 |
| Thanksgiving Lugansk 2010 |
Monday, November 29, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Friday, October 8, 2010
September 2010
Well, a month has passed since I was able to update the blog last. I am currently packing up my big backpack to go on a 10 day hiking trip with one of Conor’s secondary organizations. Well, this could prove to be rather interesting. There will be 10 people going including me and Conor. We are packing and carrying our food for 10 days. Water is a concern since we are going to be taking it from natural resources. This will be a real barebones operation. Food is a concern for me as well. Apparently, dried fish is a big part of the menu for the next 10 days… not sure I can partake in that since my stomach doesn’t take well to certain things. Another big part will be salo (the raw, cured pig fat that is a Ukrainian delicacy). Well, let’s just say it remains to be seen whether I will be able to eat anything that will be offered. I guess I will be toting my own supply of peanut butter, Nature Valley granola bars, and, well, does anyone know how long hard-boiled eggs keep without refrigeration? Temps are supposed to get down into the 40s at night. Well, this will certainly be an adventure.
As for the last month, things have kind of come to a head at my site. I am under a lot of stress right now that I won’t really go into. I am still waiting for the renovation in my bathroom that should have happened over the summer. The moldy wallpaper is a problem. It’s more of a health problem now that it is cold and I can’t keep my windows open all the time. I went to the PEPFAR conference in Kiev for a week and learned how to do trainings on HIV/AIDS and how to write grants, etc. I also got sick that week so ended up in bed for part of that training. I finally held my first English club at the high school. It went great and two of the girls took my phone number. So now I have two definite friends in town. I also have a budding romance with ‘Melvin’ the black kitty in the hallway in my building. I would love to adopt him, but am hesitant to do so since I travel so often and don’t really have anyone here I can rely on to take care of him when I am gone. He seems to do fine and doesn’t feel to skinny. He’s eating somewhere. So I guess I will just be satisfied with our hallway rendez-vous’ and hope that he belongs to someone as winter approaches. As I write this, it’s in the mid-40s. It’s October 8th, gee. Well, that’s it. Very brief, will have a ton to report after the camping/hiking trip. Keep your fingers crossed I make it!
As for the last month, things have kind of come to a head at my site. I am under a lot of stress right now that I won’t really go into. I am still waiting for the renovation in my bathroom that should have happened over the summer. The moldy wallpaper is a problem. It’s more of a health problem now that it is cold and I can’t keep my windows open all the time. I went to the PEPFAR conference in Kiev for a week and learned how to do trainings on HIV/AIDS and how to write grants, etc. I also got sick that week so ended up in bed for part of that training. I finally held my first English club at the high school. It went great and two of the girls took my phone number. So now I have two definite friends in town. I also have a budding romance with ‘Melvin’ the black kitty in the hallway in my building. I would love to adopt him, but am hesitant to do so since I travel so often and don’t really have anyone here I can rely on to take care of him when I am gone. He seems to do fine and doesn’t feel to skinny. He’s eating somewhere. So I guess I will just be satisfied with our hallway rendez-vous’ and hope that he belongs to someone as winter approaches. As I write this, it’s in the mid-40s. It’s October 8th, gee. Well, that’s it. Very brief, will have a ton to report after the camping/hiking trip. Keep your fingers crossed I make it!
Weekend in Khartsitsk back in early September
Well, now that the summer is over and signing up for summer camps to hang out with Conor is a thing of the past, I figured I had to go for the gusto and try the haul to Hartsitsk for just the weekend. It’s an overnight 5 hour train ride and then roughly another hour of travel via bus to Conor’s city. Unfortunately, we don’t have a straight shot between my town and his city. In the grand scheme of Ukraine though, it really ain’t bad. I would leave my town at 12:30 am, and get to Markeevka at 5:30 am, take a cab across town to the bus station, and then take a marshrutka to Hartsitsk, arriving at Conor’s around 6:30/7am depending on whether the train arrived on time.
The funny thing is that technically speaking we are only 130 miles apart. But due to poor infrastructure travelling takes a lot longer than it would do in the states. I think I heard somewhere that the train speed maxes out at 40 miles per hour, so slow travel it is. Actually, we are really lucky we are only 5-6 hour apart. I’m a good 8-10 hours from John and Kim and around 15 hours from Cassie. I live relatively far East, so it is more than feasible in Ukraine that it could take me 30 some odd hours to cross a country the rough size of Texas. It really puts things into perspective. As much as travel in the states can be a hassle, our roads are in good enough condition for me to travel at 90 miles per hour if I want to take that risk. My train ride from Penn Station in NYC to Windsor, Connecticut is two and a half hours to travel roughly 120 miles. Faster if you take the Acela to Hartford. It’s faster for me to train to Kiev and fly home to NYC than it is to travel to see some of my friends in the outskirts of Western Ukraine. It’s mindboggling.
The Friday before I left, was actually chock full of activity. At some point over the summer I had showed my office mates my photos from Lugansk. We were cooking with Caroline and I was chopping up cilantro (kinza in Russian) to add to fresh made salsa. My boss saw that picture and demanded that I make that for the office. Knowing that fresh tomatoes will likely be a thing of the past soon, I figured I had that I had to jump on making the salsa soon. So last Monday, I pointed to the picture again and asked when he wanted me to make the salsa. He said, how about Friday. And then the discussion turned to something where everyone would contribute something to a feast. I heard the words shashliki (shish kebobs) and kartoshka (potatoes) so I had an idea that we were going to have a big lunch.
Turns out we were having a picnic. I’m glad I wore jeans that day. Our office is in the forest, so we didn’t have to go far for a picturesque place to picnic. We chose a place across the street by the river. There was a little shack set up expressly for the purpose of barbequing. So we took over the shack. Tony cut potatoes in half, inserted a piece of salo (raw bacon) between the two halves and wrapped the potatoes up foil. Then we just threw the potatoes in with the coals. They were delicious. The pork that we marinated for the shashlik was amazing. We had watermelon and we used bread to eat my salsa (corn chips and tortilla chips are a rarity here). And of course there was plenty of beer and vodka to go around. It was a great day bonding with my workmates. It was extremely difficult, because it turned out to be a 4 hour affair in only Russian, so I had a lot of trouble understanding most of what was going on. I’m still at a point where I understand a lot of words, but not the context. It’s exhausting.
My train trip to Hartsitsk was relatively uneventful, however, it was freezing. I was wearing jeans, socks, a long-sleeved t-shirt and a pretty warm hoody. I wore the hood on my head all night. After I made my bed, I went and asked the train attendant for an O-day-ya-lo (a blanket) which I totally botched the pronunciation while holding my dictionary. Thankfully, there was a pile of blankets that I could point at, but the jig was up, I gave it away that I was a foreigner. The train attendants either love this or hate this. This guy loved it. I think the male train attendants feel protective of solo female travelers, especially if they are foreign. He woke me up about a half an hour before arrival with Pra-see-pie-yoos (wake up), and then we will arrive in Markeevka in half an hour. He said it really slow, so I understood every word. I got into the station, took a cab to the bus station, took a marshrutka to Hartsitsk, and the walked into Conor’s building, gave him a call and told him to let me in.
When I bought the tickets to Hartsitsk, I envisioned a relaxing weekend just hanging out. It turned out not to be the case. Conor’s town was apparently having a weekend chock full of festivals and being Peace Corps volunteers with part of our job description being cultural exchange, he was required to attend. So after about an hour long nap and breakfast we had to hit the road. The first festival we attended had something to do with chickens. It’s still not clear what it was we were celebrating, but there was a lot of ‘chicken specific’ artwork up and many signs that said something about chickens. That one was a bit of a mystery, but after we met up with the deputy mayor and he took us in a car to the Kazak festival that was being held in a large field.
The Kazak festival was great. People wore traditional costumes, served traditional food from a war canteen, there was a ring for traditional wrestling, sword-fighting, and horses. There were army tents set up and tables filled with defunct army gear. I got a couple of great pictures with Conor’s camera of a little girl wearing an army helmet and playing with a dead landmine. From there we headed to another festival in the park celebrating all the couples that got married in the past year. And after that, we seemingly were free. We stopped on the way home for a bowl of the Okroshka that Conor has been raving about. Then a much needed NAP. With very little sleep after a freezing train ride and a day full of activity, I was seriously pooped. Post-nap, we shared a bottle of wine then went to grab some pretty decent pizza for dinner. Overall a good day.
The next day we had more festivals to prepare for. We had to be somewhere so that Conor could take pictures, but then it turned out that we either weren’t needed or had missed something. So we took a long walk instead and found a sushi resto that Conor had been to at some point in time with the deputy mayor. It was alright, but over-priced. The beauty of sushi is that it is pretty much the same wherever you have it in the world. A salmon roll is a salmon roll, a tuna roll is a tuna roll, as long as they don’t sneak mayonnaise in, it tastes alright.
In the end, Conor had to be in the town center for a big concert that was supposed to celebrate his town. Apparently, a famous Ukrainian singer was coming to perform, and he was supposed to meet with the Deputy Mayor and meet the singer. I had packed my backpack to be ready to catch a cab to the train station. It was pretty hectic with tons of people. Not exactly cool to be weeding through tons of people carrying a backpack with your laptop in it. In the end, I decided that maybe it would be better to leave for the train station a bit earlier since I was dragging around all my stuff. So we said goodbye and I jumped in a cab. It was a good, but busy weekend.
The funny thing is that technically speaking we are only 130 miles apart. But due to poor infrastructure travelling takes a lot longer than it would do in the states. I think I heard somewhere that the train speed maxes out at 40 miles per hour, so slow travel it is. Actually, we are really lucky we are only 5-6 hour apart. I’m a good 8-10 hours from John and Kim and around 15 hours from Cassie. I live relatively far East, so it is more than feasible in Ukraine that it could take me 30 some odd hours to cross a country the rough size of Texas. It really puts things into perspective. As much as travel in the states can be a hassle, our roads are in good enough condition for me to travel at 90 miles per hour if I want to take that risk. My train ride from Penn Station in NYC to Windsor, Connecticut is two and a half hours to travel roughly 120 miles. Faster if you take the Acela to Hartford. It’s faster for me to train to Kiev and fly home to NYC than it is to travel to see some of my friends in the outskirts of Western Ukraine. It’s mindboggling.
The Friday before I left, was actually chock full of activity. At some point over the summer I had showed my office mates my photos from Lugansk. We were cooking with Caroline and I was chopping up cilantro (kinza in Russian) to add to fresh made salsa. My boss saw that picture and demanded that I make that for the office. Knowing that fresh tomatoes will likely be a thing of the past soon, I figured I had that I had to jump on making the salsa soon. So last Monday, I pointed to the picture again and asked when he wanted me to make the salsa. He said, how about Friday. And then the discussion turned to something where everyone would contribute something to a feast. I heard the words shashliki (shish kebobs) and kartoshka (potatoes) so I had an idea that we were going to have a big lunch.
Turns out we were having a picnic. I’m glad I wore jeans that day. Our office is in the forest, so we didn’t have to go far for a picturesque place to picnic. We chose a place across the street by the river. There was a little shack set up expressly for the purpose of barbequing. So we took over the shack. Tony cut potatoes in half, inserted a piece of salo (raw bacon) between the two halves and wrapped the potatoes up foil. Then we just threw the potatoes in with the coals. They were delicious. The pork that we marinated for the shashlik was amazing. We had watermelon and we used bread to eat my salsa (corn chips and tortilla chips are a rarity here). And of course there was plenty of beer and vodka to go around. It was a great day bonding with my workmates. It was extremely difficult, because it turned out to be a 4 hour affair in only Russian, so I had a lot of trouble understanding most of what was going on. I’m still at a point where I understand a lot of words, but not the context. It’s exhausting.
My train trip to Hartsitsk was relatively uneventful, however, it was freezing. I was wearing jeans, socks, a long-sleeved t-shirt and a pretty warm hoody. I wore the hood on my head all night. After I made my bed, I went and asked the train attendant for an O-day-ya-lo (a blanket) which I totally botched the pronunciation while holding my dictionary. Thankfully, there was a pile of blankets that I could point at, but the jig was up, I gave it away that I was a foreigner. The train attendants either love this or hate this. This guy loved it. I think the male train attendants feel protective of solo female travelers, especially if they are foreign. He woke me up about a half an hour before arrival with Pra-see-pie-yoos (wake up), and then we will arrive in Markeevka in half an hour. He said it really slow, so I understood every word. I got into the station, took a cab to the bus station, took a marshrutka to Hartsitsk, and the walked into Conor’s building, gave him a call and told him to let me in.
When I bought the tickets to Hartsitsk, I envisioned a relaxing weekend just hanging out. It turned out not to be the case. Conor’s town was apparently having a weekend chock full of festivals and being Peace Corps volunteers with part of our job description being cultural exchange, he was required to attend. So after about an hour long nap and breakfast we had to hit the road. The first festival we attended had something to do with chickens. It’s still not clear what it was we were celebrating, but there was a lot of ‘chicken specific’ artwork up and many signs that said something about chickens. That one was a bit of a mystery, but after we met up with the deputy mayor and he took us in a car to the Kazak festival that was being held in a large field.
The Kazak festival was great. People wore traditional costumes, served traditional food from a war canteen, there was a ring for traditional wrestling, sword-fighting, and horses. There were army tents set up and tables filled with defunct army gear. I got a couple of great pictures with Conor’s camera of a little girl wearing an army helmet and playing with a dead landmine. From there we headed to another festival in the park celebrating all the couples that got married in the past year. And after that, we seemingly were free. We stopped on the way home for a bowl of the Okroshka that Conor has been raving about. Then a much needed NAP. With very little sleep after a freezing train ride and a day full of activity, I was seriously pooped. Post-nap, we shared a bottle of wine then went to grab some pretty decent pizza for dinner. Overall a good day.
The next day we had more festivals to prepare for. We had to be somewhere so that Conor could take pictures, but then it turned out that we either weren’t needed or had missed something. So we took a long walk instead and found a sushi resto that Conor had been to at some point in time with the deputy mayor. It was alright, but over-priced. The beauty of sushi is that it is pretty much the same wherever you have it in the world. A salmon roll is a salmon roll, a tuna roll is a tuna roll, as long as they don’t sneak mayonnaise in, it tastes alright.
In the end, Conor had to be in the town center for a big concert that was supposed to celebrate his town. Apparently, a famous Ukrainian singer was coming to perform, and he was supposed to meet with the Deputy Mayor and meet the singer. I had packed my backpack to be ready to catch a cab to the train station. It was pretty hectic with tons of people. Not exactly cool to be weeding through tons of people carrying a backpack with your laptop in it. In the end, I decided that maybe it would be better to leave for the train station a bit earlier since I was dragging around all my stuff. So we said goodbye and I jumped in a cab. It was a good, but busy weekend.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
The Last Two Weeks of Summer
At the time I started writing this, I had been away from site for approximately 2 weeks. For the first 5 days I was in Kiev attending a training on volunteerism with my new counterpart and then following that, Conor and I travelled on to Krivoy Rog to help out at Camp Lead, a camp that teaches leadership skills while practicing the English language. The cool part about the whole experience was that I got to hook up with my entire Cluster and some of my Peace Corps peeps over the course of the entire two weeks. Even cooler, I got to hang out with Conor the whole time. Maybe not as cool, I have a real new found appreciation for McDonalds. (Hey, it’s reliable, you know what you are going to get, it’s fast, and now they have McCafé with decent Latté, Cappuccino, Espresso and Americano).
The trip started off without a hitch. My counterpart met me at the train station a little after midnight and we got on the train. At least I tried to get on the train. The car attendant didn’t put the stairs down and wanted us to climb on. Easy enough for my counterpart who wasn’t carrying much, but I had a HUGE backpack packed for two weeks, and I was carrying a good 10-15 pounds of magazines that I was going to share. I tried to step up and smashed my knee because I lost my balance. The train attendant looked at me and said something along the lines of… ‘Well if you weren’t carrying that huge backpack…’. Gee, thanks.
We seemingly had the compartment to ourselves. We made our beds and went to bed and two hours later 4 people came into our car, turned on the light and were talking loudly. Mind you, this is at 2 in the morning. I was pissed. Half of the group ended up getting off. I got the gist that the two that got on were not Ukrainian, potentially Dutch or from the Nordic, I had trouble placing the language. The woman was polite enough, trying to keep her husband quiet, but he insisted on having a full on conversation with her for a half an hour after the train took off. Grrrr.
Turns out my fellow PCV from Lugansk that I had endured the Baptist camp with was in the very next train car. So at 7am, she sent me a text and told me to come and visit. Since I was asleep when she sent the text I waited a bit, but after that, I was up. So I grabbed some of the breakfast I brought and headed over. We had some breakfast, chatted up some random people who wanted to practice their English. We drank tons of coffee and whiled away the rest of the train ride.
The training was awesome in that we got reunited with a lot of our group mates, both the Community Development Volunteers and the Youth Development Volunteers. The training was designed to train both the volunteer and their counterpart in both English and Ukrainian in how to recruit and motivate volunteers in Ukraine to do community projects. We had moments of separate trainings where they split the Americans and the Ukrainians up, and then we came together at points to come up with a joint project idea. This was DIFFICULT! This is where the language abilities or lack thereof really came to light. The Peace Corps provided a few translators, but it wasn’t sufficient. Everyone was battling for translators.
The training was useful in that we got to compare our sites and speak English freely and be around Americans. We got some forced working time with our Ukrainian counterparts. And the Ukrainians got to meet other Ukrainians hosting Americans to network and compare their trials and tribulations as well. I think the lesson that you aren’t the only one in this boat was useful for all parties. Getting to see my American peeps really gave me the perk up that I needed. It was kind of invigorating to see the ole ‘family’ again. Our cluster was really lucky. We had 4 out of 5, or rather 5 out of 6 since Natasha (our Language teacher) was there as well. Cassie couldn’t make it, but as it turns out, Cassie lives in the city that Conor and I were heading to next so we would get to see everyone, just in parts.
The last day in Kiev, Conor and I were kind of ambling around trying to figure out what to do before our train trip south. At a certain point, I think he said something along the lines of… ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to get a Couples Massage’? I looked at him and said, ‘Where the heck do you think you are right now’? But, this set us off on a search. I mean, it never hurts to look, right? So we happened upon a Chinese medicine and meditation center, but their masseuse was out of town on holiday. We started walking and looking at interesting architecture. And we saw a street sign that said Radisson Hotel some odd meters away. I looked at Conor and said, ‘You know, I bet they have spa services at the Radisson’. Let’s go check it out.
We walked up to the front desk and I asked if they had spa services and the reception dude said something along the lines of, ‘Well yes, of course we do. Go up to the 3rd floor’. They did have a masseuse just sitting around with nothing to do. The tragic part was that they only had one so Conor made the ultimate sacrifice and let me have her and went and walked around for an hour. I got an hour long massage. It was a great massage, a well-needed massage since I had a knot in my shoulder that felt like the equivalent of getting stabbed in the back slowly on and off. They gave me a HUGE fluffy white robe to wear and slippers and there was a nice shower in the dressing room. It was great. And it only cost the equivalent of around 60 USD. This was a huge indulgence in Ukraine, but a very necessary indulgence from my perspective.
After Conor and I got on our train headed to Krivoy Rog. We had splurged for Lux tickets. Our compartment had only two berths and we didn’t have to share it with anyone else. Let’s just say we had fun in our private compartment. We did some berth surfing with the door locked. It was a fun ride. Unfortunately, we got in at 7am, so we slept most of our time away in our private compartment.
We made our way to the hotel that Frank and Carol (the camp directors and Peace Corps Volunteers) live in. Frank and Carol’s apartment was nice, but the hotel was definitely creepy. It was a bit ramshackle and had long hallways with empty rooms. And not to waste resources, the lights were off. It felt kind of like the Soviet version of ‘The Shining’. I was waiting for creepy twins to appear at the end of the hallway.
The camp was an English language camp for motivated youth. Camp Lead [insert link] taught leadership skills and went through the process of how to design and implement a project in their communities. The kids seemed pretty pleased with it, minus the food situation. We served the Ukrainian version of luncheon meats for both lunch and dinner to these kids for 5 days. What’s the Ukrainian version of luncheon meats? Sausage, all different kinds of sausages. I have never seen so much sausage in my life. It was maddening. Each day we would oversee and manage the food prep for over 200 people. Now imagine how much sausage it takes to feed 200 people, twice daily for 5 days. Let’s just say, I don’t want to eat another sausage for a long time. I had a meltdown over the sausage one day. It wasn’t pretty. Everyday Conor and I left smelling like lunch ladies.
The highlights of the week made all that sausage harassment worth it though. We got to see Cassie. And we got to go to the banya twice. This banya was different from the one in Starry Belous. It had a small pool for us to jump into after the sauna. What a treat! We also went out for sushi twice with Cassie, and weird pizza once where the waitress kept trying to push us to put peach on our pizzas. Conor made it his quest to eat Okroshka (cold cucumber and dill soup) everyday. I drank as much freaking cappuccino as I could. We also visited Costco, or rather Metro, which is a German owned version of Costco in Ukraine. Conor found hot sauce and bottled salsa (Heinz, more like spicy ketchup, but per usual he had high hopes for it). I also got to copy TONS of movies and television series onto my hard-drive. I am slowly stockpiling media for the winter. All in all it was a great trip.
We also got to check out Cassie’s org ‘Shelter Plus’ [insert link]. It is a great organization housed in a super cool building with a gym, multiple recording studios, instruments to jam, a stage, a video lab, a computer lab, a crash pad, and a cafeteria. The gist of it is that it provides a safe place for youth to hang and explore their creative sides as well as other healthy lifestyle choices (i.e. working out). Let’s just say, Conor and I were super envious of Cassie’s situation. We want to go hang there for awhile. At night, there is always someone at the Shelter to guard the place, because it is that cool. So if we go to visit Cassie, we can stay there and play all night with the costumes on stage and in the gym.
The train ride back was pretty harmless, although a bit strange. I got a top berth in my compartment and for a couple of hours I was all alone. But then a family of 5 came in. Mind you there are only 4 bunks and I was on one of them. It was a mother, father, a teenage daughter who was my size, an 8 year old boy, and a baby. I was wondering how this was going to work, but apparently the teenager and the boy shared the other top berth and just laid head to feet. The father had his own and the mother and the baby were together. We all got off the train in Kharkiv a little after midnight. Then I had to wait in Kharkiv for two hours for my one hour train ride back to my town. Apparently there are various waiting rooms that you can pay for entrance too. I didn’t realize this until I was leaving, otherwise I would have paid the 30 HRV (3.50 USD) to sit in the Luxury Lounge instead of in general population where both to my left and right there was someone hacking up a lung. I am really hoping I don’t get TB by association while I am here.
My train ride to Balakleya was only an hour, but kind of eventful. Since it was only for an hour, I decided to ride Platzkart which is considered 2nd class. The car is open, but there are berths and bunks to sleep on just kind of all over the place. There was some interesting snoring, some interesting smells, but it felt really safe. I guess the safety in numbers rule applies here. In the Koupé compartments that I have ridden in thus far, it’s a closed compartment with 4 bunks. I guess if you have the wrong compartment mates, you might get trapped with people you don’t really want to be with. The compartment lady was really nice. She came over to wake me so that I was ready to get off the train and then realized that I didn’t speak Russian. She came over twice more, I think just to check on me, with the last time being to tell me to get ready to get off the train. I like that this happens, it makes it less likely that you will miss your stop, especially since it isn’t always obvious where you are getting off.
I got in at 3:45 in the morning so I took a cab. I told the cabbie my address and when we got to my building as he pulled towards my entrance (there are several), I said, ‘This is it, right here’. He said, ‘I know’. Apparently word has spread that there is a foreigner in town that lives in my building, speaks horrible Russian, and takes cabs to and from train station. I thankfully found my apartment exactly as I have found it. Apparently, I have a security system in place that I am not yet aware of. Or perhaps, people just don’t break into people’s apartments in Balakleya. Either way, that gives me some piece of mind seeing as I will likely travel a lot over the next 2 years.
Okroshka
Speaking of Okroshka (cold cucumber and dill soup), since Conor thinks it is all the rage I decided to try my hand at making it. I mean, it’s good. Why not give it a whirl? I told Caroline that I was going to give it a shot and she had some suggestions. (Caroline is one of my crazy friends in Lugansk who has been cooking up a storm. She made Conor and I fresh salsa last time we were there to visit. I want to be wherever Caroline is for Thanksgiving. She is a great cook). I found a recipe for Okroshka online and decided to work off of that. I don’t really follow recipes in the strict sense, I just kind of use the basics as guidance. The recipe called for Kvass which is a fermented black bread drink that the Ukrainians home brew and jokingly call the Ukrainian Cola. The recipe mentioned that the store-bought kvass would likely be too sweet for the recipe, therefore I was going to take Caroline’s suggestions to improvise. I have no idea at this point where to acquire home-brewed kvass.
What you will need for the recipe is kefir (a drinkable consistency plain yogurt), sour cream, cucumbers, lots of fresh dill, green onions, garlic, hard-boiled eggs, boiled potatoes, spicy mustard, and I used pickled button mushrooms for a meat substance, but normally it’s something along the lines of chopped up hot dog or ham.
Chop all the parts really small and put in a big bowl, mix in equal parts kefir and sour cream, put in a teaspoon to a tablespoon of spicy mustard depending on your taste, and use lots of chopped fresh dill. Once mixed, let it sit in the fridge for a couple of hours. If the consistency is too thick when it’s time to serve, mix in some water. Salt to taste. Obviously, it’s served cold.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
First Day of School
Today is September first. Today is also the first day of school for everyone in Ukraine. And in true Ukrainian fashion it is a day of celebration… and a half day for the kids filled with parades and festivities. Back in June when I met the English teachers and the principal at the high school, one of the English teachers explained that I should come by on the first day because it was a huge celebration, and maybe an interesting cultural moment for me to see. So I tucked this bit of information away in my head all summer and this week at work told them that I was going to go to the high school on the first day. I wanted to see the festivities.
This of course spiraled into a situation where my boss demanded that someone take me to the high school. I tried to say that I could call one of the English teachers and ask them, but for some reason, whenever I say something like I can call one of the English teachers for help, my boss jumps in and says ‘No’. We will help you, which then results in my boss telling one of the ladies in the office to help me. And then I fear them resenting me for creating ‘more work’ for them.
So I had to meet my counterpart at the school at 12:30. I am positive that the words 12:30 came out of her mouth. Apparently the 12:30 was in the sentence, but apparently what was said was that the kids go to school from 8:30 to 12:30 on the first day. I knew something was wrong with that when as I was eating breakfast I could hear music and national anthems from the elementary school next door to me. So I figured maybe she said 10:30 instead of 12:30 since 10 and 12 can sound similar if said fast. At 8:50 I got a pissed off phone asking me where I was. Why wasn’t I at the high school? This is when I found out that it was supposed to be 8:30. Hey man, don’t get mad at me if you didn’t double-check that I understood the time.
I ended up standing around like a stalker watching the festivities until I saw the English teacher and latched on. She politely berated me for not calling her all summer then grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into the principal’s office. And then we proceeded to drink for two hours. Hey it’s Ukraine, and the first day of school is a celebration. You have to start it off with a bang.
There were many toasts and at one point the English teacher grabbed me and said, after this we will visit the semen tree. I was clearly confused, so I kept a straight face and asked her what a semen tree was. She told me it was where they buried there loved ones after they died… Ah, the cemetery. Good, I didn’t know where the cemetery was and after living in Starry Belous where there seemed to be a cemetery every corner. I was a bit confused as to where the dead people went in my town. I should also note that after I told her that I would like to visit the cemetery, she didn’t make the mistake again.
Quick note about the cemeteries here. This was the first time I actually entered a cemetery in Ukraine. I’ve walked by them sure, but I haven’t really been inside. The cemetery in my town is actually really nice. The stones have a picture of the person who died etched into them somehow. I was curious about this so I ran my fingers over the picture to see how it was done. My friend explained to me that the pictures are on the stone because it is a Christian tradition that if the spirit sees it’s face it won’t come back to haunt the living… or something along those lines. I wasn’t aware of this tradition back in the states, but it seems to be a huge tradition here since each and every stone had a picture perfect face on it. I’ll have to go back and take a picture some time.
So goes a really eventful first day of school Oh, and I also have a future invite to the banya… which is apparently not in my town, but in the area of my town. So I am looking forward to that.
I am still working on an entry for the last two weeks, a training in Kiev, good friends, a camp, a super first class train ride, and lots of sausage. All coming up soon.
This of course spiraled into a situation where my boss demanded that someone take me to the high school. I tried to say that I could call one of the English teachers and ask them, but for some reason, whenever I say something like I can call one of the English teachers for help, my boss jumps in and says ‘No’. We will help you, which then results in my boss telling one of the ladies in the office to help me. And then I fear them resenting me for creating ‘more work’ for them.
So I had to meet my counterpart at the school at 12:30. I am positive that the words 12:30 came out of her mouth. Apparently the 12:30 was in the sentence, but apparently what was said was that the kids go to school from 8:30 to 12:30 on the first day. I knew something was wrong with that when as I was eating breakfast I could hear music and national anthems from the elementary school next door to me. So I figured maybe she said 10:30 instead of 12:30 since 10 and 12 can sound similar if said fast. At 8:50 I got a pissed off phone asking me where I was. Why wasn’t I at the high school? This is when I found out that it was supposed to be 8:30. Hey man, don’t get mad at me if you didn’t double-check that I understood the time.
I ended up standing around like a stalker watching the festivities until I saw the English teacher and latched on. She politely berated me for not calling her all summer then grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into the principal’s office. And then we proceeded to drink for two hours. Hey it’s Ukraine, and the first day of school is a celebration. You have to start it off with a bang.
There were many toasts and at one point the English teacher grabbed me and said, after this we will visit the semen tree. I was clearly confused, so I kept a straight face and asked her what a semen tree was. She told me it was where they buried there loved ones after they died… Ah, the cemetery. Good, I didn’t know where the cemetery was and after living in Starry Belous where there seemed to be a cemetery every corner. I was a bit confused as to where the dead people went in my town. I should also note that after I told her that I would like to visit the cemetery, she didn’t make the mistake again.
Quick note about the cemeteries here. This was the first time I actually entered a cemetery in Ukraine. I’ve walked by them sure, but I haven’t really been inside. The cemetery in my town is actually really nice. The stones have a picture of the person who died etched into them somehow. I was curious about this so I ran my fingers over the picture to see how it was done. My friend explained to me that the pictures are on the stone because it is a Christian tradition that if the spirit sees it’s face it won’t come back to haunt the living… or something along those lines. I wasn’t aware of this tradition back in the states, but it seems to be a huge tradition here since each and every stone had a picture perfect face on it. I’ll have to go back and take a picture some time.
So goes a really eventful first day of school Oh, and I also have a future invite to the banya… which is apparently not in my town, but in the area of my town. So I am looking forward to that.
I am still working on an entry for the last two weeks, a training in Kiev, good friends, a camp, a super first class train ride, and lots of sausage. All coming up soon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)