Sunday, September 2, 2007
My new apartment!
July 23, 2007
I joined the Peace Corps to really experience the sensation of “roughing it” and to know what is means to struggle to survive, right? Well, when I ended up in Ukraine it seemed that while I many have to lower my artificially high American standards a little, roughing it didn’t really come to mind. That was until I got my first apartment. I say first because I really hope it will not be the only place I stay during my two years here and this is why.
Can you say ninth floor? So can I, and I get a lot of practice with my Ukrainian numbers because I count each step up to the ninth floor every day as I trek up and down. Now before you ask, yes, it does have a lift but allow me to briefly describe why I don’t use this lift. It is very old. It makes more noises while it is going up then the babycias do when they hike up 9 flights of stairs. When I came to look at the apartment my host sister and I rode in the lift and managed to make the trip without incident. Then next day when we came with my distressingly large amounts of baggage to move me in, I loaded the tiny lift with bags and then wedged myself in thinking, “the fewer trips on this death trap the better”. The doors closed and I pressed the button for the 9th floor. And waited…and waited…still waiting…the lift didn’t move. And interestingly enough, even though the lift wasn’t moving, the doors wouldn’t open.
Here is a brief explanation of a Ukrainian elevator. They are very small compared to western elevators, maybe 4 feet by 3 feet. They are dark but the doors (on this lift anyway) don’t close all the way so you get some light from each floor you pass and you can wave to, say hi, and chat about the weather with people on the landings as you head up to your floor. There is no such thing as a panic button that will ring highly trained help to come rescue if you get stuck. You have to beg for help from anyone who happens to be passing by, please remember that these people speak only Russian while I on the other hand, do not. So here I am, stuck in the lift will half of my worldly belongings and having no clear escape. Thankfully, I was with other people and I watched through the crack in the doors as my babycia went for help. Meaning, she got some large burly gentleman to try and pry the doors open. That didn’t work but it did make the lift shake a lot and threaten to drop into the basement. I also got a great look at this gigantic mans sweaty and very furry chest. Next they sent my host sister to look for the handy guy, he was nowhere to be found, vacationing in Siberia or something… .but if I wanted to wait.... At this point I am starting to have visions of myself becoming the only Peace Corps volunteer to successfully complete their service from inside of an elevator. I could be the new poster child for why building upkeep and renovation is so badly needed. I had visions of my Babycia passing me traditional dishes through the gap in the doors and setting up a tube that would keep me supplied with water and borsht, the only two things you really need to live in Ukraine. Desperate, I start pushing buttons, thinking to myself, “at the very worst this thing will explode and I can at least be buried in America.” The lift begins to shake, then squeal, then sigh, then quote a little Shakespeare, then the doors opened and I jetted out of there faster then a Peace Corps volunteer headed for McDonalds.
At this point we gave up on the elevator and began to hoof it up the 9 flights to my new apartment. Well, new to me anyway. I have 2 years of stuff and an 89 pound host sister to help me. By the time we were done, I was ready to just topple over and sleep on the floor. That was until I realized just how dirty the floor really was. Picture this, you are in New York, or Chicago or some other big city. Now find a building that was built sometime not too long after WWII (I am being optimistic about this date). Some of the apartments have been in families for years and are in wonderful shape with clean windows, nice carpet, and the obligatory cat sunning itself on the sill. But then you have the apartments that have been rented out cheaply to whoever needs them for however long. Students, the unemployed, Peace Corps Volunteers… Can you imagine how different those two same apartments look? I have the latter. I counted not one, not two, but FIVE different types of wallpaper in the main room/bedroom. When I turn the light on in the morning I feel like I am still dreaming. In some places there is no wall paper at all and you can see the crumbling concrete underneath. It’s very ghetto shik. The floor is some sort of red plastic linoleum with a distressing number of mysterious burns. But there is a bed and a closet so what more does a girl really need?
I have a balcony. The windows leading out to it have been painted and taped shut, as have the windows to the kitchen. I assume this is because of the super cold weather in the winter but who really knows. The balcony itself seems to cling to the face of the building through nothing more then sheer willpower and a lot of scotch tape. You think I am kidding... Two of the four widows leading to the outside world have no glass but do provide a nice breeze. I think at one time this was an open air balcony but had at some point been walled in. However, the 6 to 10 inch gaps at the corners probably let it get pretty cold in the winter. There is a nest of birds in the corner. I only go out onto the balcony to hang laundry so someone might as well enjoy it. The clothes lines are strategically hung at neck level so if you aren’t paying attention you can garrote yourself. I would call that roughing it.
I feel less guilty about not knowing much about cooking when I got this kitchen. The stove has two burners that work, two that don’t, and an oven that has not worked since Kennedy was in office. But it leans to the left so we can at least talk about politics. You have to climb under the table to turn on the gas valve manually each time you wish to cook because there is a minute leak somewhere between the valve and the stove. I am very careful to turn that bad boy off each time because I would hate to go to cook myself breakfast one morning and end up being blown through the window. All of the counters are handmade and while one of them it alright the other looks like it was made by one of my sisters modern artist friends because it has lots of funny angles and no even surfaces. I got a roll of my own wall paper and actually covered the table/counter with it because the wood was…um…not clean. Everything now has tacky plastic covers so it is all sanitary and just a touch white trashy. It is starting to feel a little more like home. Now all I need is a cat…
I joined the Peace Corps to really experience the sensation of “roughing it” and to know what is means to struggle to survive, right? Well, when I ended up in Ukraine it seemed that while I many have to lower my artificially high American standards a little, roughing it didn’t really come to mind. That was until I got my first apartment. I say first because I really hope it will not be the only place I stay during my two years here and this is why.
Can you say ninth floor? So can I, and I get a lot of practice with my Ukrainian numbers because I count each step up to the ninth floor every day as I trek up and down. Now before you ask, yes, it does have a lift but allow me to briefly describe why I don’t use this lift. It is very old. It makes more noises while it is going up then the babycias do when they hike up 9 flights of stairs. When I came to look at the apartment my host sister and I rode in the lift and managed to make the trip without incident. Then next day when we came with my distressingly large amounts of baggage to move me in, I loaded the tiny lift with bags and then wedged myself in thinking, “the fewer trips on this death trap the better”. The doors closed and I pressed the button for the 9th floor. And waited…and waited…still waiting…the lift didn’t move. And interestingly enough, even though the lift wasn’t moving, the doors wouldn’t open.
Here is a brief explanation of a Ukrainian elevator. They are very small compared to western elevators, maybe 4 feet by 3 feet. They are dark but the doors (on this lift anyway) don’t close all the way so you get some light from each floor you pass and you can wave to, say hi, and chat about the weather with people on the landings as you head up to your floor. There is no such thing as a panic button that will ring highly trained help to come rescue if you get stuck. You have to beg for help from anyone who happens to be passing by, please remember that these people speak only Russian while I on the other hand, do not. So here I am, stuck in the lift will half of my worldly belongings and having no clear escape. Thankfully, I was with other people and I watched through the crack in the doors as my babycia went for help. Meaning, she got some large burly gentleman to try and pry the doors open. That didn’t work but it did make the lift shake a lot and threaten to drop into the basement. I also got a great look at this gigantic mans sweaty and very furry chest. Next they sent my host sister to look for the handy guy, he was nowhere to be found, vacationing in Siberia or something… .but if I wanted to wait.... At this point I am starting to have visions of myself becoming the only Peace Corps volunteer to successfully complete their service from inside of an elevator. I could be the new poster child for why building upkeep and renovation is so badly needed. I had visions of my Babycia passing me traditional dishes through the gap in the doors and setting up a tube that would keep me supplied with water and borsht, the only two things you really need to live in Ukraine. Desperate, I start pushing buttons, thinking to myself, “at the very worst this thing will explode and I can at least be buried in America.” The lift begins to shake, then squeal, then sigh, then quote a little Shakespeare, then the doors opened and I jetted out of there faster then a Peace Corps volunteer headed for McDonalds.
At this point we gave up on the elevator and began to hoof it up the 9 flights to my new apartment. Well, new to me anyway. I have 2 years of stuff and an 89 pound host sister to help me. By the time we were done, I was ready to just topple over and sleep on the floor. That was until I realized just how dirty the floor really was. Picture this, you are in New York, or Chicago or some other big city. Now find a building that was built sometime not too long after WWII (I am being optimistic about this date). Some of the apartments have been in families for years and are in wonderful shape with clean windows, nice carpet, and the obligatory cat sunning itself on the sill. But then you have the apartments that have been rented out cheaply to whoever needs them for however long. Students, the unemployed, Peace Corps Volunteers… Can you imagine how different those two same apartments look? I have the latter. I counted not one, not two, but FIVE different types of wallpaper in the main room/bedroom. When I turn the light on in the morning I feel like I am still dreaming. In some places there is no wall paper at all and you can see the crumbling concrete underneath. It’s very ghetto shik. The floor is some sort of red plastic linoleum with a distressing number of mysterious burns. But there is a bed and a closet so what more does a girl really need?
I have a balcony. The windows leading out to it have been painted and taped shut, as have the windows to the kitchen. I assume this is because of the super cold weather in the winter but who really knows. The balcony itself seems to cling to the face of the building through nothing more then sheer willpower and a lot of scotch tape. You think I am kidding... Two of the four widows leading to the outside world have no glass but do provide a nice breeze. I think at one time this was an open air balcony but had at some point been walled in. However, the 6 to 10 inch gaps at the corners probably let it get pretty cold in the winter. There is a nest of birds in the corner. I only go out onto the balcony to hang laundry so someone might as well enjoy it. The clothes lines are strategically hung at neck level so if you aren’t paying attention you can garrote yourself. I would call that roughing it.
I feel less guilty about not knowing much about cooking when I got this kitchen. The stove has two burners that work, two that don’t, and an oven that has not worked since Kennedy was in office. But it leans to the left so we can at least talk about politics. You have to climb under the table to turn on the gas valve manually each time you wish to cook because there is a minute leak somewhere between the valve and the stove. I am very careful to turn that bad boy off each time because I would hate to go to cook myself breakfast one morning and end up being blown through the window. All of the counters are handmade and while one of them it alright the other looks like it was made by one of my sisters modern artist friends because it has lots of funny angles and no even surfaces. I got a roll of my own wall paper and actually covered the table/counter with it because the wood was…um…not clean. Everything now has tacky plastic covers so it is all sanitary and just a touch white trashy. It is starting to feel a little more like home. Now all I need is a cat…
Friday, July 6, 2007
Attack of the Ukrainian Babucias!
une, 26, 2007
I’m sorry if it seems like forever between each of my postings. I am finding it harder and harder to get access to the internet. I am now in my new site and have been for about 4 days. It is quite a strange experience walking around town and knowing that this is where I will be living for the next 2 years. Sometimes that thought is very exciting and sometimes it seems unbearable. Tomorrow I will be attending the graduation ceremony for all of the 11form students at my school. My host sister is among the graduates and she is just walking on clouds right now. She has been quite a big help in getting me used to the are. We have taken some walks together and she is making a point of introducing me to her friends. Yesterday evening I got stranded on a porch in the rain with her and two of her friends so I could begin the story like this. A Russian, a Ukrainian, a Jordanian, and an and American were having a cigeratte(I wasn’t smoking but many of the men here do)…It sounds like a bad joke but is was actually a very interesting conversation. Both of the young men we talked to knew enough English to be dangerous and knew Russian so using a mix of their Russian and English and my Ukrainian and English we were able to cover a variety of topics. I find it interesting that every person I meet asks me if America is better then their country. I always simply say, they are just very different which becomes more and more apparent the longer I stay here.
I have discovered, with no little fear, that almost everyone in my village speaks only Russian. My Babushka takes me out to sit with her and chat will all of the other babushka’s and many of them have never in their lives spoken Ukrainian so instead of me understanding 1 out of every 30 words it is one out of every 45. I think I have understood maybe 3 sentences that have come out of my Babushkas mouth, after that I have to rely on Charades. That being said, quite a few people get a real kick out of the fact that an American is learning Ukrainian. I am just going to really need to hit the books in order to know enough Ukrainian to understand their Russian. I think after several months I will start hitting the books for Russian as well. One thing at a time though. Speaking of time…I spoke with my coordinator today and she let me know that after graduation everything is finished, there are no more rest/summer camps and there are no summer classes so I am at loose ends. Her exact words were, “I get a rest so why don’t you”? I am going to get together with her twice a week to “learn Ukrainian” but I am not really sure what she means by that. I don’t think it involves a classroom setting because she told me to bring my swimsuit. It should be interesting. I will need to look up how to say “I’m drowning!” in Ukrainian. When I asked if there was anything I could help with during the summer she simply said that they expected me to settle in. The only problem is that I am terrified at the prospect of having nothing to do for the next 2 months. I am lonely and homesick now and at the moment don’t have any friends to “hang out with” although the dogs and cats in Ukraine are friendly. I am afraid that I will become that weird creepy American that is always moping about. On the up side, I got the grandma’s helping me find my own apartment and it looks like they may have already found one. These women can be a force to be reckoned with. Then I can be the weird creepy American moping about in her own apartment.
June 29th 2007,
Who needs German Shepard’s when you have Ukrainian Grandmothers?
In my new host family I have a Babycia who the entire family affectionately calls Ba. She is a wonderful women, she continuously tried to communicate with me even when I understood non of her rapid fire Russian (I learned Ukrainian). She constantly includes me in on everything that she does including cooking and working in her very large garden and she has made my transition into my new host family much smoother. She even helped me relocate the hamsters that I was sharing my room with when I confessed to her that they were keeping me up all night with their constant Russian squeeking. I love my Ba and my Ba loves me. In fact, she is caring to the point of being slightly ridiculous. Allow me to explain, I went for a walk to get to know my town and was gone about an hour. As I get back, Ba is just leaving to come looking for me, fearing that I had become lost. There are several other instances I could name but here is the best. I attended the graduation of my host sister Alina. Graduating from high school is one of the biggest events in a Ukrainians life, many of them never go to college so high school is a big deal. The girls dress in ball gowns the men in suits and there are singers and dancers. They put on a wonderful show. The graduation finally ends and one of the English teachers at the schools mentions that she has internet access if I would like to take advantage of it. You see, the kids were now going to Kharkiv to party and wouldn’t be back to my site until later to continue the party at the school until around 11:30 or so when the fireworks began (I told you it was a big deal). I turn to tell Ba that I will not be going home with her because I need to feed my pathetic internet addiction and I have found a local dealer. Concerned she takes this teacher aside and speaks rapidly to her for several moments. The teacher looks at me surprised and says, “she doesn’t think you can get home by yourself, do you know the way?”. I look at her, a little stunned, the town I am in has a little more then twice the number of students I had in my high school. You could blindfold me and drive me to an unknown location in the town and I could still find my way home as it only has one main street.
I said, “I think I can manage”
Ba says, “but it will be dark!”
“I am aware of that Ba.”
“What if you get lost?”
“I can follow the train tracks home” (you think I am joking but I really could)
“What if you get hit by a train?”
“I’m pretty sure I will here it coming Ba.”
“do you have a sweater?”
“I’m wearing it Ba”
Etc…
She wouldn’t let me go until the teacher agreed to find someone to drive me home after the party. I had to show her that I had the address written down on a pad in my purse.
The rest of the evening goes well, I feed my internet addiction and got to know one of my new coworkers better and we head back to the school to celebrate. Now it is tradition in my village that the graduating students party until the early morning and then go to the lake to watch the sun rise. To keep it somewhat safe the school holds the party at the school itself to make sure things don’t get out of hand. So I could have been out very late indeed. It got to be around midnight and , exhausted from using Ukrainian all day I decide to call it a night. The teacher finds me a ride home (it was the cousin of the son of somebody’s teacher etc…) and I head down the hill to my host families apartment. I approach and I see two shady looking characters in long coats standing in the rain right outside the entry to my apartment stairwell. With all of my Peace Corps safety training in mind I think of my options. I think about waiting until they leave but decide that they don’t look any more threatening then staying in the dark in the rain next to the train tracks. I go in for a closer look to assess the situation. It turns out that it is Ba and she has enlisted some of the other grandmothers in the building to wait with her until I came home. They have all been standing in the rain, probably since it got dark, waiting for me to come home. Please remember that I could have stayed out until the next morning but decided not to. I am escorted by this small army of grandmothers to my host families flat and chattered at in Russian by these tiny wrinkled women with head scarves and slippers on about the rain, and the cold, and why aren’t I wearing two sweaters. I am promptly given hot tea and put to bed rather bemused and befuddled by the whole thing. If I had decided to walk home I bet she would have killed me. She didn’t bat an eyelash when my host sister returned how late the next afternoon. I still don’t know what to make of that.
I’m sorry if it seems like forever between each of my postings. I am finding it harder and harder to get access to the internet. I am now in my new site and have been for about 4 days. It is quite a strange experience walking around town and knowing that this is where I will be living for the next 2 years. Sometimes that thought is very exciting and sometimes it seems unbearable. Tomorrow I will be attending the graduation ceremony for all of the 11form students at my school. My host sister is among the graduates and she is just walking on clouds right now. She has been quite a big help in getting me used to the are. We have taken some walks together and she is making a point of introducing me to her friends. Yesterday evening I got stranded on a porch in the rain with her and two of her friends so I could begin the story like this. A Russian, a Ukrainian, a Jordanian, and an and American were having a cigeratte(I wasn’t smoking but many of the men here do)…It sounds like a bad joke but is was actually a very interesting conversation. Both of the young men we talked to knew enough English to be dangerous and knew Russian so using a mix of their Russian and English and my Ukrainian and English we were able to cover a variety of topics. I find it interesting that every person I meet asks me if America is better then their country. I always simply say, they are just very different which becomes more and more apparent the longer I stay here.
I have discovered, with no little fear, that almost everyone in my village speaks only Russian. My Babushka takes me out to sit with her and chat will all of the other babushka’s and many of them have never in their lives spoken Ukrainian so instead of me understanding 1 out of every 30 words it is one out of every 45. I think I have understood maybe 3 sentences that have come out of my Babushkas mouth, after that I have to rely on Charades. That being said, quite a few people get a real kick out of the fact that an American is learning Ukrainian. I am just going to really need to hit the books in order to know enough Ukrainian to understand their Russian. I think after several months I will start hitting the books for Russian as well. One thing at a time though. Speaking of time…I spoke with my coordinator today and she let me know that after graduation everything is finished, there are no more rest/summer camps and there are no summer classes so I am at loose ends. Her exact words were, “I get a rest so why don’t you”? I am going to get together with her twice a week to “learn Ukrainian” but I am not really sure what she means by that. I don’t think it involves a classroom setting because she told me to bring my swimsuit. It should be interesting. I will need to look up how to say “I’m drowning!” in Ukrainian. When I asked if there was anything I could help with during the summer she simply said that they expected me to settle in. The only problem is that I am terrified at the prospect of having nothing to do for the next 2 months. I am lonely and homesick now and at the moment don’t have any friends to “hang out with” although the dogs and cats in Ukraine are friendly. I am afraid that I will become that weird creepy American that is always moping about. On the up side, I got the grandma’s helping me find my own apartment and it looks like they may have already found one. These women can be a force to be reckoned with. Then I can be the weird creepy American moping about in her own apartment.
June 29th 2007,
Who needs German Shepard’s when you have Ukrainian Grandmothers?
In my new host family I have a Babycia who the entire family affectionately calls Ba. She is a wonderful women, she continuously tried to communicate with me even when I understood non of her rapid fire Russian (I learned Ukrainian). She constantly includes me in on everything that she does including cooking and working in her very large garden and she has made my transition into my new host family much smoother. She even helped me relocate the hamsters that I was sharing my room with when I confessed to her that they were keeping me up all night with their constant Russian squeeking. I love my Ba and my Ba loves me. In fact, she is caring to the point of being slightly ridiculous. Allow me to explain, I went for a walk to get to know my town and was gone about an hour. As I get back, Ba is just leaving to come looking for me, fearing that I had become lost. There are several other instances I could name but here is the best. I attended the graduation of my host sister Alina. Graduating from high school is one of the biggest events in a Ukrainians life, many of them never go to college so high school is a big deal. The girls dress in ball gowns the men in suits and there are singers and dancers. They put on a wonderful show. The graduation finally ends and one of the English teachers at the schools mentions that she has internet access if I would like to take advantage of it. You see, the kids were now going to Kharkiv to party and wouldn’t be back to my site until later to continue the party at the school until around 11:30 or so when the fireworks began (I told you it was a big deal). I turn to tell Ba that I will not be going home with her because I need to feed my pathetic internet addiction and I have found a local dealer. Concerned she takes this teacher aside and speaks rapidly to her for several moments. The teacher looks at me surprised and says, “she doesn’t think you can get home by yourself, do you know the way?”. I look at her, a little stunned, the town I am in has a little more then twice the number of students I had in my high school. You could blindfold me and drive me to an unknown location in the town and I could still find my way home as it only has one main street.
I said, “I think I can manage”
Ba says, “but it will be dark!”
“I am aware of that Ba.”
“What if you get lost?”
“I can follow the train tracks home” (you think I am joking but I really could)
“What if you get hit by a train?”
“I’m pretty sure I will here it coming Ba.”
“do you have a sweater?”
“I’m wearing it Ba”
Etc…
She wouldn’t let me go until the teacher agreed to find someone to drive me home after the party. I had to show her that I had the address written down on a pad in my purse.
The rest of the evening goes well, I feed my internet addiction and got to know one of my new coworkers better and we head back to the school to celebrate. Now it is tradition in my village that the graduating students party until the early morning and then go to the lake to watch the sun rise. To keep it somewhat safe the school holds the party at the school itself to make sure things don’t get out of hand. So I could have been out very late indeed. It got to be around midnight and , exhausted from using Ukrainian all day I decide to call it a night. The teacher finds me a ride home (it was the cousin of the son of somebody’s teacher etc…) and I head down the hill to my host families apartment. I approach and I see two shady looking characters in long coats standing in the rain right outside the entry to my apartment stairwell. With all of my Peace Corps safety training in mind I think of my options. I think about waiting until they leave but decide that they don’t look any more threatening then staying in the dark in the rain next to the train tracks. I go in for a closer look to assess the situation. It turns out that it is Ba and she has enlisted some of the other grandmothers in the building to wait with her until I came home. They have all been standing in the rain, probably since it got dark, waiting for me to come home. Please remember that I could have stayed out until the next morning but decided not to. I am escorted by this small army of grandmothers to my host families flat and chattered at in Russian by these tiny wrinkled women with head scarves and slippers on about the rain, and the cold, and why aren’t I wearing two sweaters. I am promptly given hot tea and put to bed rather bemused and befuddled by the whole thing. If I had decided to walk home I bet she would have killed me. She didn’t bat an eyelash when my host sister returned how late the next afternoon. I still don’t know what to make of that.
Summer Camp!
June 13, 2007
Sorry for the absence of blog postings lately. I have been keeping very busy with all of the projects designed to teach Peace Corps trainees what it means to be a volunteer. I also think these projects are designed to weed out the weak of heart and instill in trainees the massive importance of getting to know the language.
There are two parts to our training as Peace Corps Trainees. The first part is to design and implement a community project. The second was to plan and run a summer camp for students. This sounds easy but don’t be fooled. Ukraine does not work the same way America does and neither do Ukrainian students.
The Community Project. Our community project was a talent show that would use presentations by the local youth groups to do two things; create awareness of the youth community and its needs and to raise money for youth programs at the one and only school in my town. In order to do this we worked with the local after school clubs, the dance club, and poetry club. We also created an English Club and a Tae-Kwon-Do club. We took acts from all of these clubs to create our show so the dance club did some dances, the poetry club read some original poetry, the English club sang a song in English, and the TKD kids got to do a little demonstration. Also, the three other volunteers at this site and I got to sing a song in Ukrainian. I believe most people thought that this was the highlight of the concert not because it was good, oh no, but because it was probably the funniest thing they have seen since the end of the cold war. Allow me to explain. Here is where things stood the day before the concert. I had a practice for the TKD kids and 3 showed up (this is ater I had been gone for 2 weeks at my visit to my new site, so they hadn’t had a class in 3 weeks), half of the English club miraculously disappeared, and we had still not memorized the lines to our Ukrainian song let alone learned the tune. The night of the concert, I get there an hour early and I have 11 kids for the TKD demonstration of which only 3 learned the demo I had planned. 2 of the kids that showed up had only attended 1 TKD class, I did some serious tutoring and decided to demonstrate with the kids so the ones who didn’t know what to do could follow me. They had so much fun strutting their stuff that in the end it really didn’t matter if it was correct or not. Then we had the English club. We had chosen a very cute song called “Baby Shark” for the kids to sing because it has actions like “Lady swimming” where they pretend to swim, and “Shark Attack” where they get to jump about like wild monkeys and bring their hands together like shark jaws. Again, this performance was a success by virtue of the children’s outstanding cuteness and the fact the most of them did know this words to the song or if not the words, at least the gestures. Who does not love an 8 year old pretending to be a great white? Finally, the crowing achievement, the Americans attempting to sing in Ukrainian. They went all out for this one. Each one of us was given a traditional Ukrainian costume to wear (I wad redressed by 4 different women until I had it on right) and we got to sing with an accordion. I sang in Ukrainian, with an accordion, in front of a native speaking audience. I will never fear any kind for public performance after this, I simply can’t imagine anything more intimidating. To say that we weren’t the best would be something of an understatement but here is the really cool part. When all of us had completely lost the beat of the song and weren’t sure how to salvage this performance, the audience started to clap and sing along with us. We finished the song together, that was pretty cool. In the end we raised about 350 Hyrvinas for the school.
TEN THINGS I LEARNED FROM SUMMER CAMP IN UKRAINE
If you give Ukrainian students a lunch break they will never return. Teaching in
a prison would be easier because you at least know that they will be there.
9. Capture the flag, a game that Americans can play for hours, will be completed by Ukrainian children in less then 15 minutes. Why you ask, because someone will go turncoat and tell the other team where their flag is and may even go get it for them. I have no idea why.
8. When told to wear “sports attire” Ukrainian girls will wear skirts, high heels, and lots of make up but they will pull their hair back into a ponytail. I really don’t understand this.
7. If Ukrainian children decide that they don’t like the game you are trying to explain to them they simply will not do it. There is no arguing, they simply turn into statues and will not move until you agree to do something else.
6. Every Ukrainian teenager knows who Eminem and Britney Spears are and they will ask you if you have met them.
5. Dancing provocatively at a discotheque is fine for teenagers but they would rather die then learn how to swing dance.
4. Teenagers are like wolves, they can smell fear and they will eat you alive.
3. Younger children are like mimes, they will do everything they see you doing, and I mean EVERYTHING. And never think you are not being watched.
2. You will never be cool enough in a teenagers eyes so don’t even try, just teach.
1. Many Ukrainians have never heard American country music and it scares them, especially John Denver. Again, I have no idea why.
Sorry for the absence of blog postings lately. I have been keeping very busy with all of the projects designed to teach Peace Corps trainees what it means to be a volunteer. I also think these projects are designed to weed out the weak of heart and instill in trainees the massive importance of getting to know the language.
There are two parts to our training as Peace Corps Trainees. The first part is to design and implement a community project. The second was to plan and run a summer camp for students. This sounds easy but don’t be fooled. Ukraine does not work the same way America does and neither do Ukrainian students.
The Community Project. Our community project was a talent show that would use presentations by the local youth groups to do two things; create awareness of the youth community and its needs and to raise money for youth programs at the one and only school in my town. In order to do this we worked with the local after school clubs, the dance club, and poetry club. We also created an English Club and a Tae-Kwon-Do club. We took acts from all of these clubs to create our show so the dance club did some dances, the poetry club read some original poetry, the English club sang a song in English, and the TKD kids got to do a little demonstration. Also, the three other volunteers at this site and I got to sing a song in Ukrainian. I believe most people thought that this was the highlight of the concert not because it was good, oh no, but because it was probably the funniest thing they have seen since the end of the cold war. Allow me to explain. Here is where things stood the day before the concert. I had a practice for the TKD kids and 3 showed up (this is ater I had been gone for 2 weeks at my visit to my new site, so they hadn’t had a class in 3 weeks), half of the English club miraculously disappeared, and we had still not memorized the lines to our Ukrainian song let alone learned the tune. The night of the concert, I get there an hour early and I have 11 kids for the TKD demonstration of which only 3 learned the demo I had planned. 2 of the kids that showed up had only attended 1 TKD class, I did some serious tutoring and decided to demonstrate with the kids so the ones who didn’t know what to do could follow me. They had so much fun strutting their stuff that in the end it really didn’t matter if it was correct or not. Then we had the English club. We had chosen a very cute song called “Baby Shark” for the kids to sing because it has actions like “Lady swimming” where they pretend to swim, and “Shark Attack” where they get to jump about like wild monkeys and bring their hands together like shark jaws. Again, this performance was a success by virtue of the children’s outstanding cuteness and the fact the most of them did know this words to the song or if not the words, at least the gestures. Who does not love an 8 year old pretending to be a great white? Finally, the crowing achievement, the Americans attempting to sing in Ukrainian. They went all out for this one. Each one of us was given a traditional Ukrainian costume to wear (I wad redressed by 4 different women until I had it on right) and we got to sing with an accordion. I sang in Ukrainian, with an accordion, in front of a native speaking audience. I will never fear any kind for public performance after this, I simply can’t imagine anything more intimidating. To say that we weren’t the best would be something of an understatement but here is the really cool part. When all of us had completely lost the beat of the song and weren’t sure how to salvage this performance, the audience started to clap and sing along with us. We finished the song together, that was pretty cool. In the end we raised about 350 Hyrvinas for the school.
TEN THINGS I LEARNED FROM SUMMER CAMP IN UKRAINE
If you give Ukrainian students a lunch break they will never return. Teaching in
a prison would be easier because you at least know that they will be there.
9. Capture the flag, a game that Americans can play for hours, will be completed by Ukrainian children in less then 15 minutes. Why you ask, because someone will go turncoat and tell the other team where their flag is and may even go get it for them. I have no idea why.
8. When told to wear “sports attire” Ukrainian girls will wear skirts, high heels, and lots of make up but they will pull their hair back into a ponytail. I really don’t understand this.
7. If Ukrainian children decide that they don’t like the game you are trying to explain to them they simply will not do it. There is no arguing, they simply turn into statues and will not move until you agree to do something else.
6. Every Ukrainian teenager knows who Eminem and Britney Spears are and they will ask you if you have met them.
5. Dancing provocatively at a discotheque is fine for teenagers but they would rather die then learn how to swing dance.
4. Teenagers are like wolves, they can smell fear and they will eat you alive.
3. Younger children are like mimes, they will do everything they see you doing, and I mean EVERYTHING. And never think you are not being watched.
2. You will never be cool enough in a teenagers eyes so don’t even try, just teach.
1. Many Ukrainians have never heard American country music and it scares them, especially John Denver. Again, I have no idea why.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Here is a picture of me with my new coordinator, Tanya. We are at a large monument in Harkiv and the statue behind us represents the mother of all of the soldiers that have faught in past wars. You can actually hear her heartbeat. The park has patriotic music playing everywhere and the "mothers" constant heartbeat to remind you of the sacrifices of all of the men/women who have died fighting in conflicts.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Swimming with the fishes and running with the bulls
March 7th 2007
Showers in Ukraine are a little different. Let us think about the word shower shall we?
S H O W E R, it seems like a good word. Not to short, not to long, not one of those weird exceptions in English spelling. All in all, not a bad word. But lets look a little deeper…this word could mean so many things. You shower people with gifts and affection. There are April showers which lead to May flowers. Bridal showers which lead to marriage etc…As well as the quick shower and the well known and loved long hot shower. Now let us look at the word “Ukrainian showers”. This word also has many meanings like relaxation after an 8 hour train ride or comfort after a really tough 8th form class where the kids looked at you like you had grown a second head when you tried to explain that “yes, nicotine IS addictive, and smoking can kill you”. However, a Ukrainian shower may also mean torture, fear, and possibly death for inexperienced Americans like myself.
First of all, lets realize that no where in the word shower does it imply that the human body should be vertical. Shower just refers to the action of the water not the position of the recipient. So in Ukrainian showers you have to sit down. Why, you ask? Well for one, the shower head is mounted around 1 to 2 feet above the edge of the tub, if it is mounted at all. Sometimes it just hangs from the faucet like a hibernating snake ready to spring to life at water pressure and smack the unsuspecting naked recipient in the back of the head. More on that later. Ukrainian bathrooms tend to be small. Ukrainian architecture is simple and compact. I can brush my teeth in the sink and shave my leg in the tub at the same time. What little space there is in the bathroom is taken up by an enormous bathtub. The tub itself is not so much wide as it is very deep. I am not sure why this is but people here, including me, wash all of their laundry in said bathtub so deep is a good thing. However, besides being deep, the bathtub is also raised up several inches from the floor so the edge of the tub is around mid thigh on most normal people. That is pretty high up, and it makes it harder to escape the bathtub in times of duress and the resulting fall particularly painful.
In order to take a shower you must first manage to understand a kolonka. If you are fortunate enough to have hot water in your house (and currently I am) but many people are not, you must light the kolonka in order to heat the water. Now, the kolonka is not on all of the time, you only light it when you need hot water and the water must be running before you light it. If the water is not running, and I mean the hot water tap, not the cold water tap sine they are covered by two separate pipes, then whatever water is in the un-flowing hot water pipe will boil, evaporate, and then make the kolonka explode. That will always add a little spice to your day. Even with it is working correctly it makes many ominous noises which I imagine are similar to what Darth Vadar must sound like when he is snoring. I learned about our kolonka on my first day in Ukraine and have only had one near death experience so far. Not too bad considering.
So here is the processes, you turn on the hot water (it is freezing cold at this point) you skitter into the kitchen where the kolonka lies in wait and you light a match, turn on the gas and light the kolonka. Making sure to light it right away because waiting to long with the gas running and then applying fire will also result in various fireworks. In that case you will need medical attention and not a shower. You skitter back into the bathroom, put your cloths into a place where you hope they will stay dry, and lever yourself over the very high edge of the tub. Now you wait for the ice cold water to warm up. At this point you adapt what I like to call the “readiness crouch”. This is necessary because the kolonka likes to mess with you. Sometimes the water will be a perfect temperature for your entire shower, sometimes it will not. Most of the time the water will fluctuate from being to hot to being okay to being too cold to okay and back again. If you are in an appropriate crouch (please remember that you cannot stand in a Ukrainian shower, there is no curtain and the shower head reaches your hip if you stand up) and can move quickly you can get wet before the water becomes too hot, get out of the way to soap up, and dash back in to rinse off before you miss a temperate cycle.
I knew none this on my first night with my host family. I had met my new family, eaten far too much excellent but rather foreign Ukrainian food, gotten settled into my room, and was looking forward to a nice relaxing shower. I was aware of the sitting in the tub thing but was prepared to tackle it. I managed to light the kolonka without a problem and vault into the tub. The water was a perfect temperature so I sat down (notice the sitting part) and turned the water to the shower. I didn’t realize that unsecured shower heads can act amazingly like giant Amazonian boa constrictors when they are not secured and water pressure is introduced. The docile looking shower head springs to life and manages to spray enough water to fill a full sized Olympic swimming pool into the tiny bathroom and clock me upside the head before I wrestle it into submission. I have managed to completely soak my clothes, my pajamas and the towel I was intending to dry myself off with. I lock the shower head in place, check the bump on my head where the shower head bit me and made liberal with the shampoo. So I have soap in my hair, on my face, and on my hands when the water suddenly turns freezing cold. Startled, I try to push myself out of the way but my hands are soapy that I only succeed in slipping and banging my head against the soap tray. I manage to back away to the safe end of the tub and stand up to avoid the hot water. Since I have soap on my face I haven’t really opened my eyes and I failed to notice that there is laundry hanging from the lines above the tubs. Did I mention that we do laundry in the bathtub and either hang it on the porch or over the bathtub to drip dry? Either way, I stand up and promptly get caught in my host sister’s hot pink bra. I try to disentangle myself without getting soap all over this laboriously cleaned laundry or into my eyes and only succeed in firmly tying my right hand to my head and looking vaguely like I am wearing a football helmet made of pink lace. The water has returned to a normal temperature and I realize that I must remove some of the soap on my free hand so I can untie myself from the Chinese torture device I have created. So I unclip myself from the cloths line, get rinsed off and release myself from my host sisters double D’s. I rinse the soap off of the bra and re-hang it believing that disaster has been averted.
Next, I tried to shave my legs…
I sat down again (how could I have been so stupid!) and pulled out my safety razor. Had I been using anything other then a safety razor I surly would have died from blood loss after this next ordeal. I have made some good progress when the water turns scalding hot. Knowing that standing up in not a very good idea, I attempt to head to the other end of the tub. Unfortunately, my legs are all slippery and I can’t manage to get to the higher end of the tub without one limb or another sliding onto the scalding water. I can’t get my feet under me either and I with lightning decisiveness I decide that this is a matter of life and death and if I don’t want to do my red lobster impression I need to escape. So in a Herculean effort, I pull myself over the edge of the tub.
Did I mention how high Ukrainian bathtubs are?
I fall for what feels like 15 or 20 feet but in reality is 2.5 or so and land on my sopping wet clothes, towel, and pajamas. Miraculously, I am unhurt so I lay there in the 1 inch of standing water I have created, soapy, naked and thanking my lucky stars that I am still alive. Then I hear it, the approaching footsteps. I had let out a blood curdling shriek when I had gone over the edge of the bathtub. My host family was coming. They must have heard the yell and the wet splash and thought I had either slipped in the tub or had turned into a mermaid. They probably didn’t know about the standing water on their bathroom floor and I suddenly as the strong desire for them not to have this particular image as one of their first impressions of me. I scramble to my feet and try and use the 2 inches of dry part on my towel to mop up my own personal swimming pool. Needless to say, that was not super successful. My host dad (of course it’s the dad) knocks on the door and says something very fast in Ukrainian. I take a guess that it is something along the lines of, “are you okay, it sounds like a naval battle in there?” and I squeak back “Ya Dobra, Ya dobra!” (I’m good! I’m Good!). He hesitates, probably seeing the water leaking into the hallway, but then heads back down the hall.
I look at the shower, I still need to rinse off but now realize that I am dealing with an entity that has proven itself to me smarter then me. I promise to sacrifice a chicken to it and I climb back in. The shower is again at a normal temperature and I rinse off, remembering to stay on the balls of my feet in a flight position. That leg will have to remain half shaved. Then I wring out my towel and pajamas, dry off (or at least become less wet) and get dressed. Then I use my towel to mop up the floor and do as much as possible to erase the damage that I have caused. All in all it takes me about an hour to take a shower that takes the average Ukrainian 5 minutes to complete. But I did learn the valuable lesson of the shower crouch. This is the very necessary position that you can use to propel yourself to safety when the kolonka decides to have a mood swing. Hello Ukraine!
May 7th,
I ate an entire fish today. I mean the WHOLE fish. My host mom has just come back from a trip to the Azur Sea and as we are sitting down for dinner she asks me if I like Sushi. Surprised, I said “yes, I love sushi” knowing that eating fresh fish in Ukraine is not really possible unless you caught it yourself or that it is a mutant fish from Chernobyl that walked itself to market. At my response my host mom heads onto the balcony and comes back with a string of whole dried fish. Basically, they take the whole fish, string a line through its jaw and let the suckers day. I am so surprised that this “sushi” that I don’t even blink when my host mom rips one of the fish off of the line and puts it into my hand. I look at it, it looks at me. It looks like it is smiling and promptly name it Flipper. This is why I never eat anything with a face. Then I watch in horror as my host mom takes her own fish and effortlessly rips its little head off. Then, holding it by the tail she peels its skin off, fins and all, like it is a banana. She then eats the thing down to its tail. I am sitting there, holding Flipper, and staring at her in horror. When my host mom notices that I haven’t laid into my fish, she must have assumed that I couldn’t get Flippers little head off. So she reached over, takes Flipper, twists his head off and puts that in my left hand. She then places the rest of him in my right hand. I look at Flippers little face, then I look at his body. This is where I had to make the conscious decision not to flip out. I thought to myself, “you joined Peace Corps to try new things, broaden your horizons, and learn about new cultures. Don’t knock it until you try it.” So…I peeled Flipper. He wasn’t half bad, I mean not something I would go out and buy myself but not horrible either. That was until I pulled a piece of fish meat off and all of (what I thought were) Flippers little internal organs fell onto the table. This was where I lost my cool, I threw Flippers head in one direction and his tail in the other and had to leave the room. My host mom was laughing so hard she probably had a fin come out of her nose. In reality, what fell out of my fish was seasoning but I only discovered that later after I had calmed down. I have been consoling myself in that fact that at least I tried it…
May 9th
It’s not running with the bulls in Pamplona but it’s close. Today, I got to meander with the cows. Jamie (another volunteer) and I were on our daily walk. I can’t jog in our town because there are a lot of dogs and they are hardwired so that anything that runs must be chased. I didn’t really enjoy that added addition to my runs, although I make great time, so instead we take walks. We were walking the other day and as we rounded a corner we merged with an entire herd of heifers. Every day, the people in our village take their cows out to graze on the communal lands outside of the town. The townspeople take turns watching the cows, my host mom who is a nurse, has already taken her turn. Each evening the two people who are cow watching, herd the cows back into town. Now once inside the town limits each cow becomes its own little homing device. The people are waiting outside their gates just like they wait for their children and as their cow comes home they simply open their gate and the cows walk in. The cows know which gate is theirs and they know how to get there. Jamie and I followed one cow around 7 different turns before it got to its gate and it never hesitated. We got to be one of the “herd” and I realized that this is as close to a cow as I have ever been. For the first time ever there were no fences it I realized that cows can be a little scary. They are awfully big up close but apparently all of our village’s cows are friendly. Some more then others. We got chased by one really friendly calf who thought we looked like its mother and we were bumped off of the road by a cow that had a serious drooling problem. I know it wasn’t rabies but one must give a large berth to a copiously salivating 2 ton animal. It made me think of the phrase, “until the cows come home”. I realized that not only do the cows come home in my village but they know the way.
May 11, 2007
So I taught my last class at my training site yesterday. It was actually a pretty good teaching day. We had a translator in class and we were going over what rights people had. The students got the chance to ask us about our rights in the US and they seemed to really enjoy finding out how things really work in America. For example, some of them didn’t know that we had to pay for our own higher education. It was a good chance for me to learn about what students think in Ukraine and a chance for them to learn about us. It was amazing how different some of the student’s opinions were. One boy thought things were getting better while another girl swore it was harder to survive in Ukraine. I can’t wait until I can understand the language better. It has been a real challenge teaching with my limited language skills but I think I am getting the hang of it. I am killer at charades now. Who else do you know that can mime “constitution”? The students at English club loved seeing all of the pictures I brought in of my family. It was funny how they paid so much more attention to the pictures of my cat then anyone else. I guess they think she is adorable as I do. My Tae Kwon Do students gave me flowers at class because they know I am leaving for my site visit soon. It was such a sweet gesture. I got lots of warm fuzzies.
Showers in Ukraine are a little different. Let us think about the word shower shall we?
S H O W E R, it seems like a good word. Not to short, not to long, not one of those weird exceptions in English spelling. All in all, not a bad word. But lets look a little deeper…this word could mean so many things. You shower people with gifts and affection. There are April showers which lead to May flowers. Bridal showers which lead to marriage etc…As well as the quick shower and the well known and loved long hot shower. Now let us look at the word “Ukrainian showers”. This word also has many meanings like relaxation after an 8 hour train ride or comfort after a really tough 8th form class where the kids looked at you like you had grown a second head when you tried to explain that “yes, nicotine IS addictive, and smoking can kill you”. However, a Ukrainian shower may also mean torture, fear, and possibly death for inexperienced Americans like myself.
First of all, lets realize that no where in the word shower does it imply that the human body should be vertical. Shower just refers to the action of the water not the position of the recipient. So in Ukrainian showers you have to sit down. Why, you ask? Well for one, the shower head is mounted around 1 to 2 feet above the edge of the tub, if it is mounted at all. Sometimes it just hangs from the faucet like a hibernating snake ready to spring to life at water pressure and smack the unsuspecting naked recipient in the back of the head. More on that later. Ukrainian bathrooms tend to be small. Ukrainian architecture is simple and compact. I can brush my teeth in the sink and shave my leg in the tub at the same time. What little space there is in the bathroom is taken up by an enormous bathtub. The tub itself is not so much wide as it is very deep. I am not sure why this is but people here, including me, wash all of their laundry in said bathtub so deep is a good thing. However, besides being deep, the bathtub is also raised up several inches from the floor so the edge of the tub is around mid thigh on most normal people. That is pretty high up, and it makes it harder to escape the bathtub in times of duress and the resulting fall particularly painful.
In order to take a shower you must first manage to understand a kolonka. If you are fortunate enough to have hot water in your house (and currently I am) but many people are not, you must light the kolonka in order to heat the water. Now, the kolonka is not on all of the time, you only light it when you need hot water and the water must be running before you light it. If the water is not running, and I mean the hot water tap, not the cold water tap sine they are covered by two separate pipes, then whatever water is in the un-flowing hot water pipe will boil, evaporate, and then make the kolonka explode. That will always add a little spice to your day. Even with it is working correctly it makes many ominous noises which I imagine are similar to what Darth Vadar must sound like when he is snoring. I learned about our kolonka on my first day in Ukraine and have only had one near death experience so far. Not too bad considering.
So here is the processes, you turn on the hot water (it is freezing cold at this point) you skitter into the kitchen where the kolonka lies in wait and you light a match, turn on the gas and light the kolonka. Making sure to light it right away because waiting to long with the gas running and then applying fire will also result in various fireworks. In that case you will need medical attention and not a shower. You skitter back into the bathroom, put your cloths into a place where you hope they will stay dry, and lever yourself over the very high edge of the tub. Now you wait for the ice cold water to warm up. At this point you adapt what I like to call the “readiness crouch”. This is necessary because the kolonka likes to mess with you. Sometimes the water will be a perfect temperature for your entire shower, sometimes it will not. Most of the time the water will fluctuate from being to hot to being okay to being too cold to okay and back again. If you are in an appropriate crouch (please remember that you cannot stand in a Ukrainian shower, there is no curtain and the shower head reaches your hip if you stand up) and can move quickly you can get wet before the water becomes too hot, get out of the way to soap up, and dash back in to rinse off before you miss a temperate cycle.
I knew none this on my first night with my host family. I had met my new family, eaten far too much excellent but rather foreign Ukrainian food, gotten settled into my room, and was looking forward to a nice relaxing shower. I was aware of the sitting in the tub thing but was prepared to tackle it. I managed to light the kolonka without a problem and vault into the tub. The water was a perfect temperature so I sat down (notice the sitting part) and turned the water to the shower. I didn’t realize that unsecured shower heads can act amazingly like giant Amazonian boa constrictors when they are not secured and water pressure is introduced. The docile looking shower head springs to life and manages to spray enough water to fill a full sized Olympic swimming pool into the tiny bathroom and clock me upside the head before I wrestle it into submission. I have managed to completely soak my clothes, my pajamas and the towel I was intending to dry myself off with. I lock the shower head in place, check the bump on my head where the shower head bit me and made liberal with the shampoo. So I have soap in my hair, on my face, and on my hands when the water suddenly turns freezing cold. Startled, I try to push myself out of the way but my hands are soapy that I only succeed in slipping and banging my head against the soap tray. I manage to back away to the safe end of the tub and stand up to avoid the hot water. Since I have soap on my face I haven’t really opened my eyes and I failed to notice that there is laundry hanging from the lines above the tubs. Did I mention that we do laundry in the bathtub and either hang it on the porch or over the bathtub to drip dry? Either way, I stand up and promptly get caught in my host sister’s hot pink bra. I try to disentangle myself without getting soap all over this laboriously cleaned laundry or into my eyes and only succeed in firmly tying my right hand to my head and looking vaguely like I am wearing a football helmet made of pink lace. The water has returned to a normal temperature and I realize that I must remove some of the soap on my free hand so I can untie myself from the Chinese torture device I have created. So I unclip myself from the cloths line, get rinsed off and release myself from my host sisters double D’s. I rinse the soap off of the bra and re-hang it believing that disaster has been averted.
Next, I tried to shave my legs…
I sat down again (how could I have been so stupid!) and pulled out my safety razor. Had I been using anything other then a safety razor I surly would have died from blood loss after this next ordeal. I have made some good progress when the water turns scalding hot. Knowing that standing up in not a very good idea, I attempt to head to the other end of the tub. Unfortunately, my legs are all slippery and I can’t manage to get to the higher end of the tub without one limb or another sliding onto the scalding water. I can’t get my feet under me either and I with lightning decisiveness I decide that this is a matter of life and death and if I don’t want to do my red lobster impression I need to escape. So in a Herculean effort, I pull myself over the edge of the tub.
Did I mention how high Ukrainian bathtubs are?
I fall for what feels like 15 or 20 feet but in reality is 2.5 or so and land on my sopping wet clothes, towel, and pajamas. Miraculously, I am unhurt so I lay there in the 1 inch of standing water I have created, soapy, naked and thanking my lucky stars that I am still alive. Then I hear it, the approaching footsteps. I had let out a blood curdling shriek when I had gone over the edge of the bathtub. My host family was coming. They must have heard the yell and the wet splash and thought I had either slipped in the tub or had turned into a mermaid. They probably didn’t know about the standing water on their bathroom floor and I suddenly as the strong desire for them not to have this particular image as one of their first impressions of me. I scramble to my feet and try and use the 2 inches of dry part on my towel to mop up my own personal swimming pool. Needless to say, that was not super successful. My host dad (of course it’s the dad) knocks on the door and says something very fast in Ukrainian. I take a guess that it is something along the lines of, “are you okay, it sounds like a naval battle in there?” and I squeak back “Ya Dobra, Ya dobra!” (I’m good! I’m Good!). He hesitates, probably seeing the water leaking into the hallway, but then heads back down the hall.
I look at the shower, I still need to rinse off but now realize that I am dealing with an entity that has proven itself to me smarter then me. I promise to sacrifice a chicken to it and I climb back in. The shower is again at a normal temperature and I rinse off, remembering to stay on the balls of my feet in a flight position. That leg will have to remain half shaved. Then I wring out my towel and pajamas, dry off (or at least become less wet) and get dressed. Then I use my towel to mop up the floor and do as much as possible to erase the damage that I have caused. All in all it takes me about an hour to take a shower that takes the average Ukrainian 5 minutes to complete. But I did learn the valuable lesson of the shower crouch. This is the very necessary position that you can use to propel yourself to safety when the kolonka decides to have a mood swing. Hello Ukraine!
May 7th,
I ate an entire fish today. I mean the WHOLE fish. My host mom has just come back from a trip to the Azur Sea and as we are sitting down for dinner she asks me if I like Sushi. Surprised, I said “yes, I love sushi” knowing that eating fresh fish in Ukraine is not really possible unless you caught it yourself or that it is a mutant fish from Chernobyl that walked itself to market. At my response my host mom heads onto the balcony and comes back with a string of whole dried fish. Basically, they take the whole fish, string a line through its jaw and let the suckers day. I am so surprised that this “sushi” that I don’t even blink when my host mom rips one of the fish off of the line and puts it into my hand. I look at it, it looks at me. It looks like it is smiling and promptly name it Flipper. This is why I never eat anything with a face. Then I watch in horror as my host mom takes her own fish and effortlessly rips its little head off. Then, holding it by the tail she peels its skin off, fins and all, like it is a banana. She then eats the thing down to its tail. I am sitting there, holding Flipper, and staring at her in horror. When my host mom notices that I haven’t laid into my fish, she must have assumed that I couldn’t get Flippers little head off. So she reached over, takes Flipper, twists his head off and puts that in my left hand. She then places the rest of him in my right hand. I look at Flippers little face, then I look at his body. This is where I had to make the conscious decision not to flip out. I thought to myself, “you joined Peace Corps to try new things, broaden your horizons, and learn about new cultures. Don’t knock it until you try it.” So…I peeled Flipper. He wasn’t half bad, I mean not something I would go out and buy myself but not horrible either. That was until I pulled a piece of fish meat off and all of (what I thought were) Flippers little internal organs fell onto the table. This was where I lost my cool, I threw Flippers head in one direction and his tail in the other and had to leave the room. My host mom was laughing so hard she probably had a fin come out of her nose. In reality, what fell out of my fish was seasoning but I only discovered that later after I had calmed down. I have been consoling myself in that fact that at least I tried it…
May 9th
It’s not running with the bulls in Pamplona but it’s close. Today, I got to meander with the cows. Jamie (another volunteer) and I were on our daily walk. I can’t jog in our town because there are a lot of dogs and they are hardwired so that anything that runs must be chased. I didn’t really enjoy that added addition to my runs, although I make great time, so instead we take walks. We were walking the other day and as we rounded a corner we merged with an entire herd of heifers. Every day, the people in our village take their cows out to graze on the communal lands outside of the town. The townspeople take turns watching the cows, my host mom who is a nurse, has already taken her turn. Each evening the two people who are cow watching, herd the cows back into town. Now once inside the town limits each cow becomes its own little homing device. The people are waiting outside their gates just like they wait for their children and as their cow comes home they simply open their gate and the cows walk in. The cows know which gate is theirs and they know how to get there. Jamie and I followed one cow around 7 different turns before it got to its gate and it never hesitated. We got to be one of the “herd” and I realized that this is as close to a cow as I have ever been. For the first time ever there were no fences it I realized that cows can be a little scary. They are awfully big up close but apparently all of our village’s cows are friendly. Some more then others. We got chased by one really friendly calf who thought we looked like its mother and we were bumped off of the road by a cow that had a serious drooling problem. I know it wasn’t rabies but one must give a large berth to a copiously salivating 2 ton animal. It made me think of the phrase, “until the cows come home”. I realized that not only do the cows come home in my village but they know the way.
May 11, 2007
So I taught my last class at my training site yesterday. It was actually a pretty good teaching day. We had a translator in class and we were going over what rights people had. The students got the chance to ask us about our rights in the US and they seemed to really enjoy finding out how things really work in America. For example, some of them didn’t know that we had to pay for our own higher education. It was a good chance for me to learn about what students think in Ukraine and a chance for them to learn about us. It was amazing how different some of the student’s opinions were. One boy thought things were getting better while another girl swore it was harder to survive in Ukraine. I can’t wait until I can understand the language better. It has been a real challenge teaching with my limited language skills but I think I am getting the hang of it. I am killer at charades now. Who else do you know that can mime “constitution”? The students at English club loved seeing all of the pictures I brought in of my family. It was funny how they paid so much more attention to the pictures of my cat then anyone else. I guess they think she is adorable as I do. My Tae Kwon Do students gave me flowers at class because they know I am leaving for my site visit soon. It was such a sweet gesture. I got lots of warm fuzzies.
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