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.