Post 50

Now is a good time for a bit of catch up on my thoughts and actions. I apologize for the upcoming lack of coherence.
Thank you for sending me mail, you know who you are, I don’t know why it is so nice to get mail (Newsweeks from the Peace Corps don’t count), but every postcard, letter and package is savored. The post office calls me when something arrives, and I walk through the park, sometimes bringing the post office employees a cookie or whatever my latest baking success was, then bring my letter back to my kitchen and try to make opening and reading it last as long as possible. Elo holds the current record for fastest letter, 5 days from Philadelphia to my town. Sam has the other end of the spectrum, 39 days. And some things have just not gotten though, which sucks! How can it work so well sometimes and not work other times? If you write to me (and I get it), I will write back, guaranteed.
I finally got new running shoes, though had to pay full US price $73 for Asics Cumulus 9s. I was on a shopping spree this weekend in L’viv, a music stand, soccer cleats and peanuts being my other purchases. There was a store advertising European imports, and sure enough they had a full selection of running shoes, all expensive, all too small, but the owner happened to be working that day and called the other two stores he owned to find a pair large enough. The Asics where what he had. While I was waiting for them to be brought over to the store where I was waiting, he served me sandwiches and tea, true Ukrainian hospitality, even in the back of a downtown shoe store. Also snagged a pair of minimalist cleats (no markings, no extra leather, tiny tongue), so old they say “made in West Germany”, and honestly just leather and plastic, pretty much as light as high tech shoes, but they only cost $15, and if the German workmanship lives up to Porsche standards…
Fighting a rhetorical argument in my head about whether my standards are going down, or whether a focus on smaller successes is necessary in a place where students have never been taught to take a test or think for themselves. My teaching is still on a steep learning curve, and almost every day I wish I would have done something differently. Especially my failure to learn my students’ names and my failure to effectively use grades as motivation are two things that bug me. Having 10 groups of 16 students is a lot of names to learn, and there are so many duplicates (Sasha, Yulia, Dima, SO many), I should have gone for family names from the beginning. Grading is directly related, because so many of the things that I want to give them feedback on are not written, but if after class I can’t remember their names, then how can I give them a grade. Ok, time to make seating charts. It’s just these little things which would have been so much easier to do at the beginning of the semester.
My cooking continues to be and adventure. Surely potatoes don’t really explode. It took a while to get the debris cleared from the oven. Why do I have to discover everything for myself? What can I do with beats besides soup? I tried baking them last night, the result was disappointing. On the other hand, crepes, French toast, buttermilk pancakes, banana bread, cookies, pasta, frittata, home fries, omelets, fruit salad, and curry rice with apple, garlic and onion were all huge successes. Of course often I’m just lazy and eat raw carrots, apples, oranges, bread and some yogurt for dinner. But that’s healthy, I think.
When the yearly flu season hits, schools close down if more than 30% of their students are absent. My school is at 28% today. The lost days are made up on Saturdays or in June, neither option appeals to me. My school is already without spring break because they traded that for a longer winter break. Of course we do have a week of for Easter, but have a while to wait for that.
My English club continues to be a highlight of my week, trying lead the kids to explore what it means to be a citizen, of town, country and globe, and what responsibilities that brings. Then I want to lead a discussion about what parts of their community (local, national and global) are lacking, and then explore each issue that they bring up. I hope that by letting the kids discover and learn about different challenges and exploring their details they might eventually realize that actions they take can directly improve (community, country and world). I have no idea what this will lead to, but I am really excited. The Peace Corps provides money, materials and technical support for a variety of projects, Aids, sexual education, environment, healthy living, domestic violence, drug abuse/needle exchanges, education, teacher training and others, but even if the kids eventually become most interested in some aspect of change that falls outside of these categories, I will do my best to support it (with USA tax dollars) and my knowledge, and peace corps resources.