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.
