Babushkas and Ventriloquists
by Stephanie Holt
I’m getting my days mixed up already. It feels like we’ve been here for ten days at least.
So far, I must say that my favorite sights have been the women in babushkas and the marketplace. Especially when it’s women IN babushkas IN the marketplace selling grain, seeds, and flowers. SO CUTE! We talked to them a little bit through our beautiful, wonderful translator and when she found out that we were Americans her face glowed. I wanted to giver her a hug. I wish that I had something meaningful to say about these cute old women, but alas I just love them.
Life here is pretty easy to get accustomed to, actually. And communicating with the girls has been hard, but fun. They boys are easier to talk to or communicate with, but that’s just because they love to push, motion to, and make fun of everyone. We love their jokes, but that may just be because we cannot understand them because our translator says that they are pretty cheesy jokes. Teenage boys must have the same humor here as in the states.
Today a few of us had the GREAT pleasure of participating in their English class and seeing that a lot of the girls know more than they are letting on. We helped them pronounce phrases and answer some questions, including who we were and what we were doing here. ‘Oh, we love God and we love helping people and we want to get to know you!’ – something like that.
We read a little out of a book and a worksheet, just so they could hear our pronunciation and translate it. The only problem is that the paragraphs were boring and hardly made sense. Somehow I do not think that the most productive translations are about scientists eating chickens or talking dogs or ventriloquists. I actually also read a sentence for pronunciation with the word ‘shall.’
And then, at the end of one of the classes, a fifteen-year-old girl, Oksana, wanted to talk English with me, ‘Stepha,’ and Lori. She was quite charming, shy, and spoke English really well. Only once did she have to say: “I do not understand you.” I also got a hug from her friend when she found out I was from America. Oksana then gave Lori and I beaded bracelets, to show our friendship. I think that now it’s time to whip out the colored string and start making those friendship bracelets!
