happy Ukrainian Constitution Day!

Today is Constitution Day in Ukraine. So far I've only heard complaints about the constitution, as it apparently is directed more at the government than at giving rights to citizens, but no one complains about the day off from work. And I definitely don't complain about the cost of Internet today (half-price on weekends and holidays). My only complaint is that while the post office is open, the door to the hallway where my mailbox is is locked, so I can't see if the package I know I'm getting from Jason showed up today.

I'm going to be more or less incommunicado for the next few weeks. On Friday, I leave for a Peace Corps conference (Ukrainian language and teaching advice...I'm running a session on teaching in primary schools) and will be there through next Wednesday. I'll be home on next Thursday (and will hopefully check my email then), and then on Friday I head to Krolevets in Sumy Oblast to work at a camp for ten days.

Things that have to be done before leaving for all of this:

~write lesson plans for camp (advantage in having 1/2 price Internet today)
~try to eat up the food in my fridge...this is difficult, as people both give me lots of food and then invite me over to dinner. As I generally eat one large meal, one small meal, and the occasional snack during a day, this means that my food doesn't get used up very fast
~do laundry...am going over to the Y's for dinner tonight, and Nadia lets me use her machine :)
~pack, obviously

~*~

Last night was my last tutoring lesson for the summer with Julia, who is proof that a twelve-year-old can actually speak pretty good English if there is a) motivation, b) brains, and c) a good teacher at her school involved. We've been reading Winnie-the-Pooh in English and finished it. Other highlights of the last few months include singing folk songs in English, playing paper dolls, and both of us learning card games from each other. After an abbreviated lesson, her mom took us to the Balaklaika River and we went swimming. I hope that I didn't get any crazy diseases from doing so, but it was definitely a nice way to spend an evening. Although Luba, Julia's mom, who generally looks at me with a look of "You're a little strange, you know?", couldn't understand why I don't wear a bikini to swim in as is customary here for almost all women, regardless of age. I left it at "I don't like bikinis," as I don't know the language for "I don't think they're modest" and "I don't look good in them" seemed a little rude, as Luba is a XXL and still wears one.

yawn...

Mood: groggy :)

Last night was the "Vwepusnick", or school leaving ceremony for the 11th form. It's sort of a combination between graduation, prom, and Senior Camp-Out, all on the same night (I could add that Senior Skip Day would be redundant in a country that is highly tolerant of irregular attendance).

It started at 6 pm with a graduation ceremony where the students get their diplomas, there are gag gifts for teachers and students, and a concert given by various people connected to the school. Yours truly sang "Yesterday" by the Beatles at the request of the teacher running the whole shebang.

Instead of graduation caps and gowns, the students are supposed to come in nice clothes, and the girls all had dresses similar to prom dresses, mostly with big puffy skirts. (Some of the guys had suits...some just had blue jeans and a button-down shirt.) Apparently the dresses are a Very Big Deal and there are tears if someone else comes with the same dress as you, so most girls have them made rather than buy them.

After the ceremony, there was a dinner in the school cafeteria for the 11th formers (I think there were around 17 of them, but a couple of them didn't stay), the teachers, and a few parents. I though that I'd be going home after that, but I had forgotten (or not realized that it was going to affect me) that in Ukraine, the kids stay up all night after graduation, have a dance, and then, around 4 am, go watch the sunrise. So I was there for the whole thing. (If I had known, I would have taken a nap on Sunday afternoon instead of playing with the Y kids...oh, well.)

11th formers have a LOT of energy. Those kids danced all night! (I think that there may have been some contraband alcohol outside, but I'm not sure.) They're only 6 years younger than me, but I felt very old... :)

I also enjoyed the chance to have conversations with other staff members, which is encouraging as far as language development goes. The more interesting ones included:

~the assistant principal telling me about when her husband, who was in the Soviet Army, was stationed in Germany for several years
~the biology teacher saying that this was the second night in a row that she'd done this, as her son had finished school the night before
~the school methodologist trying to teach me how to dance and inviting me over for supper on Thursday night...I really need to figure out what her name is. I think it's Natasha and that she's the mother of one of my 3rd formers
~the music teacher (our one male staff member, his son is my jazz pianist neighbor) telling me that my Ukrainian has progressed very quickly and then telling me about how during Soviet times, everyone was told that the US and England were bad, but that he still liked to listen (discreetly) to English music. Apparently it was looked at as bad, and they were discouraged from playing it at the restaurant where he used to work, but people would slip him money to play it

At 3:50 (by which point I actually had my second wind and was sort of with it; my love for all-nighters has not increased since my high school days), we all (at least, except for several party-pooper staff members who had gone home earlier to sleep) walked down the road aways to an open field and watched the sun come up, which happened around 4:30. Then I went home and slept until 11:30.

~*~

In other news, I sang my first solo in Ukrainian in church yesterday morning--"Near the Cross" (words by Fanny J. Crosby). I get asked to sing in church most Sundays, and I'd been singing in English, but it's been bothering me somewhat based on I Corinthians 14, which discusses the need for interpreters when people spoke in tongues in the Corinthian church. While that's not quite the same as singing in one's native language in a church that has a different native language, I'd rather sing in a language that my hearers can understand (that is, until I get back to the US, where I plan to sing hymns in Ukrainian!). So, when Victor passed me a note (in Ukrainian!) in church yesterday asking if I'd either sing by myself, with Oleh, or in Ukrainian, I opted for a solo in Ukrainian. Nervewracking, but I'm glad I did it.

~*~

Weather: hot. Sticky. I really miss having running hot water, as it would make bathing easier.

random things...Tif, enjoy!

Sweltering in Kharkiv on an attempt to buy train tickets to the camp I'll be working at in a couple of weeks. Currently an unsuccessful attempt, as I could only find a train that got me there at 2am, and only on the day after I need to arrive. Clearly this will take some more work. Also met two guys from Australia who were deciding whether to fly or take a train to Odesa. They knew no Russian or Ukrainian (which made me wonder why on earth they were here), and I gave them some vocab to help them get tickets. Although they firmly believed that first class would be air-conditioned...

While on my way to the British Council to get a library card (today's other errand, Liz should be pleased that I found a limerick version of the New Testament there), an old man on the metro asked me why I was wearing a cross--was it for fashion, or because I'm a believer. I said because I was a believer, hoping to be left alone. He then asked what confession, so I said I'm a Protestant. Well, I think he must also have been Protestant, because then I got a lecture on how as Protestants, we don't need to wear jewelry because...well, I didn't understand it, but there was something about God and I think he quoted some verses. In Ukraine, it's really unusual for Protestants to wear jewelry (at least in the smaller towns), and a cross tends to mark you as Orthodox. This has lead to some interesting conversations about why I wear my cross necklace with people at church, plus a funny one with Valery Y who wanted to know why I didn't have a figure of Christ on mine like many Orthodox. I told him it was because Jesus arose from the dead, and he started grinning.

When I was riding the elektrishka in this morning, an old woman got on, looked at me, smiled and said, "Priveet [hello], Natalia!" I gave her a blank look, she realized I wasn't Natalia, and apologized profusely. What I find funny is that she did the exact same thing a couple of months ago.

Have found the best ice cream in the world, and it's only 1.30 hryvnias. It's on a stick...the core is vanilla ice cream, but around it in spirals are orange, red, and green popsicle stuff. The best of both things!

Am singing "Yesterday" for the 11th form leaving ceremony Sunday night. Hopefully someone can manage to lower the soundtrack a few keys so I don't squeak.

Visited my neighbor Oleh last night, as he had a friend over (originally from Balaklia, now in the Czech Republic) who knows some English. Oleh's about my age and a jazz pianist. It was fun.

exams, fortunes, and Christian cable TV

9a took their exams today. I have never seen anyone look as nervous as some of my girls did when they walked in, picked up their card with their question number on it, and then promptly forgot how to say their numbers in English. (Speaking of numbers, it was Vova's birthday, and he told me he was "fifty-ten".) But Olena told me the history of Balaklia, Alina asked me if I had a true friend, and Oleksi sang something by Linkin Park. Oh, and Roman proved that he actually understands English much better than he had led me to believe throughout the semester. Encouraging.

~*~

Did you all ever wonder what was going to happen to me? Well, the school cook read my palm last week (not my idea, Nelya's), and I am going to have three children, no major health problems until I'm 60, and only fall deeply in love once in my life. Nationality of the gentleman in question not stated, although she said that if he was Russian, I'd always be happy.

~*~

Surreal experience of the last couple weeks: does anyone from Brockway remember the film put out by the Billy Graham Association in which a man's wife develops Alzheimer's, he starts to have an affair with a neighbor but then realizes it's wrong, his wife has a miraculous recovery (which maybe was temporary), and then his daughter gets married at the end? (No, I don't mean The Notebook.) Anyhow, there's a Christian cable channel in Ukraine that the Y family gets, and we caught the end of the film dubbed into Russian. It was an odd realization when I realized what we were watching...small, small world.

Speaking of church and small worlds, yesterday we had a girl from Belarus visiting. After church, someone took a picture of the five of us young women that were there (unfortunately, I think it was the camera of the Belarussian girl, so I probably can't get a copy). In that picture, there were girls from three different countries, all at this one little church in Ukraine. Cool moment.

exams, fortunes, and Christian cable TV

9a took their exams today. I have never seen anyone look as nervous as some of my girls did when they walked in, picked up their card with their question number on it, and then promptly forgot how to say their numbers in English. (Speaking of numbers, it was Vova's birthday, and he told me he was "fifty-ten".) But Olena told me the history of Balaklia, Alina asked me if I had a true friend, and Oleksi sang something by Linkin Park. Oh, and Roman proved that he actually understands English much better than he had led me to believe throughout the semester. Encouraging.

~*~

Did you all ever wonder what was going to happen to me? Well, the school cook read my palm last week (not my idea, Nelya's), and I am going to have three children, no major health problems until I'm 60, and only fall deeply in love once in my life. Nationality of the gentleman in question not stated, although she said that if he was Russian, I'd always be happy.

~*~

Surreal experience of the last couple weeks: does anyone from Brockway remember the film put out by the Billy Graham Association in which a man's wife develops Alzheimer's, he starts to have an affair with a neighbor but then realizes it's wrong, his wife has a miraculous recovery (which maybe was temporary), and then his daughter gets married at the end? (No, I don't mean The Notebook.) Anyhow, there's a Christian cable channel in Ukraine that the Y family gets, and we caught the end of the film dubbed into Russian. It was an odd realization when I realized what we were watching...small, small world.

Speaking of church and small worlds, yesterday we had a girl from Belarus visiting. After church, someone took a picture of the five of us young women that were there (unfortunately, I think it was the camera of the Belarussian girl, so I probably can't get a copy). In that picture, there were girls from three different countries, all at this one little church in Ukraine. Cool moment.

feeling better

Spent Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday, and Thursday at home recuperating. My throat's still a little scratchy, but I'm definitely better than I was a few days ago.

I celebrated getting better by starting to clean my closet, finally putting pictures (magazine cutouts and reproductions of famous stuff, plus a few random things) on my bedroom door (the Rossetti Annunciation has been with me since freshman year at MSU!), and baking a cake. A yellow cake, to be exact, topped with chocolate and strawberries. It's a bit heavy and rich, and I can't eat any of it without excessive coughing right now, but I was pleased with the result.

Today was the English exam for the 9-b form, which meant that I ended up listening to a lot of students attempt to read texts, and then we had a "discussion", where I basically asked them yes/no questions. However, I got to discuss David Livingstone, the World Cup, Ne Rodis Krasevoy, how many kids are in the Y family, and that Olena likes July and August because there aren't any exams. Can't say that I blame her.

weekend update, sickness, and movie review

Friday: Kharkiv in the evening. Craziness ensuing when Tif, Julianne, Teresa, and I were together. Met a new PCV named Meredith who's a Christian, went to GVSU, and maybe knows the Bennett girls. Small world.

Saturday: Sorting through Tif's stuff. I inheirit many things--pots, school supplies, bedding, and clothes, including a blouse of hers I've been teasing her about, as it fits me better than her. :) Watching Serenity.

Sunday: Tif sick. Me at church. Watching Posession, which adapts into a movie much better than I had expected...you just remove all the literary criticism and several minor characters, and it makes a pretty good movie in a different way from being a pretty good book.

Sunday night/Monday: I get sick and have a temperature of 101+. Send Tif off to Kharkiv at 2:45 am. Go back to bed, knowing that Nelya and Vera are supposed to come for tea at 11. Get up at 8, half dead, and attempt to clean the apartment. Around 9:30, get text message from Nelya postponing until 4 pm. Collapse in bed. At 1 pm, get text message from Nelya canceling due to family stuff. Feel sorry that Nelya's having problems but very relieved that I don't have to have company. Watch Walk the Line (review following). Somehow survive the rest of the day, feeling better.

Tuesday morning, 4:30 am: Wake up to discover that I have a temperature of 101.8 and am coughing up phlegm with a small amount of blood in it. Take ibuprofen and go back to sleep.

Tuesday: Wake up to no fever, so assume that I'm better. Go to school and work with Nelya on the Internet. School Internet is very slow. Decide that a good thing to write a grant for would be high-speed Internet with training for teachers on how to use it. Tif calls. I tell her about how I felt in the night. She questions what on earth I would think serious enough to call PC Medical about if a high fever and bloody phlegm don't qualify. I realize she has a point. I call PC Medical, who are out on lunch, and leave them a message (I currently do not have a fever nor am coughing stuff up; however, my throat is raw). Now checking email on high-speed connection at the post office. Then will buy more bottled water, go home, and watch directors' commentaries on movies, which I think were created for the enjoyment of PCVs.

~*~

Movie Review: Walk the Line

This bio-pic of Johnny Cash is very well done. The music is good, and the actors all sing their own songs. Reese Witherspoon sounds a LOT like June Carter Cash.

Actually, Witherspoon's performance was the highlight of the movie for me. She has a wonderful way of portraying, "I care about you deeply and will be here with you to help you through the mess you've made of your life, but oh-my-word will you hurry up and get a grip on things!" complete with an eye-roll to match. (Both the people I commented on this to pointed out that that's sort of how I am, complete with the eye-rolling, so perhaps that's the appeal for me.)

Anyhow, I just talked to the PC nurse, who told me to go home, drink liquids, and sleep for the next two days, so I'll sign off for now. The movie is better than my review, trust me.

buzzzzz

Farewell party for Tif/watching the World Cup in Kharkiv tonight. (It was already going to be the latter, but now us non-sports people are going as well. :) ) I think I'm doing sort of okay, just trying to help her with all the leaving stuff. I also am inheriting a lot of kitchen stuff...not an even trade, but a very small silver lining. :)

Congrats to Anna and John Shirley on the birth of Breanna Fayth! It's hard to believe that one of my best friends from high school is now a mom...wow.

I was at school for just a little bit this morning, and my 8th formers came up to me and asked for an autograph. This always sort of annoys me and makes me feel weird, so I said no...besides, I was running late. Well, they insisted and handed me the pen...which then gave me a tiny electric shock. I had been the victim of a practical joke.

Rargh. Now, how best to wreak vengeance? ;)

um, yeah

Good things:

Leeza Y. (7 years old) and I running around the third floor of the Y house last night chasing each other around with toy snakes. For 45 minutes or so.

Doing laundry in the Y's washing machine. People in the US cannot understand how cool this is.

2nd formers who hadn't seen me in 5 days running up to me on the playground and telling me they missed me.

Giving Oleh Y. (6th form) a piano lesson, attempting to explain chords. Fun, although I don't know much about music theory, so explaining it in Ukrainian gets REALLY hard.

Bad thing:

Through a lot of circumstances (medical, site-related, etc.) beyond her control, Tif's being medically separated and going back to the US next week.

It's going to take a lot of good things like the first list to help me get through this. Please pray for Tif as she readjusts back to the US, and also for me, as she's been a huge part of my support system here.

heat wave

Home again, just in time to enjoy (humph) a massive heat wave without fans (or air-conditioning, but I only had that for less than a year and a half out of 23 years, so I don't miss it so much). I have a ceiling fan, but no one's installed it yet, so it's a nice ornament for my living room floor. Natasha K. told me yesterday that on Saturday, it was 42 degrees Celcius. I did the math, and that works out to 107 F, which seems a bit high, but it's definitely hit the nineties with humidity. Ugh.

Last night at church was the worst yet. We'd postponed services an hour in hopes of the weather cooling down, but it hadn't. So we had about 50 people in a room with windows that DIDN'T OPEN and really bad insulation. The services are in Russian there, so I wasn't understanding much, and mostly sat there fanning myself and Natasha K. with a greeting card and hoping church would hurry up and finish. Not reverent, I know!

Have had a LOT of fun with my new hymnal. Saturday, I mostly sat around the apartment watching Serenity, eating fresh cherries and strawberries (I used to dislike cherries; now, I can't figure out why), and singing out of the hymnal. It tells down at the bottom of each song if it was a translation from English, Russian, or German, and I was amazed at how many songs I know that I didn't know I knew. However, my current favorite is a translation from Russian that we sing in church a lot (it's got a rather catchy tune, which is part of why I like it so much). I looked up all the words I didn't know and have a rough mental translation of it into English, but if I write a better one, I'll post it online.

I went to school today because I was told that there was a summer camp for the primary students that I was supposed to be helping with. Showed up to find about 1/3 of the student population there for exams, make-up work, field trips, and who-knows-what. And I wasn't needed for the "camp", which consisted of various small chilren running around playing. I think it's more of a place they can stay while their parents are at work. So I visited with various teachers and students and discussed writing a grant with Nelya. My director wants us to write one (we aren't sure for what), so that's going to be a summer project. I also hope to write a manual for other PCVs on teaching primary school.

The joys of a working fridge and free time mean that I've been cooking (as much as I can stand it with the heat). Saturday was a cake that tastes much better than it looks and a batch of fried rice (chicken, mushrooms, onions, carrots, eggs, rice, and soy sauce...it makes great leftovers!), and today will be a cabbage salad that Tif made once that's really good.

Then again, I might just buy ice cream, collapse on my bed, read Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer, and wish for cooler weather. (Everyone who remembers when it was -30, please refrain from commenting. I prefer a happy medium!)

I was able to get some more photos uploaded onto Facebook!

I have a Ukrainian hymnal!

Just a quick post to say thanks to Brandi for the books she sent me via the Thomases, and...dun dun dun...I went to a Christian bookstore in Kyiv and now have my own copy of the hymnal that we use in the Baptist church. Everyone brings their own to church, so I usually share with Yula or Olia, the girls near my age, but they all have the ones with just the words, and mine has the musical notation (which helps for following along when you don't know the language).

Since I also have a hymnal in Hawaiian and hope to eventually get the one we use at evening church in Russian, I appear to be starting a multi-lingual hymnal collection. Wow.

luxuries

Last night, I took a hot shower for the first time since February. I had hot running water at Marina's for baths, and currently my baths consist of heating up three bucketfuls and one teakettle of water, but I hadn't had a shower in months. Oh, it felt so good!

I can tell what affect 8 months of living in Ukraine has had on me by what I consider luxuries. My vaccination vacation in Kyiv has given me a hot shower, unlimited free high-speed Internet (at the office), and ranch dressing. All of these are unusual in my life now, and I've savored them to the utmost.

Plans for the rest of the day: meet up with Cindy Thomas and her little boys for a visit and to get the books that Brandi sent for me (yay!), hang out with Tif (whether siteseeing or just bumming around the office), grab a quick bite to eat (probably McDonald's) before catching the train, and then head home to Balaklia (without Tif, who will get to enjoy Kyiv's luxuries and high prices a little longer, as she has some issues at site).

It's been such a good vacation!

living high on the town (budget-style)

So it was a day of "hoolatting" (from the Ukrainian hoolate, meaning "to walk around without much purpose", although it looks more dignified written in Cyrillic). I did stuff around the PC office; returned library books to Kyiv-Mohila Academy's English Resource Center and checked out a bunch more (apparently I can universally charm librarians, as this one didn't charge me late fees and told me that my due date could be in September...or maybe later!); went with Tif and Susannah, another PCV from our area who we hadn't known, to Petrivka, the big market, where I found the movie Serenity in English and Russian, complete with special features; wandered around Maidun with Tif; and then we went to the Golden Gate Pub for what we hoped would be our big end-of-semester dinner, but prices meant that we just had end-of-semester appetizers...chicken strips with honey-mustard sauce and cheese sticks with RANCH DRESSING, which we hadn't had in eight months. It was much fun indeed.



Me at Maidun, the central square of Kyiv, playing in the fountain. FYI, this square is where all the protesters stood during the Orange Revolution.



Tif and I at the Irish pub, thanks to a nice English-speaking waitress.



Me, showing that I need more sleep.



Tif, in utter bliss between cheese sticks, ranch dressing, and a Guinness.

photos!

School ended yesterday. I have pictures!

Me and my second form: (front) Dima, Sasha, Roman K., (middle) Nastya, Lilia, Artem, Valery Y., Radj, Dasha, Alina (back) me



Half my 5-A form (some of my favorite kids ever!) (front) Yulia, Dasha, Olia, tall Alina, plump Alina (this is how they are in my grade book!) (back) Maksym, Alosha



THE FRIDGE!!!

[I have many more photos...but this computer doesn't let me see the photos before I post them, so I'm randomly going by when I think they were taken. This has led to some really random photos being posted and me editing this post multiple times.]