Have a Happenin' Holiday

Hope all of you that celebrate are having a wonderful time with family and friends.

I have successfully completed one whole week here at my new site. I've started meeting the kids, and I forgot how much a small child saying hello to you and making the effort to speak English when it's not their native language can brighten your day. Either way, I'm really happy at the new school meeting new teachers. My vice principal even brought me some delicious home made pickles one day. I feel so very safe and taken care of here. Tomorrow, I'm venturing on my first small travel to a village called Susnivka to visit a volunteer there for Christmas. And hopefully, I'll get back on Saturday so that I can go to another christmas party on Sunday with people here in L'viv.

Part Two: New Adventures of Kari and the modern conveniences she lives without.

Today for the first time in my peace corps service I washed my clothes by hand. yes folks that's right by hand. And I didn't even have a bucket or a tub. I have a platform shower and I washed my clothes right in there. Granted at the moment they're hanging on my radiators and other doors in my bathroom to dry. This was my Christmas Eve accomplishment. So while you all are sidled up next to teh fires in your homes I'm hanging with my fresh clean laundry and a crossword puzzle loving life and missing my family.

Part Three: Where Kari learns about Great Britain via the amazing cultural source that is the 8th grade textbook.

Nothing says I love English speaking culture like reading a textbook about learning English. I always like to see the differences between what I find in my own actual experience and what the textbook describes. This being said the characters in my French textbook in high school were pretty lame. And most of the people I know can agree about their foreign language texts. However, here at my school we have pretty recent books aka published after 2000. I mean let's be honest they aren't the most acurate and they are concentrated on Great Britain but I'll take it. My favourite quote being one describing the differences between the types of bands you listen to and how to tell if you're rap, pop, indie, metal etc. The indie description: you listen to new british bands that not everyone likes. you buy your clothes at a street fair or second hand store (this makes me laugh) the Rap description: You listen to black bands. You wear bright sunglasses and a hat. (this makes me laugh harder). All in all, I probably couldn't encapsulate the essence of those musical and thus cultural styles in a sentence, but I can't help but get a good giggle out of what was presented.

well happy ribbons and decoration and all that. I miss you all ! xx