1) I’m getting very annoyed with my work. I understand that the Ukrainian concept of scheduling is much more flexible than the American one, and I roll with it when they wake me at 8:30 AM to tell me that my noon class has been moved to 9:00 AM, or that someone is sick and they need me to teach, well, now. But last week I got a call that went like this:
“How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” I said.
“Why didn’t you teach this morning?”
“I didn’t have a class this morning.”
“You didn’t know you had a class this morning?”
“No.”
“Oh, I must have forgotten to tell you.”
Yesterday, I get a call like this:
“When are you coming into the institute today?”
”I’m not,” I said. “I’m in Kyiv doing paperwork.”
“What about the kids?”
“What kids?”
“Nevermind.”
This was after I theatrically pulled out my calendar after last week’s incident and said, “Okay, tell me all the classes I’m teaching next week.” Wednesday was wide open, which why I went to Kyiv to finish up the grant paperwork. My coordinator wasn’t around when I was at the institute today, so I left a rather stern note on her desk that me missing a class makes Peace Corps look bad, and that we needed to work on our communication.
2) Carrie was robbed two days ago. She went swimming at a quarry-cum-swimming hole, with her backpack on the shore. Someone took it, and inside was her watch, mobile phone, wallet with 200 hrivna, her keys to her apartment and her clothes. She showed up at my apartment wearing a bikini, sandals and a sarong. Two days later, we still haven’t gotten keys to her apartment, so she’s been going back and forth between my apartment and Amy’s. We’ve both loaned her clothes and money and, in a karmic coincidence, she got a mobile from me and a call package from Amy. The mobile was originally Carrie’s old one, the one she had given me after mine was stolen when I was mugged. I had just bought a new one, and so was able to give her old one back to her. Someone had given the call package to Amy for free, but she had already had one and was able to give it to Carrie. Carrie’s taken the whole thing with her usual stoicism, although she’s understandably pretty frustrated that she can’t get back into her place.
3) Carrie and I jumped off a bridge yesterday evening, a nice release to both our frustrations. This would be want I didn’t want to mention ahead of time: rappelling 125 feet straight down off of a condemned bridge in a second world country. Forgive me, mom! It wasn’t even my idea, suggested instead by the Ukrainians we climb with. Apparently they do this all the time. Two police sat on one end of the bridge, not even paying attention to us, so if it was illegal, that law wasn’t exactly being enforced.
