Thursday, March 31, 2005

Ukraine: Lviv, Part II

[We interupt this broadcast: My sister just had her kid! It's a couple weeks early--a preemee--but apparently everything is okay. I could only hear that much from my mom before we lost the phone connection, but I am an uncle! Woooooooo!]

Okay, onto Lviv, Part II. Pictures to along with this travelogue can be found here:

Lviv Pictures


***

That afternoon, we boarded a bus with fifteen other people for Zhovka, a tiny town about 45 minutes from Lviv, for the castle tour, which was to have "a tour of a castle and a candle-lit dinner with live music inside the castle."

We arrived in Zhovkva and I looked around for a castle, but saw none. We began following our tour guide around, a thin man in his thirties speaking in a fast-paced Ukrainian. The town, according to our guide, was one of three renaissance towns planned with Italian ideals of beauty. It was, admittedly, a beautiful little towns, with all the three-story buildings colored in faded pinks, blues and yellows. The buildings were built wall to wall, with no alleys, all surrounding a huge square. They were built like this for defensive reasons, said the guide. Looking around, I still couldn't see the castle.

Finally, the guide pointed at the "castle". It was a building that looked like an administrative headquarters, three stories tall with stucco walls and ground floor windows. What kind of defensive structure has ground floor windows? It turned out that there had one been a castle there, and this building, a renaissance "valley castle", said our guide, was built on the foundations. There was no castle. The tour group had lied. Fancy that. And, ironically, we never even went inside this "castle." Dinner, it would turn out, was at a nearby restaurant.

I was pissed. It was almost 5:00 PM, and the sun was rapidly dropping below the horizon, and it was –10 degrees. The entire tour was outside, and hour and a half of walking around in the snow. I was tired, hungry, freezing, mentally exhausted from too much Ukrainian, frustrated at the tour company and really just wanting to go back to the warm hotel and crash. The problem was that our bus wasn't scheduled to leave for six and a half more hours.

One part of the tour made up for my feelings, though: a heartbreaking Jewish synagogue. All the Jews in Zhovka were killed by the Germans during World War II, said our guide. The synagogue, more than 400 years old, was build defensively, like a tiny castle in itself, the pink paint faded and peeling off the outside. With no Jews, though, the synagogue sat locked up and crumbling. Except our guide, a Zhovkva resident and historian, had the key.

There's something about going where people don't normally go that makes you feel special. The old lock squeaked as he turned the key, and we stepped into another time. The inside was empty and barely visible as the last of day turned into dusk. What little light there was came in through dusty windows, refracted in the air.

There was a majesty there. The interior room of worship was nearly three stories high, the roof supported by a series of stone columns that looked like they had Turkish influence. The upper rooms, where the women had worshipped, were inaccessible, blocked by rubble. Masonry lay broken and overturned. We were some of the few tourists to ever see the inside of that synagogue, and seeing it then, into the darkening evening with the room colored in a purple-blue, made me mourn the loss of the people who once loved it, who once came there to worship God, people I never knew.

***

After the synagogue we found ourselves at the restaurant, a tiny little café near the "castle". Realizing we had been lied to yet again, and realizing that "live music" really meant a guy playing MP3s through computer speakers, and so had been lied to yet again, we were damn near done. There were candles on the tables, but there were no private tables, only two, long, communal ones. We all had come in on an overnight train just that morning, were all running on very little sleep. And we had to spend six more hours there.

I was unable to feel my feet, they were so cold when we got to the restaurant, so the four of us beelined to the fire place and took the nearest chairs to it. Then the tour company asked us to move. This table, they said, was reserved for the tour company employees. Because, you see, there were only five paying people on this tour, the four of us and a Finnish girl. The other sixteen or so worked for the company and, as we were to soon realize, this was more their shindig than ours.

We couldn't not believe we were being told to move. Christopher flat out refused, getting angry. I wasn't going anywhere, either, taking a cue of stubbornness from him. I was warm right where I was. And after everything they had pulled, I wanted to sit by the fire. The girls, trying to let cooler heads prevail, finally pulled us from our seats to the table across the room, by the windows, where it was freezing.

Christopher grabbed the bottle of vodka on the table, said "we're going to need more than this," and started to pour.

Thus proceeded a Ukrainian party, for Ukrainians. Were I new to Ukraine, it would have seemed quite quaint: the food and the dancing and the music. But I'm not new to Ukraine, I live in Ukraine and the novelty has worn off. I still appreciate Ukrainian culture, but sitting there, some part of my mind thought "my grandparents would love seeing this," while the rest of me was just cold, tired and pissed.

A brief, shining moment came when they asked me what I did. I told them, also telling about my English club. What did I do there. Well, last week we did salsa dancing.

So they asked me to teach them how to salsa. They guy manning the music found something vaguely Spanish-sounding and I did teach them to salsa. They did it for about two minutes, then went back into Ukrainian folk dancing. My mood darkened once again, I sat back down.

Then came the silly games. I had never seen these at a Ukrainian party before, but apparently this was how they expected to entertain us all night. These games consisted of things like, who could carve and apple with their teeth, catch tossed change on a tray or put a puzzle together the fastest. We were forced to take part, and we tried to make the best of it. Looking at the pictures, it didn't seem to be to horrible a time, even though we hated almost every minute of it.

Susannah and I especially. For five months we had been treated like children, told what to wear and when to eat by our host families, given no choice in schedule or locale by Peace Corps. And now, we were supposed to be on vacation, but we were still being told what to do, when to do it, when we could leave and even what we could eat: there was no choice in this restaurant; you just ate what was brought to you. We had paid for a castle tour and candlelight dinner in a castle. You know, something romantic and memorable. Instead we sat at a long table with progressively drunker Ukrainian strangers who kept beseeching us to take part in stupid Ukrainian games.

The hours ticked by slowly. Two of them later, at 7:00 PM, we were done with dinner and the party was still going. We sat, bored and listless, and finally Chris said "we need to get out of here. We need to get back to Lviv."

I talked to the guide. "Getting back to Lviv is easy," he said. "Marchrutkas leave every ten minutes."

"How much?" I asked

"Three hrivna," he said.

A huge grin broke out on my face. I didn't have to wait until 1:30 in the morning to go back, didn’t' have to spend another four hours in exhausted boredom! We could leave when we wanted! I shared the news and we all breathed a sigh of relief. We were no longer held captive to the whims of the psycho Ukrainian tour group. We could leave at any time!

A Ukrainian music group arrived then, three men with an accordian, a fiddle and a tambourine. It was the live music we had been promised.

"Well, let's at least listen to the music," I said.

And fantastic music it was. I'm a big fan of Ukrainian folk music, and they did a lot of classics that the whole group joined in singing. I didn't know any of the words, but I enjoyed just watching the whole group boomingly sing and clap in rhythym. The folk group finished, and we were ready to leave.

We found a Ukrainian stand up comedian between us and the wooden door.

Seriously. This guy was out of his seat and in front of the only way out of the restaurant before we had finished standing up. There was no way to get our jackets and leave without interrupting the monologue he had launched into.

It was 7:30 PM. We sat back down.

I tuned it out, jostled out of my thoughts only occasionally laughter and applause from the of the group. Susannah was getting angrier and drunker with each passing minute. The stand up was speaking in Ukrainian, as did everyone in this part of the country, and she was livid.

Susannah got off the plane in September with an advanced level of Russian, having studied it for nine years and having lived for a year in Moscow. The near-permanent language frustration that has been my life since arrival was something that she was just now starting to experience, and she was hating it. The tour was supposed to be for us, the four American and the Finnish girl who had actually paid for it, she reasoned, and since everyone but me and Christopher spoke Russian, it should be conducted in Russian. To her, it was rude and frustrating for a tour group to give a tour in a language the majority of the tour group didn't understand.

"It's a nationalist thing, a pride thing," I tried to explain.

"Well, it's going to cost them business," she replied.

Finally, half an hour later, the comedian was done.

We quickly grabbed our jackets and headed for the door before another act could come on.

The tour group manager intercepted us. "What are you doing?"

It should be noted that, in Ukraine, you never break up a group. What we were doing was paramount to sacrilege and we were about to pay for it.

"We're going," Christopher said.

"You can't go," she said in Ukrainian. "The bus doesn't leave until 2:30 AM."

Two-thirty? It was supposed to be one-thirty!

"You need to respect when people don't understand you and speak Russian!" Susannah said in Russian, now thoroughly fed up and unwilling to deal with a replay of the morning, when she had gotten sidelined by language.

"We're taking a marshutka back," I said in Ukrainian.

"But the marchrutkas stop running at 8:00!" said the tour guide.

We all stopped moving. It was already 8:15.

"What?" I asked.

"The marchrutkas stop running at 8:00."

That fucking guide knew we wanted to leave, knew we were asking how to leave at 7:00 PM and he casually forgot to mention that they stopped running at 8:00? Had that comedian not blocked us, we would have gotten out the door at 7:30 PM and already be on a marchrutka to Lviv.

"We're going," I said, pissed.

Susannah was currently going off on the lady in Russian, but I couldn't understand most of it, and I was walking out the doors anyway. Marchrutkas sometimes run late. As soon as I stepped outside, I saw a marchrutka drive by with LVIV in the window and I took off after it. The driver didn't see me, though (marchrutka drivers will stop for anybody) and it sped off into the night.

The guide, who had followed us out with the manager, began laughing at my Forrest Gump impression. That further set Susannah off, who was now joined by Christopher, yelling in English.

"Which way to the bus station?" I asked over the din Other tour group employees had followed us out and there was a three language argument going on. .

"There are no more buses," said the guide.

"You said there'd be no more marchrutkas and I just saw one," I said back.

"You can't go," said the manager, "you're our responsibility."

"We'll be fine," I said, the snow falling down around us. And then I said: "If there are no marchrutkas, it will just be an nice walk around your beautiful city."

That calmed them a bit. It took another ten minutes, but finally they relented and pointed us in the right direction.

Nothing felt so good as those first steps away from the restaurant, away from the crazy tour guide people.

"How far are you willing to take this?" asked Christopher as we walked to the bus station.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I mean I'm willing to walk to Lviv if necessary," he said.

"That'd take like four hours," I said.

We arrived at the bus station and looked at the times. The last marchrutka had left for Lviv at 8:30 PM. Had the people not held us up an additional 20 minutes, we still could have made it. We stood there just in case one was running late.

"I'm willing to throw money at this," said Christopher. "I'm willing to pay someone to drive us there."

Every car in Ukraine is actually a potential taxi if you have the money. We watched him put his hand out for every car that went by, but none stopped. Finally, a marchrutka came by, but the guy said he was done and going home. Christopher, over my shoulder, was trying to negotiate through me, me translating for him. The guy obviously did not want to drive to Lviv. Finally, I thanked him and he left.

"Why'd you do that?" asked Christopher. "We almost had him!"

Actually, I was mulling over the news the guy had given me, that a train was leaving for Lviv at 9:00 PM. It was now 8:57 PM, and there was no way to get to the train station in time. The tour guide, a Zhovka resident, would have known about the train, would have known we could have made it, and had just decided not to tell us about it.

Finally, another marchrutka came, and the driver, too, said he was finishing up his run and no more marchrutkas were going to Lviv that night.

We flagged down one car, but it was full of teenagers and I told them nevermind. That was it. We were out of options.

I started walking back towards the restaurant.

"No!" yelled Christopher. "We can't give up. Did they give up at Bull Run? Did they give up at Bunker Hill?"

"They gave up at Vietnam," said Wendy.

"Do you have any other ideas?" I asked him.

"Let's walk!" he said.

"We're not walking, honey," said Wendy. "Let's just go back."

"I'm not going back!" he said. "I refuse to go back!"

We went back.

***

We threw open the doors to the restaurant like conquering heroes, as if we had just been taking a stroll and were back to get the party started. Luckily, they let us keep our dignity and welcomed our arrival with cheers.

I took the tour manager aside and, with Susannah as back up in Russian, we made it clear that we were leaving at 1:30 AM as originally agreed, and not 2:30 AM.

She relented and conceded we would leave at 1:30 AM.

That done, we still had three hours to go.

"We need vodka," said Christopher.

I agreed.

We all sat back down at our table, Christopher poured a round, we all clinked glasses and we drank, including me.

The alcohol finished off the rest of my energy. Using my sweater as a pillow, and with Susannah leaning against me, I leaned back in my chair and went to sleep.

I didn't wake up until it was time to leave.

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Ukraine: Lviv, Part I

Sorry this is late! Pictures to go along with this travelogue can be found here:

Lviv Pictures



Once again, a huge thanks to Catwoman for hosting them!

***

I had expected chickens. Screaming children. Straw on the floor, maybe. That's what I had been led to believe about platzkart, the infamous fourth-class cabins on Ukrainian trains. Still, Susannah said she wanted it; cheaper and safer, she had said.

Luckily, my expectations weren't fulfilled. If you've seen a coupe on a normal European train: four bunks in a room, then platzkart is what you get if you put two more bunks in the hall and then remove all the walls. Packed, yes. Chaos, no. Although I'm told that in the summer, chaos it is.

When we were there, for Valentine's day weekend (although, as friends because I was dating Diana), the only people making noise were us, talking quietly, barely able to see each other in the dim light. It was 10:00 PM, and most of the lights were off, letting people sleep on the overnight train to Lviv.

Finally, around midnight, we crawled onto our bunks and both went to sleep, lulled by the gently rocking train.

***

The conductor of our wagon woke us up 6:00 AM to have us up and ready to go by the train's arrival at 7:00. I was running on five hours of sleep from the night before, and about six for this one, so I was starting the whirlwind two day trip already exhausted. We were in Lviv for a Valentine's day tour package that seemed too good to pass up: lodging, food, a tour of the city, transportation to a nearby castle and dinner in the castle, all for 200 hrivna, or slightly less than $40.

It was a tour being put on by a new Ukrainian tour group in conjunction with Hosteling International. Both should have sent up red flags.

They were supposed to meet us outside the train. In fact, I had confirmed it by phone the night before. No one was there. Fifteen minutes of standing in sub-zero temperature later, there was still no one there, and the train had gone. We went inside the mammoth and beautiful Lviv train station.

I called the tour company, but it being 7:30 AM in the morning, it wasn't open. Susannah waited in line for a return train ticket for her. Because you need a passport to buy a train ticket, we couldn't buy ours together. I had successfully bought mine in Zhytomyr, but she had been unable to get any tickets from where she lived in Harkiv, near the Russian border. In Kyiv, she had been able to get a ticket to Lviv, but not one back. We were sort of doing this by the seat of our pants.

The lady told Susannah that there were no tickets available, but she should try back tomorrow. With no luck reaching the travel agency, we checked a guidebook and saw that the Hotel George was reasonably priced and centrally located. We took a cab from the train station to the hotel, a neo-renaissance building over a hundred years old with a huge staircase leading up to the second floor. The paint was faded and chipped and it was one bathroom per floor, but that gave it a rustic grandeur. Plus, at $15 a night, it was hard to beat.

Of course, my bags had no sooner hit the bed than I received a call on my mobile from the tour company hostel: they had changed the meeting location and had not been able to get a hold of me the previous night. The would come to pick us up.

Susannah was all for staying at the Hotel George and ditching the tour company. I should have listened to her, but instead I was thinking that we'd also miss out on the package: the food, the tours, everything save for the castle tour, which I knew could be purchased separately. So we had them "pick us up" at the hotel.

"Pick up" generally connotes someone getting you with a car. This really meant that a guy showed up and led us to a marshutka, in which we sat packed for a 20 minute ride that took us to the very outskirts of Lviv. When I mean outskirts, I mean there was nothing past the edge of buildings but snow-covered steppe. It was the absolute outer edge of the city. We were in the part of Lviv that the Soviets had gotten to, with their towering and ugly block apartments.

Susannah and I live in Soviet block apartment cities. We came to Lviv to forget we were in the former USSR for a weekend. Glancing with dread at the buildings, we followed our guide for a 15 minute walk over slippery ice-covered sidewalks to a building that looked just like the others, trash spread around the outskirts and being picked over by dogs and crows. That was the hostel.

The rooms weren't bad (albeit cold), but I was already fed up with the deal. Every Hostelling International hostel I've ever been it was on the outskirts of town, forcing me to spend valuable vacation time on public transportation, on which I was also spending what few dollars a day I saved by taking the HI hostel. I simply refuse to use them anymore. And I was not about to spend 35 minutes each way walking and on marchrutkas when the Hotel George was smack in the center of town for just a few bucks more.

Hungry, we ate the breakfast at the hostel, determining our options. There we also met Christopher and Wendy, the only other Americans on the tour. Wendy was a Peace Corp Volunteer, Christopher was her American husband who worked at a Kyiv newspaper. Telling them about the Hotel George, we as a group decided to call it a bust and head back into town.

This turned out to be a problem.

The tour group simply didn't want to let us go. It's that Ukrainian one-way mentality: we had come, we should not leave. Thus proceeded and argument in Ukrainian. Lviv is the center of Ukrainian Nationalism, and is a city where pretty much only Ukrainian is spoken. Wendy and Susannah only spoke Russian. Christopher only spoke English.

This meant I had to do all the arguing. It also meant that Susannah was getting pissed, feeling snubbed because these people wouldn't talk to her in Russian.

"Speak to me in Russian," she demanded in Russian.

"Russian is my second language, and is difficult for me," said the 20-something Ukrainian guy in charge of the tour.

"Well Ukrainian is my fourth language!" she shot back in Russian.

"Look," I said in Ukrainian. "We don't like the room, we don't want to be on the tour, we're leaving and that's it."

"What about your rooms that we have we paid for?" asked the director. "What about the breakfast you ate?"

"We made no agreement and paid no deposit," I said. "We came, did not like them and now are leaving. We will pay for breakfast. How much do we owe you?"

Well, they didn't want to say how much we owed. In fact, they wanted to get a hold of someone higher up and get permission from them.

"What is going on?" asked Christopher in English, now fuming.

"They have to get permission," I said.

"Let's just go," he said.

"We have to pay for breakfast," I said.

I stood there, extremely tired, thinking back to that warm room in the Hotel George, a room that had breakfast included in the price, and that was two hours ago, two hours I could have been sleeping instead of on marchrutkas and dealing with this.

Twenty minutes later, we were still at the hostel, the argument going around in circles while the director said he was waiting for someone higher up to call him back.

"Let's just drop money and go," said Christopher.

"Fine with me," I said.

We dropped 20 hrivna each on the counter, easily five times the cost of breakfast, and began walking out.

"You can't go!" said the director.

"Bye," we said, and walked out.

***

Forty-five minutes later we were checked back into the Hotel George, and it was already noon. Now having no time to sleep, we went out into Lviv. There was a small debate as to whether we should still take the Castle Tour. It meant dealing with the people from this morning, but it was the main reason we had come to Lviv. I knew it wasn't getting back until late and I was already tired, but Susannah had really wanted to go. We did go, a monumental mistake that is humorous in hindsight, but we'll get to that.

Monday, March 28, 2005

Ukraine: Apartment Pics

There is no describing how happy I am to have this apartment. Just assume that "extremely" is an understatement and go from there. I cooked spagetti (a little short on ingredients at the moment) last night for Diana, Steve and Carrie and we broke in the place together.

Below are pics from the apartment upon first moving in. This is exactly how I found it (well, the shirt on the shelf in the bathroom is actually mine). So much stuff was just lying around that I suspected the previous tenants simply fled. There was even water in the tea kettle on the stove.

Things have been rearranged since the photos, particularly in the kitchen (I think it was designed around a four-foot high, 80-pound woman), but you can get the idea of what it looks like.

American makes good in Ukraine, eh?


In through through the front door. That's the dining room on the left and the living room beyond

My bathroom

My kitchen. Both the cutting table, ironing board (that thing on the left covered with decorative plastic) and a breadbox on the wall have been moved to actually give me access to the sink. By the way, four burners is a luxury

The dining room, which will probably see little use as I haven't had a dining room in an apartment since 1995.

The living room. I may move the red rug in the dining room into here just to offset all the brown

My bedroom

My bed, which turned out to be two cushions on wood. I haven't slept on a matress since America

The view out my window

Friday, March 25, 2005

Ukraine: Soon Apartment!

I am currently a raving, foaming maniac in the body of an extremely hot, albeit slightly sloveny, Cuban American sitting at a computer and acting like he's not internally a raving, foaming maniac.

Because...

In three days I get my apartment. But since today is almost over, really it's two. But since the last day is the day I get it, really one. But since tomorrow will be spent teaching in Kyiv and on marshrutkas going to and from Kyiv (and time both teaching and on marshrutkas is really part of a space time warp where things seem to be going quite quickly and yet not happening simultaneously; Einstein, but not Newton, would have understood) really there is no time between now and then and I am already in my new apartment, on my knees, arched back with arms extended and hands in claws screaming to the heavens: "FREEDOM!"

Seriously, I want it that badly. Try spending six months in other people's homes, particularly the homes of Ukrainian women who nitpick at you all day and force feed you pig fat and buckwheat, women who, while you love them, have taught you to finally understand matricide. Do that, and then you will know how I feel.

Now I have to go lesson plan for tomorrow...

(Which doesn't actually exist)

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Ukraine: Getting Noticed

I was mentioned in the Country Directors' seasonal letter to all volunteers in Ukraine. He called attention to my article on banyas that was published in Nu Shcho, Peace Corps Ukraine's newspaper (a longer version of "Bonding in the Banya" is buried somewhere in the archives of this blog). Of course, he used it to launch into his own banya experience, but as I was the only volunteer mentioned by name in this two page letter, and there are 292 volunteers in-country, I was pretty proud.

Thanks to Bean, Anonomousgirl, Katie, Syko and all the others that comment on my blog. You all certainly keep me writing, and your notice counts just as much.

In other news, we just lost two more volunteers from my group. I'll post--maybe Monday, maybe Teusday--about some of the stuff the volunteers have to deal with. Thankfully, my experience has been good, while it seems that for others, it's been three months of hell.

Ukraine: Dating in Ukraine

So I was talking love lives with a female volunteer friend of mine, and she told me about the rather attractive, intelligent, athletic, nice, worldly Ukrainian guy that she's dating. The thing is, they have been dating for two months, and he hasn't even kissed her. She's sure they're dating and it's not a mistaken just-friends thing, because he keeps saying and doing romantic things for her. He acts like they're dating, but he hasn't tried to do anything physical. This is frustrating for her because she's been celibate for some eight months now and would like to get past the whole kissing thing and hurry up and get to the sex, please.

The problem, of course, is that she can't be forward with a Ukrainian guy. I've heard (and she has too) about a fair few Ukrainian men who broke up with women who were too forward, regardless of how open-minded the men were. Susannah's host brother, a cadet in military school, had a Ukrainian girl ask him out by sending him a pizza. He met the girl at a café, pronounced her Playboy-model hot and extremely intelligent, but then decided not to date her because she refused to let him pay for her meal.

And this is how dating in Ukraine works.

You can bet I've paid for every single date Diana and I have been on (which helps to explain my poor status at the moment). She hasn't even done what would be the polite thing in America: offering to pay, knowing that I'd refuse (but were we in America, I'd probably apply the: "I'll get the tickets, you get the popcorn" philosophy). I understand that it's cultural in Ukraine, and so I don't mind paying (although I can't wait to get my apartment so that entertaining consists of cheap home cooked dinners and DVDs instead of restaurants and cafes), but there's a flip side for the girls in Ukraine: they don't pay for anything, but they don't get to decide anything, either.

Letting that girl pay would have paved the way for the girl having too much power in the relationship, and so Susannah's host brother bailed. My other friend is desperate to kiss her guy, but it's Ukraine, so he makes all the first moves.

Is this something we should be trying to change in Ukraine? Well, it is a tight-rope walk. If I suggest that Diana pays for things, it might culturally rub her the wrong way and cause a problem. If my friend becomes more assertive and tries to kiss her guy, it may be a problem for him.

As for Diana and I, in the two months of dating, I have only kissed her and my hands have always stayed on her waist or shoulders. This is because A) I don't want to push things too far too fast when I know that Ukraine has a conservative culture and B) Because we both live with families, we've never had any privacy. Probably B has more to do with my gentlemen tendencies than A, but the result is still the same.

For all I know, Diana wants me to up the tempo, but she can't tell me that because she's Ukrainian and girls aren't supposed to be assertive.

It's hard to change gender roles in a country when you're trying to get some.

Ukraine: Three Fun Things To Report (with pics)

Three fun things to report:

1) Steve had his extension approved. This means he will be serving another year in Ukraine on top of the 2+ he has already served here. Apparently there's something in the Zhytomyr water (not that any of us drink the water here) because he's the third Zhytomyr volunteer I personally know who has extended. Is extending to a third year in the cards for me? Um, NO. I enjoy Ukraine, but I'm not dealing with any more of these winters than I have to. It's almost April and it's STILL below freezing. I haven't been warm since I got here. I got of the plane in late September, and it was cold. Six months later, it's still cold. I forget what being warm feels like, to tell the truth.

But anyway, congratulations, Steve!



The Zhytomyr Crew: Carrie, Steve, Me and Amy. With Steve extending for another year, we should be together until December!

2) Yesterday, I went into Kyiv to meet up with Liz, Jerry and Jessica, three of my clustermates from training, who are spending their Spring Break in Kyiv. Unfortunately, Seth couldn't make it and complete the group I spent three intense months with.

The girls told me to meet them at the T.G.I. Fridays. Yes, Kyiv has a T.G.I. Fridays, and it's the only other American food franchise I'm aware of here other than McDonalds. The thing is, it also has American prices. While I spent a few great hours talking with the girls, I couldn't actually afford to eat with them.


In a circle starting on the left, we have: Caitlin, Suzie, Liz, Jerry, Jessica, Steve and me at T.G.I. Fridays in Kyiv (note the Pepsi on the table that I brought in with me)

I ate lunch ahead of time knowing this, figuring I'd have an appetizer to get some "American" food in me, but even mozzarella wedges were 32 hrivna. Really, that's only $6 if you have an American salary, but after 6 months in Ukraine, my mind is trained off of dollars. 32 hrivna here is equivalent to 32 dollars and that's a ridiculous sum to pay for mozzarella wedges. The final bill, with five people eating, came to 473 hrivna. Imagine paying $473 for dinner at Fridays!




Because the girls live in small towns (Liz is getting a more "authentic" Peace Corps experience, actually having to haul water up from a well and take bucket baths), they have nothing to spend their money on, and so could afford it. They were actually happy to pay it because while I get to eat non-Ukrainian food maybe twice a week, they haven't had it in nearly three months!



3) I had a fantastic little experience last night. I got home late from Kyiv, to find that much of Zhytomyr had lost power. Walking past all those dark storefronts and apartment buildings in only the light of the moon was a little nerve-wracking, with dark bodies looming out of the darkness, just the firefly-tip of an inhaled cigarette to give away people farther on. I worried, as I often do when walking home past 10:00, about getting mugged, walking that same stretch, past that same spot, only this time in bluish dark and not able to see if anyone was near me.

So that set up a dichotomy for when I got home and was given a lit candle by my host mother to use in my room. Alone in my room with the door closed and letting the tension bleed out, I pulled out the new guitar tab I had printed up in Kyiv and spread the pages on my bed before me in the flickering light. I was exhausted, but for some reason didn't want to go to sleep just yet, wanted to try out some of these new songs before I went to bed. The room was cold, as my mother had opened one of my windows to air it out, but for some reason I was lazy and didn't feel like shutting it. Instead, I kept on all my layers but my jacket, picked up my guitar, put on the headphones of my MP3 player and played.

The two songs I learned last night were by Radiohead: "Fake Plastic Trees" and "How to Disappear Completely". Both are beautiful, haunted songs, and both turned out to be surprisingly simple to play, so I quickly had them memorized. Not looking at the papers, I instead kind of stared off, half-lidded in near-sleep, watching the flickering candle while I played the guitar and periodically letting escape the words to the songs in a near-whisper, more felt than heard over my guitar and the music in my headphones. Finally, in some half-asleep haze I realized that I had forgotten to push the back button to repeat "How to Disappear Completely" and that the album had gone on. I slowly collapsed back onto the pile made by my shoved-aside blanket and pillow, completely relaxed, guitar just lying on my lap and eyes finally shutting, letting the rest of Kid A, Radiohead's poignant, groundbreaking, fourth album play out to the end. Or at least I assume so, because by then I was sound asleep.


Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Misc: Free Speech and Peace Corps

This is an interesting website I came across:

Jason.Pearce.Net



Basically, it's a story of my fears realized: that my blog could get me booted from Peace Corps. This guy, Jason Pearce, didn't even complete training before his blog about his Peace Corps experience caught the attention of his country director.

The country director did not let him swear in as a volunteer because he wanted certain steps to be taken to have Pearce's website secured so that people beyond Pearce's family and friends could not access it. Pearce's future work site was informed about the incident, at which point the site said they no longer wanted him. The country director informed Pearce that another site could not be found and his Peace Corps service was terminated and he was sent home.

You know what sucks about being sent home before you swear in? YOU GET NOTHING. We accumulate a readjustment allowance--paid at termination or close of service--at a little over $260 a month for every month of service. If you terminate before swearing in, you get none of it. If you swear in and terminate ON THE DAY YOU SWEAR IN, you get the $780+ you accumulated during training and access to government health insurance. He was in Guyana for three months, went through training and got sent home.

Now, I'm not saying Peace Corps was the bad guy. Apparently Pearce put up sensitive medical information about other volunteers as well as invasive information about his host family. They gave him the chance to fix it (which another e-mail implies that he tried to do), but I'm not sure it was to their satisfaction. He then refused to do any work but IT work, and the one IT site available rejected him. Teaching work was available, but apparently he refused to take it. It could be that the "lack of site" was a face saving thing, but regardless, his blog set off a chain reaction that got him sent home.

I encourage you to read all the documents available on the site. I respect that Pearce did not flame Peace Corps on the issue (although he's obviously dissapointed) and instead presented a fantastic case study on free speech. He includes links to all correspondence that led to his termination, relevant Peace Corps publications, ethics publications and first ammendment right commentaries. Put together, it proves to be a convoluted issue worth some thought in an increasingly global world that will no doubt cause us to struggle between free speech and not pissing each other off.

Will my site get me kicked out? Who knows? I'm sworn in, which affords me a bit more protection and leeway. Also, I am pretty careful about what goes onto the site. There's a running tab of at least seven stories that will never get put on the internet just because of sensitivity issues. And no, I will not put up the uneditited story that Peace Corps shot down, regardless of the fact that they later ammended their policy on it (go me!) because I agree that I am part of a diplomatic machine and in diplomacy you sometimes just have to learn when to shut up.

In any case, the ethics of free speech and diplomacy are always a topic of interest to me, and how far I'm pushing the line in the blogosphere is always a tickle of paranoia in the back of my brain. To see it played out in another Peace Corps person's life was edifying, at the least.

Check it out!

Jason.Pearce.Net"

Monday, March 21, 2005

Misc: Terri Schiavo

So Republicans are scrambling to save Terri Schiavo's life and for once I'm in agreement with them.

For those who haven't heard about this story, Terri Schiavo is a Florida woman who has been in a vegetative state for 15 years. She can breathe on her own, but needs a feeding tube to stay alive. There's been a protracted battle between her parents (who want her kept alive) and her husband (who wants the feeding tube removed). This is a huge right-to-life issue.

I'll keep my two cents to two cents and not to two dollars, but my opinion is this: let her live.

I believe in the right to die. I believe in euthenasia. But I don't know that Terri wants to die. She left no living will. Her husband claims that she said she would never want to be kept in a vegetative state, and he may be telling the truth. The problem is that he didn't reveal this until she had already lain in a bed for several years. He revealed this after there was a million dollar malpractice settlement awareded to Terri. He doesn't get the money until she is dead. He currently has a long time girlfriend with children by her that he's not marrying because he refuses to divorce Terri, because by divorcing her he would lose custody of her and would also loose the money.

Whether this is a conspiracy or not, I try and look at it from Terri's perspective: maybe she did want to die, but right now she's not aware of anything. Her parents say she can laugh, and it's been show that sometimes she can respond to stimuli, smiling at her mother's voice or opening her eyes when doctors tell her to, but for the most part she has no cognitive function. So three things can happen: she will get old and die unaware of having lived, she can have the feeding tube removed and starve to death, or she can make a miraculous recovery.

I believe in miracles. I believe enough random shit happens in life to keep us interested in it. I'm not saying one will happen with Terri, but the other two options don't give her a chance. More to the point, to Terri, the other two options don't make a difference, because she's unaware of them. Keeping her alive does no harm. Letting her starve to death doesn't even give her a chance.

From her husband's point of view, if he doesn't have to care for her (he doesn't) and if he's already started a new life (he has), why is it so important that he end Terri's life (other than the money)? If he loves her, why doesn't het let her parents care for her and move on?

Her parents, they are hoping for a miracle, and if they are willing to bear the burden of caring for a body that spends most its waking hours staring, so be it.

I believe in erring on the side of life.

If she were in pain, I would suggest ethanasia. If she had no functions whatsoever, couldn't breathe or pump blood without machines, then I would say let her die. But if all she needs is to be kept fed, then feed her. If she's not experiencing the world, then she is not suffering. And if she is, there's a hope for some recovery. It's happened before.

If it were me in that vegetative state, I would say to let me go. Turn the machines off. But that's my opinion and I've made it known to my family. I can't speak for Terri, and if she never made her wishes truly known, then there is a chance that either choice is a mistake, but if a mistake is to be made, let's err on the side of life.

I don't know why I'm agreeing with republicans, but miracles happen every day.

Friday, March 18, 2005

Ukraine: My New Apartment

My new apartment: I've seen it and it's big: about 500 square feet. Not America big, of course, but Ukraine big. This means three rooms: bedroom, living room and dining room (with kitchen and bathroom, of course) instead of the usual efficiencies that the other volunteers live in. Why did I get this big apartment? Well, because being a teacher trainer means that Peace Corps pays for my apartment. Other volunteers, their work sites pay for their apartment, and the sites pay what they can afford. Because of the deal worked out with the recertification institutes, Peace Corps pays for my apartment, and Peace Corp can afford a lot.
Still, it took some serendipity to get this nicer apartment. I was supposed to have a much smaller efficiency, and my coordinator was going to take me to see it. I happened to be in Kyiv that weekend for a meeting, and my regional manager made mention that he thought I was getting George and Gail's old three-room apartment. George and Gail were an elderly couple that were Peace Corps Volunteers in Zhytomyr before I got here. I said I hadn't heard about that, that I was getting a one-room apartment.
I later ran into Steve: "What's George and Gail's apartment like?" I asked him. Steve's eyes went wide. "Do whatever you can to get it. If it's price, I'd pay the difference out of my own pocket."
So I went back to my regional manager, said I'd love him forever if he could get me that apartment. Well, he made some phone calls and did, convincing my coordinator—who thought it was too big for me—that I needed it, and convincing Peace Corps to pay the money.
Everyone in Zhytomyr: Carrie, Steve, Mary and my host family had all seen the apartment while George and Gail were living there and were thrilled/jealous that I was getting it. And for a Ukrainian apartment, it is really nice. No bachelor, especially no teacher, could hope to live in a place this size. Frankly, it's not the "live at the level of those around you" Peace Corps philosophy (and yes, I feel slightly guilty about it) but I'm a little too selfish to pass it up. Plus, it's an affront to pass up something handed to you on a silver platter.
To make me feel less guilty, there's this: it hasn't been redecorated since probably 1950, my bed is actually two cushions on a plank of wood, and the water stops working about twice daily without rhyme or reason (George and Gail left behind big water
containers to store water for these times).
Also, it's freezing in the winter, has roaches in the summer and homeless people like to defecate in the stairwell (a Peace Corps supplied heater, Raid and an inability to smell are my solutions). That should tell you how much space is a commodity here: despite knowing all this (my host mother went on for about 20 minutes about the roaches) everyone pushed me to take it.
And the location is great, I can have dial up internet (although don't have it yet) and it has an old Soviet washing machine that still works (so no more hand washing clothes).
And here I was expecting a hut in Africa…

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Ukraine: Miscommunication

Katie, I blame you and that wet little island of yours for this.

Yesterday, my coordinator, in English, tells me about my schedule for today. "You will teach two pairs," she says to me, refering to the fact that my new job is to tutor Olympiad finalists. "The first from 11:45 to 1:15. The second from 1:30 to 3:00."

So I was a little surprised to find not two, but three, students in the room when I got there. I worked with them until 1:15, asked if they had any questions, and then dismissed them. I took my break, and discovered that there were no new students at 1:30. I checked with my coordinator: where is the next group of students?

There was no next group of students.

She blows up at me for letting them go, is absolutely freaking out that I let them go.

Apparently in British English, "a pair" is not two students, but a grouping of two forty-five minute classes. I was supposed to have the same three students--the three Olympiad finalists from the oblast--for the full three hours. They must have known that, of course, and had simply scampered off, happy to have the free time.

My coordinator, on the other hand, was livid. "We only have three days to train them!" she wailed. Have I mentioned how important it is to my coordinator that we have a Zhytomyr student win this thing?

She's a bit calmed down now, and is directing her wrath at the students, where it is better aimed, I believe. I'm just the hapless American that, when told he is going to tutor "two pairs" automatically thinks two pairs of students.

This is how two people can be completely fluent in English and still micommunicate.

Katie, I blame your people.

Monday, March 14, 2005

Ukraine: Clothing Thieves and Party Pics

You know, I completely forgot a story from the Marine Party. So here it is, plus pics from the party/Kyiv:

Apparently the Marine House is in love with me. The house itself, mind you, not the marines, although that is possible as well. This has to be the case because it kept trying to take my clothes.

I came in five layers, as it was damn cold that night. All the jackets and excess layers were being dumped in the weight room, so I followed suit, going into the party proper with a tee-shirt and a fleece pullover. When I found myself on the dance floor later that night, I took off the pull over and put it on a little shelf that people were stacking drinks and clothes on. When I went back for it fifteen minutes later, it was gone. This was annoying, but I assumed someone had grabbed the wrong one and it would show up.

Later in the evening, Carrie and I made a water run to the local supermarket as we didn't want to pay the high prices inside. When I went back up to the party, I was wearing the tee-shirt and another layer: a black sweater.

Now, when I found myself back on the dance floor, I thought I had learned my lesson and knotted the sweater around my waist. But a knot on your pelvis is not a good thing to have when you are dancing with girls, so finally I spied an area where people had their purses and sweaters, put it aside and told myself not to move five feet from that spot.

I didn't move five feet from that spot, but when I turned a few minutes later, the sweater was gone.

I was getting annoyed at that point. There wasn't much to do about it, though, so I kept dancing and talking to people, but now made it a habit to check the spots of both clothing thefts every ten minutes. Did Ukrainians just like to walk off with people's clothing? Did the house have some sort of crush on me and wanted a memento?

As is, twenty minutes later another check found my fleece pullover back at the spot where it had dissapeared. Another twenty minutes after that, I my sweater reappeared. Both went downstairs to the weight room with my other sweater and jacket. Finally, all accounted for.

Except, at the end of the night, when we all went down to get our stuff, I found that my scarf was gone. We searched every bit of clothes in a 20 foot radius of where my jacket and layers had been, but no luck. I was too tired to bother with it anymore, and we left.

So the house finally got something to remember me by.


The home theatre room

The party in full swing

A good pic of Teresa and a not-good pic of me

Pimpin' with Vanessa

At the Bratislava hotel, chillin' with Susannah, Paty and Amy

Kyiv under snow

Some kind of festivity in Shevchenko park

Me, Carrie, an ice sculpture of a cossack, Steve and Lisa

I think the sphinx is going to eat that kid

Sunday, March 13, 2005

Ukraine: I Joined the Wrong Corps

I joined the wrong Corps.

Last night was the annual blow-out bash to raise money for YouthCAN. YouthCAN is a Ukrainian organization that does empowerment projects for youth and teaches them about grassroots activism. I'm going to be training their councilors in two weeks on classroom management and lesson planning, and may be working with one of their summer camps this summer. In any case, to raise money they hold a huge 25 hrivna a head party every year in Kyiv, at the Marine House.

The Marine house is where the U.S. Marines live. It's a huge three story mansion in Kyiv, has its own bar, game room, fully equiped workout room, dance floor, home theatre system with stadium couch seating and is lived in by, dun, dun, dun...five marines.

Yes, there a grand total of five men from the United States Marine Corps here in Ukraine, assigned to protect the U.S. Embassy. Apparently there's an arsenal there and they are able to defend it for weeks and weeks if need be. But since the embassy doesn't require a whole lot of guarding, mostly these five men spend their after hours in bars picking up Ukrainian girls or chilling at their mansion, watching DVDs in the theatre room. Oh, in addition to staying at the marine house for free, they get "hardship" pay in addition to their American salaries for having to live in a developing country. This is what our defense budget goes towards.

I'm telling you, I joined the wrong Corps.

Oh, and here's a bit of irony: when we arrived at the mansion, we found the front gate being guarded by two Ukrainians.

It's interesting that I had to go to Ukraine before I went to my first frat party. Or the equivalent thereof. There was at least 200 people packed into that house, most of them Ukrainian, most of them female, most of them wearing very little clothing. It was nice, actually.

Even nicer was being able to order things in English. Although since a cup of water alone cost 5 hrivna, I didn't order much.

I spent most of my time on the dance floor. The music was provided in turns by a really good cover band called Esperanza and a DJ who spun hip hop. Down time was spent talking to volunteers who were at the party (since the Multicultural Group meeting was on Friday--which I had to be at--and the HIV Awareness group meeting was on Saturday, there were a ton of volunteers in Kyiv for the weekend), many of whom I hadn't seen in two months.

I actually wasn't interested in meeting any girls, as I barely have time to see Diana more than twice a week now. I didn't mind looking at them, though, especially the three that decided to start making out with each other. Pretty soon a ring of guys were around them, some taking pictures and one (one of the marines) video taping. Like I said, my first frat party was in Ukraine.

Still, it was a lot of fun, if a little claustrophobic at times. I cleared out at 2:30 AM and the party was still going. When the last of the people, left, though, those five marines would still find themselves all alone in that huge mansion with all the ammenities (unless, like I suspect, a few Ukrainian girls stayed behind).

Man I joined the wrong Corps.

Friday, March 11, 2005

Misc: Dear Mr. Bush

Dear Mr. Bush,

Mr. Bush, please listen to me for a second.

I am one of your constituents, after all. My taxes pay your salary, that nice salary ($400,000 a year, plus a $50,000 yearly nontaxable expense account) that you’ll be getting for the rest of your life because that’s how much we respect our leaders.

Like you, I work for the people of the United States of America. They, too, have paid my wages as a civil servant, first as a teacher of their children and now as a teacher abroad as part of a diplomatic program to bring peace to the world.

But I find myself in one of the least free areas of the world. That should probably capture your attention because you mentioned “freedom” and “liberty” 49 times in your inaugural address. When your new secretary of State, Condolezza Rice listed some of the least free countries in her Senate testimony, including Cuba, Burma, North Korea and Iran, she also included Belarus, that country just north of me at the moment, where I serve in your Peace Corps in Ukraine.

I’d like to thank you for your monetary and political support in the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Your former Secretary of State, Colin Powell, spoke out against fraudulent elections and that helped to send everyone to the negotiating table. Of course, you knew that Ukraine was a necessary buffer state between Europe and an increasingly dictorial Russia, but I’m sure that really you were striving for freedom and liberty abroad.

And so I’d like to point out the fallout of the Orange Revolution: scared of a similar revolution occurring in their countries, Tajikistan has ruled an opposition leader ineligible for this month’s parliamentary ballot, Kazakhstan has issued an order shutting down their opposition party, and Kyrgyzstan has banned leading opposition candidates from this month’s vote while declaring that any unrest will be met with military force. And then there’s Belarus, so close that my host father drove their last weekend, where the leading opposition leader has just been jailed on trumped up charges of “stealing computers”. These countries could use a few lessons in freedom and liberty, too.

And then there’s that country just 90 miles south of Key West. You know, I can’t even legally visit the land of my mother’s birth. I cannot legally see these beautiful places my grandfather talks about. I cannot walk the halls of the National Library of Cuba where my great grandmother worked and talked literature with Reinaldo Arenas. I once defended the invasion of Iraq in print because my family fled a country with a dictator and I thought we had a moral duty to end all dictatorships. I’ve had steadfast liberals say that I’ve changed their mind on Iraq. Of course, this was back before you botched the aftermath (I had to put my head in my hands when you actually jailed an opposition leader on trumped up charges and banned an opposition newspaper, igniting the smolder of the minority insurrectionists into a conflagaration of full scale rebellion).

This letter is starting to swing towards pointing out your hypocrisy and that’s just too easy and useless a target. I apologize. People have been doing it your entire administration and Americans don’t seem to care. Fine. I’m reminded of the political corruption of Chicago in the 1920s, remember reading about it and wondered how people could stand for it, and you answered me, but let’s move on.

You said, to the tune of 49 times, that you want freedom and liberty in the world. Cool. I’m with you on that. But rather than beat the war drums with Iran, help me with my job and let’s stop trying to inflame what few Arabs don’t hate us and instead focus on bring some freedom and liberty to the rest of the world. Why not try Eastern Europe? I mean, there’s no direct benefit to the United States for it, but maybe that will help us to look like benefactors instead of greedy opportunists. You can’t be going for the greedy opportunist thing or else you would have just invaded Saudi Arabia. I mean, it is one of the eight most oppressive regimes in the world and has one of the world’s largest oil reserves and it is the country that bred Bin Ladin, so it tops all the arguments that put us into Iraq. But I guess it’s hard to invade a country when you’ve had the leader, Crown Prince Abdullah, to your Crawford Ranch and you haven’t even paid that courtesy to the leaders of say, India or France. Oh shit. I’m sounding like Michael Moore. Let me change tactics.

I come from one of the most warmongering countries in the world, but I belong to Peace Corps. I come from one of the richest countries in the world, but I am a volunteer, living on $160 a month, paid by the good people of the USA. I’m working really hard to show the rest of the world an America that you don’t readily help them see. And you’ve been doing well. People here in Ukraine (although not all of them) like America. I mean, you helped out on the Orange Revolution. American funds for “democracy education groups” led to the creation of groups that mobilized the protesters, and American foreign policy pressure got Kuchma and Yannokovitch to the negotiating table. A country peacefully moved to more freedom and liberty. America got what it wanted on that and not a shot was fired, and we look good here. So let’s try a bit more of that for the rest of the world, yes?

Of course, no amount of economic pressure was going to get regimes like Iraq’s and Cuba’s to go, so I supported the war in Iraq, and I’m still waiting for the invasion of Cuba because, frankly, I’d like to see this country that has managed to shape my entire life without me setting foot on it. And if you are not going to invade Cuba, at least back off on the sanctions so that your average Cuban can fucking eat. Do you know that meat is a delicacy there? That's who these continued sanctions are hurting. If you haven't noticed, they haven't hurt Fidel and his regieme one bit.

I guess what I’m saying is that since you’re all gung ho on liberty and freedom, I want you to know that I am, too. I'm with you on that. I want freedom and liberty, too. I'm working hard to do my part here and I hope you’re doing your part there. So let’s get to it.

Your friend,

Daniel

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Ukraine: What I've Been Doing

Just so no one thinks I'm slacking (and because I have to keep track for Peace Corps and because it's a bit of a brag list) this is what I've been doing for the past two months other than going to clubs and watching "Sex and the City":

Primary Project:

Teacher Trainer at Re-certification Institute:
-Taught multiple seminars on: Country Study; Speaking Skills; Mixed Ability Classrooms
-Have substituted for sick teachers at School 12 in Zhytomyr.
-Wrote Olympiad Tasks for Zhytomyrska Regional Olympiad
-Judged at Berdichiv Spanish Olympiad
-Judged at Zhytomyrska English Olympiad
-Coaching Olympiad winners
-Taught Demo classes at School 12 in Zhytomyr and School 15 in Berdichiv
-Attended Seminars at School 12 in Zhytomyr and in Andrewshovska; gave feedback
-Working with Iryna Borislavina on training manual; wrote example texts for manual
-Working with local pedagogical university to help their students improve their English

Secondary Projects:

Multicultural Awareness Group (a PC support group):
-Creating lesson plans on Hispanic culture in America to be included in MAG's lesson plan book.

English Club (a weekly club of approximately 20 students):
-Topics have included slang, American dance, American music, discussions on future goals, American country studies and debates on gender roles.

Polissa (a nonprofit organization for promoting extreme sports):
-Working with Polissa to secure funding for a climbing gym in Zhytomyr
-Wrote press release for Polissa's past work with multisport racing.

Soldiers for Peace (a nonprofit organization of veterans working for community building):
-Wrote press release
-Working with Soldiers for Peace to secure a grant for a summer camp for boys based on scouting principles.

Olympiad Tasks Webpage (an online clearinghouse for past Olympiad tasks so that students may use them to study):
-Conceived of project
-Designed and wrote HTML for site
-Working with IT Coordinator at Zhytomyr institute to create a PERL component so that any teacher can post tasks and the site will update itself, therefore requiring no maintenance.

Audiovisual Country Studies Project (a project to provide teachers with digital photographs and video of America)
-Conceived of project
-Working to create thematic Power Point and HTML presentations with currently available digital photographs.
-Have edited videos to go with the project
-Final project will be a 50 page booklet with 2 CD-ROMs that teachers may use to bring an audiovisual element to their country studies classes

YouthCan (a Ukrainian youth empowerment organization)
-Training councilors on: Developing Teaching Style; Fostering a Positive Classroom Environment; Establishing Good Student-Teacher Relationships; Motivating Students

FLEX (an exchange program that allows qualified students to study in the USA for a year):
-Selected as a orientation teacher; will begin training in April and will do orientations during the summer

Practical Project for ESL teachers (a PC pilot project to increase the level of knowledge amongst Ukrainian ESL teachers):
-Worked with other volunteers in project to design a timetable and curriculum
-Contributed lesson plans to the project curriculum
-Will be a "hub" for PCVs in the region who need help training their teachers

T2T Project (a PC pilot project to increase level of teaching knowledge amongst TEFL PCVs):
-Worked with Peace Corps and other Teacher Trainers to design timetable
-Will be visiting each volunteer in my region for demo lessons/observation and feedback
-Will be conducting mini-seminars for PCVs in Zhytomyr

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Ukraine: Sex and the Snowed In City

No, I'm not dead, just buried. Ukraine decided to celebrate the arrival of spring with a huge snow storm that's been going on for about three days. It let off today, leaving about 18 inches in its wake.

It coincided nicely with a holiday though (another one), as today is Woman's Day, when we show our appreciation for women, in case we had forgotten to do it on any other day of the year.

I have little to do at the moment, and have just been damn lazy the past four days. When I'm busy, it seems like my life runs like clockwork. When I don't have a lot to do, I can't even manage to do it, I have so little motivation. So I've pretty much been lounging for the past four days.

The lounging kicked off nicely on Friday night, though, just before the snow started. Carrie, Steve, Amy, Terese (a volunteer at a nearby town), Diana and I had a "Sex and the City" marathon over at Steve's house.

I had picked up the first three disks of season 6 at Patrivka, the black market in Kyiv. For some places, the black market is more of an abstract concept. Not so in Kyiv. You catch the metro to the Patrivka stop and there you will find hundreds of booths and tables with every bootleg CD, DVD, video, computer program and book you can imagine. As soon as a movie hits the theatres in America, there is a bootleg DVD of it in Patrivka. And, thanks to the magic of digital technology, you can switch between the English or the Russian tracks. So, for the cost of 75 hrivna ($14), I picked up the first 15 episodes of "Cekc V Bolshoi Gorad, Seeson Sheest". And that's a little steep because they're so new.

So we all went to Steve's, I cooked dinner (fried chicken, cheese and garlic mashed potatoes, and corn) and we didn't stop watching them until 4:00 AM. Diana went home after the first disc, as she had to get up the next morning. As I walked her to the bus stop, she commented: "Ukrainian women are more reserved; we would never talk about those things in front of guys."

She was referring to the fact that the volunteer ladies had been talking--in slightly graphic terms--about sex. This talk had been increaseing in direct relation to alcohol and episode consumption. By the time Diana had left, they were plotting to go to a club and get some men with which to enact this talk. I don't know why men try to put on porn to get a woman in the mood. Just put on Sex and the City, shut up and let it happen.

As is, I did end up sleeping with two women that, but it was less pleasant than that sounds. With five of us crashing at Steve's, I was sardined between Carrie and Amy on the fold out couch. Theoretically, this should be pleasant. In reality, I was either choking on Carrie's hair in one direction, dealing with a combination of alcohol and morning breath from Amy on the other. Small prices to pay, I suppose, if I had been getting some, but I wasn't.

In any case, their plot to pick up men at a club is what had me walking to one the next evening through a blizzard, only to find that only Carrie and Steve made it due to the snow. I would have thought the club would be empty, but it turns out that during a blizzard, every Ukranian goes out. The first club we went to was so packed they were no longer admitting people, and the next was pushing capacity as well.

Carrie didn't pick up a guy, but there was certainly a lot of eye candy for me and Steve. Now we just had to figure out how to get them home and have them watch "Sex and the City".

Friday, March 04, 2005

Ukraine: Newbies

Forty-six new Peace Corps trainees just got in and are on their way to their training clusters. I'm no longer a newbie! Man, it's hard to believe I've been here for more than five months.

For whatever reason, Peace Corps has the trainees go straight from the airport to Prilosok and from there to clusters, so I probably won't meet any of them for three months, when they get out of training. It was the same for us; I only met three current PCVs while in training: our two cluster mentors and the guy that happened to be engaged to our language teacher's roomate.

I remember how excited and nervous I was when I first got here: nothing made sense, everything people said to you was gibberish because I didn't know one word of the language. And I got here at the end of fall, when it was beautiful and all the trees were orange and yellow and the sidewalks were full of people pushing strollers. Their first impression of Ukraine is this bleak, ice-covered country, everyone huddled into their jackets and walking fast.

Of course, a month into training, it's going to start getting warmer and by the time they go to site, it will be beautiful. I had to watch it get progressively colder and darker, which was a bit of a morale killer. In any case, I'm excited and nervous for them, knowing they're about to go through everything I went through, the good and the bad. Of course, they missed the revolution! Best of luck to them!

Thursday, March 03, 2005

Ukraine: Quote

Busy, busy, so no real time to write, but...

I'd thought I'd share this quote from Carrie last night. We were all eating dinner (Wednesday night is Volunteer dinner night after my English club). The girls were again saying I had no butt (I think this is just their excuse to look at it some more). Then we were consoling Amy about something (I forget). Carrie then said:

"Don't worry about it. We support each other. But we also give each other complexes. We're self-perpetuating."

I thought it was damn funny.

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Ukraine: Going Home

Well, we lost two more from our group. Peace Corps doesn't tell us when it happens; we have to find out through the rumor mill.

One, though, I personally met as he was leaving. I didn't know Mark that well, and was sorry to hear that it was health problems with his father that was sending him home (although he admitted that he was going to quit Peace Corps at the end of the semester anyway). We took him out to dinner and then to a casino (although it was not that rolicking a send-off because he was pretty subdued) and he got on a plane at 7:30 AM the next day. The other, Adam, I did know better, and he simply left because he was bored in his small town.

I think we've lost more than ten people now; like I said, they don't give exact numbers.

Another person from my group that is going home, albeit temporarily, is John, because his grandmother is dying. I ran into him at the office in Kyiv yesterday, too. Unfortunately, I had to get back to Zhytomyr, or else I would have spent more time with him, but he has my condolences. He's a great guy and it was tough to see him that torn up.

On a lighter note, one more person is going home: Me!

Yes, I will be flying home from April 20-May 4 to see my new niece/goddaughter, who is due April 16th. I just bought the tickets yesterday, and I'm actually a bit giddy with it. I did not expect to visit home so soon, but now that I am, I'm already mentally compiling a list of everything I'm going to do (they mostly involve food). The timing feels good, too, because I'm not sick of Ukraine, and am not going home to get away from it, which means I'll be willing to come back.

Of course, a lot could change in six weeks, but I don't expect it to.

I realize this just impacts the people I know in Florida, but if others wanted to come to Florida...

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Ukraine: Ukraine Needs Hispanics!

I need your help!

I am trying to compile lesson plans to help Ukrainian teachers teach about Hispanic Culture in America (Ukrainians like to teach Ph.D. worthy topics in just a few lessons), and, well, I need some Hispanics.

Below is a questionaire that, when answered, should help me compile first person perspectives on being Hispanic in America. I think these we be valuable resources for teachers and will help them stay away from stereotyping.

If you know anyone who considers themselves to be of Hispanic origin, could you please give them this website address or copy and forward them the questions? Good karma upon you!

Thanks!

-daniel

***
Hispanic Questionaire

Hello! My name is Daniel Reynolds Riveiro and I am a Peace Corps volunteer in Ukraine. As part of Peace Corps Ukraine's multi-cultural awareness group, it is currently my job to compile lesson plans to help teachers teach about Hispanic culture and history in the United
States.

Rather than stereotype millions of people, I thought it would be better to offer first person perspectives on what it is like for Hispanics to grow up and live in the United States.

If you wouldn't mind, I'd like you to answer the following questions. Write as little or as much as you like. The questions assume that you were born in the United States, but if that is not the case, please adapt them to yourself.

If you feel you don't really "represent" Hispanics, all the better, because I'm hoping that these first-person perspectives, when seen side-by-side, will show the broad palate of the Hispanic community, reflecting diversity not just in traditions--from Mexicans to Cubans to San Salvadorians--but also in the spectrum of Americanization.

If you could include a headshot, to match a face with the words, that would also be appreciated.

Please e-mail answers and photographs to: edgeon@gmail.com.

Thank you in advance for helping to educate!

1. Please describe yourself: What is your name? Your age? Where do
you live? What interests you? What do you do, for fun or as an
occupation? What is your life like?

2. Please describe your background: What nationalities, if any, do you
identify yourself with? If willing, please describe those countries.
What are the cultural traits you associate with yourself?

3. Please describe your life: Where did you grow up? What was the
ethnic makeup of your neighborhood? Your school? Did you speak a
language other than English in the home? Did you have family that
could not speak English? How "American" did you feel you are/were?
Were there any issues with adaptation? Did your family have any
unique traditions not shared by Americans as a whole? Has being
Hispanic affected your life?

4. Please describe your family's history: Is there a story about how
your family came to America? What are the successes and/or problems
your family has had in America? Does being Hispanic affect your
family's identity? What is your family like?

5. If there is anything you would like others to know about yourself,
please add it!