A Recap for the past week or so...

I have basically been MIA from the blog world for the past few days...please forgive me. Lots and lots of things going on in Oster and I just haven't had the time to sit down and blog. Today's post comes with no pictures as of right now...just wanted to get some info. out there to let you know what's been going on lately!

Today is Victory Day here in Ukraine, celebrating the day that the SSSR defeated Hitler. It is a HUGE holiday here...students don't have school, people have BBQs, there was a parade downtown, veterans are given flowers from everyone around, etc. I haven't uploaded my pictures and video yet to my computer, but they will come later on the blog. It definitely deserves a post in and of itself! Look for that in the (hopefully) near future :)

This week marks our last week with our rotation language teacher, Maria. She will go back to her original PC cluster group and Zhenya will return to us for the remaining few weeks of Pre-Service Training. I am shocked every time I look at a calendar and realize that it is almost the middle of May...where have these months gone!?

One of the biggest responsibilities of being a PC volunteer is that you have to be flexible. We joke about this, but it is truly a necessity to make it through your 2 year service. In foreign countries things are not always run the way that they might be in your own culture. So whether it be if the water gets shut off at your house for a few days (this happened at my house here in Oster a few weeks ago) or maybe an appointment doesn't happen at the time you thought it would (communication barrier?), things come up in the PC and you have to be flexible. Today, we had a perfect example of this. Let me explain... :)

On my way back to my teacher's apartment after the parade, I walked past the stadium and saw three of the girls in the 7th grade class that I have taught a few times. Students here are always very excited to say "Hello!" or "Good morning!"...even if it's 2 o'clock in the afternoon :) The point is, they see one of the Americans and come running up to use a token English phrase. When I saw my 7th grade girls, I walked across the street to say hello to the them and see what they were up to. One of them is actually one of Cassi's (cluster-mates) host sisters, so I asked if they had seen Cassi walk by just a bit before me. Since my Russian is limited and their English is equally limited, there are only so many phrases that I can say before I run out of options in my word bank :) I had used up all of my token phrases (for example: Kak parade? Shto vwi budiete? How was the parade? What are you up to?) and needed to get to my technical tutoring lesson...so I started to walk away and told them I would see them on Wednesday when Jamie and I would be teaching their class. Wrong. They then started sounding off in Russian that they have a history exam that lasts for two class periods on Wednesday...and my understanding was that it would be taking up the class period that we were supposed to be teaching in. I tried to clarify this is in every way possible...asking the time that their test started, but they kept telling me that it lasted an hour and forty minutes. lol...I know how long 2 class periods are...I need to know what time it starts and ends. As I walked away, I wondered if I really had understood them correctly. This week's lesson that Jamie and I had prepared was a giant board game of things that they've learned the past 4 weeks when Jamie, Brendan, and I have taught them. It was going to be a lot of work, but we knew it would be a fun way for them to learn...so I was truly excited to get to teach them this week. Upon arriving at Maria's apartment, our technical teacher Lyuda was finishing her tutoring session with Cassi and Mark. I broke the news to Jamie and Lyuda at the same time...and the only thing we could do is laugh because NO one had been informed of this history test taking up our class period. Since I was not 100% certain that I had understood correctly, Lyuda called the Ukrainian teacher to see what the deal was...and sure enough, we would not be teaching this week. I can't begin to explain to you how utterly devastating it would have been to walk to school on Wednesay with our homemade boardgame, pumped and ready to go...and not have a class to teach! We will hopefully be able to teach the lesson before school ends. But it simply keeps replaying in my head...what if I had not said "See you Wednesday!" to the girls as I walked away from the stadium? Lesson learned to always say hello to people on the street and confirm meeting and teaching times :)

I suppose I've rambled enough now. I need to go drop a few books off at my teacher's apartment...and I would kill to go for a run right now. However, it looks like it's about to doshct (rain). Tonight, there will be fireworks in honor of Victory day...which means every dog in Oster will be barking. Maybe I'll be able to post pics later on the blog today. Hope everyone has a great Monday! :)