Ukrainian Schedules: an oxymoron

Schedules in Ukraine are something like a chimera. This past week I’ve been working on my leadership training project at school, which deals with teaching my students to be peer trainers. So all week my 10^th form students have been preparing and giving lessons on HIV/AIDS and leadership to the 5^th to 8^th formers. And all along, you can find me scrambling around, escalating up and down flights of stairs, hunting down teachers and keys, relaying messages, etc. I’m not that disorganized, honest. It is simply that this is how things are done in Ukraine. Schedule changes and sudden cancellations are almost a guarantee. Curveballs fly at you from all angles and you just learn to live with it. I’m almost afraid that one of the reverse culture shocks that I’ll face when I return home is that I won’t know how to manage my time like an American anymore. The teachers always assure me, “это как мы живём” (this is how we live). Take a look for yourself:

a snippet of my planner

note the many changes in the schedule that takes place over a single day

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.

Meditations in the Cold

I’m walking home from school on a glacier that is my route home. I look to the side of the road and see what looks like a fault. Running through it is a stream of water that serves as a natural drainage system and I wonder how the water hasn’t frozen. I see patches of blacktop covered in black ice and I realize that I haven’t set foot on solid ground in my town in months because the sheet of ice is still inches thick. On such terrain I go.

It is -14 degrees Celcius. In the distance I see trees stirring in the howling wind and I anticipate the wall of wind that approaches. In such cold your nose hairs freeze instantly and when you breathe you can feel them prodding the inside of your nostrils. The inevitable drip of snot starts to flow but your face is too numb to notice until you get inside. A sniffle will only remind you that your face is frozen and it feels like dough as it slowly returns to its normal position. Have you ever felt so cold that you thought you were going to puke? I can say that I have. I didn’t know if it was the Indian food I had that morning or the tight thermal underwear that was applying pressure to my gut or the most likely suspect: the extreme, biting cold. It was probably a combination of all three. Nonetheless I can say with complete confidence that I’ve never been in such cold weather before. It is weather like this that makes one want only to run home and bundle up in blankets with a pot of mulled wine. Twice I’ve resorted to such devices.

And amidst the cold and the long dark and the hostile canine neighbors that make it extra hard to find the resolve to step out of my apartment, I have to remind myself that service is hard. It is indeed a sacrifice. If it were comfort that I was looking for, I would not stay here. But it is in times like these that I remember the issue that is at the heart of service, of altruism. It is in times like these that I have to remember that to “love one another” (John 13:34-35) is indeed a choice. And the perfect example comes from the one who said it. In the very same chapter of John, Jesus washes his disciples’ feet several verses before he utters those words that are so simple, yet so hard to put into practice.

Many of us volunteers came expecting something. Many of us came to run away from something/s (as some of us discovered). We have to ask ourselves this one question: “if I were not able to see the fruits of my labor or receive some sort of personal satisfaction from service, would I still have gone through with it?” (This gets to the heart of the paradox of altruism). In other words, is there such a thing as a truly selfless act?

Update

It’s been a long time since my last update and a lot has happened since then. But still sometimes I doubt my utility here and wonder if I’m sitting around too much. It’s certainly true because I have spent whole days doing nothing but sitting around and watching Batman: The Animated Series on my laptop. But then again, sometimes there isn’t much to do in the midst of a Ukrainian winter where it’s already dark by 3:30 PM and a good portion of the town population decides to take a “sick” vacation for weeks at a time.

And when the sun sets, things get crazy. I’m speaking particularly about the stray dogs. There is one that lives right outside of my building and I pass by it everyday to work and sometimes it even saunters over to me, beckoning to be petted. But once the sun sets, the animals here can’t be trusted. The same dog will bark at me menacingly. Dog bites are a pretty common occurrence and not too long ago I was attacked by a little one. I kept walking and went passed its territory, or so I thought. It then ran up and bit me. Luckily, it only caught my jeans and didn’t touch me. Though I don’t like to think it, I know it’s left a small scar on my psyche and whenever I have a dilemma about stepping out to get groceries or to buy a train ticket when the sun has already set, I tend towards agoraphobia.

Vacation

Of course my visit home was a great time. All the weight I lost in Ukraine, I gained back during my two week visit, and then some. It was a bit hectic trying to squeeze in everyone I wanted to see into my schedule but it was worth it and I had a blessed time. But by the end of the two weeks, I was ready to come back.

On my flight over I had a 20 hour layover in London and I spent the night out on the town to make the most of it. I didn’t sleep that night. I saw Big Ben, Parliament, The London Eye, stopped by Ye Old Cheshire Cheese (one of the many claimants to being the oldest pub in London), had some fish and chips, a whole bunch of good ales and lagers (I’m in love with Samuel Smith’s Brewery), walked around an outdoor bazaar-like thing, went to Convent Garden and saw a street performer, went to Soho, saw a live jazz performance, met some Polish girls and befriended them, went to a coffee shop and got hit on by a gay guy, got steak and eggs for breakfast while it was still dark, wandered around Picadilly Circus until the Tube opened and finally headed back to Heathrow to nap until my 11AM flight: the best layover of my life.

Holidays

New Years and Christmas were both great times, though I spent both holidays in Ukraine. Christmas was in Kotovsk in Odessa oblast with my cluster mates. We cooked, ate, drank, conversed, played cards, and watched movies together. New Years was in Lugansk with some of the older volunteers. We did the usual cooking, eating, drinking, etc. And the food was amazing. I can say without any reservation that that was the best meal I’ve had thus far in Ukraine.

Work

As for work, everything has been dwindling but I’m learning that my work here as a youth development volunteer consists of finding more balls to juggle to replace the ones I drop. My 8th and 9th form English club has dwindled to 2, but they consistently show up. They asked me to teach them American history so I am now an American history teacher. I brush up on my history every week and prepare power point presentations to show on my laptop. They love it. My older students’ English club is extinct but to replace that, I have my 4th form students, who love attending. I’m still trucking along with my Russian tutoring and that’s probably the one thing that is consistent in my schedule. I haven’t taught a healthy lifestyles lesson (or other YD related topic) in months, but I did pick up a student for tutoring in English. I received my 20 lbs of books from Darien Bookaid, which my students and I are very excited about. And I finally took the first steps in doing a community project. I’ll update more on that later.


Making the News

In other news, I made the local newspaper. Although I think what prompted it was my town getting another volunteer. Oh yes, I have a sitemate, by the way. Coincidentally, or intentionally, she is Asian. Anyway, this is now the fourth time I’ve made local news in Ukraine. The other three times were during training.

 

This is Jing, my new site mate.

This is me with a couple students from the school. This was totally staged and awkward.

This is me with my school director.

Here are the videos from training and swearing-in:

Rap

One of my students is into rapping. He calls himself DFM. I find it interesting how hip hop has spread across the globe and how it is perceived by people. Of course because mainstream rap has a certain image, people associate it with what hip hop is. Unfortunately, a lot of people become acquainted only with a façade that is the result of commercialism. This is true even in America. I’ve taken it upon myself to educate people about hip hop and what it actually is. I’ve had many heated conversations about this back in the states with close friends and though I don’t know everything about hip hop, I think I know a lot more than the average person about it. And as a representative of my country, from where hip hop was born, I count it my duty to defend her image from people who wouldn’t know any better.

The rappers here, from what I gather, tend to go for the gritty, hardcore sound. When they do it, it sounds good. But get into a regular conversation with them and you’ll find that their rapping voice is fabricated. It’s all entertainment, right? Maybe, but I like to think of hip hop as real expression. Not a paradigm to be followed or attained.

So anyway, to the point. My rapping student, Nikita, asked me to record a rap with him. I obliged him and we went to Kharkiv to record. His soundman was very good and knew what he was doing technically. The equipment was decent and actually I can’t say much more than that because I’ve never been in a studio. But I wasn’t feeling their vibe because they were going for the gangster rap style and his soundman was too overbearing during the process. It’s not like he’s a producer. He’s just the soundman. But he kept correcting our work and my student puts up with it. It is probably because this is the Soviet mentality. Hip hop, in my opinion, is about taking what you’ve got and making something of it, not aiming for a particular pattern or mold. This is the epitome of black music: improvisation. Anyway, they had me record these “backs”, or echoes, to emphasize the rhymes and give it that hard gangster sound. They would say, “90% of rappers use backs, even in America”. Not true. Maybe if you’re Dr. Dre. But he’s only one producer. Anyway, I went with what they wanted, because it was their track. I’m just the guest rapper. At this point I would have posted the track here for you to listen to but Blogger doesn't have this feature. If you want to hear it, ask me and I'll send it to you or something.

The studio

My student, Nikita and the soundman.

I'm already working on a second track. I haven't thought of a rap name. Any suggestions?


Miscellaneous Updates

Apparently, I have hypertension (high blood pressure). So for the past month I’ve been monitoring my blood pressure daily and recording it. My doctor says I need to come in and get this looked at. Hopefully it’s nothing. Personally, I don’t trust this BP monitor.

Speaking of health, I signed up for the Prague Marathon this coming May. I’ll be spending 5 days in Prague with a group of other PCVs running the marathon relay. Yea, there’s no way I’ll run a full marathon without serious training. I’ll save that for another day.

I got stopped by the cops yet again. That is now 6 times in 8 months.

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?