We felt like Royalty

Don...


Yesterday, the director of the orphanage asked Rocky and I to go visit the high school located down the road and have a meeting with several of the teachers. There is a short break in the schools going on right now because of St. Nicholas Day. All the teachers gather together for meetings from the region. Since the Director of the orphanage and his wife are both teachers in the system here, they asked us if we would be willing to meet/greet and speak with the English teachers from the region we are visiting.
This was a very cool experience.


The driver arrived exactly on time to pick us up. When we arrived at the school we were greeted by the grandmaster of the school and her assistant. It was obvious that they were both excited and nervous. They rarely see Americans in this small town. This is a very poor town by typical small-town American standards. To our hosts, we must have been perceived as either wealthy, or very well off people from America. We didn't realize it at the time, but we were really being treated like royalty. Once we got back to the orphanage, we felt as though we just walked the red carpet. 


We sat in front of the classroom in two chairs as about 18 teachers sitting at the student's desks asked us questions. One of the first questions had to do with the salary of American teachers. After answering, Rocky returned the same question back to the same teacher. We learned that the starting salary for a teacher in this region of Ukraine comes to about one $1000.00 a year. The schoolmaster makes approximately $400.00 per month ($4800 p/y). They also told us that this was nearly the same as a doctor makes here. Rocky was surprised and asked them how they live on that. The schoolmaster response was "we just survive."

English Teachers in Ukraine

We answered many question about school in the United States and also about the attitude of the students in our country. They were interested in grade levels, college, and our trade schools. I think we did pretty well until they asked how we liked the classroom.  I made the comment that the class we were in looked like a room for kindergarten kids. Then I remembered we were in the high school. Sometimes it's just better if I just don't talk.

Tea and Snacks. They were so good I had to push them away.

After the meeting they invited us to have tea and snacks with them. For obvious reasons, Rocky did most of the talking. We were really treated like VIPs. Once we sat at the table for tea, there were many more questions. Something they are really hoping we could/would help them with is setting up some type of program where a teacher from this region would come to the United States and observe American classrooms.  Keeping in mind that they have very little money (not enough even for the plane fare) this idea of theirs, would need to be supported by Americans and American teachers who would be willing to help pay for them to come. They all told us that it would be a dream come true if they could visit our country.

Aside of that experience, the rest of the day was like what Rocky said, "Groundhog Day". We went to the market and bought a few more clothes for kids here. We bought more tangerines and apples, and spent time on Skype connecting families in the United States with the kids they are hosting or kids they know.

Roman the chef

Oh! I forgot that Roman helped me make macaroni and cheese. It was a treat to have something really different.