Day 58 Back to Lithuanian Class

https://picasaweb.google.com/118279613107347865536/StreetCleaners?authkey=Gv1sRgCL2ojuOQoYvSlgE

The ladies in these pictures are in charge of keeping our street and the little square spotless.  They all appear to be older than I am, but perhaps that is because they have worked so hard in cold and heat, while I whined like (worse than) a baby when our levy failed and teachers started having to do playground duty  in weather that was abusive.   Interestingly enough, we only had one woman shoveling snow each day, but we had three today doing the sweeping.  I wonder why?

Speaking of abusive conditions, my first job in Akron was as a "trailer lady" in three parochial schools.  Those not from Akron won't know that the city bought trailer sized pieces of land right outside church school doors so they could provide services to the students without violating the separation of church and state laws.  A little boy at one of the schools always called out "Hey, Trailer Lady" when he saw me.  Any how, I was horrified at the weather those children were sent out in that winter.  I figured the rumors I had heard about nuns being stern were correct.  Then I moved to public school and discovered that all teachers in Ohio sent kids out in weather that was  fit for neither man, woman nor beast.

Today in Lithuanian class, we worked more on declining nouns.  What a task.  I know people say English is difficult, but "oy" or "oi" as they say here.  I think that probably means "aye, aye, aye, aye."   Not only do you have the cases, all the nouns have gender reflected in their endings.   For example, (This is) Amerika. ( I am from) Amerikos.  (I live in) Amerikoje.

 I still feel sorry for "the boys", as Lilya calls them.  They can carry on a conversation with her, and we are just fumbling along.  I would feel pretty good about our progress with vocabulary if we were 2 1/2, but we're pretty much at the one word utterance or learned phrase stage.

We have heard that the article for which we were interviewed was in the paper today.  They are bringing a copy to English class tomorrow.  I just hope we ended up sounding as happy in LIthuania as we truly are.