Air Stewart
Activities
By Bradley Servais, University of Minnesota

There are many sports, which are available for us to participate in here at LSAU; table tennis, volleyball, aerobics, weight training, and basketball. Fellow student Jared Stewart has become a prominent member of the university’s basketball team. Jared walked into the basketball team’s practice about six weeks ago, and has worked his way into their starting lineup.  He practices with the team on Monday and Wednesday nights for about two hours.  He has made many new friends through the basketball team and it has become a common practice for him to go out with the guys after a hard nights practice.

   We sometimes walk up to the gym to catch the end of his practice, and we usually find a sweaty red-faced Jared who is running low on fuel and has the jumps of a guy weighted down with a ball and chain. I’m only joking of course. This week the team will be playing its first games of the season against some of the local university teams in Lviv and we plan on watching Jared and the rest of the guys come away with a win.

Jared goes for a shot!

   Crash! The sky is falling!  Oh wait, it is just icicles falling from the roof.  The snow is finally melting and spring may have just sprung.  All around us we are seeing the signs of spring.  The only problem is the mess between winter and spring.  We walk around trying to be aware of all the puddles and the falling icicles from the roofs.  The few mishaps, thinking a puddle is only 2 inches but is really a foot deep, can determine a good or bad day.  We only hope it happens on the way home instead of the way out.  There are areas where puddles seem to span around till there is no way around them, but with each passing day the puddles seem to get smaller and smaller.

   It took us awhile when we arrived in Ukraine to get used to the snow and now we don’t want to say goodbye to it.  So we got our last fix of the snow in a glorious snowball fight.  Of course, with such a rowdy group, we all ended up wrestling and throwing snow down each other’s backs.

Brad thinks he is tough

   We were so soaked when we came back to the dorm; our Ukrainian Moms were very concerned.  They kept asking us if we were cold and what happened.  It was so sweet.  Of course, we’re all fine and ready to embrace the warm air of the coming spring.

   One of the most important things anyone can do is to help their fellow man.  Recently, we have viewed one of these kind outreach acts.  The excursion was to Tradehouse, an agricultural producer and retailer of mineral fertilizers, fuel, seeds, and consulting.  When we first arrived we met a man of many great achievements here in Ukraine by the name of Mr. Volodymyr Oleksandrovech.  Mr. Oleksandrovech’s kind acts were many; including being the first to setup an education center in his building where they teach local farmers and students new technologies.  This program is in conjunction with Lviv State Agrarian University to help maintain up-to-date technologies in Ukraine.  Special test plots have been established locally to help with demonstrations of proper procedures as well as to provide an area where the students can practice their newfound knowledge.  These test plots are harvested and their yields sold to help funding.  Mr. Oleksandrovech is also a businessman and sells his products at fair and reasonable prices.  He is one of the few people who provides credit, as well as up front cash.  In Ukraine this is very risky.  There are very few companies that use credit systems.

   In the education area of the building they have many brochures and diagrams they give the students to help them remember and for reference in the future.  Although most of his work is in just one region of Ukraine, Mr. Oleksandrovech has hopes to establish similar facilities in other rural regions.

Enjoying Tradehouse enterprise!

   For these acts the Prime Minister has awarded Mr. Oleksandrovech for his work with the Golden Badge and a certificate from the Ukrainian Agrarian Society.  It was a pleasure to meet him and visit his company to see the methods used to teach so many people to become successful and prosperous in their agricultural affairs.

A Toast to Women
Culture
By Lynn Weikert, Penn State University

 One of our friends here at LSAU relayed a Ukrainian proverb to us that goes something like this:
“Be quiet women, you have March 8th!”

   March 8^th is an international holiday: Women’s Day. It’s a wonderful holiday. Women are essentially pampered and celebrated all day long. My first thought upon learning of this holiday was “How nice…a whole day to celebrate women!”  After experiencing the familiar Valentines’ Day here in Ukraine on February 14^th, I was confident it would be an enjoyable day. It turned out to be just that: enjoyable and most of all memorable.

   Prior to Women’s Day, a curiosity for me was just exactly what women do on this holiday. To this day the question, “What do you do for Women’s Day?” remains unanswered. I have been able to gather an idea from actual experience and a few questions answered by the females in our classes at the university. One such female, Nataliya Andrusyk -third year student at Lviv State Agrarian University- described her March 8^th day and accompanied the description with a lovely smile. Her smile was indication enough for me that Women’s Day in Ukraine is quite well spent.  Along with the females from the group of some sixteen other students she studies with, Nataliya received little gifts from the males in her group. Each woman, she explained, received little ceramic bears and flowers. Flowers and chocolate are also typically offered throughout the day. In fact, Nataliya even received flowers and chocolate from one of our fellow American students. It seems to be the case that a female will rarely turn down good chocolate or a beautiful bouquet of flowers.

Randy knows what women want on Women's Day!

   A good three days before this wonderful holiday, I received a small bouquet of little snow drops from the father of one of the Ukrainian students we study with. I later learned that these types of flowers are typical and appropriate for this particular occasion. The following day I received a similar small bouquet and couldn’t help but feel special knowing this was to celebrate me- a female…a woman! When March 8^th finally arrived, I was expectant and most of all curious. The males were busy for what seemed like all day in Lviv finding just the right flowers and arrangements for all the women they hold dear to their hearts. How sweet!

   March 8^th just happened to be not only a day to celebrate women but to celebrate the birthday of Ukrainian second year student Oksana Boyarchuk. This was obviously a great opportunity to toast to women and especially to Oksana. If only this international holiday was celebrated all over the world!

By Brad Servais, University of Minnesota

   Since our arrival here in Ukraine, we have all been studying Ukrainian language with the help of our instructor Olga Ishchenko. Olga has been a faculty member at Lviv State Agrarian University since 1989, and she is a senior teacher in the department of foreign languages.  She is also the head of international relations here at LSAU. Our study of the Ukrainian language first began with two weeks of intensive study, and it has since changed to two three-hour sessions every week.

   Our class has been enjoyable.  Olga has moved away from teaching us out of a book to a more practical method in which we are learning the basic vocabulary to communicate well enough to go about in Lviv, order food, introduce ourselves, and tell a little bit about ourselves to others. Olga makes class fun and always adds vocabulary that will be useful to us, one example being our lesson the day before Valentines Day, which included many words of Cupid. She was also very helpful to Jared and myself before our trip to Kiev.  She taught us words to help us get our train tickets and to book a hotel room there.

   Our classes typically begin with Olga asking us to tell her about what we did during our time off.  We then go into the day’s lesson plan. It is often funny to be in our class. Olga sometimes gets so into our class discussion that she mixes our names up, while addressing us. One day I was lucky enough to have my name changed from Brad to Brandy.  She had just been talking to Randy and then she addressed me and somehow Brad and Randy were combined and I became Brandy. It was a laugh for everyone that day, and it is still something we joke about. In addition to Olga being a great teacher, she has been very helpful to us in many other ways, and we will all miss her when we return to America

Surviving Ukrainian language with help from Olga!

Questions? Comments? E-mail Us!