America: Christmas Chillin'

Nothing of note, lately. My last America visit was non-stop travelling and seeing people and this one, purposefully, is a lot of relaxing.

The first few hours of Christmas Day were spent watching my nine month-old niece, Isabell, figuring out how to open her presents. She was slightly confused as to why, every time she opened up some new squeezable-lights-up-and-makes-noise-while-teaching-shapes/letters/numbers/animals-Baby-Einstein gift, we'd take it away and put a new wrapped present in front of her. She continued this while her uncle spent twenty minutes putting together her new lights-up-and-makes-noise-playhouse-thingy and then spent another twenty minutes playing with it himself.


Me and Isabell. In the back is the playhouse thingy

Isabell tired of opening gifts only halfway through (and was finding the wrapping paper more entertaining anyway), so it was time for the grown-ups to open their gifts. This would be the first year I got socks and underwear and was really happy about it (they just don't make them the same in Ukraine). Just goes to show perspective is everything.

Happy to be full of tasty food. Happy to climb without five layers and a ski cap. Happy just to be with my family. Much as I enjoy Ukraine, I've missed America and it's going to be hard to go back...

Working a lot on a Ukraine video. It's turned out to be a bigger project than I realized, now pushing the 45 minute mark and that's shaving things down to the bare minumum. I'll have it up on the net in a few days.

America: Bathroom Bungalows and Brownie Points with God

In Orlando, warm, safe and sound!

The trip home was exhausting, but actually seemed to go by pretty quickly, with a few incidents of note:

Ghetto. I use the term not in its original definition as an area where people are forced to live by law or by economics, but by its more common, modern defnition: something that makes sense but violates societal mores. It's ghetto when you eat your cereal out of a frying pan. It's ghetto when you forgo repairing your car window and instead use a piece of cardboard and duct tape. And it's pretty ghetto when you spend the night sleeping on the floor of an airport bathroom, but it does make sense:

Not finding it financially viable to get a hotel room for my 7:00 AM flight, I had decided to sleep in the airport after arriving from Zhytomyr via Kyiv at 11:30 PM. All the benches were covered in Ukranians doing the same. After sleeping sitting up for an hour or so, I noticed the two girls I had been squeezed between were no longer there, possibly chased off by body odor or snoring. I could finally recline, which I did until I was awoken by a couple with two young children who obviously needed the benches more so than my whole body. Back to sitting up and finding myself awake, I decided to answer nature's call.

In my several hours of sleeping/sitting in a stupor, I had noticed the following problems with sleeping on the benches:

1) It was f-ing cold. The benches were right inside the airport doors and freezing air came in with every opening. The smartest and longest-staying of the sleepers were those on the benches farthest back. Not posessing either quality, my bench was sub-zero.

2) It was loud. Televisions played a loud, non-stop loop that included two techno videos, commercials, Ukraine promotional videos, a short segment on foot wrestling (I'm not kidding) and an "inspirational" short about Lance Armstrong. This does not help when one is trying to sleep sitting up.

3) It wasn't secure. I hadn't been overly worried about people stealing anything while I slept: after all, this was an airport and those there had to buy tickets, right? But, of course, right before I left, Diana was warning me about people who prowled the airports at night. I had hoped to get through customs and sleep on the other side where you HAD to have a ticket, but we weren't allowed to go through until two hours before flight time. Right by the door, I did realize I was very exposed to anyone who felt like walking in.

So I was half-awake in the bathroom, realizing how nice a bathroom it was. Most Ukranian bathrooms have turkish toilets: a piece of flat porceline or wood surrounding a hole in the ground. But this was a completely modern bathroom and immaculate and, most intestingly, had stalls that were pretty much completely enclosed: there was maybe three inches of space between the floor and the stall walls, making each a veritable cubical. And it was in there that I realized that it was warm, quiet and secure.

So, ghetto. But yes, I put my head on my bag, put my jacket over me, curled up on the floor and went to sleep. And stop what you're thinking, because I've crashed on the floors of many an apartment and that floor was far, far, far cleaner than all of them. It was my little bathroom bungalow.

Fast forward to my layover in Amsterdam. Those of us coming from non-first world countries, i.e. Ukraine, were in a little line having our passports throughly examined and waiting to get on the trans-Atlantic flight to Detroit. I talked a little to the burly Ukranian with a large beard next to me.

On the flight, it turns out he is in the row ahead of me and I find out he a priest is with the Orthodox church and is going to Detroit to preach to its rather large Ukranian diaspora population before returning to his home town of Lutzk, Ukraine.

A little before landing, he asks me to help him with his customs form. I fill in most the information from his passport, translate the rest for him and go back to my seat.

We land. As I'm pulling my bag from the overhead compartment, I nearly hit an extremely attractive girl in the face. We make introductions and it's with a bit of a kick-myself that I realize that this girl sat catty-corner to me the whole flight and in my trans-Atlantic stupor never noticed. In the wait to get off the plane and walking towards customs, we chat for a while: she's from Norway and on her way to Ohio to see her American mother for the holidays. She has dual nationality, meaning she can go through the American line. Just as we're about continue on our way, though, the Ukranian priest asks if I can translate for him at customs. Priest. Hot Norwegian girl. Priest. Hot Norwegian girl.

Dammit. Maybe I'll get some brownie points with God out of this.

The girl walks on an I stand with the priest in the forever-long foreigner line.

We got to talking a bit more, the priest and I, and it turned out he wasn't a priest: I had simply assumed that because he said he was with the church and would be preaching. He was a bishop and the leader of the central Orthodox church in Lutzk, which is why the Ukranians of Detroit paid for him to travel to speak to them.

I notice the girl isn't far from us in the other line. Well, never miss opportunities, right. This holy man, this bishop, this monk (he was a monk, too), approved with an encouraging nod for me to leave him for a few minutes and smiled when I came back with her email address. Man of God or not, he knows a hot girl when he sees one. And it wasn't futile getting the address: one day I may well be in Norway (it can happen: I met a Czech girl on Michicgan Ave in Chicago, got her email and two years later--last summer--visted her in Czech Republic); so it can happen.

I translated for the bishop at the border, with customs and with exit security, each time these people asking if he had brought any food from Ukraine and each time I translated the question I think he was beginning to wonder if I was translating it correctly. By the end he was like "No, I am not carrying food!" (but in Russian, of course).

I am glad I am not a custom's agent. The bishop was speaking directly to her in fast Russian and she's looking at me in desperation with an expression of "what the fuck is this guy saying?" and you have to figure they deal with this in fifty languges every day.

Through customs and before parting, the Bishop opened his luggage and handed me a CD. A present, he said, for helping. It was a recording of the choir at his church, and the church on the front was beautiful. He said if I was in Lutzk to ask for Mikail at the church and he would welcome me. "I thought your name was Timofey," I said, having copied it serveral times from his passport. "Timofey is my name," he said. "When you become a monk, you take a religious name, and it's Mikail."

Of course.

So I bid good-bye to Mikail and went to find my plane to Orlando.

Ukraine: Birthday Bash

I didn't have so much as a birthday as a weekend, and thanks to everyone who made it possible...

And this is bragging, but forgive me...

My actual birthday was low-key, as I was teaching that day--both my teachers and my kids--, but both groups gave me gifts and did the Ukranian tradition of giving me many congradulations and wishes (long life, success in love, etc.).

My Regional Manager from Peace Corps was in town and took me out to a lunch I could never afford and after going to four restaurants that evening (two were closed, one was rented out and one had no tables), the Zhytomyr volunteers, Diana and I finally found a restaurant we could eat at, and they bought me dinner as well. After about a month of potatoes, borcht and peanut butter and jam sandwhiches, I finally felt well fed.

My mother called me that night to wish me happy birthday, and I got to hear my little niece gurgle me a happy birthday as well.

Saturday kicked off the party off in earnest. The way I figure it, since I was born at 9:00 PM in California, with the ten hour time difference it was actually the 17th in Ukraine when I entered the world, and so that entitled me to another day of partying.

My climbing buddy Jon came into town and with the Polissya crew and a few of the girls from my movie club at the library (possibly I am now too old to be hanging out with hot 19 year-olds but, um, I have no willpower) we spent the day climbing at the climbing wall. Hardcore climbing, too: I had some chalk and Jon and I were marking routes that even the best Polissya climbers had a tough time doing.

Two more volunteers came into town for my birthday and Steve and Amy came over that night and all six of us headed out to a club. The girls from my movie club met us there--decked to the nines--and we all danced until 3 AM. Somehow Peace Corps is not as difficult as I thought it would be.

Sunday found Jon and I back on the wall and Sunday afternoon I was at a traditional birthday lunch thrown for both Yarik--Diana's brother--and me (Yarik's birthday is the day after mine). I actually met an English-speaking Italian there. Yarik's girlfriend's mother met him through a dating service and is learning English from Diana so she can actually talk to her new boyfriend. He teaches archeology in Venice and has an exchange program with a university in Odessa, and so comes to Ukraine every few months to see her and plans on taking her back to Italy when she learns enough English. Strange world.

I was so sore from the climbing-->five hours of dancing-->climbing that I was sure someone had gone to work on me with a sledgehammer. Diana offered a massage, which I accepted and just when I thought all the gifts and food were done, my neighbor Valentina (the old lady trying to convert me) came over with a plate. She had made me dinner! Diana left at 10:00 PM and I was so exhausted from the weekend that I went straight to sleep.

Happy birthday to me!

Today I start the 35 hour journey to get home, when I leave at 5:00 PM to go to Kyiv. My flight leaves at 7:00 AM, and since it's a waste to get a hotel room only to check out at 3:30 AM (thirty minutes to the train station, an hour to the airport and two hours to check-in for international flights), I'm just going to go to the airport tonight and sleep there. From there it's a flight to Amsterdam and from there to Detroit with a seven hour layover (why couldn't I have a seven hour layover in Amsterdam!?!) and finally I'll get into Orlando Teusday night.

But you know what? From the time I get to the airport and for the next three weeks, I'm going to be warm...

Ukraine: Speaking of...

Speaking of...

The wall opening went really well. There was a reporter there and both my picture and a picture of the wall is in the local paper. In the article, I am refered to by a rather archaic Russian word that means "great giver of things". I suppose the less-literal translation would be "philanthrapist", but who's checking?

Speaking of giving things, I've been given a lot more responsibility. My coordinator has been in and out of the hospital for blood pressure problems and I've had to take all her seminars--which meant a lot of candles burnt at both ends trying to keep up. I now teach 16 out of the 20 seminars we teach in a cycle. It used to be I was kind of a "guest lecturer" teaching a seminar maybe once a week. Now I pretty much live at the institute and teach every major class. I'm proud but exhausted.

Then I was hit with the news that my coordinator may die. I came in and found the women in my department upset, tearfully asking about my coordinator and telling me she has "kor". I didn't know what "kor" was, but I genuinely worried and moped around all day. The next day, they were still going on about my coordinator's kor. "Tell me the symptoms," I said in Russian. And when they did, it sounded suspiciously like chicken pox. "Chicken pox is not serious," I told them in Russian. "Not for children," one replied "but for adults. So dangerous! Poor Irina." I told Diana about it, and, after laughing a lot, she said: "It is chicken pox. This is the usual Ukranian old woman response." Apparently you can sneeze in Ukraine and old women will crow that you are on your death bed.

Speaking of death, Avian flu has crossed into Ukraine. They're culling birds in the south and volunteers have been moved out of the affected regions. We all recieved flu shots, even thought it doesn't protect against Avian flu.

Speaking of shots, I've been giving Diana them in her ass. Diana needed antibiotics for an infection and, while I'm sure they have oral antibiotics in Ukraine, apparently they're not common. What is common is a process that reminded me of medivel alchemists. Pulling out a vial of powder and a vial of liquid, Diana mixed the two, drew the concoction into a syringe and handed it to me. I looked at it a moment and said, "Okay, how do I do this?" which caused Diana to look at me in a wide-eyed mix of horror and shock.

"You said you knew how to do it."

"No, you asked if I WOULD do it and I said yes. I never said I had."

"How could you not have learned how to do it?"

"We don't do this in America. We take pills. You're telling me every Ukranian knows how to do this?"

"We learned to do it in grade school."

"What did you practice on?"

"Pillows."

So after showing me how to do it, I did it and she walked around with a sore ass. That's how archaic Ukranian medicine can be.

Speaking of archaic medicine in Ukraine, I had to have an EKG. This prompted my first visit to a Ukranian hosptial, which, if you're used to shiny, new, disinfected places, can be a bit of a shock. A nurse rubbed a slimy gel on my torso and used suction cups to attach electrodes made in the 1950s running to a machine made in the 1970s. Two electrodes were clipped to my wrists and two to my ankles. They then had me lie, stand and do squats.

It confirmed what I had thought: I have an irregular heartbeat. But apparently, and the Peace Corps doctors confirmed it, it's not a dangerous type of irregular beat. So nobody worry. Especially you, mom.

And speaking of moms, mine popped me out (in 17 hours of agony, as is oft-reported) almost 27 years ago, my birthday being this Friday. I'm on the fast track to 30 years-old, but that's a really surreal thought because I'm mentally stuck at 22--if that. The anticipation of my birthday, though, is eclipsed by the anticipation that I'll be going home to see my mom on Teusday. Yes, I will be home in America Dec 20-Jan 10th.

America, watch out.

Ukraine: Couple of Completions

Feel pretty good about this: Two major projects were just finished.

One was a booklet of exercises for teachers to use to train their students for the Olympiads. My coordinator was responsible for one half, and I for the other. Perhaps misinterpreting what was required, I located a number of one-page passages that I thought would interest the students (about bands like Linkin Park or Black Eyed Peas, or things like fashion) and then created orginal multiple choice and true/false questions for them. I also wrote a LARGE number of speaking and writing prompts. I say misinterpreted because my coordinator simply handed me a number of passages with questions that she had photocopied from TESOL books. It was then my duty to type them. Still, I'm proud of the work and the fact that every bit of that book (save an intro in Ukrainian) was typed and laid out by me. It was mass produced today and will be distributed to teachers in the oblast.

The second is what I've been working on since last March: the climbing wall. It is done, it is big and it is beautiful. Thirty feet tall, ten routes and only one of them vertical. Seven are various degrees of back-inclines and two have overhangs. In other words, this ain't your grandma's wall. Don't worry, though, the wall is good for beginners: It is meant to train kids into climbing and because there's not a lot of height, it was important to have the angles and overhangs to keep it challenging.

I'll have pics up as soon as someone I know with a digital camera takes them.

We also bought twenty brand new pairs of shoes and three new dynamic ropes with the grant money and all were abused this weekend by the builders as we tested her thoroughly. The wall, althought outside, has a roof built over it and a plastic curtain hanging from the roof. The curtaine acts as a weather protector and heat trap, and while there was three inches of snow outside and more still falling, we were still able to climb all day. I was given the honor of being the first to climb her. Before me, she was nezaimenoov, a virgin. Now she'll remember me for the rest of her life.

Jay, as requested, the route built with your donated holds is called Rock Dawg, and it's the hardest on the wall: completely back-inclined with five feet of it inclined at 30 degrees. Thanks, man.

The official grand opening is this Saturday, and if all goes according to plan there will be reporters and television crews on hand. The wall will be free to use for those under 21, as part of giving the kids of Zhytomyr a healthier past time that builds discipline, self-esteem and goal-setting.

Have to say I'm pretty proud of it.

Ukraine: Witnesses

Instead of the American missionaries that I had expected (there are some in the city, but I've never met them), Valya came over last night with a guy who studied English at University.

He sat, looking slightly bored, as Valya told me all about God and Jesus, that God is displeased with the evils in the world, that the end time is coming soon and that I should prepare my soul for it, all suppported with passages she that read from her bible.

Whenever she said a word I didn't know, I would glance at the guy, who would translate the word into English. Mostly. Very often he'd have to look it up in a Russian/English dictionary, and I was kind of proud that the words I didn't know were the same ones a University-level English speaker didn't know. So I know now, among others, the Russian words for Salvation, Soul, and Worship. I find it really ironic that the word for "worship" is Poclonitsya, the root being the sound "clone". I doubt they're etymologically related, but it's a good mnemonic and really funny that to "worship" something is to make yourself a clone.

I also found out that they are Jehova's Witnesses, a denomination I find fascinating. When you get a religion degree at a Methodist University--despite Methodists being regarded as fairly liberal--you realize that while you know a lot about theology, world religions and bibilical history, you know NOTHING about other denominations. Maybe they're scared you'll get lured away.

For the record: one grandmother was Catholic, the other was Baptist, and I've never been able to fully shake of the beliefs of either on my path to be coming a narcisist agnostic (my term; it means I believe in God because I want to be important to a higher power, but everything else is still in doubt).

So because of this lack of extra-denominational education, I was thrilled (I know, I'm weird) to have Mormons coming over two years ago to give me their official 12-lesson introduction to their beliefs. Sadly, they were dissapointed when I declined to join their faith, but were probably happy to get out of that den of iniquity.

Two times of their discomfort come to mind. They once asked me if I would forsake smoking. Yes. Alcohol? Since I didn't drink at the time, I again said yes. Perhaps feeling they were on a roll, they asked: Sex? At which point, my then-girlfriend--who was reading a book on the couch --rather forcefull said "no" without even looking up. The other was when my flamboyantly gay roommate--who spent a lot of time leering at these two clean-cut eighteen year-olds--was in the room when they were about to leave and asked if we needed them to do anything. By that they meant chores, something they asked every time they came over. Before I could say something, he said: "I've got something for you do" as he leaned back and regarded them, biting on the tip of his finger. I quickly pushed their mouth-agape selves out the door before they either started spouting scriptures or took him up on it.

And now I get to learn first hand about the beliefs of the Jehova's Witnesses, who I also know have some unique ones: the non-celebration of holidays, the fact that everyone who is going to heaven is already there (saved souls go to some happy limbo), and that they won't accept blood transfusions because they believe the soul is in the blood.

They're coming back over tonight. Should be interesting.

Ukraine: The Giving War

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

So there's a sweet old lady named Valya across the landing from me. About a month ago we engaged in a giving war because I had decided to make chocolate chip cookies. Don't laugh.

Anyway, I had no baking soda, and so went to her place to ask to borrow some. I got the same reaction I had gotten from Valentina, the sweet old lady (Ukraine has a lot of sweet old ladies) that I buy bread from. When I was buying vanilla from her, she asked:

"Why do you need it?"
"I am making cookies."
"By yourself?" (Look of sweet old lady doubt)
"By myself."
"Good luck." (Another look of sweet old lady doubt, followed by wondering if she needed to but the firefighters on standby)

Valya gave me the baking soda, then, deciding I was too skinny, and gave me a plate of kasha (boiled buckwheat slatherd with butter). I already had dinner in mind (chicken and mashed potatoes) but took the kasha with the intention of throwing it out because I have found it's impossible to refuse food from sweet old ladies without offending them. While the cookies were baking, though, I got hungry and tried the kasha, found it to be delicious and ate the whole bowl. To thank Valya for her kindness, I brought her a batch of cookies.

Later that evening, there was a knock on my door. Her son was at the door, bearing the plate the cookies came on, now filled with walnuts. He also handed me a bag of cucumbers and a jar of compote (syrupy juice). Apparently Valya and I are now in a giving war.

The war has changed from one of sustenence, though, to one for my soul. Lately, when we've been talking on the landing, the conversations have been about God. Valya is a devout Christian--the kind that stands out in the street in the snow trying to convert people. She's been telling me a lot about Christ, and I've been attentively listening (despite having a religion degree from a Methodist school) because A) she's a sweet old lady and B) it's good Russian practice.

But yesterday, as she was again telling me about Christ, she said that she wanted two of her friends who spoke English to come over and talk to me, and when would I be free? I told her that I enjoyed her company and prefered talking to her. She said they could explain Christianity better to me in my own language, and when was I free?

I sighed and told her Sunday. I was free and it was fitting.

Today she told me they'd be there at 6:00 PM.

I wanted to bake cookies, and now missionaries are coming over. Huh.

Ukraine: Funeral Procession

Saw my first Ukranian funeral procession a few days ago.
The path I jog takes me out of the city and past a cemetery, and it was as I was cutting through a field now dead in winter that a scene out of a movie happened. It was a bleak, overcast day of gray as they all are this time of year. I was listening to music on my MP3 player, ground rolling under me, when in front was a procession of color. I slowed, then stopped, and removed my headphones, ears met with a sad dirge.

I watched, breathing heavy as the procession followed the curve of the road and passed me, about twenty people carrying wreaths of colorful flowers on stands followed by a flat bed truck. The people glanced at me as I stood there, and I hoped they weren’t being offended.

A glance behind me and up the hill at a lady with a baby carriage who had also stopped to watch reassured me that they weren’t. Later, I found it is in fact rude to move while a funeral procession passes, and I was doing the correct thing.

As the flat bed passed, also covered in flowers, I saw the coffin, a simple wooden box. Then I nearly took a step back when I realized I was looking at the tip of a nose and two folded hands peeking up above the rim. As per Ukrainian tradition, the coffin was taken to the grave open, where the lid would be nailed on and it would be lowered before the watchful eyes of friends and family.

Following the flat bed were a few men carrying beat-up brass instruments, taking a break before they drew in breaths and began to inexpertly play another dirge. Behind them trailed another twenty people, heads down and slowly walking, bundled against the cold. Behind the people slowly drove the red and blue bus that would take them all back into the city.

It was something out of a movie because it was one of those generic American-runs-into-cultural-thing-while jogging-in-another-country moments, and the suddenness with which I was pulled out of my music and motion induced reverie made it surreal as the people slowly passed.

I’ve been watching a lot of the show “Six Feet Under”, loaned to me by a friend, and together the two have got me thinking about death. Not in a morbid way, but just about it and what it means to us.

A lot of the newness and excitement has gone out of the Peace Corps experience, replaced by dreary weather and constant work, but when I wonder that oft-asked question: “if I died tomorrow, would I be happy with what I’m doing today?” the answer is yes.

And while that frozen corpse passed me, I found I was still glad to have a journey to take.

Ukraine: Couchsurfing Clubbing Climbing Canadians

Ever heard of the Canada Corps? Well, neither had I. You may not have heard of couchsurfing.com, either, but between both I ended up with two girls I had never met before staying the weekend at my apartment.

Couchsurfing.com is a networking website that lets people offer their couches for travelers to crash on and vice versa. I offered up my couch willingly, but never thought anyone would come to Zhytomyr.

Canada Corps is like the Canadian version of Peace Corps, except their volunteers serve only six months, have no centralized leadership in country and get next to no language training. Two girls, Shelley and Amy, are Canada Corps volunteers that live in the oblast next to mine and, finding me on Couchsurfing, came in for a weekend of climbing and clubbing.

It was a rock star weekend: John, a good friend of mine and fellow climbing enthusiast from the same oblast as Shelley and Amy, came in with them and the four of us went nonstop. Three hours after John and the girls got off the marshrutka we were at a rave and stayed there until 4 AM. We were up four hours later and on the rock (wet from a rainstorm and cold) but still had a great day of climbing. We all took a two hour nap, had a pre-party at another volunteer’s apartment (and discovered that there were even more volunteers in town) and then fifteen of us took over a club and didn’t go to sleep until 5:30 AM. The next day: we were woken up by SUNLIGHT! Overcast days have been the norm and John and I were shouting “Blue sky! Blue sky!” and were back on the rock by that afternoon. I don’t think I was really awake while I was climbing, but I’m pretty sure I had a lot of fun.

It was also, sadly, the last weekend of climbing. It’s simply too cold. My hands were numb halfway up any given route and it especially sucked when I was lead climbing. So I’m done for the winter. That is, until we get the climbing wall finished!

Ukraine: Cooking Students, Singing Teachers and Hardcore Bladers (Pics)

Lack of internet access (it stopped working at my apartment) and a busy schedule means I haven't been posting as often. But here's some recent highlights:

It turned out my advanced English class didn't know any cooking terms. One lesson we studyed them and the next they came over to my apartment. After reviewing the vocab, I handed them recipes in English and they proceeded to make me chicken quesedillas. Cool teaching method? Slave labor? Po-tay-toe, po-tah-to.


How many students does it take to chop a tomato?"


Making tortillas





One weekend while climbing and camping in Deneshi with some of the Polissya crew, I played an Okean Elzie song. I was disappointed that they didn't know the lyrics. Then I played an American song that they knew almost all the lyrics to. Realizing that most Ukrainians are familiar with it, I know teach the lyrics during my "English Improvement" seminar with teachers. That song is "Hotel California".





One of the girls in my movie club (I say "girl" but she's my age) is also part of a club of rollerbladers. I met them through her and because one of them had my size blades, I've been skating with them a bit. I used to be an aggressive skater my sophmore and junior years of college, and the lack of practice shows, but it's still a lot of fun. These guys are simply fantastic.

Ukraine: Happy Halloween! (Pics)

Happy Halloween! Just because most people in Ukraine don't celebrate Halloween doesn't mean somewhere there's not a costume party until dawn in my city. Diana, Steve and I went to "Halloween Drum and Bass", which is pretty much as the name describes, an all-night rave in a tiny club.

Steve and Diana didn't dress up, but I went as a... As a... Well, I'm not sure what I was. I didn't have much to work with, so we went with the post-apacolyptic raver look, Diana drawing tribal tattoos on my body and adding accents in duct tape.

Steve decided the concept of dancing to drum and bass was a little beyond him, and so instead played with my video camera for the night. Cool footage, and here are stills from the evening:


I think my expression says: "I have a really tough life".


A close-up of the "tats".


My back, and the added duct tape.


At the rave. Only maybe ten percent were in costume, and nothing extravagent: kitty ears, devil horns, a guy in a scream mask, a girl in a witch mask, that sort of thing.


Me and Diana on the dance floor (I'm shirtless, she's in the light blue shirt).


I think this is a really cool shot of me whirling my arms.


Diana on the dance floor


Diana again.

It was a really cool night, but I did find myself leaning over to Steve at one point and saying: "I'm 26. I have a Masters. I am a teacher". He immedietly got the irony and started laughing. The subtext was: "why the hell am I shirtless, covered in drawn-on tatoos and duct tape and dancing at an all night rave?"

I'm still not sure, but it was a lot of fun.

Ukraine: Chess

TRITE BUT TRUE:

I went to Diana’s apartment for the first time two nights ago. She’s asked a couple times for me to come over, especially since her family would like to meet the American she’s been spending all this time with. I’ve avoided it just because, even though we’re not dating, it is one of those “meet the family” things. I could already see it in my head: awkwardly sitting around, everyone looking at me, various cookies and tea being pressed upon me as I struggled to keep up any kind of conversation in Russian. Besides, I had already met her brother a couple of times and her mom once, at various functions. But when she told her grandfather I played chess, apparently he got excited and Diana finally found the way to bait the hook.

So I went over, chess set in hand. Diana’s mom wasn’t there, but I was introduced to her grandfather and grandmother. Her grandfather had fought in World War II and later served in Zhytomyr’s administration before becoming a pensioner. A balding, short man who was solidly built despite his age, he immediately guided me to a table and pulled out the chess set, so eager was he to play a game. Her grandmother, a squat babucia with eyes that never really seemed to focus, disappeared into the kitchen with Dianna. Her grandfather donned a pair of old glasses with square frames each five times the size of his eyes, warned me that he wasn’t any good and then began to play.

Diana served us the customary tea and cookies during the opening moves, being lightly berated by her grandfather for putting them too far away. Her response was to smile indulgingly and move them closer: which I found amusing because if I ever said that to her, she’d hit me upside the head and tell me to move myself.
Yarik, a local radio personality who lives in a different apartment with Diana’s mom, came over to await his match. The game with Diana’s grandfather was not going well: within fifteen minutes I had lost my queen and was down two pawns. Her grandfather, quite simply, was very good. I had pretty much relegated myself to loosing, and told this to Diana, who was now watching MTV with Yarik. Her grandmother, still in the kitchen, was not seen again until I left.

Diana looked disappointed. She had wanted me to win, she told me. I had thought me winning would be a bad thing: I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s pride. My winning would actually make me look good to her family, she said.

I looked back at the board. Jesus Christ this was going to be difficult. But I dug in. The game lasted two more hours and required more thinking than I had done in the past month. I had simultaneously to keep up the defense and whittle him down piece by piece until the end game itself became bloody tradeoffs. By the time it was said and done, both Diana and Yarik now watching, I had a king and a pawn and he had a king. Three moves later, it was certain that I was going to get my pawn across the board and he conceded the game.

I had never seen Diana so proud, beaming while trying not to show that she was beaming. I looked around the tiny apartment then, grandfather trading places with Yarik, Diana going to her room to listen to music, hearing her grandmother in the kitchen and felt a kind of homey feeling. I’ve lived on my own since I was 17, but the only times I felt really comfortable about it where when I had a number of people living with me. I just like the background noise and spatial sensation of half a dozen people going about their business around you, probably because there were 9 people living with me in my grandfather’s house growing up. It wasn’t something I realized I missed until, playing that game with Yarik, I felt quite comfortable, with none of the awkwardness I had dreaded. And, rather than being the object of attention, it seemed playing the game with the grandfather brought on immediate acceptance.

Yarik wasn’t as good as his grandfather and quickly lost, and in the next game the grandfather came back to beat me, although not by much. Our third game—both of us still even—was stopped midway through by Diana, who made it known she hadn’t invited me over to have me ignore her the whole evening for chess. She then invited me to leave the apartment with her. Ironic for the time she spent getting me to come over.

At first I was in shock. You’re asking two competitive guys to abandon their match game when it could go either way? Why don’t you just turn off the Superbowl during overtime? Switch off the Playstation during the last level? Stop other generic chest-thumping cockfights? I didn’t actually say any of that, but I was still in shock.

But she pointed out that she had to go out and buy groceries for her mom before the stores closed and, since she would be taking them over to her mom’s apartment, she wouldn’t be coming back to her grandparent’s apartment. She thought it rude to them and to me to leave a stranger in the house. So her grandfather and I left the chess board as it was, and I went for a walk with Diana to the store. She couldn’t really see my side: why would I want to be left in a house full of strangers? Would I do that to her? I pointed out that if she and my sister were watching a movie and I had to go to the store, even if I wasn’t coming back, I would not make them stop watching the movie. So she finally understood where I was coming from and apologized, and we had a nice walk, wrapped warm in the cold evening.

It’ll be good to go back, though, and finish the match, hear a couple more of her grandfather’s war stories (which he loves to tell) and to be, in some small way, part of a family here. Cliché as it is to say it, I feel like I’ve found something I hadn’t even been looking for.

Ukraine: Odessa Catacombs (Pics)

Just had a great "Man vs. Rock" weekend: seven of us climbing, drinking, clubbing and watching "Family Guy" all weekend, celebrating one of the last weekends warm enough to be on the rock. And now it's back to work.

But here are some pics from the Odessa Catacombs that I finally got online:


The catacombs under Odessa


"Blood for blood. Death for death."


Beds in the catacombs.


Other stuff in the catacombs


Chillin' with Stalin

Ukraine: Comment Responses

I don't usually respond to comments on the page because it usually takes too f-ing long for pages to load while sitting in an internet cafe watching bought minutes quickly tick out, but something radical has happened in my life: internet at home!

Yes, that's right. My oh-so-hard Peace Corps life now includes internet access in my apartment. Through my pulse dial up connection where I can actually hear other people's conversations via crossed wires while my modem handshakes with Ukertelecom's I can now connect to the rest of the world. My highest connect speed so far is 34.6 kilobytes per second and the lowest is 16.4 kilobites per second. It's nostalga, really, remembering those days of college when 16 MB of RAM was extravagent, as was that 36.6 modem I stole from Best Buy by stuffing it into my wide leg Raver pants. Do you remember those days? Do you? When a single picture took minutes to load? Well I'm reliving their joyous splendor, basking in a technology that does TCP/IP, I believe, via carrier pigeon. Still, I can't complain: like college it's nearly 2 AM, I have work in the morning and I'm still on the web. I have time to actually wait for pages to load to respond to some comments, so here we go:

Happysam: I haven't heard about Yuchenko calling for or wanting more "Orange Revolutions", although considering the dissapointment currently felt about the last one, I think its a bad PR move to bring it up (and he is in serious need of some good PR). Probably he wants a "revolution" in the parlimentary elections, seeing many of his opponents in the Rada--the ones who blocked his new prime minister choice the first go around--replaced by friendlier faces. Other than that, I don't know!

Katie: Are "star jumps" what you weird British people call jumping jacks? Because otherwise I have no idea what you're talking about. If they're not, I'm going to assume you're being lewd.

So a lot of me not knowing, apparently. Perhaps I should have stuck with not responding. A fool and a wise man are the same person until they open their mouth, you know, and I think I've made it very clear which of the two I am.

I wonder how long it will take to download bisexual crossdressing midget fisting porn? I wonder how many people are going to end up seeing my site because those words are now here? Perverts. You and your strap-ons and your MMF and your star jumps.

And I think that's my cue to go to sleep.

ZZZZZZ...

Ukraine: The Siege

I am under siege from the cold. Through sheer denial, I had forgotten how cold it gets in Ukraine until, three rainy nights ago, I was firmly reminded when the temperature plunged. What happened to my summer? Now it’s dark at 6:00 PM and the sun sets earlier every day. Grr.
That, and Zhytomyr has no heat. Thanks to communist planning, a central station heats all the water that runs through the radiators in most of the apartments in Zhytomyr. The government controls that central station. The heat was supposed to be turned on October 17th, but the Zhytomyr government didn’t allot enough money, so now it will be the 28th.

I’m told my apartment doesn’t heat well anyway, because the pipes are corroded on the inside, so I’ve fortified for a siege. George and Gail, the volunteer couple that previously lived here, spent the winter in the same way, I’m told, closing off all other rooms except the living room and bedroom, and keeping an electric space heater running in there.

Which is what I’m doing, except I’m not using the living room because there’s only one of me and only one Peace Corps-supplied space heater. I’m moving a table and chair into my bedroom, along with a reading chair and some books. My laptop and Scala are coming in as well and the space heater is currently running full blast. I have to put on a jacket to go out into the living room, because it really is the temperature of the outside world.

My kitchen gets nicely heated because of a trick I learned from my first host mother, Anna: she just left one of the gas burners on the stove going 24/7. Because gas is still supplied as the communists would like: everyone paying the same price regardless of amount used, this kind of waste goes on (the smart thing to do would be to install meters to monitor usage, but they can’t afford to). In the interest of conservation, I shut mine off when I leave the kitchen, but a few minutes of two burners going can get the kitchen warm enough to remove my jacket and cook.

The bathroom has a similar strategy. From Carrie I learned that the water purifier left to my by George and Gail puts off a lot of heat when it’s working. As it takes roughly four hours to purify a gallon of water, turning it on in the evening guarantees I’m not literally freezing my ass off when I make a bathroom run at night.

Speaking of Carrie, her block is one of the only ones in Kyiv with heat right now. She lives in the neighborhood where all the embassies are, paying a lot of money for the location of her a tiny one-bedroom apartment. Because it’s in an area shared by so many diplomats, their heat magically gets turned on before everyone else’s. Which just goes to show that even though everyone is equal in a communist world, some are more equal than others.

Ukraine: Political Parties Punches

I had once heard of Indian politicians doing this, and am proud that Ukrainian politicians are doing it as well. The impetus was a group of soldiers during World War II that fought not against the Germans, but not for the Soviets, and instead killed Soviets for the freedom of Ukraine. This group has received veteran status in Ukraine and is vying for more rights, but at a demonstration that they held in Kyiv a few days ago, they were attacked by members of the socialist and communist parties (the communist party is alive and well in Ukraine, and regularly holds rallies that I can hear from my window).

In any case, a bill was being debated about granting them more rights in parliament, and the argument amongst the politicians became so heated that a fist fight broke out. Apparently, this happens quite often in the Ukrainian parliament. I think all politics should be conducted that way: if you’re voting for or against a bill, you should feel pretty passionate about it. I don’t think anyone should block a campaign finance reform bill unless they’re willing to loose a few teeth over it. And vice versa.

Oh, and one more thing about Ukrainian parties: they’ve been holding demonstrations all around Zhytomyr trying to drum up support for the upcoming parliamentary elections. The communist party, with their red flags emblazed with a golden hammer and sickle, like to hold their rallies at 8:00 AM, in support of their right to yell loudly and wake up Americans. Pora (“It’s Time”), the party that attracts a lot of college students and was instrumental in the Orange Revolution last year, has a big bee in the middle of their flags. But what I found funniest of all was the Green party, which holds their demonstrations by the bazaar. The symbol in the middle of their white flag is a smiling sunflower. So picture if you will one of their supporters, a very Mafioso, scowling, well-muscled man of about twenty, wearing a green cloth vest and holding a white flag with a smiling sunflower on it. His look said: “Go on, make fun of my sunflower and see what happens to you.” It was the highlight of my day.

Ukraine: It Comes When it Comes

"It comes when it comes, it goes when it goes and it gets there when it gets there."

This is why I mentally say to myself when dealing with Ukranian public transportation. Actually, I'm really impressed with Ukranian public transportation: I can get anywhere in my city, oblast or country rather easily and cheaply (although not necessarily quickly) and I really wish America had a system quite as good.

But there are times, like this weekend, that I have to chant the mantra. I went to Kirovograd this weekend for a meeting, a seven hour trip. Unfortunately it's only five hours from Kyiv, which mean no overnight trains, only overpriced buses. After getting into Kyiv from Zhytomyr (having just found out they raised the marshrutka prices 4 hrivna; high fuel prices are really hurting Ukraine right now), I was told they wouldn't have any buses to Kirovograd until the evening, putting me into Kirovgrad at 1:00 AM and way too late.

A bus was due to leave in 5 minutes though, and I incessently bugged the ticket taker about an open seat until it turned out there was a cancellation. This put me in the last seat in the back right corner of the bus, where someone had curteously piled boxes. The bus was crammed full, being one of the older buses, designed for midgets with no arms. The windshield was also cracked (a requirement here, apparently) and the drapes and overhead rack covers were made of the same upholstry-patterened faded cloth you see on every other bus, albeit this time it was green. After putting the boxes in the aisle (and getting yelled at by the people who the boxes were now beside as if this truly inconvienced them) I discovered that a reinforcement pole had been welded directly beside the seat, precicely where a quarter of my body was supposed to be. This left me in a subtle control war with the guy in the next seat as whenever one of us stretched, the other would get their shoulder against the back of the seat instead of having to lean forward. When he had his shoulder against the seat, I literally could not have my arms against my body because it would mean one elbow in his stomach, the other against the pole, so I just gripped the overhead rack with both hands, waiting for him to stretch and then I would regain control. And what I told myself continously was: "you're in Peace Corps. It could get a lot worse. Toughen up and stop being annoyed."

After about two hours and a few stops later, some people got off the bus and I grabbed their seats, the normally cramped confines suddenly feeling extremely spacious.

Coming back from Kirovograd the next day, I thought I was in heaven. I was shocked at the 53 hrinva price back when I bought my ticket in Kirovograd, because it had cost only 35 hrivna coming down. The price difference, I found, was because my bus was brand new. It was also quite late, which is why I found myself repeating the mantra: "it comes when it comes."

It did come, and it was the nicest bus I'd ever been on in Ukraine. New seats, new everything including a TV showing the newest movie from Russia that everyone's been talking about: "9 Rota" (9th Company) about a group of Soviet soldiers fighting in Afghanistan. The movie was really good and I was getting into it when the TV suddenly shut off and the bus lost power.

How ironic: the ghetto bus makes it and the brand new one breaks down. We sat on the side of the road for about 20 minutes, the driver turning the engine on and off, trying to get the bus to move. Every once in a while it would slowly rock forward and then the engine would go off.

It is testement to the equanamity of the Ukranian people that no one said a single word or asked a single question. We all sat quietly and looked out the windows. The driver offered no explanation and called no one on the radio (if he even had one). I repeated the mantra "it gets there when it gets there".

I stared out the window. It was 5:30 PM and already getting dark, the days shrinking as we get closer to the solstice. Most of the leaves have turned and are really rather pretty. I've never lived in a place with real seasons, have never seen the leaves turn red and orange and yellow. Everything in Florida is evergreen. The trees in Oklahoma seemingly go from verdent to bare to back again instantaneously. Every other place I lived I was too young to remember, every other place I visited was visited in summer. Some of the reds I was lookign at were truly spectacular, too, the leaves were ablaze. Beside the road, four cows, attended to by two babucias, munched on grass. I've come to believe that anywhere at any time, if you are on a bus and look out of the window in Ukraine, you will see grazing cows being guided by old women holding sticks.

As the bus kept not moving and no explanation was forthcoming, I kept telling myself to not get annoyed, that this is a part of life, that expectations kill, that I would get there when I got there. And eventually it worked. I stopped paying attention to the shutting on and off of the engine, stopped being annoyed and zoned out. Eventually, I realized that, with much grinding, a gear had been achieved and finally the bus started moving. It stopped again about five minutes later but, with more engine going off and on and more loud grinding, we got on the road and didn't stop until Kyiv.

Kyiv was more mantra: the marshrutkas don't leave until they are full. Depending on the day and time and luck, this could mean every ten minutes or once an hour. I was the first on my marshrutka and took its time filling up. Tired and wanting to be home, I told myself: "it will leave when it will leave."

I have yet to achieve that traveller's inner peace. I still have the tick-tock of American punctuality in my blood. That is to say, official things should be punctual. I, of course, never am. Forty minutes later, though, the engine started and, two hours after that, I was finally home.

"It comes when it comes, it goes when it goes and it gets there when it gets there" and that's how you live in Ukraine.

Ukraine: Odessa (Pics)

Life is going well: work hard, play hard.

Pics from Odessa:


Odessa's Potemkin Steps


Odessa's Black Sea port


A babucia on Arcadia beach


I like this picture because it's a number of Ukranian stereotypes in one picture


This canon was taken from the British during the Crimean War. Katie is trying to take it back.


Another Odessa beach

Ukraine: Okean Elzy Concert (Pics)

Diana and I went to the Okean Elzy concert in Kyiv on my Ukrainian one-year anniversary and it was amazing. My digital camera is gone, sadly, but I had my video camera at the concert, so was able to take some photos from that.

I’ve been a huge fan of the five-member Okean Elzy (their name means “Elzy’s Ocean”) since I first got to Ukraine. They are one of the few groups that sing in Ukrainian and not Russian, and listening to their music helped me out greatly during training. Nowadays they are a welcome respite on the airwaves, muscling in as they do between Euro-techno and Russian pop.


Where we were on the floor, with no zoom

Okean Elzy falls into no particular genre. The only musical tradition Ukraine has is folk music, played on pipes and accordions. This seems to have freed up Okean Elzy to try every type of song they wanted: one may be bluesy, another hard rock, one is straight funk with a Red Hot Chili Peppers-style rap, and another draws too much from the 80s. Where they really come to the fore, though, is on the power ballad. Lyrics to two of them are at the end of this blog.

Their lyrics are amazing. Ukraine has a love affair with poetry. There are statues in my town not to generals or politicians but to poets: Taras Shevchenko and Alexander Pushkin (well, there is a Lenin statue. A Ukrainian city without one is like an American city without a Wal-Mart). Okean Elzy’s lyrics reflect this poetic tradition and are full of interesting imagery.


Singer Svyatoslav Vakarchook. The zoom on my video camera rocks!

Unfortunately, the lyrics end up sounding stilted in English despite being so powerful in Ukrainian. Ukrainian is a musical language. The complexities of its grammar, it took me a long time to realize, are because it’s so concerned with how things sound. Every word changes to sound good with every other word. Had early Slavs taken a crack at modern English, they might have decided that “Youra beautifula girla” sounded more musical (or, at least, more like a retarded Italian) than “Your beautiful girl”, hence “Tvoya kracnaya divchina” is the translation, with both “your” and “beautiful” changing to fit with “girl”. “Your beautiful boy” would be “Tovoyee kracnee holopsee”.

It used to frustrate me that there were 24 forms of “you(r)” and that I had to memorize when each was used. What I finally understood, though, was that if I just started lining up sounds, I usually found that I was grammatically correct. Possibly it should have been taught to us that way, rather than presenting us with what linguists found when they decided to make an organized picture of the language.


Guitarist Pavlo Goodimov

In any case, the musicality of the language, the imagery of the words and the freedom of the music has made Okean Elzy one of my favorite bands. It was a great way to celebrate one year in Ukraine by paying $12 to get in, sneaking past the guards being mobbed by ticket-waving fans so that we could get onto the floor and then muscling our way to the front. Although Okean Elzy would be playing in Zhytomyr in only four days, it was worth the trip to Kyiv because you have to sit in Zhytomyr's theatre. To be on the floor, amongst the dancing singing, crowd, was definitely worth it. The zoom on my camera took care of the rest.

If you want to hear Okean Elzy’s music, an English website provides samples and sells albums.

http://www.umka.com.ua

And here are a couple of lyric translations (by me, so they may not be completely accurate):

[I don’t know the name of this song. It was song at the concert and I got it on video and have been listening to it repeatedly because it’s f’ing fantastic]

Prosto meni tak hochetsya boodo tam de ee ti
It’s just that I so want to be where you are

tak hochetsya shivite tebe polonee
So want to live for you, a prisoner

Ee bachete yak ytakyoot vid mene snih v tovoyee dolonee
And to see how my dreams escape from me into your hands

[Bez boyu (Without a Fight)]

Ya nalyyu sobi, ya nalyyu tobi vyna. A hochesh iz medom?
I pour to myself, I pour to you wine. Or do you want [me] with honey?

Hto ty ye? - Ty vzyala moye zhyttya i ne viddala
Who are you? You took my life and didn’t return it.

Hto ty ye? - Ty vypyla moyu krov i p'yanoyu vpala
Who are you? You drank my blood and fell drunk to the floor

Tvoyi ochi, klychut', hochut' mene vedut' za soboyu
Your eyes, they call, they want me. They see into myself.

Hto ty ye? Y kym by ne bula ty
Who are you at whom there was not you?

[Screamed] Ya ne zdamsya bez boyu!
I will not give up without a fight

Ukraine: Around Kyiv (Pics)

Slightly annoyed at the moment. Sometime between last night and this morning I lost my digital camera. Don't know if I set it down in Peace Corps office and it got picked up, if it got left in the hotel room and the maid ran off with it, or it was jacked in the metro. Either way, I managed to travel literally thousands of miles with the thing and never loose it and then I somehow misplace it while attending a meeting in Kyiv. That's how it goes... I try not to place too much attachment on property and it was on its last legs anyway, but still...

So there may not be pics on the site for some time, but I do have some from my last trip with Katie to Kyiv and Odessa, so here we go:


Katie in her headscarf that she had to wear to go into the Kyiv catacombs. I couldn't take pics inside the catacombs, so no mumified monks. Sorry.


A cathedral was under reconstruction. These are the tops.


Me in front of some Soviet weaponry. Behind me on the left is the Rodina Mat, on the right is an ICBM


Me, posing in front of the Rodina Mat

Ukraine: One Year Anniversary

Katie is back in Britain, leaving from the airport where, one year ago today I first stepped onto Ukranian soil.

I HAVE BEEN IN UKRAINE FOR A WHOLE YEAR!

Sorry, had to get that off my chest. It has gone so quickly. And yet, when I look back at certain times, they seemed interminably slow, and I didn’t think I’d make it another month, let alone my whole service.

I figured that I should make a tally of what I’ve done and learned in the past year, so here it is:

In the past year I have been mugged, attacked by a dog, had food poisoning three times, and witnessed an assault that I did not stop. I have been colder and more isolated that I have ever been in my entire life, and there were times when I have never felt more alone. But, in the past year, I have gained an intermediate level in two new languages, been to six new countries and nine of Ukraine’s oblasts. I’m probably halfway to a Slavic studies degree.

I learned how to lead climb and got a grant to build a climbing wall. I’ve learned more than 30 new songs on guitar. I’ve learned which vegetables and fruits are harvested with each season and how to prepare for the winter. I learned how to cut and grind meat, can vegetables, dry herbs and make tortillas and salsa from scratch (because if you want Mexican in Ukraine, you do it yourself).

I’ve bantered with babushkas, survived marshrutkas and have been beaten with birch branches in banyas. I’ve watched amateur boxing in an abandoned building, spectators packed in and bundled against the cold, watching sweating combatants wearing tennis shoes. I’ve been packed into every form of public transportation, and broiled, froze and stood for hours on them, yet kind of relish the discomfort.

I’ve helped smuggle cigarettes.

I have more attention than I ever should from hotter women than I should ever have.

I've taught a lot of seminars, clubs and classes, created a web page, wrote a lot of Olympiad and teaching materials and talked a lot about my country.

I’ve climbed on castles three times as old as my country. I’ve basked on nude beaches, sweated in packed discos and drunk vodka with Ukrainians. I’ve climbed mountains in Slovakia, caved in Hungary, and biked in Poland.

I’ve explored abandoned catacombs in Odessa, dove off cliffs into waters filled with Greek ruins in Sevastopol, been to a massive concert in Kharkiv, played poker for the first time in Poltava, heard the most breathtaking music of my life in a cathedral in Lviv, and danced traditional Ukrainian dances under the streets of Kyiv.

I’ve worn a speedo in public.

I’ve had both cops and train attendants try to get bribes from me. I’ve gawked at the flesh parade that is Krechatic Avenue. I’ve taught them a little about how to salsa and they’ve taught me a little about how to play the piano. I’ve seen a BMW idling beside a horse-drawn cart. I’ve seen a woman herding goats near a store that sells flat screen televisions. I’ve eaten so much pig fat I could never drown.
I’ve learned to love Ukraine in every season but winter, and have learned a little more about how to understand its people.

I’ve had my hair trimmed with a straight razor, have eaten homemade cheese and ate liver from a cow I saw alive only hours before.

Hot water, running water, electricity and a land line are all options now.

I danced ten feet from the stage at a packed Moby concert, sang “Razom Nas Bahato” in a crowd being broadcast to millions during Eurovison and quietly heard Yuchenko speak on Maidan during the Orange Revolution, realizing I was now part of history.

I have learned a lot about being an American in the world.

I have learned a LOT about teaching English as a second language, a lot of professional skills, including how to manage people, coordinate their schedules, and work in a bureaucracy, and am slowly learning how to teach adults.

I’ve made out with a beautiful Ukrainian while standing in the snow on a condemned
bridge, overlooking a gorge carved by a frozen river.

I rappelled off that bridge a few months later.

I’ve had the best jam, apple juice and watermelons of my entire life.

I’ve written more than 170 blog entries and finished a novel.

I have learned to appreciate beets and cabbage

I have really learned to appreciate McDonalds.

But mostly, even though its cliché, I’m learning about myself. The Peace Corps experience is so intensely social and so intensely political that it’s made me learn a lot about how to act in groups, how to learn from others and how to be humble, hard as that still is. More importantly, I’ve learned more about the person that I want to be.

Actually, I’ve learned and done so much, this list doesn’t begin to make a dent, so I’ll stop.

But I will say this: it’s been a hell of a year.

Thanks to all those who have helped me get through it, particularly my family (and all the emails from mom!), Bean, Sarah, the Zhytomyr crew, Carrie, Sean, Seth, Liz, Susannah and Diana. Thanks to all my friends who have been emailing me from the homefront and letting me know how they and America are doing, and offering words of support. I wouldn't have lasted without all of you.

Ukraine: Odessa

Getting pics online in Ukraine is a lot harder than in the rest of Eastern Europe, so it will probably be a week on these pics, but I'm seeing some cool stuff.

Despite some half-hearted protestations on my part, Katie is paying a lot of the cost of the trip (which is peanuts to her since she makes the British pound, currently 1:8.6 hrivnas). She bought me dinner in a posh restaurant overlooking the Black Sea here (hey, I paid the tip) and it cost 14 pounds for both of us. Katie points out that she can't buy dinner for herself in Britain for that price, so it makes me feel a little better.

Since all the volunteers I knew in Odessa have left Peace Corps, she ended up springing for a hotel as well. A 27 pound hotel room, in Odessa, it turns out, gets you a two room suite with a huge bathroom. We each got our own beds, which is just as well because I developed some sort of chest infection and have been hacking my lungs out. Still, that didn't stop me from seeing things.

Odessa is really cool, a sort of run-down Budapest architecture-wise, with great views of the Black Sea. We saw the Potemkin Steps, made famous by a movie that I haven't seen, and wandered around Arcadia Beach. Arcadia Beach reminded me of Mexico: the sand and water were beautiful, but it was surrounded by run down buildings, crumbling docks and detrius. Of course, we didn't go in it because it's polluted. Still, you could tell that at one point that this was prime vacation real estate in the USSR, but has since crumbled into ruin. It's probably pretty pumping in the summer, though, because a couple areas, now deserted, were obviously open air clubs now closed for the fall.

Me being sick prevented us from checking out any of Odessa's famed clubs, but today we're going to try to find and explore the catacombs used by partisans during WWII. They're outside of town, and the guide book says nothing more than to get a tour to go to them. Well, the off-season tour costs $85, so we're going to try to get out there on our own and see what happens.

***

Addendum: We have an hour before the train leaves back to Kyiv, so I thought I'd hop on the net. We found a marshrutka going to the town with the catacombs and found the museum that the catacombs exit into. The museum was open but had no one in it, including any attendents. We found the stairway going into the catacombs, but it was pitch black. There were a couple of flashlights around, but I figured they'd get upset if we took them without permission. We went to a nearby store and bought some matches, but they didn't have any candles. I was about to use some dead branches for a torch when a bus pulled up full of kids, and a woman that was with them started taking them into the catacombs. We negotiated a tour for 6 hrivna each and down we went.

The catacombs were really cool: full of old matress frames, rifles and machine guns, cooking pots, radios, typewriters, you name it, all used by partisans to fight the Nazis when they occupied Ukraine during WWII, and all just left around these tunnels carved into the sandstone underneath the village. There was graffiti on the wall in Russian that said things like "Blood for Blood" and "Death to the German Occupiers!" as well as pictures of Stalin and the Russian flag. The tour guide spent most of the time yelling at the kids who kept trying to run off down various tunnels, so mostly we hung back and wandered around the tunnels, trying to not let their voices get too far off because we heard that people had been lost in the catacombs, never to return. It was pretty damn cool, and well worth the price. The entire catacombs trip, including marshrutka and tour, came to $3.60. Compare that to the $85 the tour company had wanted.

We wandered around Odessa for the rest of the day, watching old men play chess in the park and wandering to another beach. This one had the remains of a concrete sea wall, so we sat on that for a while, amongst people fishing. The beach was lightly populated, but there were two really attractive girls in their 20s sunbathing naked, a man in his 60s lying between them in a pair of speedos. Not sure how he got that gig. And nearby them was another older man, who was just hitting a ball on a paddle up in the air over and over--but suspiciously close to the naked girls.

Possibly the old man was a sex-pat, one of the Westerners that come to Ukraine for dates and/or wives. At the posh restaurant, a German man at the next table was speaking in broken English to a translator, who was translating it into Russian for the extremely hot Ukranian girl sitting across from him. How you pick up a girl through two langauge barriers, I don't know. Although taking her to a posh restaurant probably helps.

Katie and I met one more sex-pat on the way into Kyiv from the airport. He was from Austria and absolutely lost coming out of the airport. He heard us speaking English and asked for help. He got on the marshrtuka with us to Kyiv, and told us he was meeting his girlfriend--whom he had met on the internet. She was arriving in Kyiv from Moldova (the next country over) to meet him and get a visa for her to Austria.

Katie and I got to talking about Ukranian women on that hour-long trip to Kyiv and I told her about the sex-pats, and the Austrian was visibly upset and told me he didn't want me to think badly of him. I told him the truth of the matter: every Ukranian woman I have ever talked to about the subject, including Diana, thinks that it's a good thing. If a Ukranian girl can have a better life in another country, so be it. And the Moldovan girl was from Transnistria: the breakaway region in east Moldovan that's run by warlords. She lives in a war-torn hell hole and if an Austrain guy is going to get her out of there, good for her. If they love each other, even better.

In any case, when we got off at the train station in Kyiv, I was going to help him find her train when he realized he had left something important on the marshrutka. He started patting his pockets with a look of fright on his face and then took off running after it.

We never saw him again.

Ukraine: Daniel the Tour Guide

Katie, a friend of mine from Britain, flew in on Thursday to take an extended weekend trip in Ukraine. When you live in the UK and make the pound, you can do that sort of thing.

I took her around Kyiv on Thursday, back to Zhytomyr on Friday, and then gave her the cultural experience: we bought food at the bazaar, went back to my place and canned pickles and applesauce. Then I took her out to the fields where, unfortunately all the summer crops have been harvested so that was not a lot to see. I forced her to speak to one of my English classes and tell them about Britain and show pictures before she, Diana and I went out to a club. It's difficult having to dance in a club with two attractive girls, but someone has to do it.

Today is was back to Kyiv to see some places that were even new to me: the Caves Monastery, where you we toured the catacombs by candlelight and saw the mumified remains of monks. Katie was required to wear a head scarf and had to buy one on the street. Ironically, there were many women in see-thru shirts that barely obscured their breasts, but they had on the head shawls and so were fine. Then we went to see Rodina Mat, otherwise known as "The Big Metal Mama", the huge statue of a woman holding a sword in the air that you can see from much of Kyiv. Surrounding her is a bunch of Soviet military weaponry, including tanks, helicopters and an intercontinental ballistic missle. Seriously.

Tonight, believe it or not, we're going to a Brian Adams concert. He's playing for free in the middle of Kyiv (how low he has fallen) so we'll give him an hour before grabbing dinner and getting on an overnight train to Odessa...

It's a tough life.

Ukraine: Walls, Pickles, Hamsters (With Pics)

Life updates:

Been extremely busy, but did get to spend a weekend at home finally. Saturday night I simply locked the door to my apartment, turned off my mobile and did nothing but write and watch a movie with my hamster. What? Hamster? We'll get to that.

Half the plywood is on the climbing wall. It's looking great. It's on a lot that the Polissya crew decided to beautify, so Saturday was spent breaking up and moving asphalt and shovelling dirt so that they can plant flowers around the perimeter. It was also spent gripping the frame of the wall with my ankles and thighs, ten feet in the air, while holding big sheets of plywood to it at akward angles. My new Russian word learned that day was "Derjai!", which roughly translates as "hold the goddamn plywood flush so I can get this goddamn bolt into the hole!" Actually, my dictionary doesn't translate it that way, but it's a small dictionary.

I have hot water again! I never got around to posting it, but the way they fixed my pipes meant that only a small trickle came out of the hot water tap, not enough to kick in my kolunka to heat the water. For about a week and a half I took bucket baths. Then, suddenly, the water was off for two days (but all my water jugs were full this time, so it wasn't badly missed) and then when it was turned back on, the water pressure was back. My kolunka is still idiosyncratic, so hot water is still intermittent, going on and off while in the shower, but this I am used to and can just step out until it kicks back in and then step right back in. I love hot water!

The other thing going on in my life, other than all the teaching and lesson planning and Russian tutoring is preparing for winter. The thermometer has begun its downward slide and the days are getting noticeably shorter (all the more so because my kitchen light still doesn't work and I'm still cooking via headlamp) so it's time to start canning. All the canning implements appeared in the bazaar and, with Diana's help, I canned my first batch of vegetables: 9 liters of tomatoes and 6 liters of pickles. Since then, I've canned a couple of liters of salsa and tonight I am going to make applesauce (once again, via headlamp). I need to hurry up, though, because tomatoes are dissapearing out of the bazaar and going up in price. When I made the salsa two weeks ago, I bought 7 pounds of tomatoes for 80 cents. Yesterday, it took forty minutes to find someone with tomatoes, and they were tiny. Everyone was selling apples yesterday, which is why I bought a few pounds to make the applesauce.


Sterilizing the jars


Boiling water on all four burners


Spices


Diana doing math. She's anal about the level of spices being right and apparently how much salt, sugar and vinegar should go into X liters of water requires a level of math that would make Einstein babble.


Loading up the jars


Finished products

Oh, yeah. The hamster. When I was in the bazaar, I passed the part where they sell pets. They sell everything in my bazaar, and when I say everything, I mean everything. You can buy an AK-47 in the bazaar for $250. I'm not kidding. One day, I'll work up the courage to go take a picture of the weapons shop. But passing the pets, I noticed something unsual: in a cage full of hamsters, one was hanging upside down from the roof. I watched this hamster climb around for a few minutes and, knowing she was a hamster after my own heart, bought her.

Her name is "Scalalazitzka". It literally translates as "female who crawls on cliffs", which is the closest Russian comes to "climber". I call her Scala for short. She's my backup protein source if I run out of food this winter.

Ukraine: Bootlegs No More?

And in news that effects me: The Ukranian parliment just passed a bill to make stop all the DVD, CD and program pirating in Ukraine. Ukraine is number 2 in pirating in the world, behind China. If I want a DVD of a movie--even one still in the theatres--I walk down to the bazaar and buy it for $4. If I don't mind it being dubbed in Russian, then I can buy one of the 6-in-1 DVDs. I recently bought a DVD with Madagascar, Batman Begins, War of the Worlds, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Star Wars III and a Russian film for $4. I also bought the first season of "Lost" for the same price.

DVDs are a little more pricey than MP3 CDs, on which I can buy, say, every album ever made by by Prodigy for $2.50. MP3 DVDs cost $4 and have about 3,000 songs from a genre, say techno. Having both little respect for intellectual property laws and a laptop, this has always been one of the great perks of living in Ukraine. Apparently, no more. I mean, the street side vendors will no doubt carry them, but the huge markets at the bazaars and, more particularly, Patrivka (the dozens of blocks long black market of media in Kyiv where you can buy ANYTHING that can be burned onto optical media) will be shut down. Why is Ukraine caring about this business that brings entertainment to its people when they could never afford a full-priced DVD or CD?

Because thanks to pushing the bill through, the United States has just lifted the 100% import tarriffs they slapped on 75 billion dollars worth of goods from Ukraine to punish the country for not respecting intellectual property laws.

Now, I can see being ethical and all, but do you think that it was the principal of that matter that caused the US to punish Ukraine to the tune of 75 billion dollars? Or do you think it was film and music industry lobbies pressuring the government? Because, let's think about this for a second: what does the loss of legitimate sales of overpriced media in second world countries do to America's GDP? And what does the loss of being able to export 75 billion dollars worth of goods mean to Ukraine's GDP? Which is why Parliment made the bill. But do you think the American people were so feeling the burn of Ukraine's burning that they were clamouring for these tarrifs to be put in place?

I just think the U.S. surely has better things to worry about. Right? Right? That, and it's now harder to find my $4 DVDs.

Ukraine: Yushenko Fires his Government

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Ukraine: Iron Babucias, Abusing Orphans and Dancing in a Speedo (With Pics)

This was 24 hours in Poltava:

1) Iron Babucias. The group was walking down the street when the sound of squealing tires caught our attention. I looked up just in time to see a car hit an old woman. I ran towards her, not knowing what I could possibly do. The car was now stopped, the woman lying beside it. Two men from a wedding party across the street ran over as well. When I reached her, the old woman looked at me and her expression was one of utter pain. The two men were talking to her and another woman ran over, telling them not to move her. Unable to help there, I ran across the street to a grocery store and burst in yelling in Russian "We need an ambulance, call an ambulance," to the people inside. They looked at me with expressions normally reserved for cows. "We need an ambulance!" I said again in Russian. Trying to explaing, I said: "A babucia was [hit] by a car." Not knowing the word for hit, I smacked my hands together. Finally, a man started walking to the back of the store. He was wearing a white dress shirt, and I assume he was a manager. The people went back to their shopping. Finally, the man came out and said an ambulance had been called.

I went back outside, five minutes having elapsed, and the old woman was sitting up. A man with the wedding party, who said he was a doctor, was examining her back. A few minutes after that, the old woman--who I swore was going to die in the street ten minutes before--stood up. She and the man who hit her began to talk. Possibly, she was trying to sell him berries for causing her the inconvience.


The babucia and guy that hit her

I walked around to the other side of the car. The side view mirror was hanging off from where it had hit her. I looked over to the old woman and the man. They were walking slowly, talking. It was one of the most surreal experiences of my life. Dali on LSD. That kind of surreal.


The damage to the car

A bit later, the ambulance pulled up, and the woman walked unassisted to it and got in. I swear they make babucias out of iron.


Getting into the ambulance

2) Abusing Orphans. So a poker night was ensuing. What you need for a poker night: Cigars? Check. Money. Check. Chips? Um. Cards. Um. Carrie had forgotten the poker chips in Kyiv. What could we possibly use? Well, Jared's mother had brought a few bags of little toys for the orphans in Poltava when she had come to visit Ukraine. One of those bags was felt rings with smiley faces on them. Those could be used as chips. And Jared couldn't find his cards. Well, there was also a pack of tiny Mickey Mouse cards that was also for the orphans. All these toys were given to the orphans later, of course. They were just, um, tested first.


Chips and cards


Me and Sean playing poker


Sean, Erin, Mike, Jared and Carrie playing poker

3) Dancing in a Speedo. As I was packing, Sean noticed the bit of fabric that was the pair of speedos I bought in Budapest. Not knowing if swimming would be involved on the trip, I had brought them. They pack well and, hey, it's Ukraine. You stand out if you're on a beach and NOT in speedos. Possibly joking, Erin asked to see me in them. Jared put on some booty-shaking music and craziness ensued. As did lap dances. Carrie and Mike were not there when I started dancing around because they had been on a beer run, but they did come in for the, um, tail end of it.

Pair of speedos: $3
Digital camera:$200
Mike's reaction when he walked into the room: Priceless


Dancing in a speedo


Mike's reaction