пятница, вот мой деньги

Пятница вот мой деньги (Pyatnitsa, vot moy dengi) has done it again! We have won the Chernigov Scavenger hunt! Our prize was not only getting to sing our theme song for all of the other Peace Corps cluster participants, but a nice pin and a "key to the city." When I say key to the city, do I secretly mean just that or do I really mean a key chain with the city logo? Only time will tell.

When I arrived in Ukraine, we were assigned to live in Chernigov where we would study Russian with a small group of other Peace Corps volunteers. Here is the mighty group below, with one of our language teachers. Our group has become quite the tight knit cluster. Every day is filled with laughing with and at each other as we try to trudge through the Russian case maze. It's so much fun.

From left to right: Kerry who can not tell a lie, Paul / Mufasa and Markiza, Денис (cough once or cough twice), Jordana без rabies, and Merideni who likes to watch films.

Only in Ukraine is it possible to shake hands with the Director of the city's art museum and sit in his office while he converses in Russian while you nod and admire his polar-bear-like fur couch and African artifacts. Cluster mate Paul and I wandered into the museum, pictured below, for the scavenger hunt and the Director beckoned us to follow him into his office. There, he gave us some magazines, без платна. Of course, I didn't know what без платна meant at the time, but I totally understand now--free of charge! He gave us some lovely books about a previous exhibit at the museum. I think my new favorite thing to do is wander into someone's office and pretend you understand what they're talking about. Give us some credit, though. After all, we did win the scavenger hunt and we did find out that it only costs 2 грн to go to the museum.

We totally learned other things, but maybe we will only understand them later. That's usually how it works, right? I have been suffering from delayed reactions all my life and when it comes to language learning, this means being slightly embarrassed while something is going on and being extremely embarrassed later on, when the "d'oh" moment sets in. Below are some more photos of our day of scavenging, exploring, and meeting so many interesting people along the way.

Art Museum of Chernigov

Meriden and Kerry on the Marshrutka!

Loose Cannons?