Ukraine: Last Bell

The weather today is like I'd expect in Florida: the winds knocked down fences and made my balcony window bow in as rain was dumped from the sky.

Luckily, it wasn't there this morning, for Last Bell. There is a ceremony at the beginning and end of every school year, and they're very important. Since I have my English club at school #12, I was invited to their Last Bell ceremony.

Not all, but most of the graduating students wore the traditional Soviet "pioneer" school uniform. Mind you, these are kids that come to school in Western style clothes every day, so it was odd to see them dressed up like that. For guys, it's simply black slacks and a button down white shirt. For girls, though, it's a short black dress, a white lace apron (think French maid) and then two white fluffy barettes in their hair, their hair usually in pig tails. Footware seemed to be the only thing the girls didn't agree on, from high heels with straps that wound up to the knee to "tabuchki", the backless Ukranian slippers most people wear around the house.

There were some traditional dances and songs, and I was surprised to realize that one of the girls singing was one of my kids. I was used to seeing her in goth clothes (admittedly, she's the only Ukrainian I've ever seen in goth clothes), always wearing black eyeshadow and black lipstick. I honestly had not recognized her in her traditional uniform and normal makeup.

Unlike our graduations where only the graduating class is there, the whole school was on hand for the outdoor ceremony (the lack of seats, I think, was another throwback to Soviet times; or maybe there just weren't enough chairs so nobody got any). Awards were handed out to outstanding students of all grade levels. The best 11th form class handed their trophy to the best 10th form class.

You know, I think I've forgotten to mention how "classes" work in Ukraine. Basically, each "class" of 20 or so students stays together for their entire time in school, having all their subjects together. In some subjects, such as literature, math or foreign language, they will have the same teacher for their entire 11 years of schooling. In some ways, it makes sense: the teacher and the students know each other from an early age and the teacher is able to teach on a continum. In America, a teacher has to get to know a new set of students every year and is often trying to mesh their curriculum whatever the preceding teachers taught. Admittedly, though, this means that if you get a crap teacher, or if the teacher doesn't like you, you're stuck with him or her.

And, after all was said and done, a little girl, carried around on the shoulders of an older student, rang a big, brass bell: the last bell of the school year.

Four different teachers asked me if we had such ceremonies in America. Um, no.

Ukraine: Got the Grant!

Just found out this morning: We got the grant for the climbing wall. I got the same line from the commitee member who informed me as from everyone else in every step of the application process: "We've never had a project like this before." Which could go either way. Luckily, this time it was followed with: "and we really like it."

So the money should come in July and construction can begin then.

In other Polissya news (the organization that I'm working with to build the wall), the Extreme Marathon, which Carrie and I are competing in, is June 9-12. We're both training for it (more on that later), but here's the other good news I got in my inbox: a Ukranian company is coming to film the competition for part of its series on self-starting, successful Ukranian companies (the company being Polissya and their successful extreme races). Who sent the television company a press release when another volunteer told me about their project? And who is now coordinating their arrival and filming locations? Me! Should be cool, and should give a lot of press to Polissya, which is an organization that truly deserves it. I mean, they let me climb with their gear and show me all the cool climbing spots. It was the least I could do.

Anyway, got to go. Carrie is doing shashlik today. Shashlik is Ukranian shisk-kabob, except more than that. It's actually a big spring/summer tradition, and this is the first one of the season. Should be fun!

Life is good!

Ukraine: Secrataries, Wiccans and New Climbing Addicts

Slighlty scattershot, but I've got a couple updates:

1) I became secrataire extrodanaire yesterday. Being the only native English speaker at the institute where I work, I was handed 14 double-sided pages, all pulled or photocopied out of various TEFL manuals and ask to type it all. When do you need it? We needed it yesterday. Apparently the director made a last minute decision that this haphazard little manual put together by my Coordinator needed to at least be the same font and should all be typed. What he most not have noticed was the obscene amount of formatting required, as there were also four tables, two pages of bibliography, two surveys with dozens of those little checkboxes and a bunch of Ukranian pencilled in by my coordinator. The Ukranian requires jabbing at the keyboard with my index fingers because I don't know how to type in it.

It took five hours.

Join the Peace Corps and you too can be a secretary!

2) Normally, I think the American Civil Liberties Union or any of its state branches tend to spend way too much time, effort and money defending minor liberties while larger ones go undefended (a rant I won't get into at the moment), but I applaud the Indiana Civil Liberties Union for this one: In a divorce order between a Wiccan couple, a judge put in that they must shield their son from "non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals." In other words, these parents are currently not allowed to bring up their own son (who, ironically, they sent to a Catholic school) in their own faith. The Indiana Civil Liberties Union is fighting it for the parents in court. The ability to practice your own religion and pass on your beliefs to your children has to be one of our most fundemental rights as Americans and I was surprised at the rage that vicerally welled up when I read the story. You can read it here:
Wiccan Story

3) And lastly, the Zhytomyr crew spent two hours just trying to find the edge of a cliff yesterday. Carrie and I bought a rope for climbing ($30, less than a third of what it would cost in the states) and went looking for the cliff we climbed last Sunday with the Ukranians. We knew how to get to it from the bottom, but didn't have the necessary gear to climb it from the bottom (we had been using the Ukranian's gear). So hauling this 130 foot rope around, we dodged barbed wire and stinging nettles, swatted at mosquittos and waded through discarded trash trying to find from the top a wall so easily seen from below. I rapelled over the edge at one point just to get a better view, only to find that we were right beside it and hadn't been able to see it. Finally, we found the perfect place, anchored to a tree and someone's metal fence post and rapelled down the cliff. We rigged a pulley system and I sent my gear back up, and Amy, using my harness, got to rapel for the first time, me helping brake her from below. Steve opted to take the long way down, deciding that rapelling off a cliff was not for him. Forty minutes later, he met us at the bottom, after Carrie had rappelled down. With our new rope anchored in at the top, we were able to climb until nearly sunset, both Steve and Amy making attempts at the route and both getting just far enough that they want to come back and try it again, determined to get to the top.

Two more climbing addicts are born.

Ukraine: False Alarm

Grrr. The extreme sport-esque type thing planned for today got called off by one of the involved parties. It's not cancelled, just put off. I don't want to say what it is because I don't want to ruin the surprise, jinx it or have my mother send me an e-mail along the lines of "YOU'RE GOING TO DO WHAT?!?" Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission and all.

Sorry for the false alarm.

Ukraine: Dedication

Hey, I actually have a story about work!

So here's dedication for you. I came into work with about ten minutes until my first class. The problem was that I hadn't photocopied the activities we'd be using yet, expecting to do that upon arrival. Except, the photocopy machine was locked (this happens frequently) and the guy with the key was nowhere to be found (this also happens frequently). I usually stop by the store two blocks away to do my photocopying, but I had just typed up the activity sheet and still needed it printed, hence going into work.

So I found myself in my 90 minute class with only the first activity prepared. Admittedly, I could have winged it, but I wanted the teachers to do these activities so that they could teach them to their students later. Getting them started on the first activity, I then left the classroom, ran down a flight of stairs, ran two blocks to the store (in my shirt and tie, tie over my shoulder and waving behind me), got the needed copies, ran two blocks back, up the stairs and into the classroom just as the teachers were finishing up.

Now that's dedication.

***

This blog is about to get a lot more interesting. Summer is creeping up, and currently I'm not spending more than a week in Zhytomyr. The rest will be spent in Crimea, Romania, Georgia, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and more, not to mention three summer camps, two PDOs, a Peace Corps training and a 60 KM extreme marathon.

But tomorrow, if all goes as planned, will be an appetite wheter. If I survive. Check back then.

Ukraine: Eurovision and Pics

Lengthy, I know, and for that I hope you'll forgive me. Those with some time on their hands, enjoy...

***

I made a last minute decision to go to Eurovision in Kyiv. Eurovision is a big pop music contest between most of the European countries. Each country has its own competition as to which singer to send, and then they all meet in one country to compete in a huge media spectacle. This is the 50th Eurovision song contest, and ABBA was discovered by winning it way back in the 1970s. Each Eurovision is held in the previous year’s winner’s country.

Well, no one really expected Ruslana, Ukraine’s Pop Goddess, to win last year’s competition, but she did. And suddenly an event watched by 100 million people was coming to a country serviced by Peace Corps and USAID. It’s a boon of course, as thousands of Europeans coming to a country is always a financial windfall. The problem was infrastructure. Even Kyiv, modern European city though it’s rapidly becoming, simply didn’t have the facilities to receive that many tourists. It didn’t even have a venue. The only place large enough to accommodate the competition itself—the Sports Palace—had been left to decay for the past forty years.

And then suddenly there was political upheaval and the country—and any preparations for Eurovision—ground to a halt during the Orange Revolution. The revolution over, people began asking again about Eurovision. The general consensus was that overhauls to the Sports Palace would not be done in time. Yuchenko lifted visa restrictions for EU citizens for the length of the ten day contest, but then methods of getting tickets sales online (a new thing here in Ukraine) floundered and tickets still weren’t on sale a month after they should have been. Eurovision made back up plans to hold the contest in Norway if Ukraine didn’t come through.

But apparently they did. I was busy being sick and had forgotten all about Eurovision until I was in Kyiv and realized that the final was the next day. Well, I’ve always had a thing for large gatherings. There’s something when a crowd reaches a critical mass that awakens the social animal within you. Not a mob feeling, but the opposite, a feeling of excitement that multiplies itself exponentially. It’s way beyond the feeling of a concert. When a hundred people or a thousand cheer, you have the ability to just stand there. When ten thousand or a hundred thousand people cheer, though, you can’t help it. You, independent as you thought you were, find yourself controlled by the gestalt emotions of the crowd. There is some social instinct that runs that deep, even for someone as cynical as me. Which is why I enjoy these things.

Large crowds are always problematic, though. Prices soar, and sleeping accommodations become scarce or unavailable. Things like even going to the bathroom are now major, planned, costly events. So I have devised the in-and-out system. I have been to Mardi Gras, Love Parade, New Years Eve in Times Square, The Orange Revolution and The Running of the Bulls. Each one was a gathering in excess of a hundred thousand people. And for each one, I spent less then 48 hours in the city, and did not pay for accommodations. Get in, see what you got to see, don’t bother sleeping, and get out.

Eurovision was done the exact same way.

***

Carrie and I arrived in the afternoon, the whole trip on a whim. I had brought it to the Zhytomyr crew the previous evening after getting back from Kyiv, but neither Carrie nor Steve wanted to go. Amy was out of town.

I had lunch with Diana that afternoon, and it turned out she was going, a revelation coming shortly after Carrie text messaged that she had changed her mind. So the three of us got on a marchrutka. Rain clouds threatened to ruin the day, but Diana assured us that the Ukrainian government had flown planes that would drop chemicals in the clouds to make them not release their water. Sounds ridiculous, but I know they did this for Victory Day in Moscow, too. I told Diana that if the technology really worked, America would be using it. She told me I sounded arrogant.

The rain clouds held, and no rain fell. Huh.

Much of the reason for going to Eurovision was to meet Europeans, and hopefully get a few travel contacts for the summer. While Diana went to meet a friend, Carrie and I went to check out Eurocamp, a campground set up on an island in the middle of the Dniper river. The tents were those or like those from the Orange Revolution, and the whole camp was being touted as a recreation of the revolution for curious Europeans. Ironically, save for Russians and Belarussians, the only Europeans in the campground were Ukrainians. The campgrounds were the cheap alternative to hotels price gouging for the foreigners, but I guess that even a Ukrainian price gouge is easy enough to afford when you’re on the Euro. There were no Europeans at the campgrounds, at least none that we can tell. Russian was still the only language heard.


Tents like those used in the Orange Revolution at Eurocamp


What was on the island were lots of drunk Slavs, Ukrainian punk bands playing on a stage, a small amusement park with carnival rides, a shooting gallery and small paintball field. There were booths filled with Ukrainian food and drink and it was a heady, festival atmosphere. Three events of note came from the Eurocamp visit:

#1: Carrie suggested we do this carnival ride that consists of being strapped into seats that revolve on a horizontal axis, which is then on an arm that revolves on another horizontal axis. The result is you’re spun around in the air while you’re already spinning around in the air and with G-forces you get a pretty hurl-worthy experience. The scariest part of this was not the bottom arc of the revolution, where you are hurtled towards the ground and your face is about two feet from it before being whipped and spun up to the apex of the arm. It’s when you’re two feet from the ground and realize that this was assembled in a Peace Corps country. No offense to Ukrainians, but I get a little worried about these things coming apart when built by drunk carnies in Oklahoma. Add in the inevitable entropy of technology making its way east to the former Soviet bloc and suddenly I had visions of this paint-flecked contraption losing a bolt just as we were hurtled face first towards the ground.

Which made it more fun, really.


The ride Carrie and I tried out

#2: The worst rendition of “Nothing Else Matters”, ever. A pedestrian bridge crosses over the Dniper between the city and the island, and it was on this bridge that a Ukrainian on an acoustic guitar with a head microphone plugged into a one foot high amplifier belted out the most out of tune, atonal English I have ever heard as he sang the omnipresent Metallica song. It was so bad, as a matter of fact, that I had to videotape it.


The worse rendition of "Nothing Else Matters". Ever.

#3: Also on tape and also never failing to get a laugh, is the sheer stupidity of a couple of drunk Ukrainians. The pedestrian bridge is a suspension bridge, and a few people had climbed up onto the gang way running up the wires to the apex. In true Ukrainian fashion, several patrolling police looked up, saw them, and then kept walking. I was at the end of the bridge when from another group of policeman I heard: “What’s he doing?” in Russian. I turned back and saw that one of the men, a guy wearing all black, was now doing a Spiderman impression, gripping one of the wires with his feet on the gangway, hanging out off the bridge and over the water, which was some sixty feet below.


Some kids crawling around the gate onto the bridge's gangway

The policeman who had yelled now felt compelled to act and ran up to the lowest part of the gangway, climbed up onto it and began walking over to the man, who had since brought himself back to safety. When the man saw the cop, he began to run! This meant he was charging up the gangway towards the apex of the suspension wires, and he must have somehow though he could outrun the cop down the other side and off the bridge. The problem was that two other guys, also illegally on the gangway, were coming down that side themselves, and the guy ran smack into them, where the cop grabbed him. The cop then forced the three men to the lowest part of the gangway and had them climb down to where to other cops were waiting. Having captured all this on my video camera, I waited for them to cuff the men, but they didn’t. After a stern talking to, the three men were let go.


The cop chasing the guy in black


On the bridge after the action

***

Carrie and I walked to the center of Kyiv, to Maidan, the huge square where the Orange Revolution had taken place. While we waited for Diana to meet us, we ate ice cream, sitting in the grass on a hill overlooking Maidan. A little girl behind us blew bubbles that floated over our heads and popped in the grass while thousands of Ukrainians watched and dance to the music of a Ukrainian ska band in the square below.


Maidan by day. The crowds would get bigger at night

That band finished and modern Ukrainian folk band came onstage. Ice cream finished, we decided to head down and watch the band from the crowd. The lead singer with the handlebar mustache was wearing a wife beater and a beanie while he busted out melodies on a wooden flute. The percussion banged and an electric guitar wailed, but the true hero of that group was the accordion player. I didn’t know accordions could be so cool. This guy was wearing orange pants and a sleeveless vest, hugely muscled arms rippling as he jammed, yes jammed, on this amplified accordion. It was awesome. And when we wasn’t wailing on this thing, he was jumping up and down and head banging as either the flutist, trumpet player, or guitar player took their solos. In Ukraine, an accordion player can truly be a rock god sex symbol.


The coolest accordian player in existance

We met up with Diana, and discovered where all the Europeans were. They were not at Maidan as suspected, but over at the Sports Palace. I figured the Sports Palace would only be open for the Eurovision final, scheduled for 10:00 PM. After all, the Sports Palace is actually a huge concert hall, and are you just going to sit inside it all day? It turned out that Ukrainian bands were on a stage constructed outside the Palace, and that was the Europeans’ current source of entertainment.

Unfortunately, there was no getting within two blocks of the Sports Palace without a ticket, and tickets were running into the hundreds of Euros. The Euro is beating the dollar and the dollar is severely beating the hrivna, and my salary is based on the value of the hrivna, so I couldn’t afford it. I couldn’t afford it, Carrie couldn’t afford it and the thousands of Ukrainians listening to the ska band on Maidan couldn’t afford it, either. Diana and her friend had managed to sneak past the perimeter that stood guarded by police officers, two blocks out on every side of the Sports Palace, and came back with reports of Germans spitting out Ukrainian beer and old Italians trying to pick up teenage girls.

Following Diana back, we tried to sneak into the Sports Palace perimeter as well, but with the finals approaching, security had clamped down and you literally could not get into a two block radius without a ticket. People with flags and signs in English that read “This is a Ukrainian Ghetto” and “There is no Justice in Ukraine” stood outside, waving them at people walking through the gates.

The Sports Palace had been transformed. A Kyiv Peace Corps Volunteer told me that they completely replaced the asphalt in front of it and the power lines to it, and the exterior now glowed green under hundreds of new lights. The inside had been gutted and completely rebuilt in the span of two months by 700 workers, he said. Ironic that they still haven’t gotten my phone to work in Zhytomyr, or that water citywide is shut off at night because they can’t replace the leaking pipes, but, you know, that’s how it goes. Ironic, too, that all the Ukrainians with the signs were trying to get the attention of Europeans who came to Ukraine to go to a venue that Ukrainians couldn’t get near without tickets they couldn’t afford.

But there was always Maidan. On the same screens used to broadcast Yuchenko’s speeches was being broadcast the Eurovision finals, so we decided to head back that way. Walking down Krechatic, Kyiv’s main boulevard that had once been packed with tents, we were treated to the dozens of musical acts and street performer that had come out to feed off the crowd. Violins sparred sonically with folk guitars that fought with techno. One spot on Krechatic had a mini-rave going on, with a fire twirler whirling flame while people danced in a circle around him. A fashion show paraded up and down a catwalk to thumping pop. We arrived in Maidan halfway into the finals, having stopped off at McDonalds for dinner. The competitor on the big screen was from Denmark, and after him followed Sweden and Macedonia, each act wailing about this or that to cheesy pop, all of them wailing in English. All but five of the 24 finalists sang in English (one of the five sticking to it native tongue was, predictably, France), lending credence to why Peace Corps teaches it here. It’s not some brand of cultural imperialism; it’s because when business people from Germany and Taiwan sit down to talk shop, they talk in English; it’s because more people speak English as a second language as a first; it’s because it’s the lingua franca of the world. And it’s thanks to British colonialism, not out of any deference to Americans.

Even Ukraine’s entry added some English lyrics to their song. I hadn’t realized that Ukraine had even made the finals. In fact, when their song started playing, I assumed it was to keep the crowd happy during the commercial breaks.

Not so. GreenJolly, the two DJs that became national heroes overnight, were onstage singing while girls danced around them. And all they had done was take the rallying cry of the Orange Revolution, chanted in Maidan and all over the country every ten minutes or so, and put it to a hip hop beat. “Razom nas bahato ee nas ne podolati!” (Together we are many and we will not be defeated!), repeated it over and over and over and over. There’s some call and response lyrics here and there: “Yuchenko? Da! Yuchenko? Da! Nash president? Da! Da!” and then back into the revolution’s motto, ad nauseum. Sadly, it’s catchy beyond belief. For two months you couldn’t go to a club, walk into a classroom or even go down the street without hearing it blared from a speaker, radio or car stereo.

And to have it played then, this rallying cry of the revolution, this theme song of Ukrainian freedom, to have it played then in a competition watched by 100 million Europeans, well, Maidan went nuts. Imagine more ten thousand people pumping their fists in the air, waving flags, jumping up and down and absolutely screaming this phrase over and over and over for the three minute length of the song.

It was fantastic. The surge of crowd feeling, that upwelling of emotion, was stupendous and it ran as high as, well as high on that guy on the catwalk, fleeing from that cop towards the apex. And in some ways that’s an apt simile.


The crowd singing "Razom Nas Bahato"


Cheering on GreenJolly

Just ahead of us in the crowd was the only European I saw that whole day: a skinny guy wearing glasses, given away by his discomfort, always looking around and taking things in while every other person, in true Ukrainian fashion, stood and watched the screens, backs ramrod straight. When this explosion of emotion happened, his jaw dropped and stayed dropped as he looked around in wonderment for the entirety of the song.


Can you spot the foreigner?


I wanted to tell him: “you’d have to have been here during the revolution to understand a little, and you’d have to be Ukrainian to understand completely, but here’s a clue: when Ukrainians are put their emotions on the table, they do it completely. So take the support a crowd gives for their side in a competition, add in the intense feeling conjured up by this song, a feeling of when a country joined together for freedom and won, mix in the knowledge that a Europe that has always considered Ukraine a backwater buffer to Russia is now glued to their television sets and hearing this song, and you’ll start to understand where this comes from. Jacob Sveistrup of Denmark may be singing about love in a second language, and people in Denmark might be cheering him for it, but they can’t compete with the emotion felt right now because these people aren’t cheering for GreenJolly. They’re cheering for themselves.”

And that runner sprinted to the apex and then found himself carried aloft by the winds, leaving the fist-shaking cop far behind.



We left Maidan before the end of the show, leaving in the middle of the singer from France, which I felt was a fitting way to go. We caught one of the last metros of the night and got out as fast as we came in, which was the only way to do it.

You know, I never did meet any Europeans.

Ukraine: Hella Weekend

So a weekend where I had absolutely nothing planned turned out to be a hella good one. It involved a spur of the moment decision to go Eurovision in Kyiv (big song contest; more to come on the experience later) and then coming back and having a sudden offer to go rock climbing today. As in actual rock. I haven't climbed outside a gym since I was 18 years old, and I spent the day going up a sheer 70 foot face! It was awesome. Anyway, I'm beat, but photos and stories to come tomorrow.

Ukraine: Quotable Quotes and More Pics

I'm in Kyiv at the moment, getting poked and prodded, them trying to figure out why this stomach flu won't go away. I've had to give samples of things you shouldn't give samples of, and they went ahead and gave me the boosters for some of my immunizations. Sore arms. Fun day.

But the final proposal for the grant for the climbing wall is done, three days early no less! When I get something done early, you know I'm sick. Actually, I just knew I didn't want to make the trip to Kyiv twice, so I stayed up last night and finished it. I'll know June 3 if we get it.

A couple of quoteables:

An text message from Amy to Carrie, giving her directions to the singing competition Amy had to judge: "go up the stairs, turn left and listen for the horror."

British, not American, English, has been taught here, hence the following two quotes:

Carrie's student, describing his home: "And my grandmother has a big, beautiful, brown cock."

One of the female teachers I was training, holding up a picture during the demonstration of a young learner activity, after I asked them all to draw an animal: "This is my pussy."

Since no one else got it, no one could figure out why I was trying to hold in laughter.


Victory Day parade in Zhytomyr


A river of people headed to the World War II memorial


A veteran laying flowers down on the memorial


My three neighbors: Luba, Alla and Ina. I hadn't realized it, but three girls live in the one room apartment, with two beds, a couch and a piano in the one room. Makes me feel bad that just one of me lives in a three room apartment.


Playing wrong notes on an out of tune piano

Misc: ebay Comedy of Errors

As payment for directing and editing two training videos for GEAR UP, I was given a professional video camera. Well, officially I was paid for the job and the money went to buy the camera, but essentially that was the deal.

Said camera, although it has seen much of America and shot me some beautiful footage, was too bulky and expensive to bring to Ukraine, and so sat in America, steadily loosing value. It's a Canon GL1, and the Canon GL2 is already out. So every six months, technology wise, was loping at least $150 off its value.

Reasoning that if I really needed a professional video camera in the future (and, really, I don't), whatever money I sold it for would probably buy me the exact camera upon return plus profit due to devaluation. Dig?

So I put it on ebay. That was three days ago and I hadn't checked the sale since. Except when I checked it today, I realize that someone bought it the day it went up for the "Buy it Now Price" (which was a fair, but still damn expensive, price, especially considering the fact that some of the controls no longer work).

Then I realized that my payment address was my old one in Oklahoma. Then I realized that my contact e-mail was my old one with Juno. And when I checked my Juno account, I found that the 2MB inbox had already been overloaded with junk mail and there were no e-mails from Ebay, or possible ones from the buyer.

In other words, there could well be a very substatial check on its way (or already having arrived) at a rundown apartment in Oklahoma. I couldn't even change my e-mail with ebay because they wanted a credit card on record to do so. Screw that, especially with how unsecure the internet is out here.

So I'm not sure what's going down at the moment. Best case scenario is that the buyer was awaiting contact from me, and I just sent him an e-mail with the right mailing address. Worst case, someone's trying cash a check with my name on it.

We'll see.

Ukraine: Sick as a Dog

Sick as a dog. Enfermo como un pero. Huvorio yak sobaka.

That's me at the moment. It hit Saturday night, a "stomach flu" as Peace Corps medical pronounced it over the phone, with the command to rest and ride it out. So sick was I that I didn't go climbing on Sunday, that sick, voiding from both ends.

Carrie, rather than hurt me for ruining her first chance at climbing in years instead made me chicken soup and sat through Red Dwarf with me (which she and all the Zhytomyr crew save Amy hate). So, shout out to her.

I thought I wasn't teaching until 12:30 today (yeah, I know, rough schedule) so I didn't even bother to lesson plan yesterday, figuring I'd certainly feel better in the morning. I was sitting in a stupor, trying to force down a banana when a phone call came at 9:45 asking if I could come in at 10:15 to teach because they had to change the schedule.

Some very expensive photocopies on the way and walking in the door at 10:30, I started teaching the assigned lesson of "young learners" only to find that none of the teachers taught younger than seventh grade. Trying to adapt on the fly, we talked about the psychology of twelve year olds. During the break, I point out the young learners problem with my coordinator, who tells me that although they teach adolescents now, they're all about to be assigned to elementary level teaching, hence the class. That, they hadn't told me. So I go back in and teach what I meant to teach in the first place, don't have enough time and sort of compress it all in.

It is not my day, and I think I'm going to go throw up again.

Figured someone else should share in the misery with me.

Ukraine: Piano Lessons and Uzbekistan

I've always wanted to learn the piano. In fact, when I was told how much free time I might have in Peace Corps, I resolved that if the opportunity presented itself, I'd try to take lessons.

The opportunity was my neighbor, whose door is across the hall from me, through which I've heard the practicing of scales on an out of tune piano. Two days ago, I knocked on the door, the Russian prepared in my head. Most of it was lost in the realization that my neighbor was not some old woman, but a very cute girl of about twenty. Her name is Ina, and both her and her roommate are music majors at a local university.

Some confused Russian later, we had worked out that I was looking for piano lessons, and she agreed to teach me, starting today. The lesson went pretty well. I looked up the words for "scale" and "chord" ahead of time. I wondered how the notes were labeled, considering I was used to them having letters like A or B or whatever. It turns out they're on the "Do-rah-me" method, "Do" being a "C". After she found out I could read music (although not well, and I suck at sightreading), she busted out a song and we spent an hour working through it. Actually, I didn't do too poorly and I wish I had a piano so I could have kept practicing.

After the lesson, her and her roommate were naturally curious about why I was in Ukraine and we went through that series of questions that I've honed to a fine point after eight months of answering them: where are you from, what's it like there, why are you here, how long are you staying?

Neither of them speaks a lick of English, and this is good. In spending time with the Ukranians I do know, I never get to practice Ukranian or Russian because their English is always better than my pitiful attempts at their langauge. Ina actually wants to learn some English, so rather than pay her for the lessons as I had intended, I'm going to give her English lessons in exchange for piano lessons. The next mutual lesson is tomorrow night.

In other news, I'm going climbing tomorrow! People from the group with whom I'm doing the grant for the climbing wall with are climbing tomorrow and Carrie and I are going with them (Carrie's parents mailed her gear to my house in Florida, and I brought both her's and mine back with me). So that should be a lot of fun.

And in non-personal news, I encourage everyone to keep up with the events in Uzbekistan. Anti-government protests have resulted in violent crackdowns by police, with as many as 500 dead. I personally know a volunteer in Uzbekistan, and worry for her and for the Uzbek people.

This is the latest article on the situation:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/uzbekistan_town_dc

Revolutions in surrounding countries, including here in Ukraine, have made the Uzbek government scared, causing them to react violently to this possible one. Of course, there's been no outcry from the United States government, because Uzbekistan provides us with air bases for our efforts in Afghanistan.

Misc: Peace Corps Blogs

First: Happy Birthday Bean!

Second: Posting may be light due to a schedule that is mostly working.

Craziness is in the works, though, I promise. This summer promises to be utter maddness/fun. They're the same thing, mostly.

In the meantime, check out some other Peace Corps blogs that I like to visit. The one from Senegal is heartbreaking and makes me glad my Peace Corps experience isn't nearly as difficult as I first thought I wanted it to be.

Senegal: The Quiet American

El Salvador: Close Your Eyes

Uzbekistan: The Long Road

Bulgaria: Melody Jones

Still in America: Jay's Big Adventure

Ukraine: Victory Day

Bush is over in Russia right now, celebrating Victory Day. They cleared the Muscovites out of Red Square for it, to welcome all the world leaders in attendance.

Here in Zhytomyr, Victory Day was celebrated as well. Since most of the Eastern Front actually raged across what is now Ukraine, I think it's just as heartfelt a celebration here, if not more so.

The parade, led by a tank, left Victory Square and marched a mile uphill to the World War II memorial, a monolith with an eternal flame at its base. Ukranians don't do parades quite like we do. It wasn't a bunch of people on sidewalks watching others march past. Rather, we all walked together, a huge chunk of the city's population flowing up to the memorial, a river of people. It was fitting. After all, it was all of Ukraine that banded together to fight Nazi invaders, all of Ukraine that was decimated as the Nazis moved past into Russia.

Diana and I walked in the parade together, as friends. Most of the Zhytomyr crew were playing baseball in Khirovograd, taking advantage of the three day weekend. As getting off a plane and onto a bus the next morning didn't sit with me, I stayed and got to see the parade. It was slightly sad for Diana. Her grandfather, a war hero, had taken her and her alone with him each victory day. Since she was ten, she walked this road with him. His health is low, though, and he didn't feel he could make the walk this year. This was the first time in a decade she's gone without him.

We walked up to the memorial, all of us. Various groups carried flags. Soldiers marched in formation amidst the throng. Here and there, but noticeably few, were old men in green uniforms, chests heavy with medals. They were whom the day was for, a rememberance for their bravery. Like our own veterans, they, too, are dying one by one.

At the memorial, speeches were given in both Russian and Ukranian. Of the one million Ukrainians who fought, said one speech giver, one third were killed or wounded. He said this under a sky heavy with dark clouds, the mood fitting. Sad music played while a woman dressed in black, "representing a mourning mother," said Diana, laid flowers in front of the memorial. Teenage girls in white danced, and then released doves into the air, followed by soldiers firing a five shot fussilade.

As the rain came down, heavy, people moved slowly under umbrellas to lay stacks of flowers in front of the memorial, to all those who sacrificed so that Ukraine could remain free. Ironic that what they fought for was a Stalinist Russia.

But still, Ukraine is free today, as free as it can be, as free as it's trying to be. And it's because others went to the grave to give it the chance. And Ukraine, like most of the Slavic world, takes today to remember it.

It was very moving.

Ukraine: Back in the U.S.S.R.

Okay, so I'm back in the former U.S.S.R.

But I had to say it. Completely exhausted at the moment. Traveling back sucked. On the way to America I packed a big book for the flight. It turned out it was one of the new Airbus planes with a whole selection of movies played on the back of the seat in front of me.

On the way back, I didn't have room in my backpack because I was bringing too much stuff back (the biggie was a bottle of tequila for the Zhyt crew. That's just so I can guilt trip them). In any case, I figured I had movies, so I left the book.

It was one of the old 747s. Eight hours of staring into oblivion and trying to sleep sitting up.

But I'm back. I had to get on the internet to tell my mom that I arrived safely. Now I'm going to sleep some more.

America: Going Back (Climbing Pics)

Heading back to Ukraine today, and pretty sad to have to go. It's been great being back and spending time with my family and new niece, and it's been good doing everything that I've done, even if I have been teetering on the outer edge of exhaustion for two weeks.

I went climbing with my friend Sultana two days ago, and when a girl can hang upside down on a bouldering route, you know she's cool.


Sultana hanging upside down


Me being a monkey


Me and Sultana?

America: Article, Pen Pal and Busch Gardens

Two things:

1) You know that article that I has such a problem with Peace Corps over? It's finally out, along with some photographs I took of the Orange Revolution. You can find it on:

www.subsystence.net

It's under "Articles" and is called "In the Balance".

2) I finally met my pen pal, Desiree, yesterday. Although we've been talking for nearly two years, we've never been in the same time zone until now. I was in Oklahoma, she was in Florida. I was in Florida, she was in the Dominican Republic. She was in Florida, I was in Ukraine. So I celebrated this convergence by driving over to Tampa (in my sister's truck, windows down, music blaring; God I missed driving) to meet her.

She popped my Busch Gardens cherry (her phrase; she has a mouth like a sailor with Tourettes), and we spent the day riding roller coasters and checking out animals. It was pretty cool. Even though we only met yesterday, it was like we had been friends for years. Which, in fact, we had.

She's a certified skydiver, too, and so has promised to pop my skydiving cherry this Christmas.

A bit of promo for her:

www.desireerincon.com

And this is what she looks like:


I don't know what's up with my double chin here. And yet I'm still gorgeous. Funny how that works, isn't it?