders, and it was great. While the topic was hard for us to teach (Present Perfect Tense) it was still fun and definitely made me feel more confident about teaching here. But I have only taught two lessons so far in my school. After school vacation, which is next week, I will begin teaching 2-3 lessons a week, and will stop co-teaching. Everytime we teach, we are observed by the actual Ukrainian English teacher for that class, our fellow volunteers in our town, and our Peace Corps technical trainer, so after every class we teach we debrief and get suggestions and comments from everyone. It is incredibly helpful.
At our school there is a woman who is in charge of extracurricular activities and other things, and she has asked us to assist in an event they are having on December 1st for World AIDS days. We will do a presentation for about 80 high school students at the school about HIV/AIDS information, safe sex practices, testing and information about HIV/AIDS in Ukraine. I think it is going to be a really important event and I am glad that the school asked us to help out. Ukraine has named HIV/AIDS as an epidemic, with the infection rate as high as some African nations. I only wish we could present this to the entire high school population at our school, and not just a portion of them. So if anyone has any useful info/resources about HIV/AIDS, email them to me!
Over the weekend, I made Vareniki with my host mom and her sister. Vareniki are basically dumplings filled with nearly anything, and it is a Ukrainian tradition. We filled half of them with mashed potatoes and the other half with a cabbage/carrot/onion mixture. It was delicious and really fun to make. I am glad that my host mom lets me help with the cooking, because I love to cook and I am enjoying learning how to make some new things, especially Ukrainian specialties! I am also really happy she likes vegetables and she seriously makes the most amazing salads. Actually, both of my moms (American mom and Ukrainian mom) are fabulous cooks. J
Last night my host mother’s granddaughter spent the night. She is 7 (same age as Rafael!) and we had so much fun. She is a total goofball, just like me, so we spent the whole evening laughing, doing origami and watching the Ukrainian dance show which everyone in this country seems to be totally obsessed with (and now I am too!) I have already found a couple of shows that I like to watch with my host mom-mostly Ukrainian soap operas. Amazing. The dancing show is good. Plus I enjoy watching American shows and movies dubbed over. The other night me, my host brother and host mother watched some terrible Tom Cruise movie I had never seen dubbed over in Russian it was great. Also House is on all the time, and that’s also a good one to watch dubbed over.
I am looking forward to going to Kyiv (hopefully next week). I don’t know what we will do when we get there, but I have heard it is a beautiful and fascinating city, and I can’t wait.
Last week for one of our cross-cultural sessions, we received a really interesting history lesson about Ukraine. One of the things I had heard prior to my arrival here, and that I experience here every day, is that nothing is wasted (mostly in regards to food). I had heard that bread is sacred and is never thrown away. This is something that I think is really great about this culture, and something Americans could learn from. We are all so wasteful in the states, including myself. Between wasting perfectly good food, to wasting electricity, to water... the list goes on. Here, nothing is wasted or taken for granted. Showers or bathes are quick and not usually taken for enjoyment, just to quickly get clean and get out. People are so efficient about only turning on lights if it is necessary, and turning it off as soon as you leave the room. Same with food, nothing is wasted. If we--for instance--eat fish, my host mom puts out all of the bones and leftover little bits of fish that were not eaten for stray cats to come and eat. And yes, bread is sacred. Even if bread goes moldy, it is saved. I am not sure what it will be used for, but my host mom has a bag of bits of old, stale and some moldy bread. I am sure it will be used for something. So the reason that this is so ingrained in the culture is mainly because in the early 30s, Stalin took every last bit of grain from peasants, leaving them with little to no food for themselves. Even during a year where there was a terrible drought, he stripped the peasants of all of their food, leaving much of Ukraine suffering from terrible famine. People and families starved to death, and if they attempted to leave for Russia, guards were there waiting and would kill them. It was really terrible. And to ensure that the world did not hear about this famine, he shipped the grain that he stole from Ukrainians to other countries, to give the impression that everything in Ukraine was fine. While there has been tragedy in parts of Ukrainian history, there has also been a lot of triumphs and amazing events that have taken place. I learned some other really interesting things about Ukraine last weekend and I am looking forward to reading and hearing more about this country.
There is still much more to say, but for now, that will have to be all. Thanks for reading!!!
Much love,
Rose
PS Sorry this is so long. I am just not sure the next time I will have internet!
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