Holubtsi and Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone! I’ve successfully survived two weeks in Ukraine and have started to establish some routines and wrap my head around training.

Then again, my training is anything but routine. The Minister of Ukraine mandated a three-week closure of all schools and universities due to H1N1, so we are officially in “quarantine.” Peace Corps Headquarters even called each volunteer to announce the “Alert” stage of EAP (Emergency Action Plan), which is just a fancy way of saying, “Pay attention to the news and don’t use public transport/go far from your site.” Last week schools were also closed for fall break. So after a month in Ukraine (7 weeks for everyone else), I will have observed two lessons and taught none. Yet the technical aspect of my training is supposed to consist of observing at least 10 classes taught by Ukrainian English Teachers and my fellow trainees, in addition to planning and teaching 15 of my own lessons. Even though we won’t be teaching for a while, Peace Corps has decided that we will plan lessons anyway, since we may be able to use them at site (and it’s good practice).

Despite the quarantine, we still have 4 hours of Ukrainian every day, on top of which I have 3 hours of individual tutoring each week (everyone else has 1). We have a coffee break halfway through, and go to the store (one of two in Bilky) after the lesson to buy food for lunch, which we cook at our LCF’s house (we almost invariably eat bread, kielbasa, cheese, and vareniky—aka pierogi—with sour cream and tea). On top of language training we have technical training, so even though we aren’t teaching, we have lesson planning, sessions with our TCF (basically seminars on predetermined topics twice a week, once being Saturday morning). Then each week there is usually a special session, which alternates between health and safety training and visits from Peace Corps staff to evaluate training—next week we have our Site Placement Interviews!!! We are also working on a Community Project together with the Borova group: we will be recording dialogues from the English books the school uses, conducting a demo lesson at a seminar for the English teachers in the community, and compiling a guidebook with examples for each stage in lesson planning using the communicative approach.

Olya leaves breakfast out for me, which I heat on the stove, and we eat dinner and do the dishes together (though she always give me more food). I live 2 minutes from my LCF’s house, so those who know me as Pokey will be happy to hear that I am never late, nor early, but arrive precisely when I mean to. Even without a lengthy commute (everyone else has between a 15-30 minute walk) I feel like every minute gets used for work, so I allow myself only a few minutes before bed to read, and I do yoga once a week. I haven’t gone running yet, but yesterday we didn’t start till noon, so I went for a walk around the village, since I haven’t really explored it yet. I noticed a lot of half-built houses, or ones with projects underway. Every house has a fence and at least a small garden. There are lots of dogs in the street, and they are not nice. Only the main road is paved. The landscape reminds me of Auburn, which is funny because that’s where my Ukrainian great-grandmother ended up after emigrating. The town center has a “department store,” several other shops, library, bazaar, post office, and a few pharmacies.

Two Sundays ago was chore day. Olya and I made liver’n’lung pies with fresh dough, pinching the edges and spreading egg yolks on top with broken bits of cloth (no pastry brush), and then it took her a few tries to start the gas for the oven, but we baked them along with a tray of cherry pies (which, not surprisingly, I prefer). Next we beat the rugs outside, swept and mopped the floors (with a rag wrapped around a stick—no Swiffer here), and harvested cabbages/weeded the garden for the winter. Yulka (the chained dog that I walk by on my way to the outhouse) and I share the same diet—she gets whatever I don’t eat. Everything else gets composted behind the outhouse.

On Halloween we had a morning session with a PCV about to COS from Lviv (aka advice from a volunteer just finishing his service), and I found it really inspiring. He told us his mistakes and what he would have done differently, and I appreciated the concrete advice. Later, to mark the holiday, I asked Olya if I could invite people over to watch a movie. I waited till the last minute so she couldn’t go out and buy stuff to play hostess, which was a good idea because she still put out tea and fruit and chocolates. Then we watched “El Orfanato” on my bed, which was appropriately terrifying.

Last Sunday Olya and I went to Fastiv, a city half an hour in the other direction (from Kiev). We bought grain for Yulka at the bazaar and walked around a bit, past a giant statue of Lenin. On the train and in the market a lot of people had scarves over their mouth and nose (myself included, since Olya made me—and it was cold). Then back at home I made holubtsi!

It snowed this morning. The first snow—light and fluffy, that melts when it hits the ground, and that you’re excited to see because it’s not February. But I’m unreasonably afraid of the coming winter, considering I’ve lived in Upstate New York and Maine.

The best way I can describe my environment in Ukraine so far would be 1850s meets 1950s meets today: we wash dishes in the bathroom sink and get water from the tub, garden vegetables and preserves are stored in the cellar of the outdoor kitchen, which also has a brick oven for baking bread, I pee in a bucket…but then I go back to watching “Ukraine’s Got Talent,” or Russian soaps, or Ukrainian MTV on cable television, or I sit in the wireless internet café drinking Stella, or Olya’s grandson tells me he plays internet games, wants to be a computer programmer, and listens to Papa Roach. Be-scarved babushkas share the sidewalk with women in high-heels, tight pants, make-up, and trendy tops (our Country Director calls them brick and stick ladies, respectively, and I find the description apt). Also, apparently sniffing hot salt cures the sniffles—any theories on that one? Since I continue to have a stuffy/runny nose, Olya heated salt on the stove and wrapped it in a cloth, which she made me hold against my nostrils, alternating back and forth.