The ‘Awesome-est’
After determining that I wanted to do ‘something’ this past weekend, Conor decided (with a little prodding from me) that he would take the plunge and do some solo train travel to come visit me in Balakleya. This immediately perked me up after a trying week since it would give me something ‘awesome’ to look forward to.
My one regret being the ‘big fail’ that after two weeks of asking for help in buying a new bed or mattress, I still don’t have a new bed or mattress to show for it. But everything takes a bit more time here, so I know I have to be patient. Being patient is hard to do when one is sleep deprived, but hey… The divan that I sleep on, (likely purchased in 1953, my guesstimate based on the fabric), is the noisiest bed I have ever slept on. I inhale too deeply and the bed creaks and wakes me up. Forget lying on my side or stomach, sleeping on my back is the only way I can sleep without waking up in pain. When the Peace Corps said we would have to be willing to serve despite hardships, this isn’t exactly what envisioned. I may or may not have mentioned that the first time I sat on the divan, I almost fell through it… the industrial strength fabric and some not deteriorated cushioning, the only thing holding me from falling straight through to the floor. Oh well, Conor would now have a new intimate understanding of just how uncomfortable a bed can get… it is Peace Corps, right? And he is pretty used to discomfort at this point in his life, being 6’7” tall, he doesn’t exactly fit length-wise on to pretty much all the beds here.
But most importantly, I was getting my first visitor in Balakleya and a different perspective on my apartment and town would be within reach as soon as he got here. Conor getting here also proved to be an important step in my learning how to do ‘new’ things seeing as the train from Markeevka drops him here at 3:16 am, I would have to devise a safe means of picking him up as it is probably not the safest thing to walk the 25 minutes to the train station by myself after dark. The sun does start to rise at that point in time in Ukraine, but it’s not quite light enough for me to make my way on my own. So, I would have to call for a taxi to pick me up at 3 in the morning and be able to communicate where I live effectively enough for it to work. The backup plan being that Conor would take a taxi from the station by himself and give the taxi driver my address and hope for the best.
Luckily, I called the dispatcher, explained that I spoke poor Russian, and that I needed a taxi to the train station. She asked me my address, I gave it to her… and then she apparently asked me which entrance to my building I was at. I had no idea, but… I said that I was close to the pharmacy and that seemed to work, and surprisingly a taxi arrived and took me to the train station. Classe (Cool). I was at the station in time to beat Conor there. And, Conor got off the train in Balakleya, so seemingly another successful travel experience. We celebrated by walking back to my apartment, which I could now do, because I had a male accompaniment. We got back to my apartment, I gave him the quick tour, he took a quick post-train trip bucket shower and we passed out for a couple of hours. I had to get up at 7 to go to work (I was going in late and would try for 8:30 instead of 9).
That said, I did get up and go to work. I got there at 8:30 in the morning… and waited, and waited, and waited for 45 minutes, since my colleagues failed to tell me no one was really coming to work that day. While I was waiting I got attacked by a very adamant bee. He bit me, I kept moving around, but apparently he liked the smell of my sweat or something because he kept making a ‘beeline’ straight for me. I did the crazy bee is chasing me dance while some of the ladies in the next building looked on. When the cleaning lady showed up she saw me standing there and told me not to bother coming in before 9, I would be waiting more often than not. Decision made, I will no longer make the effort to get there at 8 seeing as this was not the first time, not the second, and not the third time I had to wait for someone to show up.
Of course, Friday was the day my boss decided to bring in a translator. The only reason I knew this ahead of time and felt compelled to show up on little sleep was because I called my regional manager earlier in the week due to all the communication problems me and my boss seemed to be having. He called my boss, and of course, my boss told him what he thought my regional manager wanted to hear and told him he would have a translator come in on Friday. My boss did not show up on Thursday so didn’t tell me that we would be meeting with the translator on Friday. The result of the translator was that we still had communication problems due to the fact that my boss refused to answer my questions when I asked for details and in turn asked questions that I didn’t have answers for. And after my regional manager told him to stop badgering me about grants, he continued to badger me about grants, but also decided to badger me about doing a business training when I mentioned that I was leaving for a week in August to go to a business camp. So now, his latest is to harass me about organizing a business training for September, but refuses to tell me what he would like to achieve from the business training. My follow up question being, what type of topics would he like me to cover, then him replying… ‘Oh, I don’t know’. Makes me want to pull… out… all… of… my… hair.
But, in the grand scheme of things, this didn’t matter. I knew that as soon as the meeting was over, I could hit the road and go home to Conor, which is what I did as soon as we finished. He was giving the translator a ride back into town and I hitched along for the ride. Only to have to turn right back around and walk back once I got to the center, because Conor has decided to try and meet me at the office. On a different note sitting next to me in the back seat of the car was a huge TV. My boss told me it was for me. He told me he would drop it off that evening… 4 days later, I am still waiting for this TV. Go figure.
After heading home and dropping off my stuff, Conor and I headed to this cool little Uzbek restaurant in the center of town. It has great food and it was a nice spot to sit and have a few beers. (From the outside, I honestly thought it was just a bar that served kebabs). It was a place that I didn’t feel comfortable going on my own since there are certain connotations with a woman drinking solo in Ukraine, but now that I have been there with Conor, I feel like I can go back and grab dinner by myself. No big deal.
Prior to Conor coming for the visit, I decided to purchase him a little surprise. All throughout training, he constantly wanted to go to bars where you could smoke a hookah. Apparently, smoking from a hookah is all the rage in Ukraine. During training, we smoked the hookah a few times, my favorite being the cherry tobacco. Strangely enough, I could buy a hookah at my grocery store, and cherry tobacco, as well as melon, grape, apple, etc… So I bought a hookah. And so, Conor and I smoked a hookah at my kitchen table in Balakleya. We turned on a little music, drank a little beer, and smoked a little hookah. This made for a nice relaxing afternoon, after which I made Conor a banging dinner with cabbage, mushrooms, onions, kielbasa and a couple different kinds of varenicky (pierogi).
The next day we had a relaxing morning and a big brunch. I had managed to find some spicy peppers, so we fried up some potatoes and onions with the peppers and some mushrooms and then I made cheese and tomato scrambled eggs. I tried to make a good Bloody Mary, but have to work on my recipe a bit. Apparently, I killed Conor with too much horseradish.
We took a nice long walk that day and explored different parts of Balakleya that I didn’t feel comfortable walking to on my own. We walked through the park, found the sports club which has a decent soccer field and apparently a boxing club which meets Monday and Wednesday afternoons. We found a fancy building that might be the Palace of Culture, however, there is another Palace of Culture on the other side of town actually called a Palace of Culture. So, I am not quite sure what this building is. We then walked the long way to the high school. There seem to be brand new apartment buildings over there, probably built in the past 5 years, but it’s clear that no one is living in them. We walked over behind the Palace of Culture and saw that there might be a nice overlook with a view that Conor could take a picture of. What it turned out to be was the river beach below, and tons of people were swimming down there. So we walked down and took a look. It looked like a nice place to sit out and take a cool dip. We then tried to go to the pizza restaurant in town, but there was a coat rack in front of the entrance and it looked like people were just hanging out with store bought boxes of juice, so we high-tailed it out of there and headed back to the Uzbek restaurant.
Sunday, I made another great breakfast. Fried eggs with little mini-grilled cheese sandwiches and fried mushrooms and kielbasa with a side of cheese stuffed olives that I found at the store. I am trying to make up for the months of greasy over-cooked pasta that Conor was forced to subsist on during training. I think I am doing a good job.
We then took a little adventure and walked down to the river and went swimming with the locals. We swam, we drank a beer, and we ate some ice cream just like everyone else was doing. I might try going by myself this weekend. There are enough babushkas and small children around that hopefully no one will mess with me. After a couple of hours we were both well-cooked in the sun so we headed back to my place and I made melted cheese and salami sandwiches. Conor helpfully demanded the addition of fresh tomatoes which made for an even tastier sandwich. We sacked out for an hour or two after that and then a tropical storm blew through town for a couple of hours. Good thing we decided to go to the beach early. The storm made for a nice lazy day, we watched the storm, watched a movie, smoked the hookah, played some cards, and I read a bit. Conor made me a banging dinner that night. All in all it was a nice visit with the Con-man, but all too soon he had to go to the train station for midnight and head back to Khartsitz.
