Here they are! ( well, most of them...)
I could not have asked for a more motivated and focused group of students. They rock! Today we played alot of 'get to know you' games and did some preliminary planning for our December show. To say they are excited is an understatement of epic proportions. We worked for two hours. They wanted more. When I asked what days and hours I should come, they said " Every day, all day!" We really had a blast.
Some are more outgoing than others, but all of them are incredibly intelligent, gracious, well-spoken and motivated. After class, about ten of them walked me to my bus stop! Can't wait for tomorrow...casting begins!
On a completely different note...things have gotten a bit spooky at 2 Vessenya Street, For the past week when we wake up in the morning, there are 4-7 cigarettes lined up at our front stoop.
There is no way for anyone to enter our building but the ten families that live here. We have a code and special magnet to get in. So it is someone in the building. Yesterday I got really angry about it, and I yelled in the hallway in Russian " WHOMEVER IS LEAVING CIGARETTES ON MY DOORSTEP...STOP!!!" I was loud. Then we finally ran into one neighbor and asked her if she were doing it. It was obvious she had no idea what we were talking about. but she did say that the tenants in our apt before us were chain smokers who littered the hallway with butts. " Maybe someone in the building thinks the old tenants still live here.." She said. That actually put me at ease. Someone smokes in our hallways every day and leaves a mess. Guess another tenant thinks its us. I'm posting a note on our door tonight to correct them. " WE DO NOT SMOKE." Hope it works...
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| Gross. |
Great group of teens! I had a feeling they would want you "overtime". When you mentioned how hungry they are to learn, my first thought was that 2 hours is way too little time for them. What an outlet your being there is for them! Great job! When is Anya joining you? She can at the very least meet some new friends!
ReplyDeleteWow!! What a beautiful bunch of kids!
ReplyDeleteSounds like they love you! :-)
We were moved by your stories on facebook over the summer. We hosted 2 from Ukraine and it led to us adopting them ... and hopefully reuniting them with their 2 siblings. Your stories of Dasha touched our hearts, especially the puppy-love she felt for the gorgeous black man you posted photos of! Our little one felt that for a Ukraine chaperone who came over with the hosting program. God bless you for all you're doing in Russia.
ReplyDeletethat is gross that someone lines those up on your step. feh!
ReplyDeleteas for your shakespeare kids... best of luck and break many legs! what play will you do with them???
Wow, it's a gorgeous long-hair epidemic in Siberia! Oh, for just a bit of that hair.....and I can't even say what ecstasy the Locks of Love people would be in to get hold of some of it! :-)
ReplyDeleteLooks like you have your hands full! I can't imagine Dasha being better off at an orphanage for Christmas, but I suppose someone might be thinking of the emotional swing she'd experience being with you and having to leave again. But as hard as that might be, it's still better to create a golden memory to be treasured, even if it has painful sides to it for a while. At least that's what I think. My prayer always is that God brings about what is best, and I'll keep right on doing just that.
Actually, those cigarettes remind me of the sort of thing I'd do when I was [a lot] younger.... not cigarettes, but odd little "messages" that were intended to bring "mystery" into someone's life. A girlfriend actually inspired this idea, and we'd do it together. For example, one overnight we spent hours finding all the letters (that is, letters characters wrote) that we could in various novels; we copied them out and sent them to random people in the phone book. The literary teen's version of a prank call? I occasionally worry about those; some of the letters were rather dramatic, as I recall.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it is the former tenants' gentleman friend? She might have given him the code and magnet?