Lovin' Every Minute of It

     Thirteen months. That's how long it's been since I left the States last year. It finally is starting to feel like that amount of time. Probably because I'm standing at the edge of a new phase of my life. I can't say that I've loved every minute of it. Mainly because of the difficulties along the way. But it's certainly been worthwhile.
      I'm actually slacking a bit because thirteen months was yesterday (August the 25th). But it's in service of a good cause. Liberty followup, spending time with people from Big City and residency things. There have also been some other things happening this week.


     I guess I'll pick up where I left off in the last post. Sunday was a normal day at church in the morning. Afterwards though was a lot of fun. I tagged along with a group from church for lunch and a lunch. We went to Puzata Hata where I had an excellent (if slightly messy) bowl of borsch, bread and a chocolate muffin. Incidentally, I had the same thing (minus muffin) yesterday for lunch. I think I'll have to learn how to make it when I get home.

     Lunch and the walk were a lot of fun. A new teacher from KCA joined us along with Tim (the intern) and a few people who (I think) went to X-Way camp. Kiev Polytechnic Institute is not far from where Big City Church meets for worship. We walked there because it's a great place to sit and relax. A big park separates the main campus from Peremogy Ave. It does a great job of blocking out the road noises. We ended up staying there for over three hours sitting, talking and throwing a Frisbee. Afterwards I went home to talk with my parents on Skype.

Cacao. It's like hot chocolate but better. It's what hot chocolate should be.

     Monday was a slow day. I didn't do much other than read and write the last blog post.
     Tuesday I visited Maya's English group. I forgot to mention last time that I saw a few familiar faces there last week. I did again Tuesday. And this time Maya put me to work. After reading and translating the story, we split into smaller groups. I took one and we went through the questions about the lesson. The important part is to make sure they understand the questions as well as possible. Only one or two of the students are upper intermediate. Everyone else is below that.
     So we let them read the questions and answer options in English and then they translate them. That's where studying Russian has helped me a bit. I'm able to follow along with their translations somewhat to make sure they get the right idea. It makes the difference between "the guards gave a bribe" and "they gave a bribe to the guards." For those interested, we looked at Matthew 28 for the lesson.
     Wednesday was a day off of the normal things. It was also Ukrainian Independence Day. I missed the parade (on account of crowds and rain). But I did get to relax and have fun with the Liberty team away from the city. We traveled together to a park far outside Kiev in a small town called Irpin. Frisbee, photography, friends, talking, laughing, eating. All the good things that make a great day away from the city.

     If you notice a common theme in those photos, yes I was very interested in that grill. Ukrainian cookouts are generally a shashlik affair. Meat on sticks, not unlike shish-kababs. Ukrainian grills are designed to take these sticks and hold them at certain angles to facilitate cooking on all sides. But this was the first water-jet (or laser) cut grill I've seen in the shape of a stag. They were all over the park and every one was in use. We were lucky that the previous users of this grill had just finished.
     That brings me up to today. Today was my last English Walking. I have mixed feelings about it. I wish they hadn't been so late in the evenings. It makes it tough to break away at a reasonable time for sleeping. But I also would like to be here more for it. I see so much good coming out of it. It has a wide pull for the young people of Kiev. I hope someone will be able to take my place in it this fall.
     But despite it being the last, it was good. I've seen everything we walked by before. That's not the point though. I'm there to help people practice and improve their English. The sightseeing is incidental. It's just icing on the cake. Two people gave me parting gifts (a mug and a magnet). For those people from Walking English who read this blog, I want to say thank you for all the fun times we had talking. It was a great opportunity to connect and share parts of our lives.
     Time to switch gears a bit. In general, life has been continuing. I'm starting to think about packing up my stuff. I've started the last drive for souvenirs. And I'm starting to think about what I want to say to people here as I bid farewell. Tomorrow I have a meeting with David Pervis again. He's back from the States now. I guess I'll have to make a report for all the things that have been happening all summer.
     Alright, time to sleep. I'll keep you updated as the time ticks down to flight day. I already started my packing. I might have to ship a package home. It seems I've picked up quite a few souvenirs over the past year.