languages and research

Monday night, we had a very international evening. Natalya and Olgert, my host parents, have friends visiting from Poland, and those friends had invited friends of theirs from Germany to come stay for a few days. This brings the total number of people in the house up to eight, with me being less than half everyone else's age. More interesting is the fact that we all speak a slightly different set of languages, with six languages total between the eight of us. Everything that gets said has to be translated for someone, but we're doing pretty well. The breakdown is as follows:

German man: German, English, French
German woman, German, French, some English
Polish man: Polish, German, Russian
Polish woman: Polish, Russian, some German
Natalya (Ukrainian): Ukrainian, Russian, Polish
Olgert (Ukrainian but of Polish ethnicity): Ukrainian, Polish, Russian, French
John (American): English, rudimentary Ukrainian and Russian
Me: English, Ukrainian, and Russian (and I'm surprised how much Polish I understand)

As you can imagine, it's quite something. Everyone's here until Thursday, when we all leave (our program is going to Kyiv for a few days), and Natalya said she's going to pretty much collapse at that point.

Language classes are going pretty well. I've decided that partway through a grad program in learning how to teach languages is a horrible time to take language classes, as I've spent a year developing opinions how it should Be Done Properly, and while this isn't at all how I would teach grammar, I can tell that it's paying off, at least in how I write. My oral language may be fairly fixed by this point, and I have a few Russianisms that my teacher continues to comment on that I can't seem to shake loose, but the classes really are helpful.

What's most frustrating about the program is that I feel like I primarily speak Ukrainian in class. It isn't like Balaklia where I did basically everything in Ukrainian (except teach, I suppose, although I ended up using a lot more Ukrainian in class by the end than at the beginning). Here, I spend time with the American students, or we're going on trips to museums and everything gets translated (which makes sense, as we have some beginners in the group), or I'm wandering around by myself and can order things in cafes in Ukrainian. But I don't have a social life in Ukrainian, and I miss that. Or perhaps I just miss having a social life in Ukraine. I'm not quite sure how to meet people here. I asked about getting a conversation partner, but that's difficult right now because it's summer vacation and there aren't many students around.

However, I did get to speak Ukrainian this afternoon, and it was directly connected to my thesis! An English professor at the university who I had been introduced to connected me to the head of social programs at the university, who called the head of the teacher recertification institute (for all subjects) for L'viv Oblast, who introduced me to one of the people responsible for running the English recertification program, who said (slightly condensed), "You only have 9 surveys with you? I'll take those now, and can you please bring 35 copies on Monday, as we're getting in a new group of teachers? And would you please speak to the teachers about your life and what you're learning about TESOL and how people teach English as a native language in the U.S?"

Not to mention, I got several surveys turned back in to me today already from other sources and have an interview scheduled for next week! I'm really impressed with people's willingness to be helpful, and it's nice to be going through the university, as that gives me access to contacts I wouldn't otherwise be able to get on my own.

settling in

Well, my first week of classes in L'viv is over. It's different from what I expected...not bad, just taking some getting used to. I'm used to Peace Corps, which crammed as much Ukrainian in our heads as possible, and then sent us off to live on our own--with their support, of course, but we learned how to be self-sufficient fairly quickly. Here, I'm an international student, our language classes go at a much slower pace, I find that I use Ukrainian primarily in class and English much of the rest of the time, and we're given a lot of support...in English. It's weird for me, because for the first month I was here, I was speaking Ukrainian all the time I was awake (except for my interviews), and here, since us students are together a lot, I use English much more. But I'm hoping to get a conversation partner so I can speak Ukrainian more.

Today we went on a bus tour of L'viv with a history professor from the university as our tour guide. It was really interesting...since L'viv was part of Poland and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire at various points and didn't come under Soviet control until 1939, it feels so different than out East in Kharkiv or Balaklia. In some ways, it feels like a different country, just with the same language. I'm reminded of my impression from the time Tif and I visited here--the people who built this city took the effort to make things pretty, with great attention to details like wrought-iron balconies and sculptures on the facades of buildings. I also love seeing all the old churches.

On the subject of church, I was hoping to go to the Baptist church here tomorrow, as that would be something that would feel familiar to me. But Vanessa, Ally, and I have tickets to the Ukrainan folk-opera Natalka Poltavka, which starts at noon, so there's no way the Baptist service (which starts at 10 am) would be done by then. So I think I'm going to the Catholic cathedral downtown, which should be a neat experience. I'm interested in seeing how much of the liturgy I can follow, as the last time I went to a liturgical service in Ukraine (which was several years ago), I couldn't understand a thing.

paris when it sizzles, kharkiv when it thunders and lightenings

Having typed my post title, it occurs to me that I might have used a similar title last summer the night I watched Paris When it Sizzles in a thunderstorm. Oh, well...

Yesterday was my last day in Balaklia, which was primarily spent packing and making arrangements for the next leg of my trip. I'm in Kyiv now, for a lunch date with my friend Tanya and an interview for my project, then off on another train tonight to Lutsk in north-western Ukraine, where I have an interview tomorrow morning and then will just hang out there for the weekend, as I found a decently priced hotel downtown there (I can stay there for three nights for the price of what I spent for one night in Kyiv...). (I also found a church online to visit on Sunday, which amazed Nadia that I was able to accomplish all of this via Internet, and somewhat allayed her worries that I'm headed across the country by myself with heavy luggage. I keep calling her to check in so she doesn't worry quite as much.) Then on to L'viv on Monday.

At least 11 children were sad to see me go yesterday (Yura wasn't around to say goodbye, and when the van pulled away, I saw him brushing Nadia off that no, he didn't intend to. But he wears the t-shirt I brought him a lot, which is enough for me.). Valera told me that he's going to visit me in the U.S. when he's 25 (in 13 years), and then asked me in detail where I would be living, who would open the door when he arrived, and what would happen if I wasn't home when he came, since he thought it unlikely anyone else in my family would speak Ukrainian. Snizhanna told me that she was going to come with Valera, but only if Nadia let her. I am going to miss them all so much.

Then I took the elektrichka to Kharkiv, which was one of those experiences that was just nice, as the scenery was beautiful and the ride brought back memories of when Tif and I used to ride up to Kharkiv for the day. I think that Nadia had expected me to stay in the train station and eat the sandwiches she'd packed, but instead, I went out to dinner at Adriano's (saving the sandwiches for later).

Adriano's is quite possibly one of my all-time favorite restaurants, up there with Sansu in East Lansing. The food is Italian, the decor is nice without being overdone, the prices are reasonable (my meal was roughly $8 USD), and the music is light, jazzy, and European. I got the lasagna with spinach, shrimp, and salmon. I think this is the first time I'd ever been there by myself--it was a popular place for PCVs to hang out, and I think I took pretty much everyone who ever visited me there (Tif, did you go there with me? You're the only person I'm not sure about.)

After dinner, I decided to go find a coffee shop I remembered around the corner, where we often went for dessert afterwards, but it had been replaced by a small casino. Grrr... So I decided to walk down to the next metro stop, but it was farther than I remembered, it was growing dark, and there was lots of thunder and lightening, although no rain (it had rained earlier). I was starting to question my common sense, but I had a rough idea of where I was, so I started heading in the direction of the Universytet metro stop, which I figured was pretty close. Just after a VERY loud crack of thunder, I spotted the huge Lenin statue near the metro. I never thought I'd say this, but I've never been so happy to see Lenin in all of my life. :)

Returning to the train station, I was disgusted to find out that the ticket counter for foreigners now closes at 7:30, instead of staying open until midnight, as I wanted to buy my ticket to Lutsk (which I got without problems in Kyiv this morning). I then, in classic Sal-and-Tif fashion, went to McDonald's for ice cream and clean bathrooms. And by that time, I could board my train.

The train was awesome. They've really spruced up the Kharkiv-Kyiv overnight train, with plushy seats, a control panel for lights, radio, etc. (which also tells you if the toilet is occupied), and clean windows. It felt very luxurious. The conductor was also friendly and helped get my suitcase on and off the train, bless his heart! My traveling companions were two sisters in their 50s and the daughter of one of them, who was about my age. The one woman was a former administrator of education for Kharkivska Oblast, and her daughter is a translator for international students at Karazin University in Kharkiv. They were friendly and I really enjoyed chatting with them. At first, they didn't realize I was a foreigner, but when they asked if I was really trying to read Les Miserables in English--the whole thing! (it's about 2 inches thick)--I explained that I was actually American. They had assumed I was from western Ukraine, which made my night. A lot less people give me odd looks when I talk to them, so hopefully my accent has gotten better.