Heat Wave

Well, school is wrapping up. The last official day is Thursday, the 31st, though really, it's just a day to have class parties. My last official day of the 2006-2007 school year will be next Tuesday. Monday is a holiday, (the Ascenion of Christ) and Wednesday I never have lessons, so that leaves me with two more teaching days. There's a happy thought.

We've had a heat wave here in Bar with the temperature hovering in the high 90's. This is rather unheard of for Bar this time of year. The heat wave usually comes in July or August, and that has lots of people talking. Rumours are going around Ukraine that there was a radioactive explosion somewhere in the country and that's why things are so hot. You can't exactly blame Ukrainians for being suspicious, Chernobyl and all, but Peace Corps has assured us that radiation levels remain unchanged. It's simply hot. No foul play. No conspiracy. And sadly, no AC. Thankfully I have a fan.

***

My favorite class is my 7A (NOT to be confused with 7B, they're a nightmare). On Tuesday we had our lesson outside, under the shade of an old tree. The class is all girls who LOVE to practice speaking English. They are my only class where I can speak entirely in English and be understood. They are my only class where it is difficult for me to get an English word in edgewise. They're fantastic, so on Tuesday, when the classroom was suffocatingly stuffy, we ventured outside.

We were standing in a circle tossing a ball around and asking/answering questions. They were happy. They were enthusiastic. Things were going along smoothly. Then about two thirds of the way through the lesson, things got a little wacky. Out of nowhere, and with no warning, a bird pooped on poor Marichka. It got her on the left shoulder and forearm. She squeeled and made a beeline to the bathroom. It took about 5 minutes for laughter to subside.

Marichka was a good sport about it. She laughed and then proceeded to twist every question thereafter to somehow include the answer: And I would kill all the birds!

Summer and Skirts

Summer is almost here. The weather is warm, the trees and flowers are in bloom and my students are as disinterested in English as they've ever been. I understand, I was a student once too, but it's annoying as a teacher.

I'm getting very excited for summer, not just because I'll have no school, but because my parents are coming in June. I've been busy planning for their whirlwind tour through Ukraine (Bar, Lviv) and Hungary (Budapest).

***

Last wednesday, the 9th of May, we celebrated Victory Day. It's one of my favorite holidays because it is all about remembering the victims and the heros of World War II. In the morning, I joined the teachers at my school in a parade through town. There were hundreds of people in the parade. We walked through town to the first of two war memorials. Each organization walking in the parade put flowers at the foot of the statue. Then we walked to the park and put flowers at the war memorial there. There were speeches and songs and it was all very nice.

The weather was bad last wednesday: cold, rainy and very windy. Yet there were still festivities in the park. There were kiosks with food and drinks and ice cream and cakes. People picnicked despite the bad weather. My friends and I spend about 30 minutes in the park before we threw in the towel, opting for the warmth of my apartment.

***

Since the 9th, the weather has been lovely, hot even. Roma and I often meet our friends at the park and spend the evenings outside. Last week I had the misfortune of sitting down on a bench that had just been painted -- blue. I had a comical blue bench mark across the rear of my favorite black skirt. I wasn't alone. My friend Alona also had blue bench marks across her jeans.

Try as I might, I was unsuccessful in getting the paint out of my skirt...so I gave it to Roma's mom and let her work her magic. She managed to get the blue stains out by washing my skirt in gasoline. As you can imagine, I was thrilled. Now I'm just working on getting the gasoline smell out of the skirt. I fear that by the time I'm done with this task, I will have washed/gasolined my poor skirt to death. We'll see.

Apologies and Cat Pills

I haven't blogged in forever and I do apologize, especially to anyone waiting on the edge of their seats to hear about my basketball tournament. I realize that recently I've been really bad about blogging and sometimes weeks will go by and I'll write nothing until my mom finally says to me, 'Sheryl, are you ever going blog again?!'

I apologize.

The "regional tournament" was rather anticlimactic, especially since I didn't end up playing. Turns out the girls tournament was for those ages 12 to 17. Not exactly my age bracket. I'm not entirely sure why the coach invited me to play in the first place. He either thought I was much younger than I am -- which is flattering, I think... -- or he really didn't know that the tournament was for young girls. Regardless, I didn't end up getting to say "Get outta my kitchen!!" like I'd planned.

Roma and the guys we play basketball with during the week did play though, and they won. Big. I believe the score of their first game was 125 to 53 and the score of their second, 116 to 27. They're going to Vinnystia this weekend to face other "regional winners." So that means this week we have serious practice, not just open gym.

In other news, Pheobe became a woman. She's gone into heat on two seperate occasions forcing me to take drastic measures and put her on the pill. Locating kitty birth control was an adventure in and of itself, let me assure you. I knew that the pill exsisted, I just didn't know where to get it. But one morning, after a sleepless night of frantic, heated furniture rubbing, I made it my mission to restore peace and tranquility to my apartment.

I went to a pharmacy close to my apartment. I said to the woman: I have a cat and I don't want her to get pregnant. Do you have a pill for this?

She said no.

I went to the central pharmacy, the biggest one in Bar thinking surly, surly it must be there. I said to the woman: I have a cat and I don't want her to get pregnant. Do you have a pill for this?

She looked at me kinda funny and said: No. This is a pharmacy for people. You want to go to a pharmacy for animals.

She told me the animal pharmacy was near the bazar, but she couldn't be specific. I headed towards the bazar, stopping at every pharmacy I considered "near the bazar," asking for kitty birth control. The answer, and the funny look, was the same:

No.
No.
We only serve people.
No.

I did, in the end, locate the animal pharmacy proving that trial and error, and a general disregard for feeling foolish, works. (Now might be a good time to note that there are a bazillion pharmacies in Bar. I don't know why. There just are.)

Roma's family finds this story incredibly amusing. His mom has laughed and retold it several times. Apparently, the fact that I went from pharmacy to pharmacy asking for cat pills and miming pregnancy is...well, funny.