My Busy Month of October

I must begin this post with an apology to my faithful readers, that is, if I still have any, for the lack of posts the past few weeks. I’ve been very busy and lazy. Yes, busy and lazy. My schedule in October has been packed and with the amount of time I spend being busy, there is a positive correlation between it and the amount of time I spend doing nothing but napping and watching That 70’s Show episodes. I guess the increased daily activity causes me to need more downtime to relax. So between work and downtime, I have little time in between. Every weekend I was traveling and in fact, the past 7 weekends I’ve been away from my site (and 8 of the last 9) until this past weekend.

With that said, I’ll relate to you a concise version of my very busy month of October. I’ll even include headings so you can read them topically (because there is a lot here). I’m using the events of the weekends as a springboard to write, so I’m going to include a lot of tangents, thoughts, and seemingly unrelated topics. But it will be for the most part chronological.

Ecology Camp

The first weekend of October, I had the privilege of joining a UN volunteer worker, Sasha, with a local project of hers. It was a camp that was dedicated to teaching ecology to college and high school students. It took place in a town outside of Kharkiv called Liubotyn, which happened to be her home town.












The setting was absolutely beautiful. I’d been pining to witness some autumn foliage in Ukraine and had yet to see it until this particular weekend. We couldn’t have picked a better location to hold an ecology camp. Ty, a fellow PCV, and I arrived at our destination and caught the tail end of a cleaning session. Equipped with gloves and burlap sacks, we combed through the lush hills amid large trees, losing ourselves in the effort.












Our next activity was to paint wooden signs with messages about taking care of the environment. The next day, we’d hang them up on tree branches.

At night, we set up camp and cooked dinner over the fire. We snacked on sardines and bread, had some interesting conversations and even sung songs together.

The next day, we played a game called “quest”. Ukrainians love this game. I get the impression that any chance they have to combine pedagogy with fun, the default is a game of quest. It consists of finding clues, which lead to more clues. After a series of clues, which usually require a good distance of walking and/or running, the team to finish the quest first wins. It is essentially a scavenger hunt. In this case, the idea was to teach how to use a GPS, for we had to use them to find our checkpoints.

Collaborative, Kharkiv, and Couchsurfing

The second Saturday in October, I went to the city of Kharkiv for a meeting with other PCVs in the area. We got together to discuss several topics, exchange ideas, and offer help where needed. It was here that I got the idea for a viable small project. I’d put in an application for a Darian Bookaid and promptly received feedback that I’d be receiving a free shipment of books for my school in the next 3-6 months. My plan is to create a sustainable program in which the older students read books in English to the younger students so that they are exposed early on to the language. I know that in my personal experience, simply having a Spanish teacher teach us some very basic vocabulary in Kindergarten gave me a huge advantage in my Spanish studies, especially with pronunciation.

Kharkiv is the second largest city in Ukraine and fortunately, I’m only an hour and a half bus ride away from it. As a result, I make frequent trips into the city and have familiarized myself with it. I’ve grown to love the city. Recently I’ve discovered there an ice skating rink, bowling alley, 2 huge bazaars, a shopping mall, several great food places, bars, shwarma stands, hookah bars, restaurants, cafes, and a place called chateau ledo, which has paintball, arcades, ice-skating, roller skating, a 4D theatre, and a bunch of other neat things. I’m making it a goal of mine to explore the surrounding area of every metro stop and to know the ins and outs of the city by the end of my service. If anyone is ever in the area and needs help/suggestions, you know who to contact.

As I’m cruising through November, I’m more and more looking forward to my vacation home, which at this point is in less than 2 weeks. When I booked my airline tickets, I found that I have a 20 hour layover in London so I figured that this would be the perfect time to try out couchsurfing. I’d heard so many good things about it and the idea of it intrigues me. So I signed up for couchsurfing and put in several requests for a couch. I have yet to get accepted but hopefully it will serve as a good blog entry in the future and a success story. Who knows? Maybe it’ll trigger a newfound passion for travel within me. I have considered opening my apartment up for hosting anyone that comes this way. I’d be a great guide for the city of Kharkiv. I just might make it a new hobby.

Football in Kiev

On the third weekend in October, I made a trip to Kiev to play American football with fellow Americans. It was co-ed flag football but it was still fun. We played on a turf field, which was not significantly bigger than a basketball court. But it may have been for the better because I think a lot of us were simply out of shape. It was 4 on 4, with 2 girls and 2 guys on each team. My team came in last place, but we still had fun just being there and having the opportunity to play.












Living Libraries

On the fourth weekend in October, I made a trip to the city of Zaparozhia, the 6th largest city in Ukraine. I was there to join other PCVs in a very interesting project called Living Libraries. It is an event that fosters multi-cultural exchange. People of different backgrounds are brought together (in this case, PCVs) and act as “books”. There are groups of “readers” sitting at different tables and every fifteen minutes the books rotate. For fifteen minutes at a time, Ukrainians ask questions about the books’ lives, opinions, and essentially get to interact with people whom they normally would not. It’s a great way to break down barriers and prejudice. All the PCVs that attended received training on how to organize a Living Libraries event and I’m hoping to organize such an event in my region at some point in the near future. I think it’ll be great for some of my students to be exposed to different cultures. So to my readers, PCVs and America-dwellers alike, if you are interested in participating in such an event, contact me. I open this to American residents too because I am hoping I get some visitors in the next 2 years (hopefully this is not too much of a far-fetched idea).

Halloween

The weekend of Halloween, I hosted my cluster’s second reunion. There were 4 from my cluster and 4 other friends that came as guests to my humble town of Shevchenkove. The eight of us crammed into my small apartment. It was one of the most fun weekends I’ve had thus far. Anytime you have a spontaneous Youtube session, you’re bound to have a good time. I showed my American friends to some of my students with the goal of cultural exchange in mind. We threw the football around.
The next day we went to Kharkiv for the Halloween party. What can I say about Halloween? It was a good time. A whole bunch of American travelers getting together for a celebration usually spells disaster, but as far as I know, everything went smoothly. I was a ninja. I got the costume in the mail with a care package the previous day. I almost had to come up with a costume on the fly.












Brothers Karamazov

I recently finished reading Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov. It was probably the hardest book I’ve ever read and one of the best pieces of literature I believe I’ve ever come across. This is one that I’ll come back to over and over again. Dostoevsky spends tremendous energy writing on character development and plot devices are in fact secondary to it. Yet, none of the plot is lost in it. In a way, it’s as if Doestoevsky is hinting that character psychology is what drives a plot. To take it a step further, it’s as if he’s built in the age-old paradox of free-will vs. predestination right into the story’s plot mechanism. If the author is analogous to God and the characters to created beings, who is indeed acting?

I’ll stop before I give anything away. Anyway, the reason I even bring this up in my Peace Corps blog is because I must acknowledge the privilege I’ve had of reading this for the first time in Ukraine, in which parts of the book takes place in. It mentions places such as Kiev and Kharkiv and I could be wrong, but I think that Ukraine was part of Russia at the time this story takes place. Regardless, much of the cultural aspects of the novel would have been completely over my head if I’d read it in America: things such as compote, квас (kvass), the usage of “ты” (you – singular informal) vs, “вы” (you – plural or singular formal), the card game “дугок” (fool), religious icons in corners of rooms and a host of other things. Everyone should read this, particularly Ukraine PCVs.

Six Months In

October marks 6 months of living here since my arrival here in Ukraine. It’s hard to believe that I’ve spent that much time here. Time does indeed fly. I gather from speaking with other volunteers that this will all be one hell of a ride and will breeze by before we know it, though we’ve also been led to believe that PCV’s have a lot of down time and will be subject to extreme boredom. Luckily for me, I’ve been keeping busy and occupied. Thus far, I have yet to see firsthand this alleged down time. My days at work can be aptly described as an attempt to juggle curveballs in a labyrinth of Russian and Ukrainian. Between all the instances of “being Ukrained”, I’ve really learned to take it day by day.

to be Ukrained [v.] – 1. Essentially, culture shock. More specifically, when a Peace Corps Volunteer living in Ukraine experiences a sort of cultural misunderstanding or incident resulting in awkwardness, discomfort, embarrassment and/or surprise. (definition borrowed from Chris Miller’s blog entry). 2. to have things cancelled/scheduling conflicts/spontaneous lessons given on a regular basis due to miscommunication on the part of the PCV, hosting organization, or both.

A schedule is more like a loose guideline here. I’ve got a great setup with my school. My counterpart has been extremely helpful and sits down with me every Monday to give me my schedule for the week. I am scheduled to teach a lesson on healthy lifestyles about once every other day. Sometimes I teach more than 1 in a day. I run 2 English clubs per week and it looks like I’ll be adding a third. In addition, I play football (American) with my students about twice a week. Weekends are almost always booked. This was certainly true of October for me: every weekend I have been and am planning to be away from site.

However, even though I’ve been blessed with a great site, counterpart, and students, I still have a large “being Ukrained” rate. Thus far, about half of my lessons have been cancelled or rescheduled. Surprisingly, even with my 50% rate of being Ukrained, I’m still busier than a lot of other people I’ve talked to. At least my counterpart sits down with me and plans. She even gave me the caveat that these “schedules” are subject to change at a moment’s notice. Even though I’m thrown curveballs, I at least know they are coming. And I simply can’t complain.

Overload

Surprisingly, the novelty of my existence here has not completely worn off. I still hear echoes of “hello” in the hallways and am offered awkward handshakes from people that have already passed by me, resulting in me having to turn around and hold up traffic in order to honor that handshake. Still, I get paparazzi-like treatment from the 5th formers. Whenever a group of them are together and they spot me, they rush over and start interrogating me from a few inches away from my face. Sometimes I just want to run away. But I keep my composure and endure. There is this one kid that always, always shakes my hand regardless of how many times he’d already done so in the very same day.

Ukrainian names are a lot like Korean last names: there are only so many. Think of how many Korean last names you can come up with:
Lee, Kim, Park, Choi, Chung, Bae, Ahn, Shin, Oh, Yoo, Kang (with a whole lot of other more obscure ones).
And likewise, Ukrainian boys’ names: Sergei, Sasha, Igor, Vladik, Dima, Roma, Vasyl, Viktor, Maxim, Andrei, Zhenna (with a whole lot of other more obscure ones).
Ukrainian girls’ names: Katya, Larissa, Galina, Marina, Lena, Natasha, Ludmilla, Svetlana, Iryna, Oksana, Yulia, Nadia, Alla, Karina (with a whole lot of other more obscure ones).

With the amount of new people I’ve met in the past 6 months, it can be overwhelming at
times trying to remember everyone’s names, especially when a lot of them have the same name. I have to use a mnemonic by grouping people together in my memory by the same name. I can tell you how many people of these names I’ve met so far: Sergei – 4, Sasha – 7, Igor – 4, Vladik – 2, Dima – so far 1, Roma – 2, Vasyl – 1, Maxim – 3, Andrei – 2, Zhenna – 3, Katya – 4, Larissa – 3, Galina – 2, Marina – 1, Lena – 2, Natasha – 2, Ludmilla – 4 (these four Ludmilla’s have the same patronymic. I’ll explain that in a bit), Oksana – 3. These are just the ones I remember and can recall off the top of my head. I can guarantee that there are more whose names I have yet to find out. And thusly, I set out everyday to learn one new person’s name, which will more than likely be a tally mark on one of these aforementioned names.

Ukrainians (and Russians for that matter) have a particular nomenclature: Christian name, Family name, and Patronymic. The first two are self-explanatory. The patronymic is used in formal settings and consists of the subject’s father’s name with a suffix. For example, my counterpart’s name is Olena and her father’s name is Viktor. So her Patronymic is Olena Viktorovna. That is how she is addressed at school. Mine would be Sam Joonovich (because my dad’s name is Joon). If you are a female, you usually add –ivna or –ovna. If you are a male, -ovich.

Now to really illustrate how common it is to find people with similar names here in Ukraine, I will relate to you something I found out today at school. There are four, four, Ludmilla Alexandrova’s at my school who are teachers. That means that they all not only have the same first name, but that each of their fathers’ names is Alexander. What are the odds of that? In Ukraine, not that small. I was at an ecology camp a few weeks ago and in a group of about 12 of us, there were 3 Sasha’s. Nomenclature overload.

Another Run-in with the Cops

This was the third time now within 6 months of living here that I’ve been stopped by the cops. At this rate, by the end of 27 months, I’ll have been stopped by cops 13 times. Hopefully that won’t come to fruition. This encounter was more serious than the other two because the cops actually had a legitimate reason to detain me (don’t worry I’ve been behaving. Read on to find out why).

It was after ecology camp this past weekend. I was in Kharkiv. I’d just bought my bus ticket home and had 30 minutes to spare. I was a bit thirsty for something carbonated, but not soda. So naturally, I got a beer and sat on the bench under the beer tent, enjoying my 1715 Lvivski lager. I was not the only one drinking there, mind you. But as soon as I was done with the first sip of my refreshing beverage, I was approached by a cop, who was telling me that it’s illegal to drink. He then motioned for me to follow him. So with beer in hand, I followed him.

He led me to his office trailer for a brief interrogation. Not a moment later, two other cops entered and nosily stood there to observe me getting grilled by this cop. To their credit, I’ll add that they were nice despite the circumstances. The cop sat me down and asked for my documents. I handed him my Pink Card. He then asked for my passport, which I didn’t have. Luckily one of the others mentioned that he was familiar with the Peace Corps and sort of vouched for me. The other cop instructed me to empty my pockets and then began to pat me down. The cop who’d detained me was adamant about finding out why I didn’t have my passport and kept probing me. He didn’t seem to want to let me go.

Meanwhile the second cop pulled out a law book and started reading from it. Then he pointed at the passage that described that it was illegal to drink in public places. I confessed that I knew the law and I’d just forgotten about it, which was true. But in any case, I’d thought that since there was a beer tent outside, with people drinking under it, it was okay to drink there. I made it known to them that I wasn’t aware that it was still illegal to drink under a beer tent.

The second cop asked me, “what are we going to do about this?” So I answered, “can I just throw my beer in the trash and be free?” After some hesitation, he finally conceded. However, as I was about to walk out, I eyed my beer and after a long hard stare asked the officer, “do you want the rest of my beer?” because I thought it would be wasteful to throw away a nearly full can of beer. He told me that he couldn’t and that I should throw it away in the trash. So reluctantly, I did.

I went back to my seat on the bench under the beer tent somewhat upset that the consummation of my beer was thwarted and that I was targeted because, like I mentioned, I was not the only one drinking there. I watched carefully to see if the cops would even approach any of the others who were breaking the same law as I was. It never happened. But mostly, I was thankful that I wasn’t locked up and that I was able to catch my bus.

In case you were wondering: Yes. It is illegal to drink outdoors in public places. And yes. They still sell drinks outdoors in public places. Is this supposed to be a de facto method for racial profiling and selective detainment? Who knows?

My Korean Kin in Ukraine

This past weekend I was in Kiev to rendezvous with fellow volunteers. We were all either en route to or had just finished visiting our Ukrainian host families. A couple days before leaving for Kiev, I received a link to a Kievpost article on a Korean festival that was to take place in the city on the same day that we were there.

A fellow volunteer and friend, notoriously fond of Asian and particularly Korean culture, was among us and showed no hesitation in attending the festival. Really, I just wanted to get some free food, engage in some conversations in Korean for the sake of nostalgia, and head out. I had only to proffer the idea to him and it was almost a surety that we’d go.

The event was for me very surreal. Up until that moment when I walked into the building, I’d only spotted Asians every once in a while, mostly in the city. And every instance of it was a huge deal for me. Every time I spotted one, I’d take a candid photo. I started a collection of photos of Asians in Ukraine. Don’t ask why. I just thought it would be funny and that maybe I’d do a blog entry one day entitled, “proof that there are Asians in Eastern Europe”. After attending this event, the novelty of such a fact has worn off for me and the consummation of such a blog is unlikely. I digress.

On the second (or third) floor of this complex, there were long tables set up with food. It was like lunch after church, courtesy of the ahjuma’s: kimbap, bulgogi, japchae, kimchi, etc. They even served little cups of makoli.

We’d beaten the crowd to the food, but before long the place was bustling. There was a strange cacophony of English, Russian, Ukrainian, and Korean. What was even stranger was the fact that fluent Russian was flowing from the mouths of Koreans. Not just young Koreans but Korean adults. It was utterly surreal to me.

There was an instance when I went up to a teenaged Korean girl and asked her a question in Korean (I think something about the food). She said, “что?” (what?). Then in English I said, “what language do you speak?”. And I finally spoke in Russian and she understood. Here I was speaking to a Korean girl in Korean and she didn’t understand me. She knew only Russian. I know this is the Ukrainian equivalent to a Twinkie (yellow on the outside, white on the inside [for my non-Asian readers]) in the states and we see plenty of those back home. But it was just weird hearing Russian from a Korean. Sorry I’m ruminating on this fact. But it was just too surreal.

I spent the rest of the time talking to the restaurant owners in Kiev and striking up conversations with Korean strangers, who were not so strange after all.

The first days of school

The first day of school in Ukraine is always celebrated with a ceremony called “the first bell”. It’s a lot like any other celebration in Ukraine which consists of singing, speeches, and music played by the DJ while people mingle. Likewise, there is a “last bell” celebration at the end of the year. The girls don the traditional Ukrainian uniform, which looks more like a sexy French maid outfit. See for yourself:












School has been an interesting experience, to say the least. More and more, being in Ukraine, I find myself feeling younger as time passes. During training, it was the forced feeding and the lack of privacy. Now I’m back in school on the wrong side of the student-teacher dichotomy. I’ve been sitting in on classes with students ranging from 2nd-11th form (grade). It’s like those dreams where you are back in school when in fact you’re long-graduated. Except I’m pretty sure I’m not dreaming. I’m not complaining. I am essentially getting a free education in Ukrainian and Russian. The only problem is that these students’ abilities at these languages far exceed that of mine.

Celebrity status

On the first actual day of school as I was walking down the hallway, I was attacked by a detachment of handshakes and “hello’s”. I even signed a couple autographs. Doing so, I couldn’t help but crack a smile as I was trying to hold back the laughter because I found the situation so ridiculously funny. I stood there wondering if these kids realized that I’m not famous.

On the second day of school I was thrown into a class of 2nd formers, whose teacher was absent. I was to be the substitute teacher. It quickly turned into a Q/A session about my life and America. Then some girl asked me to sign her notebook. Then the whole class crowded around me asking for autographs. Again, I found myself almost cracking up because this was so bizarre. In a classroom of about 20 students I signed about 40 autographs. “How is that possible?” you might ask. Because then they started looking for anything that I could sign: English workbooks, pieces of scrap paper, notebooks, hands, arms, etc. At least 2 of them took out their camera phones and tried to sneak a photo of me. They had me read an excerpt from one of their English books, which one of the boys tried to record on his camera phone.

One day I was walking home from school and had the usual encounters with neighbors and strangers walking by: anytime I go out, whether to the school, store, or the bus station, I have to factor in a buffer time of about 10 minutes because I know that someone will run into me and start a conversation. On this particular instance, there was a boy that was on his bike, who followed me all the way from school to my neighborhood, keeping the same pace as my walking, about 10 meters behind me. I turned around and said “goodbye”, because I suspected his intention. He would say “goodbye” but kept following, pretending that he was headed in the same direction as me. When I got to my building, I ran up the steps, opened my door, went in, and quickly shut the door behind me. I heard his footsteps running up the steps behind me. I looked through the peephole and I saw him creeping.

I tried so hard to keep my living location a secret, especially from the students. The last thing I want is for a few hundred students to know my exact location. My life is already like that of a goldfish in a fishbowl as it is. Later that day I heard a knock at my door. It was a man. He introduced himself to me and told me that his daughter had talked to me at school earlier that day. She’d told me that her father wanted English lessons. I told her that I’d meet him somewhere to discuss it. As it turns out, he already knew where I lived. I guess the secret’s been out. Sigh.

Football

A few weeks ago I received an American football with a care package from my parents, for which I’m very thankful. I’ve put it to great use. I’ve been teaching the kids how to play and they picked it up surprisingly quickly. Within the first day of introducing the game to them, we were playing (a short) full-field two-hand touch football. And they love it. Everyday I’m asked when we will play again.

Here’s a quick little anecdote. Today a few of us were tossing the football around. At one point a boy, about 5 years old, walked onto the field in passing. One of the students threw the ball and completely overthrew his target. The trajectory of the ball collided directly with the face of the 5 year old boy. Of course, with concern, we ran over and asked if he was ok. The kid held his hand to his mouth and stood there for a few seconds. I thought he was going to do one of those delayed cries. There was a man with us and he said to the boy, “hey boy, what is your name? are you ok?”. The boy turned around slowly, spit into his hand, and said, “I lost my tooth”. He didn’t cry. He didn’t seem phased at all. He then proceeded to his destination. I was kind of shocked.

Host family visit

If I had to describe my host family visit in two words, they would be “food” and “heavy”. Immediately upon crossing the threshold of the front door of my host family’s house I noticed a table set up like a banquet with about 10 place settings. There was all kinds of food and such an overabundance that after the ten of us ate, the prepared food lasted every meal for three of us throughout the duration of my two and a half day stay and still there was a remainder. Of course my host grandmother would pack some of it for me to take on the train. And after every meal, I felt heavy. The reason for the smorgasbord was that it was my host grandmother’s birthday.




















As we began the feast, the toasts did as well. They kept pouring me glass after glass of both champagne and wine. They had me double-fisting in addition to the ingestion of a grotesque amount of food. It was like PST all over again.

It was after the meal that I witnessed something strange. There was only one other time in my life that I’d noticed anything quite like it and it was among old Korean men at a passionate reunion of old childhood friends. They began singing songs together. I know that doesn’t sound that strange, but you had to witness the gravity of the moment. This wasn’t karaoke. In their half-drunk state, they took turns singing dirges, with the low frequency vibrato that echoes the pains and memories of generations, particularly from a people that have had such a tumultuous and defeated history as Ukrainians. Some of them would grimace soulfully as they bellowed their guttural notes.

There was one other man at the table. He was an elderly man with white hair. He was bald on top and the hair on his sides billowed out freely but unobtrusively. He had about 5 teeth, probably not due to age: he didn’t seem that old. He had the look of a retired professor. He was quiet but not timid. Never was there a superfluous utterance that came from him. During one of the songs, he left the table abruptly as his hands covered his face. His wife, sitting across the table from him, chuckling understandingly, explained to the others, “this is his favorite song”. At that juncture I realized the heaviness of Ukrainian culture. The last day in Armiansk, Michael and I had a conversation about how different it is here: how different it is from how different we thought it would be from home. There is a heaviness in the countenances and attitudes of people here and more and more I’m beginning to see how it shapes peoples’ lives here. After switching over to a “lighter song”, still somewhat dense to my ear, they sang another dirge and the man, mid-note, contorted his face and spilled tears as the note turned into a sob. Heavy.

Potatoes

I’d told my host family that I wanted to come back in the autumn to help them harvest their garden. And so they left a patch of crop untouched, just so that I could do some of the work that I so eagerly waited to help with. Little did I know that I would be carrying my own cross. I knew that my Ukrainian grandmother wanted to give me potatoes to take back with me, because she told me over the phone to bring an extra bag. I didn’t. Not because I forgot, but because I thought I could just bring them back in a plastic bag.













As my host grandmother would have it, she emptied my backpack filled with my belongings and placed them in a plastic bag. She then proceeded to pack my backpack full of potatoes. And she packed it. I was expecting to take back just a few pounds with me. A backpack full of potatoes is, I think, about 30 + pounds, maybe more. I kept telling her that it was too heavy. She would respond by lifting it slightly off the ground with one arm, then waving me off, telling me that it’s nothing. That’s easy for her to say. She’s not the one that has to carry it on her back for 30 minutes to the bus station and then around the metro in Kiev. So I did just that, sweat dripping from my face as I trod my way to the bus station. It was heavy.

Cluster Reunion

Last week I had the privilege of meeting my cluster mates for our first reunion since training. There was a lot that we did so I’ll try to condense this entry and include only the most notable things.

Innate racism?

My journey to Armiansk, where our cluster mate Michael lives, required a circuitous route from my town of Shevchenkove. The first leg of my trip was a bus ride north to Kharkiv, from where I’d take an overnight train to Jean-Koy, which is further south of our destination, from which 4 of us would meet up and together take a bus north to Armiansk.

It was on the first leg of my trip that I encountered a strange instance of racism. Standing outside of the bus, waiting to board, I looked through the window where there was a child not more than 7 years old. With an expressionless face, devoid of any air of contempt, the kid slowly, almost mechanically, as if mandated by duty, raised his index fingers to the ends of his eyes and pulled them back while staring directly at me. I reciprocated by giving him the dirtiest look I could possibly give. He retreated behind the curtain. Meanwhile, I stood there wondering if I should chide the child in front of his mother and everyone on the bus. I wanted to tell his mom but I figured it wasn’t worth it. It might lead to more misunderstanding. A minute or so later, he came out from behind the curtain and did it again. And we replayed the exchange that I have just described.

Of course I can’t blame the kid. He is after all, just a kid. But it made me wonder how, in a place where one rarely makes contact with Asians, this child knew to make that gesture. Are some people just born with this propensity to point out differences? What does one expect when making that gesture? Do people feel better about themselves after doing such a thing? He must’ve known that I wouldn’t have appreciated it.

Dancing under the stars

One of the notable venues of Armiansk is the discotech that Michael recently discovered in the woods. A narrow pathway through the woods leads to it. Looming over it was a canopy like that of a small stadium. But it only covered the table area. In the middle, where the dance floor was, there was no roofing. One could easily see the stars by just looking up while on the dance floor. It was pretty amazing.

Like any discotech, it seemed to operate only at night. It certainly got busier as the night went on. After a round of beers, we hit the dance floor and more people joined as time passed. Before long there was a large crowd. I broke it down as usual and got a high five from some stranger.

Евпатория, Крым (Yevpatoria, Crimea)

On one of the days, we decided to take a bus trip to Yevpatoria, which is a town on the Western coast of Crimea, which is a peninsula in the Black Sea. Yevpatoria is largely a tourist destination and it was crowded. But it wasn’t uncomfortably so. There were a myriad of vendors and boardwalk games (minus the boardwalk, it was just cement if I remember correctly).

The beach was beautiful. The sand: perfect. The water was blue and clear but not as blue or as clear as that of the Caribbean. The floor of the ocean was mostly rocks and it was hard to walk on. It was also littered with the occasional boulder. But the water felt great. It perfectly complimented the hot, subtropical weather. Looking out on the ocean, as it was a touristy beach, there were lots of large beach toys scattered across the view: giant water slides, inflated floating devices for rent, wind-surfers, boats, etc. It looked like a child’s bathtub that he’d forgotten to clean up after his bath from the perspective of a Lilliputian.

Sitting on the beach, we were approached by moonshwine sellers. We decided to get a bottle of the homemade wine, which tasted a lot like cough syrup but was good nonetheless: more for the novelty than the taste. The moonshwiners were extremely nice and basically gave us a free wine-tasting session, which included all the different wine bottles they had, all of which were in previously used plastic water bottles. To top the day off right, we got some shwarma before heading back.

Shady business

I stayed in Crimea until Wednesday because there were no seats on the train for my next destination on Tuesday. Everyone else except Maggie and me had stayed until then. But I was the last to leave. So after Maggie left, Mike and I decided that we’d go on a hookah run because we ran out of coals and shishah. We didn’t have anything better to do so we ventured off, not knowing whether we’d find anyplace that sold them.

We asked around and made our way towards the general area where we were directed to go. We happened to walk right up to the store, which had a few hookahs and hookah equipment in the display window. As we walked closer, however, we found that it wasn’t really a store. The door was open and inside was a guy wearing just a beater and a pair of boxers sprawled out on a bed, which was really the only piece of furniture that was in there. I called out “извините” (excuse me) a few times, almost to the point of shouting, before he woke up. I asked if he was selling those items in the window and he indeed was. We did business and then before we walked away, the guy pulled something out of his pocket. His hands revealed an array of packets, made of printer paper, with staples on each edge, holding inside of them, (I’m guessing) pills. The paper had pictures on them, printed by a color printer. We promptly declined the offer and left. We crossed the street, which at the very moment had a cop car passing by. But nothing came of it. I guess it was pretty stupid to buy shishah from such a place, but it worked out fine. Unless of course I’m unknowingly tripping on acid right now and all this is a figment of my imagination.

After my trip to Crimea, I went straight to Kiev, from which I took a 45 minute bus ride to Obukhiv, my training site, to visit my host family. But you can read about that next time.

New Apartment

Since camp has finished I’ve spent most of my time in my new apartment: my new apartment that has running water, a bathroom, a toilet that flushes, a bathtub, and internet. It’s quite an upgrade from my previous abode. With my free time I’ve been doing a lot of reading, writing, and studying a little bit of Russian here and there. Due to it being summertime and hence the lack of work, life has consisted mostly of a daily routine of trying to figure out what to eat, cooking, doing laundry, walking around town, reading, writing, playing my guitar, surfing the internet, etc. Here are some pictures of my new apartment:







I got a care package from my parents, which I was really excited about. It contained a football (American) and pump, a bottle of sriracha, gochujang (Korean red pepper paste), some USB flash drives, a t-shirt, and a DVD from my grandmother’s funeral.

This made me very, very happy:



So far I’d only used the gochujang for two things: dalk doh li tang (spicy chicken and potato stew) and sauce for my bon chon chicken.

Owing to the need for some more flavor, having a lot of time on my hands, and a hint of boldness, I decided that I was going to make bon chon chicken (or try to). So I made a deep fryer out of my pot by pouring sunflower oil into it and heating it up. Here were the results:

Garlic Soy



Gochujang



It wasn’t bad for the first time. I’ll need to tweak the recipe a little bit but it’s nothing a little trial and error can’t fix. To throw away the oil after one use I thought would be wasteful, so I decided to make fries. Oh it was delicious. I used this recipe. The joys of deep frying:



Served with a lovely tomato aioli.

Camp: Round 2

The second camp was held at the same facilities but with a new set of kids. However there were some kids at the second camp that were also at the first camp. This second group of kids was a mess. They were completely the opposite of the first group: nice, obedient, and respectful. The latter group, I referred to as животные (animals). The other counselors got a kick out of that. I had them laughing for a minute.

At camp, I witnessed the morale of the staff burning out due to the children’s disobedience. This second camp was for me more of a means of connecting with the staff. I’ve gotten pretty close to them and we even keep in contact. The camp cop, the second time around, was much more amiable than the first. The first cop was lazy and stayed out late every night, drinking with the locals and sleeping during the day. He was for the most part detached from the kids and the other staff. The second cop was much better and we connected more. One of the first things he told me was that he liked Bob Marley. How could you not like a guy that likes Bob Marley?

Here is a quick anecdote. For the first time in my life I stepped in poop with my bare feet. Of course it would happen during Peace Corps service. But it was due more to a lack of awareness than anything else. We were at the river, swimming. I had to pee, so I found a spot in the reeds that branched off of a narrow pathway. I had been drinking with the other counselors, but I had only a few. It shouldn’t have affected my ability to see. However I felt a warm smudge under my left foot as I set myself to urinate. It gushed between my toes as I peed. I was hoping it was just a melted Lion Bar. I had to check after I was done relieving myself to make sure it was just a chocolate bar. So I wafted at it and I sensed that it was not chocolate, nor was it from a canine. It was human. I quickly ran to the closest part of the river, far from where people were swimming, and cleansed myself to the best of my ability. I walked across the hot sand slowly in hopes that it would kill any remaining bacteria. Then I went in the river and dragged my foot in the sand to exfoliate any possible remnants. I know it was fresh poop because I went to the same spot earlier in the day to pee and it wasn’t there before.

One of the peculiarities I noticed during camp was an Indian day that the kids had. They’d dress up as Native Americans: face and body paint, feathers, exotic headdresses, etc. And all along I thought to myself, “only in Ukraine”. This would not at all fly in the states. Better yet, shouldn't. Of course the kids would howl and make Indian sounds. I couldn't help but be reminded of the short-lived ABC series Cavemen, based off of the Geico cavemen commercials. It ended up not lasting 1 season but I thought the show was genius and touched on the very important issue of racial relations through the lighthearted paradigm of cavemen humor. I may be the only person in the world that liked that show. Anyway, here is a clip I think is pretty relevant to what I experienced:



And some pictures from the Indian day:























I didn’t participate but I did help with the body painting. Somehow during camp I’ve become like a makeshift artist. After that Indian day celebration, kids would come up to me and ask me to paint them. So I did. Who knew? I’m a dormant tattoo artist. Check out my work:




















I even drew one of the girls during an art session. As you can see they framed it:




















Here are some other pictures from the camp:

What TV sitcom character does this guy remind you of?












This is Bogdan. When he's not asking me random questions, you can find him modeling on a random sand pile at camp.












My favorite girl from second camp:

















My favorite boy from camp:












The kids getting ready to play a game:












Camp counselors:

Haircut

A few weeks ago I was back at my site for a few days due to an intermission from the camp. During that time I decided to get a haircut. I figured I’d test the waters and see how they would cut my hair. It’s simple enough. I normally just get a regular buzz cut.

Sitting in the seat, I watched the mirrored figure before me turn from something familiar to something “fresh”. She cut only the sides and back to my desired length and left the top like a plateau. She gave me a flat top. I asked her nicely to make it shorter but she wouldn’t have it. She refused to give me what I wanted and for the next three weeks or so I felt like the Fresh Prince of Ukraine. In addition, the haircut was tilted and I don’t think that was done on purpose.



(You can't see how flat it actually is in this picture.)

The next day I was to go back to camp so I didn’t get a chance to fix it. I just kept it. It was a little weird but I didn’t mind too much. How could I really care what people think about my hair in a place where the mullet is popular? Yes you read that correctly. In the words of Chris Miller, a clustermate, “the mullet in Ukraine is alive and thriving”.

I won’t post a picture of a mullet because that’s not necessary. However, the day I was coming to site at the train station, I saw what may have been the weirdest hairstyle on a girl I’ve ever noticed. It was like a girl version of a mullet but it was like 2 haircuts in one. I’m not even going to try to explain it anymore. Just take a look:



Anyway, back to my hair. When I came back from camp, I bought some clippers so that I could cut my own hair. It’ll pay for itself in about 3-4 uses. However, since I’ve been back, all I’ve been doing is sweating. The past 5 days or so I’ve been sweating nonstop. Literally nonstop. I sweat when I’m sleeping. I sweat when I’m eating. I sweat constantly. Due to the constant sweating, I’ll wait ‘til the weather cools a little before I fix my hair. By the way, when else will I ever wear a flat top?

Kharkiv

I haven’t had a chance to update since my last entry because I’ve been at camp. So I actually saved this onto Word and you, my readers, will be reading this after the fact.

The day before coming to camp I had the privilege of going to Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine. The purpose of my excursion was to draw money from the bank because the bank that Peace Corps uses doesn’t have any branches in my town. I took the liberty to explore and enjoy the city. By the way, I did this all by myself. I was so proud of myself for pulling this off without any major problems.

Like Kiev, it has a metro system and the stations are beautiful. Here are some pictures:




I walked around the park near the University station for a bit and then went on a mission to find some shwarma. For my Philadelphian readers, shwarma here is not what you would find at Saad’s on 45th and Walnut. It’s not nearly as good or authentic. It’s simply a shwarma wrap and it’s usually just seasoned chicken with some assortment of vegetables topped with a garlic aioli. It’s about as ubiquitous in Ukrainian cities as funnel cake at an amusement park or boardwalk in America and just as rare to find outside of them. And it’s got the same kind of feel to it. When you’re there, you gotta have one. You just gotta. So with that in mind, you can understand, while I was walking around the city all I wanted was a shwarma and some beer afterwards to wash it down. And when I found it, oh it was heavenly. I almost got two. Actually, later I got another one.

At the metro station I was stopped by a cop. This was the second time that this has happened to me in Ukraine. We’d been warned that minority volunteers tend to get harassed more by the cops here. Luckily I had my ID card and things went smoothly. Here’s how it happened: I went to put my subway token in the slot and the one I happened to pick didn’t work so I stalled for a moment and went to the next one. In that short period when I was dumfounded I caught the attention of the cop on duty at that station and he pulled me to the side. I showed him my ID and he let me continue.

But before when I was in Kiev during training, I was stopped by a cop and didn’t have an ID (we weren’t issued our ID’s at that time and for one reason or another Peace Corps held onto our passports). But we had copies of our passports and so I showed him that. Of course he interrogated me and gave me a hard time for not having proper ID. I happened to be with Mike and Maggie, two of my cluster mates, who were ahead of me. When they saw that the cop was giving me trouble they came back to vouch for me that I was indeed a Peace Corps volunteer and had the right to be in Ukraine. The cop asked for their ID’s too. I think in this case we had power in numbers. I’m sure he didn’t want to cuff three of us. After a long and dramatic pause he let us go. If I’d been by myself it could’ve been a different story.

Walking in the city is fun but not as fun alone. After a couple hours and a couple beers later I decided to go back to Shevchenkove. At the bus station, I bought my ticket but thought the clerk said it was 16.50 gryven. So I sat waiting for change because I thought she was shorting me 3.50 gryvnia for I’d given her a 20. After a few seconds of an awkward staredown I let it go and walked away. I looked at the ticket and found that she meant 16:50 in time. I ended up waiting 2 hours at the station for my bus. There was a bus loading en route to Shevchenkove and I asked some of the people waiting in line if I was allowed to just go on it even though my ticket was for a later bus. They said that my ticket was for the latter and that I couldn’t go on the current bus. Now I realize they said that because of a conflict of interest. They wanted themselves to go on the bus. For you don’t have to have bought a ticket beforehand. It only guarantees a seat. I found this out when my bus had come that there were people paying for tickets right on the bus. It was yet another misunderstanding for the foreigner but at least I got home safely.

A day in the life

Upon waking to the crowing of roosters I brush and wash up in my sink. This is my sink:


















As you know, I don’t have running water. Therefore it must be filled every so often. And since I use this sink also to do my dishes and wash my hands in, it’s pretty often. “Where does the water go?” you might ask. It collects underneath the sink into a bucket.



















From there, it goes down the toilet. Sometimes I just use this bucket to flush my doings.

This is the top, where the water goes:












This is how I do my laundry:


















I set up my station and put on a movie to keep my mind off the long and arduous process of hand-washing my clothes.

So you get an idea:











(That green bucket is also my bathtub)

The finished result:













I made the mistake of letting my laundry pile up the first week or so. So I’ve spent the past few days hacking away at it. I finally finished it today. Yesterday I erred in doing a larger load than my laundry line is capable of holding. I put the extra shirts on some chairs and it stained them.

This is the well I fetch water from daily:













Depending on if I am doing laundry or not, I make anywhere from 1-3 trips to the well daily with a bucket in each hand. Twice now I drew water to find a frog swimming in the bucket. At least I know the water can support life. I’ve been drinking from it since I’ve been here. I’m not going to let a couple frogs stop me from living.

I’m supposed to go back to camp in the next couple days. Actually, I was supposed to go back today, so I timed my food consumption so that I’d have eaten all or most of my perishable foods by today. So when I snooped around in my fridge, I found only half a head of cabbage, half a carrot, and half an onion. I also had a whole frozen chicken leg in my freezer. So what did I do? I thought I’d make myself a chicken and rice soup. I wanted to add tomatoes so I went to the store only to find that their power was out and refused to sell me a tomato. I don’t see why they couldn’t have just sold it to me and added my money to the cash register later. Such is life.

But I made do with what I had and made myself a delicious chicken and rice soup that will last me for at least 2 more meals. And I didn’t have to go grocery shopping to do it.



Yesterday, I went to pay my utility bills: gas and electric. It came out to be 5 gryven and change. Remember, 1 USD is about 8 gryven. Madness. Granted I was at camp half the month. Still, it’s dirt cheap. We’ll see what the winter gas bill is like.

I try to call at least one person a day. The other Peace Corps groups have been very supportive and have gone out of their way to contact us newcomers. Sometimes I talk to them and other times with my cluster mates. We swap stories and laughs. I feel very welcome here and I really do feel the “peace corps family” vibe. I wonder whom I’ll call today…

Animals

The animals here seem to have an autonomous society of their own, dogs in particular. (You can read this section in a British accent if you want so as to simulate a Planet Earth special). There are two distinct strata in Ukrainian canine-dom. There are domesticated pets, like Jack, my Ukrainian host family’s pet. And there are the street rovers. Domesticated pets seem to be pretty much the same throughout the world. It is the street rovers that I will enumerate on.


(Jack)
The street rovers live in a world of their own, wandering between different hotspots of the town: from the square to any residential street. They live off the scraps that people throw them and whatever they find from scavenging. They come into regular contact with the homo-sapien. At any time of the day one can spot a canine in respite on a patch of grass or at the local bus stop, waiting to be fed. The dogs, free from the claims of ownership and animal control, live in a care-free and idealistically Bohemian paradigm.
But it’s not without its perils. Dogs, as friendly as they can be, still live in a society. And like all societies it has its vices. Sitting on a park bench in the square, my cluster mates and I observed from a distance the playing out of this autocracy. A pack of dogs can have an alpha male at any moment, standing out among its cohorts, yet only to disband in a moment’s notice. And there are some dogs that for one reason or another disgruntle the pack, which causes a scene.
Walking back from a training session once, I witnessed this firsthand. A pack of dogs notice an enemy in its territory and quickly before my eyes is a dogfight breaking out. In a moment’s notice, there is the outcast on the ground in a cloud of dust as dogs fly in from all directions. This is commonplace, especially at night right when I’m trying to sleep.

Livestock roam freely in Ukraine and it’s not an uncommon site to see a goat tied to a fence post or being walked down the main street by an old man as we would dogs in the US. Ducks waddle about in groups, crossing streets together. Chickens and roosters dally about and scatter in fear (like foghorn leghorn) when a human crosses its path. The roosters, I want to choke. They crow at all hours of the day, sometimes every 5-10 seconds. They especially love to do this when I decide to take a nap. And there are flies everywhere.

Weather

Weather here is different than what I’m used to on the Mid-Atlantic coast of the US. And in some ways it’s not too different. Despite preconceived notions about a snow-capped Ukraine, all four seasons are present. And the summers here are hot. As I’ve mentioned before I got sunburned. However, there are some peculiarities to the weather here that might be interesting for my American-dwelling readers.
Right now as I write this, it is storming. The thunderstorms here are no joke. And they seem to be somewhat common. When it rains, it pours. And I’ve seen and heard lightning strike nearby more times in Ukraine than I have in my entire life on the Eastern seaboard. One time at summer camp we watched the storm from the doorway. I watched in amazement at the storm clouds forming right before my eyes like smoke rising from a chimney against the backdrop of a distant and blue sky. It gave the illusion that the clouds were just several meters above our heads. Though the storm may not have been that close in height, I was right in that it was directly above us because after the storm had passed, we saw that a tree, not 10 meters from where we were standing, was hit and felled.

And likewise at the moment there is a storm right above me. I heard two frighteningly loud strikes of lightning very close by in the past couple minutes. Flashes of lightening, only microseconds apart causes one to wonder what is at work in the heavens. Such storms bring one to wonderment and awe at the power of nature and subsequently the Creator of it. Archaic strands of thought leave me sympathetic to the stomach churning fear people could develop for a deity attributed to throwing lightning bolts. Rain is pouring from above as if there is a fire brigade from the 18th Century on my roof attempting to put out a fire. And just a few minutes ago my lights went out. It’s going to be a rough day. I’ll have to remind myself to go get some candles next time I go out. I suppose I’ll keep myself busy reflecting on The Word and reading some ebooks on my laptop until the battery dies out. There’s no telling when the light will come back on.

Aside from storms, another peculiarity about Ukrainian climate is the daylight. As the latitude of Ukraine is more Northern than I’m used to, the sun never really goes down here in the summer. There is maybe a 3 hour period between 1AM and 4AM where it is darkest, but I’ve seen complete darkness only a handful of times. And when it comes, it is dark, for there are no streetlamps here in rural areas. As some of you may know about my erratic sleeping patterns, I wake between 2-3 times every night and so when I look outside I see that it never really gets dark. By 5AM on most days, the sun is already up. And even at 11PM, there is still twilight. I’m not looking forward to winter when the inverse is true. I’ve been told that it gets dark by 5PM and stays that way until the late morning.

Training:

Pre-service Training (PST) has been a time of growth and adaptation to a new culture here in Ukraine. I spent the 2.5 months living with a host family in the small city of Obukhiv, which can most aptly be described as a suburb of Kiev. Luckily having been the closest training group to Kiev, I was able to make numerous and easy trips to the city, which in my opinion is one of the most beautiful I have visited. The architecture is simply magnificent with its array of colorful buildings of mostly pastel hues. The metro stations are by far the cleanest I’ve ever seen and wonderfully adorned with marble and chandeliers that broadcast its age, beautifying with it like a fine wine.
The days during training were long and grueling. Between language training (4 hours a day) and technical, cross-cultural, and other aspects of training, we’d barely have any free time to ourselves. In addition, we’d been bombarded with spontaneous meetings with local organizations and officials.
A lot of the meetings, I’d noticed, were more of a formality that served more as a means of getting acquainted with people than utility. Nearly every one we’d attended began with an exchange of greetings, introductions, and small talk that consisted of questions that proved to be more of an annoyance, personally, than anything else. But such is my Americanized mindset, which now is slowly disintegrating. Thusly, I am integrating myself into this culture, which unlike the American ideology is less work/goal-oriented. We’d been warned of these kinds of culture shocks repeatedly.
Nonetheless, our training group worked well together and we made ends meet as needed. We’d been blessed with a good group dynamic that allowed us to function properly but also to have fun outside of work. During PST, our group had been televised on three different occasions by local news channels and once more at the Swearing-In Retreat (though in the background). We’d been told that we were the All-star group of Peace Corps Ukraine Group 38 (I wonder if they say this to all the groups). I’d extend these characteristics to the Semenivka group, the other group that formed our cluster link (training groups are paired for certain aspects of PST). Credit goes to our wonderful, patient, and amiable language trainer (LCF) and technical trainer (TCF).

Life with a Host Family:

Generally, life with my host family has been good. We never had any quarrels or any problems with each other (I think). At least I didn’t have any problems with them. I had my own room, furnished with a bed, divan, a table, stools, and a closet. I had running water, a washing machine, and a bathtub. Outside, there was a garden, of which I had the privilege of helping plow on a few occasions. Having arrived in the spring, I had the pleasure of watching the crops, the fruit of some of my labor, grow throughout my 2.5 month stay. We ate what grew there: tomatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, cherries, radishes, and other fruits and vegetables. Though I am currently in a different place, I hope to go back in the fall for the harvest. I offered to help with the reaping.
I remember when I first arrived at the house when I couldn’t speak a lick of the language. I communicated mostly by pointing and grunting. I constructed small phrases from what Ukrainian I’d looked over before coming. Over time, however, I was able to hold conversation with my Ukrainian family and with strangers. Every conversation with a store clerk or random stranger that we carry out successfully is like a small treat that reinforces us to continue in our endeavors. It’s like a battle won and we’d relish it, reporting to one another our small but nonetheless momentous victories.
But no matter how much Russian we learned, there would always be cultural misunderstandings. A few notable instances come to mind for me personally. When I first arrived and they showed me my room, they pointed out to me that I was to sleep on the divan, which normally I would think nothing of. However, sitting right next to it was a bed. I was a bit confused as to why they told me to sleep on the couch when there is a perfectly functional bed right there in the room. Due to my inability to speak and the possibility that there might be a good reason for me not to sleep on it (i.e. the bed is too flimsy or uncomfortable; it was the bed of a recently deceased loved one giving it a sentimental value that would cause one to not lend it to a stranger staying at one’s house) I said nothing. I don’t mind sleeping on the couch. It’s just that this particular couch had an uneven cushion and it hurt my back to sleep on it. I could have easily slept (and in fact had a few times) on the floor, but I mostly didn’t for fear of offending them. I shared this predicament with my cohorts and we had a good laugh over it. Finally I had my language trainer ask my host grandmother what the deal was. Her reply: “I thought Americans liked to sleep on couches”. After that I slept on the bed. But it didn’t give the back support that I needed. So on occasion, I’d sleep on the floor.
I’ll share another anecdote of misunderstanding. This happened on the first Sunday I was at my host family’s place. It happened to be Easter Sunday and I asked if they celebrated Easter. They said that they do and that we’d be going to the church at 3 o’clock. So on that Easter Sunday I put on my Sunday best and sat around waiting to go to church with my Ukrainian host family. Three o’clock came and went and I sat in the house all day dressed up, literally wearing my mistake on me. I went to bed later that night confused. As it turns out, “3 o’clock” was in military time. It wasn’t that I didn’t know that they used military time here, and by the way sometimes they don’t. I just assumed that Easter services were held during the daytime. I found out the next day that here in Ukraine, they do in fact have Easter service at 3AM when I heard the others in my group talk about their being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to attend the service.
Of course a major part of living with a Ukrainian host family was the food. And so my next topic of discussion:

Food in Ukraine:

One of the first Russian words that stuck with us was the ever-ubiquitous and sometimes dreaded “кушать” (To eat. Pronounced: koo-shaiht), usually accompanied with a hand motion. And regardless of how much you didn’t want to eat, or whether you ate just before coming home, there was no choice in the matter. Life with a host family comes at a cost and it is usually the freedom of adulthood. I never thought that I’d be sitting in a high chair, donned with a bib, having food shoved down my throat. Ok maybe I’m exaggerating a little. But ask any PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) that lived through PST in Ukraine and they’ll tell you that when it comes time to eat, there is no “but in America I usually eat…” Welcome to Ukraine.
Meals here are interesting. It’s not too different, for people are people wherever you go and everyone eats mostly the same kinds of things outside of any religious or personal dietary regulations. People here eat all the same kinds of meat, vegetables, and fruits that we eat in America, just in different ratios. I think that Vincent Vega (Pulp Fiction) aptly describes the differences between Europe and America. “It’s the little differences. I mean they got the same shit over there that they got here but it’s just there, it’s a little different”. Example? They love their mayonnaise here. I mean they slather it on everything: borscht, PIZZA, golobsi, salad, etc. You name it, it probably comes with mayonnaise. The same is true of smetana (sour cream).
Another example: butter. They have here these open-faced half sandwiches called “buterbrod”. It usually has on it a slice of sausage, cheese, and butter. The butter isn’t just spread on. Usually it is slices of butter: thick slices. They have another dish called “kasha”, which is, I think, buckwheat grains. Sometimes it is served in milk and sugar: lots of sugar. Or it is served in a butter broth. Yes you read that correctly. Sometimes I try to drain out the butter soup with my spoon, but there’s no way around it: I’m going to leave Ukraine with a few constricted arteries.
There is an interesting dish here called “holodets”, that not too many Americans are a fan of, but having a varied and somewhat cultured taste, I didn’t mind it too much. The taste itself isn’t bad. It’s the thought of what it is that can make it feel disgusting to eat. If it could be described in two English words it would be “meat jelly”. It is basically congealed beef broth with chunks of meat and garlic. For my Korean readers, it is essentially leftover “ggo li gom tang” (ox tail soup) that has been refrigerated and congealed into a jelly. I’ve had chicken holodets as well.
From my experience, Ukrainians love their sugar. Nearly every drink I am served is too sweet. It is so sweet that I wince. My host family found it hysterical that I like tea without sugar. Sometimes I’ll oblige them and ask for a little bit when they offer it, but “a little” to them are two mountainous spoonfuls. Sometimes when they asked me if I wanted tea, I’d say “yes, but no sugar” and then I’d taste the tea and find that my Ukrainian grandmother snuck in a little sugar. I’d ask if she put sugar in it and she’d say, “just a little”. Over time, they understood and I’d get my tea без сахара.
If you ask for a bottle of water, you need to ask for water without gas unless you like seltzer water. I once after a long day of walking in Kiev wanted only a bottle of water: regular H2O; no minerals; no carbonation. Having spotted a street vendor, I bought a large 1.5 L bottle of water. I was anticipating the fresh and smooth flow of hydration coming my way when I heard the carbonation spray out of the cap when I twisted it and with it came the feeling of defeat and utter disappointment that I forgot to say “bez gaza”. I strongly dislike seltzer water. I spent the next few days drinking from that bottle.

Drinks:

It’s only logical to talk about drinks in Ukraine after discussing food. Beer here is pretty good like anywhere else. I particularly like their Биле, which is wheat beer. I do however dearly miss a nice cold Yuengling lager from the can and a decent whiskey.
As you might have guessed, vodka is the drink of choice for most and the vodka here is good, though I have had one that I swore was something that should’ve been used for first aid. They have a homemade version of vodka, called “samagon”, which is surprisingly not bad, though I’ve been told that it is 50% alcohol. It is also somewhat common for people to ferment their own wine. I call it “moonshwine”. Of course every batch is different but it’s usually good.
The drinking culture here is interesting. At any given moment you can spot someone drinking in the street. A law was passed just before my group’s arrival that made public drinking illegal. I guess the enforcement of that law will come around and I will see less and less public drunkenness by my departure from Ukraine.
Beer here is ridiculously cheap. It is usually 6-12 Griven ($1 = about 8 Griven) for half a Liter. Of course as a PCV, I don’t earn much money to drink but I do like a good beer every once in a while.

My living situation as of now:

I moved into my apartment in mid-June into an interesting situation. My previous living situation with my host family was somewhat easy and I had access to all the amenities of a modern home. In my apartment I have no running water. I have to get water from a well, which I use for everything from hand-washing laundry, taking bucket baths, cooking, cleaning, flushing the toilet, etc. I have a toilet but no bathroom or bathtub. My toilet is in the hallway and has a curtain around it. It actually sits right next to my front entrance door. Interestingly I have a TV, not that I watch it.
Since I don’t have a washer/dryer, I must do laundry by hand. And since I don’t have a bathroom or tub, I do both my laundry and my bathing in my room. I wish I could show you a video of me taking a bath for its sheer demonstrative value, but it might be inappropriate. I will, however, describe for you my laundry regiment. I put on a movie and set up my laundry station in front of my laptop. I put the laundry bucket (which is also my bathtub) on a stool in front of me and scrub away. I recite lines from my favorite Tarrantino movies or Lord of the Rings as I wring out my clothes and hang them on my line in my balcony. Yes I have a balcony but no bathroom. When I bathe, I put on my 90’s Club Hits Mix that I bought some years ago at a gas station, or some trance music. Why? Because I need to get in my zone for the next 45 minutes of trying to bathe in a bucket without creating a leak for the tenant that lives underneath me on the first floor. Зто жизнь.
I don’t mind the living condition. I kind of like the fact that I have to live like this. It is good character building and makes for an interesting story or a good read on your part. However, my counterpart (every PCV has a native Peace Corps member that cooperates with the PCV) rallied most of the staff at the school that I’ll be working with to look for a new apartment for me because she thinks that my living situation is so sad. I guess if it’s sad for even a local resident, then it’s probably not acceptable to live in. Peace Corps stipulates that housing should be comparable to that of co-workers.
After camp, which I will discuss in the next section, I will be moving into a new apartment, thanks to my counterpart and her team of makeshift real estate agents.

Summer Camp:

Luckily, I haven’t been living in my apartment the majority of the time. The past few weeks, I’ve been living at a camp that I’ve been taken to. Yes, I was taken to a camp. I was told after a meeting with the superintendent of the schools here in my region that I have 2 hours to pack and get ready to go to a camp for a few weeks. I gather, not just from my own experience but from other PCVs, that such is how things work here.
So with my luggage for the next few weeks in hand I left for a local camp about 5 kilometers away from my site. Ironically, I am in a better living situation at the camp. There they have running hot water and free meals and housing. I got to play with kids all day. There were 2 English teachers there and so I was able to communicate with them. However, as such, my Russian didn’t make any dramatic improvements. Also, people here speak Sergik (Russian/Ukrainian hybrid language), so I have a hard time understanding them.
Near the camp is a landscape of rolling fields of yellow and green. Against the backdrop of the blue sky, one can see a direct manifestation of the Ukrainian flag: light blue skies and a field of yellow for grains that grow freely across the pastures. Littered across the scenery is an array of hooved animals grazing: cows, horses, and goats. And a river runs through it (sorry, I had to). Leading to it is a small network of dirt roads, whose connection to human society is not entirely known. The river is deep, reaching depths of double digit meters. Near the banks, the floor of the river doesn’t dip too dramatically and it is there that we take the children to go swimming when the weather is nice. And it gets hot here. Who would’ve thought that I’d get sunburn in Ukraine?
On the other side of the river are a line of blackberry trees that run along the bank. One day we crossed over to the other side and took our fill of berries. It was beautiful. Within minutes, kids’ hands and faces were dyed with spots of purple. We had the river right there to wash up.
Though camp is fun, I still find myself with a lot of time on my hands and loneliness undoubtedly seeps in. Every once in a while I ache with longing to see things I not so much didn’t expect to miss but knew would take such experiences to really appreciate: an American face, someone who understands me, a church, Korean food, a nice bowl of pho, a good philosophical discussion over a hookah, a game of tackle football.
In a lot of ways though, I am blessed to have something to do. We’ve been told that it’s usually the case with most PCV’s that they have a hard time finding things to do the first 6 months or so. It’s not as if I were sitting on my hands the whole time. I did accomplish some things, small as they are. I taught some of the students Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” and we performed it for the parents on the last day. I also taught a couple lessons of English. They had never heard a native speaker before. My sheer presence at the camp is a means for cultural exchange and human understanding and I appreciate it.
The kids here at the camp are really nice. I’m glad to have met them. Of course they bombard me with questions. One girl in particular loves to ask me questions. She asks me so many questions that I can group the kinds of questions she asks me into categories: simple questions (What are you impressions of Ukraine/our camp/our children/the weather/? Do you like cheese/sausage?) and habitual questions (How are you? Will you play пенербол with us today? Will you swim today? Why don’t you swim today?) And these habitual questions were asked of me over 20 times. I am in no way exaggerating. I call them habitual for a reason. “How are you?” is asked of me about 2-3 times a day from this one girl.

I am currently on a 5-day intermission from the camp. The second session will resume next week with a new set of kids. Hopefully this time I will have a more integrated role. Having been gone so long from my apartment, as I walked up the steps toward my front door, I wanted to think to myself, “home sweet apartment” but then I opened the door. Foxes have holes and birds have nests… I guess.