The other day, all of these stuffed animals suddenly appeared in my room. One of them is a Garfield stuffed animal. One of the eyeballs has fallen off and then my host mother’s granddaughter colored in the eye that is actually missing the eyeball. It is the creepiest thing ever. Above is a picture. I keep meaning to do something about it because whenever I go to sleep I can feel it staring at me.
When was little, maybe 2 or 3, I went to New Jersey to visit my grandmother. In the bedroom we were staying in was a painting of my grandmother’s mother. It was a really frightening painting. I was terrified of it and could not stop crying and freaking out, so my mom covered the painting with a scarf. My grandmother was so offended, and I guess I understand why. But hey, I was just a little kid, and frankly, she looked like a creepy mean witch. When I went back when I was older, I looked at that same painting. It still gave me the creeps. So maybe this is another situation to bring out the old scarf and cover Garfield’s face! Seriously. It gives me the chills.
On Wednesday it was my host mother’s 60th birthday. Birthdays are interesting in this culture. Basically whoever’s birthday it is is responsible for hosting an elaborate party, where they provide everything. The guests do bring gifts, cards, flowers, chocolates and such, but my host mom put her son to work cleaning the entire house, fixing things, and she began cooking 3 days before the actual party. Every morning when I left for Russian, she was up to her elbows (is that an expression? I am seriously losing my English) in meat. There was one morning I left and there were huge bowls of ground pork, two whole giant fish, two whole chickens and all sorts of other thing all over the place. It looked like she had invited the entire town to her birthday party. The entire town did not come. About 15 of her friends did, and on Saturday, some of her family is coming into town and I am very excited to meet more of her family.
The party was SO much fun. It started at 3PM and ended at 10PM. We ate, we drank, we toasted, we sang, we danced, we chatted. It was really fun. I think my host mom had a great time and was happy with how everything went. I really wish I could’ve understood the toasts that people made for her. Some of them were really long and I could tell she was touched by them! I was able to have a few conversations that I actually understood with people. One woman told me that she has family in San Francisco, and that they live in a big house, have three cars and are always on their computers. (That sounds about right). Another man told me that he was in the army in Germany sometime in the 80s. I learned that if you clink glasses and then rest your shot class on the table before you drink, you have to clink again and then drink. It was a fun party and I met some really nice people. Ukrainian birthdays are a good time.
Even though we are not teaching, we are still developing lesson plans for future lessons we might teach. One of the ones we are supposed to develop is a “Country studies” lesson plan about the USA. So I of course chose to focus on baseball. I know, I am so predictable. It was either that or talk to them about my love of hot sauce for 45 minutes. And hey, baseball is pretty American, right? One of my activities is for the students to make their own baseball cards, choose the name of their team and what position they would like to play. I hope I can actually do this activity with some of my future students. I would love to teach them about baseball. On the example baseball card I made, I said that I played first base on the Ukrainian team the Lviv Lions, and that I had a batting average of .345. Yeah, I’m pretty good in my imaginary baseball playing world. ☺
I know I have said this in previous blogs, but I am so sad to leave my host family. The other morning, my host mom was like, “Soon my granddaughter will go back to Kyiv, and my son will go back to work in Kyiv, and you will leave. Everyone is leaving!” and then she made a crying face. I made a crying face too. I think it is going to be a big cry fest when I leave. But she made me promise I will call. Calling will be interesting. Even though my language skills are somewhat decent (at least I like to think they are decent), I still heavily rely on gestures, expressions and pointing. On the phone, I can’t do any of those things. That will be an adventure.
Okay that is all for now. Supposedly Wednesday the quarantine will be over and we will be able to begin teaching again. Hooray!
Till next time...
No comments:
Post a Comment