You've probably noticed that I'm not updating nearly as much as I did in the beginning. That's mainly because most things have become routine and I don't want to be writing about the same things over and over. Don't worry, I'll still keep updating. But it's not going to be a day-by-day update with endless details. I want to do it at least bi-weekly. As of this point, updates are mostly as I feel inspired. And because a lot of the time I get back to my apartment late, I don't want to be typing updates until 2 in the morning.
Now, the actual update. This was a good weekend. Friday night, we had another Walking English group. It started out with just me and one of the guys from camp. He is a new believer and really loves being involved in the the English groups. He also started coming to church regularly.
The plan for the night was to meet and go to an art gallery and then walk around a local art-park. I had looked up the website of the art gallery before hand. It was advertising a display of late Soviet-era Ukrainian artists and their works. Sounds interesting right? Probably some protest works and historical photos? Yeah, not really. There was one half of a wall with historical pictures from a political rally. That was good. There were also a few paintings that showed a lot of talent. However, almost all of the rest was confusing, eclectic, or unintelligible dribble requiring brain-bleach afterward. A little strong on the description? Not really. I don't really care much for modern "art." I'm more of a simple photography and painting guy. Scenery, history, portraits. Fortunately, we didn't spend a lot of time there.
We met up with a few more people and went to have some dinner at a restaurant not too far from Maidan. The nightlife in the center of Kiev is an interesting sight. Musicians, performers, advertisers, sellers, and sightseers were everywhere. They made it hard to walk and talk at the same time. But some of the scenery was worth the trouble. St. Andrew's Church sits at the top of a hill overlooking the Dnipr River. At night it is lit up from all around and shines brightly for the whole city to see. We also saw a film production company working in part of the art-park we walked through. That night, I didn't end up getting back to my apartment until well after midnight.
Saturday was a bit quieter. I went out to do some shopping and met up with one of the students from camp to help choose a pair of headphones. That was about it. The rest of the day, I basically studied and relaxed.
Sunday was a bit more busy. After church, I went to watch some of the Ultimate Championship of Ukraine. It's the national championships for Ultimate Frisbee. Several people from Big City are in Frisbee teams and they were playing there. I got to watch one game before I had to leave. Watching the game instead of playing it myself is a little weird. Since it's a sport that I play, I liked seeing how different it is than in the States.
David and his family were on vacation this weekend. So I had the task of leading the English club Sunday night. The night was planned to be shorter than normal because of plans for later. I got there early to set up and prepare. Overall, I think it went well. It's not really that hard doing what I had to. I basically welcomed them and gave them a rundown of what would be happening that night. The reunion party for the Big City Church retreat was going to start at 6:30 so we had to finish earlier than usual. My group (the intermediate to advanced) finished earlier than I had planned so I let them ask me questions until we had to finish. Jon Eide led the beginner to intermediate group in another room. Since we were working on a truncated schedule, there wasn't much extra for me to do other than introductions, announcements, and concluding remarks. David makes it look easy. But he's had a lot more experience than I have.
The rest of the evening was a lot of fun. I don't exactly understand the reason for it, but the church decided to have a reunion party for the people who went to the retreat last month. It was mainly a time to see the photos and videos from the weekend that everyone else took. We also got to see the videos from the challenges. It was a good time to be with the group from the retreat again. Obviously not everyone could be there. But it was good to see some other views that I hadn't seen while I was there.
So that brings us up to now. Today, I've been working on studying and homework from the Russian lesson yesterday. The lesson really wrung me out in the difficulty sector. I must not have been as ready as I thought because my brain shut down about half-way through. I still have a great deal of difficulty distinguishing individual words in spoken Russian. That means what little translating I can do, on the fly, is useless because I miss 80% of the words spoken when I finally hear a word I do know. And when my brain is dead from focusing so hard, I'm about as useful as sand in the desert.
I know that learning the language is important. I want to be able to understand it and speak it. But when someone asks me a question in Russian, my mind goes blank while I try to figure out exactly what they said. I'd put my knowledge on par with a 2 year-old child. Probably less. Plus, my recall of vocabulary isn't the greatest. The good news is that I can understand a whole lot more than I could just a month ago. My vocabulary is probably four times what it was this summer and my comprehension of written Russian is constantly improving.
The problem seems to be in figuring out exactly what someone has said. Native speakers of any language speak very fast. Not everyone realizes that they need to slow down when speaking to someone who hasn't grown up with the language. I'm guilty of this at times I keep reminding myself to slow down and enunciate every syllable. I'll just have to keep asking people to slow down and repeat what they said a lot.
Alright, time for me to head out to English Club. Last week we had almost 45 people. Any guesses on attendance tonight?
Wow! 45 people for English club. That's great. Maybe 47 tonight?
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I guess 51
ReplyDeleteIt was right around 50. I counted 46 before David told me to stop counting.
ReplyDeleteIt's actually a conundrum that we're in. It's great to have so many people. But cramming them into such a small space is difficult even with the Ukrainian non-aversion to personal space. The problem is that the church's Session also meets at the same time and they have difficulty with finding a place. Tuesday night we split into 5 groups and each basically filled the space they were in. That meant the only room available was the kitchen and the office. So we need to either pare down the attendance or find another solution. Some have been shuffled to Sunday night English but we're still short on free space.
I had a question about who the regular teachers are. On Tuesdays we have 4 or 5 Americans to help with teaching duties. The last two times it's been 6. David, Jon, and a student named Nathan, along with Clay and Darlene Quarterman have been the mainstays of the English club for a while. The Quartermans are MTW missionaries who have been here for many years. The last three times, Darlene and I have teamed up to lead the intermediate and/or the advanced groups. Since Clay and Jon speak Russian well, they usually take the lower levels along with David. The issue coming up really soon is that Clay and Darlene will be leaving to head back to the US in a few weeks. They'll be gone for about six months. And Nathan is still in school so he won't be able to help at every meeting. So it'll be David, Jon and me plus any American's David can wrangle up to help out. So I guess that's a prayer request to keep in mind. We need as much help for the coming months as we can get. And I won't be here for very long after the first of 2016. David and Jon will be mostly on their own with a huge crowd unless something happens.
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