Happy Men's Day

So today, February 23, used to be Red Army Day. In Ukraine, they now celebrate this day as Men's Day. It's a day where men are honored and showered with gifts and compliments. At school, the female teachers all pooled together and bought flowers and chocolates for the male teachers at our school. During the break, students would go to the director's office and leave gifts for him.

The girls in my classes even took it upon themselves to decorate their classrooms in honor of their male classmates. In my 8th form, the girls adorned the room in balloons. There were balloons everywhere. I had to take a whole bunch off the chalkboard because there was no room for me to write. Hmmm, come to think of it, that was probably their plan. Five minutes into class one popped and it scared everyone half to death. One girl squeeled really loud which actually scared me more than the initial pop.

Most of my time outside of school has been consumed by reading Harry Potter. I finished book 5 two days ago and honestly, I'm grateful. I was reading like a crazy person. On monday, I read 700 pages. My sleep stopped being restful because it was full of Hogwarts and magic and wands and people flying on broomsticks. I certainly could have read the books at a more reasonable rate but I have no self control. Jennifer has book 6, but I need a little break from Harry Potter before I can tackle it.

Last Saturday, I spent the night at Jennifer's house. We worked on our joint English club. We spent hours working on our Tuesday lesson. The kids said they wanted to learn about France so we found all sorts of information about it. We made a power point presentation, we made posters, we made little bookmark cards with facts and french phrases. We went all out and then on Tuesday, when we finally had the club, two students came. Two. And one was Jennifer's host sister so she doesn't really count. Oh well, that's just how it goes here.

I can't believe that February is drawing to a close. Of course I'm thrilled because it means one more month of waiting for my own apartment. My host mother has calmed down a lot since I returned from Kiev. She has stopped harrassing me and for the most part, treats me like an adult. I think it shocked her that I was able to go to Kiev and back again alone. I for one, am thankful that she's toned it down. It makes being at her apartment better than just bearable.

Back in Town

So I'm back at my site after a week of peace corps training at a sanitorium outside of Kiev. The trainig was two part: the first part was a Russian language refresher and the second part of technical training (ie: teaching stuff). I could have gone to the Ukrainian language refresher, but my friends all speak Russian so I went to that one instead. I wouldn't say that my Russian is refreshed. I do know a few new words though, and I now understand why I always hear the word "Kak" (sounds like the bird) in Russian speech.

I was pretty proud of myself for getting to and from Kiev. My train left really early last thursday morning. I went into Vinnystia wednesday night and stayed with another volunteer. I took a taxi to her apartment and in the morning I took a taxi to the train station. I got on my train without incident, which was nice. I was nervous because the train only stopped for 4 minutes and I was in wagon number 3. That meant that I had to choose where I stood wisely because if the train came in head first and I was standing like it was coming in tail first, I'd have had to run like a crazy woman down the icey platform.

The morning train is called the Podilsky Express. It had me in Kiev in 3 hours. From the train station, I took the metro one stop to the Peace Corps office. The metro is CRAZY during rush hour and rush hour is pretty much all day. I only had one bag but it was still difficult to get on the metro. First I had to shuffle in a herd of people to buy a token, then I had to shuffle in a herd of people to the escalator, and then I had to shove my way onto the metro and off again after a stop. Rush hour metro in Kiev is like the mad rush to leave Disneyland after it closes at night. It's like the thick crowd that slowly files out and waits for the trams to come. It's absolutly horrible and yet I was too lazy to walk with my one (heavy) bag uphill to the Peace Corps office.

In some ways, I've become very Ukrainian. This is what I was thinking as I was shoving my way ahead of people in line to get a token at the metro. Actually, to be fair, there was no line for me to shove my way to the front of. There was just a big mass of people all trying to get to the same 3 windows. I simply siezed every opportunity to snake my way to the front any time I saw the slightest bit of an opening (and by opening I mean 2 inches of room between people). I did this by using my bag to create space and then shuffling behind it. In America, what I did/do regularly is called cutting. Here, it's the only way to get to the front of a line. If I don't want someone to slip in front of me, I have to stand with my body literally pressed up against the person in front of me. People stand this way everywhere: bank, post office, market, BANK. It's crazy. In America, if someone was standing over your shoulder while you were withdrawing money from the bank, you'd say something, or the teller would tell them to go wait behind the line. There is no line here. Everyone lives close and stands closer. I think that's why there are no secrets and everyone knows everything about everyone.

When I was in Kiev, I saw a volunteer who lives a couple hours from me. Her host brother goes to school in Bar and apparantly plays basketball at the gym every night. She said that he came home to visit his family last week and asked her if she knew the american who plays basketball. She assumed it was me and said yes. I thought it was crazy when word of my basketball playing made it's way across my town to Jennifer's host father, but that apparantly wasn't crazy at all. Crazy is word spreading across the oblast that there is an american girl who plays basketball in Bar.

Being in Kiev was fun. It was nice to see other volunteers and to not be treated like a 5 year old for a week. Yesterday, before we left the sanitorium, my friend Dave and I walked on the Dniper River. It was cool. I've never walked across a river before, let alone a big one like the Dniper. I took an evening train back to Vinnystia and then I took a taxi to another volunteers house. This morning I headed back to Bar, so now I'm back. Tomorrow it's back to the classroom.

The theater

On Saturday night, Jennifer and I went to the theater in Vinnystia with a number of teachers from my school. It was an incredibly interesting, albeit mind numbingly boring, experience.

Last Wednesday, Larissa, my coordinator, asked me if I was interested in going to the theater with the teachers. She said they were going to see a special show featuring one of Ukraine’s theatrical stars. I asked her if she was going and she said, “Oh Sheryl, of course.” It would be a relatively inexpensive affair organized by the director of my school. He was chartering a bus to take us all. It sounded like an experience so I agreed to go and asked if I could invite Jennifer. This was of course, no problem.

On Friday, Larissa asked me if I still was going to the theater. I said, “Of course, aren’t you?” She said no. She said that it was too expensive; that the tickets were now 55 hryven (on top of the 12 hryven for the chartered bus) and that was just too expensive for her. Now I was expecting the tickets to be 25 hryven so I was a little shocked myself. I thought that 55 was a bit much to be spending too. I told her I didn’t think I could go if it cost 55 hryven either. She seemed pleased to hear this and walked off. A little later, another teacher asked me if I was still going. I told him that it was too expensive and he looked puzzled. He said, “30 hryven isn’t too expensive is it? There are even a few seats available for 15 if you like.” This was news to me. I told him that Larissa had said the tickets were 55 and he looked even more puzzled. He went and asked the director just to be sure and he came back and told me that Larissa was wrong.

At that moment, Larissa walked into the room, saw me talking to Sasha and came running over. He told her the tickets weren’t 55 hryven, but 30 or 15 depending. She elbowed him and said, “No, they’re really expensive, I asked.” Sasha said, “No they’re not.” Larissa elbowed him again. I just stood there looking at her with an expression on my face that most likely said: why are you so weird? I SEE you elbowing him. I’m standing right here. In the end, it turned out Larissa simply didn’t want to go so she made up a story about the tickets being too expensive. She thought she had to go if I went so she told me a tall tale. I still wanted to go and I told her that she didn’t have to come. She was relieved.

I went to the director’s office and bought two tickets. My director has a small shrine to Yushenko in his office. He has two small orange flags that hang next to Yushenko’s portrait. I didn’t really think much of it at the time. I simply bought my tickets from him and said, “See you tomorrow.” I went to Jennifer’s house and showed her the tickets. It was then that I noticed the tickets were stapled to a small orange flier that read, “Our Ukraine.” Our Ukraine is Yushenko’s party. We looked at each other and laughed. Apparently, I had unwittingly bought us tickets to a political fundraiser. Not only that, but the tickets we had were in the seventh row of the theater. We weren’t just going to the theater, we were going to the very front of the theater.

We figured we couldn’t get in trouble for unwittingly going to a political fundraiser with the teachers from my school. After all, I’m supposed to be integrating into the school community. We caught the bus at 4:30 on Saturday afternoon. It was a slow bus and it took us more then an hour to get to Vinnystia. When we got there, Jennifer and I only had time to grab some tea and pastries before the show. When we finally went inside the theater, we checked our coats and found our seventh row seats. In retrospect, I wish we hadn’t checked our coats because the theater was freezing.

The show lasted a little more then two hours. There was no intermission (no time to go grab my coat back) and no acts. It was just steady dialogue with random scene changes every now and again. There were four actors in the play: two women and two men. One of the women was older and the other was younger. They had equal roles in the play. Both the men were older. One of them was a main character and the other played all the other roles: conductor of the symphony, waiter at the restaurant, guard at the museum, pedestrian who walked around stirring his tea. I’m still not sure what the play was about seeing as it was all in Russian and all dialogue. The show’s special effects included a loud machine blowing “snow” down onto the stage a couple times and pre-recorded tracks of music for the “conductor” to “conduct” to.

It was very boring to sit for over two hours in the freezing theater straining to hear and understand what was going on. (Oh yeah, there were no microphones. I doubt people in the back could even hear.) Still, it was an interesting experience. When the play was over, everyone stood and clapped. Rather than a normal applause, people clapped in unison to show their approval. When the actors were taking their bows, people from the audience would run up on stage and give the older woman flowers. She must have been the star. She ended up with heaps and heaps of huge boquets.

I never thought a night could be equally boring and interesting, but I'd never been to the Ukrainian theater. At the very end, a representative from Yushenko's party got up and droned on and on. Everyone clapped again in unison and then we headed home.

**I should say for the record that I don't support any one political party in Ukraine. I support the people's right to choose for themselves the leaders that will best serve them.