I baked a cake!

Am, as usual, at the post office. People are moving the ATM machine around, and it's making a horrible sound. Happy to be in a little glass box while all of this is going on.

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My regional manager from Peace Corps in Kyiv visited today, partly because he's supposed to check up on how things are going, and partly to help urge the refridgerator-acquisition process along. My director assured him that they have found me a fridge in a town 40 kilometers away, and that one of the bookkeepers from school will be there next week and can probably pick it up then. It's either that or get one of the school's fridges, and I have issues with taking one away from them. So hopefully next week!

(Honestly, if you'd told me this time last year that I'd go over a month without a fridge, I'm not sure I would have been as persistent with PC paperwork! But I find myself coping fairly well without it.)

Because Vasyl was coming, last night I cleaned, planned lessons, and baked a cake. I'm honestly more proud of the cake than I am of almost anything else I've accomplished this week, partly because cooking (and especially baking) with Ukrainian stoves can be challenging. I used a recipe that Mama Luda had given me for a basic cake, made frosting out of powdered sugar, vanilla sugar (it's what we use here instead of vanilla), orange juice, and grated orange peel, then sprinkled cocoanut over the top and made a flower out of candied orange peel. Vasyl and my director each took a second piece, so I'm pleased.

Other cooking successes of the week include non-burned fried potatoes and deruni (fried potato pancakes, similar to how I imagine Hanukah latkes). If there is interest, I'll try and remember to post recipes.

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Random interesting site I just ran across while surfing the Internet: Master's In Poland. It looks to be a work/study program that enables you to earn a Master's in International Education while teaching ESL in Poland. Not anything I'll be doing for the next few years, but just an interesting sort of program.

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I'm curious as to who all is reading this blog and where you all come from. I know I have readers in Honduras and Germany, plus different parts of the US, but I'm just curious. So if you can all leave a comment with your name and state (or, if you're not in the US, your country), that would be fun. Especially if you're someone who just randomly found this blog online and thinks my crazy life is interesting. I'll post the stats after a week or so.

Also, if you have anything that you want to know about my life here in Ukraine, Peace Corps, living without a fridge, etc., let me know that, too. I've been trying to come up with some new ideas for posts, so I'm glad for imput.