 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.