The summer flies by...

In light of the fact that I haven’t written a blog entry in four months, I suppose I will have to try to keep things short and sweet. Some cool stuff has definitely happened, some funny, some heart-warming, some horrible, but basically I am FINALLY settling into my Peace Corps service and life in Ukraine. My site change had definitely made all the difference. I have fallen into a place where I honestly feel like this is where I am supposed to be. All the crap that happened before I arrived here at my new site, now seems worth the stress and anguish because here I feel like I am finally at home. In the six months that I have lived at the new site, I feel as integrated as I want to be here in Ukraine. I have a wonderful living situation, good friends, and a relatively stress-free work environment (I work from home - ha). I have been running four to five days a week, doing yoga, taking long-walks and feeling content and at peace.
At the end of May, I had the good fortune to stand in for Caroline at her organizations bi-annual retreat to the sanatorium. Caroline works for a regional non-profit that stands up for the rights of the disabled in Ukraine. A lot of the hands-on work that Caroline does is doing arts and crafts and teaching English to the disabled youth in the Donbass (this is a region consisting of both Lugansk and Donetsk Oblasts in the far East of Ukraine). Lucky me, I got to represent the Peace Corps and America and basically have a really fun and relaxing get-away at a real Ukrainian sanatorium. I guess the American equivalent would be a rehabilitation center. We had a group of around 20 kids in wheelchairs from all over Lugansk and Donetsk Oblasts and we wheelchair danced, sang, swam, and basically had a ton of fun for 3 days. We did some arts and crafts and gave a try at English, but basically we did a lot of hanging around and having a good time. I met some wonderful new friends and really got a feel for how difficult it is to be disabled in Ukraine. It is really important that there are organizations like Caroline’s fighting for equal rights and treatment for people with disabilities here. I won’t go into particulars, but it’s not an easy life here for an abled person. People with disabilities face many more challenges here than in the States . Things like disabled access ramps and bathrooms are a relatively new concept here. Getting around can be a real challenge. Needless to say, this weekend was a real eye opener and I am really grateful for the opportunity to spend time with this great group of kids.
Next up, I spent a week hanging out with another great group of kids at my friend Hailey’s English Camp in her town. I definitely got a very different perspective on Peace Corps assignments here. Hailey is a Youth Development Volunteer. My experience thus far has been with teenagers and adults. Hailey’s camp was for kids ranging in ages from 10 to 13. It was a blast! I got to play and run and be a kid for a week. I was so exhausted. I don’t know why it was so exhausting. The only explanation that Hailey and I could come up with is that kids are just exhausting. Hailey and I instituted a post-camp nap hour that was well-deserved and entirely necessary.
Towards the end of June, I travelled to Kiev for my mandatory mid-Service medical appointments and I met up with my friend Theodora. We high-tailed it to Yalta for a few days and had a nice relaxing trip. It was an eye-opener seeing Yalta which is a Russian resort town. It unfortunately was cold and rainy for much of the time we were there, but we still managed to eat tons, drink tons, and relax on the beach and soak up some intermittent sun. The water was so frigid that my joints hurt when I did manage to get warm enough to hop in for a dip. One of my favorite parts of that trip was the train trip down. Theodora and I were both on top berths in a platzkart car. It was hot so we had the window open for the breeze. We were both just kind of lying their on our berths staring out the window as the world flew by and it started to rain. The rain started to splatter a bit into the car and we both stuck our hands out the window to feel the rain. It was one of those peaceful, childlike moments that makes you smile. And we did, we smiled at each other in the shared moment. And then the lady on the lower bunk had had enough of the rain splatter coming in the car and jumped up and slammed window shut.
July brought a week of Peace Corps sponsored language camp just outside of Kiev. This was a great opportunity to see my friends and to spend time together shooting the shit. I taught a yoga class one morning, swam in the Dnipro, played some soccer on the beach, and saw a real wild hedgehog the last night we were there. I went over to it and pet its prickles, but then it made a weird snort squeak noise and I jumped back and gave it some space. Although it would have made for a funny story, I don’t need to get bit by a hedgehog.
Directly following the language camp, I hopped a plane to Barcelona to meet up with one of my old friends from high school. We saw the shit out of Barcelona. I really like that city. I could see myself living there if anyone knows of any UN or US government jobs that I might be eligible for, digame por favor . We went up in the hills and saw Tibidabo, we saw the Gothic Quarter, we went to the beach, we saw a really creepy cemetery, we Gaudi-d, we ate paella, manchego and drank rioja, we walked a ton. It was great, but exhausting. It was so interesting to be in a developed Western city after being in a developing country for a year and a half. My friend is still ribbing me about my utter amazement with the vending machines in the Barcelona Metro. They had EVERYTHING, food, drinks, and then razors, condoms and sanitary supplies. You could live in there if it wasn’t refrigerated to the point that you would likely suffer from hypothermia.
And then back to Ukraine. I was supposed to travel on to Lvov to get my first taste of the West side of the country, but on returning I was so freaking tired that I opted to just turn around and make the 24 hour journey back home to the East. I spent the last few weeks of August at site relaxing, reading, sunning, running and just trying to get back in the groove and get organized for September when everything would start getting busy again.
A few hometown highlights that I find amusing or that I am proud of is that the TeleGazette (local newspaper) ran a full page article about me and what I am doing living in Starobelsk so now I am a local celebrity. A lot of people have come up and introduced themselves to me, so that has made my life a bit more interesting. I’ve mingled drank beer in gardens and mingled with turkeys. I’ve swam in the river. I joined another banya group so I am expanding my group of contacts. I have a local masseuse now. For the equivalent of five dollars, I can get a massage. The massages are definitely culturally interesting, but hey, that’s what I am here for… to learn about and experience a new culture. I was treated like one of the girls and was invited to order watermelons to be delivered with my neighbor and landlady. I bought 50 kgs. (110 lbs. or 14 small watermelons) and have been eating watermelon pretty much daily for almost a month now. I’ve had my first Peace Corps Volunteer visitors and hosted an American BBQ with a few Ukrainians in attendance. And finally, the following happened this morning.
As I was making my coffee and breakfast this morning, I could see Natasha through the window doing something in the yard with Lydia Kirilova (our neighbor -- side note... Everyone has more or less the same first name. I know a handful of Natashas, Ludas, Oksanas, Svetas, Lydas... it goes on and on. The same for boys names, so in conversation its normal to refer to someone with their full name, thus Lydia Kirilova). Usually when they fuss budget like that at the fence it is in reference to some kind of food delivery. Last one I witnessed was the watermelons.

All was revealed as Natasha bustled into the house fisting two large plastic bags. She looked at me and said, 'Amy! Reeboo! (Amy! Fish!), and proceeded to try to jam the two rather large bags of fish into the fridge muttering something about Operatszi Reeboo (Operation Fish). I chuckled at that and imagined the Mission Impossible theme-song playing in the background knowing that in the very near future there would be a huge production of chopping, slicing, salting and preserving going on on the porch today. She was excited about the fish, me not so much. Large deliveries of watermelons, amusing. Large deliveries of tomatoes, interesting and colorful. Large deliveries of fish... eck. Stinky.

Then she jumped up, washed her hands, put on some makeup and her sunglasses and told me she was going to the market. Amy! Operatszi Okroshka (Operation Okroshka)! Now that is more like it.

(Okroshka is a cold sour cream-based cucumber and dill soup with finely chopped potatoes, green onions, hard-boiled eggs, and ham or kielbasa. Mighty tasty).

Photos from Slaviansk

Photos from weekend at the sanatorium with the kids from Caroline's organization. Kids are from all over Lugansk Oblast. Caroline's organization fights for inclusion of disabled kids in schools and disabled rights. I'll blog more about the weekend later. A small group of us also visited the Lavra in Slaviansk.

Sanatorium

Well, there you have it. May is over even before it started. Time is flying, yet I am admittedly kind of bored. I have read a shit ton of books and do manage to keep myself relatively busy, but time seems to be passing without anything to show for it. In retrospect, that is not true, but coming from the very results driven USA, it’s hard to take pride in all the little things.

Easter came and went. I celebrated in Lugansk with a small handful of PCVs. We spent the weekend preparing for the big To-Do the following weekend. Caroline’s organization for Disabled People in Lugansk Oblast was hosting a Peace Corps 50th Anniversary Celebration in the form of a Variety Show style kids party for the kids who are involved in Caroline’s organization. There was singing, wheelchair dancing, an Easter egg hunt and tons of games and arts and crafts. It was a hit! The kids loved it. I got to bust out my Origami skills and taught people how to make paper cranes. There was play dough, Uno, and cookies and tea. And once done, we celebrated with a great dinner at Caroline’s and pancakes somewhere along the line. At some point we also went to a traditional Ukrainian dance performance which was great. Check out the pictures of the awesome 50th Anniversary Banner that Caroline and I slaved away on.

It feels like after that my landlady’s daughter and daughter’s boyfriend came to visit. This was great, because Anya speaks English so finally there was a bit more dialogue back and forth than the usual basics. I also learned that when my landlady’s kids come to visit, she cooks up a storm. So we ate well. This was also the weekend where I learned about the coming of Baby. Apparently the house-cat had a baby, a tiny little orange ball of fur that I fell in love with. Unfortunately, my love was all for naught, because yesterday during lunch (after about 3 weeks with Baby), my landlady announced that Baby was gone. Some lady with a basket came to the shop and took her away. Then she said, but don’t cry Amy, there will be other babies. So hardcore.

I got invited to the first picnics of picnic season. One was spent in the garden of one of Vera’s friends. Apparently we were invited for beer and snacks, but this woman’s house is way out there, close to the river with an awesome view. Apparently, she also has a pregnant cow and real turkeys. So I had a few beers and started harassing the turkeys by mimicking the gobble gobble noise that turkeys make. The turkey would respond EVERY TIME! Perhaps it was the beer and weird home-made hootch that we drank that made this so hilarious to me, but it was awesome.
The next awesome picnic was more of a BBQ at home. My landlady and her friends all chipped in for steak on Victory Day and we drank and had a great BBQ. After I met up with my friend Luda and we went and watched all the celebrations and concerts that were going in the center of town. This included some kids rapping in English which was hilarious. (Kids, if you happen to be reading this, I will gladly offer my rap-tastic assistance for the next performance. If you are going to be performing in front of native English speakers, there is some work that needs to be done). Apparently, firework safety is a little less stringent in Ukraine. The night ended with a bang, which thankfully didn’t result in any injuries, but aren’t things a little too close for comfort when you have firework detritus falling in your hair?

Probably the coolest thing that happened in May was my witnessing a fight. In Starobelsk, there is a small group of people here that are passionate about standing up for their rights and standing up against corruption. Corruption is a big problem in Ukraine. The fact that these people are standing up and speaking out is awesome. I tagged along with my tutor to a meeting that resulted in some serious screaming and a little bit of neck clawing and shirt ripping. One of the corrupt was the one who did the lashing out. One of those standing up was the victim. It’s just exciting to see some passion here. I don’t want to get too much into it, but there are not a lot of people here willing to question authority. Or for that matter, there are not a lot of people here who even think that there is anything to question about authority. Shit happens, they accept it, because the mentality is that they can’t do anything to change things. Well, change is happening. Albeit in small pockets, but I am excited to be able to witness it.

And on that note, I have hit a point where I am suffering from the blahs. The weather is changing and the HOT has come. Work is a foreign concept unless it involves your garden. Things just seem to have slowed down, A LOT. I am battling with my American concept of productivity and trying to relax and appreciate my experience here in our village in Ukraine. It’s hard for me, but Summer is here and my self-imposed ban on travel is over in a few days. It’s time to start getting a move on again.

April flies by

Again the time has flown by really fast and all of a sudden I am behind on the blog again. More funny stories have ensued. I should really start jotting this all down (says she as she pulls out a piece of paper and a pen and tries to recall the past few weeks… again).

Well let’s see. I think I mentioned that I have already been embraced into a weekly banya group. So Wednesday nights for me, are now occupied. When I am free I go to my twice weekly yoga class and then the rest of the week seems to fill up rather nicely as the days go on. I’m working on getting up in the morning and running or doing yoga and that has been going well. Still looking for other opportunities for group athletics, but I think that is something that will come with time.

I took a mini-trip to Lugansk for a couple of days. I managed to snag an extra ticket that Caroline had to an organ concert. The concert was pretty amazing. It was a situation that for me is difficult to sit through without fidgeting, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Because the concert was in the evening on a Thursday, and I had a PC meeting on Saturday with the Lugansk volunteers, I stayed through on Friday and helped Caroline with her English Clubs for disabled kids which I had a good time with. Friday night the PCVs decended on Lugansk and we made pizza at Caroline’s and topped off a few bottles of wine. It was a fun night. My big lesson learned from the weekend was how to get home from Lugansk from my site. To get to Lugansk, I figured out that if I jumped out of the bus near the ferris wheel coming into town I was reasonably close to the train station and could walk to Caroline’s from there. Leaving town on the other hand was not that easy. Logic said that I could stand near the ferris wheel and grab a bus back to my town. Nope. I stood out there for an hour in freezing wind and inevitably gave up and crashed with Wyoming, heading to the bus station first thing in the morning. So note to self: Suck up the bus ride to the bus station and buy a ticket legitimately. Waiting on the side of the road for a bus is a crap shoot.

In returning to Starobelsk I had what turned out to be a really busy week. Yoga and then Banya on Wednesday where the girls made a date with me to do drinks on Friday. There was an event at the library and a famous Ukrainian author came to do a reading of his poetry and to promote his latest novel. Our reading room was packed. Unfortunately, the author spoke Ukrainian, so I understood even less than usual, but it was still a fun gathering. And in true Ukrainian style I got to take my picture with the author. The other weird occurrence was my tutor dragging me into the hallway of the library and presenting me to this man and saying, ‘Amy are you free tonight’. ‘Well, yes, I suppose I am’. And then the question, ‘Are you interested’? Not sure what I was answering yes to, but since we are told to accept all invitations in the beginning, I said, Yes I am interested, and then completely regretting it because I thought there was a chance I was getting fixed up on a date since the whole thing was introduced as a way for me to meet people my age. Turns out I was going to hang out with the director of the youth theater group. Yes, he is roughly my age. And yes, I was very relieved to be surrounded by about 15 youth of various ages including two of English Club members.

Friday, I thought I was invited to see the Ms. Starobelsk pageant or contest. I walked to the House of Culture and called the person who I thought invited me. Turns out, it wasn’t for her to invite me. Or maybe it was. She invited me and told me about it, apparently the director of the library was supposed to give me a ticket. There was some kind of a misunderstanding and I was standing around without at ticket. I figured the situation was awkward enough as it was so I bounced and went home and got ready for my night out with the Banya girls.

Night out with the Banya girls was awesome. We apparently were meeting for dinner and drinks, but I misunderstood that part. It’s my understanding that in Ukraine, people don’t go out to dinner often, because it is so expensive. So I thought we were just going out for drinks. Nope, I had to eat dinner twice, because apparently it was my birthday celebration. There were 5 of us and between 2 of us we drank 3 bottles of wine and the other 3 girls drank two bottles of vodka. There was a lot of bad dancing. I tried to mix it up a little and was told to ‘Stop dancing like that, this isn’t New York City’. I really thought the bad dancing was just bad dancing, but apparently it’s a thing, a style per say. Good thing I am a quick study. I started dancing bad too so I could fit in with my new friends. At a certain point some guys started smoking in the restaurant that we were in and my friend was like, that’s it. I’m calling the cops. And she did. Next thing I know all 5 of us are in the back of a cop car crammed in with the two cops. The cops gave us a ride to the club, where there was more bad dancing and this is where we ended the night.

My birthday turned out to be great. The day before my birthday I just relaxed and read and watched some movies which is something that I have been wanting to do for months now. On my birthday, I slept in and my landlady presented me with a pair of neon orange underwear and a handkerchief. My tutor came over at 10:30 bearing a cake and a photo album of Poltava. Then came the onslaught of phone calls from people in town and people from home. I think there was a good 4 hour chunk of time where I was on Skype back to back with different people. The birthday celebrations continued on Monday with my friend at the library giving me some chocolates and then my secondary organization gave me some towels and another cake.

Then came my first trip to Kiev from my new site. We are talking a 2 hour marshrutka ride plus a 15 hour train. Thankfully, I downloaded an audio book and a whole bunch of new books for my Kindle so the trip was actually pretty relaxing. I got a lot of reading done. In Kiev, I got to hook up with Emily and Kim for my birthday. We went to a halal café that I remembered had some really good marinated chicken kebabs for not too much money. I unfortunately must have eaten something not good for lunch before because I had to high-tail it into a fast food joint for a toilet on the walk home. This also kept my drinking to a minimum so I was not the life of the party, but it was great to see my peeps. I then got on the train for my 15 hour train ride back and apparently had a chronic belcher in my compartment. Yep, that’s right, but this time it wasn’t me. There was someone standing in the hallway for awhile burping really, really loud and I had trouble being mature. I kept snickering and later realized that the belcher was the doctor in my compartment because she was burping in the compartment later. She spoke some English so asked me where I was from. I told her where I was living and working and she made two really kind of funny comments. I told her I worked at a library and she said, ‘So there are people who read in Starobelsk!?!’ She told me she was from Lugansk and I told her I really liked Lugansk as a city. She looked at me and said, ‘Lugansk is a hole’. You should go see Odessa. Okay, fair enough. I could see this conversation wasn’t going anywhere too positive so I politely said, Well, yes, it is my goal to see Odessa and Lviv by the end of the end of the summer. Then I hopped back up on my bunk and opened my book. She belched. I snickered.

I got home after my journey to someone in my house with my landlady. Apparently, my landlady was having a sort of reunion with her friends who work the Olympiad, which to my understanding is some kind of academic competition. We sat down for a meal and I offered up one of my bottles of Spanish wine that I had acquired at the Wine Mania store in Lugansk. The guy later went out and grabbed a bottle of Crimean wine. My landlady left to walk her other friend home and the guy offered to give me a foot massage. I politely declined and since my feet were on the couch next to me, he decided to start rubbing my foot anyway. Now see, I really don’t understand why this happens to me. I don’t flirt with people. I am cordial and polite and then someone feels the need to touch me and I have no idea how to deal with this situation politely. So I sat there squirming for a couple of minutes then swung my feet on the floor and got up and left the room. What else is a girl to do!?! I think my landlady is still puzzled as to why I spent the remainder of the night in my room avoiding the foot toucher. Anyhow so ends my busy week as I patiently wait for what other uncomfortable and awkward situations will come my way.

New Site New Life

When I write my blog, I truly intend to stay up to date with it and keep the stories coming. But, then life happens and all of a sudden several weeks have gone by in the blink of an eye.

My new site has been nothing but amazing. I think I am quickly approaching the one month mark here and I have been embraced with open arms. Things have been happening so fast, I barely know where to begin. I guess I should introduce my new site. I moved to Starobelsk in Luganska Oblast. I am on the far East side of the country, and I am basically about an hour drive to Russia in a few directions. To travel to Kiev, I have to take a roughly two hour bus ride to Lugansk and then a 15 to 17 hour train ride. CRAZY! But, oddly enough, instead of feeling isolated here, I feel welcome.

My new job post is a library, the central library in the district or rayon. I should probably mention that there was a previous volunteer who just medically separated about 3 months before her close of service. She totally paved the way for me here. She laid some foundation work at the library and I am trying to pick up where she left off. There is a weekly English Club, I have already asked for book donations from two different programs, and this week I am hoping to write a water grant to install a toilet in the library. Can you believe the library doesn’t have a toilet? Fortunately, there is a great program that offers grants to do responsible water projects and new toilets fit the bill. Once I get that one written up, I’ll be asking friends and family to donate towards the toilet, eh hem… hint hint. Don’t worry it’s a relatively small grant with a max of a little over 500 dollars so every little bit helps and you can write it off.

Thanks to the previous volunteer, I also have an amazing secondary project site where I’ll admit I spend the majority of my time. It’s a non-profit organization called Viktoria and they do a variety of projects dealing with human rights, women’s rights, civic education, and anti-corruption. It’s a really great place and I will also be doing a project with them that I will ask for support for (again, hint hint). My boss there is named Vera and she is amazing. She and two other ladies fight corruption in the bazaar and I have nicknamed them The Warriors. Everyday they come to the office and have these really heated discussions and write petitions and letters to administration. I only understand half of what they are saying, but the level of energy expended is great. These ladies have some seriously heated discussions. It’s really great to see such passion and dedication. Rosa and Nina also always bring food. So I have been fed pretty much every day I show up at the office. I’m getting badgered with the cooshites (eat Amy eat) again.

I have also had a sort of guardian angel to help me here. The previous volunteer sent her friend and travel buddy Olga my way in the form of a tutor, but she has been so much more than that. She has really helped me a lot with the settling in process and she continues to be a solid advocate for me. She is helping me meet people, she shows me important things around the town, and she helped me secure my new apartment which is awesome. She also comes to my English Club at the library and helps me when I struggle by asking great questions, and she also acts as an interpreter at times in a very interesting way. Olga’s English is so so, but she was a French teacher and speaks French fluently. So we communicate in French when it’s important that we understand each other perfectly. So for example, I had a meeting at the library and they asked her to translate, she spoke to me in French, I asked her questions in French, etc. It’s not the most efficient way for me to understand things here, but it works.

The first English Club went by really fast. I had a decent-sized group and the people all spoke at a relatively decent conversational level. I introduced myself and let the group introduce themselves, and then I told them they could ask me questions about me or America, etc. Olga went last and asked me kind of an odd question at the time. She asked me, ‘Do you believe in destiny?’ Well, I thought that question was a bit odd at the time. But, a week later it kind of came back to bite me. Over the past summer I participated in a camp and it kind of got hijacked by a group of American Baptists. If memory serves me right, the blog entry was titled The Karate Kids Save the Day. We ended up making the best of the situation, but the hijacking kind of ruined our program. We did get to work with a great group of kids that I wrote about way back when and called them ‘The Karate Kids’. They were kick ass. They ended up boycotting the Baptist camp and heading out solo to camp by the river so that they didn’t have to have anything to do with the religious stuff that was kind of getting crammed down their throats. Turns out, the Karate Kids are from Starobelsk. I got invited to a karate exhibition and guess who… the Karate Kids from camp. I ended up having tea last week with one of the older ‘kids’ who is actually an English teacher in town. Ukraine is a pretty big country. The odds of my getting reunited with these kids were pretty slim. Now tell me that Olga’s question about destiny doesn’t send chills up and down your spine. It’s really as if I was meant to come here. I had to go through all that crap at the other site, to finally end up where I belonged all along.

Vera, the lead Warrior, is also a source of a few interesting stories. First let me say, Vera has embraced me as one of her own the moment Olga dragged me into her office to make the introductions. She is great and even though she doesn’t speak English, we communicate really well. She understands how to speak with someone who is just learning Russian. Anyhow, basically her little office in the hotel where she rents space is now my office. She told me to make myself at home and feel free to come and work there. It’s great. The first funny Vera story was my first Friday night in my new apartment, I decided to go out and grab some cookies. I needed something sweet. When I was in the store this women wearing this enormous furry hooded jacket grabbed my arm, turned to me in the way that you have to turn if you are wearing a giant hood and looked at me and said, ‘Amy, are you going to Vera’s?’ I vaguely remembered meeting this woman, but told her, no. I wasn’t planning on it. But then I thought better and asked her, ‘What is going on at Vera’s?’ She looked at me and said, ‘I can’t tell you here, I will tell you outside.’ Fair enough. So she drags me outside and says slowing flicking her neck. ‘We are going to get drunk! You are coming with me!’. Okeedokee. So started the first vodka night with the girls. Vera has also introduced me to another group of girls who banya/sauna once a week. So I already have a banya group!

I also got invited to a yoga class twice a week for retired ladies. One of my English Club members invited me and I went because I am trying to meet new people and I want to practice yoga. I figured, why not? The pace is good for someone who doesn’t speak the language well and it’s a complete hoot to see these ladies do some of the rocking back and forth poses. It’s something akin to Weeble Wobbles rocking back and forth. Oh and the class is held in a hallway on the third floor of one of the schools. So picture 10-15 ladies stacked down a hallway doing yoga. I would love to take a photo sometime, but I don’t dare. I’m already the outsider being around 20 years younger than the other participants. I don’t want to ‘rock’ the boat.

My last bit of great news is that I was put up in temporary housing for two weeks when I first got here while they were waiting for my apartment to open up. (Temporary housing was akin to indoor camping). Well for some reason, I lost the apartment that I was waiting for and Olga decided that I should move into the previous volunteer’s apartment. There was some question as to whether the previous volunteer would be returning from her medevac, so they were holding it for her, but it turns out that she will not return, so apartment is mine. So, I got to move into her room. I do have a landlady now, but Natasha is an incredibly energetic and happy woman who has a great sense of humor. She is also an AMAZING cook and more often than not is shoving food down my throat. She is an awesome roommate. And her apartment is very ‘luxe’. There is a shower pod with hot water, great water pressure and it rains from the shower ceiling, a kitchen with all the amenities and appliances (re: microwave and toaster oven), a washing machine, a television, and unlimited internet. I do have to kick in some of my own money each month for the rent, but considering she throws in food, the internet is unlimited, and she does the cleaning, it is well worth it. Oh and maybe the best part is that she has a garden in back and a porch, but not a rinky dinky porch, a real porch. And apparently she has 38 different kinds of roses in the garden. I can’t wait for the weather to get better so that I can sit on the porch and drink coffee in the morning. It’s going to be so nice. Oh and did I mention that it is in the center of town and literally a two minute walk from both my primary and my secondary sites? Awesome.

The past few weeks brings to mind a good quote… ‘Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it’. And on that note, I think I breezed past the one year in Ukraine mark a week ago.

Lots of Change

It’s been three weeks since I returned to Ukraine, and A LOT has happened. A LOT. I am just starting to feel like my feet are solidly underneath me after everything. When I got off the plane here, I had no idea where I would be going. Well, first stop Peace Corps office, but other than that a lot was still up in the air. I walked in the office and for all intents and purposes there was not one person there who knew what to do with me. My Regional Manager was out of the office and I’m not sure that he was appraised that I would be returning to Ukraine, and the Medical Office knowing that I was deemed healthy had figuratively washed their hands of me. I literally walked up and down there stairs between two offices at least ten times in a little over an hour to figure out where I would be going next.

The program people wanted me to go back to my old site, since my new site hadn’t found me an apartment yet. My RM told me I was never going back to my old site and I didn’t really want to go back there. Unfortunately, decisions had to be made on the spot and I was kind of homeless in Ukraine. I wanted to go to hang at Conor’s site for a couple of days until the dust settled, but administratively that didn’t make sense to the people in the office. Many panicked phone calls were made to my RM, my new site, my old site, etc. I was literally a few steps away from the ticket window at the train station and my RM called and told me to wait a few minutes and that he would call me back with a plan.

The short back story being that all of my stuff minus my valuables that I took with me to DC were still in my old apt. in Balakleya. After almost a year, I have accumulated a lot of stuff in addition to what I had already. Plus the PC gives us a space heater, a fire extinguisher, and about 30 lbs. of written materials during training. When all is said and done, I had the equivalent of 4 large suitcases, 3 smaller bags, and a backpack (filled with my laptop, my new Netbook that I picked up in the states since my laptop might not make it much longer, Kindle, camera, and all the wires that go along with that). Plus a gigantic backpack of food that I entrusted to Kim with the assumption that I might not make it back to Ukraine and I wanted my closest friends to reap the benefits of my cache of American foodstuffs – peanut butter, hot sauces, mac & cheese, and Nature Valley granola bars. (That bag is still with Kim, figuring out how to get it back is still in process. I miss my hot sauce!).

My RM called me back and told me to buy a ticket to my old site for the next day. If I was there and if my new site was able to find me housing he would come with the Peace Corps car and move me to my new site. If not, I was on my own. Well, I took a chance that my new site would be able to find me housing ASAP and went back to my old site. Unfortunately, finding an apartment in 24 hours is a huge feat and it didn’t happen, so my RM called me back and told me I was on my own for the move. Well shit. How does one girl move 4 large suitcases, 3 smaller bags, and a backpack down 3 flights of stairs, and onto a train at 3:43 in the morning when the train only stops for 2 minutes? How? Well another PCV comes to the rescue with her Ukrainian counterpart at 12:30 am and they help me with the help of two taxis and drivers on one end and one taxi and drivers on the other. This was a real Ukrainian adventure.

The day after my RM called to say he would not help me, my new site came through with temporary housing. So he told me to saddle up and get to Lugansk and that my new people would pick me up from the train station. Well, this was impossible on my own. So a 69 year old PCV volunteered to bring her 22 year old friend on a middle of the night train adventure. They took the train from Lugansk to my town (a 7 hour train ride) and arrived at mine at 12:30 am. We had a beer, shot the shit, I finished packing and we met our taxi drivers outside with all the bags at 3 am. The taxis brought us and all the junk to the platform and we hoped that we were in the right place since you have to get on the correct ticketed car and running with 4 large suitcases and 3 small bags was not an option. We were about 30 feet off the mark, but managed to get everything and ourselves on the train in the two minute window. I bought an extra berth for the baggage, the train attendants were not pleased, but all in all, it worked out. Seven hours later, we were in Lugansk and thankfully that was the end of the line for the train so we could take our time unloading. We manage to hail a cab, he helped us with the bags and we crammed all the bags, plus the three of us, plus driver into a car the size of an early 80s Toyota Corolla hatchback. It was really amazing. On the Lugansk end, Caroline, generously volunteered a corner of her living room for my stuff and a couch for me to sleep on until my people picked me up.

At this point, the operative question was, when would they pick me up? First it was Tuesday. Then it was Wednesday. Then it was Wednesday or Thursday. But finally it was definitely on Friday. So on Friday, I was ready to go. My friends came over to help again, with the 22 year old Ukrainian very graciously translating everything so everyone could understand. The car that came to pick me up was the equivalent of a mini-Jeep. The mini-Jeep had a huge spare tire in the minimal trunk space. My new people also packed 3 people in the car. So, there was only room in the car for me and one suitcase. This spiraled into a quick panicked negotiation where they agreed that they would come back the following day with an empty vehicle and that I would just bring the one suitcase and whatever I needed for the night. So I did. I hopped in a car full of strangers with only a few of my belongings and set off on a 2 hour ride.

We arrived in town and I would be renting a small house for two weeks until my permanent apartment was ready on March 25th. Well, let’s just say for two weeks the house was passable, but not comfortable. I equate the experience to indoor camping. The bathroom and the stove were in a converted porch (this means these two rooms are FREEZING at all times). There were three rooms in the house, but for heating purposes we kept my one with the fridge and the table closed off from the rest of the house. They moved a divan for me to sleep on into the room and closed the doors to the other two rooms and sparked up the gas heater. I could see my breath. It was freezing in the room and there was some kind of miscommunication between the Peace Corps and my organization. They didn’t have sheets, blankets, or even pots and pans for me to use. So, here I was in this freezing house with no blankets and no kettle, no nothing. At least if I had my stuff, I would have had a sleeping bag and a little pillow, but it never occurred to me to pack that in my overnight essentials. I called my RM and he said, ‘Amy, ask them to take you to the bus station and catch the first bus back to Lugansk and stay with Caroline for the night. They are not prepared. Let them get prepared and they can pick you and the rest of your stuff up tomorrow’. At that point, I just wanted to scream. What a nightmare!?!

This is where I am repeating to myself in my head all the Peace Corps mottos… ‘It’s the toughest job you will ever love’, ‘How far will you go?’, you should be prepared to serve in hardship conditions, etc… I took a deep breath and went to the bus station, bought a ticket, and headed back to Caroline in Lugansk.
Prior to my Peace Corps experience, I considered myself to be a very patient person. This past year has taught me that I am capable of so much more. If I ever doubted my strength, this proves that I am one tough cookie. Something kept me going. I knew that if I could get through this without going totally bonkers, it would be worth it. New site, new people, new beginning, new opportunities, and most importantly a new adventure. It will be worth it. I just kept repeating that over and over again.

The next day would be a new day, they would pick me up and everything would be fine. And for the most part it was. They picked me and my stuff up, we side-tripped to pick up the driver’s son. He squished in with my stuff in the back seat. The house was still freezing despite the fact that the heat was cranking for 24 hours at that point, but I had my thermals and my sleeping bag to make it work this time around. My Director brought me a kettle, a pot, bowl, cup, set of utensils, sheets, pillow and light blanket. I had my Peace Corps space heater. Hey, it’s just like camping indoors, right? It’s only for two weeks and the people I met were amazingly kind. The vibe was completely different from my last site so I knew that as long as I rolled with the punches things were turn out to be alright. And after a little more than a week, it has turned out to be much better than I could have ever dreamed.

Medevac

Holy whirlwind Batman. After packing up my apartment in Balakleya, I hurried back to Kiev and got ready to head back to Washington, DC for medevac. I slept in the Peace Corps office in sick bay and they drove me to the airport at 3 am or something and then wham bam thank you ma’am, later that same day (due to the time change) my brother picked me up at Dulles and we grabbed dinner before he drove me to Georgetown to the hotel that I would be living at for the next three weeks. I should note that the dinner tasted like the most amazing thing I have ever eaten. It was grilled salmon over a bed of mixed green salad with blue cheese, pieces of boiled potatoes, pecans, pine nuts, figs, tomatoes… it was amazing. Salads in Ukraine tend to be simple, either tomatoes and cucumbers, or cabbage, or something not all that vegetable related and mayonnaise laden (i.e. cubed lunch meats, kielbasa, peas and mayo or something gross like that). Lettuce is not readily available in most places and as for mixed greens and baby lettuces, forget about it. Blue cheese is hard to find and at the point I ate this magnificent salad, I had not eaten grilled salmon since I left the States at the end of March last year. Needless to say, it was quite possibly the best salad I have ever eaten. This is something you can only appreciate if you have been deprived of or are not able to access the food stuffs in that salad.

Much of my medevac was an exercise in food porn. I had a list of certain foods I HAD to eat while I was in the States and overall, I think I did a good job. It only helped my cause that I was in Georgetown surrounded by tons of good eateries. In addition to food, I had a bunch of whirlwind visits with my friends. Danya came to DC the first weekend I was there. Elizabeth was in town for work my first week. My second weekend, I took a train to Connecticut to see the folks, family and friends. The third weekend I took the Megabus to NYC and caught up with my friends there. I was constantly busy. One of the days in NYC, I had a lunch date, followed by a coffee date, followed by drinks and dinner, followed by a jazz concert, and I crammed in a manicure all with different sets of friends. I definitely made good use of my time and still managed to eat a NY slice and NY bagel at some point.

In addition to all the travelling and visits, I also caught up with friends in DC and took some pretty amazing walks around the city since the weather was just starting to open up to Spring. I had an amazing roommate at the hotel who helped me keep things light and assisted me in taste testing the various cupcakes, cookies and pies in the immediate vicinity of the hotel. We bonded over trash TV and lounging on the couch. What could have been a very stressful experience was made all that much more comfortable by someone I just clicked with. It was a great three weeks and now, if I want, I have a PCV to visit in South Africa.

While all this sounds great and fun, I was also going through a barrage of tests that were neither easy, nor pleasant. I left Ukraine very uncertain about my health and almost certain that I wouldn’t be allowed to return to Ukraine and finish my service, but as it turns out I was perfectly healthy and all the cause for alarm was just dated mammography and ultrasound equipment in Ukraine. In DC, I got poked, prodded, biopsied, squished and scanned and everything turned out to be okay. So guess what? I was headed back to Ukraine. But the operative question was, where was I going when I got back to Ukraine?

Right before I left on medevac it was determined that I would be changing sites and moving somewhere else due to the problems I was having with my organization in Balakleya. I had emailed the Peace Corps the week before I returned, but to no avail since people were on the road travelling. So when I arrived I had no idea where to go, and as I soon learned, they didn’t know quite where to send me either. So the adventure continues.