Ukraine: Prizes! (Pic)

So I didn't even need my keys (although I eventually did find them; they had fallen through a crack in the wire-frame hall table-thingy down inside a house shoe that's been there since 1956) to get my mail because this morning a knock on my door woke me up and much information was demanded from me, me sleepily scrawling on a piece of paper while an old woman pointed (not quite sure if I was getting mail or signing a confession)and next thing I knew I was following her downstairs to get a package.

Inside were two brand new ropes, about thirty posters, sixty or so stickers and a handful patches. I wasn't expecting that much: we have so much that every kid can get at least one poster and two stickers and that kind of defeats the idea of "winning" a prize, especially since more is supposed to be on the way. We'll probably have to make "prize packs" of different goodies and no matter what, everyone gets a sticker. But still, nothing else could make it to Ukraine at this point and we'd be set. I also go pick up the tee-shirts today, so it's a pretty good day as far as the climbing camp goes.



So a huge thank you to New England Ropes (http://www.neropes.com) and to Chris, who I've been corresponding with there!

Just goes to show you that you never know: I originally wasn't going to email New England Ropes because I just figured it was a small, specialized company and what were they going to be able to give us? Rope? Black Diamond sending a carabiner or two and some posters, that would make sense. A company I hadn't previously heard of sending us the most expensive part of climbing, that was unbelievable. But not only did they respond, they pledged both the biggest and the most prizes and their package got here first. They have won a convert for life. If you buy rope, buy New England Rope!

Peace.

Ukraine: World Cup Coding

So it's 11:00 PM and after listening for almost an hour to chanting and cheers out my window at and me wondering how they hell they could possibly be yelling that often for considering goals are a bit of a rarity, I went down to watch a World Cup game with Ukranians.

It was like I described before: a crowd standing just beyond the waist-high fence surrounding an outdoor beer garden, watching the latest World Cup game (Ukraine vs. Switzerland) on the beer garden's television. In addition to being very drunk and waving Ukrainian flags (Ukrainians are obsessed with flag waving), they were also chanting this, call-and-response style, in Ukranian:

"Treba? Hol! Treba? Hol! Treba? Treba? Treba? Hol! Hol! Hol! Scho takoye? Hol! Scho takoye? Hol! Scho takoye -koye -koye? Hol! Hol! Hol!"

I knew "treba" and "scho takoye" in Ukranian: "Need" and "What's this about?", respectively, but I didn't know what "hol" was. In fact, I first heard "Ho" because enounciation and vodka don't go together, and thought they were yelling "[What do we} need?" "[A] ho!" Then I realized they were doing the transliteration of "g" to "h" that always happens in Ukrainian and that they were actually screaming for a goal, not a whore.

After half an hour of carefully listening to the noise in reaction to various events on the television and presicely coding it, I felt confident to be able to gauge the game by their cheers and went home.

My findings:

*Crowd cheering of 3-8 seconds, entirely male, starting low and building to high decibles: this means that the ball is within a few meters of the opposing team's goal.

*Crowd yelling of 3-8 seconds, entirely male and with a touch of franticness: the ball is within a few meters of Ukraine's goal.

NOTE: by the above I could, sitting in my apartment without a television or radio, tell you where the ball was on the field at any given time. If I heard nothing, it's because it was somewhere in the middle of the field, or a ref was making a call.

*Crowd cheering of 1-3 minutes, with some female voices, wild and ecstatic, possibly accompanied by burts of an air horn: the other team just received a penalty.

*Crowd cheering of 5-10 minutes, both males and females, to the point of ear-drum bursting even through glass and brick: Ukraine just scored.

*Continous screaming, car horn blasts, chanting of "U-kra-ina!", the national anthem repeatedly being sung, cheap fireworks fired into the sky and people (I'm not making this up) shooting guns in the air until almost four in the morning and possibly later because that's when, despite the noise, I finally got to sleep: Ukraine wins.

Ukraine: Who Are These People? (Pics)

Who are these people?

They are Ukrainians watching the latest Ukrainian match in World Cup. Ukraine won, which meant that cars were blasting horns and people were cheering and chanting the National Anthem until well past 3 AM.

Who are these people?

This is Jung and Irun, two guys from Holland who now live and run a business in Zhytomyr. Their business outsources computer programming from Dutch companies to Ukrainian programmers. I only met them two weeks ago, but the friendship has proved worthwhile in many respects. Other than the interesting conversation and more guy friends (Jon has been too busy to come to Zhytomyr lately and Steve is permanently occupied by his girlfriend; I love Kirstin, but it’s a bit like Israel and Palestine with sex instead of bulldozers), they make a European salary and I make a Ukrainian one. I insist on making them rock climb. They insist on feeding me and giving me drinks.

Who are these people?

This is what the inside of a trolleybus looks like. I normally can walk anywhere I want to, but since the Dutch guys live on the edge of town and I’ve been watching World Cup with them, I’ve been seeing the inside of a trolleybus more and more often.

Who are these people?

This is Sasha (one of my co-workers), Marius from Norway and a guy from Austria who I just met yesterday and whose name I can’t remember. It turns out that all the ex-pat business people in Zhytomyr know one another and Jung and Irun invited some of them along to do some climbing. Marius runs a business that makes ironing boards for sale in Europe. From him I learned that, due to tariffs and taxes, it’s cheaper to buy Ukrainian steel from Italy than it is to buy Ukrainian steel in Ukraine, which is what his company does. They make their ironing boards with Ukrainian steel, it is just well traveled steel, having crossed the Black sea and the Adriatic…twice.

Who are these people?

This is everyone that came climbing yesterday. Holland, Ukraine, Norway, Austria and America are all represented in this picture and the lingua franca was…English. People (including volunteers) seem to think teaching English in Ukraine is some sinister function of American imperialism. It’s nothing of the sort. When Marius and Jung sit down to do business, they do it in English. If Ukraine wants to do a joint ad-campaign with China to say “Fuck the Americans” in Swahili, they’d still hash out the business plan in English. Teaching English in Ukraine gives Ukrainians economic tools and options. The perfect example is Jung’s company: it’s a Dutch company, but you can only get hired as a programmer if you know English. You could be a kick-ass Ukrainian programmer, but no one is bringing you on board with a translator. You need to have learned English in school (quite possibly with the help of an American Peace Corps volunteer, or from one of the teachers trained by yours truly) well enough to work for this company that pays about a third more than a Ukrainian company pays. Now, the morality of outsourcing Dutch work is another thing, and I’m sure the Dutch are arguing about it as I type this…

Who are these people?

The world brought together by climbing. But let’s notice that it’s the sole American trying to hog all the attention. It’s world politics in a picture.

Who are these people?

Um, it’s me, climbing my favorite route on a hot summer day, belayed by Igor, my protege in both language and climbing.







Who are these people?

This is a football team, projected onto a wall on the first floor of the four story office/living space of the Dutch guys. I do feel slightly guilty about this: I’m supposed to live at the level of the Ukrainians around me, but while they’re standing around a television watching World Cup, I’m watching it with the Dutch guys, sitting in office chairs and munching on food from Holland that I can’t pronounce. Still, I never say no when invited.

Who are these people?

This is Maxim, a Ukrainian who works with Marius, and the desiccated head of a crawfish at a post-World Cup outdoor barbeque.

Who are these people?

Everyone chowing down after the World Cup game. I told you, these guys like to feed us.

Who are these people?

This is Nadia and Olya, my escorts to Student Republic. Student Republic is a huge two-day party that celebrates the end of the school year for University students. It’s not only for University students, as anyone under the age of thirty shows up, and it’s a lot of fun. Nadia and Olya are in my climbing class and they invited me along.

Who are these people?

A bunch of people enjoying the free concert at Student Republic

Who are these people?

More people enjoying the concert and relaxing on the beach on the Teatriv River.

Every one of these pictures was taken in 24 hours. It was fun.

Ukraine: How do you know it's World Cup

How do you know it's World Cup?

When you look out your window at the tiny sea of umbrellas: Ukranians huddles in the rain to watch a game on the flat screen (but covered) television of an outdoor beer garden. Seriously, tiny sea: people standing on the concrete banks of a fountain, on park benches, on tip toes trying to catch a glimps of the game.

How do you know when Ukraine scores a goal?

You could be in a closet, earphones on and music blaring, head wrapped in three blankets and you'd still hear the cheering.

NOTE: closet/earphones/blankets thing not actually tested.

***

Camp news:

Black Diamond is sending posters and stickers and Mammut is sending stickers. Lots of stickers (email from Mammut: "would 200 be enough?").

The girls finally named the camp. It is now called Edelweiss. My fault; I gave them final call. Luckily they didn't use some earlier things they came up with, like "Cliff of Friendship". I can live with Edelweiss, even though it's a German word for a camp run by Ukranians and conceived of and supported by Americans. Still, I understand the intent: I mean, it's a flower that grows in the mountains and you have to climb to go get it (even though I think of Sound of Music every time they say it). But getting to the flower represents goal setting, teamwork, and, of course, climbing. In true Ukranian tradition, the slogan they came up with is: "Together to the top". And Edelweiss does originally mean "nobel" (it also means "white", but we have enough skinheads around without worrying about that), so I can live with it.

Both the name and the slogan will now be on 50 tee-shirts. I'm about to leave the internet center now to go approve the final design. We'll see what the tee-shirt people came up with. My sketch of the Superman "S" symbol with a climber doing a roof move on the underside of top of the "S", reaching for a flower, being belayed by a person standing on the bottom part of the "S" was deemed to complex by the tee-shirt people. They said come back today and they'd have some options.

So we'll see.

Ukraine: The Art of Backscratching

I have been on an emotional high for days now. The tumblers on my climbing camp, once jammed and rusted and bending my mental key, are now all sliding into place one after the other. Not only is it fully staffed with all needed equipment and not only are the prizes promised, but other, smaller things are coming in, too.

We had debated cost items like tee-shirts and certificates of completion, but without a fundraiser and not a lot of obvious donor backing in Zhytomyr I was skeptical that we could get them.

Enter backscratching.

Seeing a long stretch of nothing to do but teaching after the craziness of summer (October-December), I figured I had at least one more project in me before I left and should start exploring my options now. I asked around and was put in contact with the Center for Youth Initiatives, an organization that mostly works on information campaigns on both youth rights and get-out-the-vote. Turns out they were extremely well-funded, but they were happy to meet me and we batted around ideas about what to do if I got a Partnership Grant. They had wanted to do an information campaign against domestic violence and I also though that was a good idea. We decided to think about things some more and come back a week later to make a decision.

The next week (last Friday) I came to them with something better than a Partnership Grant: a Democracy Grant. The Partnership Grant would probably bring in only about $2,000, but a Democracy Grant (an information campaign about women's rights perfectly fits the grant) could bring in around $15,000. They also brought Ivan, who runs an advertising company here in Zhytomyr. They had told him about me and he came, interested in doing a project with me, too. He wants to create a series of short programs (5-10 minutes) done by youth that would run in place of a commercial set on local television. These programs would each focus on a different informational aspect for youth: drugs, alcohol abuse, youth rights, domestic violence, STDs, etc. They had most of what they needed: camera and editing equipment, a studio and an agreement with the television channel to run the programs, but they needed money to build set decorations and to purchase a video montage program so that they could put in professional graphics.

[A note on language: all these meetings have been entirely in Russian. Both Ivan and Andre (who runs the Center for Youth Initiatives) are really good at keeping their language clear and non-idiomatic and I usually come out of a meeting feeling like I am a language god. This usually happens right before I run into someone who starts speaking and then I don't have a damn idea what they are saying.]

So I agreed to do the Democracy grant for the Center for Youth Initiatives and the Partnership Grant for the Youth Program.

Then I asked, not really expecting anything, if they knew of a place to cheaply print tee-shirts and any company that might be willing to sponsor them in exchange for their logos on the shirts. Ivan said he knew where to get the tee-shirts done and Andre said that they had gotten a grant to give out seed money for small business initiatives. Someone had to attend a business education course and then apply for the grant, which could be up to $100. I sent Marina to the course (I figured she needed the contacts and the info and she was happy to learn about it because she's really into managing the camp and wants to learn more about project management; plus, it was in Ukranian and my Ukranian sucks). It turned out the money (which Andre said was assured) would not come in time to make the tee-shirts: it would come literally a day before the camp started, but in time for us to print up certificates (nice ones on heavy card stock with good printing).

So certificates, check, but still needing tee-shirts.

I met this morning with Ivan and his partners at their office and they showed me some videos of the previous work they had done (they have been sponsoring a youth singing contest for four years now) and gave me a budget for the project and then we just talked for about an hour about random stuff, getting to know each other (most of business in Ukraine is getting to know each other). Finally, I asked if he got the price on the tee-shirts and he had. Then I told him that the money from CYI would not come in time for the camp. Ivan looked at his partners, shrugged and said: "well, we can sponsor the tee-shirts, why not?" and his partners nodded.

Boo-yeah!

So in exchange for working on getting a $2,000 and $15,000 grant, respectively, I'm getting certificates and tee-shirts for my climbing camp. It's not really that insidious, we're all just helping each other out and it's all in an effort to do good in Ukraine, but I've found that 99 percent of project management is meeting the right people and getting them on your side.

It's the art of backscratching.

Ukraine: The Art of Begging, Pt II

First I'd just like to say that life is absolutely wonderful at the moment. I'm wrapping up my teaching duties and soon summer, freedom and travel will be upon me (especially with the news today that Peace Corps is reverting back to its relaxed travel rules after all the volunteer protest over the more stringent ones).

More to the point, we had our first real warm day today and the Ukranians ladies proved it in style. Fashions are a little more...um...risque...here, but that doesn't become apparent until after the winter coats come off. So today it was all midriffs, short skirts, see-thru pants with thongs underneath, see-thru shirts with (sigh) bras underneath, and not a flat shoe in sight. Looking at it all, I felt like one of those bobble headed dolls.

I was walking around with some female friends today, enjoying the weather, when my head swivled to follow the results of nothing more than a few well-placed bits of cloth. Suddenly, I was punched on the arm.

(In Russian) "You are such a bobnik," said Marina, the one who had assaulted me.

(Linguistic note: Bobnik translates as "male slut".)

This was the best defense I could muster: "She was a redhead!"

Luckily, for reasons beyond my understanding, my female friends find my bobnik-ness endearing.

But that and a dozen other nice little things that happened recently still didn't make me feel nearly as good as getting this email from New England Ropes:

"We have a couple of short ropes coming to you (~ 153', but shorter than what we consider sale-able) as well as stickers, posters, and a few patches. Hope the kids enjoy them. We'd love to see pictures of them!"

Boo-yeah! A 153' rope is plenty of rope. And more than one? This is a godsend because we've already almost worn out the ropes we bought with the SPA grant last year. I am so freakin' happy at the moment.

And immdietly following that was a slight surge of worry: big packages tend not to arrive in Ukraine, especially if they've been insured (it just tells the "authorities" that there's something valuable inside and that it'll get replaced, so they take it home). Plus I can't actually find my keys to get into my mailbox should it get here. My keys were lost somewhere in my apartment, which is ironic because I don't have a big apartment and there's not much in it and I've been through every inch of the place. I'm currently using a spare set from my landlord (imagine the embarassment of telling your landlord that the keys were lost IN your apartment). This problem may not happen for a few weeks and hopefully I'll have found them by then (the current plan is to leave out candy for the goblins that took them and drop a cage on their unsuspecting, thieving asses), but the ONLY key to my mailbox (where they'll drop the slip that I'll need to pick the package ) is on that key ring.

Still, got to keep one's chin up. Especially if I'm going to go out and look at more ladies.

NOTE: Some of you, dear readers, may be slightly offended at my objectification of women. I'd like to inform all of you that I not only support gender equality, but chivalry as well. I think women should get equal pay, doors held open for them and multiple orgasms. But I in return I reserve the right to look at them. Especially if they happen to be wearing a see-thru shirt.

Ukraine: Activity Report 4

Just to prove I do work here in Ukraine, the following is the activity report we are required to submit to Peace Corps three times a year. It is for Jan 1-June 1 2006.

***

Volunteer Activity Report
TEFL Volunteer Form

Part One: Primary Assignment

1. My schedule and responsibilities widely vary at the institute, changing from week to week.

In the past six months I have:

-Taught approximately 40 seminars, each 90 minutes long, on the following topics: Intro to the Course and Terminology, Methods of TEFL, Communicative Method, Vocabulary, Lesson Planning, Integrated Skills, Country Studies; Mixed Ability Classrooms; Young Learners; Reading Skills; Writing Skills; Speaking Skills; Listening Skills; Speaking for Young Learners; Reading for Young Learners; Writing for Young Learners; Listening for Young Learners; and English Language Improvement
-Created all the listening and speaking tasks for the Regional Olympiad; proofed and typed all the tasks for the Regional Olympiad
-Taught a biweekly Olympiad coaching class
-Judged at the Regional Olympiads (but disqualified myself from judging any student I had coached).
-Coached the winners of the Regional Olympiad for the National Olympiad
-Continued work on a book of Olympiad Coaching exercises
-Liaised with volunteers coming to judge at National Olympiads; created map of the city with places of interest for them; guided them from their hotel to their sites
-Continued work on set of Country Studies multimedia materials, including taped interviews with volunteers about their hometowns, which have been steadily distributed to my Practical Project volunteers and my teachers.

2. Describe your major accomplishments for this period:

-Last year, writing the Olympiad tasks was difficult, possibly because I had never done it before and was never sure exactly what was expected. This year I felt I created a number of very original (so that they students could not provide memorized answers) and very challenging tasks.

-I feel that, after having taught them a number of times, that my lesson plans are really polished and I am really enjoying my rapport with my teacher groups. Based on conversations and observations, I am confident a number of the techniques and materials I have presented are making their way back to Ukrainian classrooms.

-Probably the accomplishment I am most proud of is that all the students in my coaching class placed in the Regional Olympiad, including one taking first place in the 11th form and one taking first place in the 10th form. Both went on to win 2nd at the National Olympiads in their respective forms.

3. List factors that helped or hindered your work during the reporting period

-A good relationship between me and my coordinator; trading teaching materials with other teacher trainers. I don’t feel my work has been hindered.

4. What are your plans for the next reporting period?

-I will continue to teach seminars until the end of June.

Part Two: Community Projects

English Club

A club taught once a week at a School 12 that focused on English grammar and country studies.

-I taught this club in conjunction with PCV Steve Senteny and PCV Kirstin Johansson. At the beginning of the year we had almost fifty students, prompting us to weekly split the class among us. Outcomes have included better English skills and better awareness of social issues and America amongst the attendees. Attendance dropped in the middle of the semester and I stopped teaching at the club in March to work on other projects. Steve and Kirstin continue to teach it.

The Climbing Wall

The climbing wall was built using SPA funds last fall in conjunction with Polissya, a Zhytomyr non-profit focused on promoting extreme sports.

-During April and May I visited an average of 6 classes a week at local schools to promote the wall, showing a video and handing out flyers. During those two months we conducted 8 weekly training sessions on the wall. The sessions were two hours long, with half the class listening to an HIV seminar conducted by ACET and the other half climbing, then the two groups switched. We trained 82 people, 61 of which were under 18. Those asked said the seminars were very informative and useful. At least 27 of those 82 have come back to use the wall during the week.

The Climbing Club

A weekly two-hour club for teaching advanced climbing skills

-I taught a group of 8 (four boys and four girls) both at the wall on Zhytomyr’s cliffs. Classes focused on climbing technique, lead climbing, proper belaying, setting anchors and safety.

Practical Project for ESL teachers

A PC pilot project to increase the level of knowledge amongst Ukrainian ESL teachers

-I managed ten volunteers: setting up classes for the new volunteers, checking attendance and providing materials for older volunteers, holding monthly meetings in Zhytomyr to discuss progress and teaching techniques, and observing each PCV once during the semester, giving them feedback.

Windows on America

A USA-sponsored section of the Zhytomyr Library that holds American Studies classes

-I did two things for Windows on America:

1. I held a weekly club for watching English-language movies and discussing them. The club has been very popular, often becoming standing room only. We have watched a wide range of movies from the Windows on America collection and have had great discussions. The librarians constantly receive good feedback that they pass on to me.

2. One Saturday, as part of their weekly American Studies class, I conducted a two-hour seminar on Florida, using video, photographs and activities. The seminar was covered by a reporter and the article appeared in a Zhytomyr newspaper.

Climb for Life

A one-week summer camp that will be held in July and which will focus on three areas: Healthy Lifestyles, Climbing Skills and Team Challenges

-I am the Camp Director. During this period I planned the camp, creating a camp handbook that I then translated into Russian (which was thankfully checked by a Ukrainian!). I brought on board Healthy Lifestyles teachers from ACET and climbing instructors from Polissya, secured in-kind donations of climbing and camping equipment from Polissya, secured in-kind donations of flipchart paper, markers and a flipchart easel from American Councils, registered 60 interested students (final number will be 24), secured the services of a Yoga instructor, approached the Zhytomyr City Council about a fundraiser, and assembled a management team of three university students who will manage the camp this year and continue it next year.

Run Across Ukraine

A relay race across Ukraine that will raise awareness and money for HIV/AIDS

-I am one of two high-level managers for the race (PCV Jon Kendrick is the other). I brought to the project ACET, Polissya, a major fundraiser and a webmaster to the project. Together, Kendrick and I jointly planned and organized the run, presented the project to the HIV/AIDS working group, created informational packets, liaised with volunteers in other oblasts and basically have done whatever possible to get the project working. I also designed and wrote most of the HTML for the website, which was then turned over to the webmaster for translation and upkeep. We hope it will be successful when it starts in September.

Bike Zhytomyrska

A project to help Zhytomyr’s youth, particularly Internat pupils, by providing a recreational alternative for them, educate them about their oblast and teach them about HIV/AIDS and healthy lifestyles by conducting weekly biking trips around the oblast.

-Coordinated with Polissya, ACET and one of Zhytomyr’s Internat’s to plan the project, then wrote and was approved for a SPA grant to buy the bikes and equipment. Received the money on 28.05.06 and dispersed it to Polissya.

American Councils

American Councils runs FLEX in Ukraine, which sends Ukrainian students to the USA for one year to study.

-I was the Master Teacher at the FLEX Training of Trainers this year. My responsibilities included teaching two basic pedagogy classes and observing and giving feedback for the practice presentations of all the participants. I will also teach at their Pre-Departure Orientations in July.

2. What are your intended projects for the next reporting period?

-I plan on expanding the climbing class to two classes (one for over 18 years of age, the other for under 18), finish preparations and conduct the Climb for Life camp, manage the Bike Zhytomyrska and Run Across Ukraine projects, teach a Pre-departure Orientation for FLEX in July, continue my film club during the summer, and conduct any climbing wall trainings for interested groups (already three volunteers have expressed interest in bringing students from other oblasts for a wall training). I am also discussing with a group called Youth Initiatives about getting a Partnership Grant for them to work on a project to combat domestic violence.

Part Three: Social/Cultural Adjustment, Language Learning

1. Describe difficulties and successes you have experienced in adjusting to your community.

I feel very well adjusted to my community.

2. What are your plans for continuing your personal development to overcome problems and sustain successes?

I plan to continue bettering my language and maintaining my friendships in order to continue integrating with my community. I hope to continue to remain open to new change and flexible in the face of new challenges.

3. Describe your current language study program and your plans for continuing your language learning.

Currently, I study 30 minutes a day during lunch, Monday-Thursday, watch and listen to movies and music in Russian and regularly speak in Russian with my Ukrainian friends and colleagues. My rather modest goal is to acquire 100 new words a month until I leave the country.

Part Four: Volunteer Support Needs

1. Describe your experiences with support provided by Peace Corps during the reporting period and make suggestion.

I am very impressed with the level of support that I receive from Peace Corps.

2. Provide your feedback on communications with the office for the reporting period.

My e-mails and phone calls have always been promptly returned and my questions have always been satisfactorily answered. My regional manager, Bohdan Yarema, has always been extremely honest and supportive with all my questions and inquiries. I have been and continue to be very impressed with him.

Part Five: Lessons Learned

Stay flexible. Work hard. Enjoy life.

Part Six: Safety/Security Issues

I feel safe.

Ukraine: The Art of Begging

The plans for the climbing camp are in full stride now. We have dates, gear and materials commitment, instructor commitment (including a yoga instructor!) and the girls are currently making the calls to get all the participants signed on. As of now, if the participants just show up we'll have a kick ass camp.

The only holes we have at the moment are non-necessary ones: i.e., tee-shirts, participant certificates, prizes, etc. Plans are in the works to get these, but we can't pay for them via fundraiser like I originally envisioned. Why? The city of Zhytomyr wouldn't give us permission to do a car wash, and most other ideas for fundraisers weren't really viable.

We were looking at local sponsorship on the certificates and tee-shirts, but still didn't have a lot of leads on prizes. And we want quite a few: the participants will be in teams and the teams will earn points for winning climbing skills competitions, winning team games (ropes course-style challenges) and getting high scores on healthy lifestyle quizes. At mimimum we'd want to award the overall team, but it'd be cool to give out smaller prizes for each competition.

Then a very simply idea came to me last week and I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier: email climbing companies for their promotional items to give out as prizes. I went through an issue of Rock and Ice and wrote down the name of every advertiser in the magazine and yesterday sent out about 25 emails, less than half the list (with a slow internet connection, finding their websites and then finding their contact info was a time consuming process).

But less than 24 hours later, I got four responses:

*Trango said they had already spent their promotional budget for the year, but to keep them in mind next year (we will).

*Metolius is sending us stickers!

*Rock and Ice is sending, get this: a 2 year-subscription to the magazine, back issues, several copies of "How to Climb" and stickers! Boo yeah!

*And Rock Empire (I own a set of Rock Empire cams) sent me the email of their Europe branch and said that if they weren't interested, to email them back and then gave me a personal email address. Boo yeah again!

Possibly I'll keep getting "no"s, but already we're going to have a decent amount of swag to give out as prizes and I get the feeling we'll get more!

It's all about knowing how to beg.

Ukraine: Wet Climbing (Pics)

It has been raining steadily for a week now. Between the heavy rains and swamp-like setting of the waterlogged streets, I almost feel like I am at home. But the rains have produced a funny story.


It's hard to tell in this pic, but the water goes all the way back to that building.

So on the first day of the deluge, but before it had started, we were out on the cliffs. Not the old cliffs, but new ones we found at a place called Golova Chatskaya. That translates at “Chatsy’s Head”. This is because at this site is a pile of rocks sticking out over the Teatriv River that looks like a face. I don’t know who Chatsky is nor why he had the misfortune of owning a face that looked like a pile of rocks, but it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve every climbed. The cliffs are on the edge of the river, making the approach rather dangerous as you’re constantly at risk of slipping on an angled, moss-covered rock and falling headlong into the river. More interesting is the fact that the first bolt of three of the routes is out over the water, meaning you climb out over the river before you can even clip in. Fun stuff.


No real pictures from in the rain (camera was safely away from water in a bag), but these were taken off a video of me climbing just before the rain started.


Going for a 'draw


This looks like a job for...

We climbed all morning until rain forced us off, but not before we notice that one overhanging route was staying relatively dry. We came back in the late afternoon when the rain had stopped again, but I won a 5 hrivna bet that it would start raining as soon as we got there because it did.


Grrr! Grrr!


Just kinda like this shot


Last move before the anchor


Boo yeah!

I nearly plunged into the river, a boot slipping on wet rock, back heavy with climbing gear, but managed to throw myself backwards and catch myself. This was followed by my very first “deck” during a climb, that innocuous term which actually means hitting the ground. I was leading up on that dry face, almost the length of the rope over my first bolt when I slipped and fell. The dynamic rope stretched, my belayer, Marina, got pulled into the air and I ended up falling into Jon’s lap. But the fact that I had fallen all the way to the ground meant that after two brushes with damage, I wasn’t trying for a third.

“We’re setting a top rope,” I said.

The cliffs allowed for it: since the terrain sloped down to the river’s edge, it was a matter of hiking back up and over the top of the cliffs. Marina and hiked up there in the light but steady rain, while Tanya and Jon were huddled under the overhang. With the dirt now slippery mud, I sent Marina to tie into a tree because decking with a rope is one thing, decking without it is another. We talked over the order: she would lower me over the cliff edge. I’d clip the rope into the anchor. She’d lower me down, then she’d throw the rope over the edge. With the rope clipped into the anchor, we’d now have a top rope.

Simple.

Except from where Marina was tied into the tree, she couldn’t actually see me.
And with the rain and all, she was having trouble hearing me. And, as it turns out, she was really worried about accidentally killing me.

So I climbed over the edge, boots on the tip of some slippery rock, hand grabbing another slippery rock, in the pouring rain (and, like an idiot, having left my jacket at the bottom), looking over the edge at the anchor. It was a newer one: a chain welded into two bolts bored into the rock. I clipped a quickdraw into one of the bolts. Now at this point I couldn’t actually put weight onto the rope tied into my harness because I needed enough slack to be able to clip it to the anchor. When I tugged on the rope, I found it was less than six inches from going into the quickdraw. “Slack!” I yelled into the gray rain.

Now, Marina knows this word. In fact, most of the Ukrainians have adopted it because it seems so much better suited to the task then the Russian word “svobodney”, which just means “freely”. That, and they keep hearing the Americans yell it when they climb, so maybe they think it’s cool. Anyways, it’s now not uncommon to hear one Ukrainian we climb with shout to another Ukrainian: “Die mene slack!” (give me some slack). So I’m not sure why Marina decided to pull the rope tight.

I yelled slack again and every time I yelled it, Marina kept pulling on the rope, pulling me backwards and off balance, slipping in the mud. Finally I yelled “Svbodney!” and the rope went loose, dropping me over the edge, my fingers entangled with the anchor, the rest of my body hanging on the rope, dangling in the rain. Pain tends to make me angry, so with gritted teeth and still clinging to the anchor, I got the rope into the quickdraw and then slammed in two more into the other bolt, clipping those into the ropes with the carabineers in opposite directions. Hanging in the rain, having nearly hurt myself twice that day, I was not tempting fate anymore.

“Let me down!” I yelled, first in English, then in Russian. Either Marina couldn’t hear me or understand me or was now just too worried about killing me. The rope didn’t budge.

This is how I ended up hanging in the cold rain in a tee-shirt, just over the edge of a cliff, for the better part of fifteen minutes.

After yelling myself hoarse for Marina to lower me down, I finally yelled down to Jon to go tell her, and he then hiked up to the top of the cliff, me hanging there cold and soaked and twiddling my thumbs before I miraculously started to be slowly lowered.

The rest of the operation went quickly and soon the rope was tossed over the edge, allowing us to climb safely on a top rope. All save Tanya climbed the overhanging route, and while Marina was doing it, she called for slack I got to yell at her in Russian: “oh, now you know that word!”

On Jon’s climb, the last climb, he got to spend about twenty minutes hanging in the rain. Once clearing the overhang to the anchor, he discovered my three quickdraws and for some reason had a lot of trouble getting them back out. He hung in his shirt, yelling and tugging at them while I stood in the rain belaying him (although now infinitely happier under the hood of my rain jacket), a slightly sadistic smile on my face that I wasn’t the only one who had to go through that.

One last note: getting ready to go to the club that night (yes, we did all go to the club that night), I peeled off my sock and noticed blood. What I thought had been an itch had actually been a nice little bloody abrasion the size of a quarter on my shin just above the ankle. I’m not sure at what point in the day I received this wound, but what sets it apart from every other cut on my hands, elbows and shins is that it’s directly on top of a scar I have from when I broke my leg nine years ago.


A cut on a scar

Scar tissue is supposed to be tough. How in the hell can you get a wound on scar tissue? And then not notice it?

Fun day, climbing in the rain.

Ukraine: $4,920

Four thousand, nine hundred and twenty dollars is the grant money that that was transferred to my bank account to pay for the bikes and equipment for the bike tours. I went to withdraw it and my bank didn't even have that much money in the vault (the vault, by the way, is a very, very, very old safe sitting on a table on the other side of the counter). One of the bankers actually had to leave the bank to go to another bank to get more money.

I withdrew it in dollars because, as I mentioned in a blog a long, long time ago, the dollar is the hard currency most Ukranians keep their savings in (not trusting the hrivna, which is just a revaluation of their last currency, the koupon, which was so destroyed by inflation that people were literally using koupons for toilet paper). One thing that is never hard to find in Ukraine, even in the smallest villages, is a money exchange between dollars and hrivnas (although, it must be noted, Euros are starting to become popular here, too).

They handed me the $4,920 and I took a second to look at it. In my hands was more than I make in two years here in Ukraine, in one lump sum. It was as much as some people (i.e., teachers) make in five years. It was more than I'd ever had in cash in my hands at any one time. And how does one transport this massive amount of money? Armored car? Body guard? No, I figured low-key was the best strategy and just folded it in half and stuffed it into the front right pocket of my jeans.

I safely got it home (it was the afternoon and I kept my hands in my pockets) and waited for Kolia to come over and pick it up. I felt it was like a drug deal or something, especially when I put the money in an envelope. We met at my apartment instead of the usual cafe we meet at because handing someone an envelope full of cash in a public place could not possibly look good.



He picked it up, got it safely got it to his home and within a few weeks we'll start doing bike tours!

Ukraine: Work News

Got another one of those: "gee, you seem to be spending your Peace Corps service at Ukranian bars" emails. It was actually a supportive email other than that, but I would like to make a correction: I actually don't spend spend a lot of my Peace Corps service at Ukranian bars. I spend it at Ukranian discos, and my time there is important for language acquisition, cultural integration, and oggling beautiful women. Most of these are in the Peace Corps Handbook as being essential to success at site, but I leave it up to you to figure out which ones.

It came right before an intended blog on work anyway, which I swear I try to keep balanced with "Daniel having fun" and "Ukranian Culture" blogs.

Anyway, the lead off in the work news is that we just had our last training at the wall. We went out with a bang: 16 participants were trained! It concluded eight weeks of me promoting the wall during the week (every week I visited an average of six classes at local schools and distributed about 100 flyers) and eight Saturday trainings. Final numbers: 82 people trained in eight weeks, 61 of whom were under 18. That's in addition to the 93 trained since the wall's opening in November (during which it wasn't promoted; we were waiting for warmer weather). Each of the 82 people trained in the past eight weeks also recieved a one-hour course in HIV/AIDS prevention.

The HIV/AIDS courses, I feel, are what really mark the success of the wall. Initially it was to provide a recreational option in a city where there are few save playing soccer on dirt fields. But because Polissya has been having problems (some motivational, some staffing) with keeping the wall open regular hours and because HIV/AIDS awareness is so low in Ukraine (a recent poll showed that only 14% of 16-25 year-olds could correctly name the ways HIV is transmitted) that pairing the draw of the wall with an HIV/AIDS awareness class really make the money invested (AKA your tax dollars) worth it.

Of course, I thought that would be our last training for a bit, but I got a call last night to go visit the village of Ivanivka this morning to do a presentation. Irina, one of my trainers is from there, and she wanted to bring students from her old school to the wall(I told my trainers that they could start promoting the wall and I would open it for any training they wanted to do). So I got up early and caught a marshrutka out there and we'll be having training this weekend. This is added two at least two planned by volunteers: Jon is bringing a group from the Rivniska oblast and another volunteer is bringing a group from the Kyivska oblast. Thinking we should expand that, I put out an all-call on the volunteer bulletin that we would schedule trainings for any volunteer bringing a group of students in over the summer, so maybe even more Ukranians will get to experience climbing and become more informed about HIV/AIDS!

On a side note, after today's trip I am starting to realize that Ivanivka might merit a documentary of sorts. I've mentioned Ivanivka before: it's the town with the mass graves from the Holocaust. But, as I learned today (as it was behind the school I gave the presentation at), it has an old collective farm from the Soviet era. It was creepy: high concrete walls, a guard tower and a sliding metal gate normally reserved for military bases surrounded the farm. The gate was ajar and inside were a dozen buildings: the remains of a huge concrete barn, paddocks where milking cows were kept, the collapsed wooden coops where chickens were kept. It wasn't so much as a farm (although fields still used by the village sat just behind the walls) as a food factory. I hadn't brought my camera with me (always a mistake in Ukraine), but Irina told me her father used to be a bookkeeper at the collective, so maybe I can have him come out with me and have him point things out on camera, describe a bit of what life was like there. Along with the graves, footage of village life (this is where people hand-plant and hoe produce and then bring it to market by horse-drawn cart) and interviews with village residents about life now (one house had a satelite dish attached to the roof), it might make for an interesting encapsulation of Ukranian life, then and now. Or maybe it'll get buried under every other idea that I have...

*Just got the money in my bank account for the bike project. I'll be giving it to Polissya tomorrow and we will get that project rolling (pun intended). The first tours should start in July.

*The Across Ukraine Run is now getting moved to September, for a variety of reasons, the most major of which is that we should be getting a grant to cover most of the costs, but won't get the money until August. Other than that, a lot is finally starting to coalece. More and more people keep coming on board and taking up the slack in different areas, so I finally feel like we're almost to the apex and soon it will have enough momentum to succeed no matter what! And believe it or not, despite how big it's getting, I might have problems taking the 18 days needed to manage the trip as official leave. It was a bit of hoop-jumping to get four days approved to go teach for American Councils in July, because Peace Corps Ukraine is changing its policy that any work not directly related to your site does not count as official travel. Run Across Ukraine is not directly related to my site, but my manager understands that we'd been working on it for months prior to the travel-policy change. The problem is that he's about to be out of the country for a month. We had a phone conversation about the best time to submit the request (i.e., after he gets back, but before the new Country Director is installed) to get it approved. The interim director also strongly supports the project, so hopefully this won't be an obstacle, but it is entirely possible that they'll say I can't take official travel to do it, and I'm almost out of vacation days.

*My climbing camp is giving me fits. Finding dates that work for everyone is problematic. My Healthy Lifestyles teachers can't do it in the first half of July and my climbing instructors can't do the last half. I think I'll have to just set them and those that can't do it can't do it and we'll find replacements as needed.

We're also running into a funding snag. Polissya should be donating most of the equipment for climbing and camping, and American Councils should be donating use of teaching materials, so we're going to be able to fund it dirt cheap (I don't want to run my camp on grants, as that cuts back on sustainability), but I wanted to raise some extra funds via a car wash to buy the kids tee-shirts, etc. This is the answer Irina got back from the City Council: "Minors are not allowed to work, the government is in a mess right now (the elected mayor had her election overturned by the court due to falsification and there will be a re-election in July), and no one does car washes in Ukraine. Forget about it." Bear in mind all we need from them is PERMISSION to have the car wash, not any kind of support. And the excuse that minors can't WASH A CAR TO RAISE MONEY is ridiculous. I told Irina to get me a meeting with the head of youth services on the council next week, so hopefully we'll get it sorted out. That's the fourth Ukranian to say that "no one does car washes in Ukraine" as if that's a reason not to TRY to do something. Ultimately, I'm not that worried about funds: with the in-kind contributions, the camp is designed to run as cheaply as possible (it will run 9 AM to 3 PM specifically so that we don't have to feed them) and I'm willing to fund the rest out-of-pocket, but I'd like to set it up so that it can continue itself without me. I'm already hopefull of that: Marina, Irina and Tanya are taking on a lot of management responsibilities of the camp, and I hope to leave it to them after I'm gone. They're making me really proud, actually!

*Just finished another cycle of courses at the insitute. I LOVE my job there (which is good, because it's my main job). I teach the same set of classes to a different group of teachers every month, which means that my lesson plans just keep getting refined instead of the stress of making new ones for every single class. Also, since the cycle only lasts a month, at the end of every month my teachers give me candy or (if I have a good rapport with the group, like this last one) little gifts. If I'm lucky, I get both, and yesterday I was lucky. Yesterday I got my candy and my gift (a little figurine of a cossack and his wife) and said good-bye to another great group of teachers. I estimate that 1/10 of the English-teaching teachers in the oblast have been my students, something proved when I travelled around the oblast doing observations this month: at every single school I visited, even including the school I saw today in Ivanivka, at least one of the teachers knew me. The new volunteers will begin to introduce me to one of the teachers they work with and either I or the teacher will stop them because we already know each other. "How?" the new volunteer will ask. "She used to be my student," I will say. It's fun.

But enough about work. I finished another 5.11a on top-rope on Sunday and I want to make an attempt on lead today. I'm meeting Marina in an hour to attack it. It's time to go climbing.

Ukraine: St. Sophia, A Heartbreaking Story, A White Whale

Tuesday was the day of Saint Sophia. Despite almost two years in Ukraine, I’m not clear on why she’s a saint or what she did, but the colossal blue cathedral in Kyiv that’s on the UNESCO treasures list was built to her, so obviously she’s pretty important to Ukrainians.

My friend Tanya is in a Christian band that was playing at a concert held on Saint Sophia’s day, so we went over to check it out. It was held in front of Zhytomyr’s Catholic Church. There’s only one Catholic Church in Zhytomyr because Catholicism doesn’t have nearly the hold hear that Orthodoxy does. In fact, plans to build another Catholic church in Kharkov were halted do to an outcry from the Orthodox churches that Catholicism was starting to take over. Yeah, there’s that kind of intolerance. With that kind of outrage over a Christian church, I asked my friend Lisa, who is from Kharkov, what the Ukrainians would do if someone tried to build a mosque there.

“Oh, they wouldn’t care,” she said. “Because it’s not a threat.”

The church was new by Ukrainian standards, only 300 years old, but pretty: a gothic facade in peach and white. An empty stage was set up in front of the church and we waited beside it until the Sophia Day service was over and the congregation piled out of the church to watch the performance.

The music was upbeat gospel, with touches of jazz and rock thrown in. During it, the coolest priest I’ve ever seen, a perpetually-smiling man of about 30, was leading a sort of conga line through the crowd. Instead of hands on hips they had just all held hands to form one big chain, and moved past us in a sort of half-run, half skip.

Then the whole crowd began to do circle dances. They did one traditional Ukrainian one: where everyone holds hands, does this sort of cross-back, cross-forwards step to run in a circle before the whole circle runs towards each other to meet in the center, then runs backwards again to spread the circle back out. Then an MC on stage began coaching the people through many more circle dances that (my friend later told me) they said they had learned from a Polish Catholic congregation. One was vaguely Indian with its twisting hands and hop-step, one was vaguely Celtic/Irish in its moves and so on and so forth, but all were pretty cool. I filmed for a bit but then just got in one of the circles, doing the dances with them. Towards the end they were fast and almost out of control, with people forming smaller circles within the bigger ones and having a hell of a lot of fun.

I still don’t know what Saint Sophia did, but apparently she knew how to party.

***

I was leaving the library on Thursday when I heard English, and I heard it in a sing-song, lilting accent. I was leaving the library with Kirstin, another volunteer and we both stopped, looked at each other, and Kirstin said what I was thinking: “she’s not from Ukraine.”

The English was being spoken by a woman in her early thirties pushing a stroller, and her name was Anna, and, it turned out, she really was Ukrainian. Her child, Marina, though, was American and her husband, Marina’s father, was from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

When we got it sorted out, her rather heartbreaking story was this: Anna grew up in Ukraine and learned English here. While in Poland visiting a friend, she met her future husband. Although her husband only spoke Swahili and French and Anna spoke neither, they fell in love and her husband began to learn English for her. It was amongst her husband’s African relatives that she picked up the sing-song English accent.

Her husband moved to America, illegally, to find work and Anna followed him there on a tourist visa, even though she had only one year left in her University schooling. She became pregnant and Marina was born in America. Marina currently has both passports.

Anna came back to Ukraine to finish school, but afterwards when she tried to return to America with Marina, she was not allowed to. The American embassy was worried (correctly) that she would skip on her visa and stay in America with her child. So Anna hasn’t seen her husband and Marina hasn’t seen her father since. Her husband still supports her and the baby, sending money from America, but he can’t leave America because he would not be able to return, and even if he came to Ukraine, as Anna pointed out “who would give a black man a job in Ukraine?”

So to support his family he stays there work and she lives here and waits.
Marina is a beautiful little girl, almost three years-old with mocha skin and extremely curly hair. The hair gives Anna fits, she was saying, because she doesn’t know how to control it. She’s waiting for her mother-in-law, who lives in Congo, to bring some hair product when they both meet in Turkey this summer, one of the few countries where neither woman needs a visa. The mother-in-law, who could get a tourist visa to America, wants to take Marina with her to see her father. Anna doesn’t want her to, because she’s worried her Mother-in-law and her daughter won’t come back.

Marina loves attention and kept making faces at Kirstin and I to get it. When her mother finally let her out of her stroller, she was darting around on the sidewalk, running farther away than most kids are willing to be from their mothers and often causing Anna to chase off because she was reaching into a trash can or about to get into a fountain.

I don’t know why, but watching Anna scold Marina in Russian, my saddest thought was that if this family could be together, Marina would grow up speaking five languages: Russian, Ukrainian, English, Swahili and French.

Anna, tired of chasing her, finally strapped Marina back into the stroller, where she once again began making faces at Kirsten and I, smiling what few teeth she had at us. Anna took both our mobile numbers, saying she was glad to have people to practice English with, and then, pushing the stroller ahead of her, said good-bye and walked away.

***

I climbed my first 5.11b on Sunday. It was only Jon and I, which meant we could just seriously work on skills. We skipped out on going out Saturday night and got up at 5:30 AM, when the only people up were some fishermen on the river and us.
It was on top rope and yet still a sloppy climb, resting after almost every move. One move, the hardest, required a two fingered left-hand pull-up. I’m not kidding. This is why I’m still not a 5.11 climber. Instead of pulling the move clean, I worked my body up so that the rope would take some of my weight and I could half-swing up to the next hold (which, as it turns out, is only the tips of all four fingers, but on my right hand).

We were able to set a top rope because Jon was able to lean over the top of the cliff, me sitting on his legs, and put the rope through the anchor. After I finished it on top rope I tried to lead climb it (a climb doesn’t count unless it’s on lead), but I hit that two-finger pull-up move, fell, gashed open my shin and called it a day.

So I’m not a 5.11 climber yet, but I can feel it coming. That route (which is named after a three-headed dragon in a Ukrainian legend) is my new white whale.

Ukraine: Ded Kolia and Gouliating

So I finally got some time at the computer and here are the first two of five interesting stories from the past week:

-My friend Olya, who lives in Kyiv but is from Zhytomyr, was in town for the weekend. We met to hang out, and I was told that we had to go see her grandmother, because Olya had promised to see her, and this killed two birds with one stone. It was already 9:30 PM, but with long summer days to match the short winter nights, meant there was still some light out. Still, it wasn’t until I got on the marshrutka with Olya that I was told her grandmother didn’t live in the city, but in a village outside of it.

It was full dark by the time we got there, which is how I found myself feeling my way across a creaking bridge of cobbled together metal plates to cross the Teatriv and get to this tiny village. Her grandmother, who lived in a two-room tiny house that was more than a century old, was really cool: youthful for her age and full of energy. While Olya’s eight year-old cousin attacked her in a hug and began jabbering about the birthday party she had had the previous weekend, the grandmother stuffed me full of dyruni (fried potato pancakes) topped with sour cream and told me in breakneck Russian about this guy she knew named Ded Kolia.

“Ded” means grandfather, but Kolia wasn’t so named because of his age but because of his actions during World War II. I don’t know why she thought a story from the war would be one to tell me unbidden. Maybe it’s because World War II was one of those few times that Americans and Soviets were on the same side. In any case, she was right, because I like to hear any kind of interesting story and those from World War II almost always seem to be interesting.

Only one generation out of Germany and able to speak German, Ded Kolia was named the administrator of her village by the Nazis after their war machine rolled through. Rather than being loyal to his German roots though, Ded Kolia used this new clout to forge papers for people who were being sent to the death camps. Instead of going to the camps, these Ukrainians lives were saved by being sent to Korestichiv, a town just north of Zhytomyr where, her grandmother told me, they would then join the large partisan resistance that was brewing there.

Then the story gets sadly ironic. Although he retreated with the Germans, Ded Kolia and his two sons were allowed to come back to Ukraine after the war ended. Despite saving so many people during the war, Kolia, possibly do to voicing anti-Soviet opinions, was sent to a gulag in Siberia, where he died.

Ded Kolia’s house was pointed out to me in the dark, on the way back to the bus stop to get me back to Zhytomyr. Olya and her grandmother tried to get me to stay the night, but I had to teach in the morning (yes, on a Saturday morning!). Olya wanted to walk me back to the bus stop (and I probably would have gotten lost if she hadn’t), but her grandmother didn’t want her returning alone, so all three girls: Olya, her grandmother and the young cousin, walked me to the stop.

Because it was so dark, Olya took one of my hands and her grandmother took my other and Olya’ cousin held her grandmother’s hand. So in this way these three Ukrainian girls walked the poor, lost American down the dirt road to the bus stop. It was a sweet moment.

Her grandmother invited me back to see the village in the daytime, because she says it’s beautiful and she wants to show me the apple orchids. I promised to return.

***

The next evening I was again walked by girls, this time Marina and Anya. It was after a long day of climbing with my class of boys, browbeating them up a route none of them thought they could do but two of them managed to complete. Anya called and asked if I wanted to get ice cream with her and Marina. This is what Ukrainians do.

When it’s warm, the most popular thing to do in Ukraine is to buy alcohol, ice cream or both and walk. The Russian and Ukrainian languages even have a verb for this: “Gouliat” and “Houliate”, respectively. There are other verbs for walking, but this verb particularly means leisurely strolling around the town, almost always with a beer in one hand and ice cream in the other, talking with your friends.

I’m an American. I’m not used to all this walking. Still, the weather was gorgeous, the chestnut trees were blooming and we gouliat-ed down Old Boulevard, the park and fountain lined avenue that stretches from a statue of Pushkin to a massive (but condemned) bridge that crosses the Teatriv River. Gouliat-ing on Old Boulevard is the equivalent of going to a club in America. Everyone is decked to the nines, girls baring stomachs, cleavage and thighs and guys in shined shoes and button down shirts (the two buttons generally undone and exposing gold chains), almost everyone sipping on beers and eyeing each other from their same-sex clusters. Both the girls had dressed up, hair done and wearing makeup (which I’m not used to seeing them in) and I stood out considerably because I was still in my climbing clothes, hair under a bandanna.

There actually was a club near Old Boulevard, in an old Soviet concrete amphitheatre, its walls topped with barbed wire. Inside, Russian pop boomed from speakers, DJed by a guy sitting in front of a computer under a large Coke-a-Cola umbrella. The price for this open-air impromptu club was 4 hrivna (80 cents for those playing the home game), a fifth less than any other club and for obvious reasons: they didn’t serve alcohol and they closed at 11 PM (when, invariably, everyone would be going to places that DID serve alcohol). For that price and with pumping music, I was down for a little daytime dancing. The weather was warm, the sun was setting and it seemed perfect, but the girls were too embarrassed to dance any place that didn’t have bad lighting.

So then I suggested we just sit in the grass and listen to the music. We don’t have any alcohol, they said. If you’re going to sit on the grass, they said, you have to eat and drink vodka or beer.

This is a rule?

No, it’s a tradition.

So we can’t just sit and listen to the music?

No.

I didn’t understand why they didn’t want to sit, relax, enjoy the sunset and listen to the music. They didn’t understand why I didn’t want to walk.

Because this is what Ukrainians do. They gouliat.

Ukraine: My Day

Actually, the last three days have been very cool and I've got some feel-good Ukraine culture stories to put up, but no internet time (and I'm hungry).

So here was today: As a teacher trainer, I "manage" the ten Zhytomyrska Oblast volunteers in Practical Project and that includes observing their teaching once a semester. When I envision a manager, I envision this guy in a suit and tie, suitcase on his lap. And then I envision him in Ukraine, cramped on an archaic bus lurching in the rain down a road of broken asphalt, dodging around horse-drawn carts to get to a small village on the outer edge of the oblast to watch one 45 minute class.

It's not that bad: I planned lessons and studied Russian on the way there and back, but all told I was gone from Zhytomyr for seven hours and only saw my volunteer for a total of 75 minutes. The rest was on buses, waiting on buses, finding her school in the rain and standing in a hallway for 45 minutes waiting to speak with her after her lesson.

Yeah. That was my day.

Ukraine: The Past Two Weekends, Pt II (Pics)

Before going back to Kharkiv, Lisa braided my hair. It was nice to have it out of the way, but I ended up taking it out just a few days later for a formal meeting with the director of the orphanage that will be working with us on the bike project. Since the orphanage is on the outskirts of the city (completely isolated from the rest of Zhytomyr), we had to work out the logistics of getting them to the Polissya clubhouse and also found out what kind of paperwork would be needed to take “formal responsibility” of the orphans. I was hoping at least one worker from the orphanage could come on the trips with us simply for liability and discipline issues, but that may not happen. I'm slightly worried about having “formal responsibility” for wards of the state, considering I don’t let a single kid climb with us without their parents signing a waiver, but if it’s what we have to do, it’s what we have to do.

I have decided that braids are the way to go during the summer, though.


My hair in braids from the front. This is my "white trash" photo


The braids from the back

Another weekend, another wall training, but this time it included Dasha and Nika, two friends of mine from Kyiv:


Nika's butt and Igor's everything at the wall


Yes, I am that strong. No, really. Seriously. Date me?


Igor, Dasha, Volva on the wall

Completely worn out from their first time climbing, they went to the club with me that night despite their exhaustion. We were supposed to meet up with other friends at the club, but a phone call later revealed they were too drunk from the pre-partying to even get out of their apartment. This left just the three of us and Dasha and Nika sharing me on the dance floor. Tough life. Actually, Nika is married and Dasha has been with her boyfriend for a year, but I think that made them more comfortable dancing with me rather than less, and post-alcohol we were getting pretty raunchy.


Dasha at the club


Dasha and Nika on the dance floor

Because they were tired and because I wasn’t leaving the dance floor, they were literally taking turns at the end of each song, one getting up to dance with me while the other sat back down at our table. The punchline of this story is that while Nika was dancing with me that Dasha, sitting with her back to a table but still able to overhear them, heard a girl remark about me: “well, he must have a lot of money if he can afford two prostitutes.”

I’d worry about giving Americans a bad name except, like I’ve said before on this blog, no one thinks I’m an American. They know I’m a foreigner, but when they ask where I’m from and I ask them to guess, they generally say France or Spain or, occasionally, Poland. This is such the general assumption that, while riding on a bus and talking to Dasha, a Ukrainian came up to me and started speaking to me in French. I told him in Russian that I don’t speak French and he kept on going anyway, finally ending with what sounded like a question, so I just said “Da.” He got off at that stop and Dasha asked: “what did he ask you?” “I have no idea,” I responded.

The next day rained out our hopes of climbing on the cliff, so we went back to the wall for a little bit before the girls said they were too tired to climb any more. So I took them to Zhytomyr’s space museum. I’d actually never been there, even though it’s Zhytomyr’s main bragging point. Sergei Karolov, who designed Mir, the first satellite in space, and Soyuz, the ship that took Gagarin, the first man in space, into space, was born in Zhytomyr. Hence, we have a cool museum with the original Soyuz ship, the return capsules, cosmonaut suits and a whole lot more. Possibly the coolest thing (and the most random) were a dozen chairs suspended from the ceiling that had headphones playing new age music. So I actually spent a good ten minutes resting my sore body on one of those, blissed out, wondering how to get one home to my apartment for use as a reading chair. Oh, and the entrance fee of this museum? One hrivna. Or, in American money, slightly less than 20 cents.


Anya in the space museum


The actual Soyuz spaceship. It was smaller than I had imagined.


A crawler used to get samples from the moon.


Blissed out in a space chair

Ukraine: The Past Two Weekends, Pt 1 (Pics)

Life has been moving faster than I’ve had time to post about, but here are the highlights of the past two weekends:

First, the weather has been absolutely beautiful lately, which is why I’ve been climbing whenever I have a free moment. Sheep also think the weather is beautiful, and have been grazing near the cliffs we climb.


Me and sheep


I'm not 100% sure how this match with Anya even started, but apparently I lost


Marina washing her hands in the river after a day of climbing

Like every week for the past month, I’ve been visiting schools to show a video and pass out flyers for the climbing wall. I’ve discovered that there’s about a 1:10 ratio on flyers to show ups. I keep thinking that we’ll get overwhelmed on any given Saturday at the new trainings, but even if 40 kids say they’ll come, only 10 will show up. We average 8-10 new students each Saturday training, which is a good number considering the wall is fairly small. After a rotating roster of instructors, both friends, other Volunters and people from Polissya, my instructors have settled to three: Marina, Anya and Tanya. They are now veterans and at the last training I let them handle it from start to finish. I am becoming obsolete!


Marina teaching students


Anya teaching students


Students climbing

Why all girls? Um, because I'm working towards gender equality in the sport. And it's empowering to women. And, well, let's be honest, there can never be too many hot female climbers in the world. Eight months ago, none of these girls had ever climbed before and now they teach others to climb every week. Cool, huh?

If it makes anyone feel any better, I also have a special class after the Saturday trainings with five boys, they're just not as photogenic, as was proved when we all went to a club after climbing last Saturday:



***

Found a new cliff in Zhytomyr last week. I’ve heard that there are five, but no one seems to know where they are. Lisa—-who was visiting for the weekend from Kharkiv--, Anya, Igor and I followed rumors that there was one along the Teatriv River and found it. It’s small, the flat remnants of granite quarrying, but in a beautiful location, back in the woods and just above the dam built across the Teatriv river, where water overflows it into a waterfall. The bolted routes are hard: between 5.10c and 5.11a, but we were able to anchor a rope to a tree so that Lisa and Igor could do some of the easier routes.


Igor on top of cliff, overlooking the waterfall


Lisa climbing

Getting back was an adventure. Rather than walk the mile back to the bridge we had used to cross the river, Igor suggested we cross on the rocks in front of the waterfall. He said he had done this before, but apparently that was in late summer when the water was lower. It was only when we were a quarter of the way out that we realized that too many rocks were underwater to make the crossing without getting our feet wet. Igor and I just plunged on, soaking tennis shoes and boots, respectively, but Anya and Lisa decided to take their shoes off.


Lisa and Anya taking off their shoes


I'd like to point out that Igor is helping the girls while I'm off taking pictures. Quite the gentleman I am, huh?


Lisa and Anya, halfway across

At one point Lisa dropped a shoe and I had to jump into the river, up to mid-calf, to retrieve it. I gave it back to her, tossed the backpack full of gear to Igor, several rocks away with fast moving water between us, and rather than wait, he put the pack on and started walking. I heard a yelp and turned around to see that Lisa had dropped her shoe into the water again and it was now beyond my reach, floating off down the river. I heard another yelp and turned back to see that Igor had fallen into the water halfway up his chest, completely soaking the backpack full of climbing gear.


This is the last picture of Lisa with both shoes


Igor, pulling himself and all the wet gear out of the water

People fishing on the banks were watching us like we were complete idiots, which, of course, we were. Lisa had the worst of it. By the end, she had also banged her shin and it was freely bleeding and had to walk back to my apartment in a pair of climbing shoes, getting blisters in the process. Still, she had brought two pairs of shoes with her from Kharkiv and thankfully didn’t have to buy a new pair to go home.

For her, it was an interesting introduction to Zhytomyr.


Almost to the other side.


People fishing and watching us