Well, the guests all came and we now have 22 people here (although one or two kids might have been sent off to Grandma's next door to sleep). One of the best parts of the evening included having a conversation in English with Hannes, an older man from Switzerland who is a friend of Valentin's (the friend of Viktor and Nadia who is visiting). Hannes knows some English, and he speaks English better than Russian, so we visited for a bit and he showed me pictures of the Swiss Alps on his digital camera. My other favorite part of the evening was when I played the piano and we sang "How Great Thou Art", and when we came to the chorus, people were singing in English, Russian, and German (and possibly Swiss and Ukrainian).
Less fun was getting accidentally elbowed in the face by Valera during a game of dodgeball. Fortunately, he missed my glasses, but the kid doesn't know how strong he is, and I wouldn't be surprised if I'm a bit black and blue there tomorrow. Sigh.
That aside, Valera is still as much my buddy as he ever was, and if the kiss on the cheek I got yesterday was any indication, the crush he had on me at age 9 is still extant at age 11 (albeit he also has a crush on a Roma girl named Sophia who went to our church for a short period of time). He loves to ask me questions about anything and everything, all day long, and it's thanks to him that I have gotten much better at conditionals in Ukrainian ("What would you do if...?").
To continue with the Y children's interest in my love life, the other day I was getting ready to go visit Robert, the 40-something PCV in town, for tea, and Ihor (age 7) asked where I was going. "I'm having tea with Robert," I said. "You're going on a DATE!" Ihor crowed. Nadia and I about died laughing, Nadia adding, "I didn't think he even knew what that was!"
Snizhanna (age 6) said to Liza the other day while we were playing dolls, "Miss Sally's going to marry Vitaly (age 19)!" I told her that that was in fact inaccurate, and when I told Nadia, she said, "That's what Snizhanna would like!" Snizhanna loves playing dolls, helping Nadia in the kitchen, and being a girl, and the fact that I am one more girl in a houseful of boys has endeared me to her deeply.
Due to all the extra people, Liza and Vlada are in the room next to mine on the third floor. So far they have thrown toys at me, stolen my key, knocked incessantly on my door, and played what sounded like the accordion. I've been utilizing the "ignore them and they will go away" approach, which is fairly effective. When Valera came upstairs to bug me, they told him to go away. "Miss Sally's sleeping!" And yet they play the accordion!
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