Straight From The Camel's Mouth

Pictures From Picking Mushrooms in the Woods

2007-12-11T15:29:00.000-08:00

In October, I went with Roma and his parents to the village to gather wild mushrooms. We went to Roma's grandparent's house and then climbed aboard his grandfather's horse drawn carriage. Actually, carriage makes it sound too fancy. It's really more of a wagon. Regardless, grandpa took us far out into the woods. We spent the day gathering. The first picture is from the wagon. The second is a bunch of mushrooms. The third is me with Roma's mom, Nadia. And the last picture is just me and my bouquet of mushrooms. It was a great day.

Pictures From My October Trip to Uman

2007-12-11T15:14:00.000-08:00

Back in October, Roma and I took a trip to the city of Uman to visit Sophiavsky Park. As you may recall, we unwittingly arrived in Uman on the "Day of the City." Both the city, and the famous park, were packed with people. There were no rooms available at any of the hotels in Uman so Roma and I saw the sites quickly and then caught a bus back to Bar. It was a long day. Note Roma carrying my black bag teaming with apples...

Pictures from the Summer Shotgun Wedding

2007-11-30T09:29:00.000-08:00

In July, my friends Serioga and Mariana had themselves a shotgun wedding. The wedding, pulled together in under a month, was a two day affair. The first day was the official ceremony and big reception with some 100 people. The second day was the church ceremony and a smaller reception at Mariana's house with just close friends and family.

(For a full account -- or just a refresher -- of the wedding and its customs, see the post titled Hot Days of Summer.)

Pictures Featured Here:

1. Serioga and Mariana (signing up for the ball and chain) inside the city building.

2. Family and friends outside the building after the deed is done.

3. Me, Sash and Alona with the bride and groom at the reception hall.

4. The best man drinking a shot of vodka out of the bride's "stolen" shoe.

5. Mariana customarily kissing bread held by her mother-in-law.

6. Traditional Ukrainian wedding bread.

7. Mariana, now a woman, holds her veil on the heads of all the single gals as they dance. Does this single gal look familiar to anyone?

8. Roma and the maid of honor crossed dressed and acting like an old married couple on the second day of the wedding.

9. All the friends gathered around the "old married couple." Please take a moment to look closely at "his" crotch.

10. The boys hoisting Mariana and Serioga up in the air on a bench. They hoisted until Serioga "paid ransom" (in this case a bottle of vodka...no real surprise there).

Old Camping Pictures

2007-11-23T19:48:00.000-08:00

Here are some old pictures from the summer. In July, on what turned out to be the hottest weekend of the summer, my friends and I decided to go camping. Things didn't go so well. It ended up being so hot and miserable that we only lasted one night.

The first picture is of the boys in the lake. They took a small wooden boat out fishing and, due to the enthusiasm of their singing, drinking and rocking to and fro, managed to sink it. The lake wasn't so deep, so they were able to wade their way through the mud back to the shore. It's hard to see, but they were able to save the vodka.

The second photo is of me with Alona, Anya and Sasha. We were sitting by the campfire drinking, shashleeking and suffering the mosquitos.

The third picture is of me and Alona sitting around the "table."

The fourth, and arguably best, is of Roma as he "tried out" my sleeping bag before we left.

Some Pictures

2007-11-22T13:49:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures from the last few weeks in Bar. The first is Dima wearing the funny glasses that I gave him. The second picture is of me, Roma, Sasha and Alona with Sasha's brother and his friend. We were invited over to Sasha's parent's house to eat pigeon. While there, we engaged in arm wrestling competitions. It was cold.

Gearing Up

2007-11-07T04:45:00.000-08:00

It is snowing in Bar today. It's snowing and it's cold and I have a little more than a week left here. Suddenly my life is very surreal.

Last night I went over to Olga's house and had dinner with her parents. Olga, of course, is living in Arizona, studying as an exchange student, and wasn't able to make dinner. It was all right though; I figured she'd be a no show.

My dinner with Anya and Victor was the first of what will soon be many good-bye meals. Friday night I'll be gathering together my best Ukrainian friends for one, final vodka fest. True, I'll still have a week in Bar, but I don't want to have my going away party at the last minute. It'd be too sad. So I'm having it on Friday, at the restaurant Alyanc, while I still have a week to go.

Saturday, following the vodka fest, I'm going to the village with Roma and his family because it's time to kill the pig. I can't really think of a more culturally appropriate thing to do this close to departure. I will not, mind you, be helping or participating in the slaughtering of the pig. I plan to stuff my ears with cotton balls, bury my head under a pillow, and turn the TV up real loud. I've heard the death screams of a pig before and suffice to say, it's not an experience I want to repeat.

However...

I have also tasted the meat of a freshly slaughtered pig and it was downright delicious. Downright delectable. Downright an experience I'll gladly repeat.

Don't judge. You'd like it too.

In other news, it's really no fun moving when you're doing it all alone. Packing, moving, cleaning that final time are all things that I've historically done with friends, or parents. (Good times, right guys?) However, here, I'm flying solo, and for two reasons. One: As nobody I could possibly sucker into helping me has ever flown, let alone moved long distance, they really aren't much help. It takes a lot longer to tell people what to do than to just do it yourself. And two: It's sad, I've found, to pack, or talk about packing, with people who don't want to see me go. So it's a solo act this time around.

The cats definitely know that something is up. Well, that's not true entirely. Klitchko definitely knows that something is up. Phoebe seems relatively oblivious. A few weeks ago, both cats had themselves quit the adventure in Kiev. It was their first time outside my apartment and they were troopers. I took them to the state clinic where they got their rabies shots, their microchips, and their kitty passports.

Due complications with ticketing, I won't be able to bring the cats with me on the plane, so I'm shipping them to San Francisco a day or two before I leave. The logistics are still being worked out, and it'd be a lie to say I'm not stressed out about it, but I know that it'll all work out. No matter how stressed out I am about packing, leaving, saying good-bye, getting the cats home, getting myself and Jason home; no matter how overwhelmed I find myself in the here and now, the truth is that in 14 days, I'll be back in America.

And that truth, in the here and now, is utterly surreal.

Ukrainian Top 5

2007-11-02T03:43:00.000-07:00

Top 5 things I love about Ukraine

1. The singing.

One of my favorite memories of living in Bar is being at Sasha and Alona's house. It was Dima's second birthday and everybody significant to him had gathered to celebrate his life. Both sets of grandparents were there, as were cousins, aunts, uncles, godparents and friends. We sat around the table eating and drinking to his health, to his success, to his happiness, to all the goodness awaiting him in life. Towards the end of the evening, as often happens when lots of alcohol has been consumed, everyone started singing. Dima sat on the couch clapping his hands and smiling and I sat at the table trying my hardest to make the moment stand still. I love it when they sing and their voices blend together and it's so beautiful I want to cry. I love that the library of songs is inexhaustible, that everybody knows all of them, and that they have been gathering and singing around the table for generations.

2. The people.

Ukrainians are really good people. They are generous and caring. True, many a Ukrainian has driven me nuts these past two years; but none purposely or knowingly. I was on the train going back to Vinnystia after being in Kiev with my cats and I was sharing a coupe with two middle aged women. First, one snuck me a piece of chocolate. Then the other slid me an apple. Then the first gave me a banana. Then the second offered me some salami. It was very Ukrainian. No matter how much or how little they have, they will always offer it to a stranger.

3. The language.

As challenging as it has been, I have really come to love living in another language. There is something very amazing and beautiful about communicating with someone in their native language. I was at the store buying fruit yesterday when the saleswoman asked me if I was from Poland. No, I said, I'm American. She looked at me, smiled and said, "You're American? And you speak our language? That's wonderful." And it is.

4. Shashleeking.

Nothing beats rounding up all your friends, heading to the woods and having a BBQ. Nothing beats sitting around a picnic blanket, drinking vodka, eating meat, playing soccer or cards. Nothing beats looking around at the rolling hills and seeing a herd of cows off in the distance. Nothing beats a Ukrainian shashleek.

5. The cultural moments.

I love that Ukraine is Ukraine. It's not America, it's not Russia, it's not any other country. It's distinctly itself, and I love it. I love the cultural moments that result from it. Two weeks ago, I had my end of service medical exam. I was shocked, and a bit aghast, to learn that I have gained 17 pounds since coming here. When I told Roma, he responded: "That's great! See how you gained weight in Ukraine!" Later, Roma said to his mom, "Guess how much weight Sheryl has gained in Ukraine?" And later, his mom told Oksansa, and Oksana told her boyfriend. Just this week, as we sat around a dinner table with a bunch of friends, Roma nudged me and asked, "How much weight did you gain in Ukraine?" And then proceeded to tell everyone my news. I had to smile to myself because it was one of those cultural moments that is so not American, and so worth the smile.

Soon

2007-11-02T03:17:00.000-07:00

Jason flies over in 18 days. That's pretty unbelievable, 18 days. He was originally flying out to help me get my cats home but due to extenuating circumstances, the cats will be shipped early. So now, Jason is flying out to help get me home. And truthfully, I'll need the help. It's going to be really hard for me to leave.

I love Ukraine, and Bar, and living here. My experience has been amazing and remarkable, this last year in particular. And the truth is, though I'm ready to go back to America, I'm also really apprehensive. More apprehensive I'd say, than I was about coming to Ukraine.

Two years ago, when I was getting ready to join the Peace Corps, I had no idea what I was getting myself into; but I at least knew where I was going. The scariest thing about leaving here is that I don't know, specifically and concretely, what will be. I hate not knowing.

I worry about readjusting to life in America because I haven't just volunteered in Bar, I've lived in Bar. I have friends. I have family. I have Roma. I have so much to be thankful for and it's going to be really sad to leave it

Signs, Omens and Birthdays

2007-10-11T02:17:00.000-07:00

I've never been one to look for signs or omens or to think in terms of lucky and unlucky. I do, after all, own a black cat and he regularly crosses my path. With the exception of the time he set himself slightly on fire by jumping up on the stove, nothing bad has happened. So when my key got stuck in the door early, early Saturday morning, effectively locking me inside my apartment, I did not think: bad news, bad sign, can't take this trip.

After yanking and twisting and cursing, I got the key out of the door and headed over to Roma's house. His mom fed me a hearty breakfast of mashed potatoes and fried turkey.

"Do you want an apple for later?" she asked as we were getting ready to head out the door.
"Sure," I said, "I'll probably want an apple later." And with that, she shoved six apples into my bag.

The plan was to catch an early bus to Vinnystia where we could catch yet another bus to the city of Uman, one oblast (and 3.5 hours)away. Uman is the home of Sophiavsky Park, the most famous park in all of Ukraine. I have heard about the beauty of Sophiavsky Park since I first moved to Ukraine two years ago and have always wanted to visit it.

We had originally wanted to visit the park with our friends Sasha and Alona, but plans with them kept falling through and so Roma and I decided to take the trip ourselves, before all the fall leaves fell.

Roma and I decided to make a short trip of it. We would get into Uman around two o'clock Saturday afternoon, find a hotel, drop our bag off and then head to the park and spend the rest of the day walking around. Then, Sunday morning, we'd get back on the bus and head back to Vinnystia.

So stood the agenda when Roma and I and my bag full of apples left the house early, early Saturday morning. While we were waiting for the bus to Vinnystia, it started pouring down rain. It rained and rained and rained all the way to Vinnystia where we caught a bus to Uman.

Now if I were an omen kind of girl, I probably would have thought: key + torrential downpour = stay at home. But, I'm not that kind of girl. And so on we went to Uman.

Three and a half uncomfortable hours later, we arrived in Uman. As the bus was coming into the city, I scouted out signs for hotels.

"I saw a sign for a hotel back there," I said to Roma after we were off the bus.
"Back where?" he asked.
"Back there," I said, waving my arm wildly in the direction the bus had just come from.
"Well, there are taxis here, why don't we just take a taxi to a hotel," he said.
"Why take a taxi when I saw a sign right over there," I said again, waving my arm even more wildly than before.

And probably more because he wanted to stop my crazy arm waving from drawing any more attention to us, Roma gave in and we started to walk.

"See," I said, pointing up and feeling smug, "A sign for a hotel"
"A hotel that's a kilometer away," Roma responded.
"Well, that's not that far. Let's just keep walking," I replied.

And so we did. Roma and I and my bag of apples kept walking. In the distance I heard the sound of a parade, but didn't think anything of it. I was too focused on finding the hotel and being right to concern myself with any festivities that might be taking place.

Unfortunately, our walk to the hotel took us farther and farther away from the town. We were standing on the edge of civilization with no hotel in sight when I finally had to say,

"Well, maybe you were right. We probably should have taken a taxi to a hotel. We don't want to stay someplace in the middle of nowhere."

And with that, Roma and I and my bag of apples walked back.

Once in town again, we grabbed a taxi and asked the driver to take us to a hotel.

"That's going to be hard," he said, "Today is the city's birthday and I've never in all my life seen so many tourists."

It was true. It was the Day of Uman and literally thousands and thousands of people from all across Ukraine came by the busloads to celebrate the city and visit the famous park. We couldn't get a hotel room at any of the seven hotels located in the city nor could we rent an apartment for the night as I often do in Kiev. Nothing was available. The city was flooded with people. Of the 365 days in the year, Roma and I picked the single worst day to visit Uman.

The taxi dropped us off at the center of town where we made a last ditch effort to get a room for the night. But everything was full. I was frustrated and disappointed and though it made no sense at all, furious at our situation. I had, in short, a case of MFF (Mahaffey Family Fury). MFF is the sudden, inexplicable flare up of unnecessary anger or fury over matters beyond ones immediate control. It subsides as quickly as it flares up so long as the afflicted party is not egged on.

"What are we going to do?" Roma asked innocently as we walked past packs of happy people holding balloons and eating popcorn, "Are you listening? What are we going to do?"
"We're not going to talk for five minutes," I snapped, "Got that? Five minutes. In five minutes we'll talk about what we're going to do, but for now, I'm just angry."

Five minutes later, MFF gone, we decided to visit the park and then try to get a bus back to Vinnystia -- if there was one.

So Roma, I and my bag full of apples headed to the park. It was a beautiful park. There were lakes and fountains and flower beds and waterfalls and rose gardens and grass fields and trees in every lovely shade of Autumn. It was the most beautiful natural space I'd seen in Ukraine.

Roma and I walked around taking pictures and squeezing our way through the crowds of school children on class trips. And though we had but two hours to walk around before our bus left for Vinnystia, Roma and I and my bag full of apples had a lovely time.

Once back in Vinnystia, we had to call our friends to come pick us up because there were no buses to Bar. We waited for them in a pub where we drank beer and laughed about our luck and the fact that Roma and I and my bag full of apples probably should have seen the signs.

End of September Check-in

2007-09-26T01:30:00.000-07:00

September has raced by. Things are pretty good. My schedule at school is fairly relaxed and I have a lot of time to start doing the little things necessary to move. Things like going through my books and deciding which ones I'm going to lug back to the peace corps office for other volunteers to read, and which ones I'll just donate to my school.

Things with Roma have been good, most of the time. Each week has had its ups and downs, which is to be expected I suppose, when a departure date looms. Truthfully, I'm not sure how much longer he'll be able to keep seeing me. Each week seems to get more and more taxing for him. We'll see. I love him and I just want to be able to part of friendly terms.

Most of my focus these days has been on getting my cats home. This will involve a trip to the vet mid-october. Sharece has agreed to help me get my cats to Kiev when the time comes. It should be interesting.

The most exciting news of late is that I have a plane ticket home. My brother will arrive in Kiev on November 18th. We will spend the 19th and the 20ths seeing the sites, and then on the 21st, we fly home.

I know that I'm leaving very soon, but it still feels far away. There are so many loose ends for me to tie up at my site, and so much paperwork for me to fill out for peace corps. I can't believe that I've been here for two years. It's all very surreal at this point. Past that, I don't really have anything to report. I just wanted to check in say that things are going well and in LESS THAN TWO MONTHS (!) I'll be back in the states.

Hot Days of Summer

2007-08-02T06:15:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks have been HOT. The weather has finally cooled off, but for awhile, it was really, ridiculously hot. There were some days that were so hot that literally everybody stayed inside. Bar was a ghost town. Today the weather isn't so bad. In fact, it's rather nice out.

This past weekend our friends Mariana and Serioga got married. The wedding was a two day affair full of eating, drinking, and dancing. Weddings here are very different than weddings in America and it was, to the say the least, an educational experience. Among the differences:

1. In the morning, the groom and his family go to the bride's house because the groom must buy the bride from her parents. (Roma best be saving his Benjamin’s!)

2. The two then get into separate cars. Family and friends pile into other cars, all of which are decorated with balloons and streamers. They then drive in a procession to [the equivalent of] city hall. This is a noisy honk-fest. (Except if you're stuck in a car that doesn't have a working horn, like I was. In that case, loud techno music blasting from the speakers substitutes for the horn)

3. After the civil ceremony, everyone went to the park. It doesn't have to be the park though, just someplace outdoors and "in nature". There we drank two bottles of champagne and ate some chocolate. The bottles were then tied together and thrown into a tree, where they hang from a branch symbolizing...something. Well, that's what’s supposed to happen at least. In this case, the best man missed the tree branch and shattered the bottles on the cement.

Highlights from the reception include:

1. The bride being stolen mid-way through the afternoon by the grooms friends. She is taken someplace, by car, and the groom must find her.

2. The bride's shoes are stolen by the best man. Later, he must drink a large glass of vodka from the each shoe. (The glass is placed in the heal of the shoe. The vodka is not, as I initially thought, poured directly into the shoe)

3. The groom's mom takes off the bride's veil. She then puts a white scarf on the brides head to symbolize that she is now a woman. The bride then dances with every single girl at the wedding holding the veil upon their heads.

4. From time to time, everyone starts chanting 'horka! horka!' This means that the bride and groom have to kiss. Not just a peck mind you. They have to kiss while everyone counts and if the total is less than a count to ten, they get heckled.

Weddings are a two day affair. The second day there was a ceremony at the Orthodox church followed by a smaller reception at the bride's house. The second day was more fun, in my opinion, than the first.

Among the traditions from the second day:

1. A guy and a girl are snatched away. They return cross-dressed as an old married couple. It's very comical. Roma, because he is such a good sport, came out dressed like an grandmother. He was wearing slippers, an old black dress stuffed with sweaters, and a white veil that was his 'wig'. His face was made-up with badly smeared purple and pink makeup. His counterpart had a drawn on beird. She too had her shirt stuffed so that her stomach appeared large. Hanging from her pants was a carrot and two onions. I'm not sure why they do this, but it was really funny, especially because the groom's 50 year old aunt kept grabbing the carrot and squeezing Roma's sweaters.

2. The parents of the bride, followed by the parents of the groom, followed by the bride and groom themselves sit on a bench. Friends and family then thrust the bench into the air over and over until the parties agree to pay some sort of ransom.

In all, the wedding was interesting and fun. Unfortunately, it also gave me, Roma, and our friends food poisoning, but I'm told that it's an anomaly. Wedding don't always equal food poisoning-- only when they happen during the hottest days of summer.

***

Speaking of the hottest days of summer, A few weeks ago, when the heat wave was at its strongest, my friends and I decided to go camping. We went to Sasha's grandmother's village about 30 minutes from Bar. Just outside the village was a large lake with many small islands. We set up our camp on one of the islands.

The first day was fun. We got there in the late afternoon and the weather was cooling down. The boys fished, the girls swam and, as the sun sank lower into the horizon, the mosquitoes feasted. The next day was really hot, probably around 115 in the sun, and we found ourselves in a bit of a pickle as we hadn't brought enough water. The guys went into the village to buy some bottles, but were turned about from the ONE store because there was a wedding in the village the next day and all resources -- including mineral water -- were being saved for the wedding.

When the guys came back without water, we figured we probably were going to have to pack in up and head back to Bar. Then Sasha got an angry phone call from his mother. Apparently there was rumor flying around the village that we'd come to the lake to kill geese. Funny, since there were no geese at the lake.

Anyhow, at that point, we figured enough was enough: it was hot, we were low on water, and the village had turned against us. We packed it up and went home. As it turned out, it was a good thing we did. Sunday was the hottest day on record. Roma and I spent the whole day limp on the couch in front of the TV. I took three cold showers and I still was miserable.

***

Darcy and Matt are coming to visit me. They get in on Monday. We're spending the night and Kiev and then we'll head to Bar. I'm so excited to see them I can hardly contain myself. I'm also excited for them to meet Roma. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

Finally, the Update

2007-07-06T04:34:00.000-07:00

I really need to blog, but I haven't blogged in so long that I don't even know where to begin. A lot has happened in the last month: my parents came to Ukraine, Roma dropped a boiling tea kettle on his naked foot, Jennifer came back to Bar for a visit, we celebrated the fourth of July with fireworks and hamburgers, and Roma and I got engaged.

I'll work backwards.

Roma asked me to marry him and I said yes. We'd spent a really great day at the river with our friends. In the evening, we returned to Bar and were all sitting around a table at the park drinking beer, eating dried fish, and watching our friends' children play when he leaned over and whispered in my ear:

"I love you. I want you to be my wife and the mother of my children. Will you marry me?" It was a bit of a surprise, I'll have you know. Not a total shock, but a surprise.

Anyhow, to me, it was romantic, and sweet, and I'm smitten, so what else could I say but yes?

***

Perhaps because he will soon be a resident of the USA, Roma took to celebrating the fourth of July with vigor. He insisted we make hamburgers for our friends and drink beer because "that's what Americans always do in the movies" and Roma wanted to celebrate like "true Americans." And so, in the spirit of being "true Americans", after we ate, we went across the street to the stadium and played baseball. Unfortunately, the weather was against us and the game was called short on account of rain.

My old site-mate Jennifer and her sister Stephanie are in town visiting. In the evening, they came over with a homemade apple pie and we all waited out the rain. It finally subsided around 11:00, and we went back across the street to the stadium and set off fireworks. It was fun.

***

I've been really busy since my parents visit and since I got back from Budapest. While I was away with my parents, Roma dropped a boiling tea kettle on his foot and burned the top of it badly. He's fine now. His foot has scabbed and he's back at work; but for about a week and a half he was housebound and in pain and in my charge.

In that period of time, he discovered peanut butter. I don't know how many peanut butter and honey sandwiches I made for him, but I'm certain the figure was in the double digits. He'd never tried it before, and after he tried it, he immediately got on the phone to Sasha and Alona and said, "You guys have to come over and try this stuff!"

***

My parents' visit was great. We had a wonderful time. I was worried that it would be awkward for them, but it ended up just being fun. They really liked Roma and Roma really liked them. It was while my parents were here, and with their blessing, that Roma and my engagement became official.

Of course, their visit wasn't without its share of drama. Within two hours of being in Kiev, my dad was pick pocketed on the metro. He didn't lose much cash, and we were able to cancel all his cards immediately, so it was okay.

Our adventures included a trip to the sauna, a trip to the forest, an "excursion" around Bar, and yes, a meeting with Katia "the crazy lady" who was my host mom my first three months in Bar.

Katia's third question to my parents: "When do Yulia and I get to go to America?"
followed by: "Where's Jason?" and "What does he do?" and "How much money does he make?" and "Isn't my Yulia pretty, doesn't Jason want a girlfriend?"

You get the picture.

More later on my parents visit, the engagement, and Roma and my plans for the future. For now, my apologizes for taking so long to blog and a renewed vow to be better at keeping in touch.

Time to Fetch my Parents!

2007-06-08T01:26:00.000-07:00

In a mere matter of moments, I am heading to the airport to collect my parents. I'm so excited that I can barely sit here and type this. Their flight gets in at 1:30. The plan is to come back to the Peace Corps office, drop off their bags and then spend the afternoon walking around Kiev. In the evening, my friend Vadym is going to pick us up and drive us to Bar. Tomorrow we are going to have dinner with Roma's family. Then we're going to go to the sauna. On Sunday, we're going to shashleek in the forest near my friend Alona's village. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we'll relax in Bar. Wednesday night we will take the train out west to Lviv. We'll spend a day walking around Lviv and then we're off to Budapest. They leave from Budapest on the 19th and I'll take the train back to Bar. That's the plan at least. I can't wait. That's all for now though, because IT'S TIME TO FETCH MY PARENTS!!!

Finally, Some Photos

2007-06-08T01:06:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from the last few months. The first picture is Roma and his sister Oksana. Roma is wearing the Laker's jersey I got him for his birthday and a medal he got for playing basketball when he was younger. He fished out the medal specifically for this photo.

The second picture is me and Roma holding our shashleek meat. It took awhile for the meat to cook so it was dark by the time we ate. During the day, we enjoyed nice weather and, as you can see in the fourth picture, the boys played cards.

The third picture is me with some of my friends. We were at the park in Bar. The last photo is of the cemetary in Roma's grandmother's village. On Easter we went to the cemetary and placed flowers and food at the grave of his relatives.

Heat Wave

2007-05-24T04:12:00.000-07:00

Well, school is wrapping up. The last official day is Thursday, the 31st, though really, it's just a day to have class parties. My last official day of the 2006-2007 school year will be next Tuesday. Monday is a holiday, (the Ascenion of Christ) and Wednesday I never have lessons, so that leaves me with two more teaching days. There's a happy thought.

We've had a heat wave here in Bar with the temperature hovering in the high 90's. This is rather unheard of for Bar this time of year. The heat wave usually comes in July or August, and that has lots of people talking. Rumours are going around Ukraine that there was a radioactive explosion somewhere in the country and that's why things are so hot. You can't exactly blame Ukrainians for being suspicious, Chernobyl and all, but Peace Corps has assured us that radiation levels remain unchanged. It's simply hot. No foul play. No conspiracy. And sadly, no AC. Thankfully I have a fan.

***

My favorite class is my 7A (NOT to be confused with 7B, they're a nightmare). On Tuesday we had our lesson outside, under the shade of an old tree. The class is all girls who LOVE to practice speaking English. They are my only class where I can speak entirely in English and be understood. They are my only class where it is difficult for me to get an English word in edgewise. They're fantastic, so on Tuesday, when the classroom was suffocatingly stuffy, we ventured outside.

We were standing in a circle tossing a ball around and asking/answering questions. They were happy. They were enthusiastic. Things were going along smoothly. Then about two thirds of the way through the lesson, things got a little wacky. Out of nowhere, and with no warning, a bird pooped on poor Marichka. It got her on the left shoulder and forearm. She squeeled and made a beeline to the bathroom. It took about 5 minutes for laughter to subside.

Marichka was a good sport about it. She laughed and then proceeded to twist every question thereafter to somehow include the answer: And I would kill all the birds!

Summer and Skirts

2007-05-16T04:57:00.000-07:00

Summer is almost here. The weather is warm, the trees and flowers are in bloom and my students are as disinterested in English as they've ever been. I understand, I was a student once too, but it's annoying as a teacher.

I'm getting very excited for summer, not just because I'll have no school, but because my parents are coming in June. I've been busy planning for their whirlwind tour through Ukraine (Bar, Lviv) and Hungary (Budapest).

***

Last wednesday, the 9th of May, we celebrated Victory Day. It's one of my favorite holidays because it is all about remembering the victims and the heros of World War II. In the morning, I joined the teachers at my school in a parade through town. There were hundreds of people in the parade. We walked through town to the first of two war memorials. Each organization walking in the parade put flowers at the foot of the statue. Then we walked to the park and put flowers at the war memorial there. There were speeches and songs and it was all very nice.

The weather was bad last wednesday: cold, rainy and very windy. Yet there were still festivities in the park. There were kiosks with food and drinks and ice cream and cakes. People picnicked despite the bad weather. My friends and I spend about 30 minutes in the park before we threw in the towel, opting for the warmth of my apartment.

***

Since the 9th, the weather has been lovely, hot even. Roma and I often meet our friends at the park and spend the evenings outside. Last week I had the misfortune of sitting down on a bench that had just been painted -- blue. I had a comical blue bench mark across the rear of my favorite black skirt. I wasn't alone. My friend Alona also had blue bench marks across her jeans.

Try as I might, I was unsuccessful in getting the paint out of my skirt...so I gave it to Roma's mom and let her work her magic. She managed to get the blue stains out by washing my skirt in gasoline. As you can imagine, I was thrilled. Now I'm just working on getting the gasoline smell out of the skirt. I fear that by the time I'm done with this task, I will have washed/gasolined my poor skirt to death. We'll see.

Apologies and Cat Pills

2007-05-07T04:14:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged in forever and I do apologize, especially to anyone waiting on the edge of their seats to hear about my basketball tournament. I realize that recently I've been really bad about blogging and sometimes weeks will go by and I'll write nothing until my mom finally says to me, 'Sheryl, are you ever going blog again?!'

I apologize.

The "regional tournament" was rather anticlimactic, especially since I didn't end up playing. Turns out the girls tournament was for those ages 12 to 17. Not exactly my age bracket. I'm not entirely sure why the coach invited me to play in the first place. He either thought I was much younger than I am -- which is flattering, I think... -- or he really didn't know that the tournament was for young girls. Regardless, I didn't end up getting to say "Get outta my kitchen!!" like I'd planned.

Roma and the guys we play basketball with during the week did play though, and they won. Big. I believe the score of their first game was 125 to 53 and the score of their second, 116 to 27. They're going to Vinnystia this weekend to face other "regional winners." So that means this week we have serious practice, not just open gym.

In other news, Pheobe became a woman. She's gone into heat on two seperate occasions forcing me to take drastic measures and put her on the pill. Locating kitty birth control was an adventure in and of itself, let me assure you. I knew that the pill exsisted, I just didn't know where to get it. But one morning, after a sleepless night of frantic, heated furniture rubbing, I made it my mission to restore peace and tranquility to my apartment.

I went to a pharmacy close to my apartment. I said to the woman: I have a cat and I don't want her to get pregnant. Do you have a pill for this?

She said no.

I went to the central pharmacy, the biggest one in Bar thinking surly, surly it must be there. I said to the woman: I have a cat and I don't want her to get pregnant. Do you have a pill for this?

She looked at me kinda funny and said: No. This is a pharmacy for people. You want to go to a pharmacy for animals.

She told me the animal pharmacy was near the bazar, but she couldn't be specific. I headed towards the bazar, stopping at every pharmacy I considered "near the bazar," asking for kitty birth control. The answer, and the funny look, was the same:

No.
No.
We only serve people.
No.

I did, in the end, locate the animal pharmacy proving that trial and error, and a general disregard for feeling foolish, works. (Now might be a good time to note that there are a bazillion pharmacies in Bar. I don't know why. There just are.)

Roma's family finds this story incredibly amusing. His mom has laughed and retold it several times. Apparently, the fact that I went from pharmacy to pharmacy asking for cat pills and miming pregnancy is...well, funny.

Easter

2007-04-13T01:27:00.000-07:00

I celebrated Easter last Sunday with Roma and his family. We had planned on going to the village and spending the night with his grandparents Saturday night, but that didn't happen. I can't say I was all that bummed either. I love going to the village, but I almost always have to pee at least once in the night and, well, it's a treck to the outhouse.

So Saturday and Saturday night were spent in Bar. Friday, in the day, I went to Vinnystia and met up with Sharece and Sandy. Sandy had invited Sharece and I to go to a Ukrainian Cultural Museum and make Pisenka, traditional colored Easter eggs.

The three of us arrived at the museum around eleven o'clock. Inside, women were already hard at work making Pisenka. (And by women I mean three ten-year-old girls.)
We joined them at a small table and started working on our eggs. Pisenka are made every year at Easter time, traditionally by women. Also, traditionally, when you make Pisenka, you are supposed to think only peaceful, good thoughts. So we did. Or at least tried.

Making Pisenka requires using an archaic looking tool, much like a stick with a tiny, tiny metal funnel on it. Using this tool like a pen, you heat wax over the flame of a candle and then draw a pattern or design on the egg. Everywhere that the wax touches remains the color of the egg. After drawing a pattern or design, you put the egg in dye, starting with the lightest color you wish to use. When you remove the egg from the dye, you then cover with wax everything you want to remain that color, then you drop the egg in another dye. You pull it out, cover with wax everything you want to remain the second color and so on and so forth. It's very tedius, but enjoyable. In the end, when the egg is covered with wax and you're done adding color, you hold the egg over the flame and wipe the wax off with a clothe.

We were at the museum making our eggs for nearly three hours. Midway through our Pisenka session, a group of school children came to the museum to watch and learn about this traditional Ukrainian art. In the blink of an eye, we found ourselves swarmed with kids, eyes all watching our every move. We were the "experts" working on our craft. Yes, us American "experts" (along with our ten-year-old couterparts) demostrated for these school children how to make Pisenka. It was pretty funny.

In the end, I made two eggs. They weren't as perfect as I had imagined in my mind, but they're nice. In all, coloring Pisenkas was really fun, and a veru nice way to spend the day.

With my Pisenka in hand, (or mor acurately delicatly wrapped in a plastic bag), I returned to Bar ready to celebrate Easter. I told Roma that I really wanted to go to church. I didn't go to church last year. In fact, I don't believe I did anything to celebrate Easter and if I recall correctly, it was depressing.

Early Sunday morning, at 5 o'clock, Roma, I and a basket of special Easter meats, cheeses, eggs and breads, went to church. There were hundred of people at the church when we got there all standing outside with their baskets of food. Everyone stood in two orderly, perpedicular lines that faced each other. These lines wrapped around the church and into the street, like a cue line that never moved. Everyone had their basket on the floor with a lit candle sticking out. As it was early, and still dark, this made for a very beautiful, very moving sight.

We waited with our basket for about thirty minutes for the Priest as he slowly walked the lines blessing people and their baskets with water. He walked by and blessed us and our basket of food. He was followed by women from the church choir singing songs a capella. The songs were beautiful. After we'd been blessed, we went back to Roma's house and waited for his parents to wake up.

Around 9 o'clock, we headed for the village. In the village we ate (a lot) and drank (a little) with Roma's Grandparents and his Uncle. Then we went to the cemetary. There were many people in the cemetary and, as always, it was bursting with the vibrant colors of floresent fake flowers which people had left on graves. We went to the graves of Roma's great uncle, great aunt and great grandparents. At each grave we too left fake flowers. We also stopped for two minutes to place speacial Easter bread and easter candies on each grave. I had no idea what to expect during our visit to the cemetary. I thought perhaps we would spend a fair chunk of time there, but as it turned out, we didn't. This is how our 10-12 minute visit went:

We walked to the first grave. Nadia layed down a napkin (which, to be specific, was a Christmas napkin that said 'Feliz Navidad') and placee the food on the grave. This food consisted of Paska, a special cake they bake only on Easter, a handful of individually wrapped chocolate candies and an orange. We then stood by the grave, for a minute or two, until Nadia collected the food and we moved on to the next grave, repeating the process. At each grave, we left a cup of water, a single chocolate candy and, of course, a bouquet of vibrantly colored fake flowers.

After the cemetary, Roma, his parents, his grandparents, and me all squeezed into the Lada and headed for another village to visit their cousin who had just had a baby. (And by just, I mean 5 days earlier.) It was a pretty funny sight, me, squeezed in the back seat between Nadia, and Grandma AND Grandpa. (Though to be fair to your visual image, Grandma was riding on Grandpa's lap.) We spent a few hours oogling over the baby and eating (a lot) and drinking (a little) and watching (uncomfortably enough for me and Roma who are NOT talking marriage) his cousin's wedding video. (A two tape set!)

We dropped Grandma and Grandpa off at the farm around six and returned to Bar around seven in the evening. Roma and I then went to visit his Godson, Dima, and our friends. We ate more and drank more and ate more... I ate so much on Sunday that I'm still full.

All in all, Easter was a nice day. It was nice to go to church, even if it was different than what I'm used to. It was nice to spend the day with a family, even if it wasn't my family.

Tomorrow I'm going to Vinnystia to say goodbye to my friends Sandy and Eric. Their service is up next week and they're returning back to the states. It's always sad to say goodbye to volunteers, but I'm happy that I got a chance to know them and I'm happy that they finished their service successfully.

Next weekend I've been invited to play in a "regional tournament" with the girls basketball team in Bar. The tournament, conveniently enough, is being held in Bar. I'm excited. It should be fun. I'm not sure the ages of the girls that I'm playing with, though I'm fairly certain they are 16 or 17. I keep joking that I've been recruited to play with the 12-year-olds. Regardless, I'm excited. It should be really fun.

Village Days

2007-03-30T02:29:00.000-07:00

Saturday will probably be a village day. There's lots of work to be done there this time of year, and I like doing it. It beats hanging around the apartment all day.

The village is where Roma's grandparents live. It's where his mother grew up, and before that, his grandfather. Like most, it's a small village, devoid of pretty much anyone between the ages of 18 and 30. Most of the people who live there permanently are in their 70's and 80's. Young people do not stay in the villages. They leave for larger cities and towns where they can find education and work. Few return, except to help their parents and grandparents with the harvest.

My first visit to the village was for Roma's grandfather's 78th birthday. We went via the family car, which is an old (perhaps 25 years old) Lada. It's a functional car, albeit loud and a bit like MTV's "Pimp my Ride" the before.

I've now been to the village three times and so far, this has been my experience getting there:

I squeeze into the back seat of the Lada with Roma's mom, Nadia. Roma's father, Tolic, drives us out of town, perhaps 4 kilometers, where we stop to get gas. After that, Roma drives and Tolic sits in the passenger seat critiquing while Nadia comments from the rear. (It should be noted that Roma's real name is Vadym. Roma is a nickname that I've always known him as and I always call him. But around his parents, it's Vadym)

Roma pulls out from the gas station...
Tolic: More gas, more gas!
Roma: I'm giving more gas.
Tolic: Watch out, car up ahead.
Roma: I see it.
Nadia: Oh Tolic...
Tolic: Don't hit the pothole.
Roma: I'm not going to hit the pothole.
(Roma clips the pothole)
Nadia: Oh Vadym, Vadym, Vadym
Roma: What mom, why oh Vadym?
Tolic: Drive on the other side of the road, there are less potholes over there.
(Roma goes to the other side of the road and clips a small pothole)
Nadia: Oh Vadym, Vadym...
Tolic: What are you doing Vadym?
Roma: You said to go over there.
Tolic: I said to go over there, not to hit the pothole.
Roma: Pa, you want to drive? Drive. You want me to drive, let me drive.
Nadia: Oh Vadym, Vadym. Sheryl, you should sit in the front and Tolic should sit in the back.
Roma: Good idea.
Tolic: I'll be quiet. I won't speak.....watch out for the turn up ahead.
Roma: Pa, I see it.
Nadia: Oh Tolic, Tolic, Tolic...

And so we drive.

About 30 kilometers from Bar, we turn off the main road (and I use that term loosely, because the "main road" is a narrow two laner full of potholes). We turn onto an old, cobblestone road, built for tanks during the war. It is only about 15 kilometers from the main road to the village, but it takes a long time. We have to slow down to a literal CRAWL as we drive along the cobblestone road. (I think I could probably walk faster than we drive this leg of the journey.)

It is at this point when it becomes impossible for me to hear/understand anything because it's so loud in the car. (For me, Ukrainian is best understood when it is spoken in a very quiet environment.) It is also at this point when Nadia usually becomes chatty.

Nadia: Bet you don't have roads like this in America, Sheryl. Do you have roads like this in America?

To me, her question sounds like: IEUREOK dkfajied OEiukd KDJOUE skeruo gh, Sheryl. DKjo k ldkfjou akdjf America?

***

The village house consists of three serperate buildings: a main house (three small rooms, no plumbing), a kitchen (one small room, no plumbing), and a small old house (one very small room, no plumbing, where Roma's grandfather grew up). On the property, there are two horses (used to pull the cart the grandparents use to get around town), two pigs (to be slaughtered some time after Easter), many chickens, turkeys and ducks, a guard dog named Jack, a cow (which I have yet to milk) and rabbits.

The last time I was at the village, I watched Roma's grandmother chase down a chicken and break it's neck. I also watched Tolic club and skin a Rabbit so I could eat it for dinner the next day.(Suprisingly tasty.) It's not all gloom and doom there though. I also got to run around the farm with Roma feeding all the animals, collecting eggs and clearing out poop from the pens. It was fun. I felt like Laura Engles Wilder.

***

Saturday will probably be another village day. Like I said, there is lots of work this time of year. Of course, the really hard work I'm not allowed to do. Roma's parents don't want me to work too hard. I'm constantly told, "Sheryl, smoke." (Not literally. It's just a Ukrainian expression.) But if I'm sneaky, and persistent, I can pretty much do any of the work I want to on the farm. And it's fun.

The Census will Show...

2007-03-23T08:34:00.000-07:00

Last week I recieved a rather large bill in my post office box. The ammount was 568 hryven, over 100 dollars. I had been expecting a bill from the post office, but not one quite so large. Last year, my PO box only cost me 25 hryven -- for the whole year. So, as you might imagine, I was rather shocked by the inflation.

I asked Larissa to help me figure out the bill. She took it to the post office.
"This bill is not yours," she told me the next day at school, "It belongs to the person who is now using your box."
"Oh," I said, rather confused, "Why is someone using my box?"
"Because it is no longer your box," she replied, "You must return your key to the post office today."
"Oh"
"You paid for one year and the year is up," Larissa continued, "and they gave your box to someone else."
"Oh"
"They said they will find you another box, but you must go return the key today," she said.
"Okay, I will. Thanks," I said, still a little confused.

After school I went to the post office and returned the key.
"Do you need another box?" the woman working asked me.
"Yes, please," I said. The woman then pulled out a large binder and flipped to the back where there was a list of all -- all 35 that is -- PO boxes in Bar. I looked at box number two, my old box, and saw that my name had been crossed off and replaced with someone elses.
"What about number 20?" the woman said.
"Okay," I said indifferently.
"Here, try this key," she said, fishing out a key from a drawer. It worked. I paid for the box and left.

Short story long: I have a new PO box number and it's number 20. My mailing address remains the exact same except instead of #2, send my letters to #20. Not so complicated really. I still don't really understand why I had to switch boxes when there are nearly 15 userless PO boxes, but that's Ukraine. And I can't fight Ukraine.

***

Next week was supposed to be Spring Break, but because we were under "quarantine" for ten days in February, we don't get the whole break. We have school on Monday and Tuesday; however, on those days we will be teaching lessons for Thursday and Friday. You follow? Monday I have my Thursday lessons and Tuesday I have my Friday lessons. Makes perfect sense.

Last week my teachers had to go around the city and take a census. No joke. The city was split into four sections and each of the four schools was responsible for taking a census in its respective section.

We had a big teacher's meeting at my school during the "long break" between the 4th and 5th lessons. (Our "long break" is 20 minutes.) The vice principal assigned all the teachers different streets. They were responsible for finding out who lived in the house, what they did, how long they'd lived there, the names of any children who might live there and the school which the children attend. The meeting lasted well into the 5th lesson, as there was much huffing and puffing about street assignments.

"I can't believe you have to go house to house and take a census," I whispered to Sasha, my fellow English teacher, "I mean, if you told a bunch of American teachers that they had to go house to house and take a census..."
"Yes, I know, it is ridiculous," Sasha said, "But it is our SSR legacy. It's not so hard really. And look at us, we're sitting here talking about it and the 5th lesson is almost over. The school is flexible with us, so we must be flexible with the school."
"I guess," I said, shaking my head.

No teacher ever came a knockin at my door. Hmmm... cracks in the system? Or does everyone just already know my business? Probably a little bit of both.

Happy Birthday Valya

2007-03-06T04:22:00.000-08:00

I have a young stalker, I believe I have mentioned her before. Her name is Valya, she's in the 6th form, and she just really, really likes me. She's always asking if I can go walking with her in the afternoons, or if she can come to my house and see my cats, or if we can meet on the weekends and hang out. She often makes "Best Friend" cards for me, or gives me candies, or small toys.

I have never gone strolling in the afternoon with Valya or had her over to my house, mostly because I haven't wanted to. But when she asked me last week if I'd go walking with her on Friday, and then told me it was her birthday, I caved.

So on Friday, I met Valya outside of the teacher's room. She was bouncing around with excitment, talking a mile a minute (in Ukrainian. Valya knows no english. She's a very, very poor student). I thought we were just going to go walking, but Valya had different plans.

"First," she told me, "We'll go to your house so I can see your cats. Can I see you cats? Please, I want to see your cats. I love cats. I don't have cats. I want to see your cats. Let's go see your cats...."

We went and saw my cats. Valya really liked them, Klitchko especially because he is sleek and black. She picked him up, swung him around, clutched him to her chest and snuggled him. Klitchko, to his credit, was a champ. He's not a snuggly cat except with me and even then, only on his own terms. Most people who try to pet him get a playful swat. But for Valya, he went limp and let her have her way with him.

We spent about 5 minutes at my apartment, after which Valya said,

"Let's go to the store so you can buy me a cake. Will you buy me a little cake? Do you like cake? I like cake. My mom bought me a cake yesterday but it's small. I don't think it will be enough when we go to my house and Alina, Vadym, Vicka, and Valentin come. We're having a small party. Did you know?"

I hadn't intended to buy a cake for the occassion, but again, I caved, and we ended up at the store. They all looked the same to me, so I told her to pick the one she liked. She picked a nice little chocolate cake that cost 8 hryven. Not a big deal at all, but it meant the world to her. She was beaming and telling everyone we passed on the street,

"Look at the present my American friend bought me! She bought me a cake for my birthday!"

We went to her apartment. Being there was awkward and depressing. It really explained a lot about her as a student and a person.

The first thing I noticed when I walked into her apartment was the stale smell of cigarettes. The second thing I noticed was that it was very messy and dirty. In my experience, this is very unusual for Ukrainian homes. I have been a guest a lot of places and I can honestly say that I have never been to a messy and/or dirty Ukrainian home. The walls had been stripped of wallpaper, but not thoroughly. I thought perhaps they were remodeling, but they weren't. There was also clutter everywhere, dust clumps on the floor, old food on the counters -- just general filth.

Valya's grandmother was there when we arrived, and I thought perhaps she lived there too, or at least came by in the afternoons to watch Valya and her brother. This wasn't the case. She had come by to use the bath, and stayed for mayber 20 minutes after the kids got home. She spent the whole time saying terrible things about Valya's mother. She accused Valya's mother of being lazy, of being a bad cook, of being a drunk, of being a bad mother, of being loose. She asked about Valya's father, and Valya replied:

"He only comes home when he's not drunk. But he is usually drunk and we don't know where he is."

Valya's grandmother never spoke to me. I said hello, but she acted like I wasn't even there. It was...awkward. After she left, I tried to help Valya set up for her party. She said she didn't know if her mother would be there or not. She wasn't sure where he mother was. I tried to help her tidy up and set the table for her friends, but she wouldn't let me do much. So mostly I could only watch and cringe as she did things like wipe crumbs off plates with a dirty old towel -- or with her skirt -- and put them out for her friends to use.

I had told Valya that I had to leave at 3 o'clock before we had gotten to her apartment. Eventually, three o'clock rolled around and I made my escape. I'm glad that I went, that I bought the cake, that I spent that *awkward *uncomfortable time at her apartment because it meant a lot to her. But I've gotta say, three o'clock couldn't come fast enough.

Yet Another Transportation Adventure

2007-02-23T03:53:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago, I went to Kiev for my mid-service medical checkup. I went with my good friend Sharece, who has come to visit me in Bar numerous times, and two other volunteers.

Sharece and I met in Vinnystia the night before our trip into Kiev. We had tickets on the 6 am express train. I’ve taken the express train lots of times and never had a problem. I always stay the night with Sandy and Eric, catch a taxi to the train station at 5:30 am, and end up with plenty of time to stand around and stare at my watch. Sharece had never taken the early train, but I assured her that it was simple. No big deal. Bez problem.

We left Sandy and Eric’s apartment at 5:20 am, like I usually do when I take the early train, and walked to the taxi stand down the street. It was dark out, and rather deserted. There was one taxi idling at the taxi stand.

“Sweet, there’s our taxi,” I said, only no sooner were the words out of my mouth, then the taxi bolted off and disappeared down the empty street.

“Don’t worry,” I told Sharece as I fished out my cell phone, “I’ve got some phone numbers. We’ll just call for a taxi.” I called two different taxi companies, but neither had any taxis to spare. I called them over and over, until finally the operator screamed, “All our taxis are busy! Don’t call again!”

At this point, it was 5:35.

“Um, Sharece,” I said, “I can’t get a taxi, this street is deserted, and quite frankly, I don’t know what we’re going to do. I’ve never had a problem before.”
“Well, let’s just start walking towards the busy street over there,” she said, pointing.
“Okay, but so you know, that street is deceptively far away,” I replied, “ and I don’t know if we’re going to make our train if we don’t get a taxi in the next 10 minutes.”

So we started running up the dark, empty street. Just then, a taxi came flying down the road. We frantically tried to wave it down, but it just blew past us. We kept running, our big duffle bags banging against our hips, our noses running from the arctic morning air.

“It’s 5:43,” Sharece said, “let’s just try to flag down any car we can.”
“Okay,” I huffed, sticking my arm out as we continued running down the street like two crazies loose from the asylum. Nobody stopped.

Finally we saw two taxies idling at what appeared to be a taxi stand down the street. They were our last hope. We pressed on, though we were wheezing and sweating and sniffling from our morning run, and our shoulders drooped from the weight of our bags.

I reached the first taxi, opened the door and said, through gasps, “The train station.”
“I’m occupied,” the driver said, “close the door.” I looked to the other taxi and saw that it too was waiting for someone in the casino.

“Both taxis are busy,” I said to Sharece, “We’re not gunna make it. I don’t know what else we can do. That street is still a good half kilometer away.” We stood in the street, catching our breath, staring at each other.

“You need a taxi,” the driver of the second car said, rolling down his window, “I can call you a taxi.” He put a call into his radio and then said, “Ten to fifteen minutes.”

“We don’t have time,” I said, “We need to go to the train station now.”
“What time is your train?” he asked. Sharece looked at her watch, it was 5:53.
“In 12 minutes” she said, “At 5 after 6.” The driver’s eyes popped out of his head,
“Why aren’t you at the train station?! Twelve minutes!” he shook his head.
“All the taxis were busy,” I replied sheepishly.

Just then, the man who’s taxi it was, came out of the casino. He looked at us, and the desperate looks on our faces and said to the driver,
“What’s wrong with you? Take the girls to the station and come back for me, I can wait” We thanked him profusely as we climbed into the cab. We had 10 minutes.

“Ten minutes to make your train,” the driver said, laughing and racing down the street, “What’s wrong with your men? What’s wrong with your men that they let you sleep late and miss your train?!”

We made it to the train station in record time. We thanked the driver again and tipped him big for saving the day. He just laughed at us and said, “Next time, don’t sleep so long. It’s better to get the train than to sleep.”

So miraculously, with 3 minutes to spare, Sharece and I found ourselves standing on the platform, looking at our watches, waiting for our train to come…

***

The mid-service medical check up was easy. It took only a small part of the afternoon, but we had to stay in town for 48 hours to have our TB tests checked. I was, in case you are wondering “the picture of health.” No parasites, no unusual levels of unusual sounding words in my urine, no TB exposure, no cavities… Ironically though, not even 24 hours after I got a clean bill of health from the medical staff, I came down with a nasty flu-like cold.

After Kiev, I went back with Sharece to her small town. She’s been to Bar many times, but I’d never visited her at her site, and she really wanted me to come. So I told her I’d go back with her from Kiev.

I always take the train to and from Kiev. Sharece always takes a bus. It's a 5 and a half hour bus from the outskirts of Kiev directly to her small town. It's an old village bus that winds through the back streets, stops for every person who sticks out their arm, and smells like an old shoe.

The trip to Sharece's town was miserable, mostly because I was starting to get sick. My head hurt, my body ached, and I was dehydrated because I couldn't risk drinking water and having to use the bathroom. The bus made one 10 minute stop two and a half hours into the trip and that was it. I don't think it would have been so grueling if I hadn't been getting sick.

I ended up only spending one night with Sharece in her town. I went back to Bar the very next day and collapsed on my couch, where I stayed for the next 4 days. I called my teachers and told them that I was sick and wouldn't be coming in. Larisa's response was, "Well, have fun." Right. Fun.

Roma came by and brought me soup everyday. He also brought me milk and honey, which is a standard Ukrainian treatment for colds and flu. Really, if it hadn't been for him (and his mother's cooking) there would have been more than just one tearful call home to my mom.

I missed three days of school. On the third day, I was informed that my school had been shut down due to a flu "epidemic". All the schools in Bar were under "quarantine" for 10 days. Throughout Ukraine, schools have been under quarantine for the past couple of weeks. Apparently this happens almost every year in February when kids start to get sick. Last year there was no quarantine, but I guess that it was an anomaly.

(Funny thing-- schools were under quarantine on Valentines Day, but that didn't stop the Valentines Day dance at school no. 3, where kids from all the school gathered to dance and spread their germs.)

I'm feeling much better now, though my cold has proven tough to shake. I still have the sniffles and a little cough, but I'm off the couch and back among the living. School starts again monday. Sharece is coming on Saturday because it's my friend Ira's birthday and Ira loves Sharece. So that should be fun.

My apologies for being a blogging bum. My only excuse is that I was sick, and then a bit lazy. I promise to be better.

Pictures From Our Winter Shashleek

2007-02-08T01:51:00.000-08:00

Winter is here!

2007-01-31T04:09:00.000-08:00

Well, winter has finally come to Ukraine and I am delighted. I was starting to worry that we wouldn't get any significant snow this year, but we finally did. And everyone is thrilled. School this week has been excellent because my students, my fellow teachers and I have all been in great moods. In fact, so far as I can tell, the only one not enjoying the snow is Klitchko -- and that's just because he doesn't appreciate the piles of it on the balcony.

I got back to Bar from my ukrainian language classes on Saturday. I had a good time visiting with some American friends I hadn't seen in a long time. We hung out in the evenings drinking bear and playing games. One night we played a pretty "wild" game of Scattegories. I mean, after I caught myself screaming "HEIFER! HEIFER! HEIFER!" I had to put myself to bed. Like I said, it was pretty wild.

I continue to be happy with my language progression, so that's good. When I was on the bus leaving Bar to get to Kiev (via Vinnystia), a woman asked if anyone was going to Vinnystia. Without really thinking, I opened my big mouth and said, "I am!" This invited a more complicated conversation than I expected and resulted in me chaperoning the woman's 7 year old daughter to the Vinnystia bus station.

For most of the trip, I was under the impression that she was meeting family at the bus station. This was not the case. What I'd in fact agreed to do was help her buy a ticket to a village town, wait for the bus with her, and then make sure she was seated and safetly on her way. Now normally, this wouldn't have been a stressful situation, but I was under a pretty tight schedule to catch my train. Plus I could barely pronounce the name of the podunk village she needed to get to. In the end, I got her on her bus, caught my own train with minutes to spare and learned a valuable lesson: just because I understand, doesn't mean I need to talk.

In other news, I've been dating my friend Roma since I got back from America. Thus far our courtship, and I like to call it a courtship because he always insists on carrying my bags, has mostly consisted of evenings at the gym playing basketball. I did however, recently get myself invited to his house for dinner where I met both his parents. They were really nice. His mom cooked all my favorite Ukrainian dishes and then spent most of the evening telling me to eat more. A very Ukrainian (female) thing to do. And as for his father, well, I had a hard time understanding what he said because he barely moved his lips when he spoke. This, I have found, is also a very Ukrainian (male) thing to do.

His parents were very eager to speak with me, though they didn't always understand what I said. Many times I would say something, they wouldn't understand, Roma would repeat the exact same thing I'd said, and they'd get it. Then they'd make comments like, "You understand her Ukrainian." And he'd say, "Well, I've been listening to it for over a year."

Perhaps the highlight of the evening was the rousing rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" that I sang for them simply because they asked. I don't really know what got into me, maybe national pride? maybe the hope of another invite? maybe the desire to use my vibrato? Regardless, I was a hit. And I did land another invite, so I guess it worked.

***

If the weather stays cold and it snows a little bit more between now and Saturday, my friends and I are going to go skiing in the forest. I have my figures crossed that we get to go, because I missed the ski trip last year, but we'll have to wait and see. Regardless, three cheers for winter...

Tequilla Night with Anya, Ira, Yulia and Vova

2007-01-24T04:44:00.000-08:00

Hair Affairs

2007-01-23T05:56:00.000-08:00

I dyed my hair this weekend. Nothing drastic mind you, it's just a few shades lighter, more golden if you will. I like it, but it appears I'm the only one. Popular response to my "big" hair change has been rather disappointing.

Upon seeing me in the light of the dance club, my girlfriends gave me a collective: "Oh, you changed your hair. Why?"

Upon seeing me at school, my fellow english teacher said: "Oh, you changed your hair. Who made you do that? It's...strange. Not American."

Upon seeing me at our basketball game, my friend Roma said: "You colored your hair? It looked better darker."

Had I not basically been a blonde my entire life, I'd probably worry that I'd made a huge mistake. But, really, it wasn't until I came to Ukraine that my hair turned so dark and my skin so translucent. So my critics can just shove off...

***

Last week, my friends and I drank the bottle of tequilla I brought back for them. To my great surprise, they really enjoyed it. I think it was the excitment of the process (salt lick, shot, lime) that they liked so much. They said they "loved" the tequilla but they sure made some awful faces as it went down.

Long after we finished our bottle of tequilla, we were still practicing "the tequilla process," only with vodka instead. All night long they were licking salt, taking the shot, and eating (not just sucking, eating, in its entirety) lime. It was really funny. I've joked with people that years from now, an anthropologist pursuing a doctorate at Harvard will be researching the odd vodka drinking "process" found Bar.

***

I've kept myself rather busy since my return from states playing sports. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings I've been playing basketball. Thursday and Sunday evenings I've been playing volleyball. I've also been tutoring one of Yulia's friends in English. She's a sweet girl who just wants practice listening and speaking and I couldn't say no.

Tomorrow I'm going to Kiev to spend a few days studying Ukrainian language. I'll try to post some pictures from tequilla night while I'm there, but I can't promise anything.

Back in Ukraine

2007-01-13T07:31:00.000-08:00

So I’m back in Ukraine after two and a half wonderful, relaxing weeks with family and friends in California. It was really great to be back in America -- land of convenience, customer service, flavored food, and of course, English.

It took me more than 24 hours from the time I arrived at the San Francisco airport until I walked into my apartment. As you can imagine, I was exhausted, still kind of am in fact, especially since my friends missed me and have wanted to spend lots of time with me since my return.

Why are you so tired? They ask me; and though I’ve tried to explain the concept of jet lag, they don’t entirely get it. They’ve never changed time zones or traveled on an airplane where unlike the train, you don’t get sheets and a pillow and the chance to have a good night’s sleep.

I flew Delta from San Francisco to New York and then from New York directly to Kiev. Though I was excited to come back to Ukraine, it was difficult to say goodbye to my family. I had such a nice time with them. So from San Francisco to New York I reflected on my amazing family, and from New York to the mid-Atlantic, I reflected on my amazing best friend, who lives a mere subway ride away from JFK. By the time I reached the European continent, I let go of my familial longings and found myself excited to get back to Ukraine – land of inconvenience, no customer service, flavorless food, and of course, broken English.

Funny incident on the plane:

Many Ukrainians were on the flight to Kiev, and in the terminal, there were a lot of people speaking Russian and Ukrainian. I had a window seat on my flight, and a 50 something American woman was already sitting in the isle seat when I boarded. When I got to my row, I said, in English, “That’s me,” and pointed to the seat. She got up and let me in. I fumbled around with my huge, Ukrainian winter coat and decided, after I sat down, that I wanted to stow it overhead. She saw me and said, loudly and VERY slowly while pointing, “Up? Up? Up?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said as she let me out again, “Thanks.” I sat back down. She started fumbling with her seat belt, which was wrapped around the armrest between our seats. I lifted the armrest and untangled her seat belt. “Da, da, da [Russian for ‘yes’],” she said, and then slowly and loudly, “Thank you.” It was then that it dawned on me that this woman thought I was Ukrainian, or at least that I didn’t speak English. I reached up and closed the overhead air-vent. “C-o-l-d,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself and giving a “shiver.” I just kind of smiled at her and turned my attention out the window. I figured that correcting her would only invite unwanted conversation.

The plane was late to take off, so the flight attendants had time to pass out immigration papers for non-Ukrainian citizens to fill out. The form is basic: name, passport number, visa information, and contact information while you’re in country. I pulled out my passport, which is labeled as a Peace Corps passport, and filled mine out immediately. When I finished the woman turned to me and said, “You’re a peace corps volunteer? Me too.” There are so many volunteers in Ukraine that it’s virtually impossible to know who all of them are, so I wasn’t all that surprised. Amused though, by the whole situation, especially the slow, loud English she spoke to me.

So I’ve been pretty busy catching up with people since I’ve been back in Bar. My friends came over the day after I got back and we drank the bottle of whisky I brought back for them to try. As I predicted, they hated, but still drank the whole bottle. Go figure. I think tonight we’ll tackle to tequila. Again, I predict they’ll hate it; they are very loyal to their vodka. Still, we’ll probably finish the bottle.

Last night I went with my friends Sergiy and Vova and played volleyball with a bunch of men. I haven’t played volleyball in a long time, so I was a bit rusty, but it was still fun. The men played passionately, yelling at each other, chucking the ball high in air, kicking across the gym; it was all very amusing. Not as amusing as the fact that when their team rotated off the court, many of the men took the opportunity to smoke a cigarette outside.

“What are you doing?” I said to Vova, the first time he headed out. “You’re EXCERSICING. Don’t you see how ridiculous that is?”

“I know Sheril,” he said, “but this is Ukraine. You forget where you are.”
“No, Vova,” I said, “I assure you, that would be impossible.”

My Funny Students

2006-12-15T07:54:00.000-08:00

My kids were so funny today. First of all, they totally freaked out when I told them that I was going to America on Monday. My young kids were hugging me and pleading with me, hands clasped together, whining, "Don't go Ms. Sheril, don't go!"

"Don't worry," I said, "I'm coming back in January. I just want to see my family for Christmas."
"Four lessons without you!" they said, "Please don't go! Please don't go!"

It's nice to know I'm loved.

My 6th formers were especially funny today, and not just because they were pleading for me not to leave. In general, they're my favorite class because they are young enough to still think I'm really cool. Sadly, my percieved "coolness" drops off significantly after the 8th form. But back to my 6th formers:

They're only 10 or 11 years old and they're just too funny. Today I gave them back a test that they took eariler in the week. They were all nervous as I handed the tests back, and then, one by one, they saw their grades and started to celebrate. Oleg, a blue eyed boy with a severe bowl cut, sung out: "Eight! YESSSSSSS!"

Then Vicka, the pudgy girl sitting next to him sung out, "Eight! Me too! YESSSSSSSSS!" Then they slapped a huge high five. As more kids saw their marks, more cheers rung out and there was clapping and chortling and high fiving across the aisles.

Then Maxime, one of my favorite boys, saw his grade and became overcome with excitment. "Eleven!!!" he said, throwing his fists into the air and shooting up out of his chair, "YYEEESSSSSSSSSS!!!"

"YESS! YESS! YESS!" He growled. He was punching his arms in the air, up and down, up and down, and then, in a final show of enthusiasm, he thrust himself backwards, arching his back dramatically, before snapping his torso the other direction with so much force that he SMACKED HIS FOREHEAD AGAINST THE DESK.

Maxime looked stunned, and then quickly glanced around to see if anybody had notice...we all had. And I for one, could not suppress my laughter. Maxime just sat in his chair rubbing his forehead with a goofy grin on his face. It was too funny. So much excitment for one little test...

The Countdown is on!

2006-12-12T04:55:00.000-08:00

In less than one week, I will be back in the states visiting friends and family and gorging myself on all food OTHER than cabbage and potatos. It's going to be incredible. I can't remember the last time I was so excited about something, or the last time Christmas seemed so magical.

Things at school have been pretty hectic. Every five or six years, the schools are evaluated by the local school board. This "big check" is a fairly big deal, and it started this week. The last two weeks at school were rather comical, as my teachers ran from class to class frantically trying to ensure that the students had adequatly memorized all their materials for the "open lessons."

Last Thursday, I arrived at school at my normal time. I don't teach a first lesson on Thursdays, and, as per usual, I arrived 10 minutes before the second lesson started. The school was unusually quiet when I walked into the teacher's room.

"Sheryl," Larissa said, "What lesson do you have?"
"8A," I said, putting down my bag and slowly taking of my coat, adjusting my skirt in the mirror, fixing my hair...
"Go now, you are already late," Larissa told me.
"What are you talking about?" I asked, "I don't have them until the second lesson."
"The second lesson is almost over," she said sharply, "classes are only 30 minutes today."
"Oh...nobody ever tells me anything," I said, shrugging and heading off to my class. (I wanted to add: "You're my neighbor, would it have killed you to knock on my door and let me know?!")

Classes were shortened last Thursday and Friday "in preparation" for our "big check." So far, I can't really tell what the "big check" means other than the fact that the Director's office now houses a big buffet. (Which I'm not invited to partake of.) Also, all my english books have been moved off the shelves and stashed into various desks, I guess for "aesthetic appeal" (as they have been replaced by baskets and baskets of fake, silk flowers). It's actually rather annoying to have to hunt down my books: five in this desk, ten in that desk, one class set in the cabinent behind the trash...

My kids are tired of school and as ready for a break as I am. Classes this week have gone pretty well though, because no matter what my kids do, they just can't annoy me. Next week at this time, I'll be eating a burrito and they'll still be in class. Suckers.

In my 6th form today, we spent the lesson dancing around singing 'Jingle-bells.' It was fun, especially when dancing and singing suddenly turned into group hugging. It wasn't part of my lesson plan, but one girl hugged me, and all the other kids followed suit, and the next thing I knew, I was hollaring: "Group hug! Group hug!"

Ah, life is good when the countdown is on.

2006-11-29T01:24:00.000-08:00

It is unseasonably warm and foggy here in Bar. It's been rather foggy for the last week, and warm too. Of course by warm, I mean +8 to +10 degrees celcius. That's warm for Bar, at this time of year at least. The last few weeks have flown by and as sometimes happens when life very nearly gets exciting, I have neglected the blog.

I was in Kiev at the beginning of the month getting my (mandatory) flu shot. I scheduled my time in Kiev to coincide with Jennifer's end of service medical appointments, so the two of us had a day and a half to hang out together in the big city. We left for Bar Friday morning. Our train was scheduled for 8:50. We chose this train because it's first class, with comfortable seats and enough room to make the 3.5 hour ride pleasant.

Jen and I got to the train station with enough time to grab some coffee at McDonalds. We were sitting at our table, chit-chatting and drinking for nearly 30 minutes. Then, we decided to get on the train, but not until both of us had used the bathroom. As our careless luck would have it, by the time we left McDonalds, we had 5 minutes to get to our train. We started running towards the platform, and as we ran, we heard them announce that our train was on track 22. Without double checking the schedule, we ran straight to the 22nd track. We hopped on the first car we came to, a nasty 3rd class car, and proceeded to make our way down the train, expecting, at some point, to find our first class car. The further down the train we walked, the more 3rd class cars we encountered and finally it dawned on us that this wasn't our train.

"Jen, maybe it's that one?" I finally said, pointing two tracks over to what was clearly a first class train. We tried to get out of the car that we were in, but the door jammed. It took Jennifer a few good grunts and tugs to finally get it open. Then the two of us jumped off the train and ran desperately across the train tracks to our idling train. Just as we reached the doors, they closed. The attendant saw us, and went to put her red flag out to stop the doors from closing, but her flag got stuck in the doors.

"Please! Please!" we said, banging on the door. The attendant gave us a pathetic look and kind of shrugged. Her flag was stuck in the doors, and there was nothing she could do. The train sat for about 25 seconds, doors closed, idling, before it slowly pulled away.

"Sonofabitch," I said, "I can't believe we missed our train."

Jen and I decided to take the next train back to Vinnystia, no matter the class. So we ended up back on the train we'd been on minutes before. It was crowed and uncomfortable and slow. It stopped at every single possible stop.

"This is like taking the metro to Vinnystia," Jen said at one point. Only, it wasn't like taking the metro to Vinnystia, because it didn't go to Vinnystia. The train stopped in Kosyatin, a small podunk town an hour from Vinnystia. Jen and I didn't realize this until after everyone got off the train and we were the only living souls on it. We were walking through the station, trying to figure out our next move, when a woman said, in English,

"Jane?" Jen and I looked at her, she was talking to Jennifer.
"Uh, no," Jen said.
"Your not Jane? I thought you were my friend Jane," the woman said.
"Uh, no," Jen replied, "but maybe you can help us anyway." The woman pointed us in the direction of the bus station. Later, after we walked the kilometers to the bus station in the frigid cold and were on our way home, I said to Jennifer,

"Man, was it our good luck today that you are asian."

***

Two tuesday evenings ago, my friends Sergy and Vova stopped by my house.
"Do you want to go to the sauna?" Sergy asked.
"Sure," I said, "that sounds relaxing and fun."

Sergy called and scheduled our sauna for 10:45 pm. Then the three of us killed a couple hours playing Uno. They love Uno. Personally, I don't think it's that great of a game, but that's just me. I've never found colors and numbers and wild draw 4 cards that interesting.

We took a taxi to the sauna at the edge of town. It was a nice, private sauna, though it failed to be relaxing in any way shape or form. With Sergy and Vova, the reason to go to the sauna is to move around as much as possible. We'd sit in the sauna (set to an "unbearable" 120 degrees. "They must have turned it up because your American," Sergy told me) then we'd run out, and cannon-ball into the freezing cold pool. We'd jump in once or twice, they'd push me in once or twice, then it was back to the shower, back to the sauna, back to the pool... We never sat in one spot for more than two minutes.

They got birch leaves and beat each other with them. They were nice when they beat me, but when they beat each other, the apparent goal was to get the oother person to cry. At one point, I peeked my head into the saunat, and all I saw were flying leaves.

***

Jennifer has finished her service and returned to America. It is a bit strange in Bar without her. I'll be heading home in a couple of weeks to spend christmas with my family. I've very excited. It's almost all I can think about. My birthday came and went without much to do. This saturday I'm celebrating it with my Ukrainian friends. We're "taking a table" at Marafone. There'll be dancing and drinking and hopefully some good kodak moments.

Halloween Pictures (and Klitchko and Pheobe)

2006-11-09T06:09:00.000-08:00

Pictures From Budapest

2006-11-09T03:47:00.000-08:00

Celebrating Teacher's Day

2006-11-09T03:00:00.000-08:00

Parties, Priests, and yes, THAT Time of Year

2006-11-06T07:10:00.000-08:00

Well the first snow has fallen in Bar. So I guess that really, it's THAT time of year again. It snowed some two inches on Saturday night. Sunday it was cold and slick outside. It snowed again last night and today it has remained freezing outside, though the sun came out just long enough to turn the sidewalks into slippery, dear-lord-don't-let-me-fall-on-my-face-in-front-of-my-school death traps.

I hadn't really mentally prepared for winter, so this snowfall has thrown me for a bit of a loop. Meaning, I'm working on recapturing my "winter footing" because it's hard not to bite it when you are walking on pure ice.

Fall break went by pretty fast. I kept myself busy and never quite made it to the internet to blog. I went out east to a volunteer halloween party on the 28th of October. There were roughly 70 volunteers there. The party was okay, though seeing my friends was great.

The party itself was held in a bar not far from the apartment I shared with Emily, Katie and Dan. Emily went to the party as a rugby player, Katie as a black cat, Dan as a priest and I went as "ragidy anne 2020". Yes, I went as a futuristic ragidy anne doll. My sole prop was a shiny, orange, tinsel wig, so really, what else could I be?

My friends and I hung out at the party long enough for me to remember why I hate parties. I always forget. I always think that I'm going to go to a party and have the time of my life mingling and shmoozing and making small talk, and then I get there and I remember: wait, I don't like to do any of this stuff.

Emily and I hung out at the part for two and a half hours before the beer and the overnight train caught up with us. It was nice to see people I hadn't seen since swearing in, but there really isn't much to talk about that hasn't already been said. I believe my parting words to people as we left were: "I'm sorry, I just can't mingle and make small talk anymore." Not exactly how you get on anyone's mass email list.

Grouchy party attitude and all, I did have a fun time in Dnipropotrovsk. It's always nice to see my friends. The trip was brief. I took the train back to Vinnystisa on monday.The train left Dnipropotrovsk at noon and got into Vinny at 1 o'clock in the morning. It was a long time to be on the train, but it was fine. I mostly slept. Around 7 o'clock, an orthodox priest and his little alterman (not a boy, but literally, a little man) got onto the train and started walking up the aisles. They were throwing 'holy water' on people and blessing them and seeking donations for the church.

I watched them make their way down the train towards me. The priest took what looked to be a paint brush, dipped it in water and then splattered it on people a la Jackson Pollak. He would splatter, then take a large, dirty, metal cross and shove it in peoples' faces for them to kiss. I watched this commotion approach me and thought: eew! so NOT
kissing the metal cross, so NOT kissing the metal cross.

When he got to my section of the train, he turned first to the older ladies and splattered them. Then, with the same brush, he splattered the fellow laying next to me. I thought maybe I got out of the splattering, but no. He dipped the brush in the water and aimed it right at me. He flicked and sent 'holy water' flying towards my face. He was standing maybe a foot and a half away from me, so the impact was substantial. I got water in my eye, dripping down my face, all over the book I was trying to hide behind.

As I was wiping the water off my face, I saw the metal cross barreling in on me. I tried to roll over on my side to get away from it, thinking maybe the priest would notice my body language. But of course he didn't. The cross kept coming. I opened my mouth to
say, "ni nada", like "don't do that/you don't have to" but before I could get the words out, the cross was upon me and as I twisted my kneck around in a last attempt to avoid the nastiness, the priest CLANKED IT AGAINST MY TOOTH.

Like my best friend Darcy, you might be asking: why didn't you just kiss the cross?! Valid question, valid question. But then I'd have no funny story.

Anyway, in other news, my friend Sky was medically evacuated to America. It's nothing too terribly serious, but she'd been ill for awhile and the doctors determined she'll heal faster in the states. She should be able to return if she gets healthy soon enough, so please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. She's one of my closest friends in Ukraine and I want her to be able to come back soon.

That Time of Year

2006-10-25T02:39:00.000-07:00

Well, it's that time of year again. And by 'that time' I mean that the heaters are on ALL the time, and will remain so until the end of March. My apartment is toasty, toasty, toasty. The last few nights I've gone sans covers and sans cat snuggles. It's just too hot.

Except for a freakish cold snap while I was away in Budapest, the weather has been fairly pleasant. It's definately cooler, but certainly not cold yet. Definately not so cold that everywhere you go needs to be heated.

My school is especially warm. Yesterday, my 9A classroom was so toasty that the kids all had rosey cheeks and sweat dripping down their forheads. Come winter, I know I'll be grateful for the heat; in fact, I'll probably complain that it's not enough heat, but for now, I'm constantly dripping with sweat when I'm indoors. And that sucks.

Next week is fall break, so that means this week at school is a total bust. The kids are a million miles away, off in la-la fall break land. My teachers are kind of that way too. Larissa told me yesterday that the only thing that is getting her through the week is the thought of fall break. She really hates her job. She's always telling me that the only thing getting her through school is the thought of a break, or the weekend, or the summer. Yesterday during the 15 minute break between the 4th and 5th lessons, she sat in the teachers room whining, "I want to go home. I want to go home. I want to go home." She was sitting in her chair, bouncing up and down and I thought to myself, good grief lady, how old are you?!

This Saturday I'm going out east to Dnipropotrovsk for a big halloween party. There will be lots of volunteers there from my group, most of whom I haven't seen since swearing in last december. It should be pretty fun. The two volunteers who live in Dnipropotrovsk have rented out a Bar and so it'll be an all-american costume party. I'm not sure what I'm going to go as yet. Like I told my mom, it's not like I can just run down to the Halloween Superstore and grab something clever.

Next Tuesday, Jennifer and I are finally opening our English Resource Center to the teachers in the school district. We will have a seminar Tuesday morning and then we will give them an orientation on how to use the center, have them sign a contract, give them an "access card" and hope that they will be good stewards of our work.

I heart Budapest

2006-10-15T08:11:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in an internet club in Budapest, Hungary contemplating defection. Budapest is the most beautiful city that I can ever remember visiting. I think I'm in love.

I arrived in Budapest Saturday morning. I'm here with my friends Liz, Steve and Ryan. Today, Sunday, Liz ran the Budapest marathon. She did great, finishing in three hours and 45 minutes. Tomorrow we are going to bum around the city. We head back to Ukraine tuesday night and I'll be back in Bar by wednesday.

We just bought our tickets back to Ukraine. It was the best ticket buying experience that I've had in over a year. The woman A)spoke english and B) was nice. I forgot what it's like to be in a country that actually thinks about customer service. I think the phrase I've repeated most since arriving here (other than "I love this city") is, "Everyone is so nice!"

Last week, in Bar, I was at the post office faxing a paper to Kiev and the woman clerk YELLED at me. That would never happen in America. Imagine someone going to Kinkos and having the clerk yell at them so loud and long that people stop and stare. It would never happen. Customer service, it just doesn't exist in Ukraine. It's not even a thought that might cross someone's mind. But here, in Budapest, they get it. I'm the customer, I don't get yelled at. Simple as that.

The money situation here is pretty hilarious. The Hungarian currency, the forent, is exchanged at 200 forents to one dollar. Everything here costs a lot of forents. A coke is like 300 forents. My dinner yesterday was 1500 forents. It's just hysterical to have a wallet full of 10,000 forent bills. Honestly, I can't even keep track of how much things cost. The numbers are so exhorborantly high and that my mental math has a hard time keeping up. It takes a lot of concentration.

It's really crazy so see how many people speak english here. I hate just assuming that someone will be able to speak to me, but it's generally a good assumption to make. It's nice, I mean, it makes it easy to get around and to be here. It makes Budapest a very accessable city for Americans. At the same time, I feel like a dumb American who takes for granted that the rest of the world will learn my language and meet my needs.

Well, I'm going to sign off for now and get back to my new favorite city. Maybe later in the month I'll get to Kiev and post some pictures. That's of course, if I don't defect and stay here indefinately.

Fury in the Classroom, and Other Tales From the Front Lines

2006-10-09T06:17:00.000-07:00

Today I kicked two students out of my class. They were fighting and I was tired of their antics, so I said: OUT. They were at a loss for what to do or say, so they snickered and sauntered toward the door like they were the big winners. I followed them into the hallway, where they were continuing their mock-fight, and I said, Come with me. But they refused. So I said, fine, wait here. And I stormed off to the teacher's room.

I was looking for their class teacher, but since she was nowhere to be found, I marched right on into the Director's room and said, please come help me. The boys are giving me trouble. They are fighting in my classroom. And, like the BMOC that he is, he came to my aid.

The look on the boys' faces when they saw the Director was priceless. A kodak moment that I wish I could have captured if only to rub in their faces the next time they're being jackles. My Director spoke with the boys in the hallway and I returned to the class and resumed our lesson. A few minutes later, the Director came into the class. The kids were stiff in their chairs, their eyes as big as saucers.

Who else is causing a problem? He asked.
Everyone was silent.
Zaika says that Nemirivsky was bothering people, is this true? He asked.
Everyone was silent.
Sichkoriz, what did you see? He asked A'lona.
Nothing, I was writing, she said.
Zatorsky, what did you see? He asked Vitalic.
Nothing, I was reading, he said.
Nobody saw anything? my Director asked.
Everyone was silent. My Director turned to Roman, one of the boys who had been fighting. Why aren't you telling the truth? he said. Your teacher will hear about this.

After the Director left, the class was silent. When the lesson was over, their home teacher came in and made them stay late.
Why did Sheryl have to get the Director? she asked.
Nobody wanted to say, but they didn't have to. She knew. She made the students apologize, which really does very little, but she also wrote notes home to their mothers. Depending on how much their parents care, that may or may not help me in the future.

It is very frustrating to deal with problem kids here because there is no recourse when a kid is out of line. There is no detention. There is no fear of failing. (Because it is literally IMPOSSIBLE for kids to fail here.) There is no threat of a bad grade. (Because grades don't matter to kids who don't try and don't worry about being held back.) The only thing that teachers do when kids are bad is yell at them and call their parents. I'm not a yeller and I'm certainly not fluent enough to call home and tell some mother that her kid is a jerk. The most I can do is make sure the kids know that I will tell their class teacher when they are bad and I will go to the Director when they are out of control. But that's pretty much it. Even if I kick a kid out of my class for a lesson, he will be back next time. It's impossible to kick a kid out of class permanently. It's not the way it works here.

In my 9-A class, I have trouble with two boys who always play on their cell phones. Today they wouldn't stop playing on them, and after the third time I told them to put their phones away, I ignorned them.(Telling them to give it to me is useless. I can't play tug of war with a 14 year old, that's just demeaning.) After the lesson, I found their home teacher and I said, Yarkovsky and Mazur played with their cell phones the whole lesson. She went and found them, took their phones from them for the rest of the day, and made them come apologize to me.

I said, okay, don't do it again. Now you know that I can tell your teachers what you do in class, so think about that next time.

***

Two things happened last saturday: Bar enacted a new law wherein all bars and cafes must close at mid-night, and my friend Roma got tanked at a wedding. At first glance, these two facts have nothing to do with each other. But that's just at first glance...

The thing about weddings here is that people drink... a lot. That's pretty much true for every holiday and celebration, however minor it might be. So a wedding, as you might imagine, means that people not only end up hammered, they end up hammer-head. If you've ever been hammer-head, you know just how drunkity-drunk-drunk that is. If you haven't, good for you. Nothing good comes from being hammer-head. Just ask Roma.

My friend Roma spent Saturday at his friend's wedding and by 11 o'clock in the evening, when he met up with my friends and I at the cafe, he was hammer-head. He stumbled up to our table with a half bottle of pepper vodka and started pouring shots. He was giving long, slurred toasts where he'd wave his arms around and spill vodka all over himself. At one point, he was hollaring: I'm from America! I'm from America! I came from America! (Of course he was hollaring this in Ukrainian, since he doesn't know any english, so it wasn't very believable.) Outside on the street, he kept telling his friend that he was American until his friend smacked him and told him to shut up. He was dancing around, talking really loundly, gesturing wildly with his hands. He wasn't beligerant or anything, he was just drunk. Hammer-head drunk.

At mid-night, a whole bunch of militisia cars showed up to enforce Bar's new law. The music went off, the lights went on, and hoards of young adults stood loitering on the streets, unsure what to do at such an "early" hour. While people were milling about just outside the cafe, Roma stood upon the steps to the cafe and started waving his arms back and forth in the air and singing, "Razom nas bajato" (Together we are many), the theme chant of the Orange Revolution. On and on he sang, but nobody really joined in. Most people just looked at him and laughed. He was dancing around, waving his arms, slurring his words. After a brief spell, the militsia finally swooped in to silence him.

In America, Roma would probably have qualified for the drunk tank and little else. He was drunk, and stupid, but definately not trying to start a revolution, and certainly not a threat to anyone but his own dumb ass. But the militsia here doesn't let anyone off so easy. If he'd been more lucid, he probably could have bribed the officers with some money and been on his way. Instead, they told him to go home, and to go to the police station later in the week. His crime: trying to incite a riot. His punishment: to buy them 100 dollars of gasoline. Because that will really make him a better citizen...

Of course, Roma is my friend and I know how harmless he is; but I don't expect other people -- especially the militsia -- to be amused by him. I do find it ridiculous though, that he must buy 100 dollars worth of gasoline for trying to "incite a riot" when all they did was tell him to shut up and go home. If he really was trying to incite a riot, you'd think they'd want to haul him in, for the night at least. Instead they let him walk home -- BEER IN HAND -- no pro.

When I saw Roma this week, he said, Sorry Sheryl, I was so drunk on Saturday. Sorry.
Not my problem, I said to him. I don't have to buy anyone gas. "Razon nas bajato" not so funny now, huh?

And he shook his head in sheepish shame.

Haircuts and Stalkers

2006-10-04T07:02:00.000-07:00

Today I got a haircut. I hadn't cut my hair since february so, as you might imagine, it was a long time coming. I don't know why I always drag my feet when it comes to cutting my hair. It's something I was bad about in America too, and there everyone speaks english.

Anyway, I got my hair cut and I have to say, Zena (yes, as in Warrior Princess) didn't do such a bad job. I arrived at my appointment a little before one o'clock and she sat me down in her office chair. That's what they use here: office chairs. She told me we had to wait to use the sink and she handed me a magazine.

"Look through it," she said, "Find something new." I wasn't exactly in the market for "something new," but I started flipping anyway. At one point Zena stopped me and pointed to a picture of a model with ridiculously blunt cut bangs.

"You want?" she asked, "New for you?"
"No," I said, "Definately no."

I was a bit apprehensive about "trying something new" because I find that here, in Ukraine, there are three types of haircuts for women: the uber-trendy, the uber-horrible, and the uber-simple.

The uber-trendy cuts themselves fall into two categories: cute, and bad, bad, bad. Yulia has an uber-trendy "slanted bangs with a borderline mullet" thing going on and on her, it's cute. Her friend Natasha has an uber-trendy "mullet with a rat tail" look that is just bad, bad, bad.

The uber-horrible cuts also fall into two categories. These are: why? and, what the hell were you thinking? This is pretty much where "trendy" haircuts go to die. Looks like the "one side of the head fully shaved" look, and the "super short cut with long bangs over the eyes" look, and the "mid-west male mullet" look all have found there way here. Really, it's the "why?" and the "what the hell were you thinking?" haircuts that make me nervous. I don't want to be mistaken for someone who tried and failed to be trendy. It's bad enough that I'm foreign, but to be foreign with a "what the hell were you thinking?" haircut would be awful.

That is why I told Zena that I wanted a simple cut.
"The same," I said, "But just a little."
"No bangs?" she asked.
"No bangs," I said.

She washed my hair in the sink and started brushing it out. I hadn't washed my hair in a number of days and so lots of hair came out in the brush.
"This is very bad," she said to the stylist next to her, "When she goes back to America, she will have no hair."
"What!?" I said, my eyes bugging.
"Our water is very bad," Zena said, "It is bad for your hair. Look! Look at all this hair in the brush, it's very bad. You will have no hair when you go back to America." I didn't know what to say. What would you say if someone said you're going to be bald within the next year?
"What should I do?" I asked.
"We have a concoction," Zena said. "Take a spoonful of liqueur, a spoonful of honey and the yolk of an egg. Mix it together and then put it on your scalp. Do this once a week and you'll have hair when you go to America."
"Ok," I said.
"Our water is very bad. We drink it and we cook with it, but it is very bad for our hair.

After predicting my imminent baldness, Zena proceeded to cut my hair. I said "a little," but she took off quite a bit. It's a bit longer than my shoulder now, but it had been a good way down my back. She layered it around my face and despite my pleas, cut side bangs. They don't look so bad, but they are annoying in the wind.

So now I have a new haircut. Everyday I become more and more Ukrainian. First it was this gaudy maroon winter jacket I bought from Larissa, then it was a gaudy black and gold bejewelled hoody I got at the store, now it's the hair and soon, new winter shoes. I might be unrecognizable when I come home for Christmas.

***

Today is Wednesday and I didn't have to teach. Tomorrow it's back to school where I'll no doubt see my two stalkers. Yes, I have stalkers. They are 11 years old and they are madly in love with me. Their names are Yana and Vanya. They are in the 6th form class that I teach once a week. I don't quite understand their fascination with me. On teachers day, the two of them showered me with gifts. Vanya gave me a small stuffed teddy-bear, which my cats love to play with, and a card that said: Sheryl + Vanya = Best Friends. Yana gave me a small vile of perfume, a sparkly red heart knicknack, and a small Barbie book with a mirror and a pad of paper inside. One the paper Yana wrote:

Sheryl
The best girlfriend
Yana
I love you

The two of them stand outside the teacher's room during the break between every class. They wait for me to be done with lessons so they can walk home with me. Vanya called me on the phone "just to talk" and was disappointed when I didn't call her back. Neither girl speaks English. They can understand things in the context of the classroom, but outside of the classroom they "nothing know." I only speak to them in English despite their pleas for me to speak to them in Ukrainian. Sometimes I'll translate things, when they really don't know what I'm talking about, but I'd rather make them work. And I figure, if I keep making them think about English, maybe their obsession with me will wane.

The Great Grant Saga

2006-09-26T05:03:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, Jennifer's host parents asked me if I'd be interested in writing a grant for the city to purchase new trashcans. I said yes, I would be interested in such a project, and so I met with the Deputy Mayor of Bar. At our first meeting, he said Bar wanted to run a "Clean City" campaign and purchase new garbage cans throughout the city. I told him I would help write the grant for the project but I needed to know exactly how many garbage cans the city wanted, how much they cost to make and the price of installation. He said he'd let me know. He never did.

Two weeks after our first meeting, we met again. At this meeting, the Deputy Mayor said the city did not want trashcans. Instead, they wanted to run a city beautification campaign and plant new bushes, grass and flowers along the main street. He also said they wanted a playground for the central park. No trashcans? I asked, just to make sure. No trashcans, the Deputy Mayor confirmed. Bushes, grass, and flowers on Prolitarska Street and a playground in the central park? I asked. Exactly, he said. I told the Deputy Mayor that I would write the grant for this project but I needed to know the cost of bushes, grass and flowers. No problem, he said. And so I went to work writing a "Healthy Community" grant that focused on the renovation of Prolitarska Street, the erection of a playground in the central park and a series of enivronmental/healthy lifestyle trainings in the schools.

I submitted the first draft of the grant on monday. On tuesday, Jennifer and I met with the Mayor to discuss the project. At the meeting, the Mayor said, what? No trashcans?
In our last meeting the Deputy Mayor said you didn't want trashcans, we replied.
We want trashcans, he said. Then the Deputy Mayor came in and said, no, we don't want trashcans, we want a playground. We want to make a park along Prolitarska Street.
Not in the central park? Jennifer and I asked.
No, he said, along Prolitarska Street, next to the bank, where there are all the trees. We want to make a children's square. The Mayor had another appointment so he said, let's meet again tomorrow and talk. Jennifer and I agreed.

At nine o'clock this morning, we met not with the Mayor, and not with the Deputy Mayor, but with a woman named Larissa who is apparently "in charge" of this project for the city. Jennifer and I asked a teacher to come along and translate for us just to be sure everything was clear today. But things were far from clear.

We want to make a children's square, Larissa said. But we need you to give us money so we can pay someone to write a report and submit it to the City Council.
No, we said. We will not give you money to pay someone to write a report and submit it to the City Council. That is your job.
It's not enough money for us to make a Children's park, Larissa said.
It's enough money to buy a small playground structure, we said. But the grant can't pay for everything. The city must contribute labor.

We don't want to beautify Prolitarska Street, Larissa said. It's too expensive and it's not possible.
You don't want a city beautification campaign? We asked.
No, she said, that was your idea.
It was the Deputy Mayor's idea, we said. You were there at the meeting and you agreed that was what you wanted.

How much money can you give us? Larissa asked.
It depends on how much it costs to make this children's park, we said. We have to write a budget and submit it with the final draft of this grant.
How much money will we get? she asked again.
How much do bushes cost? We asked. How much does it cost to take out trees? How much does it cost to put in grass and woodchips? We have to know to make a budget, then we will know how much money we are requesting. The limit is $5,000, but we must account for every penny.
It's not enough money, Larissa said. We can't do anything.
We can do a lot, we said.

What do you want this project to be? We asked her.
A children's square with grass and benches, she said.
That's it, an area with grass and benches? we said.
Yes. It will be a place where children can rest, she said.
Without a playground? We asked.
Without a playground, she said. But with new trashcans.
You want this project to include trashcans? we said.
Yes, she said, it should be only about trashcans.
Only trashcans? we asked.
Yes, only trashcans there is not enough money for a children's square, she said.

We don't know how much money there is because you haven't created a budget of what you need, we said. We created a budget for this "Healthy Community" project we wrote. Let us share with you the project we created based upon our understanding of what you said you wanted.

The project has four objective, we said. Clean up Prolitarska Street and the central park by planting new bushes, grass and flowers and erecting the playground in the park. Train older students to teach environmental awareness and healthy living to students at the primary schools. Hold a community clean up day at the end of April. Designate areas of the city as 'school zones' and have to schools compete for the cleanest zone...

That is impossible, Larissa said, cutting us off. Prolitarska Street cannot be beautified with bushes and flowers.
It's what you said you wanted before, we said.
It's too expensive, she replied, and we want the Children's square.
The problem is you don't know what you want, we said. You need to know what you want in order for us to do this project together. We only have a few weeks before the final draft of this grant is due and you need to decide what you want to do and stick with it. Otherwise we will have to table this project until February.

Fine, Larissa said. Do the project like you've written it here.
But you said this project is impossible, we said. We can't submit a project in good faith if you say it is impossible. We want to work with you on a project that is possible for Bar.

Then Larissa took the budget from the draft grant we'd written and whisked it off to another room.
I don't know what she's doing with that, Jennifer said. It's all in English. They won't know what the numbers mean.

Larissa returned a few minutes later waving the budget in the air and said, It's too expensive. The city can't afford to contribute that much to a project. We want trashcans.
Well that will have to wait until the next round of grants in February, we said. And we will only help you with a project if you have clear, unchanging objectives.
It's just not enough money that we can get, Larissa said.
It's enough money, we said.

I left the meeting this morning fuming. I was furious and annoyed mostly because I was excited about the grant that I had written based upon the needs the Mayor had previously expressed. I've since calmed down. I still plan on submitting a final draft of the grant but instead of involving the city, it will be a small grant to sponsor a healthy lifestyles week in the schools. It will be good, even if it's not as extravagant as a new playground for the kids.

I could never be a business volunteer. I think it would drive me insanse. The most frustrating thing about this whole grant saga is that the city can't seem to see past the dollar sign. They can't make a decision about a project because they are so consumed by the idea of getting money. It's not enough, they say. It's just not enough. But, it is enough. It is enough to make small changes and improvements in the city. Rather than taking the perspective: I have this project I want to finance, they say: we need money, but we don't know why.

My job in Bar is to teach and work at the schools and that's my primary concern. I agreed to work with the city because they seemed genuinely interested in working towards the betterment of Bar. But I've since discovered that the city isn't actually interested in working at all. They are interested in people doing things for them. They want change, but they don't want to work for it or pay for it. They see themselves as having so many needs that it's like they are paralyzed when it comes to doing anything about them. Rather than taking small steps they say, 'It's not enough' and they do nothing.

The great grant saga isn't over yet. Jennifer's host mom was at the meetings this morning and apparently, after Jennifer and I left, she yelled at the Deputy Mayor and Larissa for being so impossible to work with. The Deputy Mayor then said, No, we are interested in this project, we just need this 10 page grant translated into Ukrainian so we can all be on the same page. So we'll see. I just don't know what will happen next. The city will probably change its mind 10 more times in the next week, and in the meantime, I'll be working on a smaller project focused on my students.

I know, it's been forever...

2006-09-20T06:38:00.000-07:00

Nearly three weeks of school have passed and I have yet to post a single blog. My apologies. School started with much anticipated chaos. There was no schedule. There was no schedule for two weeks. Each morning, the teachers would have to come to school and find out if they had any classes. I was told that it was impossible to have a schedule before school started because some of our teachers also teach at another school and my school had to wait to find out the other school's schedule. Of course the other school was waiting on our schedule...so round and round we went.

It's nice to be back in school. I'm teaching four days a week. I teach 6th,7th,8th,9th and 11th forms. I was going to teach the 10th form but they were just too impossible for me to deal with and I told my coordinator that I wouldn't teach that class. In Ukraine, kids have the choice of leaving secondary school after the 9th form. They can go to a technical school and study a trade, to a college (though it's really more like community college) and work towards a degree or they can stay in the secondary school and try for a university after the 11th form. Last year there were three 9th form classes. I taught two of these 9th form classes and I liked them alright; but this year, only three of my students returned. The 10th form is made up entirely of students I didn't have from the "bad" 9th form class. I taught two lessons to them this year, in their 10th form class, and it was the most annoying two hours of my life. They wouldn't do anything. I asked them to open their books. Nothing. I asked them simple questions. They just stared. Or slept. Or played on their cell phones. I'm glad I don't have to teach them.

My favorite class is my 11th form. There are 15 girls in that class and three boys. The girls are really sweet and they try hard. They at least make me feel like I'm teaching them something. My second favorite class is my 7th form. The four obnoxious boys leave to be with another teacher when I come and I'm left with the sweetest, most earnest group of kids.

We are working with new textbooks this year. They are books I was able to purchase through the grant I wrote last year with Jennifer. The books are all in English and that has been a difficult transition for my kids. They are used to working with books that translate everything into Ukrainian and so it's been tough not to have what I call "the Ukrainian crutch". I observed the lessons of one of my collegues, Sasha, and I was shocked by how much Ukrainian he spoke in his class. No wonder the kids don't know English, the teachers speak so much Ukrainian to them!

Bar celebrated its birthday at the beginning of September. I don't know how old it is exactly, 600 and something. There was a big celebration in the town that day, and in the evening, a DJ from Vinnystia came and played music at a new restaurant in town. Everyone was all excited about the "big city DJ" coming to town. It was funny. Really, the DJ wasn't any better than someone spinning records in their friend's basement during a kegger.

I spent Bar's birthday with Anya and her family. She invited me to BBQ with her family at her house in the country. Anya's mother works and lives in Spain and she was back to visit her kids for the month. Anya's mother has been building a house on the outskirts of Bar for 10 years. Even after 10 years, it is only a shell of a house because Anya's uncle works on it only in his spare time. It was fun to meet Anya's mom and eat with her family. I met her aunts and uncles and cousins. Her family was a lot of fun and they made me miss my own relatives.

I don't know what else to report. Things are going good. I can't believe I've been in country for a year. The time went so fast and I know this next year will fly by too. The next group of TEFL volunteers will be arriving soon in country. I guess that makes me a veteran. I promise I will blog again soon!

First Bell

2006-09-02T02:10:00.000-07:00

Here are pictures from the "First Bell" ceremony. The "school leavers", also known as the 11th formers, were wearing traditional school uniforms. (Sexy french maid numbers, yes?) The school stood in a square around the muddy field. There were songs and dances performed in the center of the square. The ceremony began with 11th formers escorting the first formers around the square and to benches situated along one side. The third picture shows 11th formers escorting 1st formers to the front where the director presented them with a folder of copy books, pencils and crayons. The 11th formers then each gave a first former a stuft animal as a gift for their first day of school. It was rather cute. The first formers were so terrified and they walked really slow. Often, they were practically being dragged around by the older students.

End of August Fun

2006-09-02T01:50:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures that I like to call "End of August Fun". The first is a picture of me and Dave watching the sunset in Crimea. The second is of Sky, me and Hailey on Independence Day in Kiev. The third picture is the beach we hung out at outside of Sevestople, and the fourth is of my rock jewlery.

End of Summer Fun

2006-08-30T05:35:00.000-07:00

The weather is cold in Bar today. It's windy and rainy and cold. I guess summer really is over. I had a great summer, I have to say. Summer in Ukraine is incredible, as those of you who come to see me next year will find out.

I got back yesterday from my last summer trip. I went to Kiev to celebrate Ukrainian Independence Day with a bunch of my friends. It was a lot of fun. There were tons of people in Kiev for the holiday. It was really neat. There were no official celebrations however, because of the Russian airplane that crashed in eastern Ukraine. The country was observing three days of mourning, so all festivities were postponed until the day after the actual holiday. Still, there were a lot of people in town that day walking around with Ukrainian flags, drinking beers and generally enjoying themselves.

Early on in the day I bought two small Ukrainian flags and I spent the rest of the day waving them around exhuberantly. Sometimes I would flap them like crazy, other times I would make graceful circles in the air. It was quite fun. A few people even mistook me for a Ukrainian probably thinking, surely only a Ukrainian would flap around flags with such gusto.

In the evening, my friends and I went out on the town. It was then that I purchased some more accessories. Along with my flags, I spent the evening walking around wearing a headband with two big, orange, foam pigtails sticking out of it AND a clown nose. I bought both at a stand in the center of town. Sky bought a headband that had two foam hands sticking out of it. One was making a peace sign and the other was making a "hard rock" sign. Hailey, Dave's friend visiting from the states, bought a pink, shimmering wig. We were quite a trio, though I was the only one wearing the clown nose. Ukrainian girls generally, always look picture perfect. Appearance is uber important here. Seldom, if ever, would they try to look foolish just for laughs, so you can imagine the stares I got on the street. It was great fun. The more people stared, the more ethusiastically I waved the Ukrainian flags at them.

After Kiev, Dave and I took a quick trip down to Crimea and spent a couple days by the Black Sea. Our trip was fun. We stayed at a "bed and breakfast" in the home of our friend Marilee's host parents from training. At 10 dollars I night, I thought it was a pretty good deal, though Yulia thought it was funny that I paid even that much. We stayed in a town just outside of Sevestople, I forget what it's called though. We got in on Saturday afternoon and spent the rest of that day lounging by the beach. In the evening, night we took a fairy back across the bay to Sevestople and watched three really cool firework shows.

Sunday we spent entirely at the beach. The water was warm and clean. The beach was rocky and beautiful. Late in the afternoon we rented a paddle boat and paddled out until we were the farthest boat out on the water. There were hundreds of small jelly fish way out there, and we jumped (well, I jumped and Dave flipped) into the water from the back of the boat and swam with them. Then we just paddled around looking for bigger jelly fish, which we did see. At one point I got really excited because I thought I saw a stingray, but it turned out to be a backpack.

We left Monday morning. My train left at 11:50 in the morning and didn't get in until 8:45 the next morning. It was kind of a treck, but I had picked up a bad book when I was in the peace corps office and it occupied me during daylight hours. Now I'm back in Bar. School starts on Friday, though really, it probably won't start for a few weeks. It takes that long to iron out schedules. Maybe by the end of September I'll know my schedule. I plan on being back in Kiev this weekend. I'm going with Jennifer to take her sister to the airport. I intend to post more pictures on line when I stop into the office. Everyone deserves to see me in my Independence Day attire.

The pictures I posted before are of my street sign (I live on Karl Marx street); my kitty pheobe; my host family during training in traditional Cossak dress; my friends in Bar, Anya, Yulia, Ira and Roma; and me smelling like a lot of old wool.

2006-08-25T03:44:00.000-07:00

Oh Ukraine...

2006-08-14T06:40:00.000-07:00

I'm boycotting one of the two internet places in town because the owner called me a fool. Not to my face, but under his breath. I guess he assumed I haven't learned anything since coming to town seven months ago. I'm annoyed though, because now I have to boycott his establishment, which means there are only four computers in Bar that will get me on-line, and only three that will let me check my email.

The thing is, he's the fool. He's the 35-year-old man getting annoyed that my email is slowing down HIS gaming even though I'm the only customer in the club and he should just be thankful for my business. They really have a long way to go when it comes to customer service here. Sometimes it's like, well excuuuuuse me for buying milk. Excuse me for asking you to give me cheese. It's not my fault everything is behind glass.

Oh Ukraine,

My friend Emily was away from her site for most of the summer. She returned last week and saw one of her neighbors in the hall. It was the first time she'd seen him since June and he said,

"You were away so long and you got fat. Too bad."

When I lived with my host family here in Bar, my crazy host mom routinely slapped my ass and told me it was gaining weight nicely. Then one day she slapped it and told me I should watch my figure if I ever wanted to get a man. I assured her I didn't, at least not a Ukrainian one. My friend Sky's fiance is always telling her she needs to lose weight, that's she's too big. He doesn't mean it to be offensive, it's just the attitude here. In America, you might comment if a person seemed to have lost weight; but you certainly would never tell them that they've gained it. And you would NEVER tell someone they got fat while they were away.

When I was out east for Dave's birthday, we went over to his friend Sveta's apartment. Sveta's mother-in-law was there too, and the first chance she got, she pulled me into one of the bedrooms, pointed to a stationary bike and asked me if I wanted to ride it. When I said no, she said,

'Oh, you are so thin. How much do you weigh?' I told her I didn't know and she ran off and got her scale, put it on the floor and told me to stand on it. Then she bent over to see what it said. After I stepped off, she stepped on and pointed down to the scale for me to look. Then she put me back on the scale on last time, I guess to make sure she read it correctly.

And again I say, Oh Ukraine...

Yesterday I had a meeting with the Mayor of Bar. It seems I've been roped into writing a grant to install garbage cans throughout the city. It's a good project, and I suppose I don't mind having to do it, but I was pretty much forced into saying yes and I'm slightly bitter about that. But, how could I say no to the Mayor, the Deputy Mayor, Jennifer's host parents and the Director of my school? Plus Bar really does have a trash problem so it's not like they were digging for money for some superfluous reason.

Anyway, the Mayor is a nice guy. His daughter is one of my students, one of my good students in fact, and he said he'd heard good things about me, so that was nice. He also said he heard that I played basketball well. I swear, I can't sneeze in this town without everyone finding out about it, and I suppose that's as much small town life as it is life as the foreigner.

Summer is winding up pretty fast. Next week I'm going to Kiev to meet my friends. The 24th is Ukrainian Independence Day and we are going to rent an apartment near the center of town. I think spending Independence Day in the capital will be pretty interesting. After that, Dave and I are taking a quick trip down to Crimea to enjoy our last few days of freedom, I mean summer, on the beach.

Maybe by the time I get back and my school schedule is finally sorted out the internet club will be under new managment and my inconvenient boycott can end. Oh, who am I kidding...

Fixing Klitchko

2006-08-08T04:36:00.000-07:00

I don't know who had a more horrifying morning: me, or Klitchko. Though I'll wager it was him since he's the one who lost his balls.

Klitchko needed to be nuetered. I've known this since I got him, but things became more critical when Pheobe came into our family. Any more cats around my apartment and I really would become the running joke of the town.

Finding a vet proved harder than I thought it would be. Most people with pets never nueter them. It's considered "unnatural" so instead, they let their animals have babies twice a year, every year, and put the babies out on the street.

Jennifer's host mom, Anya, asked around for me and in the end, introduced me to a sweet old man who used to work at the Vetrinary Hosptial...somewhere. I never got the specifics. He agreed to nueter Klitchko for me, said he'd done it many times before, and that it would be quick and painless for my buddy. He would come to me, do it at my house, and all I would need to do was buy the drugs from the pharmacy.

At eight o'clock this morning, I knocked on his door. We then walked to the pharmacy where we bought some penicillin, iodine, and something to numb Klitchko's rear. I was hoping we'd also buy something to put him to sleep, but that didn't happen.

Once at my apartment, Alec got his tools out of his leather breifcase. He pulled out two small metal boxes full of scissors, tweezers, razors, string, syringes and large needles. It reminded me of the animal doctor in the Disney movie "The Rescuers Down Under." If you have no idea what I'm talking about, it's worth watching the movie just to understand my growing trepidation about what exactly the two of us where going to be doing to my cat.

Now comes the horrible part. Perhaps many years from now I'll be able to chuckle about things but right now, I'm still in shock. You should know that Klitchko is fine. He's alive (yes, there were some moments when I doubted it) and in good spirits all things considered, though I imagine his hangover will last him well into the night.

Our first and only problem was getting Klitchko to lie still so the dirty deed could be done. Alec looked all around my apartment for things "to help." First he asked me if I had any big jars. I found one for him, not sure what exactly he was going to use it for. I held Klitchko while Alec attempted to wrap gauze around his hind paws. Klitchko did not appreciate this and soon began meowing and growling. He never swung at me, but he swung at Alec and got him pretty good. Alec got one hind paw tied and then decided it would be best to tie Klitchko down on the stool in my kitchen.

I put him down and Alec tied his body to the stool. Klitchko wiggled out, but not before Alec bound his hind legs together. There was more meowing and growling. Alec was concerned that Klitchko would scratch me and bite me and I suppose that is why he shoved Klitchko's head into the jar. This of course, freaked my poor cat out even more. He meowed loudly and his meows echoed into his little head and he tried frantically to get out, wiggly and crying and growling. It was horrible. He manage to wiggle his way out of the jar, but not before breaking one of his bottom teeth on the glass.

I told Alec, no more jars! He's breaking his teeth on the jars! Alec agreed, deciding to tie Klitchko to the stool even more. He wrapped more gauze around Klitchko and the stool. He tried to wrap it around his kneck, but decided against it when he realized Klitchko would fight it until he choaked. He tied two towels around Klitchko and the stool and my poor baby just got more frantic. I don't blame him. I was feeling pretty frantic myself.

Then, Alec asked if I had any vodka.

He filled up one of his big syringes with vodka and forced Klitchko to drink it. Klitchko spat most of it out and Alec did it again and again. In all, he probably gave my little buddy 50 to 100 grams of vodka, maybe even more. It's hard to tell. Klitchko, drunk, fought slightly less. I was able to hold him while Alec went about his dirty business from behind. He sliced and popped out one little ball. Klitchko screamed and cried and I very nearly did too. Then Alec sliced and popped the other one, but this time, as he was doing it, Klitchko screamed really loud and then went totally limp.

I immediately began to panic. He's dead! I said over and over again. I didn't know how to say "He's passed out," or "He's fainted" and frankly, I thought he was dead. It took Alec a moment to realize what I was trying to say. Then he shook Klitchko but he only flopped around. Get water! Alec told me. I was frantic as I grabbed my tea kettle. Alec threw water on Klitchko but nothing happened. Then he began to quickly untie all the gauze and towels. He got his scissors and even cut through my decrative dishtowel. I kept pulling on Klitchko while he did that, trying to get him loose from the stool. He was limp. His eyes were gone. He wasn't breathing.

Alec took him from me and put him on the floor, splashing more water on him and kind of slapping him around. Alec was pressing on his chest and batting him around and I was sure that my little guy was a goner. I couldn't sense his presence and it freaked me out. I was seconds away from swooping in for some mouth-to-mouth when Klitchko took a small breath and I saw his little chest rise.

I started to cry. Klitchko looked at me as if from a haze and I was just so happy he was alive. Maybe he didn't die, but in my mind he had, and he'd come back to life. Alec slapped more water on him and Klitchko became more alert. He stood up, but then fell back down. He tried again and took a few drunken steps. Alec seemed almost as relieved as me. Don't cry, he told me. He's going to be okay. It's just the vodka. He's drunk, but he's going to be okay. This isn't the first time I've done this. Don't worry. Don't be sad. Then he came over and gave me a big, grandfatherly kiss on my cheek.

Alec left after a few minutes of observing Klitchko. He left behind iodine, some cotton, gauze and two little testicals that would make smashing earrings if that wasn't so disgusting.

Klitchko stumbled around my apartment for a little while before falling asleep on my lap. He's spent most of the day at my side. I thought he'd hate me for months, but I guess he's a sweet and forgiving drunk.

And I, I'm just happy he's alive and the deed is done and I'll never have to have such a horrifying morning again in my life.

Three makes a Family

2006-07-25T05:09:00.000-07:00

So I now have two cats. That's right, two. Klitchko has a sister and she's REALLY cute. I picked her up last night when I was at the cafe with my friends. We were sitting outside and I saw this cute little thing run by. I oogled at it, and then went and pet it, but it ran away from me so I sat back down with my friends. Then Sergy (Seriogia) got up and fetched her for me. She was scared and he had to chase her around a building, and when he emerged he had her and another small cat in his arms. He deposited them both on my lap and everyone laughed and told me I was the cat lady. The second cat bolted from my lap after a few minutes, but the other one stayed and was so skinny that I felt compelled go go by her some anchovies from the cafe. Long story short, I fed her, fell in love with her, and took her home. So now I have two cats, Klitchko and Pheobe.

Yesterday afternoon I went and got a pedicure. It was a rather interesting experience. I showed up at 3 o'clock and was soaking my feet in water by 3:05. The soaking lasting for a good 25 minutes, with the lady popping in every once in awhile to tell me to sit "just a little longer." When she finally got to work on my feet, the first thing she did was razor off all my calluses, which actually took quite a bit of time. I'd never had them razored off before and I think she could tell. She kept sighing and blowing her hair out of her face. She even had to stop and shake out her arm a few times. I didn't know how to say, "I've only ever been pummus-stoned", so I just sat back and watched as flecks of callous cascaded to the floor. Kind of gross.

Yulia invited me over to her house yesterday. I came over around 5 o'clock to find that I'd been invited to a Mary Kay party. It was me, Yulia, Anya, Katia, Misha (poor Misha, what 14 year old boy should have to suffer through a Mary Kay party?) and the Mary Kay representative for Bar. We washed our faces and lotioned our hands. All the samples that Anya and Yulia got were "energizing", while all the ones the lady gave me were "age-defying". I thought it was funny. I'm not THAT much older than them...or am I? After we washed and rejuvinated our skin, the lady did our makeup. We were fully madeup by seven o'clock, and then we hit the town. It was funny. I was dressed very casually, but my eye makeup screamed "PROM NIGHT!"

Last Saturday I met up with Dave in Kiev to see another show. We had a good time. We weren't able to see the DJ he had wanted to see, but it was all the same to me. We hung out at a cool night club named Wenzel and found an all-night producty/cafe. I headed home Sunday at 1:30. The weather had been beautiful in Kiev, but when my train got to Vinnystia, it was POURING down rain. It was ABSURD. I had only 35 minutes to get to the bus station so I couldn't waste time waiting out the storm in the Vokzal. I dashed from the train to the waiting marshrutka's. It was maybe a 50 yard dash, and in that time, I got so incredibly wet that I was literally DRIPPING when I got on the marshrutka. The driver LAUGHED at me. I made it to the bus station in time to catch my bus back to Bar. By that time the rain had subsided, though I was still wet and rather pruney.

Dave's birthday is on Sunday. A bunch of us are going out east to see him this weekend and celebrate his birthday. It should be fun. Skyler will be there, and my friend Emily, so I'm looking forward to that. Dave now has a cat too. He was out walking and a kitten started following him so he picked it up, carried it for awhile, and then called me to ask me what he should do. I don't know what kind of advice he thought I'd give. "Take it home! Keep it!" I said. And he did.

Summer is going by so fast. I can't believe July is nearly over. I've been traveling so much to and fro that I've been neglecting my blog. August will go equally as fast I'm sure. I may or may not be going to the sea with Anya and Yulia. They want me to go with them, but it depends on if Katia decides to go. If she doesn't go, I get her train ticket and go down to Crimea with the girls. We'll see. I'd love to go, but I don't need to. I've had a pretty action-packed summer as it is.

Well, I should get home to check on my cats. I must say that Klitchko is looking really good these days. His coat is so sleek and glistening black. He's had a number of compliments on it as of late. Pheobe is a little scragglier. She has longer hair and is full of color. She's brown, white, and grey with a pink nose, white paws and grey eyes. Oh dear, look at me, I really am a crazy cat lady. My blog has now degenerated into cat chat.

Apologies.

Lviv

2006-07-11T04:06:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in the computer lab at the Catholic University in Lviv. My friend Skyler and I are staying in a volunteer's apartment in the center of town. The volunteer is away at a summer camp and he left his keys with our friend Emily, so we decided to come and enjoy a few days in Lviv.

I arrived last night after a long, hot train ride from Vinnystia. The apartment that we are staying in is REALLY nice, very western, equipped with a microwave, a huge bathtub, hot water, and wood floors. It looks like something you might find in Manhattan, or San Francisco, but not Ukraine. I think we're still in a bit of shock.

This morning we had brunch at a cute little cafe that served marguaritas. It's the first time I'd seen tequilla on the menu since I've been in country, so of course, I got one. It was delicious.

Sky and I don't have any concrete plans for our stay here. We're going to walk around, probably drink some beer, window shop and maybe even catch an english language movie. I'm here until thursday night, when I'm catching an overnight train to Kiev for peace corpse training. I'll be at training for 4 days and then it's back to Bar.

Last week I spent a lot of time hanging out with Yulia and Ania, my two young, adorable Ukrainian girlfriends. We went out to the cafe and danced a few nights. It was fun. On Saturday night we went dancing at Stary Zamock. There were a lot of people there that night. The dance floor was pretty packed. At one point, some drunk guy picked up another drunk guy and started swinging him around. It was all in good fun, but I wasn't paying attention and out of the blue, I got kicked in the face. It hurt, but it didn't leave any mark and I was okay, though I was a bit wary of the dance floor after that.

Ania agreed to feed Klitchko for me while I'm away. I bought her a bottle of vodka, a couple of beers and some drinking snacks as a thank you. I wanted to pay her, but I knew she'd never take my money. Alcohol is always an acceptable form of currency here.

I know I promised to regale you with tales of 4th of July pond scum, but that story isn't all that exciting. On the 4th, I went to the "lake" (pond? reservoire? watering hole? puddle? I don't know what to call it) with Jennifer and her family. The water looked clean, as in, there were no heaps of visible trash floating in it; but when I emerged from the water after a quick dip, I looked like a hairy ape. There was all sorts of dark, floating bits on my body and I looks like a hairy beast. It was disgusting. From here on out, my new rule is that I'm only swimming in moving bodies of water.

Anyway, the weather here in Lviv is beautiful, as is the city itself. Anyone who comes to visit me will certainly be taken here. It's almost like I'm not in Ukraine anymore, like I've somehow been transported to a European city. I intend to take a lot of pictures which I probably will never be able to post here, but perhaps sometimes I'll turn them into a scrapbook.

I Survived

2006-07-06T05:31:00.000-07:00

I've been home from survival camp for nearly a week, so I guess it's safe to say that I survived. Camp was a lot of fun. It wasn't the rugged adventure I was expecting, but it was still a great experience.

We ended up camping on the outskirts of a small town in western Ukraine called Kosiv. Kosiv is a two hour marshrutka ride away from the city of Chernivsti. It's on the edge of the Carpathian mountains.

There were eleven or so PCVs who worked at the camp. We arrived a day before the kids. All of us were expecting a fairly significant hike to our campsite. So you can imagine our suprise when our "hike" from the "trail-head" (AKA some family's front yard) to our campsite (AKA the field behind some family's house) ended up being a mere 15 feet. There were two potatoe fields on the hillside next to our campgrounds. We used well water from the houses in the neighborhood below us. One family lent us pots and pans, another family lent us blinkets and yet another family let some of the boys crash their house to watch Ukraine in a World Cup game.

The kids who came to the camp were great. They were mostly all university students with very good english skills. They had to speak english the whole time they were there. They were broken up into teams and speaking Russian or Ukrainian would lose their team points.

The team I counciled, team Explosion, came in dead last the points competition. As my co-counciler Jeff said, we were an Explosion of apathy. It didn't matter though, the kids still had a great time. My email is flooded with emails from girls who were at the camp all talking about how much fun they had and how much they miss it.

The best thing about camping so close to town was that we could go into town frequently and swim in the river. The river in Kosiv was beautiful. It was clean and deep in parts and fast. It was like paradise.

The kids learned survival skills. The only survival skill I was able to teach was the hemlick (which I know I can't spell). While I was teaching, I kept wanting to call it the heneiken. At least that I can spell. I learned a lot of survival skills that I didn't know before, like how to build a fire, tie knotts, and build a shelter. I feel ready to take on the wilderness now, for real.

One day we went on a hike. Our guide, Alexsander, took us straight up the side of the mountain. I was huffing and puffing. I didn't know if I could make it. Towards the end I was literally lifting my legs and forcing them to take steps. It was beautiful in the mountains.

This is a rather unfocused blog. I apologize for that. I'm writing it as fast as I can because I fear that my internet time will be up at any moment. I'll write again soon though, I promise, and regale you with tales of my exciting 4th of July swim with pond scum. Good stuff, so stay tuned.

Son of a Bus

2006-06-19T23:55:00.000-07:00

So I tried to outsmart the village bus, but I failed…miserably.

On Saturday, the volunteers in my oblast met up in Zhmerynka to celebrate Patrick’s 23rd birthday and cheer on the U.S. soccer team. Patrick invited us to come to his apartment around eleven. I expected to arrive between eleven and twelve. I’m pretty comfortable traveling to and fro now, and I didn’t think it would be particularly hard to get myself to Zhmerynka.

There is a bus that goes from Bar to Zhmerynka. It’s a village bus though, and it snakes through the small villages scattered between the “big” cities. It’s a windy, bumpy, slow ride that takes nearly two hours. The bus is old and rickety and always crammed full of people. I didn’t particularly want to take the village bus, and I figured it would be more comfortable and convenient to simply take a marshrutka to Vinnystia and proceed from there to Zhmerynka. I would save about 30 minutes in travel time and I would stick to the main road so it would be fast without the frequent stops.

I left Bar at nine o’clock in the morning. I was feeling good and looking forward to spending the day with other volunteers. When I got to the bus station in Vinnystia, I bought a ticket to Zhmerynka. The final destination of the bus was a smaller city 30 minutes beyond where I wanted to go, but the lady assured me that it stopped in Zhmerynka. I had about 45 minutes to kill before my bus, so I ran across the street to the supermarket to stock up on cat food. I also found the perfect birthday present for Patrick in the toy section of the store. I bought him a toy police set with a badge, handcuffs, a headset, a walkie-talkie and a dart gun. The packaging said, “Police vs. the Bad Guyz”. I knew it was ridiculous enough for Patrick to appreciate, and probably use in the classroom.

After purchasing my goods, I scampered back across the street to catch my bus. I was a little disappointed to find that my bus was old and rickety. I thought for sure I’d be on a newer, fast bus. This should have been my first red flag. My second red flag should have been when the bus left 15 minutes late. Trains and buses leave with breathtaking punctuality in this country. It’s rare for a bus to leave late. Still, I didn’t think about it too much. I’d double-checked the sign in the front window as I got on, and it said Shogorod, the final destination of the bus on my ticket. I relaxed in my seat, absorbed myself in my I-Pod, and planned on taking a little nap. I fully expected to be in Zhmerynka in 30 minutes.

The bus finally left at 11:20. As it pulled away, the clutch made horrible, grinding noises. Sweet, I thought to myself. Nice bus. I glanced out the window one last time long enough to see a marshrutka parked to the side of the station with a sign in it’s window that said Shogorod thru Zhmerynka. Huh, I thought to myself.

With much lurching and clutch grinding, my bus pulled out of the station and proceeded down the main road. A few kilometers outside of Vinnystia, it turned right down a smaller, more obscure road. Sweet, I thought to myself, I’m on a village bus—the very thing I drove an hour out of my way to avoid.

It was slow going as we lurched and grinded along. I text messaged Sandy to let her know that I was going to be a little late to the party, as I was stuck on a damn village bus and it was leisurely winding through the countryside, in no particular hurry to reach Zhmerynka.

An hour and half later, about the time my I-Pod died, I started to get a sinking feeling that this bus was not going thru Zhmerynka at all. I still had no proof at that point, but in my gut, I knew. With no small amount of self-hatred, I admitted that I was on the wrong bus, and there was nothing I could do about it. I had to ride it to the end, because at least in Shogorod, I’d be able to catch something to Zhmerynka. There was no point in getting off. The villages we were going thru were so small and obscure that I couldn’t even guarantee that a bus would come in the other direction to take me back to Vinnystia. I had no idea how far away from Shogorod we even were, nor really, how far Shogorod was from Zhmerynka. I was stuck.

The countryside was beautiful. We drove through farmlands and woods, past lakes and rivers, stopping to let people on and off at random. I felt helpless and hopeless and I really had to pee. Time crept by at roughly the same pace that the village bus lurched, grinded and crawled along.

At 2:00, two and a half hours into the ride, the bus started smoking out the back end. The driver pulled it to the side of the road and told everyone on board to get off. Thankfully, we were passing thru a village at the time. Passengers got of the bus and scattered to different homes asking for buckets of water. For the next 30 minutes, the driver doused water underneath the bus, near the back tire, where the smoke was billowing out thick. As I was standing off to the side, contemplating whether I had to go to the bathroom enough to ask the old lady standing in her yard watching if I could use her toilet, I looked at the sign on the front of the bus. It was different than when I boarded at eleven o’clock.

The sign had changed from Shogorod, to Shogorod thru Trypin. My suspicions were confirmed. I would not be passing thru Zhmerynka. I tried to call to the party, but I had no cell phone service out in the middle of nowhere. My morale was, to the say least, low.

As soon as the bus stopped smoking, we boarded again and continued on our way. With each hill we climbed, the lady sitting across from the aisle from me crossed herself. I wanted to lean over and tell her, I know what you mean.
At three o’clock, the bus finally rumbled into Shogorod. I got off as fast as I could and bought a ticket to Zhmerynka. I called the party to tell them I was finally on my way. They promised me a white Russian upon my arrival.

I waited around for another hour before the marshrutka showed up. As I boarded, I triple-checked the destination with the driver. My day of traveling was exhausting. The older woman sitting facing me on the marshrutka kept staring at me, at my shoes (definitely not Ukrainian) and at my bag of cat food and police toys. I kept staring at her bag of green onions and her impressively huge hands. We didn’t speak.
I finally made it to Zhmerynka at five o’clock. The party was pretty much over. Half the people left an hour after I got there. I stayed the night. I wasn’t particularly eager to climb back on the bus.

The U.S. world cup game didn’t start until ten that night. I only made to half time before falling asleep on the couch. It was a combination of the white Russians and my day of slow, mindless travel. It really took it out of me.

I head out to a summer camp in the Carpathian Mountains this week. The camp is seven days of camping and teaching survival skills, whatever that means. I’m excited. It should be fun, and as we’re traveling in a big group, I think the chances of another village bus situation occurring are rather slim.

24-hours in Kiev

2006-06-13T03:55:00.000-07:00

Dancing has never really been my thing. With a few notable exceptions – two-stepping at The Little Red Hen with a mustached cowboy on my 22nd birthday, tearing up the dance floor in a bridesmaid dress at my sister’s wedding, lifting coconuts on the outdoor patio with Josh at the Kingshead – I usually need to have a number of drinks under my belt to hit the dance floor. Since coming to Ukraine though, I’ve found that my thing or not, a good night out is going to involve dancing. And so yes, these days I dance, rather often in fact.

On Saturday, I met up with Dave in Kiev to see Paul Van Dyk, an American DJ with an international resume, play at the International Convention Center. It was, by far, the most serious dance undertaking of my life; and as I was attending with the dance king himself, I knew going into it that we would literally be, dancing until dawn.

I. The Day
I took the six o’clock train into Kiev Saturday morning and met Dave at the train station. Dave was coming from Crimea, where he’d spent a week working at a summer camp, swimming in the sea, and getting tan. As we walked the kilometers from the train station to the Peace Corps office, I couldn’t help but marvel at his color. I’m still glaringly white, transparent even, and honestly, rather hopeless that conditions will change in the near future.

After dropping our stuff off at the office, Dave and I grabbed some breakfast where we witnessed a man down 200 grams of Hennison. He had a pained, determined look on his face that said, rough Friday night, need to kill the hangover. It was 10 o’clock in the morning.

With breakfast out of the way, and many hours until dinner when we were meeting Dave’s host family from training, we decided to try to find the convention center and see if we could procure our tickets. We hopped on the metro, the red line, and took it over the river and way across town. Dave didn’t know the exact location of the convention center, but he knew that it was close to the metro stop. We figured it’s a convention center, how hard could it be to find?

When we got off the metro, we didn’t immediately see anything that screamed convention center. We walked a few blocks in one direction, but still didn’t see anything. Then we walked in another direction. Off a ways, we saw a large building with international flags waving out front and headed towards it. As we got closer, we saw the parking lot full of semi-trucks.

“Hmm,” Dave said, “It looks like a shipping port.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “It does. Maybe it’s that way?” I said, pointing back the way we came.
“Maybe,” Dave said, and off we walked, but we didn’t find the convention center in that direction either. So we walked in another direction, but again, saw nothing. We came to a bookstore with a poster advertising the show hanging on the door.
“Hey, let’s ask in here,” I said, meaning of course, you go ask in here. So Dave did, and we were pointed back in the direction of the shipping port.
“Good thing we’re mapping this out now,” I said as we footed back in the direction we’d just been.
“I bet it’s that place we thought was a shipping port,” Dave said, “I mean, he’s only an international DJ playing a huge show, of course there’s going to be trucks of equipment. It’s not like he’s going to arrive half an hour early with his turntable and a pair of speakers.” I laughed. Turned out Dave was right.

We made our way down to the convention center where speakers, lights and video equipment were being hauled inside. We walked into to a lobby where we overheard a security guard talking to a young girl. He was telling her that getting tickets at the door would not be a problem.

After finding the convention center, we hopped the red line back to the Peace Corps office. At that point, we figured we’d be going straight from dinner with Dave’s host family to the show, so we grabbed what we would need later and left the things we wouldn’t. We were meeting Dave’s host siblings in Ukrainka, the city Dave trained in that’s 30 minutes outside of Kiev. To get to the station where we’d catch the marshrutka, we hopped on the green line. As usual, the metro was pretty crowded. There was a young guy sitting down with a big, black cat on his lap. As the metro rumbled loudly down the track, the cat sat obediently on the guys lap. I tried to imagine Klitchko sitting so calmly in a loud, crowded, underground metro car, but I couldn’t. There is nothing calm about my cat.

After the metro, we got on a marshrutka and headed out to Ukrainka. When we got there, we went to the outdoor market so Dave could buy a shirt for the show. He wanted a yellow shirt to match his yellow pumas and he found one without any difficulty. The shirt he found was even a yellow puma shirt so that his shoes, in true Ukrainian fashion, matched his outfit.

We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the park overlooking the river. The sun was shining and the weather was nice. At five o’clock, we met his up with his host siblings and headed to the family’s house in Trypillia, a town a few kilometers outside of Ukrainka. In Trypillia, Dave talked to Yulia and Andre in Russian while we shared a bottle of vodka and ate sausage, bread and bananas. At 7:30, the four of us walked to the train stop and caught an electric train back to Ukrainka. In Ukrainka, Andre got off and Yulia’s boyfriend got on and the four of us continued on to Kiev.

Yulia and her boyfriend got off the train at the metro stop where Dave and I had caught the marshrutka to Ukrainka. Getting off the train also was another guy carrying a cat—no cat carrier, no cardboard box, just a big cat who’d been hanging out on the train. Hmm, I thought to myself. What are the chances of seeing two carrierless cats in one day?

Dave and I stayed on the train, intending to take it all the way to the train station because the train station is only one metro stop away from the Peace Corps office. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it all the way to the train station. We had a little confusion and ended up getting off the train too soon, only to realize too late that we’d gotten off at the wrong stop. Dave realized it before I did, and he probably could have jumped back on the train before the doors slammed shut, but that would have left me alone on the abandoned platform, so I’m glad he didn’t do that.

I had no idea where we were, but thankfully Dave’s got a pretty good sense of direction. We walked all the way to the Peace Corps office. It was no big deal. What’s a few extra kilometers when you’re going to be dancing all night anyway? I kept referring to it as our warm up, though Dave didn’t quite share my enthusiasm for that likening. As we were walking back, we came across a wedding and witnessed a rather spectacular fireworks show. We stood and watched it for a bit, standing close enough for ashes to rain down on our heads.

We made it to the Peace Corps office just as it was closing for the night, though the guards were kind enough to let us in for a few minutes. I reapplied some makeup, pulled my hair back, slapped on a little extra deodorant, shined my shoes and we were off. On our way back to the metro, we bought some Burn energy drinks. We were walking and talking and not paying a whole lot of attention to where we were going. As we were taking the escalator down the three or so stories to the metro platform, we were deep in a hypothetical discussion about how awesome it would be to ski or sled down the steep slop. We were so distracted that neither of us noticed that we were getting on the green line instead of the red line. It took us a good 7 stops to realize our mistake. I thought it was rather funny. Dave didn’t share my sentiment. We had to grab the metro back in the direction we’d just come. On the crowded train, there was a woman with a cat in her purse. The cat was just sitting there calmly like it was a stuffed animal or something, only it wasn’t.

We got off the green line and went towards the escalator that would connect us to the red line, only we got on the wrong escalator. We got on the three-story escalator that slowly took us back to the street.
“This is where our problem started,” I laughed on the escalator as it crawled back down again. “If we hadn’t been so caught up in how awesome it would be to ski down this thing we probably would have gotten on the right metro. But then we wouldn’t have seen that cat in the lady’s purse, so I guess it was worth it.” Dave still didn’t think it was as amusing as I did.

We finally made it to the convention center. There was a long line out front, which we stood in for over an hour. Perhaps it’s because I grew up spending most of my summers standing in lines at Great America waiting to get on rides, or into shows, or into the park even, but I find crowd control in this country incredibly lame. I was spoiled growing up standing in lines that had cues, at a place that opened doors proportionally to the size of the crowd trying to get it. Here, for a show where two to three thousand people showed up to dance, there was one door, ONE DOOR letting people in.

It didn’t bother me, but it was lame. I thought perhaps the line was moving so slowly because they were checking peoples bags as they came it, perhaps doing a quick body scan with a metal detector, but no. None of that happened. The line was slow because there was one door. Wait, that’s not true, there was a VIP door, but a VIP ticket cost 300 hryven, so that door didn’t really count.

II. The Dance
We got into the show at 12:45, 15 minutes before Paul Van Dyk came on. Already, the large convention center was packed with people. Dave immediately started dancing with a huge, peaceful grin on his face. I started dancing too, but I was doing more of a body bop than any real dancing. At that point I was still too overwhelmed by the scene.

The show was expensive by Ukrainian standards. It only cost 20 dollars, but that translates into 100 hryven and that’s pretty steep for the average Ukrainian. As Dave said, it was the cream of the Kiev crop at the show. And they dressed it. I do believe I saw more supermodels at the convention center than New Yorkers see during fashion week. The pants were tight, the skirts were short and the heels were high. Compared to the cream of the Kiev crop, I felt a bit like sour cream or heavy cream, though it didn’t much matter. Everyone was there to dance.

Along with the models, were some regular folk. There was also the occasional person in costume. At one point a guy in a gas mask dance-walked past me, followed by someone wearing a scary old man Halloween mask. I saw a guy dressed like an angel, with little fairy wings on his back. There was a young guy who was wearing one big, white Mickey Mouse glove. There were a few people wearing what will forever be known to me as SARS masks. There was a guy wearing snowboarding goggles. There were lots and lots of people wearing sunglasses, the most popular trend being the Hunter S. Thomson look, followed closely by the Olsen twin look, followed closely by the Oakly look. (I can’t think of any celebrities off the top of my head who still go in for the Oakly look, maybe Lance Armstrong?)

When Paul Van Dyk started to play, the dance bug finally bit me and I gotta say, I really got into it. As into it as I got though, I remained rather vigilant of my surroundings, fearful that I would have my eye either burned out by a flailing cigarette or blackened by a flailing elbow. And let me tell you, both came close to happening.

Dave and I danced side by side. Occasionally I’d look over at him and just watch him. He was like a machine, a smiling, happy, dancing machine. Sometimes he’s turn around and survey the crowd with an approving looking on his face like a proud father watching his children. Other times I’d look over and see his arms raised in the air, his eyes closed, his face so content that he reminded me of an evangelical parishioner deep in worship.

We took one water/espresso shot break during Paul Van Dyk’s set. Then we returned to the dance floor. As the night, or should I say morning, progressed, more and more empty battles of water and soda were scattered on the floor. Not only was I worried about losing an eye, but I was also worried about turning an ankle on a rogue plastic bottle. It was like dancing on a minefield.

Paul Van Dyk’s set ended at four o’clock. Many people in the crowd left, but more stayed to dance on. My feet were killing me at that point, and my legs had lost all their spring, so I opted to find a seat and take a breather. I found a chair off to the side and watched as Dave danced with same amount of enthusiasm and vigor as when he hit the dance floor four hours earlier.

At 5:30, when the metro started running again, Dave and I left. We walked slowly to the metro and waited with throngs of people for the first train to come. When it finally came, people packed on. There was no extra room. When the metro came to the next stop, there was a platform full of young people, tired from their own night of dancing, waiting to get on. The doors opened and people pushed in. Even when I thought that another person could not possibly fit, someone cried out, “Please!” and another handful of people forced their way into the train. It was barely even possible to breath, there were so many people packed like sardines.

It made me think of this one time when I was at Disneyland with my sister. It was closing time, and we were waiting for the tram with a couple hundred other people, and when it finally came, instead of pushing her way onto it, she froze, had a bit of a panic attack because of the crowd, and refused to take another step. We had to wait for another tram, which was no big deal, but now that I think back to it, had that same situation happened here in Ukraine, you better be sure that all those hundreds of people would have gotten on that first tram. And nobody would have panicked.

Dave and I got back to the Peace Corps office at six o’clock, right when it was reopening. We went upstairs to the volunteer lounge and crashed on the couches. All in all, it was really, very fun. And though I still feel a bit like I just ran a marathon, or was hit by one of the semi-trucks carrying equipment for show, it was hands down something I would do again in a heartbeat. Though maybe next time I’d nix all the excess walking beforehand. My Target shoes weren’t made for quite so much walking AND dancing in one 24-hour period.

Little Feats

2006-06-08T04:09:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, I ventured into Vinnystia to buy a train ticket to Kiev. It was to be my first solo train ticket purchase, as in the past, I’ve had Jennifer by my side telling me what to say and when. I was a bit nervous because the women behind the counters at the касаs are a notorious bunch. I’ve heard horror stories of volunteers being yelled at, and in one particularly harrowing account, even brought to tears. I didn’t want that to be me, so I went prepared. I wrote myself a script and practiced it the whole bus ride to the big city.

The bus from Bar arrives at the варскі (barsky) bus station. From there I can hop on a trolleybus to get across town to the train station. The trolleybus costs 50 kopeks and the ride lasts 45 minutes. Another option is to take a marshrutka, which costs 90 kopeks, and takes 25 minutes. I’m cheap, but I’m not that cheap; plus, I’m no longer enamored by the trolleybus experience, so I opted for the marshrutka.

I got to the train station a little after one o’clock. In the past, when I’ve gone to purchase tickets, there have hardly been any lines. In the past though, it hasn’t been summer and everyone and their second cousin twice removed hasn’t been trying to get to the sea. It was utter insanity inside the building. There were five ticket windows open, each with a line of people that stretched to the back of the room. And really, the lines were twice as long as they appeared to be because a) in true Ukrainian fashion, people were practically standing on top of each other and b) people would disappear from the line and reappear 20 minutes later expecting their spot back. I’ve always been under the impression that “savezies” is uncouth. Though maybe that’s only in America, or at amusement parks. Certainly it’s a perfectly acceptable practice in Ukraine.

I chose my line carefully, which meant scrutinizing the signs above each window to see when that window would be closing for break. In Ukraine, when it’s break time, it’s break time. I’ve been one person away from the front at the post office and I’ve had the window slammed shut on me because it was break time. I took it for granted in America that someone’s break never interrupted my errands. Breaks are staggered, and there are always enough workers to ensure that the post office doesn’t close for an hour in the middle of the day. Here, there are no replacements.

I took a chance by getting in a line that would be closing down for break in an hour. I figured I’d chance it, though I won’t lie, I neurotically glanced at my watch every two minutes while willing the lady to sell faster. All around me, people were grouchy and I felt an increasing amount of panic overtake me as I got closer and closer to the front of the line. I took out my cheat-sheet and read it over and over again. I ended up standing in line for 45 minutes before I made it to the window. By then, the break was rapidly approaching. The people behind me, feeling the minutes tick away, pressed closer and closer until I was literally, sandwiched between a mob of travelers and the glass window.

In a last minute laps of confidence, I decided to give the woman my script rather than try to say it. The pressure was too high, and I thought things would go faster if, like in a low-profile bank heist, I just slipped her the pertinent information on a sheet of paper. It was not faster. In fact, I think my slip actually slowed things down considerably.

After I slid the paper under the window, the woman cocked her head and looked at me for a long moment, probably trying to decipher whether I was handicapped or simply foreign. Then she slowly turned her head down towards the paper. I’d written everything in big block letters, because I don’t know how to write in cursive, and the woman’s eyes bugged out (in good-grief-how-long-until-my -break kind of way) the moment she started reading it. I’m pretty sure nobody here ever writes in block letters EVER after the age of seven.

When she finally finished reading it, she looked up at me and just, looked. Now I was expecting her to start fiddling around on the computer, perhaps find the trains I requested. Instead, she just looked at me. So I slid her my documents but she just kept looking, until finally, not knowing how to say, “It’s all right there in front of you!” I found myself asking for the morning train to Kiev on June 10th and a return ticket to Vinnystia on the 11th. I suppose really, I didn’t need to slip her the note after all.

Even though in the end, I used my Ukrainian to buy my tickets, the woman insisted upon slowing things down even further by flashing her fingers over and over again to communicate numbers to me. She flashed ten to double-check that I wanted to go to Kiev on the 10th, eleven to double-check the return date, thirty-eight to tell me how much I owed her, twelve to say how much change I received. With each number she flashed to me, the grumble of the people behind me grew louder and louder. It didn’t bother me though. I didn’t know what the hell they were saying anyway. Sometimes it’s nice not to understand. Really, ignorance is bliss.

On Tuesday night I found myself feeling a little stir crazy. I would have called Yulia, except she went to the sea for three weeks and won’t be back until the end of June. In my boredom, I decided I would call her friend Roma. We used to play basketball together during the dark days of winter/host family living and the last time I saw him he asked if I was ever going to invite him over. So I gave his cell phone a call. It rang three times before he picked up.

“Hallo?” he said.
“Hi, Roma, it’s Sheryl,” I said in Ukrainian.
“Hallo? Hallo?”
“It’s Sheryl. Sher-yl”
“Who is this? I can’t understand you,” he said, hanging up on me.

So I called him again,
“Hallo,” he said
“This is Sheryl,” I said again in Ukrainian, “Sheryl”
“Hallo? Hallo?” he said, again hanging up on me.

So I called him once more.

“Hallo?” he said, sounding mildly annoyed.
“Roma, this is Sheryl,” I said in English, figuring he’d have to know it was me since I’m the only English speaker he knows.
“Oh, Sheril,” he said, “Hello.”
“What are you doing?” I asked, reverting back to Ukrainian.
“I’m trying to come back to Bar,” he said. Apparently he was out of town.
“Do you want to come over tomorrow?” I asked him.
“I don’t know if I’ll be back tomorrow. When I’m back, I’ll call you,” he said.
“Ok,” I said. Ok is one English expression I use all the time without thinking.
“Yes?” he asked, using one of the few English words he knows.
“Yes,” I said. Then he said,
“вжлоажфшугкущшлвожшвоащгщшуододлоажшуагщшфщшдл дваожшугожщф дложшвущ лвоагщуцгк щшфо даожщфушгкщц лвьдшвогащуг ловажогаш.” The only thing I happened to catch was “devi”, which means many things but in this case I think it means “let’s meet”, and “poka”, which means good-bye.

All in all, I’d say it was a fairly successful phone call. In fact, the very act of making the phone call made me feel less stir crazy because even the smallest act brings a rather significant sense of accomplishment.

Last Bell

2006-06-01T07:10:00.000-07:00

Larissa knocked on my door yesterday evening.
“Tomorrow is the last bell ceremony,” she told me. “It starts at nine o’clock at the sports field by the school.”
“That sports field?” I asked her, pointing to the sports field across the street from our apartment building, and across the street from the school.
“Yes, that sports field,” she replied. “See you tomorrow.”
“Okay, see you tomorrow, nine o’clock, that sports field,” I said, repeating the information to make sure I had my facts straight. Even though Larissa speaks English, we don’t always communicate. That’s something I’ve learned since I’ve been here: two people can be speaking English and you can still have no idea what the other person is talking about.

This morning I woke up and looked out my window. The stadium (ie: “sports field”) was empty. I had expected to see teachers and students bustling around, setting up for the ceremony. Huh, I thought to myself looking at the gray sky, perhaps they’ve moved things inside because of the weather.

A little before nine, I made my way to the school. Students and parents were milling about, talking excitedly about, well, I can’t say exactly. I followed the crowd to the side of the school, to a small area of grass and dirt and a single, all-metal jungle gym. Speakers were set up in front of the jungle gym. A small band of ten students sat off to the side playing music.

“Welcome to our sports field,” Larissa said, coming up behind me. I looked around, chuckling to myself. It wasn’t much of a sports field. It really wasn’t much of a field, it was more a dirt plot, but I didn’t say anything. Anytime Larissa and I have an unable-to-communicate-and-create-shared-meaning-moment, it makes me wonder just how much sense I made to my poor students.

The ceremony got underway. The students stood with their classes and their class teachers in a square formation around the so-called field. The eleventh form filed in and stood in a line along one side. They were dressed in traditional school uniforms. For the boys, this meant sports jackets and ties. For the girls, this meant sexy French maid numbers. Their dresses were dark blue or black and came down to their mid-thigh. Over the dress, was a white, lacey apron. Tell me that doesn’t sound sexy French maid? They wore their hair in pigtails, as is customary, with poofy, white, pom-poms tied in each one. They looked cute in a sexy, uncomfortable for the Calvinist in me kind of way.

The director and other administrators spoke first, as the sky broke open and the rain started to drizzle down. Following the speeches came the changing of the guard. Each year, three students from the eleventh form are chosen to be the flag bearers. The flag bearers wear blue and yellow sashes (at least that’s what I assume they’re suppose to be, though my school’s sashes are more a neon green, blue combo). The flag bearers bring the flag out at the start of ceremonies and then stand in front of it the whole time. When it was time for the changing of the guard, three students from the tenth form came and took the sashes from the eleventh formers. The eleventh formers then kneeled in front of the new flag bearers and then rejoined their classmates. The flag bearers are always two girls and one boy. The girls walk in front of and behind the boy as he carries the flag.

Next, the student president of the school spoke. She invited her administration (ie: her best girlfriends) to join her. Then she gave “the club of power” (as Larissa put it) to next year’s president. There is no election of student government at my school. The president is chosen by the school administration and he or she appoints the rest of the positions.

Following the changing of guard, came the reading of the names of all the “school leavers,” as the eleventh formers are called. Next, the director read the names of all the best students in the school. These students came forward and received a limp, wet certificate. (The drizzle never did let up.) Then all the students in the school gave flowers to their favorite teachers. For about 5 minutes there was total chaos as this took place. I was very to flattered to receive an armful of flowers from various students, a couple who I didn’t think liked me at all, so that was nice.

Following the flowers came the last dance for the eleventh formers. Two students sang a song as the rest of the eleventh formers grabbed a teacher and slow-danced in the middle of the square. After the last dance, two students from the second form did the tango and two students from the third form waltzed, in full costumed. Then someone read a poem. Then the tenth formers gave all the eleventh formers red ribbons with tiny bells. They pinned these on, so it took some time. So much time in fact, that the girl singing as the pinning happened actually sang the same song twice.

Before the last bell was rung, a group of students from the second and third forms performed an odd dance number. They ran out into the square with backpacks and a soccer ball, threw off their backpacks, kicked around the soccer ball and then did a few choreographed dance moves. They then shouted “hooray for the summer,” pretended to get into a fistfight, did a few more dance moves and ran off before the music was over. I didn’t quite get it.

At last, the time came to ring the last bell. A girl from the first form took a hand-held bell from the director and walked around the inside of the square ringing it. She walked until she reached the eleventh formers and handed one of them the bell. She rang it and it was passed down the line so each school leaver could ring it one last time. The ceremony concluded as each student in the eleventh form took the hand of a student in the first form. The pairs walked to the park and put flowers on the monuments to the victims of World War II.

My teachers asked me if we had ceremonies like theirs in America. Not really, I told them. Graduation is much different then the last bell ceremony: there’s no tango and there’s no last dance with teachers because, well, we never have a first dance with teachers. This ceremony wasn’t graduation for the eleventh formers. They have about a month of testing before they’re done with secondary school for good. When their tests are finished, they have another ceremony where, I’m told, they dress very formal, kind of like prom, and party for three days.

That should be interesting.

Bananas

2006-05-26T03:56:00.000-07:00

Ukrainians have incredibly nice handwriting. They also eat bananas backwards, holding from the top and peeling from the bottom. Though I guess really, “top” and “bottom” are all in the eye of the banana eater. Less arbitrary is good handwriting, which I used to think I had, until I realized I didn’t.

The teachers at my school have beautiful handwriting; beautiful, flowing, cursive that puts me to shame. After history class, or Ukrainian literature class, the chalkboard is a real work of art. I don’t even want to erase it, so I usually have a student do it for me. I get enough chalk dust on myself as it is.

Towards the end of one of my classes the other day, I found myself standing in the back of the room, for the first time staring at my shame from the students’ perspective. It was bad. It looked like a first grader had written the assignment on the board. It looked like I’d tried to use my left hand, or to write with my eyes closed, or for that matter, to write with my left hand AND my eyes closed.

My handwriting is at its best when I’m writing on a napkin with a ballpoint pen. Now that’s a good combination, the pen really flows. These soviet-era chalkboards and chunks of cheap chalk don’t really give me top of the game flow, if you know what I mean. It’s hard to find your groove when the chalkboard is as smooth as a cobble stone road.

It also doesn’t help that I’m always writing things as fast as I possibly can. Nothing good happens when my back is to the class. Things usually start flying around the room. Once it was a broom, though usually it’s paper balls, or paper airplanes, or spit-wads. Sometimes I’ll turn around to find my kids darting around switching seats to be near their friends. Other times I’ll turn around to find them hitting each other, flicking each other in the head, smacking each other with books, or pushing each other out of their desks. If you had these rascals, you’d speed write too.

There was a time when my eighth form boys were rolling paper cigarettes and “chain-smoking” them in class. I don’t know what was more annoying: the sound of ripping paper as they rolled, the sight of them “puffing” away, the constant “ashing” in the plants along the side of the room, or the discarded “smokes” all over the floor. Initially I thought I’d be frank with them, so I said: “You do know that you look really stupid, don’t you?” Unfortunately, Ukrainians kids are used to being belittled by their teachers, so my words had little effect.

I then told them to knock it off and made them put all their “butts” in the trash, and they responded by spending the rest of the lesson “smoking” covertly. But kids aren’t half as sneaky as they think they are. They tried to mask the sounds of ripping paper with hacking, tuberculosis-type coughs. They snuck “drags” by burying their faces in their book bags. They faked long, drawn-out stretches as they “ashed” into the plants. Oh, they thought they were real coy, until in exasperation, I was forced to finally exclaim, “I can see you!”

Today was my last day of lessons and the last day my kids will drive me bananas for a whole three months. Tuesday is the last official day of school, but I don’t have to teach. It’s mostly a day for class parties and for teachers to put their final marks in the registry. The semester went pretty fast, as things usually do, after the fact. Now that it’s summer, perhaps I’ll spend some time working on my handwriting, though probably not. More likely I’ll try to master an easier Ukrainian art, like eating bananas backwards.

Jason

2006-05-22T04:07:00.000-07:00

My little brother left for boot camp today. I guess he’s not so little anymore. I’m so proud of him, and nervous for him, and scared for him. It’s not something I would ever choose, but Jason has dreamed of being a Marine since he was young, and it’s not my choice to make. And so I’m happy for him, even if I cry.

Jason has always had zeal for the military. His room has been plastered with Marine Corps posters since his early teens. He’s been known to create entire power-point presentations about the Marine Corps just for fun. His I-pod shuffle includes a number of military cadences, which, like Country music and 50 cent, he actually enjoys listening to. Once on a road trip together, he slipped one of his cadence CDs into the CD player. One chant in and I nixed his selection.
“What?” he’d said looking hurt, “You said you wanted some mood music.”
“Yeah, but not the kind that will put me in a bad mood,” I’d replied, “I tolerated Hilary Duff, but dude, here I draw the line.” We never did see eye to eye on music.

Over the summer, I recruited Jason to help my friend and I dispose of a couch. I told him it was a covert operation in need of some leadership. That was all he needed to hear. He disappeared into his room, blasted some cadences and emerged 30 minutes later in full camouflage. “Operation Couch,” he assured me, would be a success.

Jason insisted upon driving to my friend Josh’s apartment. Apparently his black truck “would blend into the night” should we need to make a hasty retreat. He parked down the block from the apartment complex and did a full sweep of the premises “to get an idea of what we [were] up against.” Once inside, he drew up a floor plan of the building, noting exits, alleyways and high traffic areas. While he was writing the objectives of our mission, he made Josh and I change into sweat suits and beanies. Then the two of us, sweating like pigs, stood “in formation” while Jason barked out commands.

The mission, if you could even call it that, was simple: ditch the couch across the street without any witnesses. It certainly could have been accomplished without the pomp and circumstance of a full-scale military operation, but it was rather amusing to see Jason so in his element. He was dead serious as he deftly shimmied along the walls, ducked behind bushes, and gave silent orders with hand motions and head nods. “Sheryl,” he told me later as we drove home, “that was so much fun.”

“I’m proud of you,” I told him yesterday on the phone. And I am; I’m exceedingly proud of him for following his dream, for choosing his path, for climbing his mountain. I really wanted to give some sisterly advice, but I found myself at a loss for what to say. Perhaps there’s nothing to say, when people we love chase down their dreams. So I told him I loved him, and that I would pray for him, and that when I start to think my life is rough, I’ll remember him being belittled at boot camp.

We can’t choose the paths that other people take any more than we can choose the paths that strike our own fancy, that compel us to leave behind the person we are in search of the person we will become. If I could choose, Jason wouldn’t be in the military, he would be climbing a safer mountain, one where the possibility of being shipped off to war wasn’t lurking in the valley below. But it’s not my choice to make, and so I’m happy for him, because I know how happy he is in his element.

I'm Back

2006-05-11T06:27:00.000-07:00

It's been so long since I've blogged that I almost don't know where to begin. Almost.

The school year is wrapping up pretty quickly. I only have two and a half more weeks of school left. This month has gone by fairly quickly thus far, no thanks to the many holdiays we've been celebrating.

The first and the second of May were Labor Days, and we had them off. Most people used those two days to plant their fields. I went to the village with Jennifer's host family and helped them plant potatoes. It was a lot of work. We had to turn the dirt in the fields where we were planting before we could even start dropping in the 'taters. We used shovels to turn the dirt. The chickens and the ducks had a field day running around eating all the worms that we dug up. Being in the village made me very thankful for my cozy apartment. The village had no running water and a lovely pit toilet (that had no door). It smelled like cow dung.

This past weekend we celebrated Victory Day. The official holiday was on Tuesday. So far, Victory Day is my favorite Ukrainian holiday. In the morning, there was a parade. Well, not really a parade parade. It was not Macy's Thanksgivind Day bonanza. It was mostly just people walking in the street with flowers behind a band. After the parade, there were speeches in the center of town near the War memorials. Flowers were laid upon the memorials and veterans were honored. Then everyone gathered in the park. I've never seen the park so alive with people. It was fabulous. There were picnic tables and kiosks selling food and drinks and ice cream. Everyone was all dressed up (except me, nobody mentioned that a picnic and a parade were semi-formal!) and in great moods. There was a very real sense of community at the park.

Jennifer and I sat with her host parents and their friends. We at shashleek and drank champagne. I over-indulged on ice-cream (still kind of embarassed about that one). In the afternoon, I went to the forest with Jennifer's family and we shashleeked and played volleyball and had an overall, very nice time.

In other news, my kolonka was broken for about a week. A kolonka is the gas contraption that gives me hot water. It wasn't working and a gas specialist came and looked at it. Of course, he made it work his first try and so he didn't believe me that there was a problem. He charged me two hryven for the "consultation". The day after, my kolonka went out again. This time is stayed out. Larissa called the gas guy again, but he never showed up to fix it. I guess he didn't believe me. In the end, a couple of neighbors came and fixed it for me. They spent 2.5 hours taking the whole thing apart and putting it back together. I was so blown away by their generosity, especially since they worked on it until nearly 11 o'clock on a Thursday night and I'd never even met them before.

That's it for now. I'm about out of time on the internet here and I want to post this before they give me the boot. My apologies for going so long without posting!

I Shashleeked

2006-04-27T05:40:00.000-07:00

So pretty much all my plans for last weekend fell through. First, Yulia's friend ended up in the hospital so needless to say, we didn't go out. Here, so far as I can tell, being in the hospital isn't as big of a deal. In the states, people tend to go to the hospital for critical/serious conditions. Here people tend to go to the hospital for less critical reasons. Jennifer's host-sister had a bad cold earlier in the year and she spent two nights there. One of my students was in the hospital on Tuesday and back at school on Wednesday.

I had also planned to go hiking last Sunday, but that didn't work out either. The volunteer organizing the event decided she didn't want to go, so the rest of us didn't go. Instead of spending orthodox easter hiking, I hung out with Klitchko, took a walk, napped and read my Bible. It was a rather nice day. Monday was a holiday as well, (though I never work mondays so every monday is a holiday to me) and I went to Vinnystia and hung out with some volunteers there. In the middle of Vinnystia is a park that is basically a huge forest. We went into the forest and "shashleeked." We walked for about 30 minutes until we found a patch of flat ground. There we built a fire (no permit required!) and roasted sausages and chicken. We picniced and drank some beer and generally enjoyed nature's beauty. (My kid's always say, I like the nature, and I just nearly wrote that we enjoyed the nature's beauty. Yikes! What's happening to my English?)

Wednesday was the anniversary of Chornobyl. Here it is a day to remember the victims and the tragedy as well as a day to be prepared in case such a thing were to ever happen again. I believe Larissa translated it as Civil Defense Day. I didn't have the 5th or 6th lessons Wednesday because the kids had a special schedule. First they had a special lesson on how to act in a disaster. They practiced bandaging each other up, walking in an orderly fashion and even putting on gas masks. (Though I don't know where they'd get these gas masks in a real emergency). Then the students had a concert assembly where select students read poetry and sang songs in rememberance of Chornobyl's victims.

I had a shortened day on Wednesday because of the special schedule. Sasha, my favorite cohort, invited me to go to the forest with him and another teacher. First we went to this teacher's house. He lived in a village about 10 minutes away. Then we walked 20 minutes to the nearby forest. There we gathered leaves from the forest floor, leaves that I later used in a SALAD! My first salad since leaving the states! Wait, that's not true, I did pay a pretty penny for a salad in Kiev a few weeks back...

After we gathered leaves, we roasted some sausages and ate hotdogs. Then we went back to the teacher's house, or rather, his small farm. I have to say, being in the village really made me appreciate the fact that I don't live in a village! The teacher sent me home with a big bag of apples from his trees, apples which I've been thouroughly enjoying.

Who knows what this weekend holds. A bunch of volunteers are coming to Bar. They are volunteers from Jennifer's group. We're trying to plan a day trip to this small town that has an old castle, but so far we're running into some transportation issues. Like most things in Ukraine, we probably won't know if our plans will work until the very last moment.

Should I get Another?

2006-04-20T04:28:00.000-07:00

Last week I got my cat, Klitchko. He's small but extremely feisty. Perhaps I shouldn't have named him after a boxer. His fur is black with dark brown streaks in it and his eyes are a blueish grey color. He is very good company. Now I'm thinking that maybe I need to get another cat to keep him company while I'm at school. Am I crazy?

The weather has fluctuated between being really nice and being down-right dreary all week. Today the weather has been pretty nice. I took my 9th form to the park for our lesson. We talked about Earth Day and about the environment. We discussed the problems of pollution in their river and all the trash in their park. The kids see the problems, and they talk about how they'd like their park to be litter free and how they'd like to be able to swim in their river, but they don't think that anything will make a difference. There really is a huge trash problem here. The streets, the parks, everywhere is full of trash.

One reason is that there are so few trash cans, but the other-- and the main reason really -- is that everyone thinks the trash is someone else's problem. Nobody thinks that things would change so they don't even try. My kids told me that even if they picked up the trash, somebody would just throw more on the ground. One of my 8th formers said, "Things will only change when the culture changes." A rather profound statement from a 13-year-old. And it's true, I can teach the kids about the dangers of polluted rivers and about clean air and about why it's bad to burn trash-- especially plastic bottles -- but my lessons aren't going to change the culture. And when it comes to environmental problems facing Ukraine, it's the culture that needs to change. As I walked to the internet cafe today, a car passed me and the driver threw a fist-full of trash out the window. Right in front of me. No shame in it at all.

This Sunday is Orthodox Easter Sunday. I am planning on going to the town of Nemiroff to visit some volunteers and to take a nice day hike. Hopefully the weather will hold up. Even if it doesn't, it's always nice to see other volunteers. On Friday, I'm going out with Yulia. Her best friend is home for Easter from the University in Kiev. We're going to go to the club 'Marafone'. The first time I went to 'Marafone', I was wearing my black pants and a black hoodie and I was horrified to find that the club was entirely lit by black lights. I was the lintiest person for miles around. I doubt I would have been more speckled if I had rolled around on a dirty carpet. I won't be making that mistake again.

Tomorrow I get my cat! (I think)

2006-04-11T04:21:00.000-07:00

Today Larissa instructed her 9th form students to bring their kittens to school tomorrow so I can choose a cat. I'm very, VERY excited about finally getting my little Vitally Klitchko, as I've decided to name him. (In honor of the champion Ukrainian boxer who ran for Mayor of Kiev in this last election.) I've spent the afternoon searching Bar high and low for cat litter. I know I can get it in Vinnystia, but I've yet to be able to locate it here.

Classes were only 30 minutes today because today the students did spring cleaning at the school. They cleaned both the outside and the inside of the school top to bottom. I didn't participate in the great spring cleaning. I was told to go home and take a rest.

On Saturday I went to Kiev and met a bunch of my friends. We rented an apartment not far from the center of the city. Then we spent the day pretending we were in America. We went to the underground mall that has shops like Puma and Adidas and Timberland; I bought a bag full of gummy snacks from a candy stand; we ate small cups of Baskin Robbins ice-cream from the food court; I enjoyed a burger and had a salad WITH REAL LETTUCE!! for dinner; it was incredible. It was nice to explore Kiev as a tourist with my friends. It was the first time I'd ever been to the city for myself and not for some sort of peace corps business.

I came back home on Sunday. I caught the one o'clock train from Kiev to Vinnystia. It was a beautiful train ride. I'd never seen the country-side between here and Kiev before because I'd either traveled at night or with people who didn't open the curtain on the train; but this time I sat right by the window and stared out the whole time. It's amazing to travel out of Kiev, where there is every modern convenience imaginable and to pass through small villages where people live off the land and get around on carts pulled by horses. There's such a broad spectrum of the way lives are led here.

The bus ride back to Bar was funny. A young mother sat next to me. She had her infant son in one arm and bags of goods in the other. Attatched to her baby's wrist was a HUGE dalmation balloon. It was probably four times the size of her baby. As she sat down next to me, the balloon bonked me in the head repeatedly making a hallow thumping noise. We laughed because it was funny. Then the static of the balloon kept drawing out strands of my hair so that it looked like I'd rubbed the balloon on my head and purposefully made myself look like Albert Einstein. Then, halfway to Bar, the balloon popped. It was loud and made a woman in the back of the bus squeal. The driver screetched to a stop thinking he'd hit something. The mother apologized, turned beat red and started whispering condolences to her baby-- as if he'd even remember ever having a huge dalmation balloon tied to his wrist.

It's All So Lovely

2006-04-03T02:41:00.000-07:00

Today it is sunny and the sky is blue and the breeze is slight and I'm the happiest I've ever been in Ukraine. Mostly this is because I'm finally living in my own apartment, though the nice weather helps too.

I moved into my apartment last Friday. I had LOTS of bags of stuff. Somehow, I've managed to aquire even more stuff -- mostly books and manuals -- since coming to Bar. My coordinator said she found a car that could drive my stuff the few blocks to my new home. I packed my bags with that in mind. They were all pretty damn heavy. Then, Friday morning, the plans changed. Instead of a car and the three or four older men who were going to move me, Sasha (english teacher at my school) suggested that he get some students to move my stuff.

Now, in America, a teacher could not just volunteer his students to move someone's stuff in the middle of the school day. In America, it would require permission slips and probably district approval. Not so here. Here, it's okay to enslave students. So at 11:00, I went back to Katia's house and got everything in order and by the door. Then, around 11:30, a small army of boys came to move me. Sasha had recruited 15 or so boys from the 9th, 10th and 11th forms. They took all my bags. The only thing I ended up moving was my purse. It was a spectacle as my small battalion of porters marched my many, many bags across town. People stopped and watched us. I heard lots of comments like, "There goes the American" and "Moving the American" and even just "Americanka."

My apartment is pretty nice. I had to do some deep cleaning in the kitchen and in the bathroom, but other than that, the place is in good condition. I'm subleting it from a woman who moved back in with her parents. She left a lot of stuff and by stuff I mean crap. There are cupboards upon cupboards full of empty plastic beer bottles, jars, caps, ratty magazines from 5 years ago, and knicknacks galore. Knicknacks are really big here. So are ugly, florecent, fake flowers. The first thing I did was box up all the fake flowers and weird trinkets she'd left out for my enjoyment. Then I took all the freaky stuffed animals she'd left displayed in the bedroom and put them in the spare room.

Dave came to visit last Saturday. We had a lot of fun while he was here. We did a lot of cooking. We made pizza dough and baked veggie pizzas, we made tortillas and had fajitas, we baked chocolate chip cookies, it was a good time. Jennifer's family had us over for dinner one night. Jennifer's host father loved Dave. After dinner, everyone played music. Olya, Jennifer's host sister, played a few songs on the piano, Adriy, her host brother, played a song on his guitar, Jennifer's host father (who has a name but I've only ever heard him called Papa so I don't know it) played the accordion and the guitar and Dave impressed them all by playing a few tunes on his trumpet. It was a really great time.

Dave left on Wednesday. On Friday, Jennifer and I took the train to Kiev and then the bus to Zhetomer to visit some other volunteers. There was a national English competition last week so a lot of volunteers were in Zhetomer to work as judges. I met a lot of people from group 27 (I'm 29). On Saturday night, we all went out dancing. It was fun to be out with Americans. We all got pretty drunk. We danced a lot, racked up an enormous tab and stumbled home around 3:30 in the morning. It too was a good time.

Tomorrow it's back to school. Only two more months until summer. I'm excited about summer. There'll be a lot I can do with Jennifer's family: dig potatoes, garden, pick fruits, walk the cows in the village. Things are starting to turn green and thaw. The country side is so beautiful. I'd never noticed it before because it's been covered in snow since I arrived here. Between Bar and Vinnystia, there is nothing but rolling hills, small forests, small farms and orchards. It's all really very lovely.

How was I to Know?

2006-03-22T03:54:00.000-08:00

I think spring might finally be on the way. The snow, for the most part, has melted. The sun was out for two hours today and a record breaking three hours yesterday. In other news, I have two more days of classes before spring break, a day and a half before I move into my own apartment and three days until my friend Dave comes to visit. Basically, I'm on top of the world.

I will be moving into my sprawling apartment on Friday. (It is in fact, quite sprawling: big bedroom, fair sized living room, hallway, small dining room and a tiny kitchen.)The move is a day sooner than I was expecting and two days sooner than peace corps technically wants.

Today my 10th form had an "open lesson" in their Ukrainian History class. Some big-shots were coming to watch the class. The kids had been rehearsing with their teacher for the last two weeks so the lesson would be flawless. I, of course, had no idea that this was going on. Moreover, I had no idea that they even had Ukrainian History after my class. There had never been any evidence of Ukrainian History in the classroom before. How was I to know?

When I walked into the classroom this morning, there was a huge map of Ukraine taking up more than half of the front of the room. It was a little odd simply because it was so huge, but I didn't think much of it. As often happends, the chalk board had all sorts of writing on it-- flowing Ukrainian cursive that I can't read-- left over, I assumed, from some previous lesson.

While the kids were busy asking each other warm-up questions, I went to the board to write directions for the next assignment. The board was full, so I took the eraser and started to erase one part of the board. As I did so, the class let out a loud, horrified gasp. I turned around and they were all silent, like ghosts, looking at me as if I'd just set the school on fire.

"What?" I asked, totally confused.
"Open lesson," they whispered. "We have an open lesson in Ukrainian History."
"Oh," I said, "Didn't know that. I'll just stop erasing then." Suddenly the billboard map of Ukraine made sense.

Ten minutes before the lesson ended, the Ukrainian History teacher came marching into my room. I had my back to the door when she came in, but I knew it was her by the way the students madly scrambled from their chairs to stand at attention. (Students have to stand any time a teacher enters the room. They have to stand until they're told to be seated. They even have to stand if a teacher just pops his or her head into the room. Sometimes this is funny, especially if a teacher pops his or her head in multiple times in a row.)

The Ukrainian History teacher is a small, scary woman. She's one of the few teachers who walks around with a permanent scowl on her face. She might be the only teacher to have ignored my "good mornings" and "good afternoons" as I've passed her in the hall. Anyway, she walked in and looked at the board. She stood stiff, staring at it for what felt like an eternity. Everyone in the room held their breath. Then she turned around really slowly and glared at the class. They rushed to my defense, but not before she turned back around and shook her fist at the board.

Of course, I apologized, in Ukrainian. How was I to know? She brushed off my apologies by telling me that English class was over. They would now be preparing for their history lesson. She busily began writing on the board. I hadn't really erased that much. Maybe a line. I barely did one swipe before the class had gasped, sucking all the air out of the room.

I bid my kids farwell. I wished them luck on their lesson. I walked out laughing to myself because really, open lessons are so abusrd. Talk about a dog and pony show. It's not real learning if the class has been rehearsed for two weeks prior. Anyhow, I left the class and found Sasha, my favorite English teacher, and told him what I did. He grimaced and then laughed.

"I'm going to be in trouble," he said,"Because I was supposed to tell you. I guess she'll come and shake her fist at me."
"Oh," I replied, "So that's how I was to know. Thanks."

My Slippery Students

2006-03-15T04:46:00.000-08:00

My 11th formers gave me the slip today. Tricky kids. I have them for the 6th and 7th lessons on Wednesday. Only a couple of classes have the 7th lesson. The school is pretty empty and the students spend most of the class wishing they were somewhere else. I'm sure they spend most lessons wishing to be elsewhere, but they're more vocal about it during the 7th lesson on Wednesday. They start every answer with "I wish I could go home." To which I say, sorry, I didn't make the schedule. Anyway, today my tricky 11th formers gave me the slip and I can't really be mad at them because I think I gave them permission to do it.

At the start of the 6th lesson, two of my strongest girls approached me. They asked if they could leave to prepare for their home teacher's birthday party. Birthday's are a big deal here and I certainly didn't want to be the American who didn't let them set up for their beloved teacher's birthday party. I told them they needed to stay for the first lesson but then they could go. I assumed that they were talking about themselves. I didn't think they meant we as in everyone in the class. They did though. After the 6th lesson, (a fairly good discussion of women in politics around the world) everyone started putting on their hats and their scarves. They packed up their bags and literally, in the blink of an eye, they were all gone from the room. It was just me and my gradebook and my lesson plan for the next hour. Next time I'll have to be more specific when I say yes.

I teach grades 5,6,7,8,9,10 and 11. The fifth graders understand a fraction of what I say but they're eager. My 6th graders all have ADD. They drive me bonkers. I like them as people, but as attentive students, good grief! They're making me go gray. There have been days where I've been so frustrated by them that I leave the room muttering: Assholes. Mature, I know.

My 8th formers are pretty good. Some days they're crazy, most days their lazy, but for the most part they listen to me and respect me. I like my 10th formers the best. The class is mostly girls and they're so sweet and pleasant and they all try really hard. My 11th formers, when they're not giving me the slip, are good too. Some of the kids speak english really well. It's those students that I feel I have the most to offer.

Women's Day

2006-03-10T04:40:00.000-08:00

Well, International Women's Day came and went with the drunken debauchery that I've come to expect from any and all Ukrainian holidays. Though March 8th was on Wednesday, the celebrating started on Tuesday. I taught lessons on Tuesday but they were a joke. The kids were completely out to lunch. They were excited about the holiday, they knew they had the next day off from school and all they could think about were the class parties they would be having after the fourth lesson. The school day was cut short so that the kids could have their parties and the teachers could enjoy a concert put on by a few kids from each grade.

The kids were cute. They spent their breaks between classes running around congratulating the women teachers on, well, being female I suppose. I got half a dozen carnations and a couple boxes of chocolates from my kids. I also got a number of cute little cards in the shape of the number eight.

After the fourth lesson, the teachers gathered in the teacher's room and enjoyed a concert by a handful of kids. The concert involved singing, poetry reading and dancing. The kids danced in the most elablorate costumes. They waltzed, they tangoed, the mamboed and "cha-cha-chaed" (please excuse my ignorance when it comes to dance). With their elaborate (and often uncomfortably sexy) constumes, the kids looked as if they should be performing in a pageant or something, not dancing for the female teachers. After I got over the uncomfortably sexy outfits, the dancing was nice.

After the concert, the male teachers invited us female teachers to the physics room. There they had prepared two long tables of food and drink. We sat down and ate and drank. We drank 4 or 5 shots of vodka, I don't really remember. We drank enough so that all the males could toast us women. After the drinking, the teachers all started singing. I like it when they break into song. It's not something that we do in America. After the singing, we were invited into the hallway where the music teacher had set up his keyboard and speakers.

We danced in the hallway for awhile. Mostly we danced in a circle holding hands. Of course this led to the horrid "scarf dance" where one person has to dance alone in the middle of the circle with a scarf and choose someone to pull into the circle with them. They then have to dance together and then kiss (ON THE LIPS!!) and then the first person joins the circle and the poor sap who was pulled in has to dance and then choose someone else to yank in and kiss. I hate the scarf dance. The teachers did it at our New Year's party too so I should have expected it.

I danced the scarf dance twice before making up an excuse to leave the party. I'd had enough to drink and I'd certainly had enough of the scarf dance. The teacher's ended up partying long after I left at 4:30. My coordinator told me she didn't get home until midnight. She also told me that she was so sick on Women's Day that all she could do was sip hot tea. Yeah, I wasn't sorry that I left early.

Wednesday the sun was out and I walked around and enjoyed it. I then went over to Jennifer's and enjoyed a nice dinner with her family. Yulia invited me out to celebrate with her friends in the evening and so I went. We went to the cafe/club. We drank vodka and danced. I left around 11:30. The party was in full swing but I had to get to bed since I had lessons to teach on Thursday.

All in all, Women's Day was fun. I think we should make more of it in America. It's nice to be able to honor women who don't happen to be mothers. And as one, I must say, it's nice to get so many flowers.

Still Winter Here

2006-03-05T02:37:00.000-08:00

It dumped snow on March 1st. Our snow had more or less melted, but now there is tons of it again. I like the snow when it is white and brilliant, but when it starts to melt and there is muddy slush everywhere and there is no place to walk without getting your shoes muddy and wet well, then I don't like it.

My regional manager visited me this week. She came and observed a class and met with the english teachers at my school. I was nervous about her coming not because I thought I had anything to worry about, but simply because she's my boss. She observed my 8-A class. My 8-A class can be unpredictable. Sometimes they are crazy and it is all I can do to get them to shut up and listen to me. Sometimes they're calm, so calm in fact they might all be sleeping with their eyes open. I wasn't sure how they would act with Natasha in the back observing and taking notes.

Usually, when there is going to be an "open lesson" as it's called, kids practice the class for a week or two before. They practice the class so that when they are observed, they all know the answers and they all know who will answer and everything works like clockwork. It's really weird. Watching a class that's been rehearsed is creepy. The kids are like robots. When I came for my site visit in November, two out of every three classes I observed where rehearsed beforehand. Needless to say, I didn't rehearse with my students. I in fact, didn't even tell them that there were going to be observed because I didn't want them to think about it. Really, I was the one being observed so they didn't need to worry about what they were supposed to do or say.

Natasha gave me positive feedback. She liked my lesson. She liked how I interacted with the kids. She flattered me by saying that she saw a "natural born teacher" up in front of the class. She said she could tell that I didn't change how I usually teach because she was there and she appreciated it. She even told the other english teachers at my school that they should observe me when they get a chance and use my ideas in their own classes. (I wasn't there when she told them that because I was teaching another class, but I certainly hope she said it in a tactful way because some teachers have been teaching there for more than 20 years.)

I enjoyed Natasha's visit. She stopped by my host home and we filled out paper work and chatted. My host mother knew she was coming by and she kept darting in and out of my room taking things out that she knew shouldn't be there. I had to laugh. At this point, it doesn't matter much what she stores my room. It just made me chuckle to see her frantically making sure that there was no excess of her stuff in there when Natasha arrived. While Natasha was there, my host mother invited me to stay with them for the next two years. I said thank you, but no. I'm flattered that she would want me to stay, but I don't want to in the slightest.

Election season is in full swing. Elections are at the end of March. These elections are a big deal because they will determine the party in power when the new prime minister is nominated. There are campaign fliers everywhere. The center of town is full of tents for different parties. Each tent hands out it's own newspaper and waves it's own flags and hands out it's own fliers. It's pretty crazy. Over night, a billboard appeared outside my apartment building. It seems that every night, more and more billboards pop up all over town. An english teacher at my school told me there are more than 40 parties on the ballot and that the ballot is more than a meter long. He said that more than anything, he's just confused.

Wednesday is International Women's Day. It's a national holiday so that means no school. Tuesday my teachers are planning on celebrating (ie: drinking wine and vodka) after school in the physics room. I'll go to the celebration for a little bit, but I won't be drinking because tuesday afternoon is English Club and I don't want to be all drunk when I arrive. That would just be bad taste.

Today is Sunday and I went to the bazaar with Yulia and Misha this morning. Yulia went and helped Misha buy a pair of boxers. (It was kind of cute.) Then we went to the meat market and I watched Katia at work. The meat market is gross. That's all I have to say. It's a big room with tables of raw meat. All I could think was: oh gross and, nothing here is refridgerated and, everyone is touching raw meat with their hands! It really was disgusting. There were pig heads everywhere and rolls of salo (big fat attatched to the pig skin...) and the ground where the sellers stood had bits of meat and intestines littered all over. I kept my mind focused on not looking disgusted and reminding myself that this is just a different way of life. Next time I go, I'll take some pictures. It's really quite a spectacle.

Happy Men's Day

2006-02-23T05:17:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-15T04:05:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-06T04:00:00.000-08:00

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.

Funny Day

2006-01-31T04:10:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, Jennifer and I went to Vinnysta. The primary purpose of our trip was to buy train tickets to Kiev. Jennifer is going to Kiev this week for her mid-service medical check-up and I’m going to Kiev next week for an in service training/language refresher. To ensure a spot on the train, tickets must be purchased in advance. For Jennifer and me, this means taking the hour trip into Vinnysta, which I don’t mind. I like going into the big city and I like meeting up with the volunteers who live there.

There are three volunteers in Vinnysta who all happen to be married, two of them to each other and the other to a Ukrainian. Jennifer and I met the two couples outside of the McDonalds at one o’clock. We stood in the cold for half an hour waiting to see if any other volunteers from the region would show up, but none did. So the six of us walked to McCloud’s Pub a few blocks away for lunch. Lunch was delicious, but the beer was a little disappointing. McCloud’s had an entire menu page devoted to beer, but they only had one kind you could actually get. Of course, our server couldn’t just tell us so, we had to find out by process of elimination. It was actually rather funny. It was like when Darcy, Josh, Tony and I went to the Hemp Museum in Germany. We went downstairs to the Hemp Café and Josh tried to order some hemp cake but they didn’t have it. Then he tried to order hemp bread, but they didn’t have any hemp bread either. So he tried to order some hemp tea, but no. Everything that he tried to order, the woman said they didn’t have. Exasperated, Josh finally asked, “Well what do you have?!” They had pre-bottled juice. Juice they didn’t even make at the hemp café. That was it. Like McCloud’s, the Hemp Café had a one item menu.

After lunch, we walked back towards McDonalds and the center of town. We stopped to visit a big Orthodox church that was on our way. The church was dark inside, lit only by the light of flickering prayer candles. It was quiet and peaceful. There was an old woman mopping the floor. Everywhere you go here, there are women mopping the floors cleaning up the snow and mud people track in on their shoes. I can’t think of a more infuriating job then constantly mopping and never actually having the floor be clean. I think the old woman mopping at the church was herself, feeling a bit fed up. A young girl came in to light a candle and pray. The girl started walking towards one of the altars and when she came a bit too close to the clean floor, the old woman muttered under her breath and made like she was going to chase the young girl with the mop. Startled, the girl went to a different alter. It was funny.

Jennifer and I caught the last bus back to our town at 6:30. The bus wasn’t full, thankfully, because I think if it had been full, it never would have made it to Bar. It was literally, the little bus that could. Anytime we were going up a slight incline, the bus would slow down to a crawl and anytime we were going down an incline, the bus would speed up rapidly. It was almost like being on roller coasting that slowly creeps up the tracks only to barrel down except we never gained enough momentum to keep the ride going. About 20 minutes outside of Bar, the bus stopped to pick up a man who was clearly drunk. The man got on the bus, but rather than sit down in one of the many available seats, he insisted upon standing in the stairway by the door. He stood swaying back and forth, holding onto the railing every once in awhile resting his face against the side of the bus.

A few minutes after picking him up, the bus stopped again to pick up another passenger. The drunk guy didn’t notice that the bus stopped or that the doors were opening. He just kept standing in the stairwell. The bus door slid open inwardly and got stuck because the drunk guy was in the way. The doors sandwiched him against the railing he had been holding onto. The driver told him to move, but I guess he didn’t hear. He just kept standing all smushed with a dreamy look on his face. The driver closed the door and opened it again only to sandwich the guy a second time. Finally, the person trying to get on the bus shouted at him and he got out the way. Rather then moving to an actual seat, the drunk guy continued to stand in the stairway and sway. The bus stopped again and again, the bus door smashed him; again, he had to be hollered at to move. This happened four different times and by the last time, Jennifer and I were laughing out loud at him. Just the sight, the very sight of a drunk guy being sandwiched by the bus door again and again and again, oh man, I don’t even think words can do justice to how funny it was.

The Crazy Lady

2006-01-27T03:42:00.000-08:00

When I say my host mother is a little crazy, that she’s slightly nutso, I assure you that I’m being more than generous in my evaluation. Sure, in her heart, Katia means well. She’s a nice person, a good woman. She’s strong and independent and she’s managed to raise two incredible children on her own. I have the utmost respect for the obstacles she’s overcome in her life and the success she’s found. That said, I still think she’s a little coo-coo.

Yes, many of my grievances against her are more a matter of culture clash than anything else. It drives me crazy, absolutely crazy, when she sits down next to me and she’s so close she could easily lick my neck. I don’t see why our thighs must be touching when there is an entire couch we can be sharing. I don’t see why she must speak to me with her face literally two inches away from the side of mine. She takes the term “close talker” to whole new level. I don’t see why she must giggle her high-pitched giggle directly into my eardrum or why she must from time to time, reach over and adjust my hair like I’m her little pet. Really, I think that’s what irks me the most about her: she treats me like I’m her little pet or her little doll or her moronic child. All the time, I find myself thinking: lady, what the hell are you doing?

This thought most recently crossed my mind when she tried to spoon-feed me my dinner. We were having potatoes (yes, a shocker). When I came to the table, I saw that there was a side of sour cream in bowl sitting next to my plate. I drizzled a spoonful of sour cream onto my potatoes because to me, it was the logical thing to do. As I did so, Katia started gasping and shaking her head saying “Ni! Ni! Ni! Ni!” Her gasps scared me. I thought something really horrible had happened, like maybe she had set herself on fire. Then, while I was still sitting at the table in utter confusion, she took a forkful of potatoes (sans sour cream) and shoved it into my mouth. While I was chewing and mentally registering the fact that she had just shoved potatoes into my mouth, she came at me with a huge spoonful of sour cream.

It happened in slow motion, this big spoon coming towards my face like, “Open the hatch!” She tried to feed me another bite, but I waved her away and resumed eating my own potatoes. She protested again, but I told her that I like my sour cream on my potatoes. Katia has since shoved food in my mouth on three other occasions. Her tactic is the element of surprise and it works because I never quite know when there is going to be a spoon or fork heading full steam for my mouth. I try to protest, but she’s incredibly insistent and in the end, well, in the end, the hatch opens.

I particularly dislike going out in public with her because she insists on holding my hand when we cross the street. The first time I went out with her, she dragged me to the bazaar where we zigzagged back and forth across the street more times than I could count. Each and every time we crossed she sought out my hand, even when it was in my pocket. Now this might seem like a trite complaint, but think about it; think about being a grown adult and being tugged around like you’re two-years-old.

As I learned last week, when out with Katia, there are things worse then hand holding. We were going to develop my pictures from New Years, which she had been obsessed with doing since the moment I took them. There is one guy in town who develops digital pictures and we were on the way to his “studio”. As we walked, Katia started leading me around by my scarf. That’s right, by my scarf, like I was a little puppy. She would take my scarf and I would whip it out of her hand and a few moments later, she would take it again and I would whip it out of her hand. For most of the walk, she was talking and giggling and pulling me around by my scarf. I, on the other hand, was stone-faced, utterly unamused, purposefully ripping my scarf from her clutches hoping she’d get the point. She didn’t. I finally ended up tucking my scarf into my jacket.

I was incredibly grateful to finally get my pictures developed for her because she had been making me show them to her on my computer daily. She liked to linger on the ones that she was in and touch the screen and say, “Class, class!” Everyone is vain, and well, Katia’s no exception. She has lots of pictures of herself displayed around her room. She has lots of pictures of herself – mostly headshots that all look the same – on her camera phone. She made me look at all the headshots on her phone. She had more than one folder of them. It was incredibly dull and slightly awkward. I mean, after the 15th one, what can you say anymore? Nice hair?

Katia has a strong personality. Her personality makes her a successful manager at the meat bizaar, but it makes her a bit much to deal with if you’re not a pork loin. She’s used to things being done her way on her time to her liking. Sometimes I find her behavior a bit erratic. The other night, I was watching TV with Yulia and Misha. Katia had been watching a show in her room, but decided to come in and join us. She told Misha to change the station to the program she had been watching. When he didn’t do it right away, she screamed at him. It was a loud, abrupt scream and it startled me so much I jumped. Every once in awhile, she’ll just scream. Now I’m more used to it then I was before, but it still takes me by surprise. I’m sure that Misha must deserve it some of the time, but for the life of me, I can’t understand why we must go from calm questioning to crazy person screaming without any reasonable in between.

When I first arrived here, I needed to do some laundry. My two main sweaters needed to be washed. It wasn’t a big deal since they just needed to be hand washed and that’s not too hard. Well, the minute Katia saw that I was hand washing my sweaters, she marched into the bathroom and told me that she would wash them for me in the machine. I said thank you, but no, these sweaters need to be hand washed. She insisted and insisted. I tried to sneak into the bathroom and finish washing them, but she’d poured out the water they had been soaking in. When she heard me in the bathroom, she ran in and told me to leave, that she’d wash my sweaters for me. I was new to town and I wide-eyed and naive, and I let her have her way because it wasn’t worth the fight. Two hours later I pulled my sweaters out of the washing machine. They were tiny. She had shrunk them to the size a 6-year-old might wear. She walked by and saw me madly pulling on them, trying desperately to stretch them back out and she just smiled, apparently not noticing that – at her insistence -- my two main sweaters had become doll clothes.

Shrunken sweaters I can get over. Mostly I blame myself for not sticking to my guns. What really gets me though, is the fact that Katia really does think I’m stupid. Just tonight, I heard her telling Yulia that I don’t know how to eat a tomato. How can a person not know how eat a tomato? Does she really think I’m that dull? She told me to cut my meat and put it on my kasha. I understood her. I told her I understood her, and yet, she kept showing me how to cut with the knife – pointing out the sharp side even! – miming it for me saying, “Understand? Understand? Understand?” Today when I was leaving the apartment, she stood pressed up against my side watching me unlock the deadbolt saying, “Uh huh, Uh huh, Uh huh” like it was miraculous that I was managing without her help.

I’m sure that I must drive her as crazy as she drives me. Culture clash tends to go both ways. For one thing, I know it really bothers her when I brush up against her wallpaper. I try not to; I really try to consciously think “Middle of the hall away from the wall, middle of the hall away from the wall.” Sometimes I get careless though, and I forget to think about it, and my arm or my side or my back will brush up against the wall as I round a corner she’ll give an exasperated sigh and tell me to stay away from the wallpaper. (“Understand? Understand? Understand?)

I know it bothers her that I’ll leave the house even when she tells me I’m “not allowed” because it’s too cold. Once she tried to lock me inside when she saw that I was leaving, but I just kept putting on my boots and my scarf and my coat. She locked the door and took the key and told me I may not leave. She called Yulia in to tell me what she said (even though I understood) and Yulia said, “Mom, she’s 23, let her go.” And though she pouted, Katia did let me go, because really, she had choice. She’s not my mother. I have a mother, in America, who thankfully, is the polar opposite of Lady Coo-Coo.

Brrrrr!

2006-01-25T03:45:00.000-08:00

School has been closed this week because of the cold. Supposedly we’ll have school tomorrow, but I don’t know; it’s still really cold. Yesterday morning it was –24 c. I think it warmed up to –20 c. during the day, but I’m not one hundred percent. Regardless, it was still freezing cold. I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced such consistent cold before in my life. I’ve certainly never experienced the thrill of snot actually freezing in my nose as I walk.

On Saturday, I went to Vinnysta and bought some shoes for playing basketball. I went to a store called MegaSport. The sales assistant mostly spoke Russian and since I mostly speak English and a tad bit of Ukrainian, our interactions were mostly through mime. In the end I bought some Adidas. On Monday, I went to the gym and played basketball again. The gym was cold though, and I never really got warmed up even as I played. A couple of my students were at the gym playing too so it’ll be all over school that I was there. There are no secrets in Bar, not that playing basketball is a secret. The day after I played the first time, I went over to Jennifer’s house and her host dad told me he heard I was at the gym playing and that I was pretty good. Like I said, there are no secrets in Bar.

After basketball on Monday, Roma, Yulia’s friend and my basketball buddy, invited me to come eat cake and drink tea with a couple of Yulia’s other friends. Since I didn’t have school on Tuesday, I agreed thinking, cake and tea, how long could that possibly take? By now you’d think I’d have learned…

We took a taxi a few minutes out of town to their friend Sergie’s apartment. Apparently it was his birthday, a fact I failed to gather in the conversations beforehand. We arrived and Sergie’s mother immediately began cooking food in the kitchen. Then she brought out the table with the nice tablecloth and plates and shot glasses and of course, vodka. It turned out that we ate and drank for more than two hours before we even got to the cake and tea. When I finally got home at midnight, I was so tired I could barely climb the stairs. Anyway, you’d think that by now I’d have learned that here, it’s never as simple as cake and tea.

Though it’s been cold, the sun has been out and that’s been nice. There’s nothing like blue skies to lift the spirits in the dead of winter. This week I’ve been waking up early but staying in bed late. It’s too chilly in my room, even when the space heater, to get up and at ‘em. I finally received my first mailing from the Peace Corps office, so I’ve been reading my Newsweek and drinking tea in bed and dreaming about two months from now when I’ll be on the verge of getting my own place. I can’t wait.

My host family is nice. Yulia is great. My host mom is a bit nuts but I’m learning to deal with her. Mostly it’s hard because I don’t really have my own room here. The room that I sleep in is the music room. It has Misha’s piano and guitar and keyboard in it and it’s the only place he has to practice. My room also has Yulia’s desk in it, so every afternoon she’s studying in there. She doesn’t bother me, but the situation isn’t exactly the homiest for an American used to personal space. Only two more months though, and then I’ll have lots of personal space.

Basketball!

2006-01-19T04:17:00.000-08:00

Last night I played basketball at the local Sports Center. Really, it's just an old gym. Yulia's friend invited me to come play basketball with him. Truthfully, I was a little hesitant to go, just because I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I haven't played basketball for a long time and I'm ridiculously out of shape. Other than climbing the seven flights of stairs to my flat, I don't workout. I was also hesitant to go because I didn't exactly bring basketball shoes with me. I guess I thought that it would be a long time before I found a place to play and I'd have time to buy a pair of sneakers. Since I never got around to buying the sneakers, I ended up having to go in my Pumas, not exactly the best basketball shoe. I wore them with my ankle braces, a very cool look I'll have you know.

Roma met me outside my building at seven o'clock. We walked the three minutes to the gym. As soon as I walked inside, I was happy that I went. It had been a long time since I heard the familiar squeak of sneakers on the gym floor. Hearing it lifted my spirits. It was almost like hearing the voice of an old friend.

It ended up being boy's hour on the courts. Girl's hour is earlier in the day, but they let me play anyway. There were enough guys to make three teams of four. They let me play as the fifth player on Roma's team. The director of the gym stood and refereed the game. He called a lot of fouls in my favour that weren't fouls at all. I think he was trying to take it easy on me. I didn't play great but I wasn't bad either. I took shots anytime I was left open. I only made one of them, but the ones I missed I didn't miss by much.

It was a lot of fun. I need to buy some sneakers because I was totally paranoid that I was going to twist my ankle in my stupid shoes. I think that I'll have the chance to buy some on Saturday when I go to Vinnysta with Jennifer.

Anyway, that's the good news: I found a gym where I can play basketball. Hopefully I'll be able to get there three times a week to play. It's certainly not karate, but it's way better, so I'm not complaining.

Yesterday's Embarassing Moment

2006-01-17T03:20:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I needed to make copies for a couple of my classes. The first place I went to, a stationary store called Papyrus (trust me, no relation), was having copier troubles so I had to go elsewhere. No big deal, there are a couple of copy machines in this town. I was going to go to Papyrus because I'd been there before and the copy woman was nice. Luckily, the place I ended up going to had a nice copy woman too.

I asked for copies without trouble: 15 copies of one thing, 4 copies of another. Then I asked if I could buy white paper from her. She said I could so I did. I bought 40 pieces of white paper. She punched some numbers into the calculator and told me my total. She said the number really fast and I didn't quite catch it and rather than ask her to repeat, I glanced down at the calculator. My jaw dropped. It read 47. Forty-seven hryven for 19 copies and 40 pieces of paper!

My mind was racing. I was in shock. I know that most Ukrainian teachers don't spend money on copies and I thought, gee whiz, no wonder! That's ridiculously expensive! I pulled out my wallet with a horrified look on my face. I knew I didn't have 47 hryven with me. I knew I only had 45. I started pulling out my bills and counting them. I had a fist-full of ones and fives and twos (yes, they have twos, it's rather nice). I was trying to think how I could ask her to take away a few pieces of paper. I figured it must be the paper that was so expensive, what else could it be?!

So there I was, standing with my heaps of bills, a panicked expression on my face, wondering how I was going to navigate the situation with my language skills when the woman calmly took a 5 from my hand, gave me change and went to help the next person in line. It was then that I took a closer look at the calculator and realized there was a decimal point. It actually read 4.7. I felt incredibly silly. It was embarassing because I know my numbers. I haven't had a 'me standing there with heaps of bills in utter confusion' situation since I arrived in country. Next time, I should probably just ask her to repeat the total.

My first Oye!

2006-01-16T07:37:00.000-08:00

Today it happened: I was standing in my room, showing Yulia the makings of my soon-to-be knitting project (right now I’m still trying to get my rhythm) when all of the sudden, I dropped one needle and out came, ‘Oye!’

Guys, I said my first Oye! This is so exciting! The old Sheryl would have said ‘Whoop’ or ‘Wow’ or ‘Oops’ but the new Sheryl, the new Sheryl says ‘Oye’. I’ve been waiting expectantly for my first Oye, wondering when and if it would ever just pop out of my mouth as natural as can be.

While I was walking to the post-office the other day, I hit a patch of ice and slipped. I didn’t fall, thankfully, but I did flail my arms around wildly, kick out a leg abruptly, swivel my hips unnaturally, and say ‘Wow!’ rather loudly. Wow gave me away; nobody here says Wow. People slip, but they don’t say Wow; this is strictly Oye territory. After I composed myself, I thought: that would have been a good time for an Oye. I guess I wanted it too much. Oye comes when Oye is ready to come.

My host brother was trying to help me get the internet on my computer at home. I didn’t ask for his help, he kind of just forced it upon me. It “turns out” that I “can’t get dial-up” on my computer because I “don’t have a driver” and the only way to “get a driver” is to “reinstall windows”, this according to the computer guy Misha dragged me to. I’m not interested in reinstalling windows, I’m more interested in not messing with my computer because as it is, she’s old and quirky and I want her to last two years. When I get my own place, I’ll be able to get high-speed internet at home anyway, so I’m not terribly concerned about getting dial-up now, but I digress.

Misha’s computer guy installed a translation program onto my computer. I didn’t ask him for it and I didn’t really want it but it happened so fast that I couldn’t stop it. The program is cool. It works in Word. I can type a sentence in English and the computer will translate it into Ukrainian, Russian, or German and vice-versa. I haven’t really used it much and I probably won’t use it that much because the translation is just mediocre. When the computer guy was excitedly showing me how it works, he typed a few simple phrases into Ukrainian and then translated them to English.

His initial translations included: write something, do you speak English? And, you try. I tried. Then he typed something into the computer and looking all triumphant, he translated it and turned the screen towards me. The screen read: Now intercourse will be easier. Call me immature, but that’s funny. NOW INTERCOURSE WILL BE EASIER!? It was the last thing I was expecting to read when he unveiled his last translation. I know he meant that now, communicating will be easier, but man, it still made me laugh.

And probably, if he knew why I was laughing, he would have said ‘Oye!’ and typed something else.

"Karate Class"

2006-01-16T07:34:00.000-08:00

So on Saturday, I went to “karate” with one of my students in the eleventh form. She met me outside my building in the morning and we walked across town (ten minutes) to the “karate school”. The school is located in the basement of an apartment building that I have walked past countless times. I’d never noticed the green kung-fu sign before and now that I have noticed it, I don’t know how I could possibly have missed it.

When Luda told me about her karate classes, I naturally assumed she meant karate classes; but as it turned out, there was no class. Instead, “karate” turned out to be a self-directed activity in a tiny, tiny workout center consisting of two punching bags, three ancient weight-lifting machines, barbells from Arnold’s steroid days, a bunch of mats, and a couple of benches. Luda and I changed into our workout clothes in the smelly equipment closet. (Nothing quite like that smell) Then we went out to do some “training.”

I was a little unsure what was going on at first. It took me awhile to realize that there was indeed, no karate class. At first, when Luda started stretching, I thought that perhaps we had to get warmed up on our own and then class would start, so I followed Luda’s lead: she did two quick side stretches, I did two quick side stretches; she reached down and touched her toes twice, I tried to reach down and touch my toes twice; she did two leg circles with each leg, I did two leg circles with each leg. This was our warm up. It didn’t really warm much up. Mostly it just reminded me of how out of shape I am.

After we warmed up, she escorted me to the punching bags and asked, “Do you want to hit them?” She handed me some boxing gloves and we hit the punching bag a few times. Then we kicked it a few times. Then we punched it a few more times. Then she got boxing mitts (not the proper name I know, but I’m no million dollar baby) and I punched them for a bit. Then she asked me if I was tired. I wasn’t, but we went and sat down on the mats to stretch anyway. She did a couple quick stretches, never holding anything for more than three seconds. I followed her lead because I didn’t know what else to do. By that time, it had become pretty evident that there was to be no karate proper; just karate type kicks against the punching bags, and into the air…and here I thought I could become a black belt.

That was pretty much our workout, though I did throw in some sit ups for good measure. The place was full of young kids, mostly boys, waiting to use the punching bags and doing random air kicks and punches. As unimpressive as my personal workout turned out to be, I was impressed by center as a whole. I was impressed to see a place promoting healthy living to kids. I was impressed to find a place (not the computer club) bustling with so many young boys. In that regard, I was pleasantly surprised.

The rest of my Saturday was rather uneventful. I dug out an ingrown toenail. I ate borshch. I did some lesson planning for next week. I went over to Jennifer’s house and watched a movie. I ate potatoes drizzled in mayonnaise. (Actually rather delicious. I before never knew how much potential mayonnaise has-- more than just for sandwiches folks.) I took a hot bath to sooth my muscles. I started a knitting project.

Oh yeah, I’m knitting again, and this time, I’m going to stick with it. I am determined to finish at least one domestic-type project in my life. It turns out that cross-stitching isn’t really for me, but I have high hopes for knitting.

New Year

2006-01-09T03:17:00.000-08:00

New Years came and went, but the celebrations continue. That's pretty much all I have to say about New Year in Ukraine. My host sister told me they celebrate for 13 days, and I didn't believe. Now I do.

My host sister had all her friends over to ring in the New Year. They didn't even come over until eleven o'clock at night. That should have been my first indication that it was going to be an all night affair.

There was no Dick Clark to help us ring in 2006, but we managed. Actually, here the president comes on TV and addresses the nation 5 minutes before midnight. Then, without the fanfare of a ball dropping, the New Year arrives.

Yulia, my sister, invited about a dozen of her friends over. There was a table full of food that had been devoured by the end of the night. When I can, I hope to post some pictures because it was a pretty impressive spread. The drinking started at midnight for us, and for Yulia and her friends, it continued until ten o'clock the next morning. I managed not to get drunk, which was amazing considering how persistent they were at pouring shots of vodka. In all, I think 15 bottles of vodka were consumed. It was pretty incredible. People were pretty drunk.

We sat around eating, drinking, playing with sparklers, eating, drinking, eating and drinking until 3:30 in the morning. Then we headed to the center of town where people were gathered by the New Year's tree. There were a lot of people out gathered by the tree, lots of families and young kids. It was 5:30 before I crawled into bed. I was really tired. Yulia and her friends partied on for about five more hours, but I just couldn't do it. I'm not Ukrianian.

The next day, the toasting started again at lunch time. I couldn't believe that anyone would still want to drink, but as they tell me, it's Ukrainian tradition. There was more drinking, which I more less managed to get out of. I only was obliged to take a couple shots, which actually -- coupled with utter exhaustion -- made me a little weepy and I had to go take a long walk and pull myself together. Thankfully, I don't think anyone noticed.

Since New Years, I have been with Yulia to a slew of gatherings that all involve eating and drinking. It's fun; it's also a lot of work to not get drunk. I don't really care to drink as much as they do and sometimes it takes all my energy to say no, or to say "choot-choot" (a little). Her friends are nice though, very eager to make me feel at home with them, so that's nice. They tell me that they are my Ukrainian family, so that's nice too.

We still have Old New Year to celebrate, and then after that, I'm sure there will be some other occassion to get together and eat and drink. That's just kind of how it's done over here.

Home at last...kind of

2006-01-03T04:38:00.000-08:00

I made it to my site and I think I’m going to be very happy here, mostly because I spotted gummy-worms for sale at the magazine across the street for 15 kopeks a piece. I love gummy-worms. One time I ate an entire pound of gummy-worms in a single afternoon. I hope I can show a little more self-control now, but I don’t know, I love gummy. I haven’t seen it since I’ve been here, and now, magically, we have been reunited, gummy and I. Talk about a good omen.

Getting to site with my five heavy bags was nothing short of exhilarating, let me just say. Luckily, Peace Corps had the foresight to purchase us (my bags and I) an entire coupe on the train. And thankfully, my coordinator -- who I’ll be working with at my site the next two years -- was along for the ride, so I had help. Three of my bags, particularly the one FULL of books, weighed more than 50 pounds, that’s for damn sure. I didn’t really have to deal with them until my coordinator and I got off the train. Getting on the train, the Peace Corps paid for porters to help, so that was nice. My tax money at work, and I’m not complaining.

The director of my school, whom I had never met, met my coordinator and me at the train station. When I had visited my site in November, my director had been away on leave resting and getting healthy. He was really eager to meet me so he got his friend to drive the 45 minutes to pick us up at 10:30 at night, though had he known what awaited him, he might have reconsidered. The poor guy ended up lugging my huge, heavy bags from the train to the smallest car I’ve ever seen in my life (one bag and my backpack fit in the trunk) and then up SEVEN flights of stairs to my new flat. (That’s right, SEVEN flights of stairs, no elevator. Think about that next time you take the escalator at the mall.)

I’ll admit it was a little embarrassing to watch my director, red-faced, coming up the stairs, especially when my coordinator told me the next day that he told her he was “really tired.” I mean, don’t want to be responsible for sending him back to rest camp. He likes me though. He’s probably in his fifties, nice grandfather type. Yesterday he gave me a huge bag of assorted chocolate candies and said they were from Father Frost. Today he gave me another big bag of assorted chocolates and said they too were from Father Frost. Apparently my director is my Father Frost. It’s nice, but I certainly can’t eat 5 pounds of assorted chocolate candies on my own. Now if they were gummies…that would be a different story.

The Christmas season is just getting started here. Today they erected a New Year’s tree in the center of town. They celebrate New Year with a tree and presents, and they celebrate Orthodox Christmas on January 7th, and then they celebrate Old New Year on January 12th. It’ll be interesting to be a part of the celebrations, especially since thus far, the Christmas season has pretty much passed by without me really noticing. December was mostly frantic language lessons, community project planning and general end-of-training internal pandemonium.

On Christmas Eve I called the family in Washington and we talked via speakerphone, so that was nice. You know you’re important when you’re put on speakerphone. A couple Peace Corps Volunteers put on a Christmas Eve service at the place we were staying. Dave and I went. It was nice, mostly scripture and hymns. I’ll admit to getting a little teary-eyed singing silent night with candles lit in the darkness. It made me think of the mid-night service at Westminster. (Also of the fateful year I spilled hot wax onto Lori’s nice, black blazer…sorry about dude. I still feel bad.)

All in all, things are good. My new host family is great. My host sister, Yulia, is 18 and my host brother, Misha, is 14. They are great kids. Actually, Yulia isn’t much a kid. She’s really mature, and beautiful, and eager to include me with her friends, so that’s sweet. My second night here she took me out dancing with her girlfriends. That’s right, dancing. Guys, I dance. Who knew?

That’s the update for now. More will follow, I’m sure. Now that I have internet access I can be in more frequent touch. Tomorrow I have a staff party at the café with my colleagues from school. (“Uh, Sarah, things have changed, I have colleagues now.”) There will probably be dancing. What can I say? I’m working on my moves. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you posted.

Next Week I'll be Official!

2005-12-15T05:52:00.000-08:00

Next week at this time I will be an official Peace Corps Volunteer, so that's an exciting thought. Training is winding up, I've had my language test, and really, all that is left for me to do is pack up my belongings and bid farewell to my wonderful host family.

The bus comes to collect us from our training site Monday morning. My host family will be working, so they can't see me off; however, grandma and grandpa will be there, so I'll have people to wave to dramatically as the bus pulls away.

The thought of grandma and grandpa host family taking me and my MANY MANY bags to the bus is funny to me. First of all, there is the fact that I have MANY MANY bags. Even more bags then I first came to country with because Peace Corps has given us tons of language books, training manuals, health binders, health kits, the list goes on and on. Monday morning it will be me and the 'ol grandfolks and that might be a little awkward. Even though I can usually get the gist of things that are being said to me, for some reason, when it comes to my babushka, I cannot understand a damn work. I always just end up staring at her in a daze. She must think I'm dim because after all this time, I still can't communicate with her. Oh well, at least I know how to say good-bye and thank you. She can understand that I'm sure.

I'm nervous and excited about this next big phase. My regional manager called me last week and told me that (thankfully!) I won't be living with the crazy woman I stayed with on my site visit. She's still interviewing families and she doesn't know for sure where I'll be living as of yet, but it won't be with the crazy bitch. That's what she was. I never blogged about her, but suffice to say, she was a crazy bitch: only speaking to me in English, always correcting me, telling ME when I was saying things wrong, laughing at my Ukrainian and worst of all, always making classict and racist remarks. I was scared I was going to be stuck with her, but thankfully, God answers prayers.

I'm in the Peace Corps office right now. I had the medical office check out my ear because it has been hurting for over a week. There is no infection, but my ears are constantly popping like I'm under water and it's really no fun. I'm on more meds, but thankfully there is no need for antibiotics. The doctor thinks I'm allergic to the dust in the down pillows and sheets that I'm sleeping with at my host home. She said she's going to send me to site with a synthetic pillow and blanket. More to lug, but hopefully I won't be allergic to Bar too.

Well, that's all for now. Next time I write, I'll be an official volunteer. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I love and miss you all.

I've been to the Russian Sauna

2005-12-04T07:30:00.000-08:00

Today I went to a Russian Sauna and had what ammounts to the experience of a lifetime. Hours later, I am still in shock. The Sauna experience was shared with my clustermates Christa and Sean and my language instructor Olena, though really, it was Christa, Olena and I who shared the most. We shared it all because we bared it all.

The sauna was in the home of a middle-age Russian couple. The four of us went around eleven in the afternoon. The Russian couple had a seperate log building that housed the sauna and its various facets.

To begin with, I had no idea what to expect. I thought that I would wear my swimsuit, perhaps drap a towel over myself and enjoy some intense heat. Instead I ended up naked, being beaten by Birch branches, slathered in a sourcream and salt body scrub, beaten with Birch leaves again and then washed --that's right washed-- from head to naked toe by a half naked Russian woman. It was to say the least, a crazy cross-cultural

Our first stint in the Sauna was co-ed. I was wearing my swimsuit bottoms and a towel. It was steamy and incredibly hot and I sweated like a pig. Our second stint in the Sauna was ladies only. This is when the Russian woman offered to beat us with the Birch leaves to give us the full, Russian Sauna experience. Christa and I went into the Sauna and laid down on our towels, both of us still wearing our bathingsuit bottoms, which we were promptly told to remove. Then the Russian woman made the Sauna extremely hot and steamy and started beating us with the Birch leaves. She started at our feet, moved up our legs, beat our bare butts, our backs. She did this for a few steamy, hot minutes and then she had us flip over. She beat our naked front sides, and at one point she shoved the birch leaves into our faces, smothering us, and told us to breath deeply.

Our third stint in the sauna involved a sourcream-salt scrub slathered all over our bodies. It smelled awful and made me sweat like I didn't know I could sweat. The Russian woman beat us again, lightly this time. After our third stint in the sauna, we went into another room where she had use lie down and she washed us. I mean, she got a sponge and soap and washed us head to toe, front side and back side. It was rather bizaar; nobody has given me a good cleaning like that since I was wee.

I didn't expect to be so naked today, and really, I'm still kind of in shock. My muscles are incredibly relaxed and I feel like the toxins have indeed been beaten out of my body, so it was worthwhile, especially since now can say I've been to the Russian Sauna.

Frozen Socks and All

2005-11-25T07:35:00.000-08:00

November 24, 2005-
Last night, I went up to the attic to check on the status of my "drying" clothes and I found that all my socks were completely frozen. Frozen I tell you, frozen stiff. I brought a few pairs down to my room to defrost, but I don't know what I'm going to do. I have a lot of clothes hanging in the attic "drying" and I can only defrost a few things at a time in my little room. At this rate, it might be some weeks before a large portion of my wardrobe is wearable again.

It's cold here. Not as cold as it's going to get, but cold. It snowed all day. When I was walking the mile or so to my language class, my face was pelted with frozen raindrops. It was mildly miserable, but what can you do? In response to the unbearable cold (and my frozen socks), I have purchased a faux fur coat. I got it from the bazaar today. Truthfully, I feel slightly ridiculous in it because it's long -- down to my mid-calf, and well, quite the coat. It's brown and huge, and I feel slightly like a lioness when I have the hood on; but it's warm, and that's what I needed so...

Yesterday was Thanksgiving. My clustermates and I had a Thanksgiving feast with our host parents at the one cafe in town. We ate strictly Ukrainian dishes, though we came close to American tradition with our sides of mashed patatoes. At first, I felt a bit melancholy about it being Thanksgiving, mostly because I've always managed to get back to San Jose to spend the day with my family. I thought a lot about everyone gathering at my grandparents, enjoying the punch, laughing, drinking wine, perhaps shooting some hoops. I snapped out of it though, when our own Thanksgiving feast began.

It was very special to share the American holiday with our Ukrainian families. Many toasts were made and lovely words spoken. More than a few times, our families broke into song, singing many traditional Ukrainian numbers. They kept asking us Americans to sing our traditional national songs, but we couldn't even compete with them. Americans don't have national songs that everyone sings and knows from a young age. We have some songs, but it's not the same at all. "Doe-a-Deer" and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" hardly compete.

I have a lot to be thankful for here. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed, it's true; and sometimes I feel far from home, but for the most part, I feel an acute sense of how much there is to be thankful for, frozen socks and all.

I'm Officially Still Not Old

2005-11-25T07:32:00.000-08:00

November 22, 2005- Today is my 23rd birthday. It snowed. It was pretty. It was also pretty freaking cold. I’m already wearing my warmest layers and winter isn’t even officially here. I think I might be in trouble. I think I’ll be investing in a lot of fur. Shh, don’t tell PETA.

As far as birthdays go, it’s been a good one. I didn’t have to go early to language lessons and I only had to teach one class. I spent the morning sleeping in, eating a leisurely breakfast (a sausage link, shredded beats and cooked cauliflower…mmmm….isn’t that what you dream about for breakfast?) and working on my lesson plan. I played hooky this morning and chose not to go an hour early to the school to observe classes. Instead I danced around to music in my room (much like an I-pod commercial except I wasn’t shadowy) and read a book (Updike’s “Gertrude and Claudius”). My morning was great. When I got to the school, I learned that I hadn’t even missed anything because there had been no classes to observe and I would have just been standing around all cold in the teacher’s room. The school was incredibly cold, so cold in fact, that classes were shortened from the normal 45 minutes to a mere 30 minutes.

My host family gave me a small bouquet of carnations today. Actually, I don’t know if three flowers are technically considered a bouquet or not. Regardless, it was sweet. When giving flowers here, you only give odd numbers unless it’s a funeral. So my host family gave me three carnations and my 10th form class gave me one carnation, which was also sweet, but I don’t know if it’s technically okay to stuff all four flowers into the same vase or not. Right now, all four are cohabitating, but that could be bad luck, I don’t know. Lot’s of things are bad luck here, like wiping the table with a paper napkin and whistling inside (you’ll lose your money…Steve!!) and shaking hands across doorways and crossing a black cat and, oh, there’s more. I should know; I’m a chronic offender.

My host family also gave me a little statue, trinket thingy. I don’t know how to describe it really, except as a little statue, trinket thingy. It’s a young lad, about six inches tall wearing purple overalls with a little puppy rubbing up against his legs. He looks kind of like a cabbage-patch kid, but more like a drunk “my-buddy.” I love it because it’s so ridiculously great. My host family’s babushka gave me some half-used French perfume, no doubt fresh from the bazaar. I have been beating myself up for not bringing my perfume with me, so maybe it’s ordained from above that I smell like an old, French grandma for awhile, I don’t know.

On a more serious note, this past week has been tough for me emotionally. It was a combination of an ear infection (I’m notoriously worthless and pathetic when I’m sick, just ask Darce), being exhausted from my site visit, and I guess being suddenly struck by the reality of the distance between everyone I love and myself. Visiting my permanent site made everything that I’ve been preparing for real. It made the two years real. It made the job real. It made the depth of the commitment I’ve made real. It was utterly overwhelming. The pendulum of emotions can be pretty dramatic at times, and I have to remind myself that it’s normal, and that it’s what I expected coming here, and that it’s okay to cry.

I’ve met a lot of volunteers from Group 25 (I’m 29) who are heading home within the next few weeks. It’s been good to meet them, and to hear about their experiences, and to see how well adjusted they all became. Mostly, it’s inspiring to see how much they enjoyed themselves here, as I’m sure I will when training is over, and I’m done living with my second host family, and I can finally assume a small sense of control over my life-in my own apartment. Oh, I’m fantasizing already. It’s going to be incredible…

I try not to think about my service in terms of years because it’s too daunting. Instead I try to think in terms of weeks, like this week and next week, and the week after that. Three showers, three weeks, it’s an easy way to look into the future. When I do think about the years, I try to do so looking back. Like, I’ve been out of college for a year and half and that went pretty fast. I know that when all is said and done, and I’m reflecting upon the highs and lows of this experience, it will have gone fast too. And I’ll be able to remember my 23rd birthday (also the 300th anniversary of borshch), when it snowed, and my host family gave me my cabbage-patch doll trinket thingy, and we shared a bottle of champagne for dinner, and I woke Darcy up with an early morning phone call, and I talked to my mom, and I wrote this blog.

My Favorite Week

2005-10-31T06:25:00.000-08:00

No doubt, this has been my favorite week. Mostly because on Saturday, I got permission to go to the Opera in Kiev with my friend Dave who lives in a different town. We went and saw Faust and it was great. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I could hardly believe that I was actually sitting in the Kiev Opera house and it only cost me 10 hryven to be there. (Well, for the ticket. Actually getting to Kiev is a bit more pricey.)

The Opera got out late, later then the last bus to my town, so I went back to and stayed with Dave's host family where I enjoyed a hot shower, stroking a microwave and highspeed internet. It was almost like being in America. I traveled to Kiev on Saturday afternoon with a girl from my link group whose friend happens to live in the same town as Dave. It was nice not to have to support figuring out the metro, though I will say, it's a hell of a lot easier to use then the subway in New York.

I came back to my village, excuse me, city, late Sunday afternoon. My friend from my link group traveled with me most of the way, but the last leg of the journey I had to do by myself. It was really neat to be able to use my minimal language skills to get back home. In my broken Ukrainian, I was able to ask the driver to stop at the bus station, I was able to ask when the bus left, I was able to buy a ticket. It was all in broken Ukrainian, but it was still my small language victory and I'll be celebrating it through the week.

At my host home, there is again no running water. Apparently, the neighbors tapped into our well and used all the water and now we have to wait for it to rain. For the time being, we have a few buckets a day. I'd be more concerned if this wasn't the best week ever, but it is, so it's not going to bother me. Next monday I leave for my site visit. Then I'll return for a mid-training "technical retreat" and it's not back to my village, excuse me, city, until November 17th. Hopefully by then, the well will be brimming with water. I don't know. I can't worry too much.

Another reason this is the best week ever is because finally, FINALLY! I'm getting a cell phone. We have a new language instructor this month, this time it's a guy, and he's more then willing to take me down to get a phone today. That's acutally why I'm on the internet right now, because we went to the next city to get the cell phones. Happy day for me. I really wanted to get a phone before my site visit, because I don't know where I'll be headed.

Things remain good. Haven't been chased by any crazy animals for nearly a week; another reason why it's the best week ever.

2005-10-26T04:24:00.000-07:00

October 25, 2005
This morning I had to run from a goose. It was terrifying. I was walking to my language class, enjoying the chilly yet clear morning, thinking lovely thoughts when I saw the neighborhood gaggle bathing in a puddle ten yards ahead of me. Not wanting to provoke any unnecessary encounter, I veered five feet off the dirt path to pass. This required tromping through a bush, but I was willing; geese are mean. I had made it just past the bathing beauties when they started honking and flapping at me. Then, suddenly, one came charging, head down, full speed and I had to run. Run. RUN. It was totally embarrassing, mostly because I know for a fact that at least two people saw me. Why can’t I be cool?

It’s starting to get cold. Rumor has it we might have snow on Friday, but we’ll see. It’s rained off and on for the last couple of weeks, which means lots of puddles and lots of mud. I bought an umbrella when it first started to rain, but I don’t foresee it lasting much into November. I’m pretty sure I bought the cheapest umbrella at the store. Probably not surprising. It worked great the first two days I had it, but on the third day, there was a slight breeze and it flipped up. Since that fated day, it flips up at random. I can flip it back down with one swift motion no problem, but from afar, it looks like I’m fencing. So I save it for when the drops are big because I’m rather conspicuous to begin with, let alone when I’m walking around fencing air.

In two weeks, I’ll know where my permanent site will be. It’s exciting to know, finally, but like everything else, it’s a bit overwhelming the think about. I’ll be visiting my site in the next couple of weeks and meeting my new host family. So I have a very exciting next few weeks. I'm trying to absorb as much language as I can before they turn me loose to my new site. Things are good though, things are good. As always I love and miss you all. I'll write as soon as I can.

I am a Tomato

2005-10-26T04:20:00.000-07:00

First and foremost, you should all know that I am incredibly happy here in Ukraine. Everyday I marvel that I’m finally here. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to see if it’s even real.

I’m living in what I took to be a small village, but what is apparently a small town. My mistake. It’s rather rural and very agricultural. Cows roam, goats bleat, chickens run free, most roads are dirt; for this city girl, it might as well be the sticks. I’m not complaining though, just saying.

There are certain things that I’m still getting used to…like the cows, and the geese, and the goats, and the chickens, and the roosters, and the babushkas on ten-speed bikes. Now, the grandmas I can handle, they in fact remind me of my own grandmother on her own stationary bike; it’s really the animal element that throws me for a loop. In my old concrete jungle, such animals were confined to the petting zoo at Happy Hallow. Here, the petting zoo actually runs wild. And for me, that’s kind of wild.

The other day, I walked home behind a cow. That’s right, behind a cow. I was too skiddish to pass it, so I kept my distance. I swear my vivid imagination results in the most irrational fears. The cow kept turning and mooing at me, and I didn’t know if this was some sort challenge. I didn’t know if it would charge if we made eye contact. I didn’t know if it would buck like a horse if I got too close behind it. I didn’t know, but I imagined, so I kept my distance and probably looked crazy because we (the cow and I) were walking so damn slow. I do realize how absurd I am.

My host family is great. I feel very blessed to find myself in such a good situation. They are a close, happy family. The father, Alec, is the director at the neighborhood school. The mother, Alla, is the vice-principle at another school. Both studied and taught history, not that we can really talk much history, what with the language barrier. Alec is a Cossack, which he described to me as a social organization for the people, I think. During the Orange Revolution, Alec went to Kiev with other Cossacks to protect the people and keep the peace between the two sides. From what I’ve been able to gather/decipher, during the Soviet era, he was a guard at the Berlin Wall. He used watch American planes fly over and American guards patrol the west side of the wall. He was born in Kazakhstan, his father is Russian and his great Uncle, or something like it, went to America and fought in the civil war for the Union army, I think. I wish my language skills were better so I could talk to him about the incredible ways he’s been a part of history. It’s a shame really, that I can’t.

I have two host sisters. One is eleven and the other, Olena, is 16. On Friday, she took me to the Disco. Her friends were all excited to meet me. It was cute. The disco was odd to the say the least. It was a cross between a high school dance and a club. There was beer for sale, and people could bring alcohol in, but it was all ages. The music was mostly a mix of old American songs. There were strobe lights and colored lights and there was a DJ, all in what can only be described as a large outdoor gazebo with picnic tables and Christmas lights.

Anyway, so I danced. I couldn’t skulk out of it, what with being an ambassador of all things American. It was pretty hilarious. I felt pretty hilarious dancing with a bunch of teenage girls, all of us bundled up in our coats. At one point, the DJ dedicated a song to me. So that was nice. That’s never happened at a high school dance-club in America. At another point, Olena and her friends tried to get me to start a Congo line. (Please imagine my horror.) They kept saying, “Crazy dance!” and miming what they wanted me to do, and I kept playing dumb. There was no way in hell that I was going to lead a Congo line. When I didn’t take the bait, they started it themselves and whipped me in. I thought that perhaps more people might join in, that perhaps this was a young Ukrainian thing, but such was not the case. Nobody else joined our “crazy dance” and so it was just the five of us, barreling around the dance floor like an out of control locomotive. Utterly humiliating for the tall American, may I just say.

My days are full. I rise, I go language lessons, I study, I sleep. This week I start my internship as Alla’s school. I’ll be teaching four classes a week. I’m a little nervous, what with no formal training. On Saturday, we had a technical session that jam-packed an entire semesters worth of methodology into an hour and a half. I’d feel more overwhelmed if I hadn’t been an active part of editing Darcy’s education homework the last few years. Still, knowing things in theory and putting them into play are two totally different things, so we’ll see how it goes. I’m excited. I get to make lots of posters and other visual aids, so I’m totally in my element.

The language is coming slowly. By the time I go to sleep at night, my brain pretty much feels like mush. I hope that’s a good thing. I study every spare moment that I have, so I trust that eventually it’ll click. Last week I had a funny language moment. I was trying to say I didn’t remember something, but instead I said, “I’m a tomato.” This is now what I think any time I have no idea what’s going on or being said to me. I think it more often then I care to admit actually.

I’m adjusting well I think. I take it day by day and try not to let things bother me. There isn’t much about my life I can control anymore and I’m okay with that. The small things don’t bother me so much these days. They in fact delight me. I washed my face with hot water tonight and it was incredible. I think I’ll dream about it as I drift off to sleep. I think I might even escape to it in my mind tomorrow when the inevitable happens and I find myself thinking, yep, I’m a tomato.

Live From Chicago

2005-10-01T19:28:00.000-07:00

Well, the sad good-byes are over. Thankfully. Too many more and I might never have left. Right now I'm in Chicago for staging and tomorrow I leave the country. I'm incredibly excited and optimistic about going forth with this. In that way, staging has been good.

The "ice-breaker games" weren't too bad. There was actually just one, and it was rather benign so I pretty much stressed out for nothing. Typical. My bags ended up weighing in at 49 lbs. and 40 lbs. and they were a royal bitch to lug about the airport; nevermind the HUGE backpack I had on my back that was heavy with my laptop and various other goods I couldn't shove into my bags. My backpack was so huge that it wouldn't fit into the overhead compartment and I had to unzip it and pull stuff out to sit with on my flight. It was mortifying because I ended up holding up an entire line of unamused American Airlines passengers. I don't even want to think about flying again tomorrow. I pretty much hate myself for being so neurotic that I had to pack so much.

The big group of 100 has been split up into two groups of 50, so I've only been hanging out with half of the big group. Truthfully, I don't think I could pick anyone in the other group out in a line-up. It's okay though, at this point, I don't think that's a test for service.

When we get to Ukraine, we'll be whisked away for two days of classes "in the woods" (whatever that means). We won't be camping, but it sounds fairly remote. We'll see. I have to get permission from the country director to have this blog, so that'll hopefully happen fairly soon after I get there. I won't have internet access for at least a week though, so it'll be pretty boring for you for awhile. I'll keep a list of the absurd ways I embarrass myself though, don't worry.

Anyway, to all my loved one: I love you guys very much. Thanks for being so supportive, and stay tuned because there's more to come.

The Clock is Ticking

2005-09-28T00:00:00.000-07:00

Not to dwell on it or anything, but the packing madness continues and quite frankly, I don't know how much more of it I can take. Not only is the computer room an utter disaster, but the insanity has now crept down the hall and infected the living room as well. As you can see, stuff is literally EVERYWHERE. Sure, a normal person might methodically go through the piles and the boxes and the random strewn objects and deal with them in some logical order; but I can't. I'm not a normal person in a logical sense. Somehow, for some reason, I have to make as big a mess as possible in order to get anything done.

The thing is though, I really don't do well psychologically when things are in chaos. It makes me distracted. I wander from pile to pile with no real plan; no real purpose. Sometimes I just sit despondently on the couch and mutter. And adding to the stress of the mess is the fact that my suitcases are filling up ridiculously fast. One is already full to the max and the other is not far from capacity (and I haven't even packed my tampons!).

Another source of stress: my parent’s scale, which apparently, is 10 pounds off-- and not in the good way. Of course, I didn't know this until after I'd weighed and packed, and weighed and packed, and weighed and packed, all the while feeling fairly cocky about meeting my weight requirement. Then my mom burst my bubble by mentioning (in passing really) that she always added 10 pounds to the scale. Ten pounds. Ten pounds! Suddenly, I'm not sitting so pretty.

The madness will end because it has to and right now, that's the light at the end of the tunnel for me. So I guess it's back to packing and making sense of the madness because really, the clock is tick-tick-ticking.

My Last Sunday

2005-09-26T00:47:00.000-07:00

Today was my last Sunday at church with my family. I had to get up and speak, which of course horrified me all week -- even though when the time came, it took me less than a minute to do. After speaking, my pastor invited my family and the Elders of my church up so they could pray for me. It was very special. After church was over, I was able to take Communion. It was something I wanted to do because I don't know when I'll get to take it again. Not all churches practice open Communion.

My mom was darling. She totally cried multiple times at church. I felt emotional too, but I mostly let her shed tears for the both of us. It's hard though, because she's so adorable and genuine and lovable and missable; I could easily dissolve into tears with her all day long. But I won't, at least not yet, because that would make for a long week. My tears aren't sad though, and really, I don't think hers are either. I get emotional when I'm struck by an overwhelming sense of awe. I felt the same way before I left Seattle. Sometimes I just can't believe how lucky I am to have so much to miss and so much to be thankful for and so much to look forward to.

It was really important to me to celebrate Communion one more time, not that I did anything to make it a reality. It was all my mom's arranging. It was really special though, the way it happened: after church, in my pastor's office with my parents and my pastors and a couple of Elders who've known me my whole life. I can't really explain it, nor would I want to; but suffice to say, it was very intimate. And very binding. God's love, God's family, God's gifts; they are very binding. Sometimes things you've known your whole life can strike you in a whole new way.

And I suppose that that's the most humbling, awe-inspiring thing of all.

Packing Madness

2005-09-24T15:50:00.000-07:00

The computer room at my parent's house has exploded, and I mean EXPLODED. I can't even sleep in here because the bed is covered with so much stuff. It's packing madness and it's making me lose my mind. The piles are everywhere and they're heaping. There are piles of things I'm taking, piles of things I want to take but don't know if I will, piles of things I probably don't need to take but most likely will take anyway, and piles of things I'm not going to take (at least that's what I think right now); there are even piles of things I don't know why I'm piling. It's utter insanity.

Speaking of insanity, I went to Costco with my mom and we went a little crazy. Not surprising to anyone aware of the "Mahaffey Family Huge" phenomemon. I'm fairly certain I have enough headache and sinus medicine to start my own cartel. I do realize that it's very ridiculous that I'm packing a miniture pharmacy; but at the same time, I can't help it: I'm totally neurotic. Do I need 300 excedrine migrane pills? Probably not. Do I need 300 aleve pills? 200 midols? 200 tampons? Clariton? Advil Cold and Sinus? Nyquil? 36 razor heads? No. No. No. No. No. And, No. I'm pretty sure people get headaches in Ukraine. Can I stop the madness though? No, because really, I'm ridiculous like that. So expect to get, at some point, a rant along the lines of: did I really waste all that space on pain killers and tampons?!

I'm getting pretty excited about leaving, but it's still all rather surreal. I can't fathom what it's going to be like so it's almost like I'm not processing it. It'll be a real shock to leave, and to get there, and to stay... I don't know, it's crazy. I can't fathom what I'm about to do so instead I'm obsessing about the small things, like 200 tampons and 36 razor heads and 24 small bags of sunflower seeds and fitting my blinket because that has to go -- even though it's weird.

The good-byes are starting to mount. First it was Annie and Watson and Wacarra in Seattle. Then it was the Andersons in Hawaii. Earlier this month it was Matt and Darcy and John in New York; then it was Sarah and Steve in Spokane. And tonight, tonight it was to most of my family in San Jose: Jeff, Kathy, Audrey, Melissa, James, Steve, Lori, Morgan, Keaton, Fran, Shawn, Maria, little Jesse and Christian. Tonight I just felt so blessed to have such a huge family who loves me and supports me in so many ways. Though good-byes still loom, I'm trying to prepare for them. It'll be hard to say good-bye to my grandparents, all four of them who I'm blessed to know and have. It'll be hard to say good-bye to Lori, who I have come to know in such a real and meaningful way. It'll be hard to say good-bye to Josh, my old buddy who always makes me laugh. And of course, there are my parents and Jason; how I do love them, and how I will miss them.

But thankfully, I still have a few days before I have to think about that... kind of.