A few notable things have happened since getting back from Khartsitsk, one joyous, one frightening, one interesting, and then one just hilarious, but as I have learned from my limited experience here, it is best to just take everything in stride.
My first day back after my big trip that I arrived home from at around 3:30 in the morning, apparently, I was expected at work at 8. Coming from working in non-profits in New York where I had pretty liberal managers that didn’t really care what time I came in as long as it was reasonably on time give or take an hour and I got my work done, it was a bit strange to get three phone calls from my co-workers since I decided to show up at 9 instead of 8 after a crumby night of sleep. I am choosing to think that they were just worried that I somehow didn’t make it home. But really, three phone calls? It’s a 40 minute walk, and it’s not like I can move my legs any faster when I am carrying my laptop and laundry back and forth to the office.
Anyhow, I was do to observe an HIV/AIDS training at a local summer camp. Nobody told me in advance that this would be happening… in fact, I sat at the office for a few hours before anyone told me that we were doing this. It usually goes something like this, ‘Amy, let’s go.’, ‘Okay, where are we going?’ ‘An HIV/AIDS training’, and then I imagine them saying ‘Duh’. So first day back this is what we did. They asked me if I had any ideas for a physical warm-up to get the kids interested, however, it took a good 10 minutes for this to come across and by the time I understood what they wanted we were all exhausted from ‘our’ warm-up.
We went to the camp and did the training, I observed and took part in the physical stretching exercise since you don’t have to understand Russian to do jumping jacks. My director then took me on a tour of the camp and explained that it was an overnight camp for three weeks at a clip. It took a good 15 minutes for him to get this point across to me, but in the end, I understood.
The joyous notable that happened came mid-afternoon when after not eating lunch (sometimes they serve lunch and sometimes no), I couldn’t take it anymore, so I started to leave and my boss said something like ‘Let’s go together, wait 10 minutes’. So I get in his car and he’s like, ‘Amy… boiler… saychass(now) horashow (okay)’? (I can’t wait until I can begin to communicate at a level higher than that of a 3 year old). So I said, ‘horashow’, but I need to go to the ATM’. We get to the hardware store and there is this HUGE dude standing out front. I’m guessing at least 6’5” and built like a linebacker. I did my normal non-committal nod that I do to people who stare and then walked into the store with my Director. Apparently, it was his friend who was going to handle the electricity on the boiler. After shelling out 1030 greevs (About 125 bucks) for the boiler we grabbed some beer, dropped by what was apparently my boss’s house so that he could change his clothes and then somewhere else to get his tools and then finally to my house.
After two hours and a lot of mess, I had a boiler and hot water. I don’t have a shower nozzle that works, but I have a high faucet and hot water. No more lugging a heavy tea kettle from the kitchen. They left me, I ordered them to take their beer with them, and I was free to wash my hair with hot water. And that’s what I did… They left a mess and when I started cleaning up, apparently also left a bag with a braid of long blond hair in it. Gross, and even grosser still, for whatever reason my reaction to finding the bag of hair, was to smell it. I immediately regretted this choice and then started thinking – eck, what if this hair came off the body of a dead relative? I threw the hair back in the corner on the floor where I found it and went back to my computer. And then… I lost power in my apartment and had to call my director back over. They fixed the short and told me they would be back the following day to install some kind of fuse that wasn’t from 1953. I begged him to take the hair with him and he noticed that I was a little ‘distressed’ about the hair. He tried to explain what it was, but the word wasn’t in my dictionary. Nor could we find it online, which is when he put the bag of hair on my kitchen table. And again, left it in my apartment. I am all for house-warming gifts, but this is not the kind of gift I was looking for. I brought it to work the next day and left it on his chair. Eck.
That night I had the really frightening occurrence. I discovered that I apparently sleep walk. I am aware that I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and sometimes I am not completely awake when I do so, but it’s never really resulted in anything major with the exception of maybe plunking down on the toilet at the wrong angle and stumbling a bit or clipping my shoulders into door frames, etc. But, I don’t take adventures, I am just usually not fully awake on a mission to the toilet. This night I woke up and had no idea where I was. I got up and realized I was in my apartment in Ukraine and saw the bathroom. So I walked in that direction. I could see the bathroom, but didn’t realize that I was seeing the bathroom through the glass paned French door in my apartment. I usually walk through the other side, which was wide open, but for some reason, I had to get through the closed door… I woke up ‘kneeing’ the glass door, since in my mind, it seemed logical to step over and through the door. I am so grateful that I didn’t actually break the glass, because that would have been an awkward thing to explain to my boss, not to mention the trip to the Emergency Room. I really don’t want to have to get stitches here. Gee.
The interesting occurrence happened on Friday. I had to get up at 4:30 am to get ready and meet one of my work colleagues at 5:50 to walk to the train station and catch the electrychka (commuter train) to Kharkiv which left at 6:25. The train ride to Kharkiv takes 2.5 hours and then we got on the metro. Then we got on a bus and took it for a half an hour to a village outside of Kharkiv where this is a home for children who have HIV, and I think other children who have disabilities and have been abandoned. We were hosting a communal birthday party for children who are HIV positive. My colleagues asked me to prepare a game for the kids, so I contributed ‘Duck, Duck… Goose’, and we sang Happy Birthday in English.
All in all, it was super fun, but… I had last eaten and had something to drink at 5 am and we weren’t offered any food or drink when we arrived at the home. There wasn’t really an opportunity for drink after we left and my colleagues may or may not have asked me if I wanted to go to lunch in Kharkiv, but I didn’t really understand what they were asking. I just understood that they wanted a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answer. So apparently, what I said yes to was eating at home, which meant that I would not get to eat until I had travelled for another 3 hours. So I went for roughly 12 hours without food or water, and it was freaking hot that day. I really don’t understand how these women don’t eat or drink anything for long periods of time. Well, I understand how the smokers do it, and now I understand why they smoke. But, one of the girls doesn’t smoke. Maybe they sneak food and drink, but I never saw them eating or drinking. I just don’t get it. I know I need to start carrying food and drink with me, but it’s hard when you: A. don’t know what the hell is going on; B. don’t know what the hell is expected of you; C. are already carrying tons of shit around.
They brought me back to the electrychka and literally put me on the train, and then left me there. This is when the amusing occurrence happened. The electrychka is a commuter train, but it needs to be described. My train ride is approximately, 2.5 hours. There appear to be no bathrooms on the trains, which I find very interesting. Also there were wooden benches (not comfortable) for seats, and you fit three to a bench which faces another bench of three. But, my 2.5 hour ride cost me less than a US Dollar. So I was seated on the outside of the bench by the aisle, and a woman was sitting by the window. An older man came by and asked if our middle seat was free. He smelled of stale sweat and beer sweat and squeezed himself between me and the other woman. He was also eating a hot dog. I was admittedly grossed out anticipating a two and a half hour ride next to Mr. Smelly, and he was inevitably touching the left side of my body with his, and he was also eating a hot dog.
The hot dog actually comes into play as the amusing part. At a certain point in time he and the lady next to him decided to go out for a smoke before the train left. He put the remainder of his hot dog on the bench as a place holder so that nobody took his seat when he wasn’t there. Great. When he came back he proceeded to sit on his hot dog, which I thought was hilarious. Later, he fell asleep and started to lean on me, so I did the classic lean forward and then standup so that he fell over. I thought it was funny, but the ladies facing me didn’t share my chuckle.
Later that night, I got home and rinsed off with cool water since it was such a hot train ride. I got on the computer and had some dinner and then periodically kept smelling the old man sweat. So I stuck my nose in my pits to check to see if I actually smelled. Nope. I smelled my left shoulder. Eck, it wreaked. I checked my right shoulder and it was fine. I had old man sweat transfer on my right shoulder! I immediately ran to the bathroom and scrubbed it. Ah, Ukraine.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Saturday, July 3, 2010
First Solo Train Trip
Yesterday officially marked the point of two weeks at site. Well, kind of. I took a slight detour for a few days. Long story short, I went to visit Conor my first weekend at site. (Well, technically it was my second weekend, but the first weekend doesn’t really count since that was when I arrived and I spent the whole weekend cleaning my new apartment. Well as it turns out, when my counterpart took me to the train station to show me where it was, she pressured me to buy a ticket. I wasn’t really ready to buy a ticket since Conor and I had not really set a date in stone due to not exactly knowing what our new organizations would want from us or had planned for us in the immediate future. After going back and forth with my counterpart where she said, “Let me help you buy the ticket…” and I said, “I’m not sure of the dates…”, I offered to call Conor to get some clarification.
This resulted in Conor getting his counterpart (Anton) on the phone, and his counterpart demanding to talk to my counterpart. Well, within thirty seconds my counterpart was all too happy to get rid of me my first weekend at site and send me to be the responsibility of Conor’s counterpart. They decided that a long weekend was best since in Ukraine, it was a holiday weekend… maybe. (It’s hard to tell when the real holidays are since, special occasions seem to be called holidays…). My director was there and he okayed the whole thing and before I knew it, I had a roundtrip train ticket and I was going to visit Conor. I would leave at 12:30 am from Balakleya and arrive in Markivka around 6:30 am. Conor and Anton would collect me in Markivka and that would be that. Crazy.
Even crazier, this was forcing me to take a taxi to the train station in the middle of the night and then ride in a compartment with complete strangers. I’ve done stranger things and I’ve done it all before in different countries where I don’t speak the language, so while I was a bit nervous I knew it would turn out fine. I mean, my counterpart is a woman, and she didn’t seem to think it was a problem. Well, so goes my introduction to travel within Ukraine.
After ‘working’ approximately for 4 days in Ukraine, I was already going on a vacation. Neat! I would like to take a moment to point out that at this point in time, working for me means going to the office and looking busy while other people work and then being available to go on visits and/or adventures with my Director when he decides to just get in his car and… I don’t know, drop by the administration building to shoot the shit, or pay bills in town, etc. I am using the time to think about potential projects and grants that I can write, as well as studying Russian and reading some of the wealth of materials the Peace Corps dropped on us during training that we didn’t have time to read.
We did have a drop in at the office though, a little girl who was extremely dirty came to play with our toys. The cleaning lady said that her mother was an alcoholic. The cleaning lady didn’t say this in words so much as she flicked her neck a few times with her fingers. Flicking the neck on the side below the chin is a gesture that indicates that someone is an alcoholic. The more obvious gesture is for drug users because they do the same thing, except they flick the veins in their arm.
Me and Looda (Ludmila) the psychologist sat down with the young girl and drew some pictures, but ‘Nastia’ was really interested in one of the toys that sang annoying songs in repetition. We sat with her for a couple of hours, then, we kicked her out so that we could go eat lunch.
On Thursday (I was slated to leave for Conor’s at 12:30 am on Friday), work was pretty uneventful. I dipped out around 3 or 4 since if I want to use the internet, I need to leave work. There is no internet signal in the forest. So as I was walking home, I noticed my Director had pulled the car over and was gesturing for me to come over. He had been at the hardware store researching boilers for me and came back with an estimate. He told me the boiler was going to cost me 900 greevs and then around another 200 for something. I didn’t really understand the something. I mean logically, I figured it was the nuts and bolts and piping, but since I didn’t know those words, I said… show me. So I got in his car and we went to the store and he showed me my new boiler, explained that it was a sample and that if I wanted it, the store owner would order it from Kharkiv. Done. He said we could install it when I got back from my trip. Done. So in the very near future, I would no longer be precariously lugging a heavy tea kettle filled with boiling water to the bathroom for my bucket showers. I would have HOT WATER.
After that, I went home and had some dinner and shot the shit with a few people on the phone. I was going to try to take a nap before going to the train station at midnight, but as is the case here in Ukraine… when I want to sleep, inevitably someone calls me. For instance, my Regional Manager called me to tell me that he couldn’t see the map I drew on my Emergency Locator form that I had emailed to him. So I told him to open the document and stare at the blank page for a second and the image would magically appear. And it did. But he was also checking to see if I was ready for my trip, and I told him I was.
My counterpart had called a taxi to pick me up at midnight and sure enough, just as I was locking my door, she called me to tell me to go outside, the taxi was on the way. I did, the guy knew I was foreign, he dropped me at the station and refused to take anymore than the fare when I tried to tip him. I asked a whole bunch of people which platform to be on and everything went off without a hitch. They check your tickets when you get on the train, so you can’t get on the wrong train. My compartment had a dude already there playing video games, and then 2 ladies and a small child got on with me so we set up the car and then went to sleep. I called Conor around the time I was supposed to get in and told him that it wasn’t clear which stations were which, that he should call me when he saw a train coming, and that worked. Turns out my car attendant had fallen asleep otherwise I would have gotten a wakeup call from her.
Conor and I grabbed a pizza for breakfast (there wasn’t a lot of choice on the menu) and then headed to the bus station to take the bus back to his place. All in all the travel experience went off without a hitch. Then we spent a few great days together making good food, drinking beer and eating chubarecki (fried dough pocket with either season ground beef or cheese) in the beer tents, having a shish-kebob picnic in the woods with Anton and his wife, and checking out Donetsk which had an okay, but overpriced Mexican restaurant. We saw Hot Tub Time Machine in Russian, I’m sure it’s hilarious in English, but I can’t be sure about that. We also rode a Ferris Wheel in Donestk and rented a paddle boat for a half hour in Khartsitzk. Hey, we had some time to kill.
One noteworthy event that has stuck with me happened outside Conor’s apartment. The day before we saw two older ladies with a red poodle puppy and they let us touch the puppy, because they were so enamored with it. The next day, some older dude had a cute little puppy in a box, so I went over to pet the puppy. The guy said something that I realized was ‘Don’t touch him’ the second time he said it. WTF? Why would you bring a puppy down to the street and then not let a cute girl touch him? It rubbed me the wrong way. It felt kind of xenophobic, but I’m not sure if that was the reason he was so rude. I guess that’s what I get for trying to touch another man’s puppy.
Conor brought me back to Markivka and put me on the train at 10:30 at night. My trip back was pretty uneventful. I was in a compartment with a babushka and her husband and then an hour or so after I got on, another dude came in the compartment. We all slept. A whole 45 minutes before I was supposed to get off the train in Balakleya, the car attendant came in and actually woke me up. I had my alarm set for 15 minutes before arrival, but he came in a gently shook me awake at 2:30 am. I got off in the right place and found a cab home and was back in my apartment by 3:30 am. I’m happy to say, I had a seemingly successful first solo travel experience in Ukraine.
This resulted in Conor getting his counterpart (Anton) on the phone, and his counterpart demanding to talk to my counterpart. Well, within thirty seconds my counterpart was all too happy to get rid of me my first weekend at site and send me to be the responsibility of Conor’s counterpart. They decided that a long weekend was best since in Ukraine, it was a holiday weekend… maybe. (It’s hard to tell when the real holidays are since, special occasions seem to be called holidays…). My director was there and he okayed the whole thing and before I knew it, I had a roundtrip train ticket and I was going to visit Conor. I would leave at 12:30 am from Balakleya and arrive in Markivka around 6:30 am. Conor and Anton would collect me in Markivka and that would be that. Crazy.
Even crazier, this was forcing me to take a taxi to the train station in the middle of the night and then ride in a compartment with complete strangers. I’ve done stranger things and I’ve done it all before in different countries where I don’t speak the language, so while I was a bit nervous I knew it would turn out fine. I mean, my counterpart is a woman, and she didn’t seem to think it was a problem. Well, so goes my introduction to travel within Ukraine.
After ‘working’ approximately for 4 days in Ukraine, I was already going on a vacation. Neat! I would like to take a moment to point out that at this point in time, working for me means going to the office and looking busy while other people work and then being available to go on visits and/or adventures with my Director when he decides to just get in his car and… I don’t know, drop by the administration building to shoot the shit, or pay bills in town, etc. I am using the time to think about potential projects and grants that I can write, as well as studying Russian and reading some of the wealth of materials the Peace Corps dropped on us during training that we didn’t have time to read.
We did have a drop in at the office though, a little girl who was extremely dirty came to play with our toys. The cleaning lady said that her mother was an alcoholic. The cleaning lady didn’t say this in words so much as she flicked her neck a few times with her fingers. Flicking the neck on the side below the chin is a gesture that indicates that someone is an alcoholic. The more obvious gesture is for drug users because they do the same thing, except they flick the veins in their arm.
Me and Looda (Ludmila) the psychologist sat down with the young girl and drew some pictures, but ‘Nastia’ was really interested in one of the toys that sang annoying songs in repetition. We sat with her for a couple of hours, then, we kicked her out so that we could go eat lunch.
On Thursday (I was slated to leave for Conor’s at 12:30 am on Friday), work was pretty uneventful. I dipped out around 3 or 4 since if I want to use the internet, I need to leave work. There is no internet signal in the forest. So as I was walking home, I noticed my Director had pulled the car over and was gesturing for me to come over. He had been at the hardware store researching boilers for me and came back with an estimate. He told me the boiler was going to cost me 900 greevs and then around another 200 for something. I didn’t really understand the something. I mean logically, I figured it was the nuts and bolts and piping, but since I didn’t know those words, I said… show me. So I got in his car and we went to the store and he showed me my new boiler, explained that it was a sample and that if I wanted it, the store owner would order it from Kharkiv. Done. He said we could install it when I got back from my trip. Done. So in the very near future, I would no longer be precariously lugging a heavy tea kettle filled with boiling water to the bathroom for my bucket showers. I would have HOT WATER.
After that, I went home and had some dinner and shot the shit with a few people on the phone. I was going to try to take a nap before going to the train station at midnight, but as is the case here in Ukraine… when I want to sleep, inevitably someone calls me. For instance, my Regional Manager called me to tell me that he couldn’t see the map I drew on my Emergency Locator form that I had emailed to him. So I told him to open the document and stare at the blank page for a second and the image would magically appear. And it did. But he was also checking to see if I was ready for my trip, and I told him I was.
My counterpart had called a taxi to pick me up at midnight and sure enough, just as I was locking my door, she called me to tell me to go outside, the taxi was on the way. I did, the guy knew I was foreign, he dropped me at the station and refused to take anymore than the fare when I tried to tip him. I asked a whole bunch of people which platform to be on and everything went off without a hitch. They check your tickets when you get on the train, so you can’t get on the wrong train. My compartment had a dude already there playing video games, and then 2 ladies and a small child got on with me so we set up the car and then went to sleep. I called Conor around the time I was supposed to get in and told him that it wasn’t clear which stations were which, that he should call me when he saw a train coming, and that worked. Turns out my car attendant had fallen asleep otherwise I would have gotten a wakeup call from her.
Conor and I grabbed a pizza for breakfast (there wasn’t a lot of choice on the menu) and then headed to the bus station to take the bus back to his place. All in all the travel experience went off without a hitch. Then we spent a few great days together making good food, drinking beer and eating chubarecki (fried dough pocket with either season ground beef or cheese) in the beer tents, having a shish-kebob picnic in the woods with Anton and his wife, and checking out Donetsk which had an okay, but overpriced Mexican restaurant. We saw Hot Tub Time Machine in Russian, I’m sure it’s hilarious in English, but I can’t be sure about that. We also rode a Ferris Wheel in Donestk and rented a paddle boat for a half hour in Khartsitzk. Hey, we had some time to kill.
One noteworthy event that has stuck with me happened outside Conor’s apartment. The day before we saw two older ladies with a red poodle puppy and they let us touch the puppy, because they were so enamored with it. The next day, some older dude had a cute little puppy in a box, so I went over to pet the puppy. The guy said something that I realized was ‘Don’t touch him’ the second time he said it. WTF? Why would you bring a puppy down to the street and then not let a cute girl touch him? It rubbed me the wrong way. It felt kind of xenophobic, but I’m not sure if that was the reason he was so rude. I guess that’s what I get for trying to touch another man’s puppy.
Conor brought me back to Markivka and put me on the train at 10:30 at night. My trip back was pretty uneventful. I was in a compartment with a babushka and her husband and then an hour or so after I got on, another dude came in the compartment. We all slept. A whole 45 minutes before I was supposed to get off the train in Balakleya, the car attendant came in and actually woke me up. I had my alarm set for 15 minutes before arrival, but he came in a gently shook me awake at 2:30 am. I got off in the right place and found a cab home and was back in my apartment by 3:30 am. I’m happy to say, I had a seemingly successful first solo travel experience in Ukraine.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
First Impressions of Home for the Next 2 Years
Well, my first impressions of site were a little rough. But after a week of settling in and some intense cleaning and scrubbing and some retail therapy, I am starting to feel more at home. I think the most awesome thing about first impressions is that when we rolled up to my new Soviet block-style apartment complex the graffiti that was sprayed near my door said 'Mothe Fuker'... Classe (that means awesome in Russian). I saw that and I instantly thought... wow, I am home.
So anyhow, the front door to my building is broken and open. We climbed some dank concrete stairs up to the third floor and my door looked pretty non-descript. What's kind of cool is that I have 2 doors. A nice wood outside door with a pretty sturdy lock, then an inside door that is padded with a peep hole. I'm not sure why the peep hole is not on the outside door, but 'Eta Geezn' (that's life). My apartment is big, but let's just say it needed a LOT of work for me to feel comfortable. (When I say a lot, I am not exaggerating when I say that I scrubbed for a minimum of 15 hours my first weekend there).
The kitchen was cute, but dirty, and I didn't have a fridge so that would be a problem. I have a 'pantry' which I am choosing to not use for anything, but storage of my cleaning supplies and my Peace Corps issued space heater. It's dark and dank and potentially could be used as a sort of fridge if it wasn't covered in mold on the inside. This is a cleaning project I am choosing to NOT undertake. That door will stay closed. I hope my space heater doesn't get too scared and lonely in there.
My main room is rather large. I have a divan (probably from the 1950s if I am guessing correctly from the fabric pattern) that pulls out into a bed. This seems to be pretty standard from what I have experienced in my little village, although, I was lucky enough to have the master-suite in Starry Belous so I had a real bed. I sat on the divan and basically thought I was going to fall through the middle, good thing I didn't plop down on one of the supports... I think I might have broken my tailbone if that was the case, but thankfully it wasn't. (I am seeing what I can do about buying a new bed, or at least a new mattress). Everytime I move, the bed creaks really loudly and I think I wake myself up because I haven't been sleeping well at all. But, anyhow the room is nice and big and I have a really beautiful wall length armoir/cabinet thing for storage. I have been offered a tv, which I think I am going to take them up on since it might help with my Russian studies. I also have a kind of rickety, slanted balcony which is great for air flow and for hanging wet clothes after I wash them. And, AND key is that all of my windows are brand new. The windows both on the balcony and separating the balcony from the apartment are high-tech. I can open them like I would open a door to the side, or I can switch the handle and have them cracked open at the top. It's pretty cool. Same for the kitchen, all new and freshly installed with some weird ugly foam stuff that I am choosing to think is NOT asbestos... but may in fact be. I will do my best not to lick it or nuzzle my nose against it on cold days.
The HUGE sore point is the bathroom. The wallpaper is hanging off the walls and the ceiling and the toilet was totally nasty. When I got there the toilet seat was on the floor and the toilet was filthy and seatless. Not too inviting to someone who just spent a few hours in a car and had to go. The tub is big, but has a huge rust spot along the middle. My way around this has been to wear flip flops in the tub and to buy a huge plastic laundry basin and stand in it... when I take my bucket showers... (I don't have hot water so I have to boil the kettle on the stove and then take the precarious walk to the bathroom with a heavy scalding hot kettle then dump it into my bucket and mix with cold water. I'm not sure if I am doing the bucket shower correctly, but I have cut the top off of one of my plastic water bottles, stand in the laundry basin, and then use the water bottle to dump warm water over myself... This has gotten kind of old already and it's only been a week, but apparently this is a normal thing to do here so I have to get over my spoiled self and make it work... and by making it work, I am buying a hot water boiler and having a shower nozzle that works installed... eta geezn).
I think possibly my two favorite parts about the bathroom were in describing two things to John and then listening to him gagging over the phone at my bathroom experience. Number 1, the toilet seat that I mentioned... that was on the floor. I picked it up to check it out since I figured it would be better to sit on that with toilet paper on it than to hover over my own toilet... It was one of those soft cushy toilet seats. It was filthy and some of the foam was exposed in a few places. I pretty much immediately demanded that my director take me somewhere to buy a new toilet seat. According to John, a cushy padded toilet seat is one of the nastiest things that can be in a bathroom... a dirty one with holes in the seat being the worst. Number 2, I told John that I pulled about 8 inches of hairy slime from the drain in tub, all the while gagging myself as I dropped it in the toilet and almost tossed my cookies.
After giving me a short rest and then taking me to my new office and shopping for a few household items - like a new toilet seat and a plastic laundry basin, my counterpart and director left me alone for the weekend to get settled and to unpack. This turned out to be really good since my new apartment required a minimum of 15 hours of intense scrubbing for me to feel comfortable. My new office, however, is AWESOME. The organization that I am working for is a governmental organization and the regional center hub that deals with children and youth that are HIV-positive. They do HIV education, training and various types of therapy. It seems like it will be a very interesting experience.
The office building is located on a hospital campus that is in the forest on the outskirts of town (40 minute walk - that's nothing for a New Yorker). The setting is beautiful, although there is a small building across from my office that sells coffins... strange, I'm not sure what that's all about, but hopefully I will find out. The office is new. Beautiful kitchen, bathroom with a shower and a hot water boiler, an office area, a therapy room/training room and a children's therapy room with books, toys, games and art supplies. And we have resident chinchillas, a hamster and fish to keep things interesting. I have befriended one of the chinchillas. She squeaks at me when I walk by, because she knows that I am good for a belly scratch and some pumpkin seeds.
A bonus with the office is that there is a part-time cleaning lady that comes everyday and prepares lunch for us. So I am almost guaranteed a free lunch if I go to the office daily. The downside of going to the office is that because of the location in the forest far from the center of town, the internet is horribly slow if not non-existent. So realistically speaking once things start rolling and I have some real work to do, I might be working from home or the Administration building in town because as an American, I am having some serious trouble working without being able to access the internet. Another bonus to the office is that there is a washing machine in the kitchen that I can use any day that I work. So, I just have to drag my dirties to the office and wash them there... however, after doing so once, I realized that maybe best to still handwash my unders at home since there isn't a dryer or even a clothesline at the office, I just kind of hang the wet clothes around the therapy room to dry while I am still at work. Not so sure that it's appropriate for my office mates to see my undies and bras hanging all over the place.
So, when I was first left alone in my apartment after an exhausting training in Kiev, saying goodbye to all my peeps, an exhausting overnight train ride to site, and then a 2 hour car ride from Kharkiv to see a filthy apartment that was now mine with a gross toilet seat I cried. I admit it. I was exhausted and dropped in the middle of nowhere with complete strangers who didn't speak any English and I was having a lot of trouble communicating with them,since it seemed like they didn't have a lot of experience communicating with someone who was learning a new language. And my mind flashed forward to being alone in the winter and trapped in my apartment, by myself and I kind of freaked. But, you know what I did? I picked up my phone and I called Conor and we bad video skyped and he saw my apartment and I saw his... and you know what... my apartment wasn't that bad. It's just all about perspective and I knew I needed to have some, but I was just too tired to manage it.
So at this point, I have found the positive. I now have a fridge. I have water and lots of it all day long - a lot of my friends here don't. I can install a hot water boiler. My windows are new and have screens on them. I have a huge, safe apartment all to myself. I don't have to share with any weird roommates. I live in the center of town and can see the administration building from my apartment. I can get anywhere in town (except my office and the train station) within a 5-10 minute walk, and I have learned that my apartment is actually quite nice once it is clean. And I have the most awesome graffiti right outside the front door of my building 'Mothe Fuker' that I can laugh at everday. To be honest, everything started to turn around once I bought a new toilet seat. Who knew that life could be set right, by a brand new powder blue cushy toilet seat? Hey, my choices were limited and I refuse to take a shit while sitting on a cushy pink toilet seat. See, it's all about having the right perspective, right?
So anyhow, the front door to my building is broken and open. We climbed some dank concrete stairs up to the third floor and my door looked pretty non-descript. What's kind of cool is that I have 2 doors. A nice wood outside door with a pretty sturdy lock, then an inside door that is padded with a peep hole. I'm not sure why the peep hole is not on the outside door, but 'Eta Geezn' (that's life). My apartment is big, but let's just say it needed a LOT of work for me to feel comfortable. (When I say a lot, I am not exaggerating when I say that I scrubbed for a minimum of 15 hours my first weekend there).
The kitchen was cute, but dirty, and I didn't have a fridge so that would be a problem. I have a 'pantry' which I am choosing to not use for anything, but storage of my cleaning supplies and my Peace Corps issued space heater. It's dark and dank and potentially could be used as a sort of fridge if it wasn't covered in mold on the inside. This is a cleaning project I am choosing to NOT undertake. That door will stay closed. I hope my space heater doesn't get too scared and lonely in there.
My main room is rather large. I have a divan (probably from the 1950s if I am guessing correctly from the fabric pattern) that pulls out into a bed. This seems to be pretty standard from what I have experienced in my little village, although, I was lucky enough to have the master-suite in Starry Belous so I had a real bed. I sat on the divan and basically thought I was going to fall through the middle, good thing I didn't plop down on one of the supports... I think I might have broken my tailbone if that was the case, but thankfully it wasn't. (I am seeing what I can do about buying a new bed, or at least a new mattress). Everytime I move, the bed creaks really loudly and I think I wake myself up because I haven't been sleeping well at all. But, anyhow the room is nice and big and I have a really beautiful wall length armoir/cabinet thing for storage. I have been offered a tv, which I think I am going to take them up on since it might help with my Russian studies. I also have a kind of rickety, slanted balcony which is great for air flow and for hanging wet clothes after I wash them. And, AND key is that all of my windows are brand new. The windows both on the balcony and separating the balcony from the apartment are high-tech. I can open them like I would open a door to the side, or I can switch the handle and have them cracked open at the top. It's pretty cool. Same for the kitchen, all new and freshly installed with some weird ugly foam stuff that I am choosing to think is NOT asbestos... but may in fact be. I will do my best not to lick it or nuzzle my nose against it on cold days.
The HUGE sore point is the bathroom. The wallpaper is hanging off the walls and the ceiling and the toilet was totally nasty. When I got there the toilet seat was on the floor and the toilet was filthy and seatless. Not too inviting to someone who just spent a few hours in a car and had to go. The tub is big, but has a huge rust spot along the middle. My way around this has been to wear flip flops in the tub and to buy a huge plastic laundry basin and stand in it... when I take my bucket showers... (I don't have hot water so I have to boil the kettle on the stove and then take the precarious walk to the bathroom with a heavy scalding hot kettle then dump it into my bucket and mix with cold water. I'm not sure if I am doing the bucket shower correctly, but I have cut the top off of one of my plastic water bottles, stand in the laundry basin, and then use the water bottle to dump warm water over myself... This has gotten kind of old already and it's only been a week, but apparently this is a normal thing to do here so I have to get over my spoiled self and make it work... and by making it work, I am buying a hot water boiler and having a shower nozzle that works installed... eta geezn).
I think possibly my two favorite parts about the bathroom were in describing two things to John and then listening to him gagging over the phone at my bathroom experience. Number 1, the toilet seat that I mentioned... that was on the floor. I picked it up to check it out since I figured it would be better to sit on that with toilet paper on it than to hover over my own toilet... It was one of those soft cushy toilet seats. It was filthy and some of the foam was exposed in a few places. I pretty much immediately demanded that my director take me somewhere to buy a new toilet seat. According to John, a cushy padded toilet seat is one of the nastiest things that can be in a bathroom... a dirty one with holes in the seat being the worst. Number 2, I told John that I pulled about 8 inches of hairy slime from the drain in tub, all the while gagging myself as I dropped it in the toilet and almost tossed my cookies.
After giving me a short rest and then taking me to my new office and shopping for a few household items - like a new toilet seat and a plastic laundry basin, my counterpart and director left me alone for the weekend to get settled and to unpack. This turned out to be really good since my new apartment required a minimum of 15 hours of intense scrubbing for me to feel comfortable. My new office, however, is AWESOME. The organization that I am working for is a governmental organization and the regional center hub that deals with children and youth that are HIV-positive. They do HIV education, training and various types of therapy. It seems like it will be a very interesting experience.
The office building is located on a hospital campus that is in the forest on the outskirts of town (40 minute walk - that's nothing for a New Yorker). The setting is beautiful, although there is a small building across from my office that sells coffins... strange, I'm not sure what that's all about, but hopefully I will find out. The office is new. Beautiful kitchen, bathroom with a shower and a hot water boiler, an office area, a therapy room/training room and a children's therapy room with books, toys, games and art supplies. And we have resident chinchillas, a hamster and fish to keep things interesting. I have befriended one of the chinchillas. She squeaks at me when I walk by, because she knows that I am good for a belly scratch and some pumpkin seeds.
A bonus with the office is that there is a part-time cleaning lady that comes everyday and prepares lunch for us. So I am almost guaranteed a free lunch if I go to the office daily. The downside of going to the office is that because of the location in the forest far from the center of town, the internet is horribly slow if not non-existent. So realistically speaking once things start rolling and I have some real work to do, I might be working from home or the Administration building in town because as an American, I am having some serious trouble working without being able to access the internet. Another bonus to the office is that there is a washing machine in the kitchen that I can use any day that I work. So, I just have to drag my dirties to the office and wash them there... however, after doing so once, I realized that maybe best to still handwash my unders at home since there isn't a dryer or even a clothesline at the office, I just kind of hang the wet clothes around the therapy room to dry while I am still at work. Not so sure that it's appropriate for my office mates to see my undies and bras hanging all over the place.
So, when I was first left alone in my apartment after an exhausting training in Kiev, saying goodbye to all my peeps, an exhausting overnight train ride to site, and then a 2 hour car ride from Kharkiv to see a filthy apartment that was now mine with a gross toilet seat I cried. I admit it. I was exhausted and dropped in the middle of nowhere with complete strangers who didn't speak any English and I was having a lot of trouble communicating with them,since it seemed like they didn't have a lot of experience communicating with someone who was learning a new language. And my mind flashed forward to being alone in the winter and trapped in my apartment, by myself and I kind of freaked. But, you know what I did? I picked up my phone and I called Conor and we bad video skyped and he saw my apartment and I saw his... and you know what... my apartment wasn't that bad. It's just all about perspective and I knew I needed to have some, but I was just too tired to manage it.
So at this point, I have found the positive. I now have a fridge. I have water and lots of it all day long - a lot of my friends here don't. I can install a hot water boiler. My windows are new and have screens on them. I have a huge, safe apartment all to myself. I don't have to share with any weird roommates. I live in the center of town and can see the administration building from my apartment. I can get anywhere in town (except my office and the train station) within a 5-10 minute walk, and I have learned that my apartment is actually quite nice once it is clean. And I have the most awesome graffiti right outside the front door of my building 'Mothe Fuker' that I can laugh at everday. To be honest, everything started to turn around once I bought a new toilet seat. Who knew that life could be set right, by a brand new powder blue cushy toilet seat? Hey, my choices were limited and I refuse to take a shit while sitting on a cushy pink toilet seat. See, it's all about having the right perspective, right?
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Hmmm Pictures
Anybody got a handle on uploading photos to the blog? Any tips so that they don't just come out strangely stacked at the top of the entry?
Swearing In
Again a ton has happened. It’s so hard to keep up with the ole blog. I have since left Starry Belous. I woke up that morning with bad diarrhea, but thanks to the 4 Imodium that I took, I managed the 2 hour bus ride to Kiev and then some. The took us to a University campus where we would be spending the next 4 days in various meetings and information sessions, in addition to meeting our counterparts for the first time, all before getting shipped off to our sites. I know I’ve said it before, but training was exhausting. Being ill on top of it was even more so, sitting through days of meetings and knowing that we were about to say goodbye to each other and forced into a weird uncomfortable social situation with our counterparts… tough man. I was one tired sister. But the last 4 days were fun and in some ways brought a lot of us closer together.
The first day at the gathering in Kiev, they told us where we would be heading to site. Our little Cluster was flung all over the country. I was headed to Balakleya in the Kharkiv Oblast. It’s a town of 45,000 people. I would have my own apartment on the 3rd floor of a 5-story walk up. I would not have hot water. I would be working for an organization that works with HIV positive children and youth. Kim and John would be sent off to the same region in Sumi Oblast and would be living roughly an hour apart. Conor is roughly six hours away from me in Donetsk Oblast. And Cassie was flung the farthest from everyone to somewhere I can’t remember right now, but she’s in a major city and was placed on the women’s soccer team before she even got to site.
Conor and I went on an adventure the last night. We took the chance at having a last ditch effort to get some American food before heading off to site and the potential for endless meals of cabbage salads, kasha and friend eggs. What did we eat? We went out for a cheeseburger! And not just any old shitty cheeseburger, we went to TGI Fridays or тжи Фрайдис. I got the Cheesy Bacon Cheeseburger standard size Conor got the Jack Daniels Burger ultimate size (apparently it means you get an extra patty of beef) with an icy cold Heineken draft beer. I don’t think I have ever seen Conor so ecstatic. I think it might have been the first time he was full in three months. Whether it was the burgers or just the end of a training – we were both exhausted post-meal. We headed straight back to the dorms and we both passed out.
The last day – D-Day was tough. We had some meetings, then the official Swearing-In Ceremony, and then a few of us at a time we were to be picked off and sent to the train station to head out. The Swearing-In Ceremony was great. My host-mom showed up for the ceremony so that was a great surprise. She bought me chocolates which I immediately opened since I was nervous about committing myself to something for two years – especially since I still don’t know exactly what is in store for me. When Theodora asked if anyone wanted coffee, I jumped on that. Around the time Theodora and Cassie came back with the coffees, a man came up and started talking to my mom in Russian. So she turned her back and us and started having a conversation. As I was stirring my coffee, I said rather loudly to my friends... ‘Gee, I hope this coffee doesn’t make me want to poop during the ceremony’. And that was when Conor started laughing hysterically and said, ‘Dude, reporter… recording…’ Ooops, I was kind of wondering why the guy was holding his Blackberry in between he and my host-mom. So maybe there is a sound bite out there of me talking about poop in the background of a meaning interview about Ukrainian/American partnerships.
The actually ceremony made me feel pretty proud. They played the Ukraine National Anthem, then the US National Anthem, and I could have swore I felt an inkling of patriotism in these cynical bones. I might have even teared up a little. A bit later the Peace Corps trainees were asked to stand and raise their right hand and we actually had to repeat an oath. It was so official. I actually swore to serve my country and promote world peace. Cool. My stomach dropped a bit, but I shrugged it off… two years is a long time, but in the grand scheme of things it will probably go by in the wink of an eye.
And then the torture started to happen. First John and Kim went to head off to their sites... See Peace Corps had our departures staggered to make it less of a logistical nightmare to see off 72 people. But being one of the 7 left standing at the end of the day due to my late train departure sucked because I got to see EVERYONE go. Every damn hour hugging, lugging (baggage) and crying over and over again. It was killer. Conor went next. Then Cassie. Thankfully both Vicki and Brenda were in the 7 left standing so that I had some funny peeps to shoot the shit with. Vicki bought a bag of Snickers bars and doled them out… btw, Vicki, I still have that Snickers. I am saving it for a rainy day.
For the train ride, the Peace Corps was generous and bought out an entire Coupé compartment for the volunteer, the counterpart and all of the volunteers belongings. This sounded a little extravagant, but much safer than trying to watch over a ton of baggage in a shared space… Come to find out, we would not have been able to fit in the Coupé with the baggage and 2 other strangers. It was a tight space. I could reach out and touch my counterpart on the other side of the room from my sleeping berth. I can’t imagine trying to sleep in there with a bunch of strangers (although essential the counterpart is a stranger). I am going to find out this weekend though. I am hoping my Coupé is not sold out.
Another note on the trains… early morning the conductor makes an announcement over the compartment sound system that says, ‘It’s time to wake up, it’s time to wake up, it’s time to wake up…’ in a really soothing, not obtrusive voice. Initially, I couldn’t figure out why they would wake us up an hour before arrival, but then I went to the bathroom and discovered why. Everyone lines up for the bathroom and if you want to get in there and brush your teeth and wash up pre-arrival you have to wait in the line. I guess this is good for me to note. Do not drink a lot of water on long train trips, because you might not get to go to the bathroom, and be careful what you eat and/or take some Imodium preemptively.
Now, I want to mention, that you have to give Peace Corps volunteers some credit for being adventurous and brave. It’s not easy to get dropped in a different country where you don’t speak the language or know the customs and get dropped into a host-family setting where you are living with strangers for three months in various conditions. But setting off for site, post-training and only know a few details about your new home, new job, and new colleagues and knowing that this is going to be your life for the next 2 years and not knowing what to expect… that is scary. Even scarier when you counterpart neither speaks English, nor makes any effort to speak Russian in a way that would be comprehensible to someone just learning the language. I’d just like you to think on that before I write my next entry about what my first impressions of my new site were.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
To Vickie and Frank or just End of Training
Wow, I can’t believe it’s been almost two months since I last had the time and energy to write. It is with mixed emotions that I plug this entry out right now seeing as today is my last day, ehem, my last full day in my little village in Ukraine. I am sitting on my bed amongst strategically placed and not so strategically placed piles of clothing wondering how the hell I am going to get all this crap back into my suitcases. What better way for a procrastinator to get her shit together than to just stare and then open up her computer and start writing a blog entry. Talk about productivity!
Well, as far as I know, or so they tell us, our little cluster, in our little village has seemingly, successfully completed training. Tomorrow we lug all of our belongings to the hole-in-the-wall ‘magazine’ (convenience store) and hop on the bus bound for Kiev where we will learn our site-placements and take part in a few meetings/ceremonies culminating in the much anticipated ‘Swearing-In’ Ceremony where we, the group of now I think 72 of us, will be official sworn in as Peace Corps volunteers and our service will start. (Supposedly, there will be media at the Swearing-In so perhaps some of you computer savvy people can find the broadcast).
(In true form, re: procrastination… I am coming back to writing this two hours later after being Boodish Kooshited – this is our bastardization of Boodish Kooshite which means ‘Will you eat?’ – our families usually chase us around the house saying this at some point in time or another… usually just as we come in the front door).
I don’t think it is humanly possible for me to describe the last month and a half accurately. Let’s just say, training was a bitch, but also a very necessary learning experience. At least four hours of language study a day, followed by technical and cross-cultural classes, then in addition, we had to produce and manage a mini-project… in a village of 2,500. They didn’t think we could do it. In fact, they were pretty sure we couldn’t, but we gave it our all and surprising enough our little cluster of 5 people managed to organize a health seminar and successfully present it in a very potentially sustainable way. So within the time-frame of a few weeks… we got some project management, logistics, budget, grant-writing, and PR/marketing experience amongst other things. We also discovered that the 5 of us work well together as a group… and after working together, we are still all good friends, if not closer for it. Go team.
Within training we have faced many challenges… my challenges revolved around having to deal with various ailments (most recently a nasty head cold, a kind of severe allergic reaction to Ukrainian mosquitos and intestinal parasites – yum – all at the same time), teenage host-siblings, having the cord to my A/C Adapter on my computer go up in smoke (literally), trying to navigate a diet where the few vegetables that I was getting were doused in mayonnaise, and having my first semi-stalkerish experience with the men in Ukraine, and realizing that I can’t always go for a walk when I want in Ukraine when I need to clear my head.
But not to worry, all challenges turn into learning experiences, right? Like having to say over and over again to disbelieving family members that food drenched in mayonnaise causes intestinal distress for me… they don’t know me well enough to know that most food causes some kind of distress for me, but now there are more salads without mayonnaise. I can’t say that the mayonnaise has been eliminated from my food, but I am only doubled over in crippling stomach pain maybe once a week instead of 5 times a week. And, who knew some intestinal parasites are killed with a single pill… Who knew?
As for the computer cord, since my adapter wasn’t damaged in the mini-explosion, which was likely caused from my repetitive tripping over the cord at various points in time both prior to Ukraine and here, I was able to plug Conor’s cord into my adapter and still get juice. Now this arrangement was all fine and dandy during training, but I was dreading when we split off and go to site. What would I do? Thus ensued a two-week search in where I had to try and navigate with my crappy Russian to find a replacement Adapter. I got many odd looks like – Girl, you CRAZY – your adapter is American, this is Ukraine… funny how this situation seemed to sum up a lot of my experiences here.
But, as with many things in life, being in the right place at the right time and remembering to bring up something you heard weeks ago… like that Jay knew of a used computer parts store and actually asking Jay at the right moment (when we were standing across the street from said mystery store)… Jay accompanying me across the street only to find out that the guy did not have an adapter that would work… BUT, that there was a guy, just downstairs, that could actually repair the busted cord. And, said guy repaired the cord… for less than $3. I thanked the man who repaired my cord with Ballshaya Spaciba-s (big thanks) and then I also told him that I loved him. I’m sure he was really impressed since I was drenched in sweat (did I mention that it has been hitting the mid-90s here?) and looking slightly deranged (re: Amy + heat not a good combo). (I should probably have also prefaced this story with the information that we aren’t allowed to receive packages from the states during training – so there is a replacement adapter ready to be sent to me at my parents house, but with nowhere to send it – huh). So all is well, I can power-up my own computer now at least until said replacement can arrive in the mail.
But really, nobody wants to hear about my mayonnaise battles and my master quest for a computer cord. Although seemingly monumental to me, these situations are going to be part of my day to day life for the next two years. Learning how to navigate in a world where at this point in time a lot of your communication is comparable to how a small child communicates… by pointing at things that you want, speaking in a very broken and stunted way, making expressive facial gestures to get the point across, and running away and/or shutting yourself in your room when you want to be left alone. One has to rely on the kindness of strangers to either get the point across or to find what you need. We have to build a new network of friends and family that we can rely upon when we are having a tough day, or just need to laugh at how ridiculous some of the situations that we are put in are, or just need to get a computer cord fixed. I’m happy to say that the people that I am sharing this experience with are all super cool and there is not a doubt in my mind that a lot of these people are going to be my friends for life. I say that with all sincerity, and not because I am trying to avoid packing all my crap away.
And on that note, time to get packing. There is a lot of work to do here before I can get on that bus to Kiev tomorrow.
Well, as far as I know, or so they tell us, our little cluster, in our little village has seemingly, successfully completed training. Tomorrow we lug all of our belongings to the hole-in-the-wall ‘magazine’ (convenience store) and hop on the bus bound for Kiev where we will learn our site-placements and take part in a few meetings/ceremonies culminating in the much anticipated ‘Swearing-In’ Ceremony where we, the group of now I think 72 of us, will be official sworn in as Peace Corps volunteers and our service will start. (Supposedly, there will be media at the Swearing-In so perhaps some of you computer savvy people can find the broadcast).
(In true form, re: procrastination… I am coming back to writing this two hours later after being Boodish Kooshited – this is our bastardization of Boodish Kooshite which means ‘Will you eat?’ – our families usually chase us around the house saying this at some point in time or another… usually just as we come in the front door).
I don’t think it is humanly possible for me to describe the last month and a half accurately. Let’s just say, training was a bitch, but also a very necessary learning experience. At least four hours of language study a day, followed by technical and cross-cultural classes, then in addition, we had to produce and manage a mini-project… in a village of 2,500. They didn’t think we could do it. In fact, they were pretty sure we couldn’t, but we gave it our all and surprising enough our little cluster of 5 people managed to organize a health seminar and successfully present it in a very potentially sustainable way. So within the time-frame of a few weeks… we got some project management, logistics, budget, grant-writing, and PR/marketing experience amongst other things. We also discovered that the 5 of us work well together as a group… and after working together, we are still all good friends, if not closer for it. Go team.
Within training we have faced many challenges… my challenges revolved around having to deal with various ailments (most recently a nasty head cold, a kind of severe allergic reaction to Ukrainian mosquitos and intestinal parasites – yum – all at the same time), teenage host-siblings, having the cord to my A/C Adapter on my computer go up in smoke (literally), trying to navigate a diet where the few vegetables that I was getting were doused in mayonnaise, and having my first semi-stalkerish experience with the men in Ukraine, and realizing that I can’t always go for a walk when I want in Ukraine when I need to clear my head.
But not to worry, all challenges turn into learning experiences, right? Like having to say over and over again to disbelieving family members that food drenched in mayonnaise causes intestinal distress for me… they don’t know me well enough to know that most food causes some kind of distress for me, but now there are more salads without mayonnaise. I can’t say that the mayonnaise has been eliminated from my food, but I am only doubled over in crippling stomach pain maybe once a week instead of 5 times a week. And, who knew some intestinal parasites are killed with a single pill… Who knew?
As for the computer cord, since my adapter wasn’t damaged in the mini-explosion, which was likely caused from my repetitive tripping over the cord at various points in time both prior to Ukraine and here, I was able to plug Conor’s cord into my adapter and still get juice. Now this arrangement was all fine and dandy during training, but I was dreading when we split off and go to site. What would I do? Thus ensued a two-week search in where I had to try and navigate with my crappy Russian to find a replacement Adapter. I got many odd looks like – Girl, you CRAZY – your adapter is American, this is Ukraine… funny how this situation seemed to sum up a lot of my experiences here.
But, as with many things in life, being in the right place at the right time and remembering to bring up something you heard weeks ago… like that Jay knew of a used computer parts store and actually asking Jay at the right moment (when we were standing across the street from said mystery store)… Jay accompanying me across the street only to find out that the guy did not have an adapter that would work… BUT, that there was a guy, just downstairs, that could actually repair the busted cord. And, said guy repaired the cord… for less than $3. I thanked the man who repaired my cord with Ballshaya Spaciba-s (big thanks) and then I also told him that I loved him. I’m sure he was really impressed since I was drenched in sweat (did I mention that it has been hitting the mid-90s here?) and looking slightly deranged (re: Amy + heat not a good combo). (I should probably have also prefaced this story with the information that we aren’t allowed to receive packages from the states during training – so there is a replacement adapter ready to be sent to me at my parents house, but with nowhere to send it – huh). So all is well, I can power-up my own computer now at least until said replacement can arrive in the mail.
But really, nobody wants to hear about my mayonnaise battles and my master quest for a computer cord. Although seemingly monumental to me, these situations are going to be part of my day to day life for the next two years. Learning how to navigate in a world where at this point in time a lot of your communication is comparable to how a small child communicates… by pointing at things that you want, speaking in a very broken and stunted way, making expressive facial gestures to get the point across, and running away and/or shutting yourself in your room when you want to be left alone. One has to rely on the kindness of strangers to either get the point across or to find what you need. We have to build a new network of friends and family that we can rely upon when we are having a tough day, or just need to laugh at how ridiculous some of the situations that we are put in are, or just need to get a computer cord fixed. I’m happy to say that the people that I am sharing this experience with are all super cool and there is not a doubt in my mind that a lot of these people are going to be my friends for life. I say that with all sincerity, and not because I am trying to avoid packing all my crap away.
And on that note, time to get packing. There is a lot of work to do here before I can get on that bus to Kiev tomorrow.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Photos
http://picasaweb.google.com/acwoodstock/FirstPicsUkraine?feat=directlink
Cut and paste in your browser. Send me an email if you have any problems.
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