Sorry for being so remiss in blogging! Here are some highlights of what we've been up to:
1. English club at one university.
2. English club at Christian Center.
3. Christmas Eve party with Nataly and Victoria.
4. Family Christmas on Christmas morning
5. Immediately following family Christmas, we packed up and headed off to teach an English class. Ukraine does not celebrate our Christmas; they follow the Orthodox calendar and celebrate Christmas on January 7.
6. Had tea with a teacher, deputy director, and president of the college. Amiee and I were forced to eat caviar and salo (pig fat). It was rough...
7. English club at the Christian Center.
8. Church and visiting with Ukrainian friends.
We've had a lot going on! It's been quite fun, and we've gotten to accomplish a lot.
Hannah Ray and Mom after their super long journey to Ukraine! This is right before the Brassarts boarded the overnight train from Kiev to Poltava.
Nataly, Victoria, me, and Amiee on Christmas Eve. We had a blast playing Speed Scrabble and Apples-to-Apples.
Gift/card exchange time!
Christmas morning. Don't mind the hair...
I hope that all of you had a very MERRY CHRISTMAS! Blessings on your new year!
I know it's been approximately 1,000 years since I updated. I promise to really update soon, but let me just say that this past weekend brought many surprises and...um...challenges. It involves a lot of snow, lines, waiting, and vehicle-ing.
This morning, in church, the youth sang a few special songs and led the congregation in a few. I videoed this one because a) I love it and b) I know that the Rowlands really like it. The song is a prayer for Ukraine. Rowlands, this is for you (everyone else is, of course, free to love it, too!). You can probably recognize the voice of the person I was standing next to. :) Enjoy!
I've fallen down on my duties as an American: the Christmas decor did not go up the day after Thanksgiving. This is mostly because I was actually celebrating Thanksgiving on the day after Thanksgiving...in another city, no less. Then, I got back and got busy.
Last night, I finally decorated the apartment! Natasha and Vika came over for pizza (like, the homemade kind...don't go thinking we can get delivery in Poltava) and Christmas decorating. They loved it! Here are some pictures of the snow that came yesterday and the decorating that ensued:
Unfortunately, Ukrainians don't take snow days...but it is pretty from within my apartment.
Several hours later...I'm guessing it snowed about 5 inched total yesterday.
Here's Natasha posing with the ornament she decorated for my tree!
Vika's turn!
Hard at work!
She really got into the decorating. :)
My Charlie Brown tree. However, I LOVE it.
Here is a traditional Slavic New Year's stacking doll: Grandfather Frost, Snow Girl, bear, penguin, and teeny tiny snowman.
This past Sunday, I embarked on an expedition. It was exciting and super fun.
Last March, I had the flu (not the swine flu- just the regular one). In total Erin style, I decided to become a part of pop culture while I was sick; I read/listened to the "Twilight" saga. I have a thing about reading literature that is really culturally popular (anyone remember my "Harry Potter" phenomenon?). So, I checked out the whole "Twilight" situation.
For those of you who aren't aware (although, I have difficulty imagining that there are many of you out there), the second book in the series was recently made into a movie ("New Moon"). Well, last week, my friends, Vika and Natasha, invited me to go see "New Moon" with them in the theater.
IN UKRAINIAN.
I don't study Ukrainian; I study Russian. I decided, however, that this could be a great adventure. So, I roped Nastia into joining us, as well, and off we went.
The theater made me feel like I was back in America for about 2 hours. It was so posh and fancy. I was the only one who didn't buy snacks at the grocery store; I have a thing about movie popcorn. I love it. The Ukrainians scoffed at my purchase of overpriced popcorn, but I thoroughly enjoyed that popcorn!
Now, Ukrainian and Russian are totally different languages, but they are related, so I wasn't completely lost during the movie (along with the fact that I a. know the story and b. can read lips if the situation becomes dire). I really enjoyed watching Vika's, Natasha's, and Nastia's reactions. It was super fun! I'm sure you wished you'd been there.
My friends look like models (Vika and Nastia). This is while we were waiting for Natasha to arrive. P.S. This is not a Christmas tree; this would be a New Year's tree.
Natasha arrived!
Popcorn and tickets. We like to document everything.
In the theater, take 1 (Nastia, Natasha, me).
Take 2. I wish y'all could meet these girls. They are so wonderful!
I was lazy today. That's how I ended up with a bag of milk.
Back up. I volunteered at a local language school today. It was really fun to work with students who were SO eager to practice and participate. They also fed me tea and dessert! It was super. On the way home (which is quite a trek, let me tell ya), I decided I needed to buy milk. I'm not sure why I thought this was a big deal, but I decided that I really didn't want to have to store my bag in a locker at the front of the grocery store (you have to do that here- they don't trust customers with bags). I've done it many times before and it's no big deal; today, though, I rebelled at the thought.
Instead, I went home via the bazaar. I really like the bazaar. It's kind of like a farmer's market/flea market, only everyone speaks Russian really loudly. I walked through, deciding that I needed apples and tomatoes as well. Then, I started peeking into little shops, in search of milk. Would you believe that the first 3 shops I checked didn't have any? No bottles of milk, no boxes of milk, no nothing. I stuck my head into shop #4 and asked the lady if she had milk, guessing that I was going to end up going home milkless. She did have milk...but of course, I had to buy the kind in a bag.
I really dislike milk in a bag. It kind of freaks me out, for starters. Secondly, it's just kind of a hassle. You have to transfer it to another container or live dangerously and just kind of prop it up in the fridge. This usually does not bode well for me.
So, the moral of the story, friends, is just to be a big girl and store the bag in the locker.
I'm a horrible person. I didn't take a single picture of our Thanksgiving celebration.
I know. You're ashamed. I am, too.
I'll try to paint word pictures for you, though. Thanksgiving was, once again, in Dnipropetrovsk (extra points for those of you who can pronounce that!) at the Rays' house. Because the Rays had just returned from the States last Tuesday night, we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving on Friday. That way, the Rays could wake up a little bit. I arrived on Thursday morning (remember the incident at the bus station? Yeah, that early morning bus put me there way before lunch...), and the Woffords and Amanda arrived Thursday afternoon. Here's a recap of the weekend's activities: 1. Lots of talking 2. LOTS of eating 3. Lots of laughing 4. Lots of laughing at Ryan's shenanigans. If you'd like a more complete explanation of this one, message me. I don't think this post is long enough to write about all of them! 5. Movie-watching 6. Game-playing 7. Singing in English 8. Shopping (granted, I didn't really buy much...I was just along for the ride, er, walk) 9. Obsessive checking of football scores (that was mostly me)
It was so much fun and so encouraging! Wish you could have been there...
In honor of the holiday, here's a list of things I'm thankful for: 1. Technology. I love being able to communicate with home. 2. Family and Friends that remember me. Y'all are so wonderful. 3. Wonderful co-workers...even though we're all several hours away from each other. 4. A great apartment to live in. 5. Inconsequential answers to prayer (like, "Lord, please let me push my way through the crowd to the bus door in time to get off at the right stop"). 6. My Ukrainian friends. They make my life here so full. 7. The great city of Poltava. 8. My home back in America.
This is by no means conclusive. Just thoughts that I've thanked the Lord for over and over. I hope that you had a marvelous Thanksgiving!
Today, the quarantine is lifted, and the Ukrainians are back to life as usual. I am back to a version of life as usual. Because the schools are really behind, I'm not quite sure when I'll actually be back in the classrooms. I did, however, need to trek out to the bus station to buy my ticket to Dnipropetrovsk for Thanksgiving.
I will never ever yell (and if I can help it, I won't even get obviously frustrated) at any international who is trying his or her hardest to speak English. It's mean.
My Russian is continuing to improve, but it's still rocky. I have to be totally in the zone at all speaking moments. In the bus station, there was a lot of reverberating noise and the microphone-speaker thing between the cashier and me was VERY garbly. I did really well for the first part. I told her I wanted one ticket to Dnipropetrovsk for Thursday morning. She clarified which city, which day, and then she said something else that came out garbled and distorted. I asked her for clarification. She yelled it very loudly to me, attracting the attention or almost everyone. When I told her that I didn't understand, she threw up her hands, growled (or at least, that's what it sounded like), and I thought she wasn't going to give me a ticket. Another customer stepped up to ask her a question at that moment, and she yelled at him. I felt so horrible; the poor guy had no idea that she was so touchy already. We finally figured out that she was trying to clarify the date I was asking for, and she gave me my ticket. Of course, I asked for the 9:00 am ticket, and she gave me the 6:10 am ticket. Spiteful? Maybe.
I was super grumbly about the whole experience until I was on the way home. I realized that there's a good possibility that she was already having a wretched day before the inept American came along. Who knows what's going on in her life? I decided to spend the time praying for her, and miraculously, my bad attitude dissipated. Amazing.
I am still a little bummed about the 6:10 am bus departure time...
I debated about whether or not to put this up, but in compliance with the requests of Kat, Rachel, and Molly, here is a video of one of our rehearsals. Since videoing this, we have worked out some of the kinks. For instance, Maya won't always be changing the words in order to tell the band to change tempo, mid-song. The letter "Б" in the word "Бог" (God) is now much closer to the other letters in the word. And, the word "грех" (sin) has also been fixed. I like how you can hear Stas giving direction every now and then. Thankfully, he told us "good job" more times than he corrected us. That has not been the case up to this point. Try not to laugh too hard, please.
After that first week of quarantine, my life got a little more exciting. My church here is hosting a youth conference this coming weekend, and there is going to be all manner of drama, music, performing, etc. Well, Nastia volunteered the two of us to participate in one of the performances. It doesn't require any speaking, so I agreed. All last week and for several hours already this week, we've had rehearsals with the rest of the group. This has added a little fun activity to my otherwise tranquil existence. It has also thrust me into a new level of language learning; immersion in a situation that is almost all direction and instruction. It's been really fun! (But I do come home completely mentally exhausted afterwards.)
The "performance" that we're doing is to the song "Who Am I?" by Casting Crowns. Now, we have been rehearsing (like, for 10 hours) using the English version of the song because there isn't a recording of the Russian version. Last night, we had rehearsal with the band and the girls that will be singing, so of course, we were using the Russian version.
Problem: the sequence of the song is NOT the same.
We had to rework a good chunk of the order that we had painstakingly memorized so that it matches the Russian song. What an adventure. There were several times during our 3.5 hour rehearsal where we had to take breaks so that the guy directing our part could consult with the singers about how to reword the lyrics. Oh my. During these times of breakage, I pulled out my camera to document the fun:
Good idea in principle...not so much in execution. Luda, me, and Nastia.
Um, Nastia couldn't hold on to her silly face. I win.
Dasha could, though.
I'm a rock star. You just didn't know.
More friends: Lyera, Olya, Stas, and Katya.
During one of our translation breaks, the band starting practicing a different song. Katya and Luda spontaneously started doing the motions to it, and I thought it was fun! The chorus translates roughly as: My hands, legs, and eyes/ My nose, mouth, and ears all belong to Him. Enjoy!
I love Narnia. I've been a Narnia fan since I was a very, very small child and my dad would read them to us. I know a freakish amount of useless information from the series, and it played a major role in my senior thesis for college.
As I've gotten older and continued my life as a Narnia devotee, I've tried to analyze which character I am most like. There are four main female characters: Susan, Lucy, Jill, and Aravis. Now, not very many people really want to be like Susan; she thinks Narnia is silly, she always drags her feet, and she eventually gives up on it altogether. Lucy is so sweet and kind. Aslan values her and audiences love her. Jill is mercilessly teased in "our world" and muffs all of her tasks in Narnia, but she is friendly and gets to save Prince Rilian. Aravis is exotic and brave, full of courage and sassiness.
I've decided that the character I most identify with is Jill from The Silver Chair. I know quite a few people who find Jill annoying and whiny (which stresses me out, seeing as how I identify with her!), but I see in myself so much of Jill's character.
1. Jill feels the need to prove herself. Jill unintentionally causes Scrubb to fall off of the cliff after they arrive in Narnia. Why? Because she wanted to prove her bravery...but it was a little too much for her. The longer I'm alive (especially here in Ukraine), I realize more and more that I'm constantly trying to prove myself. I'm not quite sure who I need to impress or why I feel it's important, but I do it.
2. Jill gives up her habit of repeating the "signs."
Aslangives Jill four signs that she is supposed torepeat daily. She does a great job of remembering the signs at the beginning of the quest, but over time, as she becomes weary and frustrated and annoyed, she gives up repeating the signs. I find myself doing this all the time. My entire reason for living in Ukraine is to share the hope that I've found, but so often, I'm too weary from trying to dredge up Russian all day, frustrated by my lack of success at life in general, and annoyed by cultural differences that I just want to put off my quiet time until later. That's the same as failing to repeat the signs, which does the same for me as it does for Jill: muddies my thoughts and smudges my purpose.
3. Jill is often more focused on herself and her convenience than on her task.
How often do I get angry when my internet goes out for no reason or my water is cut off for a day or I have to change the lightbulbs every other week because they keep exploding? I so frequently let those very non-important issues to distract me from my actual goal and focus.
4. Jill has had personal interaction with and instruction from Aslan. Now, as I learned when I did research for my thesis, Lewis did not intend for the Narnia series to be an exact allegory of the gospel. However, there are many parallels. In a collection of Lewis' letters to children, he writes this about Aslan to one little girl:
As to Aslan’s other name, well I want you to guess.Has there never been anyone in this world who (1.) Arrived at the same time as Father Christmas. (2.) Said he was the son of the Great Emperor. (3.) Gave himself up for someone else’s fault to be jeered at and killed by wicked people. (4.) Came to life again. (5.) Is sometimes spoken of as a Lamb…Don’t you really know His name in this world?
I know his name in this world, and like Jill, I've also had personal interaction with and instructions from Him. Also like Jill, when I do focus on the task at hand and don't forget to repeat the signs, I can accomplish things- not in a "prove myself" kind of way but in a "I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing" kind of way.
I really love Jill. I think it's because- despite all of the things that she does incorrectly- she refocuses and finishes well. Who doesn't love that?
3. 