Monday, February 28, 2005

Misc: Marriage

Ah, yes, another friend is now happily married. The number keeps growing and growing. Erin K. is no longer Erin K., but Erin E., having married one of my fraternity brothers in a small Las Vegas ceremony. The Vegas ceremony came after giving up on planning a big wedding in Oklahoma, where they're both from. It didn't help that he lived in Southern California and she was living in Albuquerque.

Yes, I was in a fraternity, but it was a service fraternity, not a Greek one, and so doesn't count.

I'm starting to loose track of the friends I have that are married. Actually, the truly weird part is that over the entire course of college, they all seemed to have ended up with each other, but never to the people I thought they would have.

For example: Erin K. used to be engaged to my former roommate and good friend, Nick. Matt, the man Erin K. is now married to, dated Melissa for years in college, and we all thought that they'd get married, except that Melissa is now living with Dave, another good friend and former roommate. Dave had a relationship with Kayla, but actually Kayla is now a lesbian--mostly. She did date Jeremy after discovering that side of her sexuality, not long after Jeremy had broken up with Julie, the person he was with for years and with whom he had also been engaged. Nick, by the way, has just gotten out of a lengthy relationship with Sarah, my travel buddy and climbing partner. It's all hard to keep track of, sometimes.

The closest I've gotten to marriage is having bought an engagement ring for Robynne, whom I had been dating for more than two years. Except the ring got lost in the mail.

Seriously.

I bought it in Florida, and since I was going to be spending a night on the streets of New York for the New Years in Times Square thing, thought it would be prudent to mail it home. If anything happened, I figured, it was insured.

Something happened, as in it never got there.

It sort of confirmed what I had suspected: as great as Robynne was, I simply didn't want to get married. She's now teaching dance in California and raising her newborn, Molly. Luckily, our friendship was the strongest part of the relationship, and we've stayed close. So close, in fact, that I'm Molly's godfather.

Which leads to another thing of interest: if you want to get married or have a kid, a relationship with me may be the best way to do it. For the past seven years, every girl that has dated me for more than a month has gotten married, had a child, or got married and had a child with the next guy, including Robynne. There is one exception, but she was with the next guy for more than three years. I'm still not sure why they didn't get married.

Of course, that may have to do with the fact that we're all now of the marrying/child bearing age. But if it's not, and you want a ring on your finger that didn't come from me, sign on up!

In any case, I'm really happy for Matt and Erin, and think they're a great couple. I'm sad I missed the wedding, and I wish them a life of happiness. Good luck you guys!

Sunday, February 27, 2005

Ukraine: Group Sleep

So, yes, group sleep. It's the adult version of a slumber party. Carrie has them at the summer camp she runs and we thought: hey, why not in Zhytomyr?

So it was the first time in the history of ever that all five Zhytomyr volunteers: Mary, Carrie, Amy, Steve and myself, were ever in the same spot, the spot being Steve's apartment. I was trying to cook chicken fettechini alfredo on Steve's one working burner, and then found myself picking all the chicken off the floor because when I flipped the chicken (me being I-Don't-Need-No-Stinking-Spatula Daniel), the screw holding the pan to the handle flew one way while the pan full of chicken flew the other, into a wall. I stared dumbfoundly at the handle still in my hand until Steve said: "Oh, I forgot to tell you that happens sometimes."

Steve's apartment and also Carrie's tell me and Amy what to look forward to: Steve has the one working burner and no hot water. Carrie has hot water, but her sink and tub don't drain and her toilet doesn't flush. She flushes the toilet by pouring buckets of water into it, empties out the tub after her hot showers in the same manner. No one came into Peace Corps to have it posh, though.

In any case, dinner was rescued, washed, and then cooked again. We watched my travel video and hung out, listening to music. Mary, in her fifties, excused herself about 11:30 (extrodinarily late for her; we usually loose her around 10:00). Then the alcohol came out. So did my guitar.

About an hour later, the girls were past inebriety, and demanding that I play "My Immortal" by Evanescence yet again. I had just learned it on guitar, and while Amy was a fan, Carrie had never heard it. They made me type out the lyrics so they could sing along, and then got really serious about it, commanding me to stop and start so they could figure out their version of harmonies (the way cats have versions of harmonies), belting out the chorus in this tiny apartment with paper thin walls at well past midnight. We got up to the bridge and I suggested that maybe we were done with the song, and Carrie said: "No! It's a project now! We have to finish! Steve, we need more alcohol!"

And Steve does what he always does, which is whatever the girls tell him to do. So he went off to make more mimosas while we screachingly went through the bridge, the final chorus and then finished the song.

Another highlight of the evening was when Steve broke out the nachos. They looked like Dorritos, were in a Dorritos-styled bag and even crucnched like Dorritos. Like most Ukrainian food, though, they were absolutely tasteless. Amy dissapeared with the bag, returning a few minutes later and shaking it. "Try," she said, holding it out. I put a chip in my mouth. It tasted sweet, like cinnamin. Then my tongue started to burn, that burn associated with cayanne pepper. Apparently Amy had gone into the kitchen and started putting spices in the bag. "Amy, you are no longer allowed to drunk cook," I said. We also had to take her cell phone away because she was on the verge of drunk dialing. London.

There was a demand for more music by the girls. They told Steve to put on Coldplay. Steve, who was busy transfering music from my MP3 player to his computer, put on Green Day. "Coldplay!" they demanded. After a few minutes, he put on "Vodoo Child" by Jimi Henderix. "Coldplay!"

"It's always time for Jimi," I said from beneath my ski cap, which was pulled down to cover my face. I was tired and trying to block out the light.

"Coldplay!" the girls said.

Steve put on Coldplay.

"Yay!"

A bit after that the couch was turned into a bed and Steve's bed pushed beside it.



"Finding Nemo" was put on Steve's laptop and we piled onto the new big bed, Amy and Carrie saying "We want the turtles!". I was drifting off to sleep before Nemo was even captured, but woke up a little bit later to snoring. Marlin and Bruce the shark were having a conversation. The snoring was from Steve, but Amy was asleep, too. I got out of bed and shut off the movie and the computer.

I woke up to Steve going, "No! No!"

My head darted up, eyes open. "What?"

"Something's wrong with my computer! It's not on!"

"Steve, I shut it off."

"You did?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

The conversation awoke Amy. "Where's 'Finding Nemo'?"

"You were asleep. I turned it off."

"But I want the turtles!"

"It's off."

"Play 'Finding Nemo'!"

I put my head under the covers and went to sleep.

So, fun times all around, although I was exhausted this morning. Probably not as much as Carrie, though, who had to get up at 8:00 am to catch a marchrutka to Kyiv for a meeting. She took one for the team though.

In any case, we think that group sleep was a rousing success, and plan to have another one soon.

Saturday, February 26, 2005

Misc: Site Recomendation

If you haven't checked out Ira's "A Young Vagabond" yet, you should.

Ira, a friend of mine from college, is on an 8 month trip around Europe. He started in Greece, worked his way through most of Europe and some of Turkey, and is currently in Marrakesh, Morroco. He's been writing updates and travelogues from the road, as well as posting photos. His latest ones were of him playing with a cobra. Some of his travelogues have also been published on Subsystence.net.

His site:

A Young Vagabond

His travelogues on Subsystence:

Subsystence.net

Check it out!

Friday, February 25, 2005

Ukraine: My Baby is Back!

My Baby is Back!

A backstory: So I'm trying to get through the revolving door of a hotel. Behind me is an Arabic cabbie, screaming "Fuck you! Fuck you!" over and over at my back. He's upset because I refused to pay him the $17 and change he demanded. This is because meter said $14 and change. "Rush hour charge," he had explained, which was funny considering I had spent most of the trip from Ronald Reagan Airport reading the sticker on the inside of the window that listed all the charges, and a rush hour charge was not on there. What was on there was a number to call if the cabbie asked for any fare not on the meter. He didn't like that I pointed this out to him, and the screaming started while in the car, continued as he lobbed my bags out of the trunk onto the concrete and intensified when I handed him exactly what was on the meter and said "ironically, your tip would have been three dollars."

This was, in fact, one of my last experiences in the United States of America.

Trying to get through the revolving door and wanting to make it in with my duffel bag, my backpack and my guitar--everything I was taking for the next two years--simultaneously (for fear that leaving anything outside would entice the yelling cabbie to mess with it), I ungainly rammed the head of my guitar (protected only by a lightly-padded canvas guitar case) into the glass.

My guitar has a name, Baby. It is my acoustic-electric knock-off with a beautiful green finish and a really nice sound. I actually own a really expensive Washburn, but it didn't have a name, and it wasnt being taken to Ukraine. Oh, and don't ask what my electric guitar is called; it's not fit for print.

In any case, Baby's wood had already been weakened because she had been shipped in the unpressurized belly of a plane from Oklahoma City to Orlando without me loosening the guitar strings beforehand; bad idea. When I unzipped the case in my hotel room, I saw that her head had snapped forward, a few tendrils of wood away from being completely off. My roommate, Mike, another guitar player (his guitar sitting in the case equivalent of Fort Knox) shook his head and said: "I'd leave it."

I set her in the corner, was going to let the maid throw it out when, leaving the next day for the airport, I had a sudden change of heart and brought her, resolving to repair her in Ukraine.

A long-distance discussion with my mom's fiancee, Jerry, also a guitar player (he gave me the Washburn), and he said he'd ship some industrial glue and clamps to me. The break was in such a way that if I could firmly reaffix the head (now having come completely off between America and Ukraine), then Baby would play without problems, as no damage had been done to the fretboards.

He mailed the glue in October.

I spent four months playing first my Obhiev host brother's guitar, then my Zhyomyr host brother's. Ukrainian guitars, to be blunt, suck ass. The action is too high and the sound is janglingly horrible. I went through countless jam sessions with other volunteers, always playing on someone else's guitar (usually Ashley's, who brought hers with every intention of learning more than the few chords she knew. Since she knew she couldnt keep up with us, she was always happy to loan it to me while she sang along. Thanks, Ash!) and always missing my own, my Baby, who now sat in corners with no head, looking sad and pitiful.

The glue arrived in Febuary. Four months. Must be a record for the Ukraine Postal Service.

I waited two weeks until I tried to repair her, wanting the available time to follow every instruction on the bottle to the letter, knowing I probably had one chance to fix her before she was completely beyond repair. She sat for 24 hours, leaning against a chair, two clamps affixed, the metal padded by a faded blue shirt I was willing to sacrifice for her.

After the clamps came off, I wrapped Baby's head in duct-tape, that clothbacked adhesive gift from God, in the hopes that it'd help take a bit more pressure off the glue when the strings went on. And on they went, last night, slowly, being tightened in little turns, the process taking twenty worry-soaked minutes, Baby facing away from me in case the wood snapped under the pressure and her head flew forward.

Then, finally, all the strings were in tune. My heart racing, waiting for the wood to break, I gently played an E chord. She sang. That hunk of wood hadn't made music since Florida and she sang. My heart sang with her.

I played less and less gingerly and, three hours later, was still playing. I felt great. As people will attest, I get attached to things, and I was attached to this guitar. She's been played in hostels, homes and hotels in a dozen states and two countries. She's been there for different stages of my life: I've played her while sweating and ecstatic on ecstasy, each note sending pleasure signals up my fingers. I've played her in the background while my students in Oklahoma took turns reading, in salty, sultry ways, "The Weary Blues" by Langston Huges. I've played her for my infant goddaughter, Molly, who was more interested in the movement of my hands than any music I was making.

She's probably helped a couple people fall a little bit more in love with me. Or at least in lust.

In any case, she wasnt left for some DC hotel maid.

And here, at the end of a Ukranian winter, she's been brought back to life. Although the temperature has plummeted yet again, I'm warm with her in my lap, sitting cross-legged in front of a plugged-in heater, shirt off, eyes closed, fingers on her strings, listening to her sing.

My Baby is back! And I'm a happy man.

Thursday, February 24, 2005

Ukraine: Students Say the Darndest Things

In the spirit of the Reader’s Digests I used to read growing up: “Ukrainian Students say the Darndest Things!”

I once had my 11th graders write dialogues as if they were the person in the magazine pictures I gave them. For this dialogue, one picture was of a woman from an advertisement, the other was of Peter Jackson. Both students were girls.

Student 1: Hi
Student 2: What is your name?
Student 1: My name is Peter Jackson.
Student 2: What are you?
Student 1: The best and what about you?
Student 2: I am working in a sex shop
Student 1: You are very beautiful. Are you marry?
Student 2: Yes. I live in Sydney. I sing.
Student 1: It’s very nice, too. So maybe we are marry!
Student 2: I love you.

The following came from another volunteer whose students were given magazine pictures and told to describe the person in the picture using the adjectives they had learned.

Student: “Rumsfeld is fashionably dressed. He is neither stout nor awkward. I believe I wish to appear as this man does.”

Another dialogue from my students:

Student 1: Hi
Student 2: Hello!
Student 1: What is your name?
Student 2: My name is Jennifer. And you?
Student 1: My name is Bob.
Student 2: Where are you from?
Student 1: Tasmania. Australia.
Student 2: Really? I’m from Australia, too.
Student 1: What are you doing here?
Student 2: I am working here. I am Greenpeace. Are you a soldier?
Student 1: Yes.
Student 2: And what are you doing in Tasmania?
Student 1: I’m doing a special mission. I hunt for Tasmanian devils.


Peace Corps trainees doing a newsletter in Fastiv asked students what they liked best about their school. This was a printed quote from an 11th grader:

The best thing about school: “Lunch is free because we live in the fourth zone of radioactive contaminations.”

This is from a Peace Corp volunteer that asked students to create their own countries and write about them. Apparently this student never participates, but was inspired that day. All spelling mistakes are his:

“Ganjaland is a land of legalaiz near Columbia. Canabis trading on all corners of city. My natures is all ganjakuz. At last time in my country was a fire. All ganjakuz is burns. All people smoke canabis. Cities of my country are Ukrainka Kiev. Our best friend is Columbia. She exports canabis we are very happy. In my country are plants for canabis.

One last dialogue from my students:

Student 1: Hello.
Student 2: Hi.
Student 1: What’s your name?
Student 2: My name is Branshoy. And what is your name?
Student 1: My name is Pedro.
Student 2: Who are you?
Student 1: I’m a killer! And who are you? What are you doing?
Student 2: I’m a worker and sitting and working on the roof. Do you have a family?
Student 1: No, because I’m a killer. And you?
Student 2: Yes, of course. I have a wife and 12 child.
Student 1: Do you like your job?
Student 2: Yes, but it is very difficult and dangerous, more interesting than your one.
Student 1: Nice to meet you, Pedro.
Student 2: Okay. Goodbye.

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Misc: Requiem for an idol

Hunter S. Thompson died yesterday.

Apparently it was suicide, a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Thompson himself would probably cry conspiracy.

If I were to draw up a list of the top five authors who have influnced my writing, he would be on it. If I were to draw up a list of the top five authors who have influence my life. He would be on it.

His best known work, of course, was Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. As seminal a book as that was, I was far more changed by his first written novel: The Rum Diaries and his first published novel: Hell's Angels.

For in them both Thompson put forward a new kind of journalism (called now New Journalism; Thompson preferred Gonzo Journalism) in which the writer is integerally part of the events he or she writes about.

And how could it be any other way? I worked for nearly four years as a journalist and any piece that didn't require a side wasn't worth writing about, and any piece that did require a side could never be objective. It's a lie to keep the journalist out of the journalism, for then people believe the facts printed in an inch wide column instead of understanding how selective--concious or unconcious--those facts are. And often, unsubstantiated.

No, far better to be in the story, let the reader know that they are getting an issue filtered through someone.

But Thompson was more than the way he influenced journalism. It was what less what he wrote about than his attitude toward life that won him acclaim. He said what he thought, no matter the consequences.

He was fearless. Suicidally fearless. It was his writings about riding with a Hell's Angel gang (and, ultimately, being beaten by them and left for dead), his writings about being a stringer in Puerto Rico, stealing rum from press conventions and seducing a woman thought it probably meant his life (and, ultimately, getting beaten by a gang of Puerto Ricans and left for dead) that made me go--at my impressionble young age--"this is it! This is life! In the thick of a story worth telling and then living to tell it! This is how it must be done!"

And any who know me know how much that sentiment drives me to this day.

There is a line; there is a limit. After I got mugged, sitting in my room and staring at a wall, I wondered how much longer I had until I hit it. Was I pushing it too far? When would there come a story that I wouldn't live to tell? Did I--and I had this thought, recollecting The Rum Diaries--want to be beaten to within an inch of my life and left for dead? Or more? Is that why I did things like walk home alone at 3:00 in the morning in Ukraine? Jumped off of buildings? Raced 120 MPH down desert roads?

Because I had wanted to be fearless like Thompson: suicidally fearless.

But the end did come for Thompson. He found his line; his limit. But he touched the world. Journalism will never be the same because of him. Part of a generation saw themselves in his words. And part of a new generation grew up with them, was influenced by them, myself included. It's entirely likely that without Thompson I would never have come to Ukraine, because he and others planted a need in me for an other-than-ordinary life.

The man was crazy, no doubt, but that was part of his appeal. I was not surprised to learn that he killed himself, although I was sad. I don't know if he was a good man, but he will be missed, and he will be remembered, and that, I'm sure, was enough for him.

Rest in peace, Hunter. Rest in peace. I, for one, will miss you.

Monday, February 21, 2005

Ukraine: Girls are Brainless

So here's a story for you:

We had the regional Olympiad on Friday and Satuday. Saturday finds me sitting with six other teachers behind a desk, spending eight hours listening to students giving their answers to speaking tasks, one after the other. So in walks this student, male, age 17, very angry. Why is he angry? I don't know. He draws a speaking task from the overturned slips of paper in front of him. The task: give your opinions about beauty contests.

In English, he says they are foolish. Anyone associated with them is foolish. There are more important problems in the world, like crime and pollution. He does not understand why there are beauty contests.

Then a teacher asks him: if you had a female friend who wanted to be in a beauty contest, what would you tell her?

His answer: "She should do it. All girls should be beautiful."

"But you said that beauty contests are foolish," I told him.

"Well, girls are foolish," he said. "All girls are brainless."

He said it with a straight face and meant it. Of course, this produced an uproar from the five female teachers arranged in front of him.

"Are we brainless?" asked one.

"No," he said, "because you are not girls. You are women."

"And how did we become not brainless?" asked another teacher. "How do we change from brainless to not brainless?"

And he answered, again perfectly serious: "I don't know. I am not a doctor. I am not a scientist."

Despite his decent English, he got slammed in his scores. Which wasn't the only unfair scoring: they actually scored lower another guy to make sure a previous girl would win. I protested, but no one listened to me. "She got second place last year and deserves to win this year," they said.

Actually, translating that story into Ukrainian to tell Diana required learning a dozen new words (like "beauty contest" concorse kresavy). Actually, telling her stories in Ukrainian (even though she is perfectly capable of understanding them in English) might be one of the better ways to work on my Ukrainian.

I have been having problems getting the pics and video online. I think it might be on the American end, though. Oklahoma City Public Schools doesn't know this, but they are still hosting me and sometimes there computers don't want to upload files.

The pics on the blog itself are hosted by Geocities, but there are too many pics from Lviv to host it there. So, for now, here are some pics from playing pool last night. Steve was supposed to play with us and work on getting to know Ksoosha a little better, but he got held up in Kyiv and Ksoosha left before he returned. He was not too happy about that.


Yours truly

Miss Diana with pool cue


Diana and Ksoosha


Ksoosha taking a shot

Thursday, February 17, 2005

Ukraine: Why the Germans lost the war

There’s a reason Germans didn’t win on the Eastern front, and I’m in it. Two days ago, Ukrainians celebrated winter meeting spring (the holiday commemorating the actual arrival of spring will be celebrated with more parties on the last Sunday of this month; Ukrainians have a lot of holidays). The temperature rose to a couple degrees above freezing, and now the three-inch thick sheet of ice that covers the streets and sidewalks and the two-foot high piles of snow beside them are melting into slush. Except Ukraine doesn’t have, you know, gutters or anything, so it’s a bit like a mini-deluge. By the way, should you ever come to Ukraine at the beginning of spring, you should take note that because it’s mixed with dirt, water in a pothole six inches deep tends to be the exact color of the street. And should you be an American who’s not paying attention to where he’s walking...

Yeah. Up to mid-calf. In my slacks.

Yesterday, I was regaled with a story about three of my fellow Zhytomyr volunteers trying to leave my home the day before—the one that sits in the valley. The cab had come and off they went and I had closed the door behind them. Apparently while I was warm in bed, the cab was stuck in slush and mud. They got out; they pushed; it got stuck again. They got out; they pushed; it didn’t budge. Apparently, the cab driver was of the mind that high revs and throwing it in to gear was the way to get the taxi out. Smoke started pouring out from under the hood. They got out; they pushed; it got stuck again.

More revs, trying to get that cab with four people up an incline covered in mud and slush. More smoke from the hood, this time also pouring through the vents and into the car. The three Americans bailed out, thrust ten hrivna in the angry cab driver’s hand and walked up the hill, catching a cab up there.

The Germans, while attacking Russia, actually managed to make it through the Ukrainian winter (no one ever remembers that most of the “Russian Front” was actually in Ukraine) and then this is what they had to face. No wonder they lost.

As far as Lviv, the Olympiads are tomorrow and between that and a teacher being sick and me taking her classes, I haven’t had moment one to do any real writing.

Actually, most of my time has been spent babysitting a copy machine. We need 800 copies of these questions I’ve been writing for the competing students. Except the decent copier the institute owns was locked up and no one knew where the guy with the key was. So I was doing them on the small machine, which could only handle one copy at a time and jammed every fourth copy. Hands smeared in toner, several hours and 130 copies later, I called it a day.

Why was this not covered in grad school? I feel, when getting your Masters in Education, that Piaget’s theories of cognitive development and Maslow’s hierarchies of need probably could have been tossed out in favor of Office Equipment Repair 101. Seriously.

I really do want to get Lviv stuff up, because I have a lot of good pictures and a couple good anecdotes and even some video. The video is good stuff, because we went to a traditional Ukrainian party while in Lviv (it was supposed to be a candlelit dinner; instead it was a traditional Ukrainian party) and I have small videos of a folk band, folk dancing and even a Ukrainian stand up comedian. Plus, slang was the topic of last night’s English club and I do in fact have a video of two Ukrainian students doing a slang-heavy dialogue. Hearing a Ukrainian girl say “I am hooked up,” is about the funniest damn thing I can think of at the moment.

So, hopefully that will whet your appetite dear readers (all two of you). The problem at the moment is time, but I’m thinking Monday or Tuesday I should have some time to baby sit an upload.

Monday, February 14, 2005

Ukraine: Back from Lviv

I'm back in Kyiv right now, should be back in Zhytomyr tonight. The Lviv trip was...frustrating, amazing, exausting, amazing. Let's say the package deal wasn't that great a deal (among other things, the castle wasn't a castle, and despite that we didn't have dinner inside it, and because they witheld a lot of information from us in an effort to get us to stay, we ended up stuck in a small town until 1:00 A.M.). Let's just say that Ukrainian culture repeatedly reared its ugly head. Coupled with the fact that Susannah is having a really hard time at her site and expected this to be a nice get away, well, every time something else went wrong it was one more straw on the camel's back. She cried a couple of times and as of last night was just sick of Ukraine and wanted to quit Peace Corps. Luckily, I don't think she will.

I'm having a better time at site and I think I'm just more laid back about things, so I actually had a pretty good time. Lviv is an amazing city and so many little things happened that actually made me appreciate, not hate, Ukraine.

I'll write about it and post it with pictures in a day or two.

Friday, February 11, 2005

Ukraine: Tough Enough

Both getting mugged and watching a girl get beaten has made me question myself, my masculinity, and what that means. I had the waking-fantasies of leaping into a fray to a protect a woman and winning, or being mugged in the street and fighting back and winning, but reality has made me aware of reality.

My traditional role as a male is to be a provider and protector. My raised role is an emasculated version of that: a provider, sure, but also a caretaker, sensitive, literate, wise, worldly but not tough. Well, mentally or emotionally tough, but not physically tough. As mentioned in both the book and film Fight Club, “your average person will do just about anything to avoid a fight.” And avoid I did, not leaving my seat as a girl was hit over and over in front of me, giving my money and cell phone to two men on a dark street when they hit me and demanded it.

And because I am loathe to be violent, or, rather, because I am loathe to be hurt by the violence in return, I have found that power has been given over to those who are willing to be violent. America is a bubble, parts of it anyway. Inside that bubble, men can be the emasculated metrosexuals that America asks us to be. Our violent tendencies are sated by movies and video games and we are pacified.

Oh yes, I don’t think that movies and video games create violence, I think they’re outlets for it. The violence is inside us, males especially, and those movies and video games are just channels for it. There is talk of nature and nurture in our makeup, but I have no doubt that basic things like anger are all nature. Studies on testosterone leave no doubt as to it’s effects, and males are full of it. It’s nurture, society, that asks us to avoid violence, to ask us to reason, to bargain. But there is no bargaining with a man hitting a woman in a rage, with two men willing to hurt you until you give them money. And in both those situations, I was not as tough as I needed to be. I was cowed and complacent, as I’ve been told to be.

On a larger scale, this makes me sound like George W. Bush, retaliation, preemption, violence to protect against violence, violence breeding more violence. My jury is out on all that, but that’s not what I’m referring to. Large scale, I feel, is different, although I’m willing to hear arguments. What I’m specifically referring to is that, for the streets of Ukraine, I was not bred tough enough.

Logic, sure enough: I was alone in that club. Stepping in to protect that girl could have landed me in the hospital or dead because there were at least three of them and no one would have helped me. Fighting back on the street could have landed me in the hospital or dead because there were two of them an no one would have helped me.

But sitting here, now, unhurt and weighed heavy, I still feel like I should have been more of a man. The mugging, I can live with. It would have been nice to beat the shit out of those two guys, but it was just money. With the girl, though, I made the wrong choice. I did not fulfil my role as provider and protector. When the time came, I bowed my head.

Had I known the girl, would I have jumped in? I hope so. Had a girl been with me when I was mugged, and they were trying to hurt her, rape her, would I have fought back? I hope so. At one point that would have been a yes, but now I question my own resolve. I want the answer to be yes. I hope to never have to test that fact, but I want to regain the surety, and this time have it be for real.

Society, nurture, is just a thin gloss coat over the primal instincts that let us survive long enough to make societies. And it is those instincts that shake like apes in a cage, teeth bared and screaming to be let out. I think with nurture we gained and we lost, and maybe we lost too much. For we should be sensitive, literate, worldly and wise, but also ready to throw or take a punch when needed, ready to tap that primal source as called for. Is it not under the lacquered bubble that we look out at the rest of the world and fear? The rest of the world is dark and dangerous and we hide in self-built cities of glass. So built up is that fear that when the ape in a cage is released, it isn’t channeled, it lashes. It slaps down thirty year jail sentences for drug sales in the ghettos we fear, launches military assaults at countries that never hurt us.

I joined Peace Corps in part to see how tough I am, to see how well I could live outside the bubble. And the world has responded. The answer is that I’m no longer sure how tough I am, but it’s not as tough as I once thought I was. But rather than slink back home, I know that I want to be stronger. I don’t want to be a raging ape in a cage, and I don’t want to be stupid or callous or ignorant, but I do want to know that if I need to be a protector, of others or myself, that I am tough enough to be so, am strong enough to rise to the challenge.

I never want to watch a girl get hurt like that again.

I want to be as tough as that.

Thursday, February 10, 2005

Ukraine: Not a Hero

First: We had a great English club last night and taught some Ukrainians to salsa. Because influenza is going around, all the schools are closed and that meant none of the volunteers had to work today. We decided to get dinner after the club, which turned into a movie, which turned into going to a dance club, and they kept forgetting that as a teacher trainer, I still had work today. So, yeah, I'm exhausted at the moment.

Some pictures from the English club, and, following that, the story I told you about yesterday.








***
Not a Hero

Indigo is Obhiev’s sole dance club, and I was in it alone because all of the other trainees had been too tired to go. I sat down at an empty table with only one chair, and, after about fifteen minutes of watching the dance floor, one of the club’s employees said they needed the table. Three girls and a guy were standing beside her.

I wanted to meet some Ukrainians, so I introduced myself and asked to sit with them. The guy did not speak Ukrainian, only Russian, and didn’t seem to want me there until the girls asked where I was from. When I said America, his attitude changed and he smiled and shook my hand. I spent most of the next hour talking with two of the girls, Yulia and Oxana.

It was good to flex my Ukrainian muscles, and we talked about a lot: Ukraine, America, music, dancing. I found out that the guy was from Kazakhstan and the girl to his right was his girlfriend, Yulia’s sister. Yulia asked me if I had a girlfriend. The answer was no, but she said that yes, she had a boyfriend. He was currently working at his job as a bartender, she said. Yulia and I talked more over the course of the night. She was flirting with me, obviously flirting with me, and I was dumbstruck by it. The girl was gorgeous, simply gorgeous, and as she danced beside the table to the music, she was looking at me, dancing for my attention, which she got. Her tight tee-shirt stopped at her pierced, flat stomach and the clothing didn’t pick up again until the middle of her hips, only an inch of skin-tight denim above where her legs met. My desire was palpable.

When her boyfriend, or the guy I assume was her boyfriend, came in, she was dancing right beside me and I was watching her. I noticed him, and he stuck his hand out to shake mine. After we shook hands, though, he didnt sit down, instead standing back from the table.

Yulia tried talking to him and he seemed angry. My first thought was that it was over me. Maybe it wasnt, maybe it was. Yulia sat back down, but not in her seat beside me, in the one across from me, leaning slightly towards the guy from Kazakhstan as if for protection. The guy I took to be her boyfriend, still standing, pushed her slightly. He left the club, and, after a few minutes, she got something out of her purse: it was either money or a wad of something, put on her jacket and walked outside.

Her sister and the guy from Kazakhstan went back to watching the dance floor. After a mental debate, I decided that I could only make things worse by saying anything and swiveled my chair to watch the dance floor as well. I wondered if I should go dance, but they had switched to “Ice Ice Baby”. So I just watched.

I heard some yelling behind me, an argument, and I turned to see that Yulia was back, sitting beside her sister’s boyfriend. Then I saw the guy I took to be her boyfriend punch her in the face. She didn’t even put up her hands to defend herself, just took the punch with a twist of her head. I couldn’t even believe that it happened. And then I saw him punch her in the face twice more, close-fisted punched her in the face. The guy from Kazakhstan got involved, putting himself between them and pulling the boyfriend away from Yulia. The boyfriend reached out and grabbed Yulia's hair, trying to drag her with him. Finally, her sister got up and grabbed the boyfriend too, yelling at him until he let go of Yulia, until he was pulled by both her sister and the guz from Kazakstan out of the club. The whole incident took thirty seconds.

Everyone nearby was watching, but nobody had moved. Yulia was still sitting across from me, having never gotten out of her seat, having never moved, having simply taken the punches, staring into nothing, not looking at me, not looking at anything. I couldn’t think of anything to say or do, once again didn’t know if anything I said or did would just make things worse. After about twenty seconds a girl came up, said something to Yulia and led her away.

As I put on my jacket, people were already turned back to their tables. I was worried walking outside, but no one was out there. And I wondered, walking back, why I didn’t do anything. It happened quickly, yes, almost quicker than my thoughts could keep up with, but when it had happening, I had started moving, started getting up to stop him, but then I had stopped myself. I was alone in a bar in Ukraine and I was going to get the fuck beat out of me. Not just by this guy, but the guy that came back in with him from outside, the guy that was evidently his friend. So I didn't move, but I wish I had.

I’ve had those mental spun-out stories of winning bar brawls and coming to the rescue of some woman. But I didn’t come to anyone’s rescue. I just sat there and watched it happen. And I can rationalize it: I can also tell myself that if it had known her, had she been a friend or a girlfriend, I would have certainly done something, stepped in.

But I did know her. Her name is Yulia, and she’s 18 years old, and she studies hotel administration at an institute in Kiev, and she wants to learn English and one day live in America, and she got punched three times in the face in a club, and it might have been because of me, and I did nothing but watch. And maybe had I at least yelled “stop” he would have, or maybe we would have gotten in a fight and maybe I’d be bloodied or maybe I would have won or maybe I’d be on a plane right now to America for medical treatment and counseling because that’s what they do in Peace Corps after you get jumped. But I didn’t do anything. I didn’t even say something to her after she sat there in front of me in the aftermath. All I did was sit there in disbelief, my thoughts not even able to keep up with real-time events. And I’ll admit it, I was scared. Scared enough that I sacrificed her to stay safe.

And people will tell me there’s nothing I could have done, but there was plenty I could have done. And maybe I did exactly what I was supposed to do in that situation, but that doesn’t matter. Yulia’s a real person and she has this life that’s going to continue long after I’m gone and she may remember this American she met in this club once, and he did nothing but sit there as she was repeatedly punched in the face.

So I’m certainly not Yulia’s hero. I’m not a hero at all.

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Ukraine: Soviet Bloc Salsa

Some miscellany:

One: It hit -20 degrees yesterday. The upside to this, best I can figure, has to do with Pepsi. My host mother will not let me put Pepsi (or any other beverage) in the refridgerater. In true Ukranian fashion, drinking cold drinks in winter means you will die. So I've been drinking room-temperature Pepsi since September. Now, though, I just buy a Pepsi, walk home with it, and by the time I get home it's ice cold and a beautiful thing to drink with Cheese-Its sent from America.

Two: There was a broken link to a picture of Yulia and I in Berdichiev yesterday. It's fixed, and if you scroll down you can see what she looks like.

Three: Tomorrow, prepare for another hardcore post. It's actually something that happened to me in November and even once I had written about it, I couldn't figure out when to put it up. So, randomly, it will be tomorrow. Friday will be my response to both it and the mugging and how I'm trying to work things out in my personal philosophy.

Four:I have a site counter thingy that can tell me how people find my site. Apparently someone found it by typing: "Mother in law MILFS" in Yahoo.com. Try it. It's number 4 on the list

Five: By request, I am teaching my English club to salsa dance tomorrow. I had Diana, Amy and Steve over last night to give them a lesson so that they can help me teach my students. Pictures are below. Right-clicking and "save target as" will let you get full-sized pictures.


Amy and Steve tapping into their Latin souls



Myself and Diana in a dip

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Ukraine: The Problem is Choice

The problem, as Neo succinctly put it, is choice.

I don’t know how I keep getting myself into these situations. I told myself, that’s it. I’m going to date one girl at a time.

But then an e-mail came from Peace Corps office, a notification about a Valentine’s Day weekend hosteling package this weekend in Lviv. It’s accommodations, food, a tour of the city, a tour of a castle, and a candlelight dinner with live music in said castle, all for 200 hrivna (a little under $40). I like to boycott Valentine’s Day whenever possible, but somehow I was talking to Susannah and she had gotten the e-mail, too and somehow we thought this would be a good idea.

Susannah should be introduced: a 23 year-old petite, redhead polyglot with a political science degree, she’s lived in Russia, France, Ghana and now Ukraine. She was in my link during training, and we had no sooner started dating than the revolution broke out. In lockdown and in different towns and couldn’t see each other.

The revolution was fucking with my love life.

We hung out in Kyiv for Christmas, and then, because we were headed to opposite ends of the country, we decided that friends was all we could be. And friends is what we are, except she’s about to hop an overnight train and we’re going to spend the weekend in Lviv, as well as Valentine’s Day itself exploring the Caves Monastery in Kyiv. Sounds great, yes? Yes. And somehow in all this I forgot my self-promise to stop dating multiple people.

True, four dates and a few kisses with Diana does not a commitment make, but it was the principle of it all. Besides, they know about each other.

And just as I was ruing my lack of self-control this morning in Berdichiv, I end up meeting yet another girl. I was down in Berdichiv giving demo lessons. It’s the same town where they treated me like a rock star during the Spanish Olympiads, and I got the same treatment again. Only two teachers were supposed to watch the lesson, but I ended up with closer to ten, lined along the back wall at the classroom, watching me intently. Afterwards, the kids asked me for autographs. It was an ego-maniac’s paradise.

Yulia, a twenty-one year old English teacher, was thrust upon me in the teacher’s lounge, and I was embarrassed for her as the older teachers kept saying: “isn’t she beautiful, you don’t have beautiful women like this in America, do you?” And actually, she was really cute.

In any case, after I was done with my classes I had a couple hours to kill before I was scheduled to meet up with a Peace Corp manager and we would both go back to Zhytomyr. Yulia had already handed me e-mail and phone number on a piece of paper without my asking, so I text messaged her to see if she wanted to grab some coffee. Coffee turned into a tour of the town, including a beautiful monastery.
The monastery was built on a 14th century fort, the foundations still visible as we walked down steps into the vestibule. We were the only ones there save for two Carmelite nuns, which we talked to in Ukrainian while they sewed a banner. They told us about the monastery’s holy relic, and we never would have seen it because it was tucked into this dungeon-like alcove that they showed us. They told us that the relic, an old painting of Mary with a baby Jesus, worked miracles and pilgrims from all over came to see it.


Myself and Yulia in front of the monastery

While walking back to meet the manager, Yulia asked me if I would return and go to a dance club with her. As I know both the Berdichiv volunteers and it is only 45 minutes away…

The problem, you see, is choice. My life, and people may hate me for this, is not that nothing happens, it’s that everything happens. I don’t do well at choosing. You mean pick between teaching, writing for a newspaper, going to grad school, directing a training video and being in a dance company? No, I did them all at once. And you know what? Quality suffered.

And my love life tends to be the same way. Other than random spates when I’m in love with monogamy, I’m usually trying to deal with the fact that there’s too many amazing women around and I don’t want miss out by being with just one. Maybe that makes me sound really arrogant (and I can be really arrogant), but it’s a statement of fact. I’m not beating them off with a stick, but usually two or three are reciprocating interest. And usually I end up train wrecking them all instead of having one really good one.

So am I going to change? Um, probably not.

So here’s my advice: don’t date me. Seriously. Ask people. It’s a bad idea. I’m a great friend and a horrible boyfriend.

But I think there are further implications to this that I won’t go into because I feel my word limit coming on, but I hope you’ll think about them. Thusly:

Does variety breed dissatisfaction?

Knowledge is a forbidden fruit. I know the variety that is in the world, and because I can’t have all of it, I feel dissatisfied.

Americans, we seem to have the most variety in the world and the least satisfaction with our own lives.

We have 5000 channels and flip through them. We have the entire world at our internet fingers and keep clicking and clicking. I don’t know about you, but I’ve read at least a thousand books in my lifetime and have only read maybe 10 twice.

If you owned only one book, how much more would you appreciate its words?

Does 12 brands of toothpaste make your life better?

And even if you agree that variety does breed dissatisfaction, would you give it up?
I know I wouldn’t.

The problem, as they say, is choice.

Monday, February 07, 2005

Ukraine: Russian Biliards

First: Photos from last night:



Me and Diana



Two reasons to come to Ukraine: Diana and her friend, Soosha.




Second: I played Russian billiards with my Karil on Saturday, and it's a perfect metaphor for life here. At first, Russian billiards looks like the masochistic version of American billiards: the table is bigger, the balls are bigger and the holes are smaller. Nothing but a straight shot will put a ball in. But as soon as you start playing, you realize that the rules are completely different: although there is a cue ball, it is only used for the opening shot. After that, any ball can be used to knock any ball into a hole. If you get one in, that ball comes off the table and on to your rack. The first one with eight balls on their rack wins.

It also means completely unlearning your previous skills. Bank shots and angled shots and rail shots simply don't work. Also, you can bounce your cue ball off a target ball and then into the hole, which Karil kept doing and I kept forgetting to look for. After two games I was so frustated of getting my ass kicked that I didn't want to play anymore.

So, yeah, metaphor. At first everything here looks just a little different than America and then it turns out the rules are completely different and you want to throw up your hands.

Although I do like my host family, I can't wait to get my own apartment. Firstly, it's ridiculous to expect college-educated adults who have lived on their own to spend six months living with other people, disrupting their lives and having little control over their own. Every other Peace Corps program in the world only does it for three months. For language reasons we do it for six.

Second, there's just too many cultural problems. I don't act like they expect me to act, they don't act like I expect them to act and it gets frustrating. Also, this is a high-face culture, so no one actually talks to the person they have problems with and goes through an intermediary. Which is how I found out my host mother thinks I don't do any work.

It turns out she actually called both my supervisor at work and my supervisor at Peace Corps to see if I was skipping work. I don't have a 9-5 job. More to the point, I don't have a 40 hour job. This surprised me upon arrival, because Peace Corps really does figure this is a volunteer position and you should only work 20 hours a week. Most volunteers take on secondary projects to fill up their time, and I am as well, both with my English club and the climbing gym.

In any case, both my supervisors told her I was doing all my work and doing a great job. But then today I did't have to be at the institute until 1:00 PM and I was up until 3:00 AM at Diana's party. So my host mother sees me eating breakfast in the kitchen at noon and says in Ukrainian: "You don't like to work, do you?"

Because I was out late and because I just bought an expensive camera, among other things, I seem like a lazy, rich, party-hard American. And you know what? I am a lazy, rich, party-hard American.

Even as a volunteer I make three times as much money for half the work and the work is easy. For the most part, my life is easy here. Other volunteers, they're tearing their hair out trying to learn how to teach on the fly. Me? My only concern is making sure teachers are going to use what I teach, not keeping them in their seats and focused.

So, yes, I feel guilty. I just don't like my host mom making me feel that way.

So, different game, different rules, frustration.

Russian billiards.

Sunday, February 06, 2005

Ukraine: McCartney and Metallic Salmon

First: I was getting used to regular comments. What happened? I like them!

Second: I just spent way too much money on a digital camera. It's an Olympus Mini Digital and other than being too expensive it's perfect: extremely small (no bigger than the width of my palm), 4 megapixels, 2X optical zoom, a rechargeble lithium battery, an aluminum body and weatherproof. Humorusly, it's orange (you know, Orange Revolution) What does this mean? It means I can start posting photos of all these places and people I've been talking about. Diana's birthday is tonight, so I'll get some photos of her and hopefully have them up this week.

Third: A funny story. So a few days ago I judged at a “Mr. Know It All” contest, where high school students from around the oblast competed in six teams of five in vocabulary, trivia and acting. The teams filed onstage, each person dressed like the other members of his or her team. Most teams were formally dressed, but all the members of one team, inexplicably, wore plaid shirts, blue jeans and bandannas around their necks.

The vocabulary contest went smoothly, the students trying to stump the other teams with definitions of English words. They even stumped me: “you see it in the night sky, but you can not drown it in milk.” The answer, and I don’t really get this, was: “the milky way.”

Then they moved onto trivia, which is when things got weird. They were given questions and four answer options. The correct answer to “What does a Scotsman traditionally wear?” was “a pleated skirt”. I don’t think the Scotsmen would agree. There was a question: “They say love and cough…”. The correct answer was: “…cannot be hid,” bad grammar and all. Frankly, I had never heard the saying before. Another was, “what is the English equivalent of ne navchai bchenoho?” Well, ne navchai bchenoho literally means “you can’t teach a learned man.” The correct answer, according to the emcee, was “teach your grandmother to suck eggs.” You know, I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean in English.

Then there were the two questions where one team got robbed. I wasn’t even rooting for them, because Zhytomyr had a team and one of the students in my English club was in it, but I still fought for fairness. The first question was: “What is the most popular leisure activity in Britain.” The first two choices were “tea” and “gardening”. As bad as the grammar had been in all the previous questions, I thought “tea” was the correct answer. Well, one team suggested “tea” and were shot down because “tea is not an activity. It is gardening.” As the French would say, “quah?”

And then there was the successful battle. This question came up: “Complete the saying: stubborn as a…” and that team that lost a point to “tea” said “mule.” Wrong, said the emcee, it was “ox”. After the round was over, a furor was caused among the eight judges as this American tried to explain that the answer was, in fact, “mule”. “Is not mule and ox similar?” asked one judge. I thought for a second, comparing them in my mind. No, one is related to a cow, the other to a horse. They have four legs and a tail and if you wanted to go that route, a mule is really similar to a gerbil.

The judges didn’t believe me, or rather didn’t want to admit they were wrong. I called in the backup of Carrie, another volunteer who was watching some of her student compete.

I yelled: “Carrie, stubborn as a…?”

“Mule,” she said. The other judges looked chagrined and changed their score cards.

But then the day got even better. They moved on to the acting portion, wherein each team acted in English. I give these students all the credit in the world for acting in another language and they were great and I was impressed, but some stuff was so damn funny I just have to share it:

“Life is difficult, but we can find inspiration in the words of Rudyard Kipling and Paul McCartney,” said the girl in the metallic salmon colored shirt before turning her back to the audience.

Then, to the strains of the instrumental of “Yesterday”, another member of the identically-dressed team turned to the audience and said in monotone: “Help. I need somebody. Help. Not just anybody.” He turned away from us while another turned towards us: “Help. I need someone. Help.”

I’ve seen a guy dressed as Batman have sex with two women onstage in Amsterdam to the gospel version of “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” and it was not as surreal as that was. They continued through the entire song in this way, sometimes taking seats and saying their lines sitting down, sometimes walking to another spot before stopping and saying their lines. They moved on to "If" by Rudyard Kipling, one girl staring off into nothing and saying flatly: “trust yourself when all men doubt you.” “Yesterday” was still playing in the background.

Next was the post-modern version of Little Red Riding hood. You know, the one where a girl comes out dressed as the wolf and (quite well, I might add) explained in rhyme how he was going to eat the girl dressed as granny. Then, after the consumption (glasses and a shirt flying out form behind a partition and the wolf emerging with a huge belly), in comes Red Riding Hood, the team’s sole male, wearing a dress, blush, tights heels, and a little purple rose on his wrist. There was some conversation about “what big eyes you have,” before the wolf got up to eat Red Riding Hood. Miss Red then proceeded to pull out a plastic shotgun and shoot the wolf to death. He/she dragged the wolf offstage and he returned moments later, cradling the gun, wearing a fur vest and fur hat.

A comedy set in Italy was only lukewarm funny because they were struggling through the lines, but then, for some reason, one of the girls broke out into song, singing, quite badly, the whole of “You’ll See” by Madonna.

Another team did a Victorian-era British drama in which a the husband of a writer-wife leaves her for the cook because the wife is too intelligent and literate and because the cook likes detective novels. At the end, the writer-wife declares she will write “a detective novel that is a work of art.” Okay, that wasn't so funny.

The Zhytomyr team did some scenes from “My Fair Lady,” without even attempting to do British accents. “The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain,” turned from unintelligible garble into Ukrainian-accented English and they all rejoiced. That was pretty damn funny.

And the acting it ended with a one minute scene from David Copperfield, the girl playing David on the ground and getting faux-whipped by a stick that never hit her and crying out in thickly-accented English: “Pray, pray don’t beat me! Pray, pray don’t beat me!”

It was great. I had to swallow laughter over and over, but they were so earnest about it and it’s not like you’re going to find me acting in Ukrainian. I gave them all high marks, even the ones in metallic salmon.


Saturday, February 05, 2005

Ukraine: Boxing

Yesterday my host brothers took me to a boxing competition here in Zhytomyr. As the world heavyweight boxing champion, Vitali Klitchko, is a Ukrainian, there's a lot of national pride in the sport and a lot of younger guys have dreams of being a champion.

The competition was in a poorly lit gym with cobwebs in the corners, packed to the walls with people. There were a few wooden benches taken by people already there, but most people, including me, simply stood around the ring and watched people pummel each other. There were a few women there, but they were severely outnumbered. There were also some kids running around, hitting at each other, trying to immitate the men in the ring

It was the lighter weight divisions that day (I don't know all the terminology), most of the boxers still in their teens. There were two sets of gloves and headgear being passed from fighter to fighter as they cycled into the ring for three-round bouts. Very often the boxers kept pushing the ill-fitting headgear out of their faces (which is usually when the other guy would attack). Most didn't even have boxing shoes and were fighting in Keds, socks pulled up to their knees.

Not a lot of technique was apparent, mostly people swinging wildly at each other until someone went down. The knockdowns were actually few. Only two matches went the three rounds because as soon as someone would start loosing badly, their corner would throw in the towel.

Literally. I was watching this one guy, gloves in front of his face, being stalked and pummeled around the ring and suddenly this white thing was flying through the air and nearly onto the referee. It was a towel.

Four other matches were called in such a way, the loosing boxer usually visibly upset that the fight had stopped, sure that if he got pummeled just a little longer he'd figure out a way to win.

The heavier end of the lightweight spectrum came at the end, older, heavily muscled guys in their twenties who knew what they were doing. But as soon as it started getting better, there were no more matches. The heavier weights are scheduled for today, but I was unable to go. Sergei may be fighting in another competition in two weeks, so maybe I'll see that one.

In any case, it was certainly a raw form of boxing. Maybe purists would say it's the right way to box. There were no entourages, no music, no thousand dollar ring side seats. There were just a hundred Ukrainians and me standing around a ring and watching a series of fights, one after the other, the combatants getting into the ring without being announced, the referee dropping his hand and then they would fight.

I'm not saying it was good or bad or anything. But it was interesting.

Thursday, February 03, 2005

Ukraine: Teachers are the Worst Students

It’s interesting that the English teachers in my seminars aren’t fluent in English. It’s understandable: they learn English in school and likely have never met a native English speaker. And then they teach for fifteen years in a secondary school, their English limited to what they teach their students, their pronunciation and grammar mistakes passed on to them. Which, actually, is why the Peace Corps TEFL programs is here, to bring native speakers that might be able raise the level of English instruction in the country.

So I give my seminars in slow, well-pronounced English, which is frustrating to me because I like to keep the energy up. But after I gave the instructions for an activity in a seminar today, speaking slowly and clearly, three teachers in a little group that had been whispering the entire time said they did not understand the directions. I gave the directions to them in Ukrainian. “I can speak English” snapped one. I didn’t say anything, but I wanted to snap back: “then pay attention.”

Teachers are the worst students. They don’t pay attention. They talk in class. They loudly sigh to show disapproval or boredom. You know, all those things they don’t want their students to do. I’ve always found it extremely ironic that teachers at Hoover, those teachers that would complain that “these kids” had no respect, and “these kids” couldn’t stay quiet, that “these kids” were simply going to end up in jail, so what was the point of teaching them (seriously), would never shut up or pay attention during staff meetings or professional development seminars.

Admittedly, I’m a horrible student as well. If I’m bored, I don’t pay attention, especially during Peace Corps conferences. I found it ironic that, during these Peace Corps conferences with us sitting through seminars back to back all day long, we were taught about communicative methods, interactive teaching and hands-on activities by lecture. Very often I wanted to gouge my eyes out.

I understand, too, that I’m 20 years younger than them and yet am instructing them. I understand that they feel that they know how to teach and this is wasted time. I understand that they’re forced to be there. I don’t think I’m there to teach them how to teach, but just give them so more resources to use in the classroom.

Which is why I try to make my seminars as fun as possible. It’s entirely discussion and activity and I try to keep the pace going as much as possible. I play the role of the inexperienced teacher who needs them to explain to me why they need to use speaking activities or mixed ability grouping. I compliment a lot. I mock-flirt a lot (which they appreciate) and I do everything I can to keep them motivated for that 90 minutes.

The problem is days like today. The leave their home towns to stay in Zhytomyr for a week and attend training seminars all day long. On Monday, they were upbeat and ready to learn. Four days and literally dozens of lecture seminars later, they come into my classroom at 9:00 in the morning ready to go home.

“What are we discussing today?” I ask, knowing that they know it is speaking activities. “Our hard lives,” moaned one, resigned to yet another seminar. Hmm. Great way to start the class.
If you’re teaching kids and you come up with an interesting activity that teaches the lesson, they love it and they love you for it. Teachers, they don’t like to be shown these activities because that’s boring. They don’t want to do the activities because they’re not kids. Even just doing the first five minutes of an activity so they can see how it’s done is beneath them.

The only thing they are consistently interested in is me. The first two questions I get in any seminar are: “how old are you” and “are you married”. I now start my seminars with: “My name is Daniel, I am a Peace Corps Volunteer, I am 26 years old and I am not married”, which usually gets a laugh. But we’re not there to talk about me, we’re there to talk about speaking activities.

What’s been working is playing to their egos: what kind of activity should I use for this subject? I ask them. I have this problem, what should I do? And when they tell me what they do, I have “ah ha” moments and say “actually, I bet if we take that and do it this way, it’d be even better. Thanks!” And any activity that lets them talk to their fellow teachers, they enjoy doing, too, so all the speaking activities are geared towards that. Maybe they’ll actually go on to using them with their students.

So 90 minutes into class they’d actually done two activities and declared them “interesting”, I had demonstrated another, I had them share their own, which I massaged through comments closer to the communicative method they’re supposed to be using, and I had them “help” me on how to solve a few problems with students speaking (“I have a student who is really shy about speaking in my English club, what should I do?” The answer: “tell them to not be shy”).

Then I showed them some videos and pictures from America as the reward for sticking with me to the end of class (it was a bribe from the beginning of class and they knew it).

Man, I miss teaching kids.

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Ukraine: Jokes

First, let me explain that 30 percent of Ukraine is ethnically Russian. They are Russian the way I am Cuban and they are Ukrainian the way I am American.

Told by an ethnic Russian:

*A Ukranian man is leaving for war. While his wife is hysterically sobbing, the man calmly put sallo under his helmet. He then tucks a loaf of bread under his shirt and sausage in his socks. He pats his wife on the shoulder and tells her not to worry, he will, "do no fighting today," because he will be safe and warm in the POW camps.

Told by an ethnic Ukrainian:

*Researchers decided to see which army cursed the most. The devised a clock that had a hand that moved one second for every curse word said. They gave it to the Spanish army. By the end of the day, it had gone around once. They gave it to the American army. By the end of the day, the hand had gone around three times. They gave it to the Russian army. The Russian soldiers asked: "who put this ventilator in here?"

Told by an ethnic Russian:

*A Ukranian woman is doing back-breaking work in the family garden while her husband rests in the shade of a tree. His best friend comes along and prods the man awake, demanding, "Why aren't you helping your wife?" To which the man replies, " I am resting so that I am ready to fight when the war comes."

*And, lastly, if you translate the Ukranian national anthem into English, the first line reads, "We are not dead yet." Seriously.

Cultural insights? Maybe.

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Ukraine: Making out with a Ukrainian

So, Diana and I had a really good date last night.

It started with me falling down. I was walking up to meet her, wasn’t paying attention and slipped on some ice. I caught myself, but to play it off I went for the full death throes that left my lying face down on the snow. She laughed. I am so not smooth.

She helped me up told me I was late, even though I was eight minutes early. She’s told me this every date, even when I’m on time.

“So, if the guy isn’t there before the girl, is he late?” I asked her.

“Yes.”

Ah.

We had dinner at a local restaurant, held hands while she drank tea afterwards and talked for about an hour and a half . Then, we went for a walk, as you do on a Ukrainian date, even though it was –10 Celsius. She told me that Ukrainians often mark the first time they fall down in winter with a celebration. I suppose I should explain that the sidewalks and streets aren’t cleared here the way they are in America, the snow is packed down by a thousands of feet and the thaw/freeze of day/night turns sidewalks into walkways of ice. Apparently the biggest cause of injury among American volunteers is falling down. I’ve taken about twenty since the first snowfall in November. She fell at the beginning of winter, but had not done so since.

She showed me another park in the city and we had a snowball fight. Running from me, she slipped and fell for the second time this winter and mock-cursed me for making her do it. The park led to a snow-covered bridge that spanned the valley over the main river, the water six stories below us. The river was half frozen over, which shocked me because it was a huge river and I couldn't imagine it being cold enough for a river that size to freeze. It was a beautiful view, though, small houses on the right bank of the river, lights from their window lighting the icy water, a darkness on the left bank rising up: the other wall of the valley. In the distance was a lit road and some of Zhytomyr’s tall apartment buildings. Even though it was even colder over the river, I figured it was as romantic place as any for a kiss.

I wanted to be really slick and say “I want to kiss you” in Ukrainian, but I couldn’t remember the word for “kiss”. So I asked her about the lyrics to a “Peedmanula, peedvila” a popular Ukrainian folk song, because I knew the word kiss was in the second verse. But she sang it so fast I didn’t catch it.

“What was the word for kiss?” I asked.

“Was that a hint?”

“No.”

Her face fell. “Tsevoovati,” she said.

“Ya hochoo tsevoovati tebe,” I said. And then in English: “That was a hint.”

She smiled a little and I leaned in and we kissed. It was so cold I could barely feel my hands, but her mouth was warm.

No sparks, but I think that’s because she immediately went for the open mouth kiss, and I’m not too into that (sorry). But our tongues and our lips touched and moved against each other and I wondered if she thought I was a good kisser and maybe she wondered the same and she gave a contented little sigh while doing it (or maybe she couldn’t breathe) and then a few minutes later it ended and we walked back into the city.

I waited with her while she waited for her bus, and we made plans to go to a museum on Thursday, a comedy show on Friday and clubbing on Saturday, which seems like a lot. The museum had to be moved from yesterday because it was closed yesterday, the comedy show came up because her brother is in it and she wants me to go with her, and clubbing with the other volunteers is just a given.

And then, when she got on her bus, even though we had made out on a snowy bridge for five minutes, she gave me a kiss on the cheek.

I don’t understand this country.

But I did get to make out with a Ukrainian!