Walk This Way

So it continues to snow here in Western Ukraine, and I assume the rest of the country but I am not there so who knows. Snow is beautiful I will grant you, but every afternoon the temp goes up a few degrees and melts some of the snow. And then that night the temp drops and everything freezes and the ten minute walk to school becomes as trecherous a journey as the Oregon Trail.
I fall on this ice all of the time. It is embarassing and this saturday I believe I actually suffered from whip lash after three consecutive big booms. And I wonder how the Ukrainian people have evoloved to avoid this particular humiliation and pain.
So just yesterday I was walking to school behind one of the second or third graders. I noticed that he walked in a very pronounced way on his heels. It made him kind of waddle. I noticed that I walk more on the balls of my feet and maybe that was my problem. So I rock back on my heels and find myself feeling instantly more stable. I procede this way to school. Gingerly, my feet out in front of me and my legs staying largely under my body to keep balance, I looked like a penguin with a groin pull. But I made it to school unscathed. But just as the bell was ringing. Caution is slow.
Other than that things are going well. I will go to Ternopil this weekend (my closest large city) for two days worth of meetings on the International Outreach Camp. I worked at the camp this summer and this year I have a part in planning it and the creative cirriculum. I am looking forward to the meeting, lots of good American and Ukrainian friends will be there to help. And next weekend I will go to Lviv(Ukraines cultural capital and a Unesco heritage site) to celebrate my birthday with a big group of friends. This event is has been dubbed (by me) as the birthday Supernova. We will be celebrating four birthdays that weekend (three of which or on my day of February 18th). I am really looking forward to the next couple of weeks. Tomorrow the director of Peace Corps Diana Schmidt is coming to my site to visit. It is a rountine visit. I am not totally sure what we will talk about. But Diana and her husband were volunteers here in Ukraine about five years ago and her policies have really reflected a knowledge of volunteer life. I have never met her but I like her already.
Thats all for now. I am off to bundle myself up and waddle myself home.