Saturday morning: I awake to a text from a fellow trainee Theo, who lives in Kozaletz; "My first snowfall of the year!" I immediately direct my attention to the laundry I had left outside to dry the night before. Ukrainian rule # 32: "Know the weather before you hang wet clothes out to dry." I promptly skipped outside and removed my cardboard like clothes from the line to dry inside, it was hilarious! Ukrainian rule # 2: "Laugh at yourself"- thats one of the important ones that comes up daily.
Frozen Clothes!
I am sad to say the day before was my last class at School number 2 in Oster and I am sad to being going as I said in my last post. I just hope that the community I go to shares the same awesomeness (which is a word) as my present community. After class we had the lottery that was part of our 3 step fundraising project to help raise money for the local soccer field. All in all the project seemed to be a big success and we made 1800 Hryvina- Great Success!
Anyway, back to the weather. This Friday it started to snow, and it hasn't really stopped since. Though I am much more of a summer person, I will take snow over cold winter rain any day! The roads and yards are covered in soft snow which has made everything seem so much more quiet, and more Ukrainian too. It sure aint warm here anymore but I am pretty prepared. Living in Vermont for so long has me able to block out the winter with long bass-busting Dance-Hall mixes that I bump to and from class, making Ukraine feel almost like Jamaica. Although the Dance-Hell helps to warm my walks there are certain feelings of longing that the pounding bass can not drown out. I was surprised to see people still riding bikes in the ice and snow, but Ukrainians actually seem quite comfortable. It feels like just yesterday that I was laying on the beach in Suckanesset in the warm sun and now here I am sloshingthrough snow and slush. Its nice though, it makes me feel not too far from home, but now my skiing urges are kicking in. I imagine what I would do if I was back in Vermont at school. With this much snow on a school day I can imagine Ben and I cutting class and heading straight to Smuggz, lacing up the gnar-boots and getting our Warren Miller on. But, alas, there are more pressing issues at hand.
Gettin down on some Ping Pong at school
One of those pressing issues being that tomorrow I have my LPI or Language Progress Interview. Basically it is what we have been studying for all of this time, besides the whole communicating thing. So each trainee has a 25 minuet oral examination where we talk as much as we can. The interviewer gives us guiding questions, but it is basically up to us to keep it going for 25 minuets talking about all sorts of different topics ranging from our families, our project, and teaching. So wish me luck! After this it will be basically up to me to continue to improve my Russian which wont be easy. Soon I will be a real volunteer.
Our Trainee Thanksgiving Dinner
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