The first day of school

Wednesday (yesterday, as I write this) was the first day of school. Suddenly the weather has turned beautiful and warm. The sun is out, the birds singing (the stray dogs barking), and the mud in the streets mostly dry. It feels like summer, or at least spring.

I had 5 classes on the first day: two 8th form classes, two 9th form, and one 7th form. All but the 7th form are my coordinators classes (this means that she usually teaches them, and now we'll be sharing the responsibility). Because she's in Simferopol for a class this week, I taught my first classes all by myself, just me and the students. (Only you never call them students here. Students go to college. Pupils go to school.)

I had decided that the first lesson for each class should be more informal. I wanted the pupils to be able ask me all their questions, since I knew they are very curious about me. I wanted a chance to gauge how well they understand me, and how much English they can speak. This is a very nice idea, but it's hard to implement. They're shy to speak in front of me and, even when they understand what I say, try to reply in Russian. The lessons are 45 minutes long, and for the most part they loosened up by the end. But it definitely felt like hard going. And I'm not sure what they thought of me. I'm interesting, but I'm also more difficult to understand. They're probably waiting to see what happens next.

Today I did not teach; none of my classes were meeting today. (This may change with the schedule, which is under revision. Except at the rate things are moving I suspect the new schedule will never be finished, and things will stay as they are.) I had most of the day free to work on lesson plans and procrastinate.

I also had a meeting with the director (I think) of the town after school Center. I'm actually not sure what this place is called, but it's a center where pupils involved in after school activities have classes. For example, there is a sewing class, an art class, a computer class, a music class, and a dance class.

And there's a debate class. Up until now the debates have all been in Russian. But now I'm here, they want to try and have debates in English. Apparently there are teams in other cities, including Simferopol, that have the English component, and the Chernomorskoe kids are pretty excited to join them. There are two groups here, one for younger pupils (pre-teens) and one for teenagers. The teenagers are about to start working on a new topic. The next debate will be on whether young people should be allowed to "make love," as the pupil who translated for me said.

I have no idea how this is going to work, but it will be fun to find out! Hopefully there's another volunteer out there who is involved in this and can help me figure out what I'm supposed to do.

Hunting mushrooms

So I've realized I talk an awful lot about food. All my letters, all my conversations...food's an issue that always comes up. So I was going to try to stay away from the subject for a while. But I just have to tell you about this.

Ukrainians love mushrooms. And this is not just about eating mushrooms, it's about gathering them. Everyone does it. It's like a national sport, I think. (For example, I have a copy of a Russian version of Goldielocks and the 3 Bears in which Goldielocks goes into the forest to gather mushrooms with her friends, where she meets the bears.) In most of Ukraine people gather mushrooms in the forest. But in Crimea the mushrooms are on the Steppe.

On Tuesday I went with my host sister and her uncle, cousin, and Grandmother to gather mushrooms. We bundled up nice and warm, then drove to the Steppe. Or maybe I should say "drove on the Steppe," since we only paid attention to the roads part of the time.

The Steppe is a huge expanse, a flat forever. I don't know what it looks like at other times of the year (I would guess much the same--it seems like it should be unchanging), but now it is a light brown, like the California hills during the summer. There are stretches of short grass, maybe ankle-high, and patches where there is almost no grass to speak of. The sky was a big, pale blue.

Hunting mushrooms is taking a solitary walk in this big expanse. You stroll, meander, pick a direction and wander. You scan the ground, looking for the smooth brown lumps that are mushrooms. When you find one, you stoop down and cut it out of the ground with a knife. You look underneath. A good mushroom is brown on top and white underneath. If the mushroom you picked isn't brown on top and white underneath, throw it out. If it is, put it in your bucket.

Note to the kids: The above Good Mushroom/Bad Mushroom rules only apply to Crimean Steppe mushrooms. Don't try this at home.

We spent most of the day on Steppe looking for mushrooms. It was a beautiful day, and all of us were glad to be out. But this isn't the best time of the year for mushrooms (autumn is better), so we didn't find too many--only about a kilo between the 5 of us.

Now, as I'm sure you can image, we can't quite eat that many mushrooms all at once. So we canned most of them.

Perhaps you're wondering how to can mushrooms? (I certainly was.) Well! You've come to the right place. It's actually really easy--I was expecting something much more difficult. All you really do is boil them. First clean them, of course. Then boil them for 40 minutes. Add some salt and peppercorns. Ladle them into a sterile jar and add about a tablespoon of vinegar. Seal the jars up and leave them upside-down overnight.

And you have canned mushrooms!

I'm sorry. I think this is all really cool.