The never ending search for the water guy…
In my apartment you cannot drink the tap water. Well, you can drink the water but I STRONGLY encourage you not to. My building is fairly old, dating back somewhere between when Caesar ruled and Jesus was born, give or take a few years. The plumbing in my building, to my knowledge, has never been replaced although I cannot seem to locate where they are hiding the aqueducts. However, I am always hearing gurgling and bubbling from mysterious locations so I am sure that must be them. I believe they come complete with roman slaves that were never told about the fall of Rome.
When you turn on the faucet in my apartment at first nothing happens. Then you hear moaning and clanking and distant gurgling sounds. I assume this is the roman slaves in the basement moaning and commencing to haul buckets of water from the aqueduct to wherever it needs to be put to come out of my faucet. If I listen hard enough I can hear the ocean. Ten or so minutes later, after increased rattling and groaning of pipes (or slaves) rust red water begins to spit from my faucet. The first time I saw this I screamed like a little girl because I thought I had entered a horror movie and the faucets were pouring blood. My neighbor assured me that if you let the water run for a few minutes it will pale to an only slightly tinted red color. That way when you use it to wash your clothes they only turn pink instead of a lovely shade of burnt umber. Good to know. Either way I now realize why people would rather drink vodka then tap water. Vodka is better for you. On special days when the roman captives are on vacation, the water doesn’t run at all. I have learned to plan ahead for this and keep large bottles of faintly red water in my kitchen for washing purposed on roman holidays.
This being said, I must buy bottled water for all of my drinking and cooking needs. You can buy water in Ukraine in 5 liter jugs that cost around 6 hryven (roughly $1.07). That may not seem a lot to you but to a stingy little Peace Corps volunteer I feel like I am paying for Perrier water to boil noodles. However, there is an alternative. Once you have emptied a 5 liter jug of its Perrier water there is a guy that comes around to our apartment complex every Saturday with a big water truck full of deliciously drinkable and much cheaper water (like 1 hryven per 5 liters or 17 or so cents). You find him and he will fill your empty water jugs. How do I know this? I have seen people leave my apartment with empty water jugs and return with the same full water jugs. Other PC volunteers have mentioned that the same thing happens in their communities. My only problem was that I could never find this guy. He is like a Ukrainian Carmen Sandiego.
The first time I tried to find him I followed an old Babucia who was carrying some empty 2 liter Fanta bottles. I figured she just couldn’t carry 5 liters so she opted for 2. She led me straight to, get this, the milk truck. Not your normal American milk truck with the guy in the white outfit and bottles of milk. This looked like a mini gas tanker with a hose fixed to the back and had MOЛОКО (milk) spray painted on the side. You hand the tough looking babucia at the back some money and she will use the hose to fill up whatever containers you brought with you with fresh Ukrainian milk. I am saying fresh with ridiculous optimism here but one can hope. Not having a fridge I decided that I didn’t want to buy two 5 liter jugs of milk and risk receiving some “full jugs” jokes. Although, the humor may not translate into Ukrainian.
On my next attempt I decided to follow an old grandpaw who was carrying 5 liter jugs. I hoped that he still had enough teeth that he was going to use those jugs for water and not milk so I began to tail him. If you know anything about Ukrainians you should know that they take their time getting places on Saturday morning. Especially the retired folks because this is like their Friday and Saturday night. They need to stop and talk to every other old person that is outside on that day, and they are all outside because they wouldn’t want to miss the party. It’s like they are trying to hide their tracks and one of the main reasons I was never able just watch were they went to find the water guy. In Ukraine, the shortest distance between two points is too your neighbors, around the block, stopping next door, popping into the store, and chatting with 8 people on your way to these various places. Not a straight line.
The first couple of times grandpaw stopped I just walked by him like I was on my way to some other place or on an errand. While he chatted up the Babucia in building 10K I pretended to look at fruit and had to buy some expensive peaches to make up for all of the poorly worded insipid question I asked the shopkeeper just to look like I belonged there. He meandered down the street with his jugs and I pretended to play with the million half feral cats that prowled the streets. I stopped that when they started ganging up on me and I remembered that none of these cute but armed and dangerous fuzzies had ever had a shot in their entire 9 lives. He stopped again to chat up babucia #2, this one with bigger jugs then him but hers’ weren’t in her hands if you know what I mean. I pretended to be waiting for someone, glancing at my watch until I realized that I wasn’t wearing one. I hoped he was nearsighted.
By this time, grandpaw has noticed my attentions and he was starting to look decidedly nervous. I can imagine what was going through his mind when he realized he was being stalked by the American in the building. This man lived through the cold war. I look and am harmless but for all he knows I am a trained killer. He begins to double back moving surprisingly quickly for a man stopped at a 90 degree angle and I am forced to dart behind shrubbery to hide myself. I realize that I am going to give this old man a heart attack or a complex or both so I give up that chase and he disappears around a corner. I didn’t find the water guy and now everyone who has witnessed my little prowl around the apartment complex keeps looking at me like they are checking for weapons.
I returned home from a trip to Kyiv recently and needed to stock up on supplies. I headed to the Milk Kiosk, yes they have a store just for milk and it is the only place I can buy servings of cheese for one person so I love it. I discover the Kiosk is closed and as I round the corner I run smack dab into a teenager dressed entirely in army fatigues. Being the hardened American I am I don’t yell but let out a much more dignified and Ukrainian “oi!”. We both apologize to each other and he disappears. I mean, literally disappears. One minute he is there, the next he is gone, so I look closer. Yes, I know horror movies start out this way but it was a Saturday morning so I figured how dangerous could it be? There, parked in a little clump of shrubbery is a giant green truck that has a camouflage covered flat bed. Under that camouflage is a giant water tank. It was the water guy!!! I heard angles singing and skipped off to get my depleted water jugs. Good things come to those who wait and who don’t watch where they are going when they are leaving the milk kiosk.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Sunday, September 9, 2007
The Blue Days of Ukraine
It is a given to most people in Ukraine that you have to wash clothes by hand here. I remember grousing about having to buy nice clothes in America that were hand wash only and now I look back at myself and Laaaaaaugh. I am actually getting the hang of hand washing. After a couple of disastrous attempts that resulted in mixing colors or having soap stiff clothes I was beginning to feel like this might be a skill that I could master in the conceivable future. I learned that you don’t wring out sweaters or the arms will hang past your knees with it dries. You need to rinse jeans twice or it’s like wearing sandpaper and you have to be very patient when washing socks even though it is totally gross. Not to long ago I decided that I needed to wash my sheets. Now, I have new sheets in my apartment and being a typical 20 something, I just took them straight out of the package and put them on my bed. It was fine, I didn’t break out into spots or anything. But the weather here is getting colder and I decided that I should probably wash them before it got to rainy or cold because I only have one set of sheets. The more days it takes for them to dry the more time I spend sleeping in my sleeping bag. Winter will be a different story. I haven’t yet figured out how to freeze dry my clothes. Apparently in winter you hang stuff out to dry, let it freeze and then just break the ice off. Voila, freeze dried clothes. I am not sure if the person telling me this was kidding or not. Either way…
So I get up bright and early one morning and take the entire sheet set including pillowcases and toss them into my handy washing tub. I love this tub, it is probably the most useful thing I own. I was laundry in it, I take baths using it etc… The tub and I are friends. I have mixed the hot water from the kettle with the detergent and I figure I will let everything soak while I make breakfast. Satisfactorily fed, I head into the bathroom to commence with the washing. Now, I have placed the tub in my giant iron bathtub so that if there is any spillage etc…it’s not a problem and I then have access to cold water to rinse. Lots of splashing does tend to occur. Now my bathtub is raised up on some cinder blocks, I don’t know why, but that puts that edge of the bathtub at my mid thigh. I do the usual swish everything around rub it together etc…splashing water everywhere of course. On the walls and mostly on me. It is then time to wring everything out so I can rinse it. I lean into the bath tub and grab what I think is a pillow case and pull. It’s not a pillow case. It’s the heavy comforter cover. My feet, clad in slippers on the smooth bathroom tile that is now liberally covered in soapy water have no real grip and, being off balance, they flip up and I fall face first into my trusty tub with my bedding. Now I am not really hurt, just a little surprised as I spit out soapy suds and get water out of my eyes. It is then that I notice that my hand is a somewhat alarming shade of blue. Intrigued, I look at my other hand, well what do you know, it’s blue too. My fingernails are almost sapphire. Interesting. I look into the tub, the water isn’t dirty like I thought, it’s blue from the dye in my dark blue sheets. And now I am blue from the dye in my dark blue sheets. I run my hands under the tap and realize that the blue does not just wash off, in fact it doesn’t even get lighter. Then I look in the mirror. My face was submerged only for a second so it’s not as bad as my hands but is it a distinct shade of, you guessed it!, blue. I have darker blue spots all over my cheeks and forehead from where earlier splashes hit my face. “Dear God” I think, “I look like a leopard Smurf. How and I going to explain that to the kids at my school?” Maybe I can tell them it’s some weird American ritual, like green beer on Saint Patrick’s day. Will they believe me if I say Americans dye there faces and hands blue for labor day because they work until they are blue in the face? Something tells me they won’t buy it. I have to be at work in less then two hours. I am supposed to meet with the 11th graders and answer the questions they have prepared for me in English. Should I call in sick? Maybe if I wear a blue sweater they will think I an just accessorizing? I could start a new fashion! Okay, I am panicking a little. I take a deep breath and decide to finish washing my sheets while I think of an alternative. As I am hanging up my sheets it hits me. If detergent gets the dye out of the sheets maybe it will get the dye out of me. I grab some detergent, get my hands wet and scrub. It works! It kind of hurts but it works. It takes me 40 minutes to de blue myself and I won’t need to exfoliate for the next several months but I am no longer an homage to smurfdom. I also had to paint my nails because there was nothing I could do to fix that little problem and I didn’t want to keep having to tell people I was cold. On the train to work that day it finally struck me how ridiculous that whole thing was and I laughed so hard the lady sitting next to me got up and moved to another seat. I bought rubber gloves on my way home, no one can say I didn’t learn for this experience.
It is a given to most people in Ukraine that you have to wash clothes by hand here. I remember grousing about having to buy nice clothes in America that were hand wash only and now I look back at myself and Laaaaaaugh. I am actually getting the hang of hand washing. After a couple of disastrous attempts that resulted in mixing colors or having soap stiff clothes I was beginning to feel like this might be a skill that I could master in the conceivable future. I learned that you don’t wring out sweaters or the arms will hang past your knees with it dries. You need to rinse jeans twice or it’s like wearing sandpaper and you have to be very patient when washing socks even though it is totally gross. Not to long ago I decided that I needed to wash my sheets. Now, I have new sheets in my apartment and being a typical 20 something, I just took them straight out of the package and put them on my bed. It was fine, I didn’t break out into spots or anything. But the weather here is getting colder and I decided that I should probably wash them before it got to rainy or cold because I only have one set of sheets. The more days it takes for them to dry the more time I spend sleeping in my sleeping bag. Winter will be a different story. I haven’t yet figured out how to freeze dry my clothes. Apparently in winter you hang stuff out to dry, let it freeze and then just break the ice off. Voila, freeze dried clothes. I am not sure if the person telling me this was kidding or not. Either way…
So I get up bright and early one morning and take the entire sheet set including pillowcases and toss them into my handy washing tub. I love this tub, it is probably the most useful thing I own. I was laundry in it, I take baths using it etc… The tub and I are friends. I have mixed the hot water from the kettle with the detergent and I figure I will let everything soak while I make breakfast. Satisfactorily fed, I head into the bathroom to commence with the washing. Now, I have placed the tub in my giant iron bathtub so that if there is any spillage etc…it’s not a problem and I then have access to cold water to rinse. Lots of splashing does tend to occur. Now my bathtub is raised up on some cinder blocks, I don’t know why, but that puts that edge of the bathtub at my mid thigh. I do the usual swish everything around rub it together etc…splashing water everywhere of course. On the walls and mostly on me. It is then time to wring everything out so I can rinse it. I lean into the bath tub and grab what I think is a pillow case and pull. It’s not a pillow case. It’s the heavy comforter cover. My feet, clad in slippers on the smooth bathroom tile that is now liberally covered in soapy water have no real grip and, being off balance, they flip up and I fall face first into my trusty tub with my bedding. Now I am not really hurt, just a little surprised as I spit out soapy suds and get water out of my eyes. It is then that I notice that my hand is a somewhat alarming shade of blue. Intrigued, I look at my other hand, well what do you know, it’s blue too. My fingernails are almost sapphire. Interesting. I look into the tub, the water isn’t dirty like I thought, it’s blue from the dye in my dark blue sheets. And now I am blue from the dye in my dark blue sheets. I run my hands under the tap and realize that the blue does not just wash off, in fact it doesn’t even get lighter. Then I look in the mirror. My face was submerged only for a second so it’s not as bad as my hands but is it a distinct shade of, you guessed it!, blue. I have darker blue spots all over my cheeks and forehead from where earlier splashes hit my face. “Dear God” I think, “I look like a leopard Smurf. How and I going to explain that to the kids at my school?” Maybe I can tell them it’s some weird American ritual, like green beer on Saint Patrick’s day. Will they believe me if I say Americans dye there faces and hands blue for labor day because they work until they are blue in the face? Something tells me they won’t buy it. I have to be at work in less then two hours. I am supposed to meet with the 11th graders and answer the questions they have prepared for me in English. Should I call in sick? Maybe if I wear a blue sweater they will think I an just accessorizing? I could start a new fashion! Okay, I am panicking a little. I take a deep breath and decide to finish washing my sheets while I think of an alternative. As I am hanging up my sheets it hits me. If detergent gets the dye out of the sheets maybe it will get the dye out of me. I grab some detergent, get my hands wet and scrub. It works! It kind of hurts but it works. It takes me 40 minutes to de blue myself and I won’t need to exfoliate for the next several months but I am no longer an homage to smurfdom. I also had to paint my nails because there was nothing I could do to fix that little problem and I didn’t want to keep having to tell people I was cold. On the train to work that day it finally struck me how ridiculous that whole thing was and I laughed so hard the lady sitting next to me got up and moved to another seat. I bought rubber gloves on my way home, no one can say I didn’t learn for this experience.
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.
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