GREETINGS dear friends! I come bearing pictures today for the first time in quite a while. Hope you're as excited as I am. I could, of course, post about 150 so far...but I'll spare you. And, as a super bonus, you will get punctuation and hopefully not TOO many mispelled words. However, since I am on my host sister's computer, it thinks that all English words are mispelled, so literally every word I've written thus far has been underlined with a red squiggly. Awesome. Anywho...without further ado...welcome to OSTER!!!
This is one of the two rivers that run through my city of 7,000 people. It is called the Desna, while the other (smaller) river is the Oster.
and let me introduce you to my WONDERFUL cluster group :)
The day that we got our cell phones was an incredibly happy day for the Oster cluster. In Ukraine, it is not customary to talk with people you don't know on the street. You do not say hi (unless you actually know them), you keep your head down while you walk, and it is considered weird if you are to smile or acknowledge anyone. This has been incredibly hard for me to adapt to, especially because what you receive back from people in Ukraine is what has been dubbed by Americans as the "brick face."{sidenote: after being in Ukraine for 3 weeks, I have now begun to say hi to some of the babushkas I see on a regular basis, as well as students from our schools. The students see us coming a mile away and get big smiles on their faces as they say "hello!" to us. Definitely a good feeling to be able to say hi to people on the street!} I'm not quite sure where or how this name was created, but on the day we were buying our Ukrainian cell phones, we wanted to try to take a group brick face pic. It was an epic fail as you can see above. The picture below was one of the first attempts at getting our group not to smile. Basically, impossible.
pictured from left to right is Cassi (from Florida), Lydia (me), Jamie (from Massachusetts), Brendan (from Washington, DC), and Mark in the back (from Pennsylvania).
Our Oster cluster group (the group of people that I am with all the time in Pre-Service Training). This picture was taken in Kozelets, which is about a 25 minute bus ride away. Our "link cluster" is in Kozelets, whom we get together with about once a week to do cross-cultural training. Pictured left to right is Cassi, Mark, Brendan, Lydia, and Jamie.
One of our language classes was spent shopping and cooking a traditional Ukrainian meal. We chose to make galuptsi (cabbage rolls). We had to go to the bazaar and a few magazihns (stores) to obtain all of the items necessary...practicing our Russian the whole time. Everyone in Oster has been incredibly helpful with the way we walk into a store not knowing the name of what we need to buy most of the time. It involves a lot of pointing and "da!" which means yes :) the above picture was taken after we made all of our purchases for the cabbage rolls...minus Mark's shampoo and conditioner we also found in a store along the way. (l to r: Cassi, Lydia, Mark, Brendan, Jamie)
L to R: Jamie, Brendan, Cassi, Mark. The cabbage rolls with the tomato topping in the center of the table. This room is where we learn Russian 5 days a week, in our language teachers apartment.
And this is our wonderful teacher Zhenya. She is so sweet and patient with us...and I could not have asked for a better language teacher. Behind Zhenya is another one of the walls in her apartment...COVERED in Russian notes. I have a progression of pictures of what the walls looked like with only a few sheets of paper up. However, it is incredibly helpful to have the info. available to see all the time on the walls instead of having to flip through your notebook. You can tell they've definitely done this a few times and know what things work :)
I taught my first class EVER yesterday. Jamie, Brendan, and myself are the teachers at the gymnasia, while Mark and Cassi teach at the schkola. For the first few times we teach, we are doing so in pairs...which is super helpful. Jamie and I were paired together to teach 7th grade, and Brendan and Jamie were to teach 11th grade yesterday. The class period that we would be teaching in is known as healthy-lifestyles...and can encompass a TON of material. We planned on teaching over the food pyramid and showing how the things you eat relate to the way you feel and the way you are able to carry on your daily routine. What we didn't realize was that the food pyramid was a completely new idea to students in Ukraine. So, Tuesday afternoon...we completely changed our lesson plan. EEK! I was up until 2 am working on posters and prepping my Russian lingo skills...definitely made me feel like I was back in college working at the studio!
One of the things that Peace Corps highly encourages is being flexible. We got to use our flexibility the morning we were to teach because we walked into the classroom for what we thought was 7th graders and it ended up being 11th graders. So...Jamie and I taught 11th grade while Jamie and Brendan did 7th. All things considered, we did a great job in my opinion and got to exhibit some pretty stellar Russian lingo. Mark and Cassi taught a class on emotions at the schkola and also did an amazing job from what I heard! Malediets (good job!).
I could keep writing a ton but I don't want to hog the computer! Since I figured out that I can update on my host sister's computer now, I will hopefully be able to a little bit more reliably with pictures :) Happy happy birthday to the one and only Darren Downing Gore today by the way! If he reads to the bottom of this post I will be very surprised :) love to everyone!
This is one of the two rivers that run through my city of 7,000 people. It is called the Desna, while the other (smaller) river is the Oster.and let me introduce you to my WONDERFUL cluster group :)
The day that we got our cell phones was an incredibly happy day for the Oster cluster. In Ukraine, it is not customary to talk with people you don't know on the street. You do not say hi (unless you actually know them), you keep your head down while you walk, and it is considered weird if you are to smile or acknowledge anyone. This has been incredibly hard for me to adapt to, especially because what you receive back from people in Ukraine is what has been dubbed by Americans as the "brick face."{sidenote: after being in Ukraine for 3 weeks, I have now begun to say hi to some of the babushkas I see on a regular basis, as well as students from our schools. The students see us coming a mile away and get big smiles on their faces as they say "hello!" to us. Definitely a good feeling to be able to say hi to people on the street!} I'm not quite sure where or how this name was created, but on the day we were buying our Ukrainian cell phones, we wanted to try to take a group brick face pic. It was an epic fail as you can see above. The picture below was one of the first attempts at getting our group not to smile. Basically, impossible.
pictured from left to right is Cassi (from Florida), Lydia (me), Jamie (from Massachusetts), Brendan (from Washington, DC), and Mark in the back (from Pennsylvania).
Our Oster cluster group (the group of people that I am with all the time in Pre-Service Training). This picture was taken in Kozelets, which is about a 25 minute bus ride away. Our "link cluster" is in Kozelets, whom we get together with about once a week to do cross-cultural training. Pictured left to right is Cassi, Mark, Brendan, Lydia, and Jamie.
One of our language classes was spent shopping and cooking a traditional Ukrainian meal. We chose to make galuptsi (cabbage rolls). We had to go to the bazaar and a few magazihns (stores) to obtain all of the items necessary...practicing our Russian the whole time. Everyone in Oster has been incredibly helpful with the way we walk into a store not knowing the name of what we need to buy most of the time. It involves a lot of pointing and "da!" which means yes :) the above picture was taken after we made all of our purchases for the cabbage rolls...minus Mark's shampoo and conditioner we also found in a store along the way. (l to r: Cassi, Lydia, Mark, Brendan, Jamie)
L to R: Jamie, Brendan, Cassi, Mark. The cabbage rolls with the tomato topping in the center of the table. This room is where we learn Russian 5 days a week, in our language teachers apartment.
And this is our wonderful teacher Zhenya. She is so sweet and patient with us...and I could not have asked for a better language teacher. Behind Zhenya is another one of the walls in her apartment...COVERED in Russian notes. I have a progression of pictures of what the walls looked like with only a few sheets of paper up. However, it is incredibly helpful to have the info. available to see all the time on the walls instead of having to flip through your notebook. You can tell they've definitely done this a few times and know what things work :)I taught my first class EVER yesterday. Jamie, Brendan, and myself are the teachers at the gymnasia, while Mark and Cassi teach at the schkola. For the first few times we teach, we are doing so in pairs...which is super helpful. Jamie and I were paired together to teach 7th grade, and Brendan and Jamie were to teach 11th grade yesterday. The class period that we would be teaching in is known as healthy-lifestyles...and can encompass a TON of material. We planned on teaching over the food pyramid and showing how the things you eat relate to the way you feel and the way you are able to carry on your daily routine. What we didn't realize was that the food pyramid was a completely new idea to students in Ukraine. So, Tuesday afternoon...we completely changed our lesson plan. EEK! I was up until 2 am working on posters and prepping my Russian lingo skills...definitely made me feel like I was back in college working at the studio!
One of the things that Peace Corps highly encourages is being flexible. We got to use our flexibility the morning we were to teach because we walked into the classroom for what we thought was 7th graders and it ended up being 11th graders. So...Jamie and I taught 11th grade while Jamie and Brendan did 7th. All things considered, we did a great job in my opinion and got to exhibit some pretty stellar Russian lingo. Mark and Cassi taught a class on emotions at the schkola and also did an amazing job from what I heard! Malediets (good job!).
I could keep writing a ton but I don't want to hog the computer! Since I figured out that I can update on my host sister's computer now, I will hopefully be able to a little bit more reliably with pictures :) Happy happy birthday to the one and only Darren Downing Gore today by the way! If he reads to the bottom of this post I will be very surprised :) love to everyone!
3 comments:
Lydia you look so happy. I am thankful things are going so well for you. Love to read your blogs. You are in my thoughts and prayers.
Love you,
Susan
It seems so much more real now that we can see your pictures! I LOVE the pics and you...Your lovin' Pops
I agree with your dad, it's definitely great to see pictures and have a better grasp of what it's like there. Sounds really exciting. Gosh I would be so frustrated to find out I was teaching a different grade. Looks like a great group!! Miss you lady!
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