Sunday, May 13, 2007

Spring is finally here!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there! I haven’t posted for a long time, even though my own mother has been gently reminding me that it would be a good idea to let people know I still exist. I do. Now that spring is finally here (FINALLY!) I have been spending a lot more time outdoors. A few weeks ago, a friend of mine gave me a bunch of bulbs and seeds to plant. I’m not entirely what it was I planted! She told me the Russian names, but I have a hard enough time remembering the names of plants in English, let alone Russian! It will be a nice surprise to see what will come up. I also planted spinach, lettuce, parsley, basil, oregano, red peppers, celery, and peas. Everything is from seed. I have been anxiously watering them everyday, and worrying that I’ve already killed everything! Just today I noticed a few tiny specks of green popping up, so maybe I just need a bit more patience. I also plan to plant pumpkins pretty soon. The teachers at school laughed and teased me when they heard of this. Not that there’s anything wrong with pumpkins. However, there is an old tradition here that if a man proposes to a woman, and she wants to refuse, she gives him a pumpkin! So, suitors beware! I’ll be armed in the fall! (Ha!)
We are coming to the end of the semester. The last day of lessons will be May 30. Then the students have tests for the next few weeks. I haven’t really figured out how all of this works, but anyway, I’ll more or less be finished at school as of the 30th. I’m looking forward to it to! I have to admit that I’m getting a little burned out at the end of the semester. I really put a lot of work into my lessons, so it’ll be nice to just sit back, relax, and then focus on other things. At first I was a little worried that I would get incredibly bored this summer. There really isn’t a whole lot to do in my town, and on most of my days off, the highlight is going to the market or the supermarket! That’s actually a really great way to meet people. I wandered through the clothing section of the market a couple weeks ago. I don’t normally go through that part because I never need to buy any clothes! I was with another American friend though, so we were strolling and chatting in English. We stopped at one booth, and the woman there was so delighted to see us! She said to me, “I’ve been waiting to meet you!” There have been articles in three different local newspapers about me, so it seems everyone has heard about me. The downside of this is that they feel like they already know what they need to about me, so sometimes aren’t so interested in actually talking to me. “I already know she is from Kansas, likes borscht, and isn’t married!” It can be a little frustrating actually.
Anyway, I digress! I thought my summer was going to be boring, but it very quickly filled up. It looks like it’s actually going to be quite busy! I will be doing at least one and up to four 4-day orientations for FLEX students going to live abroad in the US next year. That will be in Kyiv. Then at the beginning of July, also in Kyiv, I’ll have a week long Russian language refresher course with Peace Corps. Towards the middle of July, my coordinator at my school and I will head to Kyiv again for training on how to design and implement projects. Then….it looks like I’ll be headed to Turkey!! My mom, dad, and little brother will be flying to Turkey, and I’ll fly over and meet them there. We’ll spend about a week in Turkey before flying to Kyiv. I’ll show them around there, then bring them back to my site, then go back to Kyiv to see them off. After that I think one of my fellow Bangladesh PC friends will be coming to visit! Then I’ll have about three weeks before school starts up in the fall, and rumor has it one of the English teachers at my school may be getting married sometime then. I can’t wait to see a Ukrainian wedding!

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