snow, snow, go away

Where to start...so many little incidents and stories...
This is for my mom: Sometime within the first week, I was in my room and the cat came in and then went under my bed and started to growl. I inspected and there was a fresh fish and the cat was going at it. I thought to myself, this can't be normal..and worked up the nerve to go ask my host sister. She was "OMG" (in Russian of course) and the dad came and threw the cat out and cleaned up the mess. I learned later that the cat got the fish from what was to be our dinner that night. Yum Yum.

Apparently the snow has not stopped, and it flurries or rains randomly during the days. I got soaked one afternoon after language class, and the next day before I left, my host mom forced an umbrella in to my hand as I left for the day. Even with all the snow though, it is the time of year to start a garden. Yesterday I helped my host mom out with the garden, raking and cleaning. Then we planted tulips, for Easter I think, and she told me that later we would plant all sorts of vegetables, and the only one I caught on to was tomatoe, so I assume she was also listing other veggies that we were going to grow. I also helped one of my Host sisters with English homework while they helped me to prepare for my teaching lesson.

That brings us to today. I taught my first lesson today to a class of 6 formers (grade?) with one of my fellow PC trainees. I was nervous, the kids were nervous, but it turned out good. I forgot almost all my Russian commands, but luckily I had lots of visuals and my counterpart speaks pretty good Russian because he took some in college. The main teacher made a point at the end to come up to the front of the classroom and thank us for the lesson and to tell us that we did such a great job, fantastic. She said even though the kids were shy at first, that they really got into the lesson and learned what we were there to teach them.
Our TCF (tech teacher) debriefed us afterward and gave some helpful hints and suggestions. All in all, I think we did a pretty good job. I have to learn to not take over all the time though, in other words, to not be a control freak. But I'm learning.

Things are still going good here, I make it a point to speak a little more Russian everyday to my wonderful host family. Me and the other PCV get along good and work well together. I love my teachers, even when there's frustrataion on either side and can tell I'm already starting to grow, or something sappy like that.
Cas

"With the right attitude, you are doomed to suceed"- Irena

So, I'm learning Russian, I'm pretty terrible. I keep slipping french in accidently. My host family is fantasic, we moslty use gestures to communicate and my host mom really wants me to learn the names of things. One of my host sisers knows some english so when she's around it's a big help. It's finally starting to warm up, no snow since the first day. Feels like i've been here so long already and its only been a week. We met th mayor, gave a sort-of memorized speech in botched Russian to introduce ourselves, but all is ok. One day at a time.
Miss you all.