English teacher

Today I was expecting to get a lot of work done but had trouble hitting my company's server even though the internet was otherwise working; this evening that is OK but we are just having flaky internet overall. So tomorrow I am planning to hang out at Totem, the smoke-free tea house down the street.

Julie went earlier than I did to the orphanage so I could get some extra work done, but I joined for the last 30 minutes to a very excited welcome. We are getting more hugs and kisses than ever. Julie, Maria, and Olena were doing hair and nails and stuff but I got right into an old maid game (this is by far the most popular activity we have introduced even though our deck is very beat up; we did learn early on that we need to play without the old maid, though, since "not fun" things happen when Yulia draws that) with Yulia and two other kids. Since we were in Maria's classroom, I got to look at some posted photos with her of her class doing various activities; there are only 7 of them so I get the impression they are pretty close.

Today's new event was a late lunch (right after our visit) with the orphanage's English teacher, Yana, a native of Perechyn. It was very refreshing to be in a real home. We met her 7th-grader son and her cat, saw a lot of her daughter's wedding and baby pictures, and had some home cooking instead of restaurant cooking, altogether a delightful time. She was a great source of information about life in the orphanage, really the first time we could ask questions directly to someone who speaks English. She teaches only Olena and Julia since 5th grade studies "Deutsch" as their foreign language. We found out there are 23 ninth-graders, a lot more than the grades we have seen; high school classrooms are in a different part of the building. The English classroom is really cheerful and well equipped, with nice headphones at each desk and tons of creative resources: books, games, flash cards, maps. Yana obviously puts a lot of thought and work into what she does and really loves the kids.

We got a call from Val in Kiev that confirmed that we are going to have a significant delay (15 days instead of 11 before we can take the next step, which might lead to further delays because of when weekends line up). It's frustrating, but we need to just be glad that the right things are happening.

We brought a bunch of DVDs along, but haven't had time to watch any yet, so I think we are going to do that for the first time to reset our brains a little. I am really psyched because today is the first day that I am feeling good again.