30 September 2013

30 September 2013

Today, I got up, got dressed, had a breakfast of kasha, and walked to Russian class. Today was a short day, as it was only 4 hours of Russian. I learned some new phrases, and we practiced our Russian. We practiced our tongue twisters, and then worked on how to say “with” someone. We then did an exercise where one of us would read a phrase, question, or word in Russian (or English) and then translate it. The next person had to say (in Russian), “yes, I agree with ______.” It got extremely frustrating for me, as I never got the ones I knew, only the ones I couldn’t remember. We spent about an hour on this game, before having a break.

V. had been to Chernigov over the weekend, so she was able to change some money. Not all of it, but some of it. Another PCT and I doled it up. V told us that banks in Kiev would change our money, but they would charge us a fee to do so. After our break, we went straight into food. We learned many new words, which my host-Mom has been trying to teach me for a week. We went over our new vocabulary, and we then tried to sort the new words into their number and gender – masculine, feminine, neuter, or plural. We got most of them right. We also learned how to say “I like ____,” and “how much is _____?” Both are important phrases, one for talking to our host-family, and one for buying things at a bazaar.

The afternoon was three one-hour tutoring sessions, back-to-back, but I didn’t have one today, so I got to go home after lunch. Another volunteer and I talked during lunch, about our life so far in Ukraine.

After eating, I walked back to my host-Mom’s apartment. After finishing my written homework, I helped her clean the apartment, and them hung out in my room for a bit. Host-Mom made vareniki, but I wasn’t able to help her. She made cabbage-stuffed ones, which were really good. She also made soup. Host-Sister came back from Kiev, and we had soup and vareniki for dinner. After dinner, we had coffee and dessert. I went back over all my new vocab, and hung-out for a bit. Host-Mom, host-sister, and I had tea and more dessert.

The apartment hasn’t had hot water since a week ago Monday. They were supposed to have it back on Saturday, but no worries. It came back today, in the evening. First, barely lukewarm. Then, warmish, but an icky brown color. Finally, warm and clear. I was able to get a shower, and the water was getting warmer every minute of the shower. Host-Mom has been cooking mushrooms since our tea and dessert. PC regs say I can’t eat them, but they do smell very good.