Hello friends and family,
Just wanted to say hello on this wonderful Friday. The Kozelets group came to join us today in Oster for our second personal health day where we learned about what to do in certain situations involving injuries, etc. After that, we took a field trip to the Oster historical museum. It cost 13 grievna to go in (about $2)...and we had a personal guide telling us about everything on display Then, our teacher would translate. I'm not usually one for history...but when some of the items are hundreds of years old (think 900+), that's pretty crazy to think about.
Talking about my teacher...reminds me that I have yet to tell y'all that we have a new Russian language teacher! Her name is Maria and she is absolutely splendid. Peace Corps has got a lot of things down pat. After 4 weeks of language training here in Ukraine, all of the LCFs(Language teachers) switch around and go teach somebody else's cluster for 3 weeks. This not only gives the students somebody else's fresh and new approach to teaching...but it also gives us all a boost of (much-needed) energy. This event is called language rotation. Our lovely teacher Zhenya (my original LCF) went to Bogaslav to be with another cluster; Bogaslav is located about 2 hours south of Kiev. Last Friday night was her last day here, so we had dinner at her apartment and were going to watch a movie but never got around to it! Zhenya made fettunici alfredo for us :) quite tasty. We were also going to play bananagrams but never got around to actually playing it. Jamie was explaining the game when we had to do some schedule planning. Being a flexible person is a VITAL part of the PC :) So...we improvised:
Mark having fun by himself...
The lovely dinner spread: bread (of course), fresh cucumbers (which I ate!), spaghetti noodles, and then the alfredo sauce. The 2 white boxes are juice boxes...while the green and red thing standing up to the right of the pasta is ketchup!
The alfredo was about 80% cheese...sooooo good, but hard to get off the spoon.
Tomorrow morning, the Oster cluster will head to Kozelets for a cross-cultural session. Not quite sure what we're doing after that. A few of us from the Oster group have also have been toying with the idea of going to Chernihiv on Sunday. If we do, I could meet up with my dear Bama friend, Hayley! She is in a cluster that is located about 15 minutes north of Chernihiv.
On most days, I do not have any access to the world news to know what's going on. I check my email almost every day on my kindle, if not on my host sister's computer. Wednesday, I had about 20 minutes to check my email on the computer and was shocked to find a message from my family telling me that Tuscaloosa (the city where my brother and I were born and both grew up) was hit pretty hard by a tornado. If you go to the Tuscaloosa News website homepage, you can find videos and pictures of the devastation. The tornado was a couple blocks away from our old house there...pretty scary stuff. All of the giant, old trees that lined The Downs are no longer standing for the most part. Praying for our family and friends down there...
I've watched a beautiful sunset as I sat here at the computer writing this blog entry :) I woke up at 6:30 this morning to shower/bathe...and was greeted by the wonderful aroma of blinchiki. Actually...the things that I'm calling blinchiki are not blinchiki. My host mom makes these:
I think they are called amalya (sidenote: this is not my picture. I apologize for taking it off google!). Somebody please let me know what the correct name is (maybe Adam?)! My host mom calls them blinchiki though...so I do too. However, actual blinchiki are like crepes. Like this...
Our LCF Zhenya actually started this picture frenzy on Friday when we were eating together...and then she wouldn't be in the picture! From l to r: Lydia, Cassi, Mark, Jamie, and Brendan. And yes, that's blinchiki on our faces :)
So, real blinchiki is thin, pieces of batter that you fry for a minute or so. Then you put whatever topping in it you want...or just eat it plain. I love to eat the amalya just plain...except this morning, my host mom broke out some honey...and I mean REAL honey. The honey was in an old giant pickle jar (you save things here and reuse them) signaling that it is local...it is so thick that you have to scrape it out with a giant ladle. I'm usually not a honey person, but holy cow this stuff was good. I know that we get our milk from a local person who comes twice a week and fills up another old pickle jar full of fresh milk. My host sister adds cocoa to the milk and drinks it hot or cold...so it's like hot chocolate milk, or really cold, really fresh chocolate milk. However, first...my host mom boils the milk. I asked my host sister (in Russian!) last night why she boils it first. It apparently gets rid of the bacteria. Interesting! I hadn't tried it yet until a few nights ago...and it is truly to die for. I will try to take a picture of this process next time! I'm pretty sure I've eaten about 10-12 amalya throughout the day. Whoops. :)
Time to eat supper now :) much love to everyone. Have a great Friday!
Just wanted to say hello on this wonderful Friday. The Kozelets group came to join us today in Oster for our second personal health day where we learned about what to do in certain situations involving injuries, etc. After that, we took a field trip to the Oster historical museum. It cost 13 grievna to go in (about $2)...and we had a personal guide telling us about everything on display Then, our teacher would translate. I'm not usually one for history...but when some of the items are hundreds of years old (think 900+), that's pretty crazy to think about.
Talking about my teacher...reminds me that I have yet to tell y'all that we have a new Russian language teacher! Her name is Maria and she is absolutely splendid. Peace Corps has got a lot of things down pat. After 4 weeks of language training here in Ukraine, all of the LCFs(Language teachers) switch around and go teach somebody else's cluster for 3 weeks. This not only gives the students somebody else's fresh and new approach to teaching...but it also gives us all a boost of (much-needed) energy. This event is called language rotation. Our lovely teacher Zhenya (my original LCF) went to Bogaslav to be with another cluster; Bogaslav is located about 2 hours south of Kiev. Last Friday night was her last day here, so we had dinner at her apartment and were going to watch a movie but never got around to it! Zhenya made fettunici alfredo for us :) quite tasty. We were also going to play bananagrams but never got around to actually playing it. Jamie was explaining the game when we had to do some schedule planning. Being a flexible person is a VITAL part of the PC :) So...we improvised:
Mark having fun by himself...
The lovely dinner spread: bread (of course), fresh cucumbers (which I ate!), spaghetti noodles, and then the alfredo sauce. The 2 white boxes are juice boxes...while the green and red thing standing up to the right of the pasta is ketchup!
The alfredo was about 80% cheese...sooooo good, but hard to get off the spoon. Tomorrow morning, the Oster cluster will head to Kozelets for a cross-cultural session. Not quite sure what we're doing after that. A few of us from the Oster group have also have been toying with the idea of going to Chernihiv on Sunday. If we do, I could meet up with my dear Bama friend, Hayley! She is in a cluster that is located about 15 minutes north of Chernihiv.
On most days, I do not have any access to the world news to know what's going on. I check my email almost every day on my kindle, if not on my host sister's computer. Wednesday, I had about 20 minutes to check my email on the computer and was shocked to find a message from my family telling me that Tuscaloosa (the city where my brother and I were born and both grew up) was hit pretty hard by a tornado. If you go to the Tuscaloosa News website homepage, you can find videos and pictures of the devastation. The tornado was a couple blocks away from our old house there...pretty scary stuff. All of the giant, old trees that lined The Downs are no longer standing for the most part. Praying for our family and friends down there...
I've watched a beautiful sunset as I sat here at the computer writing this blog entry :) I woke up at 6:30 this morning to shower/bathe...and was greeted by the wonderful aroma of blinchiki. Actually...the things that I'm calling blinchiki are not blinchiki. My host mom makes these:
I think they are called amalya (sidenote: this is not my picture. I apologize for taking it off google!). Somebody please let me know what the correct name is (maybe Adam?)! My host mom calls them blinchiki though...so I do too. However, actual blinchiki are like crepes. Like this...
Our LCF Zhenya actually started this picture frenzy on Friday when we were eating together...and then she wouldn't be in the picture! From l to r: Lydia, Cassi, Mark, Jamie, and Brendan. And yes, that's blinchiki on our faces :)So, real blinchiki is thin, pieces of batter that you fry for a minute or so. Then you put whatever topping in it you want...or just eat it plain. I love to eat the amalya just plain...except this morning, my host mom broke out some honey...and I mean REAL honey. The honey was in an old giant pickle jar (you save things here and reuse them) signaling that it is local...it is so thick that you have to scrape it out with a giant ladle. I'm usually not a honey person, but holy cow this stuff was good. I know that we get our milk from a local person who comes twice a week and fills up another old pickle jar full of fresh milk. My host sister adds cocoa to the milk and drinks it hot or cold...so it's like hot chocolate milk, or really cold, really fresh chocolate milk. However, first...my host mom boils the milk. I asked my host sister (in Russian!) last night why she boils it first. It apparently gets rid of the bacteria. Interesting! I hadn't tried it yet until a few nights ago...and it is truly to die for. I will try to take a picture of this process next time! I'm pretty sure I've eaten about 10-12 amalya throughout the day. Whoops. :)
Time to eat supper now :) much love to everyone. Have a great Friday!
1 comment:
Newt loved the story about the milk in the pickle jar. His dad was a milkman in Hobart and Newt helped.
Love you,
Pops
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