Running, working, and reading through mild depression

The past month or so can aptly be characterized by laziness and procrastination. I find it harder and harder to wake up in the mornings despite the weather being nicer. Motivation evades my grasp as I sometimes lay in my couch bed wondering why my back feels like it's twice my age. There have been days when I felt accomplished because I finally got around to doing that load of laundry or the pile of dishes. Maybe the culture shock they warned us about is finally catching up to me. I never really had that low point up until now aside from the slight seasonal affective disorder (SAD) that afflicts anybody that has to undergo a Ukrainian winter. Or maybe I'm just feeling the withdrawal effects from being in Prague.

Prague

Earlier this month, I was in Prague for the Prague International Marathon with three other PCVs to run the marathon relay. We spent 4 days there. In a word, the city is beautiful. If there is any city I'd like to get lost in, it is Prague. And I did just that. On one of the days, I went to exchange some currency and meanwhile, the group that I was with decided to step into an adjacent store. Upon walking out and noticing that they were out of sight, I walked uphill to catch up. The street was flooded with tourists and after walking back and forth a few times, I decided to spend the day getting lost by myself. The streets of Prague are like a labyrinth. They are not gridded like most modern cities. I wonder if there is a negative correlation between a city's navigability and its beauty. It certainly adds character to the place. Everything there is rife with beauty. The architecture is stunningly gorgeous and the streets are of cobblestone. Nearly every building boasts beautifully carved statues and every turn leads to a charming little side street. Despite the packs of tourists, the city is a marvel. And what city that exudes so much beauty should not garner so much attention? It is rightly so, even though every person there is thinking, “how much more charming would this place be without the masses?”

it's like a fairy tale

old town square

view of (i think) the castle from a bridge

the relay team: Cassie, Emily, Kim, and I

Prague has some of the most interesting doors

Charles bridge

face of St. Vitus cathedral

inside St. Vitus cathedral

church where I saw a live performance of Mozart's Requiem

race day

the castle by twilight

If you'd like to view my full album, click here. Or go to my facebook.

Race day was very exciting. It was amazing to see the amount of work put into organizing such an event. And being an international race, we witnessed some of the world’s best marathon runners in competition. I can proudly claim to have run in the same race as them. As I was the last leg of our team and each runner runs approximately an hour, I had to wait 3 hours from the start of the race until I was to run. As I was running, I was ecstatic to find that my pace was faster than almost everyone around me. I must’ve passed a hundred people throughout the duration of my run save a handful. Then I realized that these were full marathon runners and I was running on fresh legs and only running 12 kilometers. But it still served as a point of motivation to run by people. I ended up running my 12 kilometer leg in 1:05:22 and our team time was 4 hours and 9 minutes.

Beregovo

Just the week before, I ran in a 10 kilometer race at a wine country run in the western part of Ukraine in a town called Beregovo. The town is located just 6km from Hungary and the influence of the culture was very evident. I felt as if I was not in Ukraine. The people there spoke Hungarian and were very nice. It felt happier there and the people smiled and laughed in the streets. The wine there was also really good. There are many good things about Ukraine. Wine is not one of them. With that said, I was thoroughly enjoying the good, locally produced wine of Beregovo.

engaging in conversation with the locals

a charming cobblestoned street in Beregovo

I think it's abandoned, but I love this house

Work

As for work, my schedule is nonexistent. That’s not to say that I haven’t been working, just not consistently. My “schedule” is different month to month, week to week, and even day to day. My work, I’ve found, is much like a big juggling act. When you drop a ball, you pick up another one and keep juggling. Sometimes you have 10 balls, at other times you may be awkwardly juggling 1. Such is life here. Anyway, of late, I’ve been working on a Small Project Assistance (SPA) grant for a project at my school. It consists of a leadership training through HIV/AIDS education. I’ve trained my 10^th form students to be peer educators and they will train their peers on HIV/AIDS and how it relates to leadership. Then as a final project, the students will disseminate information to the masses via flash mob.

at work: Natalia Nikolaevna - English teacher and my Russian tutor (left), Olena Viktorivna - my counterpart (right)

my 10th form students

Another project that I recently completed was a Living Library. What is a Living Library, you ask? Simply, it is an event in which students “read” “books”, or people of different backgrounds in a friendly environment. In short, it is culture sharing and it works a bit like speed dating. Every few minutes the books rotate to a new group of about 5-10 students and for their allotted time, they asked questions and basically have a conversation. I held one such event at my school and another at my site-mate’s school. All in all, I’d say it was a success. We’ll be holding several more of those in the future in mine and other PCV’s sites.

adorable 4th formers

meeting the books

Alison sharing photos

Tiago captures the attention of the students and translators

Students and teachers carefully listen to what Rich has to say

Chris pointing to Portland on the map

Kyle draws a crowd

The books: Top (left to right) - Olena (my counterpart), me, Kyle, Jing, Alison, Tiago; Bottom - Chris, Rich, Sasha

 

 

This summer, I will be working at ABCamp, one of the premier camps in Ukraine. Camps are all the rage in Peace Corps Ukraine. When summer rolls around, PCVs flock to whatever camp they can be a part of. I was lucky to be accepted into ABCamp, as it had a large pool of applicants. We’ll be teaching the kids about leadership, doing activities, playing games, and coming up with creative ways to have fun. You can find out more about it here.

Books

I’ve been reading a lot of Dostoevsky since I’ve been here. I’m in the middle of reading Crime and Punishment and I just finished Notes From the Underground not long ago. They are all heavy readings and not the lightest of subjects. I tend to absorb books into my life. By that I mean: I start to think a bit like the characters; internalize the themes and motifs; but mostly, I absorb the author’s writing style. I see it in my journals. Whatever book I happen to be reading at the time is reflected in my sentence structure, my prose, and even the mood. Maybe this is a contributor to my downbeat mood of late.

Anyway, I recently picked up a piece of journalism done by John Steinbeck called A Russian Journal. It was done in collaboration with photographer Robert Capa. I’m still in the middle of the book but I’ve read the part of the book where the duo travels to Ukraine, which is what concerns me here. I’d like to expound a bit on that:

A Russian Journal is a journalistic piece about the Russian people barring politics and editorials. It attempts to capture a portrait of the people on the other side of the iron curtain and Steinbeck does a good job of it. He leaves out commentary and prejudice. Where he does give his impressions, he leaves them open-ended for the reader to make one’s own opinion. This is particularly important because the trip to Russia was right after the Cold War had begun. Throughout the journey, Steinbeck engages in conversations about American perception of Russia particularly through the lens of journalism.

I greatly admire his keen sensibility in recording his experiences. He laces it with his dry humor and one gets a sense of the camaraderie that he and Capa develop over their journey in the way that he takes friendly shots at him.

Like the advent of my reading of Brothers Karamazov and all others of Dostoevsky’s writings, I particularly enjoy reading this while I am here in Ukraine. As I’ve mentioned, the duo spends a few days in Ukraine and may possibly have been to the town I currently reside in (they went to a couple towns called Shevchenko and humorously number them: Shevchenko I, Shevchenko II). 

Many of the things he mentions, we Ukraine PCVs have experienced first-hand. I found myself laughing out loud while reading some of the observations he made of Russian/Ukrainian culture and even the exchanges they have with the locals. I see that some of the impressions that Americans have of Ukrainians comes from Steinbeck. That Ukrainian women are among the most beautiful is one example. But more interestingly, a lot of the things he writes about Ukrainians are still true to this day. They will go out of their way to over-feed you. Ukrainians still have a fear of drafts and night air. This is to the point of discomfort in marshrutkas. Ukrainians still overdress for any excuse they can find to do so. Interestingly, he notes that Ukrainians laugh and smile, whereas in Moscow people don’t. I thought that Ukrainians don’t smile. Maybe Moscow is an even more drab place than Ukraine is. Certainly, people in the US are much more jovial in public than here in the former Soviet Union.

I am a deep admirer of Steinbeck at this point. I’d forgotten that my favorite book of required readings in school was Of Mice and Men until I’d read The Count of Monte Cristo. And now I may have to get back into Steinbeck’s works. I may come back to this one again and again. This may be particularly true when I am back in the states and am feeling nostalgic over Ukraine.

As I've said, I tend to absorb what I read and having read a bit of Steinbeck, I felt roused out of my laziness and inspired to write again. You can thank Steinbeck for this blog entry.