School has been an interesting experience, to say the least. More and more, being in Ukraine, I find myself feeling younger as time passes. During training, it was the forced feeding and the lack of privacy. Now I’m back in school on the wrong side of the student-teacher dichotomy. I’ve been sitting in on classes with students ranging from 2nd-11th form (grade). It’s like those dreams where you are back in school when in fact you’re long-graduated. Except I’m pretty sure I’m not dreaming. I’m not complaining. I am essentially getting a free education in Ukrainian and Russian. The only problem is that these students’ abilities at these languages far exceed that of mine.
Celebrity status
On the first actual day of school as I was walking down the hallway, I was attacked by a detachment of handshakes and “hello’s”. I even signed a couple autographs. Doing so, I couldn’t help but crack a smile as I was trying to hold back the laughter because I found the situation so ridiculously funny. I stood there wondering if these kids realized that I’m not famous.
On the second day of school I was thrown into a class of 2nd formers, whose teacher was absent. I was to be the substitute teacher. It quickly turned into a Q/A session about my life and America. Then some girl asked me to sign her notebook. Then the whole class crowded around me asking for autographs. Again, I found myself almost cracking up because this was so bizarre. In a classroom of about 20 students I signed about 40 autographs. “How is that possible?” you might ask. Because then they started looking for anything that I could sign: English workbooks, pieces of scrap paper, notebooks, hands, arms, etc. At least 2 of them took out their camera phones and tried to sneak a photo of me. They had me read an excerpt from one of their English books, which one of the boys tried to record on his camera phone.
One day I was walking home from school and had the usual encounters with neighbors and strangers walking by: anytime I go out, whether to the school, store, or the bus station, I have to factor in a buffer time of about 10 minutes because I know that someone will run into me and start a conversation. On this particular instance, there was a boy that was on his bike, who followed me all the way from school to my neighborhood, keeping the same pace as my walking, about 10 meters behind me. I turned around and said “goodbye”, because I suspected his intention. He would say “goodbye” but kept following, pretending that he was headed in the same direction as me. When I got to my building, I ran up the steps, opened my door, went in, and quickly shut the door behind me. I heard his footsteps running up the steps behind me. I looked through the peephole and I saw him creeping.
I tried so hard to keep my living location a secret, especially from the students. The last thing I want is for a few hundred students to know my exact location. My life is already like that of a goldfish in a fishbowl as it is. Later that day I heard a knock at my door. It was a man. He introduced himself to me and told me that his daughter had talked to me at school earlier that day. She’d told me that her father wanted English lessons. I told her that I’d meet him somewhere to discuss it. As it turns out, he already knew where I lived. I guess the secret’s been out. Sigh.
Football
A few weeks ago I received an American football with a care package from my parents, for which I’m very thankful. I’ve put it to great use. I’ve been teaching the kids how to play and they picked it up surprisingly quickly. Within the first day of introducing the game to them, we were playing (a short) full-field two-hand touch football. And they love it. Everyday I’m asked when we will play again.
Here’s a quick little anecdote. Today a few of us were tossing the football around. At one point a boy, about 5 years old, walked onto the field in passing. One of the students threw the ball and completely overthrew his target. The trajectory of the ball collided directly with the face of the 5 year old boy. Of course, with concern, we ran over and asked if he was ok. The kid held his hand to his mouth and stood there for a few seconds. I thought he was going to do one of those delayed cries. There was a man with us and he said to the boy, “hey boy, what is your name? are you ok?”. The boy turned around slowly, spit into his hand, and said, “I lost my tooth”. He didn’t cry. He didn’t seem phased at all. He then proceeded to his destination. I was kind of shocked.
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