Ukraine: Hirsonse (With Pics)

(Typed once again on Paty's broken laptop, so I can't really see the words).

Well, the day certainly went from worse to better. Waking up after a ostly sleepless night, sleeping in the kitchen with Sean and Carrie on steadily deflating air mattress. I opted out of that to sleep on the hallway florr, and then squeezed myself between Amy and the arm rest of the fold out couch. I woke up with the right side of my body asleep, woke Amy up and shoved her over, stole the sleeping bag that was entangled with the legs of Lauren (also lseeping on the pull out couch) and finally got a few hours of sleep.

This was after an eening smoking apple-flavored tobacco fro a hookah while sitting on cucshions in a Turkish-themed bar. I ended up talking politics (which I’m not supposed to do) with a Crimean couple in the bar. The girl spoke English and no Ukrainian, the guy spoke Ukrainian, but no English. We still got on, though. They think Yuchenko shouldn’t have won, believed that the Orange Revolution was largely western bought. This is nothing new in Crimea, which is actually an autonomous republic within Ukraine and in a narrow referendum nearly allied itself with Russia. Its populace is still largely Eastern-leaning at heart.
We went in search of a club, but found them wanting. Paty promises that the best club in all of Crimea awaits us on Friday, to a hefty 20 hrivn cover charge.

In any case, after a morning of teaching that was largely a blur (although apparently it went wel), we took the students up to Hirsonse. I made a mistake in my last blog (or, rather, I was mislead). Balaclava was not a 2,500 year old fortress built by the Greeks (I had wondered, considering it didn’t look remotely of what I thought of Greek architecture being; but I figured I was ignorant). No, that was a 14th century castle. Hirsonse was actually the Greek settlement, and was actually 2,500 years old, not 3,000.

It was, in short, amazing.

But we’ll get to that.

I have yet to actually get some description going on Sevestopal, which I think it deserves a bit of. In many ways, Sevestopal is a average Ukrainian city: the exposed pipes, crumbling asphalt, rusting balconies and plaster on the exteriors cracking and looking like the buildings have varicose veins.

But it feels different. There’s the tang of salt from the black sea in the air, the people are friendlier (as confirmed and repeatedly mentioned by all the volunteers in for the camp) and there’s an intriguing hint of history built into every nook and cranny. Stairs that are out of place, too old and the wrong style, lead up to Soviet apartment buildings. Columns and carved promenades, their edificases worn down to just a bare hint of themselves, peek at the end of alleys. Behind Patty’s apartment, past a basketball court surrounded in rusting chainlink fencing, the backboards splintered and the hoops gone, is an old stone arch, imploaded steps leading down to it, tiny black kittens playing at the grass at its base. Who built it? How old is it? Who knows? It just sits unrecognized in the courtyard between a cluster of aging apartments. I like Sevestopal. I really do. But I was reminded again that it is Ukraine when, twenty minutes into the first writing of this blog, the power to the building the internet café was in went out, and I lost everything I had just written.

Perhaps the greatest evidence of this great history is Hirsonce, the Greek sea-side settlement. In the pictures I’ve seen, it’s a couple of columns, and a famous arch that’s on the back of the one hrivna bill. Except I was shocked to find its more than that, so much more than that, the foundations of a whole city, stone squares marking houses, the spaces in between hem streets, spreading for acres and acres along the sea shore. That’s only twenty percent of the spectacle, though, because the majority of the foundations are underwater, in the shallow basin folled with the waters of the Black Sea after an Earthquake. After the students left, the tour completed, we spread out towels on the rock beach and swam out into the water, my swimming goggles (picked up in Zhytomyr in order to add swimming to my fitness regime) making the rounds to see the ruins we were standing on as the surge of the water buffeted us back and forth. The ruins were almost unregonizble, just smoothed stone covered in lichen and seaweed. Still, we were standing on underwater Greek ruins. Back on dry land, Carrie and some others tossed a Frisbee back and forth among Corinthian columns while Patty and I baked in the sun, lobbing seminar ideas back and forth for her upcoming training. They were playing Frisbee in Greek ruins. Sean and I hiked up to a small cliff overlooking the water. On the way were dozens of pottery shards amongst the rocks, so common that they were left. I picked up a few. The cliff was about ten to twelve feet high, but the water below was less than five. Still, I had never gone cliff diving before. We both jumped, my hands spread and my legs tucked to not slam into the sea floor. Survival assured, we climbed back up the rocks of the cliff and did it again.

Sean above, me slighly below, cliff diving into the Black Sea

Carrie took pictures of us doing it, one of the hundreds now rapidly filling up my 512MB card in my camera, which is nearly maxed out. I have so many awesome picures: vistas and castles and rstudents and ruins and friends and dolphins and moments and I feel slightly frustrated at my inability to share them. To even get one online is currently a process, a problem when traveling in a non-first world country and trying to share those travels with others in the world.

Still, they will be shared, although it will probably be weeks until I am in a position to do so. In the meantime, life is absolutely fantastic and every frustration I ever felt over the long winter has been evaporated by the summer sea-side sun.


Me, Carrie and Sean at the ruins of teh castle at Balaclava. There are no stairs to the upper window. I had to climb to it! If this were America, we probably wouldn't even be allowed to touch it!

Ukraine: Balaclava (and Moby pics)

Balaclava: the oldest standing structure in Ukraine, thought to be built by the Greeks over 3,000 years ago. It's a ruined castle on a hill overlooking the Black Sea now, just a few turrets and walls still standing.

We took the summer camp students up there in the afternoon, after teaching in the morning. Together we all got to run around and play on the castle for a while (Sean, Carrie and I climbed up to the highest window in the standing turret). Below the hill, in the blue waters of the Black Sea, a pod of dolphins jumped in and out of the water. I have photos to prove all of this, once I manage to get a few online.

From up there we could see the cove that once held Soviet submarines, and the concrete entrance they used to enter a bunker buried in the hill across from us.

After the students left, we paid this skipper of a tiny boat to put us around the hill the castle stood on, to a cove called Silver Beach, where we spent the rest of the afternoon tanning, swimming (the water was freezing), skipping rocks, rock hopping and looking at the hundreds of jellyfish in the water. They had no tenticals and didn't sting. In fact, the Ukranians would pick them up and throw them at one another. I think jellyfish are some of the most beautiful things in the world, as close to angels as we will ever get on Earth, so ethereal I'm hard pressed to understand them as animal, or even alive. They just seem mystical.

A relaxing afternoon, to soon be followed by a night of clubbing (and then back to teaching in the morning). This is the life.

*Addendum* After a lot of bad Russian on my part and figuring out how to get them to move photos from my camera to the main computer in this internet cafe to my terminal (they wouldn't let me plug it into my machine directly), I got a grand total of two photos moved before the whole process became to slow to bother with.

But here is Moby. There's no zoom. I was that close. He's the bald guy on the right. It was dark, so I couldn't really take good photos, hence the first dark one with a flash and the other, movement-blur without. Still, proof that I was there, right?

Ukraine: Naked Kniting

A quick three day update:

(By the way, I'm typing this on a computer with a cracked screen, the glass looking like a microscopic bullet piercied it, sending out a light-ray pattern of glass. Beneath that, though, brown patterns, the textures of a spider's legs, spread along the cracks hemselves, damage to the LCD screen. From afar, it looks like someone splatted a bug. In any case, I can bareley see the programs beneath the cracks, and am simply typing this without being able see mmost of the letters. Hence, it will no doubt have a hundred speling mistakes. Still, I am a compulsive writer, and something like a cracked screen is not going to stop me!)

I went to the Moby concert. I was supposed to be sitting in the balcony bit, but ended up jumping the gate and working my way to the front. By the time Moby came on, I was fifteen feet from him. Awesome concert, including a lot of classics that first introduced me to Moby in my rave days: "go:, "feels so real" and "next is the e". Also, I met a girl in the crowd named Tanya and got her number. We're supposed to meet for lubch on my way back through Kyiv in two weeks.

Spent 16 hours on a train, my longest to date, and it was an experience in itself. Nothing exciting, just a good opportunity for observation and reflection on Ukraine and its culture that will come out in a later blog.

Now I'm in Sevestopal, in the southernmost part of Ukraine, on the black sea. Just south of here, across that sea, is Turkey. The city I'm in holds some of the flavor of the once-Turkish control of the city is here, as well as the Greek and especially the Soviet control. Actually, until 1996, foreigners were not even allowed in the city because it's the home of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, which now sits rusting in the harbors, still leased by Russia until 2017.

Carrie and I got off the train at 6:00 AM this morning and went to Patty's apartment. Paty set up the camp, and is hosting all the teachers: 10 of us, in a one-bedroom apartment. Bags are everywhere, the hanging towels making the air humid an stuffy and Paty has asked for a toilet paper fund because, as she said "10 asses are a lot to wipe." Still, all of us but Carrie are from the same training group, and the dynamics are great, clusters in the apartment talking, eating, watching television, reading.

After a morning of teaching, we spent the afternoon on the beach, joined by some of Paty's Ukrainian friends. The beach was pebbles, not sand (unfortunately) but the water was blue and beautiful. A number of us swam out to a bouy, which, in Ukrainian fashion, was actually a large plastic beer bottle, anchored to the sea floor by a rope.

Back on the shore, reading New Yorker stories printed up by Samrong, surrounded by my friends and their subdued conversations, murmor really, as we baked in the sun. I couldn't believe that this was Peace Corps, supposedly the toughest job I'd ever love.

Samrong, by the way, is leaving Peace Corps, yet another from my group, although this time with good reason: he's been offered the job as principal for a New York City charter school, with a starting salary just over $100,000. Withoug me even asking, he mentioned me getting a job teaching at the school. At this point, I don't know what my post-Peace Corps life holds, but it's another friend made, and apparently a contact as well.

Paty pointed out that a nude beach was a few hundred meters away, behinnd a stand of rocks. No one else wanted to go, so she and I walked over there. Paty only took off her top, but I went the full nude. There was in fact a nude beach there, but it, like the beach we were on this Tuesday afternoon, was lightly populatted. A couple in their twenties (the woman quite hot), a full family with husband, wife, grandmother and daughter, all nude (the grandmother kept her bottom on) and a man in his fifties who, as Paty pointed out, was obscenley well endowed. We laid out on the beach for a time, soaking in the sun before heading back towards the rocks and the group. It was then that I saw that the woman in her twenties, beautiful body, bronzed skin, was knitting! It was something red and taking the whole of her concentration, and I have to wonder if she wasn't knitting herself some clothes to leave the beach with.

Ukraine: The Tale of the Race (With Pics)

So Carrie and I are finished with the race, although we actually didn’t finish the race. We completed only 25 of the needed 60 kilometers, for reasons to be herein explained. Still, the race was a lot of fun, even if we did have a few problems. So on with the story. Or , as they say in Ukraine: devai…

My socks were wet. The race wouldn’t start for four and a half hours, and I was already dealing with wet socks. I had washed them the previous night, but they still hadn’t dried. I only had one dry pair, and they were on my feet. I strapped the wet ones to the outside of my pack.

I started the race while on my mobile phone, people moving past me and asking in Russian: “Are you calling America?” Actually, I was trying to text message Diana. We had been waiting for the race to start, being entertained by a trio of jailbait singers and guys doing bike tricks. I had been told the start time of the race had been moved from 12:00 to 12:30 and figured Diana might come down to hang out and see us off. My socks were on a stone bench, slowly drying in the sun. About ten minutes later, and with Diana on her way, they announced that we would go ahead and start. We barely had our packs on when they clanged the start bell, and we were off, me trying to simultaneously jog and punch letters into my mobile at the same time, telling Diana not to come.

We ran down a hill (I thought the running was quite silly. We had 60 km of trekking ahead of us, and running with packs was going to do nothing but wear us out. But since everyone else was running…). At the bottom was a checkpoint. We turned left and ran some more. There was another checkpoint. Then we turned left and ran up the hill we had just came down, although this time on a steep dirt track instead of stairs, passing another checkpoint. Another left and we were back where we started. This was, in fact, part of the race, and no doubt the organizers thought it was funny as hell. Breathing hard, we then ran down the hill again, the checkpoint this time pointing us right, where, around a corner, ropes were set on a stone wall.

We were originally told that ascenders would be supplied for this portion of the race, making scaling the wall easy. At the last minute, at the registration and orientation we had gotten up at 7:30 AM to attend, we were told there weren’t enough ascenders, so no one would get any. As my group was already lagging behind the crowd of 40 competitors, I just jumped at the rope and started pulling myself up, hand over hand. At any moment I felt that my hands were going to slip and I’d be back at the bottom, but I surprised myself by getting to the top. While I was climbing, Carrie was tying our bags into my rope. Then, while I hauled our packs up one rope, Carrie climbed up the one beside it. She got about five feet from the top before she couldn’t go any father, but with a mighty heave I got her up. Teamwork at its finest.


Carrie free climbing the wall

Together, we then jogged for a kilometer down the river that flows along Zhytomyr, where we then had to swim across the river to continue the race. Here is where problems started. All the competitors had become spread out along that kilometer. Carrie and I, our “Crazy Hedgehog” team, was sticking with four other teams that we personally knew from Polissya, the sporting organization I’m building a climbing wall with. The ten of us decided to stick together to complete the race, rather than worrying about winning it.


The Polissya crew. Clockwise: Arteom, Ina, Ira, Dima, Vannya, Nikolya, Carrie, Pasha, Alla

Carrie and I also needed them because all the instructions for getting to the checkpoints were in Russian, and we simply didn’t know most of the words on the paper (they never taught us “chestnut tree in a meadow” in training). We had been told that English instructions would be provided, but that must have gone the same route as the ascenders.

We arrived at the river crossing with the leading teams already stripping their clothes off. A number of the men, wisely as I would discover, decided to swim the 100 meters across the river wearing nothing at all. I stripped down to my boxers, Carrie to a bikini she had on. We inflated the children’s inner tubes we had been instructed to bring along and put our packs on them.


Crossing the river

We had been unable to find plastic bags big enough to fit our packs. It seems that few other people had this problem and had thrown their packs into thick plastic bags, lashed them to tubes and hit the water. Without the bags, we had opted to put everything inside our packs in Zip-lock bags that I had brought from America. The problem was that as I was stuffing clothing into the Zip-lock already holding my fleece, it tore. I could have moved stuff into other bags, but my group was already getting into the river. I figured I’d just do my damndest to keep it out of the water and waded into the water. Pushing my bag along ahead of me as I swam across, I realized all was not going according to plan.

Water was getting into my pack, and the heavier it got, the lower it sank into the water. On the other side, I discovered that all my clothes, including my fleece, were completely soaked. This included the pair of socks I had spent all morning trying to dry out.

So was my spare pair of boxer shorts, like the other Ukrainians, I went commando for the rest of the race. The nice thing on the other side of the river, trying to wring out my clothes as fast as possible, was the eye candy. Not wanting to continue trekking in their wet bathing suits, several of the women were stripping them off in front of us and pulling on dry clothes. Ukrainians, like many Europeans, don’t think much about being nude. I didn’t mind this attitude at all.

I strapped my rain jacket to the outside to dry it and put on the fleece, figuring it would dry faster on me. Carrie offered to strap stuff to her pack, so I gave her my boxers and my once-again-wet socks.

Uphill we went from there, across a wide meadow covered in yellow flowers, past fields where people were planting their summer crops, tilling the earth with horse-drawn plows.


Horse-drawn plow

Group problems started then. There was some guy tagging along with our group, a man in his late thirties, his partner a girl in her early twenties. The girl was wearing only a sports bra and some short spandex shorts, a mistake she readily discovered when we started moving through thick underbrush. From her attitude, it was apparent she had gotten dragged onto this trip.

I never learned this guy’s name, so we’ll call him Mr. Moron. In booming Russian he started barking orders, and my whole group started doing what he was saying. Since I was beholden to the group, so did I. I hate group dynamics.


Into the woods...

This might not have been so bad had Mr. Moron known what he was doing. Instead, he turned out he really couldn’t read maps. He had us trail breaking through forest that turned into a bog, hiking through watery mud that quickly soaked my dry socks. He kept thinking something was wrong with his compass and kept asking to borrow mine. I could see on my map that there was a road not fifty meters south of us, one that led straight to the next checkpoint.


Trailbreaking

I pointed this out to Carrie, that we needed to head south until we hit the road, but neither of us wanted to leave the group, so we just pushed through the thick foliage, ducking branches and walking through stinging nettles and thorny berry bushes before the guy realized his mistake and we went down to the road we could have taken the entire time.


The guy with the beard is Mr. Moron. The butt belongs to his partner.

We were now at the orienteering section of the race, and were given maps so detailed we didn’t even need compasses, able to navigate by trails, roads and rivers instead. Ukrainian mentality came in then. Peace Corps volunteers have a hard time stopping their students from cheating, because Ukrainians don’t consider it “cheating”, they consider it helping each other and why shouldn’t they do that?
We had to find six spots and both write down a code spray painted to a tree, or punch cards with hole punchers at each spot. Rather then have each team go to all six spots, the Ukrainians decided that we should split into two groups, one team member in each group, with each group finding three spots. Since the team members would have collectively found six, this was determined to be okay.

Carrie and I just went along with it, as we found ourselves doing the entire race so as not to get split from people we needed to complete the race. Although Carrie’s group had less ground to cover, my group beat them back by 20 minutes. How? Well, of my group of three guys and two girls, one of the girls was the sports-bra and short spandex shorts girl. She was unable to keep up, so the guys decided she should just hide out of site, the other girl—Ira, a trooper whose shins were sliced up from going through the thorns and who was still pushing us to go faster—waited with her. We took their cards to punch them for them. Then, we ran.
I don’t know why we were running, but these two other guys—Vannya and Arteom—were big, strong, fit guys and felt we should make up lost time by running to the checkpoints. Not wanting to lag behind, I had to run full out to keep up with them, wondering how I was going to have any energy left after this.

We were slowed up at one point by a group of racers staring at a tree. It was the correct tree, as it had a marker on it, but no one could find the hole puncher. Three people were searching the muddy water under the tree. It became a bottle neck as more and more people reached the point, people searching for the hole puncher.


Trying to find the lost hole puncher

Finally, I took a digital picture of the tree to prove we had been there and we were off. Poor map skills came into play again, and Vannya and Arteom actually let me help them find the second marker, then let me take over as leader and lead them to the third. I was starting to feel better, that I was contributing and wasn’t simply following the Ukrainians around.


One of the orienteering markers

Once we picked up the girls and came back to the site and Carrie’s group finally returned, Mr. Moron took charge again and we all followed him.

Our next destination had us following a large river, the next checkpoint beyond a big bend in it. About a hundred meters from the bend, Mr. Moron stops and thinks we should turn around, that we missed the checkpoint. I try explaining in Russian that we haven’t reached it yet. Here is the bend on the map (not knowing the word for “bend”, I was reduced to motions), there is the bend in the river. It’s past that.


Lost at the river

Possibly because I sound like a five year-old in Russian, that’s how much respect I was given and they headed back. Carrie said she’d follow me rather then the group, so we went off towards the bend. Some of the group, still confused about where we were, followed us. Soon the whole group ended up following us and, lo and behold, beyond the river bend was the checkpoint. The hole puncher was at the top of a thirty foot tree. Rather then let each person do the challenge (and, dammit, I wanted to climb the tree), they decided to send one person up with all our cards.


Climbing the tree. Our guy is at the top, with six team cards around his neck

Admittedly it saved time, but it was cheating. Once again, I acquiesced to the will of the group. Despite being right, they still didn’t give me any respect. We were the Americans. For some reason, we needed to be taken care of.

This is not a new experience. In fact, it’s a mentality I’ve been dealing with since I’ve gotten here. We have it easier in America, they figure, we can’t possibly know how to survive in Ukraine. They're not patronizing about it; it's a genuine desire to help. But still, when you value independence and self-sufficiency, it grates on your nerves.

Anyway, things became uneventful from there, the group chewing up kilometers as we hiked on roads, through forests, through towns and through fields, passing kids playing soccer next to sleeping goats, past a guy carrying a scythe while riding a bicycle, past an old army base, rusting hulks of tanks on the other side of a barbed wire fence.


I call this one: Man on bike with scythe

We ended up on train tracks, feet killers, and Carrie’s knees started to hurt. A few kilometers later, she was limping.


On the train tracks

We hiked a few kilometers on blacktop, cars rushing by and kicking up dirt, clothes getting stripped off in the hot sun. I began rotating the clothes in my pack to the outside, letting them dry before moving the next item. It would have been nice to have a dry pair of socks at this point, but somewhere in the forest my boxers and one of my socks had fallen off of Carrie’s pack, lost forever.

It would have been better to just leave them hanging to dry in my bathroom.

Arteom asked us to sing an English song he learned in school: Old McDonald. Carrie and I obliged for a few verses, Arteom joining in for the only part he remembered: "E-I-E-I-O". We then launched into the other song most Ukrainians know: "Yesterday" by The Beatles.

We pushed on. Once again, we had map issues. The map showed the checkpoint being where the road (running on a ridge) met a stream. Mr. Moron decided that we should get off the road down the embankment, to be closer to where the stream would eventually be. But why not wait, I wondered, until we see the checkpoint so that we know what side of the road to go down on? The group followed him, so we followed the group. He picked the wrong side, of course, and after half-sliding on the muddy embankment through stingy nettles, we later found ourselves having to climb back up it, cross the road and slide down the other side.

There, we came upon our next challenge, and my final challenge before I gave up on the group. We had to cross back through the embankment by way of a concrete pipe, water up to our calves. We left our gear outside it, so no pictures of this debacle. After going through the muddy water, we found a message spray painted on the other side for us.

We were moving too fast for me to read the Ukrainian, but I did see “150 meters” and “30” degrees. Simple: take a bearing and go 30 degrees for 150 meters. I had left my compass in my pack, but it didn’t matter because the group was now trudging upstream through a small river, straight from the end of the pipe we had just came through. Trying not to loose them, I followed. This made no sense, as we were moving 90 degrees from the mouth of the pipe, and we needed to be going 30. I figured that they had read something on the wall and knew what they were doing.
I was wrong.

We waded up the river for about ten minutes before they decided to go to dry land. Carrie, who had come barefoot to keep her shoes dry, opted to go back to the bags and wait for us. She would wait for an hour.

These people, who had made me jog from orienteering spot to orienteering spot, were now slowly meandering in the woods, no one with a compass out, trying to spot a point I was sure we were nowhere near. I wanted to go back and take a bearing with a compass, but they kept walking, spreading out and stopping every minute to pick one of the hundreds of tiny, wild strawberries that were growing at our feet. Periodically, they’d ask one of the women picking these strawberries and putting them into glass jars if they knew where the checkpoint was. Each lady would send us in a different direction. Finally, we were out of the forest and at some train tracks, far more than 150 meters from the pipe, and they were still walking, looking around for the checkpoint. I stopped walking. We had been hiking, jogging, swimming and wading for seven hours. My feet had been wet the whole time. My legs were scratched up from where I had pulled up to wade, and then crossed onto dry land—following everyone else—through thorns and stinging nettles.


Arteom picking wild strawberries

My desire to keep going with this whole race was minimal. I was dependent on the group, but the group—much as I like and respect each of the members—didn’t know what it was doing. Finally, the sun slowly sinking and most of the race to go, they returned from their fruitless walk along the railroad tracks and I pulled aside Alla, one of the group members that I know better than the others. In Russian I told her: we need to go back and use a compass to go 30 degrees from the pipe. That’s what the instructions said. She agreed, called everyone together and we started walking back.

Along the way, we came across a man in a much-repaired gray suit watching his grazing goats. They asked him where to go and he pointed us in another direction. They went where he pointed. I wanted to kill them. We had been wandering around for nearly an hour on a challenge that shouldn’t have taken five minutes. My impotence to convince them of what we needed to do frustrated me. I told Alla I was going back to the pipe, and she said to just come with them, that they now knew the way.

They didn’t. We ended up along the embankment, several hundred meters north of the pipe. I don’t think they even knew what compass headings are because I tried explaining, with my arms, that we were at two or three degrees in relation to the pipe, and that 30 degrees was a wider diagonal from it. Instead the guys in the group kept running around, looking into old pipes and aqueducts for the checkpoint, figuring it had to be close, me wanting to yell “it’s nowhere near here!”

Then, ironically, they did find a checkpoint. It just happened to be the wrong one. Whichever checkpoint was 150 meters at a 30 degree angle into the forest must have pointed to this one. It was a tiny pipe that lead through the embankment. Once again, rather then all of us crawling through, they sent two guys with all our cards. We walked to the other side, and there found another challenge: a deep well, about twenty feet deep, that led to fast moving water. You had to climb down a rope, bracing yourself against the well walls, and then use the hole puncher that hung just over the water.

That’s what I love about Ukraine: whether it was climbing that twenty-five foot high tree with no protection or doing a challenge that would kill you if you slipped and fell into the water, personal safety gave way to cool challenges. You would simply never see this challenge in America without being in a harness and belayed from above. As is, it was an adrenaline rush.

They tried to take my card down for me, but I told them I wanted to do it. That’s the point of an adventure race: to actually do the challenges. I was sick of being babysat.


Going down the well

After I came back up, someone had gotten the code we were supposed to get from the missed checkpoint from another racer. Handing my card over, Alla wrote it on there. Cheating, cheating, cheating.

With all current checkpoints completed, we were given a new map. I thought we had been making decent time, but the new map showed otherwise. We had nearly two-thirds of the way to go and the sun was two hours from the horizon. Looking at the map, it was obvious that the cool parts: the rafting and rope challenges, were going to be near the end, to be done in the morning after the sun came back up. Between now and then were a lot of miles to be done in the dark. That was the part I had been dreading. I hate hiking on trails at night, even for an hour or two. I had never done it for an entire night, and wasn’t looking forward to it. Along with the new map came more instructions, all in Russian. Once again, we would have to be dependent on the group to get through the race.

Carrie and I took stock. She had rested for an hour and felt better energy wise, but her knees had stiffened up. I had spent an hour slogging around in wet tennis shoes with no socks, following people who wouldn’t listen to reason.

Could we keep going? Yes. Could we finish the race? Doubtful. Extrapolating our current progress, we’d finish the race a few hours past the 23.5 hour deadline. Also, Carrie said her knees couldn’t handle going all night. My feet, the skin soaked and shifting, were getting near to blister-formation. The next time we crossed a major road would be in the middle of the night. We were as close to Zhytomyr as we’d be for the rest of the race. If we were going to quit, now would be the time.

And you know, I felt no regret in quitting. The race had been fun, a lot of fun save for the periodic frustrations. I’d never done anything like that. Hiking and backpacking are usually relaxing. This had been balls-out for seven hours, going as fast as possible, the only break when we waited 20 minutes for Carrie’s group, and the odd three-minute breather now and then as we took bearings on maps. The pace, the challenges and the push-yourself mentality made for a really exciting day. Frankly, I’d like to do more multi-sport races, and I’m sad we missed on the ropes course and rafting portions of this one. What I’m not sad about is missing the all-night hiking, the feeling of absolute exhaustion that I knew would come over me about 3 AM, having been awake for more than 20 hours and needing to push on, that mindless slog that meant I would return home absolutely exhausted and physically torn up, which is not how I wanted to experience the Moby concert I was going to the next day.


Carrie and I calling it quits

Instead, Carrie and I had a fun day and then got to walk back to Zhytomyr, another five kilometers along the banks of a river, before we caught a marshrutka to a local pizzeria to order carryout to take back to my apartment.


The river we followed to Zhytomyr

We finished the night drinking the cold Pepsi, eating pizza and munching on popcorn, watching Family Guy on my laptop and periodically saying, “you know, it’s 10:00 PM and guess what we’re not doing? Hiking in the dark!”

And now, as I type this, it’s 1:30 in the morning and out there, right now, are a lot of people hiking in the dark. Oddly, that makes just sitting here quite an experience, a nice little pleasure that puts a smile on my face.

Ukraine: Extreme Marathon

Well, I've been alluding to this marathon I'm doing and meant to talk about it but, you know, haven't. Since it starts tomorrow, I figured I'd better.

So, yeah, Carrie and I are a team in an Extreme Marathon. We're the "Boshvillne Yodjiki", which is syrgic ("Boshevillne" being Ukrainian and "Yodjiki" being Russian) for "Crazy Hedgehogs".

Polissya, the group I'm building the climbing wall with, runs it. There are three classes. The hardest is a four day journey in excess of 400 kilometers and involves biking, hiking, boating, orienteering and rock climbing.

The wimpiest (i.e. our) class, is 60 kilometers (a little over 37 miles). Fifty-five are hiking and orienteering, with ropes course type obstacles (climbing, crossing a river on a rope, rapelling, etc.) along the way. An unknown length is swimming (something like 300 meters) and 5 kilometers is rafting on a river. The rafting, by the way, is done on a raft you build on the spot, with provided materials (branches and car tires and such). We have to complete the whole race in 23.5 hours, straight through the night.

This is the required gear list: Climbing harness, carabiners, belay device, ascenders, 8mm rope for prusics and building the raft, 10mm rope to make slings for ropes course activities (zip lines and such), first aid kit, headlamps, a inflatable kid's tube (so your gear can float behind you when you're swimming), and a compass. Obviously, you also have to bring food and water.

I was going to take pictures of all our want more.
my problems just didn't fit anymore. I am healthier and I want more.

Ukraine: Bombed Like Baghdad

Katie: the piano is going well! As this story shows, love life is otherwise.

So I was hanging with my neighbors (the girls teaching me piano) a few nights ago when they pulled out their Institute's yearbook and asked which girls I thought were attractive.

Honestly, most of the girls (from a a class of about 30) were decently attractive, but I only found one girl hot, and I pointed to her.

"That's Oxana," I was told in Ukranian. "We know her. She'll be here tomorrow." Well, I had to be in Kyiv the next day, but it so happened that yesterday as Steve and I were going downstairs to go jogging, we ran into Alla (one of the neighbor girls) and Oxana. And they both looked stunning, having just come from one of their piano exams, which are done as recitals, and having dressed up for them. Oxana looked even better in person. Just think very-fit Ukranian blonde with sparkling blue eyes in a skin-tight black shirt and white skirt and that would be her.

They asked what we were doing, and I told them we were going jogging, but whether they would be at my neighbor's apartment later. Oxana said that she was tired, that she was going to go home soon. Poor timing I figured, and Steve and I departed. We got about two blocks before I said "let's go back. We'll jog later."

So we went back. The apartment had a number of guests, including Oxana, and we all talked together for about an hour, some syrgic mess of Ukranian and Russian with the Ukrainians throwing in the occasional English they learned in school, which is was along the lines of "Yes! Super!"

I got Oxana to play piano for me, and she did a great version of "My Heart Will Go On". The piano was great, the singing atonal, but I wasn't going to complain. My Ukranian has been doing a lot better since I started hanging out with my neighbors and Oxana and I ad a pretty good conversation. By the smiles, I figured we were hitting it off.

She asked what Ukranian foods I liked, and then offered to cook me borcht. I was all over it. Ukanians have a saying: "Harne borcht, harne divchina." It pretty much translates: "a good woman cooks good borcht." In other words, she was throwing her goods onto the table. I was very happy with the way this was progressing.

We arranged to eat it today, her coming over to my neighbor's apartment to cook it. We hadn't nailed down a time, but I got off work at 6 and figured she'd be in the process of cooking or about to get started. I made sure my clothes looked good so I could go straight from work to the apartment, and I even printed up the lyrics to a couple Ukranian songs I know. I'd played the songs for my neighbors before, upon request, but they only knew the choruses, and i can't sing in English, let alone Ukranian. I figured post dinner, with the lyrics they could sing and I could play and the night would go well.

I show up about 6:15, and am told the borcht is there, but Oxana was not. I don't know what got lost in translation, but apparently she thought we had set a time for 4:00 PM. I wouldn't have said that because I was working. I was also confused, because I know times in Ukranian. It's one of those things I've had to use almost every day for nine months. Anyway, she had come over, made borcht and waited and waited and finally left.

They gave me her number, but only her roommate was home. My neighbors insisted I still eat the borcht, which I felt was wrong, but they told me she'd be more offended if I didn't. So I sat and ate it with them, commenting frequently on how good it was while all the time feeling like a total ass.

So, yeah, bombed that one.

Misc: The End of Peace Corps Uzbekistan

In the wake of the violence two weeks ago, Peace Corps Uzbekistan is shutting down. An Uzbekistan PCV that I correspond is now back in the USA, which is good, but also bad. Good to be home, good to be safe, bad to loose a place you've learned to love and work in. She's understandably upset about it.

Peace Corps Russia shut down two years ago, Russia accusing PCVs of spying for the United States.

Places like Belarus, who need it the most, won't even accept Peace Corps.

Eastern Europe is like some struggling giant, body parts made of different materials but somehow held together by the glue of history and politics. It's struggling to rise but as some of it reaches for the sun, other parts shatter and collapse.

It's both a heartening and tragic thing.

In another news, Carrie got back into her apartment, and the camera sale got resolved, so good news there.

Annie, I hope things work out for the best.

Ukraine: Pics and a Video

Media!

Pics: Shashlik, a Ukranian summer tradition

Pics: Last Bell, the end of the school year ceremony

Pics: Rock Climbing in Zhytomyr

Video: The Dirty Windshield Diaries

The video is the edited footage of my 7,000 mile journey around America before I went into Peace Corps. I couldn't get it uploaded until I was back in Florida and never got around to mentioning it until now. A word: it opens with a freeze frame of Sarah and then a brief intro in titles about the trip. Everytime I have shown it, I have gotten this question: "is this all it is?" No, this is not all it is. Wait five seconds, and you'll see. And then five seconds later they start laughing. Patience, people! Patience!

Enjoy.

Ukraine: Job Problems, a Robbery and Jumping off a Bridge

I had problems getting pics online yesterday. Maybe within the next week I’ll get up climbing and shashlik pics. Life moves faster than my access to the internet, so this update will require me to pack a few events into one quick burst:


1) I’m getting very annoyed with my work. I understand that the Ukrainian concept of scheduling is much more flexible than the American one, and I roll with it when they wake me at 8:30 AM to tell me that my noon class has been moved to 9:00 AM, or that someone is sick and they need me to teach, well, now. But last week I got a call that went like this:

“How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” I said.
“Why didn’t you teach this morning?”
“I didn’t have a class this morning.”
“You didn’t know you had a class this morning?”
“No.”
“Oh, I must have forgotten to tell you.”

Yesterday, I get a call like this:

“When are you coming into the institute today?”
”I’m not,” I said. “I’m in Kyiv doing paperwork.”
“What about the kids?”
“What kids?”
“Nevermind.”

This was after I theatrically pulled out my calendar after last week’s incident and said, “Okay, tell me all the classes I’m teaching next week.” Wednesday was wide open, which why I went to Kyiv to finish up the grant paperwork. My coordinator wasn’t around when I was at the institute today, so I left a rather stern note on her desk that me missing a class makes Peace Corps look bad, and that we needed to work on our communication.

2) Carrie was robbed two days ago. She went swimming at a quarry-cum-swimming hole, with her backpack on the shore. Someone took it, and inside was her watch, mobile phone, wallet with 200 hrivna, her keys to her apartment and her clothes. She showed up at my apartment wearing a bikini, sandals and a sarong. Two days later, we still haven’t gotten keys to her apartment, so she’s been going back and forth between my apartment and Amy’s. We’ve both loaned her clothes and money and, in a karmic coincidence, she got a mobile from me and a call package from Amy. The mobile was originally Carrie’s old one, the one she had given me after mine was stolen when I was mugged. I had just bought a new one, and so was able to give her old one back to her. Someone had given the call package to Amy for free, but she had already had one and was able to give it to Carrie. Carrie’s taken the whole thing with her usual stoicism, although she’s understandably pretty frustrated that she can’t get back into her place.

3) Carrie and I jumped off a bridge yesterday evening, a nice release to both our frustrations. This would be want I didn’t want to mention ahead of time: rappelling 125 feet straight down off of a condemned bridge in a second world country. Forgive me, mom! It wasn’t even my idea, suggested instead by the Ukrainians we climb with. Apparently they do this all the time. Two police sat on one end of the bridge, not even paying attention to us, so if it was illegal, that law wasn’t exactly being enforced.

Ukraine: Last Bell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ukraine: Got the Grant!

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

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

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

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

Life is good!

Ukraine: Secrataries, Wiccans and New Climbing Addicts

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

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

It took five hours.

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

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

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

Two more climbing addicts are born.

Ukraine: False Alarm

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

Sorry for the false alarm.

Ukraine: Dedication

Hey, I actually have a story about work!

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

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

Now that's dedication.

***

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

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

Ukraine: Eurovision and Pics

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

Eurovision was done the exact same way.

***

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

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

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

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


Tents like those used in the Orange Revolution at Eurocamp


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

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

Which made it more fun, really.


The ride Carrie and I tried out

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


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

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


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

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


The cop chasing the guy in black


On the bridge after the action

***

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


Maidan by day. The crowds would get bigger at night

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


The coolest accordian player in existance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


The crowd singing "Razom Nas Bahato"


Cheering on GreenJolly

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


Can you spot the foreigner?


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

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



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

You know, I never did meet any Europeans.

Ukraine: Hella Weekend

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

Ukraine: Quotable Quotes and More Pics

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

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

A couple of quoteables:

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

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

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

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

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


Victory Day parade in Zhytomyr


A river of people headed to the World War II memorial


A veteran laying flowers down on the memorial


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


Playing wrong notes on an out of tune piano

Misc: ebay Comedy of Errors

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We'll see.

Ukraine: Sick as a Dog

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

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

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

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

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

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

Figured someone else should share in the misery with me.

Ukraine: Piano Lessons and Uzbekistan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is the latest article on the situation:

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

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

Misc: Peace Corps Blogs

First: Happy Birthday Bean!

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

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

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

Senegal: The Quiet American

El Salvador: Close Your Eyes

Uzbekistan: The Long Road

Bulgaria: Melody Jones

Still in America: Jay's Big Adventure

Ukraine: Victory Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was very moving.

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

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

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

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

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

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

America: Going Back (Climbing Pics)

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

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


Sultana hanging upside down


Me being a monkey


Me and Sultana?

America: Article, Pen Pal and Busch Gardens

Two things:

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

www.subsystence.net

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

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

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

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

A bit of promo for her:

www.desireerincon.com

And this is what she looks like:


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