Wednesday - at the dentist, then English Language School

This is what happens when I wait too long to post my daily activities. I can't remember what I did, and if I can remember what I did, I can't remember what day I did it on.

I looked through the photos that I loaded onto my laptop for the day, and I remember that I went to the dentist. Vitaly is more high tech than my dentists back home. He had a computer monitor set up so you could view from the dental chair, and a fiber-optic camera system with which he could insert in your mouth and show you details of your teeth.

I went to another of Maryna's classes at the LT English School. These were all young children; I had met them before. They are not afraid of me anymore; in fact, they request that I help them with their homework.

After the children's class, I helped Sam with his class for adults. These adult students had never spoken to a native English speaker before, and Sam wanted to use me to break the ice for them. During his class, he sent each of them individually to my room, to have a one-on-one conversation with them. I thought it went really well. Since I was genuinely interested in Ukraine, and  Ukrainians, the conversations were natural, not forced. Since the students could tell that I was interested in them, not just doing this as part of my job, they forgot all about their fear of speaking in English to a native speaker. One woman was a yoga instructor, another male student told me all about the natural wonders of Ukraine, and the last woman told me about her fashion business. She designs and makes her own line of clothes. She was wearing a dress she had made when she was talking with me. I saw Sam on Thursday in town, and asked about his class. He said that his students were very apprehensive about speaking to a native English speaker, they were afraid they would sound stupid. But he said that all said afterwards that they were surprised at how easy it was to talk to me.

After Sam's class, Lesya had arranged a one-on-one class with me and one of her adult students, Sasha. He spoke English, but wanted to learn to speak better because he wanted to go to England to work. We started talking about my background, and his background. Sasha told me that his grandfather had gone to work in America, and had sent money home to his wife so that she could by land. He was stuck in America during WWII, and after the war, the Zakarpattia was taken by the Soviets. His grandfather chose to stay in America, and his land was seized by the Soviets because he was considered a "kulak", or rich peasant. I told him that a similar thing happened to my grandfather's brother. The difference was that my grandfather's brother returned to Zakarpattia before the war, but he also lost all the land that he had bought. After talking about our families, I learned that Sasha's family was from the same village as mine - Dravtsi - and he knew all my relatives! We stayed talking well past the class end time, and Sasha gave me a ride home to Dravtsi while on his way to Baranyntsi.