I've been sick this week so I've stayed home from school and kinda started missing the kids. Maybe I'm crazy but they're the best. I miss their hugs and the funny things they say. I was looking at some of my videos and picked out a couple of my favs for you.
They love them some "Call me maybe".
Z was pouting in the corner because he thought he didn't have friends......but boy was he wrong.
Happy Halloween! Halloween isn't traditionally celebrated in Lithuania, though people know what it is. Some of the younger kids are starting to pick up on it. Anyways we figured we'd have a party since we are an English class and all....gotta teach some culture. I was a bird and Stevie faux hawked my hair. I was the best looking bird around. Well, there was one of the students' little brothers that didn't think so. He's about 1 or 2 years old. He came walking happily around the corner until he saw me with my mask on and I just saw the terror register on his face and then instant tears. So some Lithuanians are still coming around to the idea of Halloween. We got lots of confused, upset, amazed stares while walking to and from school.
But, we let the kids know that they could dress up and bring some food cause we were having a P.A.R.T.Y.
I was pretty skeptical about if any of the students would actually wear a costume....and if they'd even get the concept. But they got it. And their costumes were legit. They put my bird hair to shame. We had a feast of treats and the kids loved it and it was the best. I think Lithuania has some hope yet of bringing the Halloween notion around. Our work here is done. Mission accomplished.
This week we took a short train ride to a memorial site in Paneriai out in the woods, just outside of our city, where there were mass killings during WWII.
Here there's an estimated 100,000 people that were brought, lined up and shot, put into mass graves, and then later burned to hide the evidence.
There were 4 or 5 large circles areas like this where people were shot and buried.
This was where they burned the bodies to hide the evidence towards the end of the war. They used this bridge to carry the body and dump into the middle of the fire.
They had a little museum area with stories and pictures that were horrifying to see. But its one of those things where your stomach churns and you're in disbelief but you can't look away. I read of diary where someone wrote just about every day "4 or 5,000 brought in today. Shots were heard in the woods for 8 hours straight" "women and children" "sick and elderly", etc. We also read an account or 4 or 5 men who were brought to the camp and were put on the job of burning the bodies. They were to stay in a bunker at night and were highly guarded. They talked about how, in an effort to escape, they start tunneling out each night. They ran into lots of problems along the way like keeping the top from caving in and not having enough oxygen down there. But all of them managed to escape after a few months of digging. That was an amazing story to read.
It was such a beautiful place in the woods with a peaceful feeling despite the terrible things that happened there. The hardest part to imagine is that it didn't happen that long ago.
We all know about the more famous places like Auschwitz, but there are camps like this all over Lithuania and other countries as well. They're just not as well known. We were at this memorial all by ourselves. It was even really hard to find, I tried to google the site to see how to get there and there just wasn't hardly any information about it. I know there's probably so many people that live just 10 minutes from this place and for whatever reason, haven't visited. We're going to Auschwitz in a couple of weeks and as heavy as that sounds, I'm so excited for that opportunity.
On a lighter note, we had awhile to kill waiting for the train to take us back to the city so I took a video to capture the moment.
-the hair on those legs. is it a man? is it a woman? what? at least they're being waxed. that's the moral of the story Europe.
- walking innocently down the street and suddenly being quacked at by a grown man. he thought it was hilarious when all three of us ducked for cover. good one.
-my new found talent is pulling the handle off of every door that i try to open. i guess we could blame that on the screws to the handle not being quite screwed in but....it always happens to ME so that excuse is questionable. and going to walk out of my bedroom in the middle of the night to pee and the handle coming off = a bad situation. and being IN the bathroom (which is the size of a tiny coat closet) and being successful at taking that handle off as well consequently trapping myself.....well that's just an awkward story of its own.
-our shower curtain. first of all it sticks to your body if you come within 4 inches of it. my butt has been suction cupped to that thing more times than i'd like to confess to my roommates. second of all, when water and steam build up in the bathroom (as would naturally happen during a shower) it loses all its strength to stay on the wall. those showers where i'm standing there and it just drops to the floor, those are my favorite. and then having to shower hugging the wall so that i don't get water all over the place, that's also my favorite.
-walking into a room and accidentally (but confidently) saying, "thank you!" instead of "hello".
-ignas, one of the students, stripping in class. he just loves it. yesterday i told him if he took his shirt off one more time he would get a strike (if they get three strikes during the day they don't get a prize at the end so its a big deal you know?). well i felt like stripping was a strong enough offense to receive a strike. so in the next class he's begging......"teacher pleeeeeease, i this? (motioning to take his shirt off), one more time??"
-noodles and carrots and hot dogs for breakfast. 99% of the time we get some kind of porridge or cream of wheat sort of mush for breakfast but on the days when they bring out noodles and cut up carrots and hot dogs i just think....really?
awesome
-how nicole's hip do not lie while she's leading the milk song in this video;
-when the students are actually understanding us. it's hard for the new kids to come into a classroom where the teacher isn't speaking one word in your own language and neither are the other students. but when they pick up on something, its glorious. armandas, one of the students is new. he's been in class about a month.
so every day we go through the rules and the students have to repeat them. one day when teacher jaclyn was going through the rules she says "rule number 2, eyes on the teacher". he stops her and says, "what's your name?" jaclyn responds with her name and then armandas repeats the rule back to her as, "eyes on the jaclyn!" he gets it! after one month! love it.
-getting mail. feels like christmas.
-i went running the other day, as i've been trying to keep up while i'm here. it started raining while i was own a side road a little bit outside of the main streets area. an old woman stopped her car and asked if i needed a ride. i opted to keep running but she was very concerned. not sure if her concern was that i was running in the rain or just that i was running at all.....either way, she had my back.
-just about everyone that is able to has a garden and a green house. one of the parents of our students brought us apples picked from his tree.
-figuring out how to watch the office online since netflix doesn't work here. that was a happy day for me. my nonstop office marathons shall continue.
-figuring out imovie. i'm currently working on both a video of my china trip and a video of the lithuania trip. this is going to be good.
-riding bikes. i forgot how much i love it. so santa.....my current wish list is a hair straightener and a bike please.
A little history lesson for those of you that don't know much about Lithuania. Or what continent its on. Or that it even existed. Listen up because this country is lovable.
In 1989 Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined together to form a human chain of about 2 million people from capitol to capitol to capitol known as "the Baltic Way'. They did it as a peaceful political demonstration to the world of their pro-independence desires from the Soviet Union and their unity as the Baltic countries. Powerful. Yep. And today I got to stand where the chain started.
The demonstration wasn't loved by pro-socialists of course. Days after the event, the communist party made this statement:
"Matters have gone far. There is a serious threat to the fate of the Baltic peoples. People should know the abyss into which they are being pushed by their nationalistic leaders. Should they achieve their goals, the possible consequences could be catastrophic to these nations. A question could arise as to their very existence."
But, 6 months later, Lithuania was the first of the Soviet states to declare independence.
These people are so strong and the more that I learn, the more that I love.
The land of many languages.
We walked up Gediminas' Tower that is basically the last thing standing from upper castle in Vilnius.
Yes, I have been wearing the same scarf in every photo so far. Don't worry bout it.
So those Russian dolls are scary in large quantities, yeah?
We sat outside for lunch which is one of the cutest parts about this place. There's always cute little tables for everyone to eat outside. Buuuuut......it was freezing so I ordered some hot chocolate. It came out as literally hot chocolate. Melted chocolate. Only in Europe would life be amazing with a bowl full of melted chocolate. They also brought us out blankets to keep us warm while we ate. Cute cute cute.
Check out this guys' impressive line of crazy cat paintings. I think his inventory was like 90% cats and 10% scenes of Vilnius.
After talking to him for a little bit I got sucked into buying a piece of art that is too big to fit in my suitcase. That'll be fun getting home.
Just to clarify, I got a landscape, NOT a cat painting.
And to sum it all up....I LOVE Vilnius. It's official.
