post 16 november

questions to be answered---

How much longer is this all-schools-shut-down quarantine going to last?

November 20 will be the last day of the third week of ordered shutdown. Hopefully, that’ll be it.

How big is Chernihiv?

There are lots of public transportation options, you could get lost, and it’s bigger than Frederick, MD, and Gettysburg, PA [my two hometowns!], put together. It is not as big as Washington, DC, or Baltimore. Really, I have no idea about the population of most cities or towns I’ve ever lived in. Here, it’s about 350,000. There are lots of restaurants, some museums, several schools and universities, and many surrounding suburbs, by which I mean villages. Does that help? J

What’s the coffee situation?

This is definitely a tea[-at-the-table] country, and you won’t find people carrying around coffee in insulated carafes or in white and green Starbucks paperboard cups. You will see, however, Nescafe vending machines at various points throughout the city. People buy small, uncovered cups of these drinks, but usually drink them shortly thereafter. There are some cafes—today, I had an Americano, with sugar from Italy—but tea is more commonly served and widely available. My host mother regularly prepares instant coffee for me with my breakfast, as I’ve expressed that I really like coffee, but it’s usually tea with dinner. Plus, if there’s no milk to be had at the moment, or as a treat, she’ll sweeten and “creamen” my coffee with sweetened condensed milk. That’s reallly sweet. On a somewhat related note, milk is mostly sold in small, square bags. That takes a little getting used to. Plus, when you open it, you’d better have a plan for how to use it.

What kinds of recognizable American “institutions” are there?

Chernihiv has one McDonalds, although one of our language teachers recently pointed out to us that he would never call that a “restaurant.” Agree. In Chernihiv, though, I haven’t really seen any other American chains that exist as independent businesses. There’s a store called “America,” more or less, that serves Apple products and consumers. Out front, there’s one of those silhouette statues of an enthusiastic iPod listener, balancing upside down on his hand. There’s also a sign for Sony PlayStation on the wall of a corner store I pass regularly.
In the grocery stores, you can usually buy Fanta, Schwepps, maybe Sprite and Coca-Cola, and sometimes Pepsi. One of the more common brands of water, BonAqua, is bottled by Coca-Cola. Snickers, KitKat, and M&Ms can be found, although sometimes in perhaps different varieties. For example, there are Snickers that I think come with sunflower seeds [really? I said I think so--], and M&Ms come in brown, yellow, or green bags. Yes, plain, peanut, and… ? I don’t know. I just tried some the other day, and I’m still not sure. They tasted a little different, but I couldn’t tell you how or why.

Are handkerchiefs or tissues more common?

There are no tissues in my house, other than the ones I buy myself. Many people seem to have handkerchiefs, but there are small packs of tissues available to buy everywhere. Be careful, though—many of them are scented, and not always with the most gentle scents. A few weeks after moving here, I had a very small cold, and suddenly discovering that the new pack of tissues I had bought was overpoweringly flower-scented did not help. I didn’t feel bad for not having known this from the start, though, as the brand and labels were Polish.

What’s the bathroom situation?

In the city, none of the members of my group have homes with outhouses. That being said, bathrooms in public places may have either western-style or squat toilets. Plus, in many places, to avoid exacerbating the problems of the troubled city plumbing, toilet paper is used and then deposited into a small trashcan beside the toilet. This varies from place to place. In the apartment where I live, no toilet paper gets flushed.

So, what are you doing for your Self-Directed [Language] Learning project?

Okay, so no one really asked this question [why would you?], but I’ll tell you, because that’s where some of my writing time is going.
One project: Keeping a daily journal in Ukrainian. Fabulous tales, clearly, but good practice for all sorts of constructions. Here’s an example: Now it’s fifth hour thirty-six minutes [ie, 5:36!], and today is the ninth of November. Today, I went to the post office, the library and to two stores. I sent two letters from the post office. At the library, I tried to print. It was not good. There wasn’t much paper and there was not much ink, either. Maybe I will print somewhere else tomorrow. Fascinating! Imagine how long it took me to write that in Ukrainian!
Second project: Creating a reference of mnemonic devices for helping me to learn Ukrainian. Unfortunately, these usually just work for specific terms, mainly nouns, and so constructing appropriate conjugations and sentence structures… still in progress. Here’s an example: вхід [vihd] means entrance, and вихід [veehid] means exit. I had trouble remembering the difference between them, since they’re so similar. Now, here’s this—If you go into [вхід] a store and buy something, you’ll carry more [one letter] on your way out [вихід]. Yeah? Works for me. :)