We have wanted a pet for a long time, and during a conversation with our Australian friends, we learned about budgerigars (small parrots commonly referred to as "budgies"). They are native to Australia, but seem to be quite popular as pets here. This sort of pet is friendly but won't take up too much room in our apartment, so we began to learn as much as we could about budgies. We searched all winter and finally decided to purchase one at the market.
We were afraid that the saleslady would tell us very important information (which we wouldn’t understand) or try to take advantage of the foreigners. This morning I went to the market with our neighbor, Nikolai. He is fluent in English because he was in Canada for a year through MCC’s International Visitor Exchange Program. He has been very helpful throughout our six months here and was again today.
We were able to find Petey, the newest member of our household. He is a month-old, yellow and green bird. We bought a male because they are traditionally friendlier and speak more. The average one has around a 20-word vocabulary, but some develop vocabularies in the thousands. Now we just have to figure out what language to teach him.
Dave
Saturday, May 28, 2005
Monday, May 23, 2005
Learning Tour
Last week we hosted our first foreign guests of our term in Ukraine – a group of 10 MCC thrift shop employees and volunteers who came to Ukraine on a MCC Learning Tour. They spent 10 days in Ukraine and a little more than one full day in Donetsk. It was great to see a couple people we knew and meet many we didn’t. We also appreciated the goody bag brought from S.D., containing rare treasures -- from peanut butter to sunscreen (thanks Barb!). We had a good time showing the group around the evening they arrived, then joined them the next day for a morning trip to Makeevka, then back to DCU for discussions with DCU’s rector (president) and others. On Wednesday evening, Dave and I were responsible for organizing a “cultural event” of some sort in Donetsk, but the philharmonic, the opera and the theater had no events scheduled, nor was Donetsk’s popular soccer team, Shaktyor, playing that night. So we chose a very Ukrainian pastime … leisurely wandering through the streets of downtown. Our evening concluded with a stop for ice cream at an outdoor café. The next morning everyone crammed into our apartment for a quick breakfast and then headed for their next destination. We’ll remember the group for a long time, as our first visitors in Ukraine.
Laura
Laura
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Marina Says
As we have been attempting to develop our skills in the Russian language, we have come across a few interesting dissimilarities to our native tongue. Marina, our language teacher, has offered her reasoning why certain things (that we are accustomed to saying) are inappropriate to say in the Russian language. Here are two of the things I have found most interesting.
The Russian language uses a lot of passive voice, especially when dealing with emotions. For instance, instead of saying: “I am sad.” Russian speakers say: “[It] is sad to me (the ‘it’ is oftentimes an open reference).” I know that that sounds like a small difference, but it takes the control away from the subject. Marina believes that the culture has affected the linguistics (or vice-versa) and people truly are not in control of their emotions. It is interesting to think about the implications of us not being in control of our feelings.
The other instance that I have found very interesting is that Russian speakers don’t say: “I have a pencil.” Instead, they say: “A pencil exists with me.” It is a bit more passive as well. Marina believes that (again the culture influenced the linguistics) it stems from a mindset that you can’t really have anything… another interesting thought to ponder.
Well, I could go into more detail, but I noticed how long my last blog was. I don’t want to establish a trend and scare away those of you with short attention spans.
-Dave
The Russian language uses a lot of passive voice, especially when dealing with emotions. For instance, instead of saying: “I am sad.” Russian speakers say: “[It] is sad to me (the ‘it’ is oftentimes an open reference).” I know that that sounds like a small difference, but it takes the control away from the subject. Marina believes that the culture has affected the linguistics (or vice-versa) and people truly are not in control of their emotions. It is interesting to think about the implications of us not being in control of our feelings.
The other instance that I have found very interesting is that Russian speakers don’t say: “I have a pencil.” Instead, they say: “A pencil exists with me.” It is a bit more passive as well. Marina believes that (again the culture influenced the linguistics) it stems from a mindset that you can’t really have anything… another interesting thought to ponder.
Well, I could go into more detail, but I noticed how long my last blog was. I don’t want to establish a trend and scare away those of you with short attention spans.
-Dave
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Train Trip
We went to Kiev for a weekend getaway. Monday was Victory in Europe day so we had a little time off to travel back. The trip marked a lot of firsts for us. We had never been to the city that all North Americans here seem to love. We hadn’t done any traveling before (except to Zaporozhye, which doesn’t really count). We had never been on the train before. I will write a little about the train experience.
We arrived at the Donetsk train station around 6 p.m., an hour before the scheduled departure. We have found that most Ukrainian trains that travel any extended distance travel at night. We were able to board the train 30 minutes before departure. We spent the next 13 hours in our compartment in “kupay,” which is the middle class. It has 2 sets of bunk beds in a small compartment. With 5 minutes until departure, we were still alone and, I must admit that I was a little torn about the situation. I thought that it would be fun to have some Ukrainian companions to talk to, yet I did not want to have to think so hard to comprehend every sentence I heard and tried to speak. Two men in their 50’s showed up just in time and, as it turns out, it may have been better alone (although a few days later it seems like it may have been a little fun).
Both were track and field coaches, in Donetsk for a competition. One coach specialized in hammer and the other in javelin. As you can probably guess from their profession, both looked like the stereotypical Russians that dominated American movies of the cold war era (at least the small part that I am familiar with): broad men, over six feet tall with short cropped hair and little to no neck. They got to know each other 30 years ago, when they were athletes in the sports they dedicated their lives to coaching. They must be quite distinguished coaches as one (hammer coach) was in Athens with one of his athletes last summer. It would have been interesting to talk to him more about that, but they were not in a very coherent state of mind.
They had been celebrating the holiday weekend quite heavily. In the past 6 months, I have found the Russian language very difficult to understand, but it is much easier to understand sober Russian than slurred Russian. One coach had been working in Iran for the past year and, in his stupor, was constantly shifting to that language (Farsi). It was quite an experience. These two men seemed like different people (possibly a bit sheepish) in the morning.
We spent our 1.5 days in Kiev mentally preparing for who our companions would be on the train to Donetsk. Our tickets were in the lowest class and everyone that we talked to informed us that that would be a “necessary, cultural experience” for us. We were a bit concerned, but thoroughly enjoyed our time in Kiev.
“Plotzcar” is a bit different from “kupay” in that there are no real compartments. Even though there are bunks, the car is open so they are able to squeeze 50% more bunks per car. Although we had several more neighbors, the ones directly across from us were far more pleasant (and sober) than we expected. Although the one really wanted to talk and especially wanted us to answer the question: “How is life in America?” both allowed us to sit quietly and read our magazines. It was another long trip back and we are still recovering from our night traveling. We look forward to more, hopefully less eventful trips.
-Dave
We arrived at the Donetsk train station around 6 p.m., an hour before the scheduled departure. We have found that most Ukrainian trains that travel any extended distance travel at night. We were able to board the train 30 minutes before departure. We spent the next 13 hours in our compartment in “kupay,” which is the middle class. It has 2 sets of bunk beds in a small compartment. With 5 minutes until departure, we were still alone and, I must admit that I was a little torn about the situation. I thought that it would be fun to have some Ukrainian companions to talk to, yet I did not want to have to think so hard to comprehend every sentence I heard and tried to speak. Two men in their 50’s showed up just in time and, as it turns out, it may have been better alone (although a few days later it seems like it may have been a little fun).
Both were track and field coaches, in Donetsk for a competition. One coach specialized in hammer and the other in javelin. As you can probably guess from their profession, both looked like the stereotypical Russians that dominated American movies of the cold war era (at least the small part that I am familiar with): broad men, over six feet tall with short cropped hair and little to no neck. They got to know each other 30 years ago, when they were athletes in the sports they dedicated their lives to coaching. They must be quite distinguished coaches as one (hammer coach) was in Athens with one of his athletes last summer. It would have been interesting to talk to him more about that, but they were not in a very coherent state of mind.
They had been celebrating the holiday weekend quite heavily. In the past 6 months, I have found the Russian language very difficult to understand, but it is much easier to understand sober Russian than slurred Russian. One coach had been working in Iran for the past year and, in his stupor, was constantly shifting to that language (Farsi). It was quite an experience. These two men seemed like different people (possibly a bit sheepish) in the morning.
We spent our 1.5 days in Kiev mentally preparing for who our companions would be on the train to Donetsk. Our tickets were in the lowest class and everyone that we talked to informed us that that would be a “necessary, cultural experience” for us. We were a bit concerned, but thoroughly enjoyed our time in Kiev.
“Plotzcar” is a bit different from “kupay” in that there are no real compartments. Even though there are bunks, the car is open so they are able to squeeze 50% more bunks per car. Although we had several more neighbors, the ones directly across from us were far more pleasant (and sober) than we expected. Although the one really wanted to talk and especially wanted us to answer the question: “How is life in America?” both allowed us to sit quietly and read our magazines. It was another long trip back and we are still recovering from our night traveling. We look forward to more, hopefully less eventful trips.
-Dave
Monday, May 02, 2005
Easter
Ukrainians celebrated Easter yesterday, again in accordance with the old Orthodox calendar. At church everyone greeted us by saying "Christ is risen" and we were to reply by saying "Indeed He has risen" or something like that. We were clueless at first, but eventually caught on after about the 100th time. Dave and I enjoyed a few Ukrainian traditions, such as eating Ukrainian "paska" (Easter bread) which is a sweet bread with raisins baked in a can (so it's tall) and topped with frosting and colored sprinkles. I also had fun with the make-your-own Ukrainian eggs kit. Pictured above are my "Ukrainian" eggs, which are ordinary eggs with a plastic colored covering. A good alternative to dying eggs.
Laura
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