Viruses, Village-schools, Velasquez, and Victory!

OK, first of all I did not take this photograph... but I did see this painting today; more on that later. The nagging thing about this past week has been the recurrence of that 'dang' virus. They say you're supposed to take "Umcka" (the extract I mentioned in an earlier rambling) 48 hours after your symptoms disappear and I didn't obey. So my sore throat came back after so magically vanishing for a couple days. But I'm back 'on the wagon' hoping to kick it for good this weekend.

Friday I had the unique experience of going out to a town called Nizhyn - 2 hours by car from Kyiv - famous for being the birthplace of a famous writer, Gogol, and for lovely cucumbers. I presented a hands-on methodology workshop twice: once for 'village teachers' and once for 'town teachers.' It was really a learning experience for me. I didn't realize that even though they were relatively "close" to Kyiv, these school teachers had limited to no access nor knowledge of computers, limited to no access to modern English teaching books and tapes, and some of them didn't understand me at all! I had heard that often times, especially in small villages, a math or history teacher may be assigned to teach English in a pinch, whether they know it or not. I felt a little bad that I hadn't been more prepared to handle this... but thought about how one could possibly teach a group something about methodology when some audience members know English and others do not...

To deal with this challenge in the future, I came up with the idea to give the caveat at the beginning of each workshop: "If you feel uncomfortable with speaking English in an interactive environment, you can sit over here and observe." Then, I'll wait for the better speakers to translate to the lower level teachers. This, in fact, would have also helped in Odessa because one French teacher attended my presentation. I didn't realize she didn't speak English until I noticed she wasn't responding to any of my requests to "OK, get into groups of 3 or 4", etc. When I figured it out, we agreed that she would just observe. She was a very cute lady (the one in front with red hair in the Odessa blog entry!) Maybe that strategy will come in handy...

While in Nizhyn, we attended a nice little museum commemorating Gogol's life and Nizhyn history; we also visited a little gallery where a woman with six fingers made sure I only took one photo of her (yes, my batteries died right then - it was a little spooky).

Today, in Kyiv, we saw a Diego Velasquez (see painting at very top)! Las Menina's is one of my favorites and I couldn't believe that an original "Portrait of Infanta Margaret" - Circa 1659-1660 - was housed here at the Western Museum of Art in Kyiv. It is a wonderful, cozy museum that I highly recommend.

And we voted this week! Absentee, of course. We got the coordinator of our English Resource Center to be our witness - she loved helping us. We scanned our affidavits and ballots and emailed them back. Maybe we helped make a difference!!! I hear they are still counting ballots in New Mexico!

P.S. I finished my first Chapter in my Russian book! Yay! It's surprising how knowing "your" "this" "name" "my" in addition to "thank you" "OK" and "please" can at least double the length of your conversations!