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.