In for a Big Time in the City

Hi, everyone! Hope everyone is doing well. I’m here in Vinnytsia for a PC meeting of the oblast, and am trying to take advantage of my time in the Big City, to see the internet, and to do some shopping. I may also take advantage of the McDonald’s – the only one between Kyiv and Lviv! If that means anything to you . . .

Since my last internet adventure, I’ve been teaching, lesson-planning and writing letters (but not taking pictures, sorry!). So, get ready for another incredibly entertaining update, full of excitement.

Last week was “English Week,” which is something many Ukrainian schools have, apparently usually around the time of Shakespeare’s birthday – but we decided to center ours around Valentine’s Day. I think I’ve been teaching about Valentine’s Day for almost a month – it’s all finally over! Monday was the first day, and I was told I would speak “about America and the English language,” to the school and faculty, for fifteen or so minutes. I didn’t really prepare, and it’s just as well, because I ended up speaking for around five minutes, generally reiterating things I’ve already talked to all the kids about – how many states are in the USA, where am I from, blah blah blah. I mentioned that Virginia was about to be 400 years old . . . but who knows how much that sank in. Several older students spoke about English being important, in English, which was a little silly, since barely any of the younger students and about none of the faculty had any idea what they were saying. Tuesday was the “Know-All Day,” and students competed in knowledge of America and Great Britain. Similar to the Olympiad, there was no answer key, so for the few questions that I had no idea (what is Fleet Street? Some British thing?), I sort of guessed, and that was the accepted answer.

On Monday, the entire town was covered in ice! All of the roads were covered in a substantial layer of pure ice, which I figured out on the way to school (I didn’t bring my Yax Trax grips). It was slick enough that, whenever you stood on a surface that wasn’t completely flat (almost 100% of roads here), you sort of slid downwards – I almost didn’t make it into the store because there’s a slight incline outside of the door. So it took me about 45 minutes to get home that afternoon (generally takes no more than 15 minutes), walking at a normal pace, but taking steps so small that the heel of one foot would never completely pass the toe of the other. So that was fun. The next day I got a clue, put on my Yax Trax, and was totally fine – and then it melted that afternoon. I’m afraid to take them out of my bag and jinx myself, so I carry them everywhere now.

Wednesday, my coordinator and host mom gave me chocolates for Valentine’s Day, as we made our way to school through the mud. My day started with the 11th grade – my coordinator took a hint from my previous lessons on cynicism, and offered them different quotations about love, for them to classify as “romantic,” “realistic,” or “cynical.” So I got to listen to sixteen-year-olds dismiss any slightly sarcastic or humorous statements as “cynical,” preferring such statements as “Love is hearts and roses.”

They had one little mailbox in the hallway for students to exchange Valentines, so when the time came to deliver them all, all the students came out and lined the hallway, while the vice-principal called out the names of people who had gotten a Valentine. Definitely bizarre, possibly psychologically damaging – Charlie Brown thought he had it bad. I was called out of the classroom to come receive my own card – so I had to walk through this gauntlet of students and faculty to come up to the vice-principal, who then had everyone applaud me, just because. Yep, this is my new life. My Valentine was from a little 5th grader, very cute (apparently students were asking if it had been sent from America . . . oh, the budding rocket scientists I teach).

Thursday, I showed an American movie I got from the library in Vinnytsia – “Toy Story”! I had somehow never seen this before – but I loved it, it was so funny! A few 11th graders – the better English speakers – the 5th graders, and the adorable, very small 2nd graders came to watch it on my laptop in my classroom. For the first half, people were quiet, but not everyone was terribly transfixed. But after about half of the kids left to catch the bus (or, like my host brother, just to leave), the really dedicated half was able to come closer and really take it all in. As I had hoped, towards the end when Woody and Buzz are setting off rockets and stuff, and it’s really clear what’s going on, they loved it. Everyone was laughing by the end (the 2nd graders were soo cute), so it was pretty much a success.

On Friday, my coordinator had a seminar for the other English teachers in our district, which basically meant that forty teachers came and sat in the back of class while we “co-taught” the extremely nervous, energetic, and very primed 7th grade. There were the same relay race aspects that had been there during the last demo lesson, except instead of their hobby, they discussed their “favorite affection.” Earlier in the week, I had been able to influence the class to say that they have affection for their pets, not that their favorite affection was taking care of their pets. Other than that, it was mostly the same speeches, and songs (“My Heart Will Go On,” and “Yesterday”), that I heard about hobbies in November. I taught them the telephone game for my part of the lesson, and had some excuse about talking to people we love on the phone, blah blah. Then the teachers talked about things in Ukrainian for a really long time, and then we had a huge Ukrainian feast – that’s the traditional seminar schedule. So, that was a little bizarre. I’m really trying to conserve my use of that word, I don’t want it to lose all meaning for me. The teachers were very nice, though nervous about saying anything to me.

I’ve been supervising a lot of “control lessons” recently – basically tests. I’ve gotten better about just taking away all of their notes, books and dictionaries at the very beginning, and after that the only issue is getting them to stop talking, whispering, and blatantly looking at other kids’ papers (or showing others their papers). I’ve been warned about cheating roughly nine billion times since I got here, but it’s still kind of shocking to have students just sort of laugh when you tell them, again, to stop discussing the answers out loud, two feet from where I’m sitting. I got to write questions in Ukrainian for one of the tests, and everyone seemed to understand my writing, though I gave up and called my coordinator over to copy out the part of the test that was written in cursive (we generally write the questions on the board).

I got more wonderful mail – from Clarissa, Laura, and my Grandma (and I think I owe a belated public thank you to Susan for a letter!). Also, Ellen sent me a whole bunch of magazines from her Capitol Hill office! Thanks, Ellen!! Now I am slightly caught up on political gossip, although it took me a few magazines to get the whole picture on some stories I had missed, but that were no longer breaking news.

On Sunday, my host mom took me to the bazaar for the first time, so now I know where I can buy fruits and vegetables, and meat. It’s an open-air meat market, and everyone gets to pick everything up with their bare hands to see how they like it! Great! At least it’s cold outside now . . . the important thing is, I figured out where to buy ground beef and chicken, the only meat I ever really bought when cooking for myself before. My host mom was like, so you’ll buy chicken? What, do you not like meat? Later, she asked – what would you cook with chicken? So I guess, even though they’re everywhere in Bratslav, chicken just isn’t that popular here. Later that day, she showed me how to cook “plov,” a fried rice-type Ukrainian dish, and my suspicions about Ukrainian food was confirmed. Most all recipes seem to go like this: first, you dump all the ingredients in a vat of oil and fry them; then . . . oh wait, that’s it. I still love the hash brown-type dish she makes, but I am really looking forward to having my own kitchen.

And apparently, while I’m gone today, the principal and my coordinator are starting to move things into my apartment! So, the process is going on, and I think by March I’ll be in my own place, with no washing machine or satellite TV – but with my own kitchen.

So, nothing much else has been going one! I was asked on the street, in Russian, if I was Jewish, by a very nice woman who then wanted to rent me a room – definitely have no idea who she was, but she knew my name. Yesterday, I finally saw the “Seinfeld” episode where Kramer and Newman play Risk on the subway and anger a Ukrainian immigrant. I have to say, it wasn’t quite as funny as it was built up to be (over the many months that people have been quoting “Ukraine is weak!” to me), but it was still pretty good. And I saw the Russian version of “Ugly Betty.”

That’s it! Hope you all are doing well!! Take care, and send me a free text if anything earth-shattering happens.

Love, Virginia

Finally!!

Oh man, I have fought tooth and nail for internet today. Guy at methodologist’s in Nimeroff said to come back next Monday, and the only other internet available was the post office, which was great! but I couldn’t use my flash drive because the USB ports didn’t work. Soo, I have finally come to the first school in Bratslav, where the internet is slow (VERY slow), but I am determined. So, here we go . . .

Wanted to clarify: I was too lazy to add this last week, but the two pictures of the statue of Lenin and the cathedral in my last post are not in Bratslav, they are in Nimerov (district capitol). Also, no pictures this time . . sorry . . .

It’s still snowing, I’m still teaching, all is still well. I worry that my posts will get boring as I settle in more . . . but then, I talk to other Volunteers and tell stories about Bratslav that have them in hysterics (not that they’re not having their own crazy time, it’s just that we’re all seeing different kinds of craziness) – so, even though I might be getting used to things, I realize that my experience is still unique . . .

Last Saturday I went to Vinnytsia, my oblast capitol (and home to the only McDonalds between Kyiv and Lviv (large medieval city in the west), apparently), to visit the Volunteers there. The cookbook authors, Eric and Sandy, showed me around the Windows on America library – where Volunteers are allowed to check out books and DVDs, and I got a library card. There are several of these libraries throughout Ukraine, in oblast capitols, full of books and movies in English. We also saw a Volunteer from my group, Grant, and Patrick, my fellow W&M alum in this oblast. We went to a sort of faux-Irish-Scottish restaurant (the accent on the sign was over the “c” in “Mc”), that played Queen CDs on a loop, and featured a suit of armor, and a life-size Braveheart-type figure emerging from a wall, in a kilt. I got so used to speaking English in this group of Americans, I could barely order lunch. Sandy and Eric were off to their COS (Close of Service) seminar, and were excited to be bringing a copy of the DVD “Red Dawn” with them. I don’t know if any of you have seen this movie – I haven’t – but apparently it’s become somewhat legendary in Group 28. Russians attack a small Midwestern town, apparently (obvious, I know). So it was funny to hear the plot details of that . . .

Also, there were ice fishers out on the river!! I was so surprised, I almost fell off the bridge. According to the other Volunteers, the ice is not solid enough for that . . . but there they were.

Vinnytsia is soo big, it was slightly disorienting to get back to little Bratslav, where I fell twice on the ice on my way home with my host mom. We were told that the reason Ukrainian women don’t mind the ice is that their stilettos act like anchoring ice picks, but even when they’re not wearing particularly sharp shoes, they have an easier time than I do. I’m getting used to it – but for most of the roads here, it’s as if you had a stretch of beach, all bumpy and totally uneven from people walking on it, and then it turned into solid dirt, and then you covered that with ice and snow. So, not always so easy to get across . . .

Teaching continues to go well, although my novelty has worn off enough for the less-than-model students to start acting out a little. So far, my coordinator has moved two students from my half of certain grades to hers, which is nice, because I do have several smart students who really want to learn, etc. etc., which is harder when I have a few who couldn’t care less, and make that apparent. One was a sixth grader who I caught drawing swastikas on his copybook. I nearly raised cane, but it would have been pretty pointless since he wouldn’t have understood me, so I only went so far as a few pointed words (nonsensical to him) and let my coordinator deal with it afterwards. He should thank his lucky stars we don’t share a common language; the discussion that that doodling would have prompted if I had been teaching American students would have been neither short nor fun. I don’t think it’s that he didn’t understand what it meant either. I heard a lot from the other Volunteers in Vinnytsia about experiences they’ve had hearing Ukrainians sharing their views about Jews and black people – not very tolerant ones, in general. I haven’t really seen much intolerance, but it’s certainly there.

However, there were some fun parts of teaching this week! My 10th graders have been pretty terrified of me, only one girl answers questions and the rest just stare. I asked if they thought I was crazy and they laughed – so it seems they understand me . . . I’m just extremely frightening. So, I decided to resort to “Baby Shark” this week. Not sure if any of you have heard of this song/chant, but we learned it from a PC teacher trainer, and I realized that it was a perfect way to make them participate. You basically pantomime a shark attack, and every new motion (to go along with the phrases) is repeated to the refrain “do do . . do do do-do” with a little jazzy beat. The song goes “Baby shark, do do, do do do-do, baby shark, do do” etc., listing all the shark family members, and then singing “Went for a swim (do do, etc), saw a fin, swam real fast, shark attack!, lost a leg” (at which point you stand on one leg). Yes, it’s humiliating, but the teacher trainer was right – they absolutely loved it. Like, I don’t think anything I ever do will make them that happy again. They learned it quickly and we had time to do the whole thing once, and afterwards they all wandered around school singing “Do do . . . do do do-do!” and bursting into laughter.

The 5th graders are very cute – it’s fun because I get to start each Monday with them, feeling like I’m a kindergarten teacher, or something, at home – because we talk about things like balloons and teddy-bears the whole time. I made the 11th Grade some Mad Libs this week, which they liked. The one they did went: “Today, I went to Trafalgar Square because I wanted to travel. I saw Catherine II and he said ‘It’s great!’ We decided to visit at Hyde Park. I couldn’t believe how many pens there were! Like my brother always said, ‘I’m not afraid of you!’” Can you tell the curriculum is centered around Great Britain??

Tuesday I had the great surprise of a whole lot of mail! It was unexpected, but in one visit to the post office I got: a nice package from home (with a Spanish dictionary! there is hope for my Spanish yet); wonderful letters from family, Kristen, Gigi and Little One; and no fewer than five Newsweeks from the PC. My host family came home to find me sprawled on the couch with envelopes and Newsweeks everywhere – very nice. So, thank you to everyone who sent me mail!!!

In other news, my host dad put red light bulbs in the bathroom. I’m not really sure what to say to explain this . . . it just . . happened. They were like, Virginia, come see!! I was sort of similarly speechless then . . . now, I just feel like I can’t quite see everything when I’m in that room, like it’s foggy or something (but really, it’s just tinted red).

Yesterday, I only had one class (such as it was) because the day was devoted to watching government movies sent from Kyiv. I had substituted for my coordinator on Wednesday (my marathon day of six classes in a row, and then Ukrainian tutoring), so she told me to come in late, and then that morning called to say there might not be classes at all. Everything seems to just sort of happen here – oh, there are movies! Maybe we should watch them. When? Um, we’ll see, whenever. None of the students or teachers seemed to know what the schedule is – my 9th graders told me they were due for the viewing in twenty minutes, and then, twenty minutes later, they said fifteen (I understand this – sometimes, when confronted with questions in a foreign language, you just answer anything, usually “yes,” to avoid problems . . . though of course you then occasionally cause them). Apparently, there were different films, some about smoking and drugs, and one for the older students about childbirth and abortion (maybe? remember, this is my translation of what I am told). However, during the five minutes of the movie I watched (before I escaped to have tutoring), there was a reenactment of Christopher Columbus coming to America. Literally, with actors in armor, arriving on the shore and everything. I could think of a few links to impolite subjects from that beginning on my own, but wasn’t sure that that was how a Ukrainian government movie would choose to introduce the topics of things like rape, etc. I asked my host mom later, and she had no idea what I was referring to, and then remembered that they had used 1492 as an introduction for the subject of tobacco. Obviously. They might as well have started with the Bering Strait and brought things a little closer to home.

Ok, that’s about it. I hope that you’re all doing very very well! In a little while, I’ll be caught up on my Newsweeks and might have a better idea of what all is going on over there, or maybe not. Think about taking me up on my news-for-poetry exchange offer (see last post). Anyhow, take care of yourselves and have a great weekend!

Love, Virginia

Update in Three Parts

Hello again . . . so, this is an entry in three parts . . . bear with me, and take your time. The first is from last Thursday:

Part I

I started teaching last Wednesday; again, I teach grades 5 through 11, for 18 classes a week, including a few that I co-teach with my coordinator. It’s been similar to my experience teaching middle-schoolers last summer: I always really love teaching while I’m doing it, but dread it beforehand. For some reason I just can’t make the connection in my mind, between how much I like teaching when I’m in the classroom, and the anticipation of being in the classroom. I always feel like, oooh, I have to get through this, and then it’s often the best part of my day – the kids are generally good, fairly smart, and it’s nice to speak English for such an extended period of time, frankly. Also, it’s somehow less tiring than speaking to Ukrainians who are already “fluent” . . . there’s less chance of misunderstanding when you assume that the people you’re speaking to understand almost nothing.

And maybe this will change when the students get more used to me and I get more used to the curriculum and lesson-planning, but often in the past week and a half, I’ve used classes as an excuse to talk about whatever I want (especially with the older kids). Ha. Not that I don’t stick to the lesson topic, but sometimes the Plahotnyk lessons are a half-page long, and I’m not accustomed to supplementing lessons with other text books and worksheets like my coordinator does, so I just make it last by taking advantage of my captive audience and my novelty as the American. Part of it is to help them learn to speak off-script – students in Ukraine will often be able to tell you ten memorized sentences about the agricultural products of Manchester, but are completely baffled when you ask them what they grow in Manchester. Or, they know what you mean, but are afraid they don’t know the right way to answer. For instance, today I talked about the Grand Canyon with the 9^th grade, and when trying to explain the word “deep,” I played a 20 Questions-type game with them, to make them guess the word “well.” They figured out what I was thinking of (they’re outside of every home), but didn’t know how to begin describing it in English. They are trying to speak only English for the most part, though, which I plan to reward with stickers when my novelty starts to wear off more.

I don’t have too many discipline problems, because when I teach on my own, I have only half of each grade – around 15 kids – and supposedly the more advanced, motivated half. For the 5^th grade I get both halves though, and when I co-teach grades, I get to teach all 30ish kids with my coordinator. Lots and lots of blank faces, especially when they are terrified of me like the 10^th grade. So, besides moving a few boys to different desks, over and over, no real problems so far – plus, I have my own classroom! When I teach alone, my half of the class comes to the classroom next-door to my coordinator’s, slightly colder . . . but which I have started to decorate compulsively. All my vocabulary lists with pictures go on the walls, so I can point to words randomly when convenient (lots of these strategies I got from current volunteers when they spoke to us during training about how to handle the sites we had just visited – very helpful!) Also, there are my four rules: Speak English, Don’t Interrupt (whispering the answer and/or Ukrainian translation to classmates when they are asked something, or correcting them while they read out loud, is a way of life here and it drives me crazy), Repeat After Me, and Behave. So . . . we’ll see.

I visited a one-floor house for rent last week, that had about 10 cots in it (for students going to the local technical college), and a price that sent my host mother and coordinator into shock, they barely talked to me for the first fifteen minutes after we left – just reeling. The new strategy is not to tell the landlord that an American is renting, and anyway, I don’t pay – the PC and my school do. Visiting an apartment on Monday, which would make more sense since I don’t expect that many visitors (I’m sure you all would have been thrilled at the sight of those cots, too . . . . so appealing). By the way, I’m very proud of all my recent-graduate readers who are off being adult now – finding apartments and jobs or grad schools – I have a feeling that by the time I figure out how things like renting apartments work here, I’ll have lost any understanding I once had about how things work in America, so you’ll have to coach me in two years (or slightly less than).

Friday was a Ukrainian Orthodox holiday involving the blessing of water, including the river, but my host mother and I were teaching and it wasn’t mentioned, so I just assumed we were sitting that one out. Well, what happens when you assume, is: the next day I was lesson-planning in my room, and heard operatic singing which I assumed was coming from the TV. It was pretty loud, but still. Then, all of a sudden, my host mom knocked on my door calling something to me in Ukrainian. I opened the door, and out of the front room walked two Ukrainian Orthodox priest in their black robes and red sashes, singing together at the top of their lungs. I remained as collected as I could when they started splashing holy water on me. It made me think of when I was on a summer program in Spain, and a group of us went to high mass: when one girl in our group, who was Jewish, was splashed with the holy water, she went rigid, whispering frantically to us “What do I do?? Do I stand up?! What?” I was sort of similarly freaking out, but managed to smile and nod. Their voices were beautiful, and it was really nice to hear the music, but it was definitely an unexpected experience. They apparently visit each house to bless it; I’m sure the American Protestant wasn’t on their original itinerary, but I hope I made their day more interesting.

Hmm, all I’ve really done this week is teach . . but there are a few more stories about that, I suppose. Today I came to school after classes had started, because I didn’t have to teach until the 4^th period – about 11 am – and was immediately ushered into the faculty room and given a glass of home-made wine and handfuls of cookies. It was for St. Tatiana’s day, and a few of the teachers/administrators named Tatiana had brought things for a celebration. Not quite used to wine in the morning (. . . yet), and I promptly forgot which classroom I was supposed to be in (really confusing my coordinator) . . . but it all worked out in the end.

Later, I had to teach the 11^th grade about Valentine’s Day, and sort of went off in another direction. I made a little Valentine that said “Be Mine!,” but mostly talked to them about commercialism. They’re so cute – when I asked, Who might be excited that Valentines day is coming? they were all guessing, “Sweethearts? Married couples? Young people?” And I said no . . . stores. It’s sort of hard for them to imagine commercialism on the level we’re used to – Target was filled with Halloween products in August, before I left – but I tried to explain. Regardless of the lesson I start out teaching, by the end of the class, my blackboard is covered with random drawings and phrases. The Valentine’s Day board ranged from “Roman Empire” to “cynicism” and “doubt.” When I run out of things to say in class, it makes me think of my bus driver in 5^th grade, Bill. Bill was supposed to drop my sister and me off with one of my classmates’ mothers, but she wasn’t there, so he started circling her neighborhood, hoping that she would show up soon enough for him to get everyone else to their destination. He was very funny, and tried to play it off by grabbing the microphone and announcing that we were taking a scenic tour of the neighborhood, and commenting on the views – and an older boy in the back finally called out, “Drive, Bill!” Whenever I run out of things to say and start to just talk at the kids, hoping I don’t lose their attention before the class ends, I hear a voice saying “Drive, Bill!” . . . .

Part II

(This past Monday)

Not that much has happened to me since the end of last week. The internet didn’t work in Nimerov, so I changed four American dollars at the bank. And bought stamps. However, my day wasn’t all boring errands – when I got back home I picked up a package from Mev! Thanks, Mev!! Basically spent the rest of the weekend reading a book from the package – “The Poisonwood Bible,” how did I miss that one before? Very good. Have been trying to take advantage of my host family’s satellite TV before I move out (didn’t see the apartment today, not sure when I will . . . hey, I’m just along for the ride) – saw “New Adventures of Old Christine,” and didn’t like it much . . . does anyone not-dependent on a random Irish TV channel even watch that? Also, was very excited to watch “Scent of a Woman” dubbed in Russian, Al Pacino is generally loud enough to hear regardless.

Also, it finally snowed . . . and stuck for a while, but is now melting. Just enough to make me slip, not enough for my Yax Trax.

Today, I insisted on telling my 5^th graders the real story about Eeyore’s birthday – which was very poorly adapted (or “adopted,” if you write Ukrainian textbooks) in their book. Basically, in their version, Eeyore has no presents, so Pooh decides to get him a jar of honey, and Piglet gets him a red balloon. (Both are drawn like real animals, btw.) At the end of the text, they compliment one another on being kind, and go to the birthday party. It’s awful. So I wrote out an approximation of the end, and tried to explain how even though Pooh accidentally eats all of the honey, and Piglet’s balloon bursts, Eeyore is still happy with his presents because the balloon can fit in the jar, and it’s perfect. They mostly liked saying “Eeyore,” which I made them repeat a lot because they couldn’t pronounce it. This is my life now – still feels pretty unreal. But my drawings, copied off of the textbook’s cover (on which they plagiarize Disney freely), were better than the ones on the page, so there.

Part III

Ok. Final installment for this week. I tried a local school’s internet and it didn’t like me very much, so we’re back to the drawing board in Nimerov.

It snowed again – twice! I should probably stop considering cold weather to be something new and interesting – but I’m still sort of unused to snow, and can’t help remembering how even the few inches we’ve had here so far would have shut most things down in Alexandria or Williamsburg.

My coordinator and I had a “demo lesson” to show how we co-teach . . . it was a sort of bizarre experience, but no one, including the teachers observing, seemed the least bit fazed, so I suppose I’ll have to adjust. They went back to a unit they had already covered, so that they would know all the answers, and it happened to be the unit they were on when I visited back in November. It was like a circus, or a field day, or something – just activity after activity piled on top of one another, students racing around filling out handouts and all raising their hands to be called upon. They all dressed up in their best clothes – and the same girl who sang “Yesterday” when I visited sang it again, with same introduction and everything. I was only asked to talk for five minutes, and had no idea what to say except, ok kids – remember when I visited in November? Sure enough, they did, so we just talked about the same sort of things again. I feel the need to emphasize: this was not considered strange by anyone else. This is obviously (or maybe not obviously) not the way we normally co-teach – the class time is usually split up evenly and students don’t always know the answers (or sing, or dress up). But it all seemed to go well according to standards I haven’t yet grasped . . . I’m sure I will eventually (for the time being, I felt like I was “taking crazy pills”).

I finally saw the apartment (does this mean I’m no longer just along for the ride?) – it’s fine, everything’s great – except the boiler doesn’t work and there’s no refrigerator or stove. All of that is fixable, and “the process is going on.” I’m estimating that I’ll move in in time for my birthday (early March) – but it’s nice to have even that settled!

The only other slightly interesting thing is that I’ve been meeting some Ukrainians my age! I really had my doubts when I kept hearing Volunteers refer to “the Ukrainian friends” you’ll meet, not because I’m unfriendly, but it’s just so different from basically any social situation I’ve ever been in before. However, they’re there – one girl I met will be in my teacher’s club – she teaches English at the orphanage, and is my age (though she has a husband and toddler – more social contacts, hurrah!). I remember hearing about a sorority ceremony held when a “sister” became engaged, etc. – but also traditionally available for the celebration of “meeting a new friend.” (Um, sorry if I’m not supposed to know this . . . I forget whether this was a Greek secret I promised not to tell or not.) It was very rarely used for the last purpose, and even then mostly as a joke – but it feels appropriate in this case!

So I’ll stop talking at you now too, except to say that I hope you’re all doing well! And to say this: as you may have noticed, I have a lot of free time here in Bratslav. And I know that writing letters endlessly back and forth can be boring. So here’s my proposition: if you write me a letter, I will write a poem about you. I’m serious – and I have enough time on my hands to make it good. But I won’t do it for just any letter – a letter or postcard must include the following to make it eligible:

1 piece of celebrity gossip

1 piece of national or local news that was interesting or bizarre, and that I probably missed because it didn’t stay in the news long enough

1 update about what you’re doing

You may also include suggestions for the poem (like, that it be about you going to work, going shopping, or riding an elephant). So there’s some inspiration to entertain me, and give me something to do besides lesson plan and hand out stickers. Have a good week!

Love, Virginia