Halloween 2010

Jon, the team mascot, The Kozak. Me, ahhh... the pregnant cheerleader. Goooo Kozaks!! :o)

A month worth of catch-up

Movie night on the roof of the school. Everyone brought something warm to share: soup, hot chocolate, tea, etc. It was a great time!

ICA, the little church we go to.

Adam and Kris Runyan and their newest addition, Nyellie.

This is the "baby hospital", ISIDA. Alyssa and Ken Chapman pose with their, now almost-1-yr-old, in front of the hospital where they had Rawly.

Some pictures from Jon's trip to Sofia, Bulgaria

Our night out at "Swan Lake" the ballet. Jon and I in front of the Opera House.

The inside was beautiful!

Friday, October 8th

Well, so much for the weekly posts. I know that you are thinking the same thing! Now that it has been more than a month since our last post, I thought I better get to updating! A lot has been happening since September! Jon had his first Athletic Director Conference in Sofia, Bulgaria. It was a success! He had a great time and met a lot of great administrators from around Europe and Eastern Europe. He came back with a better grasp of his job here and some ideas of where he wants to move to next!

One of the past weekends we went to the “Savka House” which is about 45 minutes north of Kiev (towards Chernobyl) located in a small village “off the beaten path”. The House was a great cultural experience. A family owns the land and buildings and have restored them or brought them in to display the life before Soviet times. The Papa and son taught us how they grind their flour, make their own boots, wash their clothes, heat things, distill their own alcohol, etc. While the Mama and grandma made us dinner… and more dinner. There was a big group of about 30 teachers and admin that went and we had a great time sharing the day with each other.

The weather has changed! Fall is gone it seems and winter, or pretty close, is here! It will be a little more bearable when the city turns on the heat!! We just got a little heat pumping through the school today. So that means it should be to the rest of the apartment buildings by the end of next week, at the latest, let’s hope. It has been in the mid-30’s – 40’s most all week. It seems extremely cold compared to our tropical paradise that we left, but we are making-do with layers and layers. The sun is out today, which we are finding is a rare treat!

We went to “Swan Lake,” the ballet, last weekend. It was very nice. Jon and I had great seats on the first balcony right in the middle. I think we paid $8.00 each. It was a great price, but I don’t know if I can drag Jon to too many more ballets. There was a time towards the end when I turned to him and asked if he was enjoying it. He replied with a cringe, “I haven’t been able to get past the butt cracks and tights yet.” So, maybe I’ll get him to go to The Nutcracker with me closer to the holidays, but more than that, I may be pushing my luck.

Papa Savka showing us an old bee hive in a tree stump.
The traditional Ukrainian Christmas Tree!

Mama Savka welcoming us into her house where she will serve us dinner. Fresh out-of-the-oven bread for starters! (The news crew was also there while we were there... they may have filmed me struggling to grind grain into flour, sure hope not... it wasn't pretty)

Tim and Allison are a new couple to KIS this year. Allison gave birth to her twin girls last month in the states. Grandma Savka rocked them all afternoon while they slept and we ate!

The meal being dished up!

Most of the Savka family.

Pirogova, Ukraine

Along the streets of downtown Kiev. A street of paintings. Good inspiration to get me painting again... now I just need to know where to buy a canvas!
Jon standing in front of the old Soviet government buidling. Looking serious of course. Now there is a Ukrainian flag hanging to the right - kind of a slap in the face we were told. Huge building though!

A couple of weeks ago outside the Opera House. We do have the schedule of events that take place there now. We are going to have to make it a point to go to a couple of operas!

A glimps into Ukrainian. This is a metro sign. Our metro stop is up there. In English is sounds like Svitoshin. But in Ukrainian it looks like "Cybertown". That is how we remember it at a quick glance at least.

Jon in a little house that is set up to resemble the "old days".

Pirogova man playing a tune for us.

Old wooden church standing in Pirogova.

Probably the signature sight of the Open Air Museam - the windmills.

Traditional garb.

Great clothes for sale. Young, old, and everything in between.

Great crafts and ladies selling them.

Another shot of the windmills with a nearly cloudless sky.

One of the many traditional houses with thatched roofs and beautiful wild flowers out front.

A few from a few steps back.

Our "Shashlik" in the forest close to our apartment.

I get to hold Rawly, the Chapman's boy. He looks a little nervous, but don't worry - he likes me! :)

Our dinner!

Monday, September 6th

Happy Labor Day!

While all of you are not laboring in celebration, we labor in celebration. Ukraine has a labor day at a later date, so we look forward to that.

First full week of school, check! Things are going well. Jon and I both love the administrative roles that we have. Jon is busy, busy during the day. Running from one building to the other, checking on uniforms, late bus schedules, practices, pumping up balls for the soccer coaches, gathering deposits from kids that want to go on CEESA trips, talking with administrators about getting the field finished, etc. He sets up extra-curricular events for staff like basketball, swimming, ultimate Frisbee, etc. He e-mails other QSI schools to get their input on tournaments they want to host or events they want to attend. He is busy, busy. But doing a great job! Everyone is thankful that he is so organized and seems to be level-headed and in control. I think that he likes the change of pace and looks forward to making his own schedule each day and crossing his list off as he goes.

Things are starting to pick up in the counseling office as well. I have a couple scheduled meetings with kids this week that have been referred by their teachers. Today was my first day doing a guidance lesson with the 5 year olds. We read, “Have you Filled a Bucket Today?” and then played a little game, did some actions, and practiced filling each others buckets. The hard part was that not everyone speaks English in the Kindergarten classes. So, I don’t know if they got as much out of it as I think they did… but oh well! J I finish with 5 year olds tomorrow and then move on to 6 year olds later in the week. So, it should only get easier... hopefully! They are cute though and it is fun to get back in the classroom. So that was great! I am getting toy donations from people throughout the school, so finally things are filling up a little in my “office”. Maybe we will be able to start with the sand tray next week. All great fun things to try! J

The weekend was busy with activity as well. On Friday night we had Rachel and Holly over for BURGERS and TATER TOTS! It was great! Then we went to the Chapman’s (Alyssa and Ken and Baby Rawly) to watch Spiderman III. It is great to have such wonderful people to hang out with. Saturday was our adventure day. 9:00 we met at school and hoped on the bus to take us to Pirogova. Check it out: http://iloveua.org/article/110 or http://www.kiev.info/culture/folk_architecture.htm . The day as great: perfect weather, and a great group of us. There was a festival actually going on so there were great craft tables set up and vendors and artisans selling all types of Ukrainian art and trinkets. They had a program scheduled of singers, dancers and performers dressed in traditional dress, so that was entertaining as well. We picked up a couple Christmas presents already and some things for ourselves.

After we returned, we met up with some others for “Shashlik” (kabobs) in the forest next to our house. We had a little fire and Ira brought meat and vegetables for the kabob sticks. It was fun to pretend like we were camping… with the occasional Ukrainian deer (wild dog) coming around. Sunday we went to ICA, our church, and then out to lunch with a handful of people as well. We are really enjoying our new friends, the time we get to explore outside of school, and our work. So, things are going well here in Kiev.

A little shout-out to our new “cousin” Brigham! Welcome to the family buddy!

A Saturday of Exploring

Baby Arden. We went over to our friends Morgan and Kristina's house for dinner last night. Babies are always the highlight.

Sunset from our apartment window.

Dinner at one of the best restraunts in Kiev. QSI took all the new teachers out. It was a great time. There are a lot of us!

Jon and I at the WWII memorial.

Holly, Jon, me and Rachel posin'

The starving girl statue reminds us of the seriousness of the Ukrainian past.

Great church domes!

View from on top. You can see the river and then the "new" side of Kiev over the far banks.

Great sidewalk picture. Cobblestone streets in this part of town. Not ideal for heals, but very cool to see.

A Russian Orthodox monk that was willing to take some time to address all the many women coming up asking for blessing and such.

A huge circle made of the "Ukrainian" Eater Egg! Love the colors!

Jon being oh-so-serious with the cannons.

The Iron Lady overlooking the city of Kiev.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Hello from Ukraine! Things are shaping up around here and getting closer to falling into place. For one, the weather is finally cooperating! The heat spell broke earlier in the week and it has been refreshing since then. With highs in the mid-70’s it makes it so much more “pleasurable” to cram into a bus or practically sit on someone’s lap in the metro. So, that is great for a change!

This week was mostly made up of orientation days at school. All of the new teachers are here now and we have been busy, busy trying to make everyone feel welcome and comfortable. Seems like every night after school we would either go over to someone’s place for dinner or have people over to play cards and have ice cream. So, we are enjoying having so many friends to choose from and keeping busy trying to ignore that school is just around the corner!

Yesterday was a big exploring day. We meet up with a handful of people in the park close to our house at about 9:30am and made our way downtown on the metro. It was so nice and cool that I wore a jacket and at some points in the shade, a light scarf! We got down town and first came across a monument commemorating the deaths in World War II. There was an eternal flame at the foot of the monument along with a number of headstones that we couldn’t read. The view from the monument was spectacular. You could see the river that runs through the city (The Dnieper River), a couple of golden domes that we were on our way too and the “new” side of town on the left bank of the river. Very cool on such a spectacular day. In the background of the monument you could see another structure dedicated to the “artificial famine” that Russia enforced on the people of Ukraine in the 1930’s. During this time of oppression more than 3 million Ukrainians starved to death. There is a statue of an emaciated young girl at the front of the memorial site, very touching and will take your breath away. The people of Ukraine have been through a terrible history of struggle and oppression.

Our destination for the day was the “underground cave church”. It is kind of a compound of golden-topped churches that is the “Mecca” for the Russian Orthodox religion. Under the main church there are catacombs where the Russian Orthodox monks have been mummified and kept in glass boxes for thousands of years. Ladies had to wear a skirt and a scarf over their heads to do down. It was best if you paid a couple grivna to get a candle because there were no lights underground. The tunnels were tight and small and there were different chambers that held different monks. A little creepy. Most people were there on a mission, kissing the monk’s boxes and stopping to pray at every one. Very interesting.

We also stopped at a miniature museum. There was a man who made things that were microscopic. For real! The museum had about 25 different exhibit spots set up with microscopes. Some of the craziest that I remember were: a chess board, with all the pieces, made from gold, sitting on the head of a PIN; an Egyptian scene of 3 camels, a pyramid and a palm tree, also made from gold, in the eye of a NEEDLE; a portrait painted on the cross section of a POPPY SEED; a small rose made inside the strand of a human HAIR… and there were soooo many more. My eyes left that place being confused and fussy. Crazy weird.

One of the last places we walked to was to visit “Mother Russia”. We don’t know much about her, put she is part of the museum of the Great Patriotic War, stands at 62 meters above Kiev and is known at the “Motherland Monument”. At the spot where she stands, there was a battle of 4 million troops between the Soviets and the Germens in World War II. Fatalities were estimated at nearly 3 million.

Tomorrow, Monday, the 23rd, we start another round of orientation with all of the returning teachers back. So, a whole bunch more people to meet. We have kind of forgotten that out little group of new teachers aren’t the only teachers here… so it will be interesting once we all get together. Still don’t really have my office up and running. The school is pretty much still a mess. We went in this afternoon to help Rachel, the Preschool coordinator move some stuff around in her room… and every room looked the way it looked on the first day of summer. A long way to go still. So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday will be HUGE days of preparation. But looking forward to getting the kids in on Thursday! We’ll keep you posted!

Hope all is well back home! LOVE, Alyssa and Jon