Language makes the world go round

Greetings,

    I will know where I will be living, who I will be working with, and what I will be doing in two days.  So, while we have all been waiting for our assignments we have been getting ready for the move, hanging out, and tying up loose ends in our village.  It has been nice to have a few days without language class and to be able to spend time with other volunteers.  It is kind of funny because we are all trying to prepare ourselves for the move to our permanent sites where we will be living and working for the next two years but we still don't know what we will be doing or where we will be living so how do you prepare?  You don't know if you will be in a village without running water or if you will be in a city with some amenities or in a cold part of Northern Ukraine or the much hotter Southern Ukraine.  Good thing PC people are all pretty laid back because if you are the type of person that likes to have some control over things - you might freak out.  I am not too worried about where I will live or what I will be doing - I am mainly concerned with who I will be working with.  As long as I get along with my counterpart, they can put me in a hole in the middle of nowhere and I will probably be happy. 

    Other than site placement, we have all taken our LPIs (Language Proficiency Interviews) which I am sure we all did ok.  Our group's got some mad Russian skillz however we will definitely struggle the first few months at site.  We can at least get our messages across in Russian even if we don't understand the response.  lol  I am forced to be a bad listener because I can't understand what people are saying but I can say what is on my mind.  I find myself getting rather good at determining the topic of a conversation based solely on reading facial expressions and body language.  lol  Either that or the Ukrainians I speak to have gotten used to me saying really random stuff.  lol  For example, a babushka in my village walked up to me and started talking to me in Russian with a really concerned look on her face and the only words I picked up from her concerned handful of sentences was:  Egg, chicken, garden, today, and old.  I usually understand more that this in the average conversation but sometimes this is all you have to work with.  So from here you have two choices -  A. Try to guess what she said based on the few words you managed to pick out, her facial expressions, and prior conversations with this nice old babushka or    B. Ask her to repeat herself and probably end up in the same situation with the same two options once again.  In this particular "conversation" I decided to wing it and attempt to guess what she said.  I based my guess on some universal truths about babushkas:  They are always extremely concerned about what you have eaten, how much of it you ate, and what you are planning to eat later.  So given that 2 out of the 5 words that I understood were food related, it is a relatively safe assumption that she wants to talk about food or has asked if I want to eat.  My response went something like this. "Hello.  Good morning.  This morning for breakfast I cooked 3 fried eggs and ate 4 sandwiches (Bread, cheese, kielbasa) and I think I will have borsch (similar to soup) for lunch.  Also, I am not hungry right now.  Thanks.  Good weather today isn't it?  How are you?"   At this point, there are usually three possible outcomes  A. One of her eyebrows raises slightly and she gives you a very confused and inquisitive look then slowly starts laughing at the verbal diarrhea that came out of your mouth at which point I usually start laughing too because of how funny the whole situation is.  or   B. You got lucky and nailed it.  At this point she will be happy that you ate something but will not believe that you are not hungry and will attempt to feed you if you don't repeat that you have already eaten and are indeed not hungry at least 3 more times.   or C. There is a slight awkward pause followed by a small nod of the head with minimal facial expressions then she starts talking about the weather and will usually agree that the weather is nice but it is too hot/cold/rainy/etc.  This is why I try to add something at the end of all my responses about some insignificant topic so that if I do mess up and say the wrong thing or if she does not understand my response - she has an out.  She does not have to repeat herself a million times, she can just start talking about the weather or what she is up to and hopefully I will understand more of what she says later and we can have a more fluid conversation.  The only problem with this strategy is that you never really know if you guessed correctly or if  she had originally said something totally different.  For this conversation she could have easily said that she needs help gathering eggs from the chickens and help in the garden today because she is old and can't do it all herself.  If that is what she had actually said, I might look like a bit of an ass talking about all the food I ate.  lol   But people are patient and know that you don't speak the language very well yet and will usually give you the benefit of the doubt.  Anywho, the actual outcome of this conversation was outcome C.  I still am not entirely sure if I answered correctly or what but after that part of the conversation we talked about the weather, what she is up to, her daughter, my host mom, - we actually chatted for about 15 min.  Learning a language is a hilarious and incredibly awkward process and I am sure I will have thousands of similar conversations before I start to "get it".  lol  I almost want to add a segment to my blog called the "Awkward Conversation of the Week Award"  lol 

Conor's Noteworthy Noteables:

1.  Language test completed - will find out score in a few days.

2.  Went on a scavenger hunt in Chernigiv with 20 other volunteers followed by happy hour at the local cafe.  It was nice to walk around Chernigiv one last time before we all move away from one another to our separate sites. 

3.  Going to the "beach" later today.  It is a sandy area next to the river - very popular in our little village of 2,500 people - should be fun. 

4.  Ate some Peanut Butter.  Fantastic.  I never thought I would say that about something like peanut butter but damn it was good.

5.  I have not had running water for a few days (I hope it rains soon so that I have running water again).  I stink and my cloths are dirty.  When I told this to some fellow volunteer they said welcome to the Peace Corps - lol

6.  Packing up all my stuff again + 20 pounds of books and paperwork.  Should be interesting.
7. Raided a fellow volunteers hard drive and got tons of good movies. That will come in handy come winter when we only have 8 hours of sunlight.