Winter Adventures
Well, we've actually had quite a bit going on over the past week! The first week after our last post had a lot more of the same, with language study being unremarkable and our lives just going along. Thus, I put off posting for a bit, but this past week we've actually had enough of interest to merit a new post.
Let's start with a Bolivian meal, and we'll save the big news for last:
One of my favorite foods in the whole wide world is the Bolivian dish of salteñas. They're like these little pockets of meat, olive, egg, and spices, and about the best thing ever tasted. The problem is that they take massive amounts of spices unavailable in central Siberia as well as loads of time and effort. So Bobbie doesn't often break down and make them.
However, as a special treat, she fixed up a batch (the recipe we have makes 50!) for me last week. This is only one tray out of several. Just looking at this incites me to inappropriate lust for food. ;-)
In other news, it was Bobbie's birthday last week as well. I'll let you ask her how old she is now (but I still have to point out that I'm younger). Her and our friend Erin went to the fanciest restaurant in town for lunch (about $6).
For supper, our friends watched our boys so that I could make Bobbie a special meal. I had intended to get all gourmet, but due to lack of ingredients ended up making steak, baked potatoes, and roasted peppers. I think she liked it, though.
So, what is the big news alluded to earlier? Well, we've managed to make an arrangement to go out and live in a village on a regular basis! Some of you know that we've been trying to/thinking about doing something like this for some time, but it just hasn't worked out.
The problem has been to this point that it's difficult to get time with the people in a natural T cultural context in town. People might invite us over for dinner, but even that is fairly rare and we just don't spend that much time immersed in the language and culture. All of our study is in our office with our helpers, which makes things somewhat artificial.
No longer! Our coworkers left today for their stay out in the sticks, and when they come back we'll replace them, and then take turns. It will hopefully be a really good environment for our culture and language studies, and we can provide a benefit to the people there as well by teaching English in return.
We'll be teaching English at the school shown above. The school is actually one of the "national schools" which run in the T language, so there won't be much Russian influence there, which is good for us. The people in town during our visit spoke little Russian, so there will be a lot of good opportunities for us to be in T situations.
Below is the kindergarten where the kids will go. I think we can get both boys in there, which would be great as it would free up Bobbie in the mornings and get them more exposure to the T language, which we're hoping they'll start learning.
One of the best things about this opportunity is that we'll be living with a T family. Our host teaches music at the national school, and has a place where we can live in their living room. Basically, the kids will sleep on the floor and Bobbie and I can fit onto their futon/couch-thing. Or vice versa, maybe, I guess we'll have to see. Anyway, this is taken outside the house with David and I and our host (in the white sweater) and a few of the people from the school.
This is their back yard! We will get lots of chances to see how to milk cows and take care of sheep and that sort of thing. They even keep chickens in a basement below their kitchen floor! The only thing I'm worried about is getting sick - I don't relish the thought of constant diarrhea (which seems to plague all of us when we eat T food) in an outhouse at -40. But overall, it should be really good, especially for our language acquisition.
So that's it! Please be thinking of us in the upcoming months, and you can start thinking about our coworkers and their kids right now (they left a few hours ago to take the first "turn).Here's a picture of the boys in some cutesy Russian outfits Bobbie got somewhere, for the grandparents:
