The bad news is, this post might lack creativity and some general writing skills. Sorry...it was written over a period of about a week, and might not flow so well. The good news is, there's a lot of information here! Or maybe that is also bad news for you. That's okay too.
Where to begin...Let's go back to Friday November 30th, a couple of days before my last post on giving thanks. No actually, the afternoon of the 29th would be better. That afternoon I found out that there would be no class at the preschool the following day...a day off! I decided to use it to visit the Nehemiah Center, a Christian nonprofit and language center in Uzhgorod. I had stumbled upon the center's website online and offered to visit if they could use the help of a native English speaker. They invited me to come anytime...so Friday I again boarded Ishtvan's marshrutka, but instead of getting off at the gypsy camps made the complete one hour (approximately 20 mile?) journey to Uzhgorod, this region's capital. It was my first time traveling to Uzhgorod by bus and in the daytime. When we arrived Istvan informed me that the normal return buses would not be operating that afternoon. Thank you, Istvan. Good to know. My options for getting home were to leave with Istvan in half an hour, or to take a different bus to the city of Chop, and then another bus to Nagydobrony. I decided to brave the buses. But first I would have to brave the taxis...
When I spoke with the director of the Nehemiah Center the evening before, she had promised to send a car for me when I arrived in Uzhgorod, since I was unfamiliar with the city, and the center is quite a distance from the downtown area. I arrived in Uzhorod earlier than anticipated, and wandered for awhile. Uzhgorod is a bit bigger than Mukachevo, and feels more sprawling and industrial. I crossed the river that runs through the city, and called the director of the Nehemiah Center at the time we had arranged. No answer. I waited awhile and called again. Still no answer. And then I realized Hungarian time had once again made a fool of me. I had completely forgotten about Ukrainian time, and had called the director an hour late. Rats! So much for first impressions...
Tetiana the director eventually called me back, and we decided it would be easiest for me to take a cab to the center. I flagged down a taxi, handed my phone to the driver so Tetiana could give him an address, and arrived at Nehemiah a few minutes later. That afternoon Tetiana gave me a tour of the center and explained some of their work. In addition to teaching English and German classes they host conferences and summer camps, teach a Montessori-style preschool, and help to care for abandoned babies in the Uzhgorod hospital. They also operate a hotel/guesthouse and restaurant that generate some income for their projects. Talk about a mix of everything! During my visit Tetiana invited me to stay for a few days to help with classes and visit the babies in the hospital. I tentatively agreed, and we planned on the second week in December. In spite of the numerous taxi and bus transfers, the trip back to Nagydobrony was relatively uneventful...almost easy. A Christmas miracle!
The next day I attended a Christian medical conference hosted at the orphanage and organized in part by Dr. Pal. There were about sixty people at the conference, mostly doctors and medical students, with speakers from Reformed, Catholic, and Greek Orthodox congregations. There was Ukrainian and Hungarian translation...I'd like to say that my Hungarian and Ukrainian are good enough now that between the two I understood nearly everything...but I don't think they used "Nice to meet you" or "Is this the right bus to Mukachevo?" very often. My Hungarian must be improving, though, because one doctor that I sat with at dinner told Jolika that he felt bad for not speaking with me earlier...he didn't realize that I knew Hungarian so well. Who knew learning "thank you," "a little" and "good" could be so effective?
I spent all of the next week with the Oroszis, staying in their home and going to the Mukachevo clinic with them every day. They are so kind, and I loved being with their family. The food there was amazing, and Jolika tried to teach me some traditional Hungarian recipes. My potato peeling skills are improving. On Wednesday, after we had all carefully cleaned our boots, St. Mikolas came and filled them with candy and presents. He brought me chocolate, tangerines, jewelry, a hat, a scarf...so many good things, and it was so much fun to celebrate the holiday with the family. The presents continued when later in the week Olena, a neighbor of the Oroszis, made a surprise visit and brought me beautiful doilies and decorative cloths that she had made by hand. I had only met her once the night before, and was surprised and touched by her gifts.
The week in the clinic was tiring (early mornings) but very good. I was able to rotate through different areas including reception, phlebotomy, EKGs, CT scans, and endoscopy. CT scans might have been my favorite. Judit, the nurse, actually let me program and do the scans. Judit is also studying English, and we had such a great time practicing languages. Her native language is Ukrainian but she knows Russian and Hungarian as well, so she could understand my strange mix of languages.
I spent the weekend with the Oroszis as well, attending a Christmas party with them on Saturday, and church with them on Sunday. I left them to go back to Nagydobrony on Monday, but plan to see them again soon.
It was so nice to see my girls when I returned to the orphanage on Monday. I was told that some of them cried on Saturday and Sunday when I still hadn't returned from Mukachevo. I had been excited for the following week at the Nehemiah Center in Uzhgorod, but after returning to the orphanage it was hard to leave the girls again.
I returned to the Nehemiah Center on Tuesday, where my main activities were helping with the preschool during the mornings and afternoons, and with English classes in the evenings. I was also able to make a brief visit to the babies in the hospital.
I seem to be becoming quite an experienced preschool teacher. Nehemiah's preschool is in the process of implementing a Montessori-style, very hands-on and structured curriculum.
I'll try to put a link here if you're wondering about Montessori: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education#section_4.
From what I understand the staff at Nehemiah are sort of practicing and developing the new teaching method with their own children and a few others, with the hopes of someday expanding their methods within the community.
The preschool was very small (four or five children), quiet, and orderly. The kids were from Ukrainian families, and it was fun for me to hear little kids speaking Ukrainian. I like the Hungarian language more and more every day, but there's something I love about the sound of Ukrainian and Russian. Two of the older children also spoke English well, and it was nice (but also strange) to be understood so easily.
It's funny, because when I was with my preschoolers in the gypsy camps, I thought that the most beautiful children in the world must all have dark skin, black hair, and big brown eyes. This week, though, my Ukrainian children all had blonde hair and blue eyes, and were every bit as beautiful. The kids in Uzhgorod may be blonde and a bit quieter than the children in the gypsy camps, but in many ways they are the same: eager to love, to sing, to feed me imaginary lunch, to pretend to be dogs...
So much to say, and not enough time...I'll try to wrap up the rest of my time in Uzhgorod. English classes were mostly with students about my age or older, which was fun. In one food-themed exercise I tried to describe tacos to the students, and they thought they sounded like the same thing as pizza. They REALLY need some Mexican restaurants over here. Midway through the week the water broke (something about a sudden geyser?), so we had no showers, no flushing toilets, and no coffee. I had my first salo, a Ukrainian delicacy that is pretty much slabs of pig fat. And I don't mean bacon. I mean pure, white fat. The med students I was with described it as the compressed product of pig liposuction. Thanks guys, sounds delicious. "You don't eat fat in America?" they asked when they saw my hesitation. "Not like this," I replied. "Well what do you do with all your fat then? Export it to Ukraine?" Nope...Crisco.
I made one brief visit to the hospital, where I saw the abandoned babies the center helps to care for. I don't know the full story of these children, just that child abandonment seems to be fairly common here. There were three babies at the hospital when I was there, probably around a couple weeks old. I held them and helped change them, and couldn't help but think of my girls at the orphanage, some of whom were similarly abandoned at birth. One of the babies had no first name, and I thought of my Szila, who told me she was named by the Ukrainian doctor at the hospital where she was born, not by her mother or father.
On Thursday night I gave up my room to a group of 70 children who arrived at the hotel, and camped out in the office with a couple of other staff members. Getting back to the orphanage on Friday required the same old taxi, bus, marshrutka routine, but this time involved lots of waiting outside in frigid temperatures. The excitement of the marshrutka ride almost made up for it though. I'm not sure what was going on but everyone was unusually jolly...even the people sitting on laps who had to duck down when we passed police.
Saturday I attended my first pig slaughter with Gika's family, but thankfully I missed the actual slaughter part. It was fun to spend time with her family, and I did help with the meat processing, which was...well...interesting. At one point they eagerly handed me what I'm pretty sure was a lightly salted raw pigs ear. Even the salo hadn't prepared me for this, but I didn't think about it...chew, swallow, repeat. Later a guest stopped by and rolled part of the pig skin and ate it raw. This place is crazy.
Sunday I attended not one, not two, but three gypsy church services with Sandor, the pastor and local missionary to the gypsies. The services were interesting, and I especially loved the singing. The gypsies have such strong, beautiful voices. The churches were usually full, and at the smallest service we had about 35 people packed into a twelve foot by twelve foot room. It was fun to see the children in the camps again, especially those in Telek that I've spent so much time with. My littlest Sabolcs came and sat next to me and started doing the hand motions for "The Itsy Bitsy Spider," a song I taught the preschoolers when I was desperately trying to think of something new to keep their attention. We had only done the song one day, over two weeks ago. He's four and he remembered it. My heart about melted. I would rather he remember "Jesus Loves Me" or "King of Kings," but it's something...
So. Wow. I think you are caught up on my life. Today I went Christmas shopping and got some much-needed rest. Tomorrow I head back to Mukachevo for the week to be at the clinic and visit Anna's English classes. Have I mentioned Anna before? She's the oldest daughter of Dr. Pal and Jolika, teaches English, and is really, really great. This weekend I'm supposed to go on a mountain excursion with her, and next week is Christmas! I can't believe it.
It feels like I just arrived in Ukraine...I love these people and this place, and I'm just beginning to adjust to being here. Yes, I still miss my family and friends. Today I felt horribly homesick, and being away for Christmas will be the hardest. But I also don't want to leave Ukraine. In mid-January I will meet my sister in Turkey for a couple of weeks, and when I return I will only have a few days to pack and to say goodbye. So God-willing, I have one more month here. One more month of marshrutkas, cabbage, Hungkrainiaussian language, fat slab snacks, time-zone confusion, gypsy songs, preschool smiles, orphan kisses...One month doesn't seem like enough. But I plan to make the most of it.
"Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom."
"May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us- yes, establish the work of our hands."
-Psalm 90:12&17
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