In-Service Training was the usual combination of inspirational and daunting, to hear volunteers talk about their successful projects and brainstorm how I might achieve similar results. The two PCV facilitators both started “volunteerism schools” at their sites, with students creating and implementing their own service-learning projects and taking ownership of every step in the process. They had different approaches—one got the kids inspired with a successful project and then backtracked to help them see what they had learned, whereas the other started from a more formal training model, with students learning the theory first and then putting it into practice with their own ideas. I really want to start something like this at site, to teach my students about leadership, volunteerism, problem solving, creative thinking, and civic responsibility. The student I took to Camp IKNOW is all excited to work on an environmental project, and even called me while I was in Yalta to ask about the needs assessment questionnaire she was writing (I broke into uncontrollable laughter with my friends over the realization of how differently we all speak with our students, when I said “the Nature is very dirty,” with an exaggerated British accent to her on the phone). But, naturally, I am very excited to harness her enthusiasm, and then rope other students in too. Wish me luck. The conference was good, though it started on my birthday and I didn’t know anyone there (besides my counterpart Lena). It was mostly 38ers (newbies), so I got to meet a lot of people and we went out for drinks at a local bar after the day’s sessions. It was nice to meet the new group of Youth and Community Development volunteers, because they have the education and work experience that I want, so it’s always great to hear their stories. I asked Lena what was the most useful thing she got out of the conference and she said the English practice, but she also said that she understands a little more about Project Design and Management, and where I’m coming from when I talk about what I want to do at school (not just teach English). So I consider that worth it. At the conference I also met some girls from my group who I’ve never seen before (it happens a lot). One lives in Simferopol and offered us her apartment, so I’m glad I decided not to book any accommodations, and opted instead for flexibility in our trip to Crimea.
That choice served us well. We stayed for two nights at Adrianne’s (for the first night she wasn’t even there—she let another group of PCVs hand off her spare key to us!) We had a late, leisurely lunch, and then decided to spend the early evening in Sevastopol on the coast, to see the water and jump-start our vacation. We rode in the front of the bus, where the people without tickets go (Alia had to wait around the corner until the driver passed the check point). Sevastopol was as I had imagined—clean and white, a city on the sea. We strolled the boardwalk and had a glass of wine and some Tatar street food before heading back to Simferopol. The next day we ventured to Bakchysaray, to see the cave monasteries dug out of the cliff-side (reminded me of Mesa Verde), and then the Khan’s Palace. A local PCV and his Ukrainian friend were our guides, so we made sure to get the Tatar food they recommended at this great restaurant, where we lounged on pillows, eating soup with homemade noodles and a dish of giant, steamed meat dumplings. That night we shared a few bottles of wine with Adrianne and her friend, and traveled with them the next day to Stary Krym to see another volunteer for her birthday. The plan was to do some hiking, but we got there too late to do anything serious, so we just took a walk in the hills outside town and then hopped on the first bus we could—it took us to Koktebel, so there we went. I had written down numbers for apartments, but no one wanted to rent to us for less than 5 days, so we were heading somewhat dejectedly to check out the cheapest hotel when a guy offered us a place to stay, and he drove us there to check it out! He was embarrassed when he found out we were Americans, because there was an outhouse and summer shower, but we liked the rustic atmosphere and decided to stay for two nights. Our living/dining room was open-air with a view of the mountains, so it would have been awesome if the Ukrainian girls also staying there didn’t host a big party both nights—and use our space! The first night I asked them to move to their own space because we wanted to go to bed early, so they took our table up to their patio and didn’t return it till after we had breakfast, which was kind of annoying (as was the fact that the next night they just had their party on our patio, right outside my bedroom). They only spoke Russian, so there were several things lost in translation. I am going to miss being able to talk about people right in front of them though. It’s quite satisfying and convenient. The first night we had a picnic dinner on the beach and then walked along the boardwalk, gorging on giant slices of delicious cake. The next day we bought more food and wine for the beach, and went a little outside of town to find a nice spot—some people had built rock circles in the water for lounging, so we drank our wine there! It felt quite luxurious. Dinner was ridiculously overpriced, and I’m pretty sure the fatty, questionably cooked chicken made me sick to my stomach, because I was ill for the rest of the trip. We all got sick though (so maybe it wasn’t the chicken?), and kept vying for the title of “temporarily worst off.” Re-hydration salts taste nasty, I don’t care what Alia and Meagan say! Despite feeling like crap, we departed for Sudak to visit its really well preserved Genoese fortress, and proceeded on to Novy Svit to camp out on the beach. Our prospects were looking grim and night was falling, when we finally stumbled upon the other backpackers and staked out a pebbly section of our own. It was the first time I’ve ever slept under the stars without a tent, and it couldn’t have been a more perfect night: calm and warm, with a full moon and no wind. Of course, my bowels could have cooperated, but at least the weather was nice. I will tell you though that a night on the beach and 16 hours on the train with stomach problems is not much fun (especially when they lock the toilet near bigger stops). Our next stop was Yalta. We sprung for a nice apartment—Shower! Toilet! Hot water!—and it was only a 5-minute walk to the water. It was also a treat to just relax and watch television, even though they dubbed Gossip Girls in Russian. We had McDonalds for breakfast on the main square near the Lenin statue (he stares down the golden arches, creating perhaps the most ironic architectural juxtaposition ever), and I brought my own ketchup because they charge almost as much for a packet as for a hamburger. I had bought ketchup for our homemade Mac ‘n cheese, and was inspired to bring it to breakfast. We visited Livadia Palace, where the Yalta Conference was held, and saw several other palaces and beautiful gardens. They next day we got stranded at a poor excuse for a waterfall, and a harrowing taxi-ride later we were whizzing up a cable car to the top of Ay-Petri, with gorgeous views and obnoxious vendors (the whole trip it got progressively worse, till we couldn’t stand them any more). Meagan and Alia had an earlier train home, so I slept in and went to the beach by myself in Yalta before heading back to Simferopol. When I got back to Kozyatyn, it was 45 degrees colder than when I had left! WTF?!!
First Bell marks the Day of Knowledge on September 1st, and operates the same as Last Bell, so classes didn’t start till the 2nd. Of course, the schedule isn’t finalized, and there are no books or program for the 10th form, so it seems like institutionalized chaos will be standard for the next week or two. I was at Natasha’s to do my volunteer reporting form (it’s not Mac-compatible—boo), and we had an enlightening conversation about the need for educational reform in Ukraine. She helped me realize that the root of the problem lies in a lack of accountability or consequences. Students aren’t responsible for their own education (if a teacher fails a student, she must tutor him without pay all summer, and it is her fault if he receives bad marks—in theory therefore a student can complete his schooling without ever having absorbed a scrap of knowledge—a scary thought when the societal implications of such a future workforce are considered) or behavior (detention doesn’t exist); teachers are required to spend more time and effort filling out the official journal with detailed lesson plans (regardless of whether they are ever implemented, since more emphasis is given to the color of the pen and the quality of penmanship) than teaching their students. Demo lessons are rehearsed and answers memorized. Cheating is rampant and goes unpunished. These things she knows, but what can she do? She reasons that under communism, people learned to expect the state to give them things: education, a job, food. The idea that people themselves are responsible for their own well-being, and in turn that of their society, is what I hope to teach my kids. I think it will be much more useful than mastering the Present Perfect Continuous Tense.
In other news, I have already resorted to wool blankets; the days of sweating in my underwear seem so long ago. The Lone Mosquito still plagues me at night, however, buzzing brazenly in my ear, despite my entreaties to just bite me and be done with it.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
"My Brothers are Coming!" (1st half of August)
I looked forward to it for so long, I can’t believe it’s already over. I met them (Paul, his girlfriend Amanda, and Peter) at the airport and let out a few jumps of joy before taking them back to Kiev and the most luxurious accommodation we’ve ever stayed in as a family. I had gotten the apartment earlier that day and just lounged around for a bit enjoying the (temporary) feeling of wealth. We took a nap because everyone was tired from traveling, and then ventured out for a walk in the sweltering city. We had weather in the high 90s the whole trip, and in both overnight trains, only our compartment’s window didn’t open. The second time we joked that it would be funny if the one compartment window we saw unopened was ours, but it really wasn’t (funny). Ok, it kind of was. In a sweaty, miserable sort of way. The whole trip we never stopped sweating (Amanda smartly carried around a sock to wipe her face, I was just gross); the heat made us lethargic and less willing to be tourists, but we soldiered on.
Day 2 we visited the Cave Monasteries (Amanda and I had to cover our heads and shoulders with scarves, which cancelled out the cool air in the caves) and the WWII Museum (where we posed for fun photos with the Soviet realist statues), and walked over to the Hydro Park to dip our feet in the Dnipro. We also had lunch at a swanky restaurant on a boat, which made us all uncomfortable with its prices. We compensated for the extravagance with dinner at a Ukrainian-style cafeteria, where the four of us ate for $13 (we went back two more times during the trip, it was more our style). We rounded out the night in Kiev with a shot of Ukrainian vodka to fortify ourselves for the visit to Chernobyl the following morning.
After a two-hour drive, we went through passport control at the entrance to the exclusion zone and met our guide, who had a funny habit of making jokes and then saying, “It’s a joke.” We passed by the Lenin statue and a boat graveyard before monitoring radioactive moss, feeding giant catfish (seriously, over 6 feet long!) and seeing the sarcophagus of the melted reactor, covered by a complex of concrete and scaffolding. Later, we visited the ghost town where the Chernobyl workers and their families used to live. The shells of buildings remain, but inside is rubble and chaos, eerily photogenic. Books scattered thickly on the floor of the library and school forced us to desecrate their pages, there was nowhere else to step. Nature is doing the demolition work with quiet efficiency.
Back in Kiev, we dipped our feet in a fountain at Independence Square to cool off before our overnight train to Ivano. We were traveling first class with our own private coupe, but the heat made privacy irrelevant, as we left our door open for a breeze from the window in the hall and lounged around in sports bras and boxers drinking beer. After an hour bus ride, we finally arrived in Kolomiya (I had liked the B&B from G.L.O.W. so much I booked it for this trip!) The owner picked us up at the station, commenting politely that we looked like we had been on an overnight train. True story. My friend Abbey and her friend were waiting for us to hike to Shepherd’s Valley and enjoy some tasty cheese, but all we wanted to do was immerse ourselves in some form of water, so we split the ride but bailed on the hike, opting to hang out a waterfall by the base of the mountains instead. It was a good choice, sitting in the rapids and exploring along the river. We also practiced our Dima-squatting, sunflower-shelling skills—Amanda wins for finding it a painless experience.
Dinner was family style at the B&B, and then Vitaliy gave us a ride to the rock bar I asked about (my friend Sean, who lives in Kolomiya, said it was a cool place). Eventually we got the bartender to understand that we girls wanted creative cocktails and the boys would have beer (Dad, it was your birthday, we drank to you). We just asked for something new each round. A local guy put a kink in the beer and cocktails plan by inviting us over to his friends’ table to share a bottle of vodka, so the boys and Amanda got to experience that side of Ukrainian hospitality. Good times ensued, and I miraculously remembered the way home.
We woke up on time for breakfast, (I think I was the only one who ate it all, and I also got to speak French with the other guests!) and then unanimously decided—in a wordless conference—to go back bed for several hours, rather than catching an early bus to explore the biggest bazaar in Europe at our next stop. Eventually we made it to Chernivtsi, where we chatted for a bit with the slightly bizarre British owner of our hostel (he mostly just seemed lonely), before waiting out the heat a little more. Once our hunger overcame our heat-induced comas, we ventured out for a walk and late lunch. The city is beautiful and reminds me architecturally of Lviv and Budapest, since all three were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The man at the next table over kept trying to get us to share his bottle of vodka, but we were not about to do that again. The waitress brought me the wrong soup and then made a fuss when I informed her of her mistake. Customer service is an American concept. I ate the soup. We saw the strange, redbrick, Arabic-influenced university building (I kept trying to walk into places where we weren’t allowed—my philosophy is keep walking till someone makes you stop), and hoolyatied (the verb “to walk” is synonymous with “to hang out” in Ukrainian) around the hilly, leafy city, calling it an early night to avoid drinks with the crazy Finnish guy (who talked real fast and his eyes were THIS BIG) and the hostel owner.
The next day we saw two castles! For the first, we packed a picnic lunch and grabbed a cab (it was $1.25). Its exterior was impressively well preserved, and we had fun clambering around and exploring every crevice that didn’t say “Life Danger.” We picnicked in the shadow of the castle; Amanda finally got to try beer cheese (it lived up to her expectations) and I made everyone try halva (which they decided looked like gray poop, but tasted pretty good). We explored the next castle just as thoroughly as the first, using photo flash exploration for the dark and scary bits. I was outvoted for swimming in the gorge afterwards (the castle is set dramatically on a river bend across from the old city), so we sat in the shade of some trees overlooking the river and the castle and worked on our bag of sunflower seeds before finding a place for dinner.
The overnight train rolled in to Kozyatyn at 4:30 in the morning, so we stumbled back to my apartment and crashed for a few more hours, until the sun made it uncomfortable to sleep. Then we field-tripped to the bazaar to test our sour cream on the backs of our hands and choose our favorite fresh cheese, along with everything else on our shopping list. My favorite part of the trip was hanging out in my apartment and making borscht and holubtsi for dinner, doing the Yaworsky side proud. We took a little walk in the evening to see the island, and then played a sampling of drinking games and watched Friends in Ukrainian just for fun.
The next day we went with Kamilia to another local place to swim, but it started to rain and there was trash everywhere so we didn’t stay long. On the ride home, Amanda and I formed a plan. We would all buy the most ridiculous Ukrainian outfit we could find for less than 100 UAH, and then go out our last night in Kiev. To that end, we scoured the second-hand shops in my town, coming up with a fancy number for her and a lacy see-through shirt for me.
Our last night in K-town we had a shashlik celebration at the rehab center for Andrei’s birthday (it was a couple other guys’ birthdays as well, so it was quite the spread). Kamilia and her son and Sasha from English club were also there (along with Slava, Pasha, Marina, and Andrei), so Amanda and the boys got to meet most of my friends (we also ran into Anya buying a watermelon the day before—she was getting ready to visit the U.S. with Matt!) It was even more fun than I could have hope for: Peter ended up speaking Spanish to some guy who learned it in prison, and Paul and Amanda were having an animated conversation with Pasha and Marina, so I turned back and forth and enjoyed both events.
On our last full day, we rode the electrishka to Bilky to visit Olha. There they finally got the full taste of Ukrainian hospitality, filling up on homemade borscht before potatoes and meat cutlets and fish and tomatoes and cucumbers and bread and crepes filled with sweet cheese and doused in sour cream…and then watermelon and apples and pears. Paul tried his hand at toasting, and Peter kept our glasses full, so they were good male guests. Her garden is amazing. She offered us use of the summer shower (the water is heated in a barrel by the sun), but we knew we would just keep sweating, so we opted for a brief cuddle (the boys on the couch in the living room and me and Amanda in my old bed) before heading back to Kiev.
Once there, we got another apartment from the same lady (this one with air conditioning and a fancy shower!!!) and set out to find the boys some proper clothes. It was late for shopping, but we actually had good luck in one of the stores in the underground mall beneath Independence Square (near our apartment). Peter got a rainbow striped, faded tee, and Paul bought one three sizes too small, rolling up his jeans to make man’pris. We had a fake dance party photo session in the living room, then went out to look for a club, but gave up and went to Potato House instead.
The last morning was filled with souvenir shopping (buying four bottles of vodka before 9 am), with McDonalds and Olha’s leftovers for breakfast back at the apartment, plus one more chance to snuggle with the boys before sending them off on a bus to the airport. I’m excited for all of them to begin new chapters in their lives: Paul and Amanda in their new apartment starting grad school at Binghamton (they’re getting a cat!), and Peter as a first year at Bowdoin!
I was really sad to see them go though, and just wanted to get out of Kiev. That was complicated by the fact that I had to transport three massive suitcases with me: the spoils of America. I combined the two duffels into one, but each step was arduous and the result painful. The escalator at the train station was broken. The station is also located uphill from the Peace Corps office. It was a million degrees outside, and the bags weighted the same as the atmosphere. I slowly dragged each suitcase up the stairs. Then I realized that my train was leaving from the local train station, to the right of the main Vokzal. I carried those blasted things up the stairs for no reason! I kept looking imploringly at strong men until one offered to help me carry the million pound duffle. He carried it all the way to the gate and asked for 5 hyrven, I happily obliged. A few more steps and I got it on the train. Two-and-a-half hours to Kozyatyn. Off the train. Into a taxi. Up three flights of stairs. Collapse. I have bruises on my arms, and my shoulders have been sore for three days, even after two sessions of yoga. But I got 5 lbs. of licorice and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups!
I’ve been recovering ever since. The candy helps. So do episodes of Glee. Best is when the two are combined. I leave tomorrow for four days of In-Service Training in Kiev, and then nine days of vacation in Crimea. School starts two days later. I’m exhausted, but summer was great.
Day 2 we visited the Cave Monasteries (Amanda and I had to cover our heads and shoulders with scarves, which cancelled out the cool air in the caves) and the WWII Museum (where we posed for fun photos with the Soviet realist statues), and walked over to the Hydro Park to dip our feet in the Dnipro. We also had lunch at a swanky restaurant on a boat, which made us all uncomfortable with its prices. We compensated for the extravagance with dinner at a Ukrainian-style cafeteria, where the four of us ate for $13 (we went back two more times during the trip, it was more our style). We rounded out the night in Kiev with a shot of Ukrainian vodka to fortify ourselves for the visit to Chernobyl the following morning.
After a two-hour drive, we went through passport control at the entrance to the exclusion zone and met our guide, who had a funny habit of making jokes and then saying, “It’s a joke.” We passed by the Lenin statue and a boat graveyard before monitoring radioactive moss, feeding giant catfish (seriously, over 6 feet long!) and seeing the sarcophagus of the melted reactor, covered by a complex of concrete and scaffolding. Later, we visited the ghost town where the Chernobyl workers and their families used to live. The shells of buildings remain, but inside is rubble and chaos, eerily photogenic. Books scattered thickly on the floor of the library and school forced us to desecrate their pages, there was nowhere else to step. Nature is doing the demolition work with quiet efficiency.
Back in Kiev, we dipped our feet in a fountain at Independence Square to cool off before our overnight train to Ivano. We were traveling first class with our own private coupe, but the heat made privacy irrelevant, as we left our door open for a breeze from the window in the hall and lounged around in sports bras and boxers drinking beer. After an hour bus ride, we finally arrived in Kolomiya (I had liked the B&B from G.L.O.W. so much I booked it for this trip!) The owner picked us up at the station, commenting politely that we looked like we had been on an overnight train. True story. My friend Abbey and her friend were waiting for us to hike to Shepherd’s Valley and enjoy some tasty cheese, but all we wanted to do was immerse ourselves in some form of water, so we split the ride but bailed on the hike, opting to hang out a waterfall by the base of the mountains instead. It was a good choice, sitting in the rapids and exploring along the river. We also practiced our Dima-squatting, sunflower-shelling skills—Amanda wins for finding it a painless experience.
Dinner was family style at the B&B, and then Vitaliy gave us a ride to the rock bar I asked about (my friend Sean, who lives in Kolomiya, said it was a cool place). Eventually we got the bartender to understand that we girls wanted creative cocktails and the boys would have beer (Dad, it was your birthday, we drank to you). We just asked for something new each round. A local guy put a kink in the beer and cocktails plan by inviting us over to his friends’ table to share a bottle of vodka, so the boys and Amanda got to experience that side of Ukrainian hospitality. Good times ensued, and I miraculously remembered the way home.
We woke up on time for breakfast, (I think I was the only one who ate it all, and I also got to speak French with the other guests!) and then unanimously decided—in a wordless conference—to go back bed for several hours, rather than catching an early bus to explore the biggest bazaar in Europe at our next stop. Eventually we made it to Chernivtsi, where we chatted for a bit with the slightly bizarre British owner of our hostel (he mostly just seemed lonely), before waiting out the heat a little more. Once our hunger overcame our heat-induced comas, we ventured out for a walk and late lunch. The city is beautiful and reminds me architecturally of Lviv and Budapest, since all three were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The man at the next table over kept trying to get us to share his bottle of vodka, but we were not about to do that again. The waitress brought me the wrong soup and then made a fuss when I informed her of her mistake. Customer service is an American concept. I ate the soup. We saw the strange, redbrick, Arabic-influenced university building (I kept trying to walk into places where we weren’t allowed—my philosophy is keep walking till someone makes you stop), and hoolyatied (the verb “to walk” is synonymous with “to hang out” in Ukrainian) around the hilly, leafy city, calling it an early night to avoid drinks with the crazy Finnish guy (who talked real fast and his eyes were THIS BIG) and the hostel owner.
The next day we saw two castles! For the first, we packed a picnic lunch and grabbed a cab (it was $1.25). Its exterior was impressively well preserved, and we had fun clambering around and exploring every crevice that didn’t say “Life Danger.” We picnicked in the shadow of the castle; Amanda finally got to try beer cheese (it lived up to her expectations) and I made everyone try halva (which they decided looked like gray poop, but tasted pretty good). We explored the next castle just as thoroughly as the first, using photo flash exploration for the dark and scary bits. I was outvoted for swimming in the gorge afterwards (the castle is set dramatically on a river bend across from the old city), so we sat in the shade of some trees overlooking the river and the castle and worked on our bag of sunflower seeds before finding a place for dinner.
The overnight train rolled in to Kozyatyn at 4:30 in the morning, so we stumbled back to my apartment and crashed for a few more hours, until the sun made it uncomfortable to sleep. Then we field-tripped to the bazaar to test our sour cream on the backs of our hands and choose our favorite fresh cheese, along with everything else on our shopping list. My favorite part of the trip was hanging out in my apartment and making borscht and holubtsi for dinner, doing the Yaworsky side proud. We took a little walk in the evening to see the island, and then played a sampling of drinking games and watched Friends in Ukrainian just for fun.
The next day we went with Kamilia to another local place to swim, but it started to rain and there was trash everywhere so we didn’t stay long. On the ride home, Amanda and I formed a plan. We would all buy the most ridiculous Ukrainian outfit we could find for less than 100 UAH, and then go out our last night in Kiev. To that end, we scoured the second-hand shops in my town, coming up with a fancy number for her and a lacy see-through shirt for me.
Our last night in K-town we had a shashlik celebration at the rehab center for Andrei’s birthday (it was a couple other guys’ birthdays as well, so it was quite the spread). Kamilia and her son and Sasha from English club were also there (along with Slava, Pasha, Marina, and Andrei), so Amanda and the boys got to meet most of my friends (we also ran into Anya buying a watermelon the day before—she was getting ready to visit the U.S. with Matt!) It was even more fun than I could have hope for: Peter ended up speaking Spanish to some guy who learned it in prison, and Paul and Amanda were having an animated conversation with Pasha and Marina, so I turned back and forth and enjoyed both events.
On our last full day, we rode the electrishka to Bilky to visit Olha. There they finally got the full taste of Ukrainian hospitality, filling up on homemade borscht before potatoes and meat cutlets and fish and tomatoes and cucumbers and bread and crepes filled with sweet cheese and doused in sour cream…and then watermelon and apples and pears. Paul tried his hand at toasting, and Peter kept our glasses full, so they were good male guests. Her garden is amazing. She offered us use of the summer shower (the water is heated in a barrel by the sun), but we knew we would just keep sweating, so we opted for a brief cuddle (the boys on the couch in the living room and me and Amanda in my old bed) before heading back to Kiev.
Once there, we got another apartment from the same lady (this one with air conditioning and a fancy shower!!!) and set out to find the boys some proper clothes. It was late for shopping, but we actually had good luck in one of the stores in the underground mall beneath Independence Square (near our apartment). Peter got a rainbow striped, faded tee, and Paul bought one three sizes too small, rolling up his jeans to make man’pris. We had a fake dance party photo session in the living room, then went out to look for a club, but gave up and went to Potato House instead.
The last morning was filled with souvenir shopping (buying four bottles of vodka before 9 am), with McDonalds and Olha’s leftovers for breakfast back at the apartment, plus one more chance to snuggle with the boys before sending them off on a bus to the airport. I’m excited for all of them to begin new chapters in their lives: Paul and Amanda in their new apartment starting grad school at Binghamton (they’re getting a cat!), and Peter as a first year at Bowdoin!
I was really sad to see them go though, and just wanted to get out of Kiev. That was complicated by the fact that I had to transport three massive suitcases with me: the spoils of America. I combined the two duffels into one, but each step was arduous and the result painful. The escalator at the train station was broken. The station is also located uphill from the Peace Corps office. It was a million degrees outside, and the bags weighted the same as the atmosphere. I slowly dragged each suitcase up the stairs. Then I realized that my train was leaving from the local train station, to the right of the main Vokzal. I carried those blasted things up the stairs for no reason! I kept looking imploringly at strong men until one offered to help me carry the million pound duffle. He carried it all the way to the gate and asked for 5 hyrven, I happily obliged. A few more steps and I got it on the train. Two-and-a-half hours to Kozyatyn. Off the train. Into a taxi. Up three flights of stairs. Collapse. I have bruises on my arms, and my shoulders have been sore for three days, even after two sessions of yoga. But I got 5 lbs. of licorice and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups!
I’ve been recovering ever since. The candy helps. So do episodes of Glee. Best is when the two are combined. I leave tomorrow for four days of In-Service Training in Kiev, and then nine days of vacation in Crimea. School starts two days later. I’m exhausted, but summer was great.
Big Dirt (end of July)
I was home for a week, just long enough to do lots of laundry, paperwork and planning, a bit of exercise, and sit around in my underwear in my apartment, sweating by day and being eaten alive by mosquitoes at night, since I have to leave my balcony door open to have any chance of a breeze, and windows don’t have screens here. I went with Matt and Anya to a place in the river where you can lounge in the rapids—it was worth the 3 hours public transport to get there, and the hour waiting to hitchhike back, to be able to immerse myself in a cool body of water. I also went with Kamilia and her son to another local watering hole, a little closer but more prosaic; it was a large pond with a sandy bottom and grassy banks, located on the grounds of a children’s camp. When I wasn’t home sitting around sweating in my underwear (which I seem to have done a lot of this ridiculously hot summer, including right now as I type this), my social engagements included sitting on a bench in the park with Pasha, Marina, and anyone else who happened to walk by, once it had cooled off enough in the evening to venture outdoors. I will need to channel “The Giver” and store these hot summer days in my memory, for use later when I am freezing in an unheated apartment come winter.
Camp IKNOW preparations were stressful, since I was supposed to bring two students, but the second one kept changing, as kids chicken out or parents changed their minds. Finally I called Kamilia and asked if her best student wanted to come. She is only entering 7th form, which made her the youngest student at camp and disadvantaged linguistically, because many students were in 9-11th forms and some had just graduated. But she earned herself a niche as a little fairy princess for being so cute and braiding all the counselors’ hair after day 3 or 4 with no shower. She is not shy and does what she wants no matter what you tell her, but I still think she got something out of camp so I’m satisfied. (I was worried on the train when I asked what she’d done at camp before, and she said “rested,” and on the first day when she said she had a headache and was laying in her tent once lessons started, but I let her rest for ten minutes and she got up by herself.)
My other student was a gem, all the counselors agreed. Her tent leaked, she slept in a cold wet sleeping bag, her favorite shirt got a stain from another wet shirt whose color bled onto it—I came up with the brilliant solution for her to tie-dye that shirt instead of a white one, so no one would notice the stain—but she never complained. She filled up buckets from the well several times a day, volunteered to wash dishes even when her team wasn’t on duty, confided in me that she learned at camp many things she had unknowingly done before to hurt the environment that she wanted to change (which she put into practice the day we saw her carrying all her candies from town in her hands, having politely declined a plastic bag), and was a rock star bouncer/money collector/public relations representative on the night of our eco-disco fundraiser.
I headed up Team Blue with Ashley, another volunteer, and our four girls were so sweet and hard-working, even when we made them peel and chop vegetables for an hour, or mop the floor by hand, or go talk to everyone they saw on the day we did community needs assessment. That makes it sound like camp was horrible, but actually it was really fun. We started each day with morning wake-up call (the anthem for which became this ridiculous song called “Running on the Beach” that is an inside joke with Peter and Katy’s family) and mandatory exercise (students could choice between running or another activity, usually games, except I did yoga on the last day). Teams had different cooking duties each day, but Team Blue distinguished itself with tasty dishes, especially “Mexican Night” (for which the beans were delivered pre-cooked by the director of the Center who we ran into at the bazaar), and I was proud of our inventive use of leftovers. We slept in tents and had to lug water from a neighbor’s well for cooking and washing, but we had the Eco Center building for classes, so it was a pretty nice set-up.
Classes were on leadership, Project Design and Management (we went through all the steps and the students actually completed a project of their own design, an eco-disco to raise money to install trash cans on the beach; at the disco they also organized a trivia game with prizes to educate participants), and specific problems related to the environment in Ukraine. We also had morning and evening games, campfires on the nights it didn’t rain, and an excursion to a local castle.
On the last night we had a shashlik celebration with real s’mores (I demonstrated proper marshmallow roasting technique)! The meat wasn’t ready till 10 pm (at which point I busted out my handy headlamp to see my food), so we ate Peter’s birthday cake first and did affirmations, taping a piece of paper to everyone’s back and writing nice things about them.
Quite apart from the kids having a good time, the counselors had a lot of fun too, adopting orphan kittens and reminiscing about Little House on the Prairie, and getting caught in a downpour on our way back from a grocery run at the bazaar. A FLEX alum came and talked to the students about opportunities to study in America, and their enthusiasm was catching (she also taught them cheerleading, for which they got equally excited). One morning we were awoken at 6 am by two boys who had climbed to the balcony of the eco-center to remove the flag and run around singing the Ukrainian national anthem. That was an interesting cultural difference being out west—students rebuked me for using Russian words! I countered by saying Surjik is a cultural reality where I live in Ukraine. My girls and I were the last group to leave—besides the leaders Katy and Peter—so we helped clean up camp and then had a Ukrainian-style farewell with the directors: tea and chocolates and fruit on the front lawn.
Camp IKNOW preparations were stressful, since I was supposed to bring two students, but the second one kept changing, as kids chicken out or parents changed their minds. Finally I called Kamilia and asked if her best student wanted to come. She is only entering 7th form, which made her the youngest student at camp and disadvantaged linguistically, because many students were in 9-11th forms and some had just graduated. But she earned herself a niche as a little fairy princess for being so cute and braiding all the counselors’ hair after day 3 or 4 with no shower. She is not shy and does what she wants no matter what you tell her, but I still think she got something out of camp so I’m satisfied. (I was worried on the train when I asked what she’d done at camp before, and she said “rested,” and on the first day when she said she had a headache and was laying in her tent once lessons started, but I let her rest for ten minutes and she got up by herself.)
My other student was a gem, all the counselors agreed. Her tent leaked, she slept in a cold wet sleeping bag, her favorite shirt got a stain from another wet shirt whose color bled onto it—I came up with the brilliant solution for her to tie-dye that shirt instead of a white one, so no one would notice the stain—but she never complained. She filled up buckets from the well several times a day, volunteered to wash dishes even when her team wasn’t on duty, confided in me that she learned at camp many things she had unknowingly done before to hurt the environment that she wanted to change (which she put into practice the day we saw her carrying all her candies from town in her hands, having politely declined a plastic bag), and was a rock star bouncer/money collector/public relations representative on the night of our eco-disco fundraiser.
I headed up Team Blue with Ashley, another volunteer, and our four girls were so sweet and hard-working, even when we made them peel and chop vegetables for an hour, or mop the floor by hand, or go talk to everyone they saw on the day we did community needs assessment. That makes it sound like camp was horrible, but actually it was really fun. We started each day with morning wake-up call (the anthem for which became this ridiculous song called “Running on the Beach” that is an inside joke with Peter and Katy’s family) and mandatory exercise (students could choice between running or another activity, usually games, except I did yoga on the last day). Teams had different cooking duties each day, but Team Blue distinguished itself with tasty dishes, especially “Mexican Night” (for which the beans were delivered pre-cooked by the director of the Center who we ran into at the bazaar), and I was proud of our inventive use of leftovers. We slept in tents and had to lug water from a neighbor’s well for cooking and washing, but we had the Eco Center building for classes, so it was a pretty nice set-up.
Classes were on leadership, Project Design and Management (we went through all the steps and the students actually completed a project of their own design, an eco-disco to raise money to install trash cans on the beach; at the disco they also organized a trivia game with prizes to educate participants), and specific problems related to the environment in Ukraine. We also had morning and evening games, campfires on the nights it didn’t rain, and an excursion to a local castle.
On the last night we had a shashlik celebration with real s’mores (I demonstrated proper marshmallow roasting technique)! The meat wasn’t ready till 10 pm (at which point I busted out my handy headlamp to see my food), so we ate Peter’s birthday cake first and did affirmations, taping a piece of paper to everyone’s back and writing nice things about them.
Quite apart from the kids having a good time, the counselors had a lot of fun too, adopting orphan kittens and reminiscing about Little House on the Prairie, and getting caught in a downpour on our way back from a grocery run at the bazaar. A FLEX alum came and talked to the students about opportunities to study in America, and their enthusiasm was catching (she also taught them cheerleading, for which they got equally excited). One morning we were awoken at 6 am by two boys who had climbed to the balcony of the eco-center to remove the flag and run around singing the Ukrainian national anthem. That was an interesting cultural difference being out west—students rebuked me for using Russian words! I countered by saying Surjik is a cultural reality where I live in Ukraine. My girls and I were the last group to leave—besides the leaders Katy and Peter—so we helped clean up camp and then had a Ukrainian-style farewell with the directors: tea and chocolates and fruit on the front lawn.
G.L.O.W.!!! (mid-July)
Camp G.L.O.W. was one of the highlights of my Peace Corps service to date. I felt we really made a difference in the lives of the 17 girls who participated, pushing them to work hard each day and have fun too. I also enjoyed my first experience as a real camp counselor. I was constantly amazed at the discussions the girls led on the topics we presented: candid responses showed critical thinking and creativity, which are my greatest priorities as a teacher in Ukraine.
Our schedule left little time for sleep, but the B&B we stayed at was so nice, and the owners so accommodating, that we couldn’t have asked for better conditions for a “camp.” We had to remind the girls that they only needed one shower a day, they should eat all their delicious home-cooked food, and they shouldn’t take advantage of the free internet to check the Ukrainian version of Facebook every ten seconds, but we had no serious discipline issues, and whenever we asked more of the girls they gave it.
I taught yoga for the first time, which was quite empowering for myself, realizing I could teach other people something that I love, and it could be useful to them. Camille and I switched off running and doing yoga with the girls, so I got to lead a few girls on their first run ever! Apart from morning exercise, we had 2-3 lessons each morning, and a few more after lunch. A guest speaker from an counter-human-trafficking organization came, and a PEPFAR trainer had an HIV/AIDS session with the girls in which he kicked out the PCVs and Ukrainian counterparts so they wouldn’t be afraid to ask questions (bananas were involved in that lesson, and I think the message was well-received, judging from the animated voices emanating from behind the closed door).
Project Design and Management lessons throughout the week culminated in poster presentations of potential projects the girls could do at site. Themed lessons addressed Leadership, Counter-Trafficking, HIV/AIDS, Domestic Violence and Self-Defense (Camille taught the girls punches and kicks and they all got to throw her, which was a highlight for many!) We also had a field day with games including toilet paper mummy wrap, a water balloon toss (Natasha and I were masters, thanks to my skills developed with Brigid over many Yaworsky Campouts), and an anti-climactic tug-of-war, which end abruptly when the rope snapped.
Excursions included Kolomiya, to visit the Pysanky (Painted Easter Egg) Museum—which was shaped like a giant egg itself—and the Hutsul Culture Museum, and then to the Carpathians, to hike to Shepherd’s Valley through the woods and mountains and mud, to see where farmers live for several months at a time without electricity or running water, making brinza (cheese that tastes like feta) the same way it has been made for generations (the wheels of cheese age in the rafters, naturally smoked by the wood fire in the cabin). We had a delicious meal of cheese with tomatoes and cucumbers and a special local polenta dish at the mountaintop meadow, frolicked a bit, Sound of Music style, and then stripped down to essentials to cool off in a mountain stream.
On the last night, teams put on an imaginative variety show that featured an excellent extraterrestrial. We got the girls autograph books and they stayed up the entire last night, taking advantage of every moment with their new friends before the tearful goodbyes in the morning. For some, it was the first time they had ever been away from home without their families, and the first time they met girls from other parts of Ukraine.
Our schedule left little time for sleep, but the B&B we stayed at was so nice, and the owners so accommodating, that we couldn’t have asked for better conditions for a “camp.” We had to remind the girls that they only needed one shower a day, they should eat all their delicious home-cooked food, and they shouldn’t take advantage of the free internet to check the Ukrainian version of Facebook every ten seconds, but we had no serious discipline issues, and whenever we asked more of the girls they gave it.
I taught yoga for the first time, which was quite empowering for myself, realizing I could teach other people something that I love, and it could be useful to them. Camille and I switched off running and doing yoga with the girls, so I got to lead a few girls on their first run ever! Apart from morning exercise, we had 2-3 lessons each morning, and a few more after lunch. A guest speaker from an counter-human-trafficking organization came, and a PEPFAR trainer had an HIV/AIDS session with the girls in which he kicked out the PCVs and Ukrainian counterparts so they wouldn’t be afraid to ask questions (bananas were involved in that lesson, and I think the message was well-received, judging from the animated voices emanating from behind the closed door).
Project Design and Management lessons throughout the week culminated in poster presentations of potential projects the girls could do at site. Themed lessons addressed Leadership, Counter-Trafficking, HIV/AIDS, Domestic Violence and Self-Defense (Camille taught the girls punches and kicks and they all got to throw her, which was a highlight for many!) We also had a field day with games including toilet paper mummy wrap, a water balloon toss (Natasha and I were masters, thanks to my skills developed with Brigid over many Yaworsky Campouts), and an anti-climactic tug-of-war, which end abruptly when the rope snapped.
Excursions included Kolomiya, to visit the Pysanky (Painted Easter Egg) Museum—which was shaped like a giant egg itself—and the Hutsul Culture Museum, and then to the Carpathians, to hike to Shepherd’s Valley through the woods and mountains and mud, to see where farmers live for several months at a time without electricity or running water, making brinza (cheese that tastes like feta) the same way it has been made for generations (the wheels of cheese age in the rafters, naturally smoked by the wood fire in the cabin). We had a delicious meal of cheese with tomatoes and cucumbers and a special local polenta dish at the mountaintop meadow, frolicked a bit, Sound of Music style, and then stripped down to essentials to cool off in a mountain stream.
On the last night, teams put on an imaginative variety show that featured an excellent extraterrestrial. We got the girls autograph books and they stayed up the entire last night, taking advantage of every moment with their new friends before the tearful goodbyes in the morning. For some, it was the first time they had ever been away from home without their families, and the first time they met girls from other parts of Ukraine.
Lviv, Miss Benes, the 4th, and Ukrainian Boot Camp (end of June/beginning of July)
My trip back was equally smooth. Once across the border, I decided on a whim to take an overnight train to Lviv, and visit the city for a day with 2 other volunteer friends who happened to be in town. On the train I met a young Ukrainian who works abroad in Italy and only comes home once every few years, so naturally he was excited to speak Ukrainian! He even paid for me to doze in the chairs of the first class lounge for a few hours after he continued on his journey home, until it was a decent hour for me to visit the city. I explored by myself in the morning, and visited a beautiful cemetery later, with Heather and David (we also had liquid chocolate at a cafe--yum). We spent the night at Suzanne’s, who lives an hour from Lviv. All of us in GAD want to be Suzanne when we grow up; she’s 60 going on 25 and one of the coolest people I know. I was exhausted from my travels, and it was cold and rainy out, so I stayed in her apartment all day and got treated to gourmet meals from Suzanne and Heather’s boyfriend, both superb chefs. Suzanne and I were supposed to go to Ivano-Frankivsk to meet another volunteer and learn how to use a special publishing program for the GADFly, but we ended up using Microsoft Publisher on Suzanne’s computer, so I helped a bit with the layout, but the brunt of the work fell on her, and I finally made it back home.
I’ve been away from site a lot this summer, but each time I finish a trip, I can’t wait to turn the keys to the door in my apartment (at the same time holding my breath, in case I find a fruit fly infestation or a toilet situation). Traveling makes me appreciate home more and more, wherever “home” might be!
I was home for less than a week, and caught up immediately in the whirlwind surrounding the imminent arrival of Miss Jessica. I finally got the chance to meet my predecessor face to face, but it felt more like greeting an old friend, since I’ve heard so much about her. We made (correction: burned) brownies at Kamilia’s, and ate around the burnt bits and foil as we sipped tea and had a slumber party. The next day, Larissa hosted an English teacher luncheon (though Lena wasn’t there, Natasha and her daughter Dasha were), and Jessica managed a nap in her bedroom while I went home to nap too before going to Slava’s birthday shashlik picnic on the island and then to Jessica’s favorite bar with Matt and Anya. I’m tired again just thinking about it! I planned a picnic on the 4th to meet the new volunteers, and we took a ferry on the river in Vinnytsia to a really nice spot.
Ukrainian Language Refresher was sort of like a summer camp for PCVs. The days they put out Kit-Kats for snack were infinitely better than the days when gross giant Ukrainian marshmallows showed up. We had morning games and team activities and each team was “on duty” one night. Optional activities included Ukrainian folk dancing, canning and conserving (I managed to shatter the glass jar we were using to practice sealing, but putting our blueberry jam on everything at dinner sufficiently made up for it). I sold GAD merchandise at meals and was the captain of Team Bandit Bears (Vedmedykiy Banditiy), so I was more visible than usual at these kinds of events, but I still hung out mostly with Lauren and Meghan. I did meet several other 37ers that I’ve never seen before, including my roommate Jordan, who I went running with a few mornings. I enjoyed the chance to formally study Ukrainian again, with elective classes on prickly topics that constantly give volunteers grief. I also forced myself to take the Language Proficiency Exam again, in hopes that personal shame would later make me more willing to study. The personal shame part proved right (I guessed correctly that I had only marginally improved my entire time at site), but so far no studying has resulted; we’ll see what happens in the fall.
This summer has alternated between weeks of blistering heat with unfortunately timed patches of cold and rainy reprieve. The whole week at Refresher was chilly when we could have been swimming in the river, but it’s a bazillion degrees whenever I’m home near my polluted river; it also rained at baseball camp and environmental camp, when we slept in tents. True to form, the weather heated things up in time for my overnight train to Kolomiya for G.L.O.W. Before that though, I spent a nice afternoon walking around Lutsk with the volunteers who live there.
I’ve been away from site a lot this summer, but each time I finish a trip, I can’t wait to turn the keys to the door in my apartment (at the same time holding my breath, in case I find a fruit fly infestation or a toilet situation). Traveling makes me appreciate home more and more, wherever “home” might be!
I was home for less than a week, and caught up immediately in the whirlwind surrounding the imminent arrival of Miss Jessica. I finally got the chance to meet my predecessor face to face, but it felt more like greeting an old friend, since I’ve heard so much about her. We made (correction: burned) brownies at Kamilia’s, and ate around the burnt bits and foil as we sipped tea and had a slumber party. The next day, Larissa hosted an English teacher luncheon (though Lena wasn’t there, Natasha and her daughter Dasha were), and Jessica managed a nap in her bedroom while I went home to nap too before going to Slava’s birthday shashlik picnic on the island and then to Jessica’s favorite bar with Matt and Anya. I’m tired again just thinking about it! I planned a picnic on the 4th to meet the new volunteers, and we took a ferry on the river in Vinnytsia to a really nice spot.
Ukrainian Language Refresher was sort of like a summer camp for PCVs. The days they put out Kit-Kats for snack were infinitely better than the days when gross giant Ukrainian marshmallows showed up. We had morning games and team activities and each team was “on duty” one night. Optional activities included Ukrainian folk dancing, canning and conserving (I managed to shatter the glass jar we were using to practice sealing, but putting our blueberry jam on everything at dinner sufficiently made up for it). I sold GAD merchandise at meals and was the captain of Team Bandit Bears (Vedmedykiy Banditiy), so I was more visible than usual at these kinds of events, but I still hung out mostly with Lauren and Meghan. I did meet several other 37ers that I’ve never seen before, including my roommate Jordan, who I went running with a few mornings. I enjoyed the chance to formally study Ukrainian again, with elective classes on prickly topics that constantly give volunteers grief. I also forced myself to take the Language Proficiency Exam again, in hopes that personal shame would later make me more willing to study. The personal shame part proved right (I guessed correctly that I had only marginally improved my entire time at site), but so far no studying has resulted; we’ll see what happens in the fall.
This summer has alternated between weeks of blistering heat with unfortunately timed patches of cold and rainy reprieve. The whole week at Refresher was chilly when we could have been swimming in the river, but it’s a bazillion degrees whenever I’m home near my polluted river; it also rained at baseball camp and environmental camp, when we slept in tents. True to form, the weather heated things up in time for my overnight train to Kolomiya for G.L.O.W. Before that though, I spent a nice afternoon walking around Lutsk with the volunteers who live there.
In the land of Pest (late June)
I left baseball camp on an overnight train to the border (met a rich student from Nigeria who studies in Kharkiv and travels the world in the summer), waited a few hours to go through passport control, and took a little two-wagon train to the neighboring Hungarian town. I didn’t have any forint on me and had to reserve a seat to Budapest, but a kind American man bought my ticket and helped me orient myself on the train. He lives in Ukraine with his Russian wife and they were flying with their children to visit family in the States. I was amazed at the ease with which each part of the trip was completed, considering I had booked no tickets in advance.
I got to the hostel and found out that Heather wasn’t getting in till much later that night, so I did my usual exploratory walk, had delicious goulash at a cafeteria-style restaurant in a giant covered market, took a nap and woke up to French (some guys from Montreal were staying in our room!) and checked out the other side of the Danube on a glorious sunset stroll. Budapest is beautiful! Its architecture has dark details, giving the city a mysterious appeal; you can sense its tortured past in the statues that labor to hold up balconies and buildings, supporting the weight of the stones through the centuries. Actually though, much of the architecture currently visible in Budapest dates only to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with some concrete communist beauties mixed in, and bullet-holes peppering various buildings for a dash of local flavor.
When Heather walked through the door, it was like no time had passed! I love the security of a steady friendship. We stayed up late drinking tea and eating cookies in the hostel courtyard, and were eventually joined by two of the Montreal boys; one was drunk, so the rest of us amused ourselves outwitting him. He would say inappropriate things in French, forgetting that Heather and I both speak it. We had a week to leisurely explore the city, so we joined a few free walking tours (regular, communist, and Jewish—the last they paired with a pub crawl to lighten the mood after visiting the old ghetto), went on a failed quest, and ate our weight in goulash. Most travelers stayed for only 2 nights on whirlwind Euro tours; Brazilians therefore quickly replaced the French Canadians. We taught them “Cheers, Gov’na!” and they caught on quickly. Our last day we went on a field trip to the “countryside” and drooled over local delicacies, then indulged in several hours at one of Budapest’s most renowned spas, where we alternately lounged in naturally heated thermal springs, a steam room, and a cold pool. Heather also treated me to a massage for my birthday, so we both had fun experiences with terse Hungarian ladies. The indulgences continued at a ruined bar (a brilliant Hungarian invention to recycle dilapidated buildings they can’t afford to renovate into partially open-air bars with creatively used junk for seating and decoration), where we had a sampling of tasty cocktails and chatted for a long time with a pair of Dartmouth grads.
I got to the hostel and found out that Heather wasn’t getting in till much later that night, so I did my usual exploratory walk, had delicious goulash at a cafeteria-style restaurant in a giant covered market, took a nap and woke up to French (some guys from Montreal were staying in our room!) and checked out the other side of the Danube on a glorious sunset stroll. Budapest is beautiful! Its architecture has dark details, giving the city a mysterious appeal; you can sense its tortured past in the statues that labor to hold up balconies and buildings, supporting the weight of the stones through the centuries. Actually though, much of the architecture currently visible in Budapest dates only to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with some concrete communist beauties mixed in, and bullet-holes peppering various buildings for a dash of local flavor.
When Heather walked through the door, it was like no time had passed! I love the security of a steady friendship. We stayed up late drinking tea and eating cookies in the hostel courtyard, and were eventually joined by two of the Montreal boys; one was drunk, so the rest of us amused ourselves outwitting him. He would say inappropriate things in French, forgetting that Heather and I both speak it. We had a week to leisurely explore the city, so we joined a few free walking tours (regular, communist, and Jewish—the last they paired with a pub crawl to lighten the mood after visiting the old ghetto), went on a failed quest, and ate our weight in goulash. Most travelers stayed for only 2 nights on whirlwind Euro tours; Brazilians therefore quickly replaced the French Canadians. We taught them “Cheers, Gov’na!” and they caught on quickly. Our last day we went on a field trip to the “countryside” and drooled over local delicacies, then indulged in several hours at one of Budapest’s most renowned spas, where we alternately lounged in naturally heated thermal springs, a steam room, and a cold pool. Heather also treated me to a massage for my birthday, so we both had fun experiences with terse Hungarian ladies. The indulgences continued at a ruined bar (a brilliant Hungarian invention to recycle dilapidated buildings they can’t afford to renovate into partially open-air bars with creatively used junk for seating and decoration), where we had a sampling of tasty cocktails and chatted for a long time with a pair of Dartmouth grads.
To Ujgorod and Beyond! (mid-June)
Immediately after my camp I headed to Ujgorod in Zakarpattia to celebrate Lauren and Sean’s birthdays. We had shashlik at a river with a bunch of PCVs and Ukrainians (the Zakarpatska crew are so close they get to see each other all the time, so it’s a solid group). There was an old mill on the river, so we jumped off the concrete embankment into a deep channel for some thrills. Later we watched a bit of the World Cup in a bar and played Catch-Phrase (wild and crazy party!) in the apartment they rented. Alia and I went on a quest for “Supersnacks” around 3, and convinced Lauren to join us on a sunrise stroll when we returned. On Sunday we walked around town and saw the castle and a cute open-air museum with period housing. It reminded me again of Laura Ingalls, and I stand fast to the belief that rural Ukraine bears a striking similarity to “Little House on the Prairie.”
That night, Sean, Alia, and I took the train to Ternopil for Camilla’s baseball camp. Matvi, Nikita, and Ian joined us there, so the camp was well staffed by PCVs. We stayed at a “hotel” that cost $2.50 a night (the toilet was at the end of the hall, and there were no showers). My baseball experience consists of years of watching my brothers advance through Little League. Baseball has a lot of weird rules that don’t make much sense, especially if you’re a Ukrainian kid who has never seen the game before. It made me realize that Americans like complicated sports. We had kids running the wrong way, lapping their slower teammates around the bases, chasing after people to make outs…it was amusing. The fun continued as we tried to explain pop flies and forced outs and automatic walks. The 4th graders were so cute though, and Camilla is trying to get them ready for Little League in Ukraine, which has a championship tournament in Odessa in May. We went to a sauna one night (personally I find it somewhat masochistic, because it’s borderline unbearable and yet I try to convince myself that I enjoy the sweat). We alternated between skin-prickling dry heat and an ice-cold tub—which my days in Maine prepared me well for. Another day we packed a picnic (after shopping in a giant Wal-Mart-esque store—so exciting!) and ate by the lake in the center of Ternopil, a lovely, leafy green city, under whose waters lies buried a railway depot destroyed during WWII. We also had time to hang out in Camilla’s gorgeous house—her host parents work in Moscow for months at a time, and they make good money in an unidentified business.
That night, Sean, Alia, and I took the train to Ternopil for Camilla’s baseball camp. Matvi, Nikita, and Ian joined us there, so the camp was well staffed by PCVs. We stayed at a “hotel” that cost $2.50 a night (the toilet was at the end of the hall, and there were no showers). My baseball experience consists of years of watching my brothers advance through Little League. Baseball has a lot of weird rules that don’t make much sense, especially if you’re a Ukrainian kid who has never seen the game before. It made me realize that Americans like complicated sports. We had kids running the wrong way, lapping their slower teammates around the bases, chasing after people to make outs…it was amusing. The fun continued as we tried to explain pop flies and forced outs and automatic walks. The 4th graders were so cute though, and Camilla is trying to get them ready for Little League in Ukraine, which has a championship tournament in Odessa in May. We went to a sauna one night (personally I find it somewhat masochistic, because it’s borderline unbearable and yet I try to convince myself that I enjoy the sweat). We alternated between skin-prickling dry heat and an ice-cold tub—which my days in Maine prepared me well for. Another day we packed a picnic (after shopping in a giant Wal-Mart-esque store—so exciting!) and ate by the lake in the center of Ternopil, a lovely, leafy green city, under whose waters lies buried a railway depot destroyed during WWII. We also had time to hang out in Camilla’s gorgeous house—her host parents work in Moscow for months at a time, and they make good money in an unidentified business.
Last Bell and School-Leavers (end of May/beginning of June)
On the last Saturday in May, I went to the citywide graduation ceremony on the square, and it poured right before the start. The girls wore evening gowns, doves were released into the sky, Patricia Kaas blared from the loudspeakers, ceremonial bread was gifted—due pomp and circumstance were observed. I stood with Sasha, whose niece was graduating, and marveled at how American his friend looked: a casual t-shirt over an ample belly, flip-flops, neatly buzzed hair and a baseball cap. Afterwards, I went to the concert for School #5, which consisted of everything I have come to expect in a Ukrainian concert: song, dance, flowers, skits, and speeches, with the whole shebang lasting several hours.
The first week after classes ended I went to school until noon each day, like the other teachers. I prepared for camp, and typed up test questions for the 9th form exam. Kamilia let me do laundry at her place. I also tried on jeans in the back of an unmarked van at the bazaar. Huzzah for impromptu and slightly inappropriate changing rooms! Stalker boy (the one who tricked me into the interview-date) struck 5 times in the night, with consecutive calls and mysterious texts: “Ketlin! Your very buatiful nise and big head GIRL.” I do not appreciate multiple calls at 3 am, and if I ever run into this kid again, I will tell him so. I’ve made friends with the water lady at the bazaar, who likes to chat when I come to fill up my 6 liter bottles. On the way to work I saw frogs plop into the pond, taking me back to the days when my brothers and I would catch them with butterfly nets in the ponds we named Mike and Ike. In the middle of yoga I got fed up and took a pair of craft scissors to my bangs—they survived the assault. My carpets took a worse beating, when I decided finally to drag them out on the balcony and take a stick (which was actually the hose of my non-functioning vacuum cleaner—how’s that for irony?) to them. Beating carpets is hard work! I’m also pretty sure I broke all the laws of carpet-beating etiquette, by raining dust down on my neighbors from the 3rd floor.
The second week of June I had my own English Camp at site, with a solid crew of about 20 kids, mostly 7th formers. A PCV friend stayed for the week to help me, and Kamilia was able to come for a few days also. I stole the format and content from other volunteers, who adapted it from the old volunteer at my site, so it’s a tried-and-true formula! We played games and solved riddles and had contests in English, and on the last day we had a picnic feast and played their favorite games. They gave me an entire smoked fish as a thank you present and begged me to do an extra week next year, so I’ll count that as a success!
The first week after classes ended I went to school until noon each day, like the other teachers. I prepared for camp, and typed up test questions for the 9th form exam. Kamilia let me do laundry at her place. I also tried on jeans in the back of an unmarked van at the bazaar. Huzzah for impromptu and slightly inappropriate changing rooms! Stalker boy (the one who tricked me into the interview-date) struck 5 times in the night, with consecutive calls and mysterious texts: “Ketlin! Your very buatiful nise and big head GIRL.” I do not appreciate multiple calls at 3 am, and if I ever run into this kid again, I will tell him so. I’ve made friends with the water lady at the bazaar, who likes to chat when I come to fill up my 6 liter bottles. On the way to work I saw frogs plop into the pond, taking me back to the days when my brothers and I would catch them with butterfly nets in the ponds we named Mike and Ike. In the middle of yoga I got fed up and took a pair of craft scissors to my bangs—they survived the assault. My carpets took a worse beating, when I decided finally to drag them out on the balcony and take a stick (which was actually the hose of my non-functioning vacuum cleaner—how’s that for irony?) to them. Beating carpets is hard work! I’m also pretty sure I broke all the laws of carpet-beating etiquette, by raining dust down on my neighbors from the 3rd floor.
The second week of June I had my own English Camp at site, with a solid crew of about 20 kids, mostly 7th formers. A PCV friend stayed for the week to help me, and Kamilia was able to come for a few days also. I stole the format and content from other volunteers, who adapted it from the old volunteer at my site, so it’s a tried-and-true formula! We played games and solved riddles and had contests in English, and on the last day we had a picnic feast and played their favorite games. They gave me an entire smoked fish as a thank you present and begged me to do an extra week next year, so I’ll count that as a success!
5/27/10: Princesses, Peanut Butter, Strawberries and Rocks
I am a recent devotee of the health food blog Kath Eats Real Food (so much so that I’m giving her a free plug here, so go check out her Tribute to Oatmeal and be amazed). Homemade whipped banana oatmeal with walnuts and domashniy syr, plus any combo of dried or fresh fruit, honey and poppy seeds, fruit preserves, or peanut butter is the most satisfying breakfast I have ever had. Today I used up my last spoonful of peanut butter, and am looking forward to what she calls “Oatmeal In A Jar” to catch the dregs of peanut buttery goodness clinging to its sides. (Less exciting is the prospect of several months without peanut butter, before my brothers show up with a magical suitcase full of goodies). Next was a glorious meandering run through the pleasant grid of Ukrainian small town life. I resolved to go up and down every dirt road I had passed, as soon I had finished surveying the perimeter (i.e. running till there was nowhere left to run, where houses give way to endless fields, and babuysias stoop to pay homage to the earth). I have seen some interesting gardening outfits—an old lady in capris and a bra, an old man in a Speedo—it reminded me of how sometimes girls wear bikinis while they ride the lawnmower and work on their tan.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Volunteer-like happenings
On the last Thursday and Friday of April, I went to Vinnytsia to volunteer at the Special Olympics, which basically entailed us setting up plastic darts, bowling (the pins kept blowing away), and mini-basketball as entertainment for the kids who weren’t playing, and then sitting around in the sun eating the McDonalds hamburgers and pies the event coordinator kept bringing to us (Micky-Ds was a sponsor). Not ideal—we would have liked to be more useful and less ornamental—but as a volunteer you learn you can’t change everything right away, so we’re hoping for better things next year. The most disheartening part was that kids who lived in orphanages or had learning/mental disabilities could play too, so the teams were mostly filled by able-bodied kids, who shouldn’t really have been playing in Special Olympics, and the kids with more limited abilities sat on the sidelines. Unfortunately competition took over the spirit of the games, and I heard one kid who got a ribbon for 5th place shout in frustration, “This isn’t worth celebrating.” On Thursday my marshrutka home broke down, and we sat for half an hour waiting for a different one to take us back to Kozyatyn, while I chatted with an English teacher from School #3 who I had met in December at the Olympiad, but hadn’t seen since (she had gone to Vinnytsia to Mike and Matt’s English club, so she got a lot of practice that day!)
On Friday Megan came with me to site after the SA and before GAD the next morning in Kiev, so we ate peanut butter and chocolate frosting and watched/exchanged movies. We watched another movie on her laptop on the morning train ride to Kiev, fascinating all the people around us, especially a little girl who kept peeking around the corner but not saying anything. GAD was epically long but inspiring and productive as usual. I worked on the GADFly newspaper and helped figure out Camp G.L.O.W. logistics. Afterwards a bunch of us went to a Middle Eastern restaurant for dinner, and I reveled in the wonders of chickpeas. I took the train home that night, making for an exhausting weekend of travel where nonetheless every night was spent at home.
The first Thursday in May, my friends Andriy and Pasha came to my school to give their HIV/AIDS lectures to the 9th-11th forms, and I sat in on a few to observe. Both are very charismatic speakers, but I objected to a few of the stereotypes that got a good laugh from students and teachers alike, about boys wanting girls who haven’t slept around (the metaphors used were the ideal fairy tale princess and a pair of old shoes, plus a jab at homosexuality by referencing the absurdity of a prince wanting to marry another prince). The teachers were in a meeting during the big break, but Natasha had locked the English classroom so I couldn’t get in to give the 8th formers the exam I had written, and the meeting continued for almost the entire lesson, so I was stuck in the hall with the kiddies, improvising. Then, unexpectedly, three boys from School #1 showed up for my English club, so I rearranged things there as well.
Thursday the 13th we held an all-day HIV/AIDS training for 15 school psychologists and health teachers, facilitated by a PEPFAR trainer I invited from Kiev. Open Heart, the local NGO Kamilia and I work with, provided lunch and technical support, and Kamilia organized the whole thing. In the morning I had my doubts: we had a last minute room change, things people promised would be done weren’t done, many people couldn’t come because of poor timing (at the end of the year, when everyone has to prepare for exams)…but somehow it all came together, and the participants even delayed going to lunch because they were asking us questions about how we could work together, and discussing specific points from the lecture! Yay enthusiasm!
After the Botanical Gardens, I got off the train, went to bed, woke up, and got back on the train the next day to the town of Bar. To get there I had to catch a bus from Vinnytsia, and I’m not used to buying tickets in advance for buses, so I just sat down until someone informed me I was in her seat. Luckily there were two seats near the driver for stand-bys, and I almost bounced out of mine a couple of times as we careened over epic bumps and potholes. The volunteer in Bar had organized a baseball weekend for her students. She worked in a lesson on HIV, which we then jokingly tied to baseball metaphors for our own amusement. Ten volunteers showed up to help, and we taught the kids how to throw, catch, and bat, plus what the heck you’re supposed to do when you put all those things together and make a game. We were supposed to give a demonstration in front of the mayor, so we lugged all the equipment rented from Peace Corps (who knew the office had batting helmets?) through the streets of town, wearing most of it to lighten the giant babuysia bags the stuff came in. Abbey and Grace made stir-fry for dinner in Abbey’s awesome host family house, and then we played Catch-Phrase all night. Oh how I’ve missed being a dork with other dorky Americans! I hadn’t planned to spend the night (in fact I thought it was a one-day event), but there was an extra bed and I borrowed a contact case and solution, so I figured Chomoo nee? The answer might have been furnished by my fellow marshrutka-riders on the way home the next day, after wearing the same clothes for 48 hours straight, including overnight and several hours of baseball in the rain on Sunday.
What do YOU think the role of a TEFL volunteer should be in her local community and host country?
On Friday Megan came with me to site after the SA and before GAD the next morning in Kiev, so we ate peanut butter and chocolate frosting and watched/exchanged movies. We watched another movie on her laptop on the morning train ride to Kiev, fascinating all the people around us, especially a little girl who kept peeking around the corner but not saying anything. GAD was epically long but inspiring and productive as usual. I worked on the GADFly newspaper and helped figure out Camp G.L.O.W. logistics. Afterwards a bunch of us went to a Middle Eastern restaurant for dinner, and I reveled in the wonders of chickpeas. I took the train home that night, making for an exhausting weekend of travel where nonetheless every night was spent at home.
The first Thursday in May, my friends Andriy and Pasha came to my school to give their HIV/AIDS lectures to the 9th-11th forms, and I sat in on a few to observe. Both are very charismatic speakers, but I objected to a few of the stereotypes that got a good laugh from students and teachers alike, about boys wanting girls who haven’t slept around (the metaphors used were the ideal fairy tale princess and a pair of old shoes, plus a jab at homosexuality by referencing the absurdity of a prince wanting to marry another prince). The teachers were in a meeting during the big break, but Natasha had locked the English classroom so I couldn’t get in to give the 8th formers the exam I had written, and the meeting continued for almost the entire lesson, so I was stuck in the hall with the kiddies, improvising. Then, unexpectedly, three boys from School #1 showed up for my English club, so I rearranged things there as well.
Thursday the 13th we held an all-day HIV/AIDS training for 15 school psychologists and health teachers, facilitated by a PEPFAR trainer I invited from Kiev. Open Heart, the local NGO Kamilia and I work with, provided lunch and technical support, and Kamilia organized the whole thing. In the morning I had my doubts: we had a last minute room change, things people promised would be done weren’t done, many people couldn’t come because of poor timing (at the end of the year, when everyone has to prepare for exams)…but somehow it all came together, and the participants even delayed going to lunch because they were asking us questions about how we could work together, and discussing specific points from the lecture! Yay enthusiasm!
After the Botanical Gardens, I got off the train, went to bed, woke up, and got back on the train the next day to the town of Bar. To get there I had to catch a bus from Vinnytsia, and I’m not used to buying tickets in advance for buses, so I just sat down until someone informed me I was in her seat. Luckily there were two seats near the driver for stand-bys, and I almost bounced out of mine a couple of times as we careened over epic bumps and potholes. The volunteer in Bar had organized a baseball weekend for her students. She worked in a lesson on HIV, which we then jokingly tied to baseball metaphors for our own amusement. Ten volunteers showed up to help, and we taught the kids how to throw, catch, and bat, plus what the heck you’re supposed to do when you put all those things together and make a game. We were supposed to give a demonstration in front of the mayor, so we lugged all the equipment rented from Peace Corps (who knew the office had batting helmets?) through the streets of town, wearing most of it to lighten the giant babuysia bags the stuff came in. Abbey and Grace made stir-fry for dinner in Abbey’s awesome host family house, and then we played Catch-Phrase all night. Oh how I’ve missed being a dork with other dorky Americans! I hadn’t planned to spend the night (in fact I thought it was a one-day event), but there was an extra bed and I borrowed a contact case and solution, so I figured Chomoo nee? The answer might have been furnished by my fellow marshrutka-riders on the way home the next day, after wearing the same clothes for 48 hours straight, including overnight and several hours of baseball in the rain on Sunday.
What do YOU think the role of a TEFL volunteer should be in her local community and host country?
School and society
My Earth Day Concert was typical chaos; I couldn’t find the key to the auditorium, students were piling up in the stairwell, girls were changing into their garbage bag skirts in the bathroom when they were supposed to be onstage reading their essays, none of the 5th formers understood anything the 6th formers were saying…but at least a handful of kids at School #5 can tell you now that Den Zemli is on April 22nd. The tech teacher came after school to fix my electricity, and joked that if he shocked himself I should give him mouth to mouth. Haha—awkward laughter—pretend to be confused.
I arrived at school one Wednesday to find out that all the students were leaving after 4th period to travel en masse to an “aesthetics lesson” in town, meaning an excursion to hear the Vinnytsia Symphony Orchestra. So I taught 2 lessons, had two tutoring lessons, went home for lunch and headed off to enrich my aesthetic. It turned out to be perfect for me since it was geared toward young children: a woman onstage introduced the instruments and partially narrated the fairy tale, and then the music told the story, so I was able to follow along better. After the concert, Pasha came over to watch “Moulin Rouge,” but the quality was bad so we started a Russian version of “The Others” before I went to dinner at Larissa’s, the youngest English teacher at my school—she lives down the street from me but I had yet to go to her house. I had invited her to lunch but she couldn’t come, so kind of by default she invited me to dinner. I baked an awesome poppy-seed cake because I remembered she likes poppy-seeds, and I sat in her kitchen while she got dinner ready. I felt rude speaking in English in front of her husband at the table, but she always prefers to speak English with me so I oblige. She cracked each egg onto a plate before adding it to the syrnikiy mix to check if it was spoiled. I also learned that the domashniy syr that I love can be made by leaving fresh milk on the counter for a few days until it turns into kefir and then heating it on a low flame until magically it morphs further into delicious homemade cheese. I will have to try it, but I don’t know where I can get milk straight from a cow in the U.S. We did the obligatory first visit photo album inventory, and I didn’t get home till 11 pm.
Last week has been taken up with exams at school; for the oral they must memorize and recite a text, so I helped grade those. Today I got to school for my first lesson at noon, showed “School of Rock” to the 8th formers, and was then informed that I was going to a concert at the Music School in town. Ironic. So my 7A class and 11th form club were canceled and I headed back into town with the only 3 other teachers who were invited. I was still confused as to why I was there if not everyone was, but I had a vague idea it might have been envisioned as an honor/special treat for me, so I rolled with it. Open Heart had organized a blood-testing tent on the square in town, with health professionals from the HIV center in Vinnytsia, so I stopped by after the concert to see how it went, and then had peach juice and vareniky with liver (why do I like these things?) with Andriy and Pasha. They reported that 40 people came to get tested, and not just former drug users, but average adults and some young people too, which is a big step forward because very few people in Ukraine get tested, due to the stigma surrounding HIV as a drug-users’ problem, which is unfortunately long out-dated. The biggest risk group now is people aged 15-25, and the most common path of infection is through unprotected sex, so the fact that so few people know their status contributes to the spiraling epidemic.
I also recently found out that it’s alarmingly common for kids to try cigarettes or alcohol between the tender ages of 5-7, since I asked my friends about it after one 5th former told me another 5th former smoked. Two days later that was confirmed when I decided to take a walk to the island and read. I had just pulled my book out of my bag when some 6th formers from my school came up to say hello. I talked with them for a while—mostly in Ukrainian but a little in English—and we even played a few rounds of cards. But then one pulled out a cigarette and lit up in front of me! He was 14 and still in 6th grade, but his friend from another school who was only 10 was smoking with him. I asked them if they knew smoking was bad and what it could do to them; I tried the scare tactics, saying my grandfather was a smoker who died of lung cancer, and asking if their parents knew (his did, but didn’t care), and finally I said I couldn’t play with them if they were smoking, so I took my leave, shaken by the experience but also thinking about what I could do at school to shake them up as well.
The only reason anyone is still in school the last week of May is so that it can be properly recorded in the class journals, the sacred texts of the Ukrainian school system. I sit in fascination in the teachers’ room, watching my colleagues chase each other down for the different class books. Grades, absences, lesson plans, and homework must be recorded for each school day, and no cross-outs are tolerated. Conditioned from Soviet times, it is hard to erase from the national mentality, so that official documentation bears little resemblance to reality, and no one thinks anything of it. This is why many volunteers have a hard time cooperating on grant projects, because it is the norm to write was is needed and then do whatever you want. Lena didn’t show up for our lesson, and Natasha sat in the back frantically entering grades into the journal for our two lessons together; another teacher asked Larissa if she could excuse our 6th formers from their lesson to return books to the library, and our 7th form was still reciting their oral exams, but the class was so noisy Larissa called in their class mistress to yell at them and then sent everyone who hadn’t studied home (half the class does no work and shamelessly accepts 2s—graded on a 12 point scale—but they will still progress to the 8th form). At the teachers’ meeting during break we learned that the students would have two hours of lessons with their class mistresses on Thursday, then we would have another meeting and the kids would go home. Friday we just have the Last Bell concert at 9. Monday we had off for Pentecost. Then for almost all of June there are no real classes, but both teachers and students alike must come to school.
Compare/Contrast: What do you think are the biggest problems facing schools and society in America today?
I arrived at school one Wednesday to find out that all the students were leaving after 4th period to travel en masse to an “aesthetics lesson” in town, meaning an excursion to hear the Vinnytsia Symphony Orchestra. So I taught 2 lessons, had two tutoring lessons, went home for lunch and headed off to enrich my aesthetic. It turned out to be perfect for me since it was geared toward young children: a woman onstage introduced the instruments and partially narrated the fairy tale, and then the music told the story, so I was able to follow along better. After the concert, Pasha came over to watch “Moulin Rouge,” but the quality was bad so we started a Russian version of “The Others” before I went to dinner at Larissa’s, the youngest English teacher at my school—she lives down the street from me but I had yet to go to her house. I had invited her to lunch but she couldn’t come, so kind of by default she invited me to dinner. I baked an awesome poppy-seed cake because I remembered she likes poppy-seeds, and I sat in her kitchen while she got dinner ready. I felt rude speaking in English in front of her husband at the table, but she always prefers to speak English with me so I oblige. She cracked each egg onto a plate before adding it to the syrnikiy mix to check if it was spoiled. I also learned that the domashniy syr that I love can be made by leaving fresh milk on the counter for a few days until it turns into kefir and then heating it on a low flame until magically it morphs further into delicious homemade cheese. I will have to try it, but I don’t know where I can get milk straight from a cow in the U.S. We did the obligatory first visit photo album inventory, and I didn’t get home till 11 pm.
Last week has been taken up with exams at school; for the oral they must memorize and recite a text, so I helped grade those. Today I got to school for my first lesson at noon, showed “School of Rock” to the 8th formers, and was then informed that I was going to a concert at the Music School in town. Ironic. So my 7A class and 11th form club were canceled and I headed back into town with the only 3 other teachers who were invited. I was still confused as to why I was there if not everyone was, but I had a vague idea it might have been envisioned as an honor/special treat for me, so I rolled with it. Open Heart had organized a blood-testing tent on the square in town, with health professionals from the HIV center in Vinnytsia, so I stopped by after the concert to see how it went, and then had peach juice and vareniky with liver (why do I like these things?) with Andriy and Pasha. They reported that 40 people came to get tested, and not just former drug users, but average adults and some young people too, which is a big step forward because very few people in Ukraine get tested, due to the stigma surrounding HIV as a drug-users’ problem, which is unfortunately long out-dated. The biggest risk group now is people aged 15-25, and the most common path of infection is through unprotected sex, so the fact that so few people know their status contributes to the spiraling epidemic.
I also recently found out that it’s alarmingly common for kids to try cigarettes or alcohol between the tender ages of 5-7, since I asked my friends about it after one 5th former told me another 5th former smoked. Two days later that was confirmed when I decided to take a walk to the island and read. I had just pulled my book out of my bag when some 6th formers from my school came up to say hello. I talked with them for a while—mostly in Ukrainian but a little in English—and we even played a few rounds of cards. But then one pulled out a cigarette and lit up in front of me! He was 14 and still in 6th grade, but his friend from another school who was only 10 was smoking with him. I asked them if they knew smoking was bad and what it could do to them; I tried the scare tactics, saying my grandfather was a smoker who died of lung cancer, and asking if their parents knew (his did, but didn’t care), and finally I said I couldn’t play with them if they were smoking, so I took my leave, shaken by the experience but also thinking about what I could do at school to shake them up as well.
The only reason anyone is still in school the last week of May is so that it can be properly recorded in the class journals, the sacred texts of the Ukrainian school system. I sit in fascination in the teachers’ room, watching my colleagues chase each other down for the different class books. Grades, absences, lesson plans, and homework must be recorded for each school day, and no cross-outs are tolerated. Conditioned from Soviet times, it is hard to erase from the national mentality, so that official documentation bears little resemblance to reality, and no one thinks anything of it. This is why many volunteers have a hard time cooperating on grant projects, because it is the norm to write was is needed and then do whatever you want. Lena didn’t show up for our lesson, and Natasha sat in the back frantically entering grades into the journal for our two lessons together; another teacher asked Larissa if she could excuse our 6th formers from their lesson to return books to the library, and our 7th form was still reciting their oral exams, but the class was so noisy Larissa called in their class mistress to yell at them and then sent everyone who hadn’t studied home (half the class does no work and shamelessly accepts 2s—graded on a 12 point scale—but they will still progress to the 8th form). At the teachers’ meeting during break we learned that the students would have two hours of lessons with their class mistresses on Thursday, then we would have another meeting and the kids would go home. Friday we just have the Last Bell concert at 9. Monday we had off for Pentecost. Then for almost all of June there are no real classes, but both teachers and students alike must come to school.
Compare/Contrast: What do you think are the biggest problems facing schools and society in America today?
All my stories are about food...
For at least a week I had salo cravings—we’re talking slices of cured pig’s fat, eaten on bread with garlic. My fellow volunteers were appalled by my treason of our unspoken American understanding (we don’t eat chunks of fat if we know it’s fat, only when it’s melted and disguised in all our other foods), but what’s the difference from spreading butter on bread, or eating a slice of bacon?
Sunday May 2nd was my first shashlik experience, and the food was well worth not-so-subtly inviting myself to my counterpart’s daughter’s 15th birthday party. (“So, Natasha, what are you doing on Sunday?” “Oh, it’s Dasha’s birthday, so we are probably going to our dacha to celebrate. If you are around, you should ask her if you can come.”…next day in class…“Dasha, I hear it’s your birthday on Sunday; am I invited to your party?” I’m her English teacher, poor girl, what could she say?) But it was a gorgeous day: all the flowers and fruit trees were in bloom, the alcohol was chilling in buckets of ice cold water drawn from the well, and the shish-kebabs were rotating on their skewers over the campfire in the woods. We had consecutive rounds of tender juicy meat, heavenly whole fish stuffed with onion and garlic and tomato, eaten by breaking it in half (to answer the age old question WWJD), plus a special soup that had stewed for hours in a cast-iron cauldron over the fire. My neighbors were also there. Luda and I went on a walk around the block and talked about corruption in Ukraine; even though in theory they have free national health care, you must pay for even the smallest service in hospitals (and elsewhere), such as ensuring a nurse goes on her rounds to check on your sick daughter. I sat at the grown-up table, though I didn’t contribute much to the adult conversation. Every so often a train would be visible/audible through the thin strip of woods, and the adults would remark, “There goes the 5:15 to Moscow.” I earned my keep by helping Natasha wash the dishes with a weed she pulled from the lawn; it has soap-like, fat-dissolving properties, which makes it a totally bad-ass plant! The kids attempted s’mores after dinner (introduced as a novel American dessert, but here they don’t have the right marshmallows or graham crackers, and they forgot the chocolate!)
The next day at the bazaar I went crazy and bought every green thing in sight, so excited after a winter where the only green vegetables were pickles. I made super salads for a week: chervil (why have I never discovered this before?—it’s amazing!), lettuce, tomato, cucumber, onion, green onion, parsley, dill, salt, pepper, oil, vinegar, garlic, hardboiled eggs, chicken, raisins, apples, domashniy syr, carrots, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, buckwheat…and then sat on my balcony and ate them out of the giant mixing bowl. I also did some laundry (sigh, moan, sigh) and other chores around the house that I tend to let slide. My run was fantastic, partly because I stumbled upon another hour-long loop that took me down dirt roads with quaint cottages and beautiful gardens, through a few fields, and past a little lake.
On Friday April 23rd, I made enchiladas (homemade tortillas and everything—as Sebastian the crab says, “If you want something done, you’ve got to do it yourself!”) with Kamilia at my house, and then later watched “Forest Gump” and slept over at her house. She had to take her son to the doctor’s in another town early in the morning, so she left the keys with me and I slept in and had her house to myself for a bit (I put a few things a right angles and did the dishes) before walking home, running into Sasha in a tux on his way to a friend’s wedding, and taking the train to Vinnytsia for The Collaborative, since the bus had no more seats. Abbey gave some good tips on teaching writing, and we talked about organizing summer camps before heading to an Italian restaurant to get pizza for dinner. I was going to the theatre with Matt and Anya though, so by the time my pizza came I had 5 minutes to eat it—I gave it a valiant effort and shoved as much down my throat as I could before running to catch “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” in Ukrainian, about 10% of which I understood. It was still really cool to be in a theatre at a cultural performance, since PCVs usually “slum” it, so to speak.
On Sunday I made Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake (intrigued by the recipe’s title, I had to try it out, and it was surprisingly moist and delicious) and hosted my friends for a planning session on their HIV/AIDS prevention lectures; my contribution was limited to cooking, as I had a very difficult time following the rapid, technical conversation in mixed Russian and Ukrainian (in brief: “AIDS prevention=yay—ok now eat cake!) I also skyped with my family and found out my brother was going to Bowdoin!
Last week, I made green borshch according to the Babuysia’s Cookbook, but mine turned out red. Tasty, but not quite right. This week I tried again, but added so much rice (substituting for potatoes) that the wooden spoon actually stood up in the pot. It’s a work in progress.
Saturday I went to a café with Luda and Anya, a friend of hers who came to English club for the first time this week. They had bought a liter of orange juice and sunflower seeds, which I thought an interesting combo for a bar, but I diligently worked each individual seed free from its shell as we talked about wedding traditions. I also managed to stick my elbow into the birthday cake sitting on the bar, getting yellow frosting all over my sleeve. I loaded up on vegetables the next day at the bazaar, and had only just walked in the door when it started to pour. So I did some afternoon yoga, enjoying the sounds of the storm. Then I met up with Anya and Matt, and Anya’s friend Sasha from Kiev joined us as well. At the entrance to the café we ran into Lena’s sister and her husband, who I haven’t seen in forever, but I keep hoping they will invite me back to their house (eventually I’ll just invite myself over, as I resort to from time to time). The conversation covered world religions, American attitudes toward food, and growing up in the 90s (which meant something very different in Ukraine than in America). We walked by the town square later, and a religious “concert” was just finishing, so I said hello to all my Nazarene friends (and detected strong judgment on their part for my having been in a café, which I shrugged off but did not appreciate, since it goes back to my earlier discussion on issues of tolerance). I went home to have a salad, and then hung out on a park bench with Pasha and a bunch of teenage girls for a bit (a drunk man who had clearly spent the day fishing asked us for cigarettes, and kept repeating, “There are no more fish in Kozyatyn,” which perhaps in and of itself is not that amusing, but the delivery was hilarious). Later I wanted to make hot milk to dip my chocolate bar into while I watched “Love in the Time of Cholera,” but I ended up making cheese. Or so I thought, since the milk turned all lumpy, but Larissa said that meant it wasn’t fresh, because no matter how long you heat really fresh milk it won’t curdle, whereas to make domashniy syr you have to start from kefir. And if you want sour cream, you just let fresh milk sit out for a few days and scoop the fat off the top. Then you use the sour milk to make cheese! Brilliant. It keeps bringing Laura Ingalls to my mind.
Monday was lasagna day! Luda’s relatives work in Italy, and they sent her lasagna noodles (which you can’t find in Ukraine, except if you want to spend a lot of money in Kiev). We also substituted a type of cream cheese for mozzarella, but the end resulted tasted good to me (then again, when it comes to food, I’m pretty easy to please—I even ate some of that lumpy milk I heated the other day)! Luda’s mother is the music teacher at my school, but it didn’t feel odd to be friends with my colleague’s daughter and hang out in their apartment. They made delicious tea from berry bush leaves they themselves had gathered and dried. Anya and Luda had gone to the village to visit Luda’s boyfriend, and they were still marveling over how much nicer and more attentive village boys were to the “city girls,” so we decided next time we’d kick it up a notch with an American girl.
Food for thought: Tell me about your wildest food adventure.
Sunday May 2nd was my first shashlik experience, and the food was well worth not-so-subtly inviting myself to my counterpart’s daughter’s 15th birthday party. (“So, Natasha, what are you doing on Sunday?” “Oh, it’s Dasha’s birthday, so we are probably going to our dacha to celebrate. If you are around, you should ask her if you can come.”…next day in class…“Dasha, I hear it’s your birthday on Sunday; am I invited to your party?” I’m her English teacher, poor girl, what could she say?) But it was a gorgeous day: all the flowers and fruit trees were in bloom, the alcohol was chilling in buckets of ice cold water drawn from the well, and the shish-kebabs were rotating on their skewers over the campfire in the woods. We had consecutive rounds of tender juicy meat, heavenly whole fish stuffed with onion and garlic and tomato, eaten by breaking it in half (to answer the age old question WWJD), plus a special soup that had stewed for hours in a cast-iron cauldron over the fire. My neighbors were also there. Luda and I went on a walk around the block and talked about corruption in Ukraine; even though in theory they have free national health care, you must pay for even the smallest service in hospitals (and elsewhere), such as ensuring a nurse goes on her rounds to check on your sick daughter. I sat at the grown-up table, though I didn’t contribute much to the adult conversation. Every so often a train would be visible/audible through the thin strip of woods, and the adults would remark, “There goes the 5:15 to Moscow.” I earned my keep by helping Natasha wash the dishes with a weed she pulled from the lawn; it has soap-like, fat-dissolving properties, which makes it a totally bad-ass plant! The kids attempted s’mores after dinner (introduced as a novel American dessert, but here they don’t have the right marshmallows or graham crackers, and they forgot the chocolate!)
The next day at the bazaar I went crazy and bought every green thing in sight, so excited after a winter where the only green vegetables were pickles. I made super salads for a week: chervil (why have I never discovered this before?—it’s amazing!), lettuce, tomato, cucumber, onion, green onion, parsley, dill, salt, pepper, oil, vinegar, garlic, hardboiled eggs, chicken, raisins, apples, domashniy syr, carrots, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, buckwheat…and then sat on my balcony and ate them out of the giant mixing bowl. I also did some laundry (sigh, moan, sigh) and other chores around the house that I tend to let slide. My run was fantastic, partly because I stumbled upon another hour-long loop that took me down dirt roads with quaint cottages and beautiful gardens, through a few fields, and past a little lake.
On Friday April 23rd, I made enchiladas (homemade tortillas and everything—as Sebastian the crab says, “If you want something done, you’ve got to do it yourself!”) with Kamilia at my house, and then later watched “Forest Gump” and slept over at her house. She had to take her son to the doctor’s in another town early in the morning, so she left the keys with me and I slept in and had her house to myself for a bit (I put a few things a right angles and did the dishes) before walking home, running into Sasha in a tux on his way to a friend’s wedding, and taking the train to Vinnytsia for The Collaborative, since the bus had no more seats. Abbey gave some good tips on teaching writing, and we talked about organizing summer camps before heading to an Italian restaurant to get pizza for dinner. I was going to the theatre with Matt and Anya though, so by the time my pizza came I had 5 minutes to eat it—I gave it a valiant effort and shoved as much down my throat as I could before running to catch “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” in Ukrainian, about 10% of which I understood. It was still really cool to be in a theatre at a cultural performance, since PCVs usually “slum” it, so to speak.
On Sunday I made Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake (intrigued by the recipe’s title, I had to try it out, and it was surprisingly moist and delicious) and hosted my friends for a planning session on their HIV/AIDS prevention lectures; my contribution was limited to cooking, as I had a very difficult time following the rapid, technical conversation in mixed Russian and Ukrainian (in brief: “AIDS prevention=yay—ok now eat cake!) I also skyped with my family and found out my brother was going to Bowdoin!
Last week, I made green borshch according to the Babuysia’s Cookbook, but mine turned out red. Tasty, but not quite right. This week I tried again, but added so much rice (substituting for potatoes) that the wooden spoon actually stood up in the pot. It’s a work in progress.
Saturday I went to a café with Luda and Anya, a friend of hers who came to English club for the first time this week. They had bought a liter of orange juice and sunflower seeds, which I thought an interesting combo for a bar, but I diligently worked each individual seed free from its shell as we talked about wedding traditions. I also managed to stick my elbow into the birthday cake sitting on the bar, getting yellow frosting all over my sleeve. I loaded up on vegetables the next day at the bazaar, and had only just walked in the door when it started to pour. So I did some afternoon yoga, enjoying the sounds of the storm. Then I met up with Anya and Matt, and Anya’s friend Sasha from Kiev joined us as well. At the entrance to the café we ran into Lena’s sister and her husband, who I haven’t seen in forever, but I keep hoping they will invite me back to their house (eventually I’ll just invite myself over, as I resort to from time to time). The conversation covered world religions, American attitudes toward food, and growing up in the 90s (which meant something very different in Ukraine than in America). We walked by the town square later, and a religious “concert” was just finishing, so I said hello to all my Nazarene friends (and detected strong judgment on their part for my having been in a café, which I shrugged off but did not appreciate, since it goes back to my earlier discussion on issues of tolerance). I went home to have a salad, and then hung out on a park bench with Pasha and a bunch of teenage girls for a bit (a drunk man who had clearly spent the day fishing asked us for cigarettes, and kept repeating, “There are no more fish in Kozyatyn,” which perhaps in and of itself is not that amusing, but the delivery was hilarious). Later I wanted to make hot milk to dip my chocolate bar into while I watched “Love in the Time of Cholera,” but I ended up making cheese. Or so I thought, since the milk turned all lumpy, but Larissa said that meant it wasn’t fresh, because no matter how long you heat really fresh milk it won’t curdle, whereas to make domashniy syr you have to start from kefir. And if you want sour cream, you just let fresh milk sit out for a few days and scoop the fat off the top. Then you use the sour milk to make cheese! Brilliant. It keeps bringing Laura Ingalls to my mind.
Monday was lasagna day! Luda’s relatives work in Italy, and they sent her lasagna noodles (which you can’t find in Ukraine, except if you want to spend a lot of money in Kiev). We also substituted a type of cream cheese for mozzarella, but the end resulted tasted good to me (then again, when it comes to food, I’m pretty easy to please—I even ate some of that lumpy milk I heated the other day)! Luda’s mother is the music teacher at my school, but it didn’t feel odd to be friends with my colleague’s daughter and hang out in their apartment. They made delicious tea from berry bush leaves they themselves had gathered and dried. Anya and Luda had gone to the village to visit Luda’s boyfriend, and they were still marveling over how much nicer and more attentive village boys were to the “city girls,” so we decided next time we’d kick it up a notch with an American girl.
Food for thought: Tell me about your wildest food adventure.
English Club: Good Times with Friends
The first week in April I dedicated English Club to April Fool’s Day, and we had a great session comparing American and Ukrainian humor and telling anecdotes. Pasha told of when he sold his grandma’s cow for drug money (“No, Babuysia, I haven’t seen Bessie this morning.”) We had many of the same categories of jokes, but Ukrainians also enjoyed self-effacing jokes about salo, beets, and vodka, with a wry appreciation for life’s hardships, whereas American self-effacing humor I think focuses more on life’s excesses.
I was having tea with some friends at my apartment, and I commented that I used to be afraid of the gas stove; my friend replied, yeah, when we used to make our own drugs, one of my friends almost blew herself up accidentally. Normalno.
I love that my Ukrainian friends love “Friends,” or “Droozie,” as it’s known here, because both they and my brothers can quote it with ease. We watched some episodes together at club and during tea.
Once during the week I had Italian night with Luda from my adult English club—we made a pasta dish with olives and meat and drank wine and listened to Italian music and talked about our shared interest in Mediterranean men.
The first week of May, club was “travel” themed: where we would like to both visit and live. Topping the list for travel were India, Brazil (Ukrainians don’t need a visa), and Australia, whereas England ranked high for resettlement (due mostly to football allegiances).
Kamilia came over to help me cook on Friday, and we invited the English club over for dinner. The pastor’s wife and three kids came with another girl from the church who helps with the healthy lifestyles trainings as well. My oven was so inadequate they had to leave before the food was fully cooked. I had a nice conversation with some neighbors on Saturday after taking out the trash.
On Tuesday the 11th we started school 3 hours later because the 11th formers had an exam, so I was under the impression I would be at school till 6 pm. We made plans to hold the English club at Kamilia’s and cook dinner there, since I would be done so late, but instead I finished an hour early, because Larissa was just giving exams to our co-taught 6th and 7th formers. It was sunny out, so I decided to read on a park bench while I waited for Kamilia; a somewhat intoxicated man sat down across from me and started trying to guess my name, listing off Ukrainian women’s names—I told him like that he would never manage. The topic was war, so everyone recounted family history; Andriy’s grandfather was a Soviet war hero (but Andriy sold his medals for drug money once upon a time), Pasha’s great-grandmother was a rebel, and Luda told stories of cannibalism during the Holodomor. My favorite comment though was when Pasha said I reminded him of Joey from “Friends,” because I often laugh at things other people say in Ukrainian or Russian, even when I have no idea what they’re talking about.
My blog is monitored by my Peace Corps Regional Manager, since it is accessible to the public, (yay free speech!) and she asked for clarification when I made some comments about my friends selling cows and war medals for drug money. I am including my response, in case any of you were also wondering what the heck I was talking about:
I am sorry that you were confused by the content of my blog, so please allow me to clarify. Pasha and Andriy are indeed my friends, and they are certainly not drug users. They were, many years ago, but they have since successfully gone through rehab, and are now active members of the Church that runs the local rehab center, as well as an NGO called "Open Heart." As volunteers working for Open Heart, they regularly visit local schools to give lectures on healthy lifestyles and HIV/AIDS prevention, run youth groups, and organize other events such as the testing I also wrote about. I admire their hard work and good example, and I hope you can see (as I do) that they are good people despite their past. I also make a point to publicly support them, because I think it sets a good example for my community. As to my comments, they are all true statements, and since my blog attempts to address the 3rd goal of Peace Corps (namely, to inform Americans--my friends and family--about the host country), I value my Ukrainian friends' insights as a fascinating look at some of the difficulties of living in Ukraine in the 90s.
This past weekend I went with Pasha to the Botanical Gardens in Kiev to see the lilacs in bloom. It’s a huge park and we explored a lot of it, as I explained my constant desire to see what is around the next bend, or at the end of the horizon (ask friends I have traveled with or brothers I have biked with). It was awesome to speak Ukrainian all day, but it definitely tired me out, and I’m still not able to express everything I want.
I saw my first movie in theatre in Ukraine after more than 7 months in country! I went to Vinnytsia to see “Robin Hood,” essentially with a church group, because most of my friends in Kozyatyn happen to be members of the Church of the Nazarene. It is fascinating to me how religion and drugs, both extremes of which I do not approve, have been a part of the lives of my friends. I don’t know if in America I would have the courage to get to know people like that, so I am happy to think it reflects my philosophy of stepping beyond one’s comfort zone, which for me is somehow easier to do abroad, in a place where everything theoretically is uncomfortable. And the people I’ve met are good people, which I would never have known if I had judged them on my regular standards. I have mixed feelings about religion, considering myself more spiritual than religious, and yet having been raised Catholic (for which I consider myself culturally Catholic). Basically I’ve come to the conclusion that all belief systems are equally valid, so long as they don’t infringe on the rights of others, and I enjoy learning about them in a cultural context, but strongly dislike when they come in conflict, which happens more than it should considering the ideas people profess. Anyway, I’ll stop philosophizing and get back to the film, which wasn’t that good. I didn’t understand all the Ukrainian, but the action didn’t seem very logical either. I did, however, enjoy the theatrical experience, which reminded me of America, since we walked through a mall with things I couldn’t afford, brought popcorn and chips and soda into the theatre, made snarky comments about the previews, and had Big Macs and fries and McSundaes for dinner (it was so surreal to be hanging out with a group of Ukrainians in McDonalds). Pasha and his friend Yura and I walked around town a bit afterwards, and they indulgenced my penchant for exploring unknown quarters of the city as we took a very roundabout way back to the train station. Yura said I had beautiful hands, and I was flattered by the unusual complement (I wanted to type that so I’d remember it when I’m old and wrinkly). I was so tired when I got home at 11:30, but I had to stay up to type and send Ira’s application for camp, since I had walked an hour to and from school that morning just to get, because somehow in the craziness of leaving for the concert yesterday I had managed to misplace it and I felt guilty.
Ponder this, por favor: How do you judge the people you care about, and is there anything that would preclude you being friends with someone?
I was having tea with some friends at my apartment, and I commented that I used to be afraid of the gas stove; my friend replied, yeah, when we used to make our own drugs, one of my friends almost blew herself up accidentally. Normalno.
I love that my Ukrainian friends love “Friends,” or “Droozie,” as it’s known here, because both they and my brothers can quote it with ease. We watched some episodes together at club and during tea.
Once during the week I had Italian night with Luda from my adult English club—we made a pasta dish with olives and meat and drank wine and listened to Italian music and talked about our shared interest in Mediterranean men.
The first week of May, club was “travel” themed: where we would like to both visit and live. Topping the list for travel were India, Brazil (Ukrainians don’t need a visa), and Australia, whereas England ranked high for resettlement (due mostly to football allegiances).
Kamilia came over to help me cook on Friday, and we invited the English club over for dinner. The pastor’s wife and three kids came with another girl from the church who helps with the healthy lifestyles trainings as well. My oven was so inadequate they had to leave before the food was fully cooked. I had a nice conversation with some neighbors on Saturday after taking out the trash.
On Tuesday the 11th we started school 3 hours later because the 11th formers had an exam, so I was under the impression I would be at school till 6 pm. We made plans to hold the English club at Kamilia’s and cook dinner there, since I would be done so late, but instead I finished an hour early, because Larissa was just giving exams to our co-taught 6th and 7th formers. It was sunny out, so I decided to read on a park bench while I waited for Kamilia; a somewhat intoxicated man sat down across from me and started trying to guess my name, listing off Ukrainian women’s names—I told him like that he would never manage. The topic was war, so everyone recounted family history; Andriy’s grandfather was a Soviet war hero (but Andriy sold his medals for drug money once upon a time), Pasha’s great-grandmother was a rebel, and Luda told stories of cannibalism during the Holodomor. My favorite comment though was when Pasha said I reminded him of Joey from “Friends,” because I often laugh at things other people say in Ukrainian or Russian, even when I have no idea what they’re talking about.
My blog is monitored by my Peace Corps Regional Manager, since it is accessible to the public, (yay free speech!) and she asked for clarification when I made some comments about my friends selling cows and war medals for drug money. I am including my response, in case any of you were also wondering what the heck I was talking about:
I am sorry that you were confused by the content of my blog, so please allow me to clarify. Pasha and Andriy are indeed my friends, and they are certainly not drug users. They were, many years ago, but they have since successfully gone through rehab, and are now active members of the Church that runs the local rehab center, as well as an NGO called "Open Heart." As volunteers working for Open Heart, they regularly visit local schools to give lectures on healthy lifestyles and HIV/AIDS prevention, run youth groups, and organize other events such as the testing I also wrote about. I admire their hard work and good example, and I hope you can see (as I do) that they are good people despite their past. I also make a point to publicly support them, because I think it sets a good example for my community. As to my comments, they are all true statements, and since my blog attempts to address the 3rd goal of Peace Corps (namely, to inform Americans--my friends and family--about the host country), I value my Ukrainian friends' insights as a fascinating look at some of the difficulties of living in Ukraine in the 90s.
This past weekend I went with Pasha to the Botanical Gardens in Kiev to see the lilacs in bloom. It’s a huge park and we explored a lot of it, as I explained my constant desire to see what is around the next bend, or at the end of the horizon (ask friends I have traveled with or brothers I have biked with). It was awesome to speak Ukrainian all day, but it definitely tired me out, and I’m still not able to express everything I want.
I saw my first movie in theatre in Ukraine after more than 7 months in country! I went to Vinnytsia to see “Robin Hood,” essentially with a church group, because most of my friends in Kozyatyn happen to be members of the Church of the Nazarene. It is fascinating to me how religion and drugs, both extremes of which I do not approve, have been a part of the lives of my friends. I don’t know if in America I would have the courage to get to know people like that, so I am happy to think it reflects my philosophy of stepping beyond one’s comfort zone, which for me is somehow easier to do abroad, in a place where everything theoretically is uncomfortable. And the people I’ve met are good people, which I would never have known if I had judged them on my regular standards. I have mixed feelings about religion, considering myself more spiritual than religious, and yet having been raised Catholic (for which I consider myself culturally Catholic). Basically I’ve come to the conclusion that all belief systems are equally valid, so long as they don’t infringe on the rights of others, and I enjoy learning about them in a cultural context, but strongly dislike when they come in conflict, which happens more than it should considering the ideas people profess. Anyway, I’ll stop philosophizing and get back to the film, which wasn’t that good. I didn’t understand all the Ukrainian, but the action didn’t seem very logical either. I did, however, enjoy the theatrical experience, which reminded me of America, since we walked through a mall with things I couldn’t afford, brought popcorn and chips and soda into the theatre, made snarky comments about the previews, and had Big Macs and fries and McSundaes for dinner (it was so surreal to be hanging out with a group of Ukrainians in McDonalds). Pasha and his friend Yura and I walked around town a bit afterwards, and they indulgenced my penchant for exploring unknown quarters of the city as we took a very roundabout way back to the train station. Yura said I had beautiful hands, and I was flattered by the unusual complement (I wanted to type that so I’d remember it when I’m old and wrinkly). I was so tired when I got home at 11:30, but I had to stay up to type and send Ira’s application for camp, since I had walked an hour to and from school that morning just to get, because somehow in the craziness of leaving for the concert yesterday I had managed to misplace it and I felt guilty.
Ponder this, por favor: How do you judge the people you care about, and is there anything that would preclude you being friends with someone?
The not-so marathon
In mid-April I ventured to Zacarpatska (Beyond the Carpathians), ostensibly to run a half-marathon, but really to enjoy the wine festival and the company of other volunteers. Alia and Megan got on a train at midnight only to discover people asleep in their assigned bunks; then they realized the ticket lady had sold them the wrong ticket, so they had to get off the train! Beregovo is a gorgeous town on the Hungarian border that feels much more like Eastern Europe (it even has a different time zone!) than the rest of Ukraine, ethnically, linguistically, architecturally, and culturally (the fact that there even was a wine festival is telling). The day of the race was so beautiful that I momentarily contemplated running the half just to continue admiring the scenery (the route followed the rolling foothills of the distantly visible snow-capped Carpathians, with vineyards and flowers blooming, green buds on the trees and a blueblue sky), but then I decided that drunk pasta dinner wasn’t the best pre-race prep, and opted instead for the 10K. I was in awe of the volunteer who organized the event: 40 runners got bibs and breakfast and dinner tickets for two nights at registration, we had a walking tour of the town and were set loose to sample the wines before the pre-race pasta dinner, on the course there were water stations and at the finish a beer tent (with PB&J sandwiches!), and a celebration dinner/wine tasting/award ceremony concluded the festivities. I consider it a good day when my kids hand in their homework or correctly formulate a question. Erin, on the other hand, has half a million in grant money from the EU. Still, there were the usual last-minute changes and minor glitches (it took 3 hours to feed everyone at the award dinner, and our 5 star hotel had only 2 beds for 3 people, so we made one big bed and had a slumber party) that reminded us this was Ukraine. Alia and I had a picnic by the riverbank in Mukachevo (smoked fish and pickled peppers on fresh bread) before heading to the station. On the train ride back, we said goodbye to vacationland as it slipped past the window and we returned to the “real” heartland Ukraine we know and love: cold, wet, gray post-Soviet industrial home sweet home. Spring still had not sprung at that point, so the difference was marked. As I stared out the window I saw haystacks with big wooden poles stuck in them, goats and cow herders, burning fields, and a golden sunset over the misty mountains Dracula once called home. A word of advice: don’t use your fancy expensive sleeping bag in steerage—it’s unbearably hot since the trains are always sweltering, and too much of a curiosity to avoid a conversation with your traveling neighbors, who are drinking beers and saying some things you don’t understand and some things you pretend not to understand as you burrow into your self-imposed sauna and ignore the occasional pat on the feet as they carry on carousing in the compartment around you—keep in mind it’s only 9 pm, but your train is getting in at 6 am and you have work at 8.
What is your favorite landscape and why?
What is your favorite landscape and why?
Shaking it up.
Prepare yourselves for the latest onslaught. It's coming. In the interests of everyone's sanity, however, I have tried to break up my posts into something resembling categories. I have also blatantly stolen Lindsay's format of posing a question at the end of each post, in the hopes that you fine folks will comment and make my life worth while. Get to it.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
"It's a female disease"
Hoping for quotes for the GADFly’s new column, “Ukrainians Speak,” I asked my Adult English Club what they thought about feminism in Ukraine. An 11th form girl asked what that was. That does seem to be the question here. Everyone has heard of it, but no one can say what it means. Many people—men and women, Americans and Ukrainians—mention something to the effect of “a notion conjured up by a mob of angry bra-burning lesbian man-haters.” The men in my club—people I consider my friends, and generally rational human beings—gave the following responses: “It’s a female disease”—Pasha. “I think feminism is when unlucky women try to guilt men with their problems”—Slava. “It’s not a problem in our country”—Andrei. All of them adamantly denied the possibility that men could be feminists, seemed insulted, even, by the suggestion.
When I defined feminism as “the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes,” the 11th form girl said it was an issue in Ukraine, because employers assume women will want children, and may therefore be less likely to hire them, since maternity leave is so long here. Even that fact illustrates the peculiarities of the status quo in Ukraine. I think Soviet influence and economic necessity made it less revolutionary for women to go to work than it was at the same time in America (or maybe it was just as revolutionary, but Soviets were in the business of being radical), but domestic responsibilities did not keep pace with the changes in the working world. Often women now have two full time jobs, one at work and one at home, which is reflected in the global statistic that, “Women do two-thirds of the world's work but receive only 10% of the world's income.” To pass the time while my school’s technology teacher was fixing my electricity, I asked his opinion. He replied, “If a man isn’t married, is he a feminist?”—Eduoard. Granted this was in Ukrainian, but what I think he meant was, if that single man has to do all the household chores that wives usually do for men in Ukraine, by necessity he believes in the equality of the sexes, or at least is begrudgingly forced to submit to such a reality.
One of my 9th formers, in her application to attend GAD’s summer leadership camp, wrote, “In my opinion, young modern women should be independent and can do a lot by themselves. I know a lot of young women who want to get by in this life without anyone’s help.” And yet when I go to my Adult English Club, the same Pasha who said feminism is a disease insists on helping me take off my coat, and all three of them walk me the five blocks back to my apartment after the club. Chivalry or chauvinism, endearing or annoying, neither or both? Iryna Krupska (our Training Coordinator) finds feminism in Ukraine perfectly compatible with such courtesies, and I remember an article in our Cross-Cultural Reader stating something to that effect as well. I like how Krupska moves away from formal rights and talks instead of the “possibility for self-realization,” because she also points out that laws, as well as formal gestures that have lost their meaning (I loved getting flowers and chocolate on Woman’s Day, but my friend noted bitterly that many men prioritize liquid celebration over the congratulation of their womenfolk), can coexist with ingrained attitudes that prevent their full realization.
When I defined feminism as “the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes,” the 11th form girl said it was an issue in Ukraine, because employers assume women will want children, and may therefore be less likely to hire them, since maternity leave is so long here. Even that fact illustrates the peculiarities of the status quo in Ukraine. I think Soviet influence and economic necessity made it less revolutionary for women to go to work than it was at the same time in America (or maybe it was just as revolutionary, but Soviets were in the business of being radical), but domestic responsibilities did not keep pace with the changes in the working world. Often women now have two full time jobs, one at work and one at home, which is reflected in the global statistic that, “Women do two-thirds of the world's work but receive only 10% of the world's income.” To pass the time while my school’s technology teacher was fixing my electricity, I asked his opinion. He replied, “If a man isn’t married, is he a feminist?”—Eduoard. Granted this was in Ukrainian, but what I think he meant was, if that single man has to do all the household chores that wives usually do for men in Ukraine, by necessity he believes in the equality of the sexes, or at least is begrudgingly forced to submit to such a reality.
One of my 9th formers, in her application to attend GAD’s summer leadership camp, wrote, “In my opinion, young modern women should be independent and can do a lot by themselves. I know a lot of young women who want to get by in this life without anyone’s help.” And yet when I go to my Adult English Club, the same Pasha who said feminism is a disease insists on helping me take off my coat, and all three of them walk me the five blocks back to my apartment after the club. Chivalry or chauvinism, endearing or annoying, neither or both? Iryna Krupska (our Training Coordinator) finds feminism in Ukraine perfectly compatible with such courtesies, and I remember an article in our Cross-Cultural Reader stating something to that effect as well. I like how Krupska moves away from formal rights and talks instead of the “possibility for self-realization,” because she also points out that laws, as well as formal gestures that have lost their meaning (I loved getting flowers and chocolate on Woman’s Day, but my friend noted bitterly that many men prioritize liquid celebration over the congratulation of their womenfolk), can coexist with ingrained attitudes that prevent their full realization.
Not a Peep
My first two-hour run was awesome! I went way the heck out of town but somehow found a highway that looped back, ran past my school, and all over the place. The wind out in the fields was ridiculously strong. My second two-hour run was accidental, and afterwards I was pretty sure I gave myself Achilles tendonitis. My heel had been hurting for a week since that run. I took a gamble on another loop road that didn’t pay off, finally asked for directions in a cemetery (I was informed that I was very far away from where I wanted to be), and had to turn back past all the tractors and trains and empty stretches of windswept fields with babuysias on bicycles I had seen before. (PCMO text update: I did inflame my tendon, but it was the “Tibialis Posterior” rather than the “Achilles,” thank you very much).
Palm Sunday is actually Willow Sunday in Ukraine, because willow branches are blessed instead. I went to the Catholic mass upon Lena’s invitation, but didn’t actually see her there till halfway through the service, so I sat in the choir with Kamilia. We both went for “Religion, Round 2” at our friends’ church (of the Nazarene), which was in Russian (but I understood some metaphors about girls in miniskirts and coaches in boxing rings). Several of my friends stood to speak at different points. I enjoyed the informality of the service, which was held in the same basement room where we have our English club. We all met up at Kamilia’s later, and Nadia came from Vinnystia! Dinner was followed by karaoke, and on the way home, Pasha said he could tell I was American by the way I walked, which oddly offended me (I like to pretend I keep the neon “Obvious American” sign to a dull glow). Then he explained it was because I don’t wear heels everywhere, and I couldn’t argue with that. As much as I admire pretty shoes, I’m not enough of a masochist to actually wear them on a daily basis.
I took the bus to school on Tuesday, an indicator of how much my foot was hurting. I sat next to my director and used the opportunity for some detective work on the Internet mystery (Financial or technical problem? Status: unresolved). On Wednesday in Kiev I scored a free shirt from the drop box, got my heel checked out by a PC doc since I was in the office anyway (he said nothing serious, just overworked), and explored headquarters, but the office was eerily empty, as all had gone to welcome the new group of volunteers arriving that day. I did chat a bit with the director, his wife, and the #2 guy on their way out, and had pelmeni with squash sauce for lunch with the HIV project coordinator. I then ambled through Kiev for 2 hours on my way to an embassy-sponsored training on using blogs and wikis in the classroom, most of which wasn’t new to me, but I’m still glad I went. I called Olga (the pregnant girl who gave me her coat in December) and waited for an hour to rendez-vous at the metro for an hour’s stroll through the botanical gardens. Her son is now one month old.
Next stop: Odessa! I found my way to the couchsurfing address, Susanna let me in to her apartment at 6 a.m., and then we both went back to sleep. Later we compared life philosophies before her friend came with precisely half an outfit, and then we strolled around the streets laughing at the looks she got. City of humor, indeed. I bought a ridiculous sparkly cowboy hat to avoid being totally eclipsed, but it kept flying off my head. We met up with more of Susanna’s friends and went to a basement practice room with dusty cement walls, floor, ceiling, and pillars; some played cards while others rocked out and I marveled at the serendipity of my life. Back at Susanna’s, we watched “South Park” in Russian, drank, and ate sunflower seeds. I am constantly in awe of the patience Ukrainians exhibit for gnawing at the shells to extract the tiny seed, over and over again, for endless hours of entertainment. I was also the only one not taking straight shots. Substances flowed free and pure. The next day I waited till 1 p.m. and she was still not up, so I left a note and went for a liberating solo stroll about town and along the Black Sea, and had a photo sesh at the Potemkin steps. I didn’t feel like being too touristy though, so I called Susanna on a whim and asked if she would cut my hair (she had mentioned before that she was a part-time hairdresser, so now I have bangs for the first time since kindergarten) and then I listened to another jam session before baking an apple crisp and rushing to my train. The pregnant daughter and her mother in my compartment were wearing matching sweatsuits for the journey. I’m pretty sure my feel smelled bad, but I’m sadly ok with being a smelly kid in Ukraine. Laundry especially is overrated.
I sought out flowers in Kiev for Olha before taking the elektrishka to Bilky and helping with the tail end of Pasca (Easter bread) baking. Olha and I caught up and made vareniky before I went to bed at 8 p.m., got up at 1 a.m., walked half an hour to Borova in the dark with our basket, placed it in the queue around the church, and went inside to stand for the (short) 3 hour version (some people come at midnight and stand all night). Orthodox interior design was what I’d call “divine chaos,” icons covering every inch of the walls with no apparent logic, and newcomers pushing forward to light candles and bump chins with a fancy icon on an altar in the front. The priests circled and prayed in a front room, occasionally popping out to throw a blessing at the crowd, which exclaimed and prostrated itself in unison (me doing everything backwards, Catholic style from left to right), and likewise whenever the chorus repeated, well…the chorus. There was communion for the really devout, and the rest got to kiss the cross. I welcomed the bowing as a covert forward bend (stretch and shake it out, hallelujah). The structure wasn’t as clear as a Catholic mass, but there did appear to be some kind of gospel, during which the priest entreated the congregation to understand their faith.
The blessing of the baskets was the most beautiful thing I have seen in Ukraine. As we stood in the dark cold and a light drizzle, a line of baskets lit by candles snaked around the church, and the priestly procession perambulated thrice before liberally dousing us all with holy water. We ate the main Easter meal at 6 a.m. (first the blessed things, beating our eggs, cutting with the holy knife, and saving the holy crumbs) and went to bed till noon. Ate, slept, ate. I hung out in pajamas with 2 old ladies all day, complaining about aches and pains and eating some more. It was a thoroughly enjoyable way to spend the holiday. Andrei the history guy/octogenarian and his wife came for a late afternoon visit, and then I caught the last train home.
On Easter Monday I went on a walk with Pasha, Slava, and Marina. In Ukrainian, the verb “to walk” is equivalent with the concept of “to hang out with,” but it also usually quite literally entails walking around town. I also formulated a theory on American obesity as opposed to the infuriatingly fatless European physique; it states that Ukrainians work harder for their food, so it takes longer and therefore they eat less. Case in point: symuchkiy, or sunflower seeds, are something of a national obsession here. Ukrainians keep handfuls in their pockets at all times, and expertly extract each individual nut from its shell with their teeth, one after another, without end. As an American who values convenience and quantity, I haven’t yet accepted symuchkiy as suitable snackage—it’s way too much work for way too little food. My friends drank juice and ate dried fish (to get at the meat of which you have to peel off the skin as well) and cheese, whereas I opted for prepackaged ice cream. Theory, confirmed. We sat in the park, walked around the island where the stadium is, and proceeded to get the song “Running, Running” stuck in each other’s heads.
Palm Sunday is actually Willow Sunday in Ukraine, because willow branches are blessed instead. I went to the Catholic mass upon Lena’s invitation, but didn’t actually see her there till halfway through the service, so I sat in the choir with Kamilia. We both went for “Religion, Round 2” at our friends’ church (of the Nazarene), which was in Russian (but I understood some metaphors about girls in miniskirts and coaches in boxing rings). Several of my friends stood to speak at different points. I enjoyed the informality of the service, which was held in the same basement room where we have our English club. We all met up at Kamilia’s later, and Nadia came from Vinnystia! Dinner was followed by karaoke, and on the way home, Pasha said he could tell I was American by the way I walked, which oddly offended me (I like to pretend I keep the neon “Obvious American” sign to a dull glow). Then he explained it was because I don’t wear heels everywhere, and I couldn’t argue with that. As much as I admire pretty shoes, I’m not enough of a masochist to actually wear them on a daily basis.
I took the bus to school on Tuesday, an indicator of how much my foot was hurting. I sat next to my director and used the opportunity for some detective work on the Internet mystery (Financial or technical problem? Status: unresolved). On Wednesday in Kiev I scored a free shirt from the drop box, got my heel checked out by a PC doc since I was in the office anyway (he said nothing serious, just overworked), and explored headquarters, but the office was eerily empty, as all had gone to welcome the new group of volunteers arriving that day. I did chat a bit with the director, his wife, and the #2 guy on their way out, and had pelmeni with squash sauce for lunch with the HIV project coordinator. I then ambled through Kiev for 2 hours on my way to an embassy-sponsored training on using blogs and wikis in the classroom, most of which wasn’t new to me, but I’m still glad I went. I called Olga (the pregnant girl who gave me her coat in December) and waited for an hour to rendez-vous at the metro for an hour’s stroll through the botanical gardens. Her son is now one month old.
Next stop: Odessa! I found my way to the couchsurfing address, Susanna let me in to her apartment at 6 a.m., and then we both went back to sleep. Later we compared life philosophies before her friend came with precisely half an outfit, and then we strolled around the streets laughing at the looks she got. City of humor, indeed. I bought a ridiculous sparkly cowboy hat to avoid being totally eclipsed, but it kept flying off my head. We met up with more of Susanna’s friends and went to a basement practice room with dusty cement walls, floor, ceiling, and pillars; some played cards while others rocked out and I marveled at the serendipity of my life. Back at Susanna’s, we watched “South Park” in Russian, drank, and ate sunflower seeds. I am constantly in awe of the patience Ukrainians exhibit for gnawing at the shells to extract the tiny seed, over and over again, for endless hours of entertainment. I was also the only one not taking straight shots. Substances flowed free and pure. The next day I waited till 1 p.m. and she was still not up, so I left a note and went for a liberating solo stroll about town and along the Black Sea, and had a photo sesh at the Potemkin steps. I didn’t feel like being too touristy though, so I called Susanna on a whim and asked if she would cut my hair (she had mentioned before that she was a part-time hairdresser, so now I have bangs for the first time since kindergarten) and then I listened to another jam session before baking an apple crisp and rushing to my train. The pregnant daughter and her mother in my compartment were wearing matching sweatsuits for the journey. I’m pretty sure my feel smelled bad, but I’m sadly ok with being a smelly kid in Ukraine. Laundry especially is overrated.
I sought out flowers in Kiev for Olha before taking the elektrishka to Bilky and helping with the tail end of Pasca (Easter bread) baking. Olha and I caught up and made vareniky before I went to bed at 8 p.m., got up at 1 a.m., walked half an hour to Borova in the dark with our basket, placed it in the queue around the church, and went inside to stand for the (short) 3 hour version (some people come at midnight and stand all night). Orthodox interior design was what I’d call “divine chaos,” icons covering every inch of the walls with no apparent logic, and newcomers pushing forward to light candles and bump chins with a fancy icon on an altar in the front. The priests circled and prayed in a front room, occasionally popping out to throw a blessing at the crowd, which exclaimed and prostrated itself in unison (me doing everything backwards, Catholic style from left to right), and likewise whenever the chorus repeated, well…the chorus. There was communion for the really devout, and the rest got to kiss the cross. I welcomed the bowing as a covert forward bend (stretch and shake it out, hallelujah). The structure wasn’t as clear as a Catholic mass, but there did appear to be some kind of gospel, during which the priest entreated the congregation to understand their faith.
The blessing of the baskets was the most beautiful thing I have seen in Ukraine. As we stood in the dark cold and a light drizzle, a line of baskets lit by candles snaked around the church, and the priestly procession perambulated thrice before liberally dousing us all with holy water. We ate the main Easter meal at 6 a.m. (first the blessed things, beating our eggs, cutting with the holy knife, and saving the holy crumbs) and went to bed till noon. Ate, slept, ate. I hung out in pajamas with 2 old ladies all day, complaining about aches and pains and eating some more. It was a thoroughly enjoyable way to spend the holiday. Andrei the history guy/octogenarian and his wife came for a late afternoon visit, and then I caught the last train home.
On Easter Monday I went on a walk with Pasha, Slava, and Marina. In Ukrainian, the verb “to walk” is equivalent with the concept of “to hang out with,” but it also usually quite literally entails walking around town. I also formulated a theory on American obesity as opposed to the infuriatingly fatless European physique; it states that Ukrainians work harder for their food, so it takes longer and therefore they eat less. Case in point: symuchkiy, or sunflower seeds, are something of a national obsession here. Ukrainians keep handfuls in their pockets at all times, and expertly extract each individual nut from its shell with their teeth, one after another, without end. As an American who values convenience and quantity, I haven’t yet accepted symuchkiy as suitable snackage—it’s way too much work for way too little food. My friends drank juice and ate dried fish (to get at the meat of which you have to peel off the skin as well) and cheese, whereas I opted for prepackaged ice cream. Theory, confirmed. We sat in the park, walked around the island where the stadium is, and proceeded to get the song “Running, Running” stuck in each other’s heads.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
April Showers Bring...the tax deductible season of giving!!!
April Fools! Instead of the witty, insightful personal commentary you so silently associate with your furtive forays onto this blog (joke's on me there), today you will find a sincere request for financial contributions to help fund our youth leadership camps in Ukraine. Kindly look at a calendar, and you'll notice that in exactly one week we land on April 15th. What better time than now to make a tax-deductible gift that not only helps spiff up the figures in your household budgetary records, but also brings joy and peace to the world? Am I exaggerating?
Probably, but allow me to elaborate...
In addition to my primary TEFL assignment as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kozyatyn, I have become involved with a working group of volunteers called the Gender and Development Council (GAD).
Every summer, GAD, in partnership with local Ukrainian organizations, organizes two summer camps for Ukrainian youth, ages 14-17. Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) and Camp TOBE (Teaching Our Boys Excellence) provide a unique opportunity to gather 40 girls and 20 boys from different parts of Ukraine to participate in a camp dedicated to learning about gender issues, leadership, and team building. Camp topics include “Project Design and Management,” “Counter-Trafficking and Domestic Violence,” “Healthy Lifestyles and Body Image,” “HIV/AIDS Awareness,” “Human Rights,” and “How to GLOW/Excel,” in combination with fun leadership and team building exercises and excursions.
This year, in order to include more youth and increase the sustainability of the camps, GAD and our partnering organizations are planning two GLOW and one TOBE camps. Two camps will take place in the eastern town of Kreminna, and the other camp will be held in the western town of Kolomiya. Holding camps in both regions of the country will make traveling easier for campers and will give us the opportunity to work with more Ukrainian organizations.
We are lucky to be working with Ukrainian partners who are eager to help make these camps a success, but we are still in need of funds to help make these camps a reality. Through the Peace Corps Partnership Program, we are asking friends, family, and local businesses back home to help us cover costs for these camps.
In order to make these camps a reality, we need to raise $6,601. Only $110 sends one Ukrainian student to camp for the entire week! Please consider making a tax-deductible donation in order to help empower Ukrainian youth to become the future leaders their country needs. Every little bit counts!
You can make a donation at the following website:
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=343-170
Please let me know if you have any questions, and thank you for helping to empower Ukraine's youth!
Sincerely,
Kathleen (on behalf of the GAD Council)
P.S. If you do choose to donate, please shoot me an e-mail to let me know so I can thank you personally. As the website is currently set up, we are not able to see our donors' names until after the grant closes. Thanks again!!
Probably, but allow me to elaborate...
In addition to my primary TEFL assignment as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kozyatyn, I have become involved with a working group of volunteers called the Gender and Development Council (GAD).
Every summer, GAD, in partnership with local Ukrainian organizations, organizes two summer camps for Ukrainian youth, ages 14-17. Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) and Camp TOBE (Teaching Our Boys Excellence) provide a unique opportunity to gather 40 girls and 20 boys from different parts of Ukraine to participate in a camp dedicated to learning about gender issues, leadership, and team building. Camp topics include “Project Design and Management,” “Counter-Trafficking and Domestic Violence,” “Healthy Lifestyles and Body Image,” “HIV/AIDS Awareness,” “Human Rights,” and “How to GLOW/Excel,” in combination with fun leadership and team building exercises and excursions.
This year, in order to include more youth and increase the sustainability of the camps, GAD and our partnering organizations are planning two GLOW and one TOBE camps. Two camps will take place in the eastern town of Kreminna, and the other camp will be held in the western town of Kolomiya. Holding camps in both regions of the country will make traveling easier for campers and will give us the opportunity to work with more Ukrainian organizations.
We are lucky to be working with Ukrainian partners who are eager to help make these camps a success, but we are still in need of funds to help make these camps a reality. Through the Peace Corps Partnership Program, we are asking friends, family, and local businesses back home to help us cover costs for these camps.
In order to make these camps a reality, we need to raise $6,601. Only $110 sends one Ukrainian student to camp for the entire week! Please consider making a tax-deductible donation in order to help empower Ukrainian youth to become the future leaders their country needs. Every little bit counts!
You can make a donation at the following website:
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=343-170
Please let me know if you have any questions, and thank you for helping to empower Ukraine's youth!
Sincerely,
Kathleen (on behalf of the GAD Council)
P.S. If you do choose to donate, please shoot me an e-mail to let me know so I can thank you personally. As the website is currently set up, we are not able to see our donors' names until after the grant closes. Thanks again!!
Friday, March 26, 2010
Ukrainian Beauty Pageants, Polish Folk Dancing, and Korean Carrots
After a winter of icy roads and bitter winds, I’ve gone on my first few runs of the season! It was pretty glorious to be able to run again, though after a false start at spring we got more snow, and my 3rd attempt to run left me slipping, sliding, and dodging vehicles as I tried to pick my way down the middle of the road. All winter long I’d been “going in for” yoga, and I think it’s definitely made me stronger, because picking up running after such a long break wasn’t as painful as it normally is. My hope is to run a half-marathon organized by another volunteer on April 17th in the Carpathians, although with my level of training that may be a foolhardy goal. It’s something to work toward though, and at the very least I’ll run the 10K. At any rate, a trip over the mountains and a hearty frolic through the hills is in order. I ran for 100 minutes last week, which is longer than I’ve ever run in my life, and I was pretty pumped. I got plenty of strange looks too, which always amuses me. I stare back and smile until they look away.
Anya and Matt came over one Saturday, and we made the first brownies she’d ever had in her life! Then she fell asleep while we were watching “Wedding Crashers.” It was nice to have them over to my house and not just go out to a café.
I can’t possibly convey in words how much the sunshine has put a spring in my step (as well as on my doorstep). I walk around with a smile on my face, commenting on the weather to anyone who will listen. One nice day I set out to find the stadium—I knew we had one, but I hadn’t seen it yet. I found it on an island in the middle of the river—which I also hadn’t seen before—and my counterpart said it used to be the old Jewish cemetery (I didn’t ask why it was turned into a stadium).
International Women’s Day is a national holiday (March 8th) in all the countries of the former Soviet bloc. I don’t know why we don’t celebrate it, because it started as a female garment workers’ protest in New York City 100 years ago. (Maybe its socialist origin made it an undesirable event in the states?) On Thursday, students came up to me between lessons, speeding through the well-used phrase, “We congratulate you on the [insert special occasion here], wish you happiness, health, etc. etc.…” and presented me with flowers, chocolate, and other nice things. I spent the actual holiday baking in the kitchen and cleaning in the house, the irony of which was not lost on me. But it was by choice, since I invited Andrei, Pasha, and Kamilia over for tea and homemade cookies. Pasha recounted how in his dream Arnold Schwarzenegger killed him, and then we had an honest conversation about drug use and fabrication (many drug users in Ukraine also know how to produce their own drugs). An interesting afternoon altogether.
On Wednesday I visited Katia and Co. in an attempt to reconnect with them (Lena’s extended family, who I haven't seen since Winter Break), and we made fresh salads for dinner—I had more green vegetables that meal than I’d had all winter! She bought broccoli in Poland and asked me what to do with it, since people don’t really eat it here. All our toasts were to women, since the men of the house were absent.
I’ve discovered a new “секoнд гeнд” store near my school, which is a dangerous development given my love of thrift stores—but you can’t really argue with dress pants, a dress shirt, and a skirt for $8, right? (Except if you remember that’s almost twice what I make in one day, but shhh!)
I invited another volunteer from GAD to hold a self-defense seminar for my 9th form girls in honor of Women’s Day, and it worked out great! We took them out of English and PE, and set up mats on the stage in the auditorium, and they learned about domestic violence and how to protect themselves. They were really enthusiastic about practicing the punches, kicks, and blocks, and as a grand finale Jean taught them how to throw an attacker and they practiced on her. The girls all wanted to know when she could come back, and the boys were very interested in what we were doing (they kept trying to peek into the auditorium), so I hope to build on that enthusiasm for future projects! We stayed at Kamilia’s the night before, since Jean went to her village school in the morning and then my school in the afternoon. Jean’s puppy came too (she terrified Djora at first, until he realized he was bigger). The second night they stayed at my apartment and she whipped up a spicy meat sauce with macaroni while I pretended to lesson plan, and then we watched a movie and had a half-night’s sleep before she had to wake up to catch her train at 5 am.
That night I smelled smoke in my apartment and found my fuse box fuming. Mr. Fix-it came to the rescue, and I will live another day. I also had to consult my brother on an urgent matter of technical support. He advised me to restart my computer. Brilliant! Also brilliant: Russian Vegetable Pie! Thank you, Babuysia’s Cookbook.
Another personal victory I’m rather proud of: I finally finagled the downstairs neighbors for tea and cookies! They are very elusive, so I ambushed the husband while we waited for the garbage truck, and asked when I could bring them the cookies I had baked (I’d been slowly eating them and soon there would be none left for the intended recipients, but like I said, they’re hard to track down, and cookies sitting on your counter are just asking to be eaten). But we finally got acquainted, and I made them suffer through my photo album while their 5 year old played with his trains.
This past weekend I was supposed to meet my cluster for a reunion to celebrate Alia’s birthday, but plans fell through and I ended up having a bizarrely impromptu yet satisfying weekend at home. On Friday, Kamilia, Slavic, and I met with someone important to get the go-ahead to inform vice principals of our project. He was very friendly and Polish and liked my last name; he said to stop by for tea sometime, and did I prefer muscular or intellectual men? I said intellectual, and he said he’d work on it. Note to self: good person to go to if I need something done in town. Afterwards, Slavic and I ended up going to a beauty pageant that Kamilia had prepared one of her students for. I have never seen an audience more excited for a non-sporting event. They were wild, and it was hilarious. There was an evening gown contest, as well as an improvised song-and-dance talent portion. Out to coffee later, I discovered Korean carrots (spicy, garlicky, delicious) and a Frenchman (choose your own adjectives) in town. I was pretty excited about both.
On Saturday I invited Kamilia, Slavic, and Andrei over to bake apple pie. We added walnuts and rounded it out with vanilla ice cream for a satisfying culinary experience. Djora came too, and I set up “Hercules” on my computer for him to watch, because I promote Disney at every opportunity. Slavic kept retreating into the kitchen to do the dishes, protesting that he hadn’t helped cook. I wasn’t going to stop him! Later I went to Polish language class, just because. There I saw everyone I knew in town: my neighbors, my counterpart and her sister, a teacher I’d met at Olympiad, and one of the girls that comes to my “Adult English Club,” who I ran into as I was walking there, and who was also going for the first time just to check it out. I didn’t really learn very much (they’ve had several weeks of lessons already, and not knowing the alphabet or the proper pronunciation slightly limited my understanding) but I had a good time. At the end, the teacher asked if I would be joining the Polish folk dancing group for a concert in May. Why not? So I went to rehearsal on Sunday, and blundered my way through a waltz-y folk number before going out to drink milkshakes and talk about boys and more serious things with Luda, the girl from my club who is enamored with all things Italian. I rounded out the night watching a Reese Witherspoon film in Russian. Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian in one day? Why not?
On Monday I had a nice chat with my counterpart, going over all the things we’re supposed to talk about. Our “meeting” occurred during the 45 minutes we were waiting for the bus, which is all the proof I need that I can get to school faster on my own two feet.
Tuesday after Adult English Club (is it just me or does that name sound slightly risqué?) I walked with Kamilia back to her house (we picked Djora up from her mother’s on the way) and we prepared a power point to present our project to the vice principals of extra-curricular activities on Friday at the lyceum. The presentation accomplished what it needed to, and the two Slavics joined Andrei, Kamilia and I to visit Pasha and Sasha at work, and then bum around town for a bit. I like these Friday afternoons, when I never know what will happen.
Anya and Matt came over one Saturday, and we made the first brownies she’d ever had in her life! Then she fell asleep while we were watching “Wedding Crashers.” It was nice to have them over to my house and not just go out to a café.
I can’t possibly convey in words how much the sunshine has put a spring in my step (as well as on my doorstep). I walk around with a smile on my face, commenting on the weather to anyone who will listen. One nice day I set out to find the stadium—I knew we had one, but I hadn’t seen it yet. I found it on an island in the middle of the river—which I also hadn’t seen before—and my counterpart said it used to be the old Jewish cemetery (I didn’t ask why it was turned into a stadium).
International Women’s Day is a national holiday (March 8th) in all the countries of the former Soviet bloc. I don’t know why we don’t celebrate it, because it started as a female garment workers’ protest in New York City 100 years ago. (Maybe its socialist origin made it an undesirable event in the states?) On Thursday, students came up to me between lessons, speeding through the well-used phrase, “We congratulate you on the [insert special occasion here], wish you happiness, health, etc. etc.…” and presented me with flowers, chocolate, and other nice things. I spent the actual holiday baking in the kitchen and cleaning in the house, the irony of which was not lost on me. But it was by choice, since I invited Andrei, Pasha, and Kamilia over for tea and homemade cookies. Pasha recounted how in his dream Arnold Schwarzenegger killed him, and then we had an honest conversation about drug use and fabrication (many drug users in Ukraine also know how to produce their own drugs). An interesting afternoon altogether.
On Wednesday I visited Katia and Co. in an attempt to reconnect with them (Lena’s extended family, who I haven't seen since Winter Break), and we made fresh salads for dinner—I had more green vegetables that meal than I’d had all winter! She bought broccoli in Poland and asked me what to do with it, since people don’t really eat it here. All our toasts were to women, since the men of the house were absent.
I’ve discovered a new “секoнд гeнд” store near my school, which is a dangerous development given my love of thrift stores—but you can’t really argue with dress pants, a dress shirt, and a skirt for $8, right? (Except if you remember that’s almost twice what I make in one day, but shhh!)
I invited another volunteer from GAD to hold a self-defense seminar for my 9th form girls in honor of Women’s Day, and it worked out great! We took them out of English and PE, and set up mats on the stage in the auditorium, and they learned about domestic violence and how to protect themselves. They were really enthusiastic about practicing the punches, kicks, and blocks, and as a grand finale Jean taught them how to throw an attacker and they practiced on her. The girls all wanted to know when she could come back, and the boys were very interested in what we were doing (they kept trying to peek into the auditorium), so I hope to build on that enthusiasm for future projects! We stayed at Kamilia’s the night before, since Jean went to her village school in the morning and then my school in the afternoon. Jean’s puppy came too (she terrified Djora at first, until he realized he was bigger). The second night they stayed at my apartment and she whipped up a spicy meat sauce with macaroni while I pretended to lesson plan, and then we watched a movie and had a half-night’s sleep before she had to wake up to catch her train at 5 am.
That night I smelled smoke in my apartment and found my fuse box fuming. Mr. Fix-it came to the rescue, and I will live another day. I also had to consult my brother on an urgent matter of technical support. He advised me to restart my computer. Brilliant! Also brilliant: Russian Vegetable Pie! Thank you, Babuysia’s Cookbook.
Another personal victory I’m rather proud of: I finally finagled the downstairs neighbors for tea and cookies! They are very elusive, so I ambushed the husband while we waited for the garbage truck, and asked when I could bring them the cookies I had baked (I’d been slowly eating them and soon there would be none left for the intended recipients, but like I said, they’re hard to track down, and cookies sitting on your counter are just asking to be eaten). But we finally got acquainted, and I made them suffer through my photo album while their 5 year old played with his trains.
This past weekend I was supposed to meet my cluster for a reunion to celebrate Alia’s birthday, but plans fell through and I ended up having a bizarrely impromptu yet satisfying weekend at home. On Friday, Kamilia, Slavic, and I met with someone important to get the go-ahead to inform vice principals of our project. He was very friendly and Polish and liked my last name; he said to stop by for tea sometime, and did I prefer muscular or intellectual men? I said intellectual, and he said he’d work on it. Note to self: good person to go to if I need something done in town. Afterwards, Slavic and I ended up going to a beauty pageant that Kamilia had prepared one of her students for. I have never seen an audience more excited for a non-sporting event. They were wild, and it was hilarious. There was an evening gown contest, as well as an improvised song-and-dance talent portion. Out to coffee later, I discovered Korean carrots (spicy, garlicky, delicious) and a Frenchman (choose your own adjectives) in town. I was pretty excited about both.
On Saturday I invited Kamilia, Slavic, and Andrei over to bake apple pie. We added walnuts and rounded it out with vanilla ice cream for a satisfying culinary experience. Djora came too, and I set up “Hercules” on my computer for him to watch, because I promote Disney at every opportunity. Slavic kept retreating into the kitchen to do the dishes, protesting that he hadn’t helped cook. I wasn’t going to stop him! Later I went to Polish language class, just because. There I saw everyone I knew in town: my neighbors, my counterpart and her sister, a teacher I’d met at Olympiad, and one of the girls that comes to my “Adult English Club,” who I ran into as I was walking there, and who was also going for the first time just to check it out. I didn’t really learn very much (they’ve had several weeks of lessons already, and not knowing the alphabet or the proper pronunciation slightly limited my understanding) but I had a good time. At the end, the teacher asked if I would be joining the Polish folk dancing group for a concert in May. Why not? So I went to rehearsal on Sunday, and blundered my way through a waltz-y folk number before going out to drink milkshakes and talk about boys and more serious things with Luda, the girl from my club who is enamored with all things Italian. I rounded out the night watching a Reese Witherspoon film in Russian. Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian in one day? Why not?
On Monday I had a nice chat with my counterpart, going over all the things we’re supposed to talk about. Our “meeting” occurred during the 45 minutes we were waiting for the bus, which is all the proof I need that I can get to school faster on my own two feet.
Tuesday after Adult English Club (is it just me or does that name sound slightly risqué?) I walked with Kamilia back to her house (we picked Djora up from her mother’s on the way) and we prepared a power point to present our project to the vice principals of extra-curricular activities on Friday at the lyceum. The presentation accomplished what it needed to, and the two Slavics joined Andrei, Kamilia and I to visit Pasha and Sasha at work, and then bum around town for a bit. I like these Friday afternoons, when I never know what will happen.
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