Gas Leak, no really...

Well just when I had decided to have a whole brand new perspective on things, something HUGE happens. Or apparently, has been happening for awhile, I just didn’t spend enough time in my kitchen to be effected by it. In retrospect, I now realize that I have been suffering from pretty bad headaches since I moved in my new apartment. I honestly haven’t had a problem with headaches in years, I just assumed that maybe the reason I was suffering from them here was readjustment, not sleeping well, etc. It never occurred to me that I was suffering from CO2 poisoning. Gee.

The heat has gotten out of control here. Who would have thought that a country like Ukraine that has famously harsh winters, would also have extremely hot summers too? The temperatures have been hovering around the high 90s for at least a week now (and air conditioning is a luxury, not many people I know have it here). Towards the end of last week, it was really hot… and I kept waking up with headaches. I just assumed the headaches could be attributed to the heat. I’m not a big fan of heat. I’ll admit it. I’d say I’m pretty sensitive to the heat. So when I started waking up with headaches, I just figured, hey, it’s probably the heat. I just need to drink more water.

I had contemplated going to Kharkiv this past weekend, but the thought of sitting on an electrychka 2.5 hours each way with no air-conditioning and people smelling extremely sweaty (eh-hem) was not my idea of a fun trip. So, I stayed home. It was extremely hot outside, so I stayed inside and trained my fan directly on me. I drank lots of fluids and generally took it easy. What else could I do? I noticed that despite all the Advil I was taking that each night I would go to bed with a whopper of a headache. This went on all weekend. Monday morning I woke up and my head was pounding, and I felt like I might throw up. I downed more Advil and went to work. I came home had some lunch, did some work on the computer and then headed to out for a long walk to the train station to buy my ticket to Lugansk. (I’m going to help out a fellow PCV with a camp).

Before going to the train station, I spent some time preparing on paper the tickets that I would want. I wanted to be prepared in case my limited Russian failed me and I needed to just show the clerk my travel plans on paper. When I got to the window I explained that I spoke horrible Russian and then I told her what I wanted. She spoke really clearly and slowly which helped A LOT. And shockingly, I successful bought the EXACT train tickets that I wanted at the correct times and on the correct dates. Awesome. I decided to treat myself by walking home the long way, but then 10 minutes in, instantly regretted it. It was HOT!

I made it home a hot, sweaty mess. But not before stopping by the store where I stocked up on bubbly water and managed to find a crazy beverage which I am glad I tried. It was a can of beer, but it was a beer and cherry juice mix. Odd, you say. But I was intrigued. I like beer. I like cherry juice. And it’s hot, the perfect time to drink a cold beer. I had huge plans for this beer. When I walked in my door, I dragged my fan into the bathroom, filled my laundry basin with cold water, stripped off my clothes, plunked down in the water, and popped open my cherry beer. It was amazing and amusing all at the same time.

That night, again I went to bed with a headache after sitting in my kitchen and watching episodes of ‘How I Met Your Mother’ on my computer. I woke up a little before midnight drenched in sweat with my CO2/smoke detector going off. I had put the detector on top of my wardrobe, but this put it a good 9 or 10 feet off the ground, so this involved me stumbling around trying to find a chair which allowed me to ‘just’ reach it by sliding it off the edge with my fingers (in hindsight, probably not the best place for it, but I don’t have the tools necessary to ‘hang’ it somewhere). I got it down and immediately pulled out the batteries to stop the NOISE. (A note about myself, if I am awoken in the middle of the night, I don’t always wake up completely. I also don’t always think or act rationally). I figured I didn’t smell smoke, it must be a gas leak, but what to do. It was close to midnight and I sure as hell can’t communicate to emergency personnel that my CO2 alarm was going off on my Peace Corps issued detector. So I sent a text to Conor and told him my CO2 alarm was going off and that I didn’t know what to do. (Remember, I am not completely awake).

Babe, put the batteries back in the alarm. Make sure your windows are open and that the fan is pointed at you. (The alarm wasn’t going off anymore since I was sitting in front of the fan with it). Keep the alarm close to your head, if it goes off again, you are going to have to call someone and you should probably go outside. Makes a lot of sense, sense that I have trouble making when I get woken up out of a deep sleep. Conor had also been telling me for DAYS at this point that my headaches were probably due to gas leaking out of my old stove. And I didn’t listen, because my stupid CO2 alarm hadn’t gone off yet. Trust me when I say, I am still paying for that with the mother of all headaches. I’m lucky that nausea and headaches are all that happened.

He also told me to turn off the gas, which I found where I could do this no problem. But, do to poor construction or placement the countertop and cabinets were preventing me from turning the knob to turn off the gas. I tried to yank the countertop back, but only succeeded and smashing my finger. I wasn’t strong enough to move them. I gave up on that one.

The next day I armed myself with a little something I had prepared with Google Translator explaining that there was a gas leak in my apartment, that my CO2 detector went off and that I am feeling really ill and have had a headache for 6 days. I waited and waited for my boss to come since it’s his mother’s apartment, he’s kind of my landlord. In the meantime, I left a message with Peace Corps medical that I needed to talk to one of the doctors. I also called the backup Regional Manager to report what was going on. Around 11, I asked if my boss was even coming to work that day. Found out he wasn’t (he was working in Kharkiv that day), so told the ladies I had a problem and showed them what I had written up.

And then… there was a HUGE flurry of activity. They got on the phone and called the Director around the same time the Medical Office called me on one of my phones and then literally 5 minutes later, the backup Manager called me on my other phone. At one point in time there were 4 or 5 phones in play as I was on one of my phones with Medical and had handed off my other phone with the Regional Manager to one of the ladies that I work with, while one of the other ladies was on the phone with the Director on one hand and his wife with the other hand. Bottom line, everyone jumped on it.

Ira and I soon left the office and headed back to my apartment. Within 10 minutes a gas guy showed up and he waved some kind of contraption around my stove and gas line and said that ‘Yes, indeed I had a leak’. He then yanked the cabinets and countertop out of the corner of the kitchen and then yanked the stove out and took it apart. He fixed whatever needed to be fixed, and my Director’s wife stopped by with money for the repairman. And now I don’t have a gas leak and I can suddenly turn on my stove top without using two hands to crank the no longer stuck knobs.

This morning, my boss gently reprimanded me for calling the Peace Corps yesterday. I gently reprimanded him back to say that I am obligated to call the Peace Corps in these circumstances. My boss then took me to the hardware store and bought a new faucet and shower nozzle for my shower, and took me bed shopping (I put a down payment on a real bed, a real new bed), and took me to set up a meeting with my partner organization… and is apparently coming over tonight to install the faucet and take a look at the mold in my bathroom. I wonder if he’ll remember the TV he has been promising me for weeks. I didn’t want to mention it again after all the progress we made in the past two days (thanks to that call to the Peace Corps, by the way). Gee, all it took was for my CO2 alarm to go off to get the ball rolling. And THANKS TO THE PEACE CORPS for giving us all those detectors. I have to be honest and say, I wouldn’t have even thought to buy one for myself.

And my people really rallied for me here. When I woke up at midnight with the alarm going off, the one thing that really frightened me was that in my town, I really don’t have anybody to rely on. Well, this chain of events has proved me wrong. I’m not saying that I am glad I had a gas leak and that I am suffering the after effects of CO2 poisoning, but the whole experience did show me that I am far from alone here. I got people, and the people here do care. And I am getting a new bed and shower nozzle to prove it! Ha! (Joke)!

A Brand New State of Mind

Ukraine with it’s trickery will be close to 100 degrees tomorrow. I do realize that the winters here are harsh and that it is going to be very cold… but right now, when I am drenched in sweat and am thinking, wow, I haven’t sweat like this since I was in Thailand… it’s kind of hard to believe.

On the bright side, I had a few notable niceties in Balakleya this week after my declaration that I was going to try to stop being a sour puss about things. I got some packages from my mom on Monday. After looking at the packages, and having my boss point to the address and give me the ???-look, I realized that she did not add the Russian version of my address to the packages. Oddly enough, the goodies actually made it to me. I don’t know how long they sat at the Post Office here before my boss inquired if there were any packages from America (two weeks, I think), but they got here. I finally got peanut butter and hot sauce and 4 of my light-weight summer dresses and my French Press, and the potato peeler that I bought before coming and a whole bunch of other stuff. Note to those interested: Send hot sauce and spicey spices.

I am also really making an effort to make peace with my apartment. I think I have. I might never make peace with the bathroom, but really, there is nothing I can do there. So, I just have to ignore it. I am also choosing to find the fact that the ceiling in my kitchen is only half-finished as charming. The bed, well I am really trying to get a new one, but I’m not getting a lot of help from the people who can help me. I have cash… I just don’t know where to go with it. I guess, worst case scenario, I buy an inflatable and just make do.

On Tuesday, my co-worker told my boss that I had received another package from The States. My other mom’s package had come complete with super duper wool socks (I asked for them back in April when it was freezing and my socks weren’t cutting the mustard – but we couldn’t receive any packages until July), a camping towel, more peanut butter and more Emergen-C. What a bounty!?! I would be set with peanut butter for at least the next two weeks. I stopped by the Post Office on the way home dreading the interaction. The lady behind the desk was kind of a jerk, because she pissed and moaned that I interrupted the last 5 minutes of her break. But, I just stood there and looked purposely confused and played the ‘I am a foreigner’ card, ‘I don’t understand’. I kind of love that I can do that. This got another lady involved, because she also did not care if she was disturbing the last 5 minutes of this girl’s break either. I had to fill out a form, but again, I gave the big-eyed pathetic look that I do rather well and the girl asked if she should fill it out for me. The helpful lady told her yes and then showed me where I needed to sign. Thank you, Helpful Lady. The girl behind the desk rolled her eyes at me… Love. I think we might become great friends.

I went to the grocery store and the lady who yelled at me two weeks ago for not responding fast enough when she was yelling at me about 1 kopeck was on check out. I brought my stuff over to the register and she said, ‘You don’t need a bag, do you?’ (I have a stuff-able grocery bag from my dear roommate Ariel in New York, who couldn’t stand the accumulation of plastic bags in our kitchen). In Ukraine, they charge you for the plastic bags, which I think is great. Before they ring up your groceries they ask you if you want a packet (bag), and then big or small. If you brought your own, it reminds you to yank it out and get it ready to bag. Anyhow, her question indicated that she remembered me, since I like to yank out my blue bag and unfold it while I am waiting in line so I have it ready. She then proceeded to smile, and ring my groceries and then point to the screen and say really slowly and clearly what the total was. She was being nice. I was thrilled since last time when she yelled at me, I yelled back at her that I didn’t speak Russian that well. She must have been having a bad day that day, so was I… Today on the other hand, we were both having a good day.

All in all, things seem to be improving slowly but surely. It’s super hot this weekend, so I have been somewhat sequestered in my apartment. I don’t feel comfortable enough here yet to swim by myself with my tats, although with all the babushkas and children around, I think it would be fine. It’s really too hot for walking around. So for now, it’s me, my fan, and my feet in a bucket of cool water. They say August is going to be hotter. I am not looking forward to that, since it is already in the mid to high-90s right now. Ugh.

The Awesome-est

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.

Trying to get some perspective...

Again another week has passed so quickly. Sometimes it seems like life is just passing me by while I stew in my frustration over not being able to understand and communicate effectively. I have to constantly remind myself that what I am doing is awesome and that the ability to communicate and understand will come naturally with time… but time seems to be flying. What if the time flies by and I am still fumbling with basic sentences?

The past week had its moments of gigantic hurtles and interesting moments. I don’t think I mentioned the 4th of July in my last blog. That’s because it seemed to pass by all too quickly and with little fanfare. I did make an effort to try to do something American on that day and I met up with a fellow American in Kharkiv. I was kind of excited by the adventure since it involved me going to the train station in my town solo and asking about the electrychka schedule in my poor Russian.

This is kind of how it went. I stared at the schedule for a good 10 minutes while chatting on the phone with Vicki. Then, not being able to make sense out of it, I asked at the desk about the schedule for the electrychka, at which point the woman pointed me back in the direction of the schedule that I was staring at previously. So, this time I stared at it, exaggerated my confused face, and scrunched up my lips and nose and opened my eyes really wide so as to look both lost and sad, and the woman opened her window and tried to lean out and explain it to me. I walked back over and asked when was the train that was approximately around 8 am, and then the next one. She rattled off some numbers which I wrote down in my notebook and then showed to her. Aces, I heard the times correctly. Then I went back to the schedule and realized that the reason I couldn’t make heads or tails of it was that the time that I knew previously from my journey to the children’s birthday party was a few minutes off from the schedule on the wall. Maybe it was an arrival time instead of a departure time, hard to say, but I had a plan and a solo adventure coming my way.

The plan was to meet up with Sally, another PCV, who happens to be from an area in Massachusetts no more than 40 minutes away from my parent’s house. We were practically neighbors… and the cool thing about Sally… she was in the Roller Derby in Massachusetts. (Some of you may know that I trained and tried out for the Gotham Girls Roller Derby and didn’t make the team, therefore, never realized my true potential as a bad ass. New York being one of the most competitive leagues in the country, I have to give myself a break on that). So anyhow, I set off early on Sunday and took a 2.5 hour electrychka ride on a wooden bench and rode the Kharkiv metro solo to meet up with Sally at the second largest square in the world next to Tiananmen Square. There is a gigantic statue of Lenin in the middle, a perfect place to meet. I stood in a place where Lenin pointed directly at my head, and Sally and I inevitably found each other.

Sally and I failed in our quest to find shwarma in Kharkiv, but after walking a bit and buying Sally a new camera, we bypassed the obviously American McDonald’s and found a place overlooking a river that touted pizza and beer. So, we had some pizza and beer on the 4th of July. Then we found a square with a whole bunch of army tanks in it and climbed on the tanks and took pictures. Then, since my trip home would take another 2.5 to 3 hours, I had to jet after like 3 hours in Kharkiv. I had managed to purchase an electrychka schedule before I met up with Sally, but it took me a good half hour to hour of scrutinizing it on the train home to realize that I could have left later, in fact there seemed to be electrychka regularly every 2 hours or so, all through the night and into the wee morning hours. But hey, the 2.5 hour train rides on wooden benches were kind of a full adventures in and of themself… so I wasn’t too plussed about leaving that early.

The following week proved to be really a bit stressful. The inability to communicate, understand, and be understood, seemed to have come to a head. We had a moment on Monday where it seemed like I was being cornered by my boss and my counterpart, but hard to say what was really going on. My job for the first three months is to observe, get settled, ask questions, and get to know my community. Other than that, I can think about potential projects, potential grants, but I am really just supposed to be making an effort in community integration. (Can I say, this is really hard to do in a post-Soviet community when your organization doesn’t drag you around to social gatherings after work and on the weekends? As an outsider, you kind of have to be ‘introduced’ to the community. My introduction was a wild car ride with blaring techno music where my boss pointed out important buildings my first day in town. My other introduction was when he took me to the hardware store to buy my hot water boiler and told them I was American).

The discussion that we had, and it’s hard to determine what the conversation was about since my boss generally communicates with one word at a time to me, and then says, ‘Understand’?, went a little like this. Here is a sample, conversation. ‘Amy’, pause, ‘Write’, ‘Understand’? ‘Yes, I understand ‘to write’. ‘Amy’, pause, ‘Can you write grants’? ‘Yes, I can write grants. I have written grants’. ‘Amy’, ‘Can you write grants, now?’ ‘Um, yes, I am capable of writing grants now.’ ‘Amy’, pause, ‘Write, Grants, Now’! ‘I need information to write grants’. ‘So ask’… ‘Write, Grants, Now’. ‘We need to discuss what kind of projects we want to do’. ‘So let’s discuss’… at which point he turns around and starts having a completely different conversation with someone else. Maybe some day I will understand this form of communication, but what I got out of that was ‘Amy, I want you to write grants now’.

He got frustrated while we were trying to have this conversation, as well, and said ‘We need a translator’. That was just about the only thing that we agreed upon. What did come out of the conversation, at least as I am ‘choosing’ to understand was that I don’t need to be at the office for that long each day. There isn’t internet at the office, so I can do some things, but then I need to walk the 40 minutes back to the center of town to use the internet. I can use my ‘beeline’ at home, so I can now reasonably work from home. We also had a slightly productive meeting with a translator towards the end of the week. I still felt a bit like we were communicating in circles, but at least we were communicating.

The communication foibles made for a really frustrating week. I felt really low and spent probably too much time bitching and moaning about my situation here, but with all that bitching tends to come some much needed perspective on the situation, and so it seems the bitching is a necessary process. I spoke with another volunteer on the other side of the country and we both kind of agreed that there seemed to be a kind of repetitive cycle that we were all stuck in… one day is fine, then the next day comes a lot of frustration and anger, and then the third day comes with frustration and depression and then it starts all over again. I also Skyped with a few old friends (one a former Peace Corps volunteer) in the states and it helped to hear their perspectives and get a little nudge of encouragement. I also received a few messages and phone calls of support from my friends and fellow volunteers here now, which really felt good to get a reminder that we are all kind of in this together.

I got the most encouraging message from a good friend and former co-worker who reminded me of why I am here. (Thank you, Jeanie Barnett). Essentially, a big part of the reason I am here, is to learn about a different culture and to open a window to that culture to the people back in the states. Writing is my vehicle to opening this window and sharing the richness and beauties and hardships of this different culture. The other big part of the reason I am here is to share my culture, my ideas, and my experience with the people here. I know that I have to make more of an effort to put myself out there and integrate myself into the community. That is entirely up to me, and this week, I am going to start making that a priority. It’s going to be hard, putting myself out there like that, but it will make things easier for me here. So wish me ‘fart’, I will need it. (Did you know that the word fart (фарт) in Russian means ‘luck’?

Boiler and Kharkiv or Kharkov - depending

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.

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.

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?