24 September 2013

24 September 2013

My day started with a nice breakfast of Kasha, and walked to class. The whole link group had a meeting with the Administration, so my cluster met with our TCF and took the bus downtown. I brought lunch me and stuck it in V.’s fridge before we left. I wore my nicest shoes with my skirt, and rubbed a blister before I was halfway to class.

My cluster got to the center, met up with the other cluster, went over our Russian/Ukrainian greetings, and the questions we wanted to ask at the meeting. We were introduced to the mayor’s assistant, the head of Obukhiv’s education department, and the head of safety and security department in the militia. We learned the history of the town, and a lot about the schools. We learned how many schools there are, and that both Ukraine and Obukhiv are committed to educating their students. All schools have a specialty, regular classes, and classes that students can ask to take, but that cost money. State-run schools are free. There are centers that specialize in helping children, with places to play and rooms to study in the same convenient building.

We learned that Obukhiv wants us to help them improve the confidence that their students and educators have with the English language. Speaking in a foreign language is hard, especially to a native speaker.

We were very happy to hear about the level of importance placed on the education system by the Ukrainian government, and how committed Obukhiv is to us. The mayor’s assistant (back when he had more free time) used to take groups of volunteers on trips around the city, building bridges and helping the PCVs with their language and cultural learning.

After the meeting, we talked about when we were going to our school meeting, and where we would meet. We’re meeting S. at her apartment, as it’s a less than 10 minute walk to the school where we will be going, learning, and teaching. We caught the bus back to V.’s apartment, where we had lunch.

After lunch, we practiced my phonetics, and then learned how to expresses disbelief in something. We practiced with our original dialogue (hi, I’m American, NC, WS. You?), adding in things like, “I can’t believe that! Me too.” We also learned how to agree and disagree, and how to say goodbye multiple ways. We practiced our dialogues again, this time adding in “good-bye” at the end.

After that, we learned some jobs, and had to use the jobs in simple sentences, like “this is Bob. He’s a teacher.” We practiced them in pairs, before moving on to family. We learned the important words for how to explain our family to someone else. We also learned how to ask what someone does, and how old they are. We were given homework of asking our host-family questions about themselves, specifically about their family and their ages.

After that, we had to work on the Emergency Locator Form, which is due at some point this week. V. helped us fill out what she knew (the address of our host-family, phone numbers of host-family, contacts names and numbers), and told us that we need to fill it out. There is also a section where we need to draw the town, so that someone who’s never been to Obukhiv can find our apartment, if they can’t call someone. As our community mapping is very similar (and we need to know where other volunteers live), we are planning on working on that later in the week.

The group had been planning to do some shopping before going home, but we stayed late working on the forms. It was almost dark, so we decided to push that off until tomorrow, as we aren’t supposed to be walking alone after dark (especially not use women).

I walked back to host-Mom’s apartment. She was already home, and worried about me. Almost immediately, we had dinner (more soup), and then I did my homework. I spent a lot of time going over the Hobbies section of out language manual. I was able to ask host-Mom about her family, and also her age. I wrote out the names, ages, and professions of her family. We had more a late tea while I was working on my homework, and then dessert.

After a bit, host-Mom told me that she could boil some water if I wanted a shower. They are working on something, so the building doesn’t have hot water this week. I got a bucket shower, with more than enough hot water, which helped to warm me up. There isn’t heat in the building until sometime next month, so it’s a bit chilly. I have woken up cold every morning this week, so I put on an extra layer to sleep in, and woke up warm today.