Time Warp

I have picked up a new Ukrainian hobby at the language refresher. No it isn't cutting and elbowing people in line, no it is not standing by the side of the road waiting for a bus that may or may not come (although I spend a lot of time doing that anyway) and now it is not gardening rows of herbs I don't know the names for, it is cross-stitching. I know that in general most people consider me to be Martha Stewart minus the insider trading scandal (for those of you don't know me that was sarcasm). But now, there is nothing I enjoy more now than an evening listening to the radio and weaving colorufl patterns. There were also many other peace corps volunteer learned traditional Ukrainian dances and songs. It was very much like a fun evening for the towns folk of small costal new england settlements and the pious pioneers of the American west circa 1805. We were so good the other groups staying at the sanatorium thought we were a religous group.
This is not exactly the case. Language refresher is also a great time to catch up with friends. This usually includeds a lot of pivo and horilka (beer and vodka). We sit around, talk, play cards and dance. I danced until three o'clock in the morning last night. It felt very much like a night out with my friends in college, except this time we were in a round, semi-subterrainian room, that was built for summer enjoyment but this time it is the middle ukrainian winter and my beer never gets warm.
This past week I have been at a Ukrainian Language Training. We have had four days of grammar tutorials, Ukrainain Idioms and slang(including all the bad words that can get even a girl into a fight), talked about life long goals and methods of problem solving, we debated in Ukrainian about vegetariansim, men and women being friends, Peace Corps Role in Ukraine and wether or not criminals should be allowed to be president (a viable debate topic in many cultures). Getting up early and attending classes all day feels a lot like school. But it was nice to have some structured learning in my life when most days I am just trying to eek out one or two facts I can hold on to.

snow vs. california girl

It has snowed and stuck, finally, for the first time since the beginning of November. It could melt tomorrow as it has many times this winter, but the temp is just below 0 celcius so I doubt it. Man am I glad that I packed my long undies. I am back in Kyiv for Ukrainian Language Training for four days. This entire winter I have added long underwear tops and bottoms to my back pack, even if I was only going away for one night. Last winter was so bad that this winter I have spent everyday waiting for the other thick-soled, wool-lined boot to drop. And this morning when I woke up on the train and looked outside (or rather the babusya next to me woke me up to tell me) it was snowing. Oy. I am not a fan of the snow, outside the office just now I had a snow vs. california girl moment. I reached for the intercom button outside the tall, spirey gates of the Peace Corps office and did for the first time in my life the full splits. There is now a small rip in the crotch of my jeans, luckily I have my long undies to protect me and of course a sewing kit in my back pack to remedy the problem. In case you couldn't tell, I was a girl scout.

parasites

Parasite is a word we often use in the english language to describe a person who latches and sucks the life out of you. But we borrow this word from nature. And here in the Peace Corps I am learning not to use this word so lightly as I may have a parasite swimming around inside me as I type.
I am here in Kyiv for my rountine mid-service medical exams, general physical, teeth cleaning etc. But I have exhibited some of the symptoms geardia(I don't believe i am spelling that right at all, but no matter if it is inside of me I can call it what ever I want). It can be in water and in homegrown food which is mostly what I eat. I only drink bottled water but I am at risk becasue I live in a rural area. I will not go into detail on the symptoms or how I collected a sample. But that sample is on its way to the parasitology lab in Washington DC.
The symptoms aren't too bad so don't worry about me. But I guess I'm a real Peace Corps volunteer now.

The goats in my apartment yard

American Sprots Weekend

Baseball at the castle ruins with Sharece, Jeremy and Andriy. Andriy was our teacher of Ukrainian, now he is our cluster mate Mandi's boyfriend. He fancies himself half American though he has never been there. I think he knows more English slang than I do.

My Host Brother Bohdan at the First Bell Ceremony

My Town in Spring

My Town in Winter

Neighbor's Garden in Fall

Transportation

Arts and Crafts

This is the top of a very steep hill where all the arts and crafts vendors and painters in Kyiv sell their stuff, or I mean stuff made in south western Ukraine and brought here.

Famine Memorial in Kyiv

Opera music was playing over the loud speaker.

Finally, pictures!

Here are some long promised pictures. I apologize to anyone who has already seen them, but then again how can you resisit another look at Ukraine or me.

These are my Cluster Mates Jeremy, Mandi and Sharece. Just before this picture was taken Jeremy's Babushka pulled the flowers off a bush in her yard, shoved them in to Jeremy's hands and motioned for him to give them to us. For the rest of training my host family thought Jeremy was my boyfriend because of this day.

The Energizer

Living in the part of the world that I live in I am made to understand just how dire the world engergy crisis is. The prices of oil and gas and consequently transportation have risen to double the costs they were when I arrived. Ukraine was "weaned" off subsidized Russian oil over the course of only a few months but I have the solution. Yes thats right. Yesterday I taught for the first time in a month and the only time I will teach this month. I am now in Kyiv for three days of routine medical tests. And next week I have a Ukrainian Language Refresher.
And through this numbing parade of paper work and peeing in a cup I have so much energy becasue I am a teacher.
Yesterday was a great day of teaching. Nothing earth shattering occured. But my lessons were well prepared, the students were responsive and over all well behaved. I had a great discussion with my 11th grade about shaking up the traditional styles of teaching in our classroom like round table discussions and research projects. However, the discussions can't be round table becasue the desks are bolted to the ground in rows facing the teacher and the black board.
I hadn't seen most of them in weeks and when I walked into both my fifth and sixth grade classes all the kids stood up and cheered. It was so exciting. I alway thought I would like teaching older students better. And I do enjoy it because we get to discuss ideas. But the little kids, bouncing off the walls, so excited to see me, so excited to participate in the lesson was one of those unexpected and unccontable rewards of Peace Corps life. Now I am enjoying my time with friends in the capital, but I am also looking forward to going back home and seeing my students. It is the best of all worlds.

Looking in the Rear View Mirror

Standing here at the beginning of my last year in Urkaine after having been through so much and having mentored new trainees the blog allows me to look back. So much for me has changed in the last year and a half that it is difficult for me to remember what I used to think and know. What I know and what I believe has changed because everyday there is input of new information and/or a new experience to turn my world just a little on its axis. I went back and read some of my old blog entries and realized how little I knew about what my life would be like here in Ukraine. I would have gone anywhere that the Peace Corps could have chosen to send me. And I was lucky to be placed here in the southwest of Ukraine. I have the classic small, rural village experience of the Peace Corps but with (often)power and running water and internet access. But I did not know any of this when I got on that plane in Chicago. I must have been totally crazy and had an incredible amount of faith in something, mysefl? the universe? the u.s. government? to beileve that my life would work out. I must have been crazy to move accross a continent, an ocean and another continent not knowing what shape my daily life would take. I must have been crazy and crazy doesn't go away after a bucket bath and a good nights sleep.

Back and Better Than Ever

So I ambandoned the blog for a while. A long while. But welcome back. I'm scartching the itch to write about what is going on in my life right now. Here in Ukraine. And hopefully this will make reading about my adventures easier for my many dozens of fans (I have a big family, that gets me a couple dozen with out even breaking a sweat).
So stay tuned and tell your friends. I will also make the effort to include pictures as I know they are the spoon full of sugar that makes the medicine go down.