July 2, 2007

I made a new friend at the Orphanage.

A Kindergarten in Vladimir.

I’m starting to get into a routine in my new life in Vladimir!  I get up at 7:00 am.  Take a shower and prepare for my day.  My host Mom makes me breakfast.  Today, I had blini or Russian  pancakes!  They are my favorite!  You can eat then with sour cream, jam, fish, or whatever.  I enjoy them with cream cheese or just plain.

Yana walks me to the bus stop in the morning.  I think my host family still worries about me getting lost in the big city! 🙂

Once I arrived at the American Home, we had discussions about education in Russia.  Our speaker, Professor Elena Rogacheva, from Vladimir State Pedagogical University, discussed the overview of education in Russia.  She went over the format of the educational system and also elaborated on some of the problems.  The problems are very similiar to ours in the United States such as low motivation of students, drug or alcohol use of teens, family problems, standarized testing, and parent respect for teachers.

We then went to an orphanage in Vladimir.  We brought with us gift bags of crayons, coloring books, stickers, and reading books.  I made a quick friend (see photo above) – he was so adorable! 🙂  It was very difficult to see the children in this environment because the majority of the children are at the orphanage because their parents cannot take care of them.  We were told the reasons vary but most are due to parent alcholism or drug use and the government had to step in and take the children away from the parents. After six months, the children can be put up for adoption and parents sign a paper giving up their rights to their children.  So sad.  I asked the question if I wanted to adopt one of the children, how much would it cost?  I was told the cost would be a minimum of $30,000!  Wow!

We ate lunch at The Hermitage which is located near the home of my host family.  Very yummy food!

After lunch, we traveled to a Kindergarten.  We had an introduction to the Kindergarten and toured the facilities.  We also were able to see some samples of student work.  We saw picture books that the children made based on Russian folk tales.  There was even one book based on Red Riding Hood in Russian!  Unfortunately, it was nap time so we were not able to interact with the children (see photo above).  They looked so cute sleeping! 🙂

We then traveled back to the American Home for a roundtable discussion on education.  It was reassuring to know that the Russian education system has some of the same problems that we have in America.

Andrei picked me up and we went to Natalia’s place of work.  She works for the Italian-Russian Business Center.  I met her boss and her son which are Italian.  They both speak English.  We had a nice discussion about my visit.  Andrei, Natalia, and I then went to the Mall (this Mall is only a year old and looks just like our Malls here in the United States – even has teenagers hanging out!) for pizza for dinner – we ate at SBarro.  We went back to the flat and looked at family photos on the computer.  They showed my family vacation pictures of Turkey and Italy – places I would love to visit some day.  Andrei translated for Natalia – his English is getting better!  He used a translation dictionary whenever he couldn’t remember a word.  Yana’s boyfriend was celebrating is birthday so she was out with him for the evening.

Another late night of wonderful conversations and memories of my visit to Russia . . . . . . . .