Never
did I think there would be a larger language barrier in Europe than
in almost every Asian or African country we have lived in. It’s not
just that we can’t read most signs or packaging, or that we rarely
get to interact with people who know English, but the lack of trying
to communicate. Throughout the past 10 months, I’d like to think we
have all greatly improved in charades and trying to communicate
without speaking the same language; but here that doesn’t seem to
matter very much, we don’t speak Russian, we don’t deserve attention.
Not everyone we met is like that, but multiple times everyday our
only interaction with the Ukrainians around us is them speaking, us
saying, “English,” and them turning the other way.
But
we have learned a couple of key words in Russian, hello, ice cream,
free and thank you. We may have picked up a couple of other words
from the youth that we are working with everyday, but those four
words are basically all we need:)
Jenny, Aimee, Carmen, and Samantha
Jenny,
Carmen, me, and Samantha
much
love
