tonguetwisters

August 4

This morning, Eunice fed me scrambled eggs with buckwheat and parsley. It was really interesting. She also gave me an article to read on the nutritional qualities of buckwheat, which has been a staple in the Russian diet for a thousand years. You should try it sometime.

Today I replaced the cleaned mailboxes and the mail, reorganized it to the tastes of my “boss,” the lovely and amazing elementary principal, Christiana. I finished the bulletin boards, sorted office supplies, updated library inventories, printed and stuck labels, etc.

My favorite part of the day was meeting Tomas, one of the maintenance workers at the school. He loved to chat with me and teach me things in Russian and try out a couple of English words on me. He tried to teach me a Russian скорогово́рка (tonguetwister) in the morning (Карл у Клары украл кораллы, а Клара у Карла украла кларнет) something about clarinets and carbuncles, so, later in the day I told him Peter Piper and my favorite Spanish tongue twister. He told me that earlier, the score had been 1 to 0 him, and now it was 2 to 1 me! He made me write them down so that he could read them. He also explained the adage of how you can never lose three pine trees and how it's better to always say that you're “so-so” when someone asks you how you are to be sure you won't get worse and won't get better, you'll just stay the same.

Penny, who spent 6 months last year working at the Christian school in Madrid, also came to school today. I tried to have a conversation with her about Spain versus Russia, but she had fallen in love with Spain. She said that in Spain, everyone's happy, it's always sunny and life is easy. I'm not sure what part of Spain she was in, but...