Strawberries

Strawberrys!
So I am going to try and supplement this entry with a video- I will *try* and record myself speaking some Ukrainian (and of course English) so I will also *try* and keep this short.
Let’s see, what to update you on? I have my LPI (Language Proficiency Test) on Wednesday. So yes, back to some serious cramming! (Which, by the way, is a hard word to describe- we asked our LCF if we could cram at her place the day before and she did not understand and then we had to explain it, and well that was entertaining!). Yesterday one of our Link Group members went back to the States, her mom had a stroke and needless to say she was needed there. She is hopefully going to be able to return to UA when everything is taken care of and добрий again. But please send up a prayer for her mom, her and her family. After XCultural I went home to meet up with my host sister and go swimming with her- which included a 40min walk to the river (I have a special blurb about this here in a minute) and dang was it worth it! Swimming! It was epic and awesome and my muscles are happy again! Then a nap was in order followed by volleyball and Frisbee with my LCF, neighborhood kids and one of my cluster mates. And of course, such is my life now! And that was not even the end of the day. Coming home, I helped my mom make Strawberry Vareniky вареники з полуницями. Which is the most delicious dessert that was served for dinner ever! Essentially it’s dumplings filled with fresh strawberries and sugar, steamed then served with sweetened sour cream. Scrumdidlyumtious! Hehehe. Yes, there will be pictures!
Now for my blurb about going to the river:
I have determined that it is essentially too easy to forget how large this world is. With internet, communications and education being what it is, it is possible to think you understand how large the world is and then even when you go to the far reaches of the globe you can still communicate with the other side (hence this blog). But understanding how large the world is and where you stand as a single tiny entity is almost unfathomable. I used to think of some smaller cities in the States as the “middle of nowhere” and even when I came out here to live in my tiny little village, I still felt that those cities and my village were the middle of nowhere. But when my sister and I were walking out to the river yesterday we take a little dirt path off the side of the road for part of the walk. And I just stopped and looked around. The only sign of mankind was the tiny dirt road we were standing on. I turned all the way around and I saw wild grass and flowers with trees and the clearest blue sky for a background. 360 degrees of nothingness, in the middle of Ukraine, outside a village of 1500 people. That, is the real definition of being in the middle of nowhere. Stunning beauty though. I wish I could have taken a picture, but it was beyond capturing on my camera (My clustermate’s camera does panoramic shots though and he took a few). And standing there, in the definition of the middle of nowhere, I can barely start to understand where I am and how far away I am from everything I have ever known and lived. I love it!