The kids are back!

Friday, three of Dr. Krsek’s students took me to the symphony (Луганский филармонический оркестр).  The orchestra performed a variety of pieces, some which were familiar to me and others that were new.  Besides Mozart and Rossini, there were pieces by Ukrainian composers.  The performance began with Mozart and ended with a fabulous march.  Every piece was wonderful.  All of the musicians and opera performers were outstanding, and the entire audience enjoyed the performance immensely.  My young companions were equally enthusiastic.  Ukrainian students have fairly broad and mature tastes in music.  They can enjoy both heavy metal rock or opera with equal appreciation and enthusiasm.  A university student might easily have both Metallica and Beethoven's Ninth in his playlist.  Anyway, I definitely want to go back to the symphony and often, as it is rather inexpensive.

Following the symphony, I ate at a Ukrainian restaurant.  I had borshch (борщ) and Olivier salad (салат оливье).  Оливье is a traditional Ukrainian salad of meat (ham, tongue, sausage, chicken, etc.), potatoes, onions, carrots, peas, mayonnaise and pickles.  I’ve had it before in the student dining hall, but I never knew what it was called.  Now, I know.  The origins of the recipe are not completely clear, though it appears to have been created by an 19^th century French chef working in Moscow.  It has since become a favorite Ukrainian dish with special recipes being treasured by Ukrainian house wives.  It almost always served at holiday meals.  I think I am going to make some оливье this week.  I just need to buy some mayonnaise, pickles, carrots and peas.  I would like to buy a Ukrainian cookbook written in Russian.  I know that is kind of odd, but who knows?  Maybe there is such a book out there.

салат оливье at the canteen

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The elementary and secondary students are back in school now that the two week quarantine has ended, so I taught my English class at the school for the deaf this afternoon.  The students seemed glad that we were back together.  We had a good time.  The middle school group worked on the Roman alphabet and simple present tense sentences, while the upper group concentrated on constructing present tense sentences using prepositions and adjectives.  As always, I tried to be as visual as possible using pictures and lots of written models.  My laptop has come in handy here in Luhans’k, as the school is very fortunate to have a projector.  The allows me to develop visual (and hopefully engaging) lessons at home and then use the projector to present them to the kids.  It's good to be teaching the deaf students again.  I've missed them the past two weeks.