Group Photo

Here is a picture of me with some of the PCV who were there. We spent most of the time outdoors because we couldn't get the lights to work in the house for most of the evening. Thats Ukraine.

Football Dishes

Since the girls did most of the cooking it was the boys job to do the dishes after the meal. In true Thanksgiving fashion they decided to "football" wash the dishes. Complete with passing, fakes, and calling out plays and probably freaking out the neighbors. I haven't laughed that hard in a really long time. Some of the plays were like "double forks, double forks, up high." or "sharp knife, sharp knife, watch yourself" They would huddle to make sure they handled things like large bowls and platters correctly. It was great and much more interesting then watching real football.

Turkey Day

I had a truly unique Thanksgiving experience. I headed down to a little town near Odessa in southern Ukraine not far from the Black Sea and met up with several other PVC's to celebrate the holiday. We stayed at another volunteers house and it was like camping indoors. We slept inside but the house was heated by a coal oven/furnace thing that was not the most efficient. You had to go outside for running water and they had a midget sized outhouse. In fact the whole house was made for someone who was a little bit smaller then the average bear. Luckly the volunteer who lives there is 5 foot two or so.
The first night we arrived we went to the local school and did a little presentation on Gender equality that seemed to go pretty well. Then we attempted to teach the kids how to play American Football. Something tells me that this is a sport that will probably never catch on in Ukraine. But we tried. Then we went to see our turkey. I had visions of gazing on a large nicley browned stuffed bird. Instead I looked at this bird and it looked back at me. And gobbled a little. Then gave a surprizing human like scream as the neighbor picked it and its buddy up by the back legs and in one motion chopped their little heads off. I may never eat turkey again. And it really does take about 10 minutes for the bodies to stop flapping around. Then the kindly neighbor showed us how to pluck our turkey and gut it so it is ready to cook. Besides the screaming the rest of it was not that bad and now I can say that I know how to clean a bird. I am not planning on doing it again but at least I know how.
then i read "The Princesses Bride" outloud as everyone fell asleep.
The next day we started our flurry of cooking. We had 15 people to feed and one electric oven and 3 burners to work with. We mill around like cattle drinking coffee and felling relaxed for the first time in weeks. Then we start peeling potatos. And we keep peeling and peeling. Let me remind you that there are not potato peelers in Ukraine, you use a knife. And peeling one potato takes all day but when you need to peel potato for 15 people it takes forever. Then the electricity went out and we begin to wonder it the turkeys would get cooked. Thankfully it went back on in about an hour. The same neighbor who gave us the turky killing demonstration brought over borsht for everyone for lunch and we rotated the 3 bowls so we all got a chance to eat. Then we went to all the neighbors and borrowed a table, plates, and silverware. We made pumpkin pie from scratch, cheesy mashed potatos, 2 turkeys, had cranberry sauce and candy corn from home, gravy, stuffing, and 3 different kinds of salad. It was the best meal I have had since I got here. And even though there were 10 people working in a kitchen ment for 2, we had to wash dishes with well water, and I got blisters from peeling it is one of my favorite days. Check out the following pictures.

Language woes

November 13th, 2007

If there is one thing I have learned from living and working in a foreign country is that learning a foreign language is HARD. I think fondly back to the days where I blissfully sat in high school French with my very patient and very friendly French teacher who would only smile fondly at me when I messed of my verb conjugations for the 537th time. She would always say, “good try Shannon but remember one form is singular and the other is plural”. Now, if I conjugate my verb incorrectly I usually receive exasperated looks, a mumbled insult in Russian or a pat on the head as if to say, “aren’t you the cute little amerikanka trying to learn Ukrainian, how adorable!”. The worst is when a well meaning Ukrainian who knows English will politely say, “just speak English, it will be easier”. That is usually about the point where I either want to club them over the head with my language manuals and scream, “I have to live here jackass let me practice!” or the alternate, curl up with my English DVD’s in my little apartment and gorge on yummy Ukrainian chocolate. That still counts as a cross cultural experience right? I mean, the chocolate is Ukrainian after all. I know they are trying to help but I would rather struggle through a question in Ukrainian with someone who knows English, then as a last ditch effort I can ask in English. But there will always come a time when the person I am talking to does not know English. That happens a lot here, it being, you know, Ukraine and all. So the more I can practice with a safety net the better. I don’t need to work on my English, I already know that language. Although my English teacher friends are horrified that I don’t know the difference between past perfect and past indefinite. We maybe covered that is eighth grade English but that was long before I wanted to travel the world and learn other languages so I just figured, “I already speak this language what do I need to know this for?” and I didn’t pay much attention. Looking back, I was a pretty stupid eighth grader.
I wouldn’t say I am language phobic; in fact the opposite is true. I love Ukrainian. It is one of the most beautiful languages with words like Листопад (list-o-pad) which literally means “leaves falling” and is the Ukrainian word for November. I mean, how cool is that? The other months are just as good, like April, Квітен (kaviten) which means flowers and February, Лютий (Luetie), meaning angry (as in wind). Americans would never say, “I love the month of leaves falling, everything is so colorful!” Heck no, we would say something along the lines of, “November sucks! Its freezing but there isn’t enough snow to go skiing yet.” Of course now that I am living through my first November in Ukraine and it has showed solid for the past three days I would be more inclined to say, “снігопад” (snee-o-pad) meaning snowfall rather then leaves falling is more appropriate. But that is neither here nor there.
The only part about Ukrainian I just don’t get, I mean besides the fact that I don’t really know the language yet, is the difference between the two H sounds. One sound is written as, “г” and is said like the H in how or happy, the other looks like “x” and is said like the more guttural sounding H in loch. Think that German sounding guttural hocking a loogie sound and that will be about right. Apparently, I am incapable of creating the latter of these two H sounds. This have been the source for much amusement for my Ukrainian collogues and creates somewhat of a little problem for me since that particular letter happens to be in a lot of Ukrainian words. The worst is when the difference between the two H’s entirely changes the meaning of the word. For example, to say “I am hungry” you say, “Я голодна”. On the other hand, the word for “cold” is “холодна”. I finally figured out the connection between these two words when my Ukrainian Babycia kept handing me sweaters in mid-July when I thought I was saying I was hungry. Those were what I like to call “cultural moments”. And now I just say, “Їсти” which means “eat?”. It is not as suave, but there is less confusion and no more sweaters in July.