my writing style suffers when I'm sick...I apologize in advance

Ugh. I'm sick.

I'd had a sore throat/runny nose/lots of coughing the first week Tif was here, and while it got somewhat better last week, it never really went away. Add to that the 46 hours or so I spent on public transportation (electrichkas, passenger trains, buses) last week, and I have pretty much no immune system left. Today it all hit, with exhaustion, chills, over-heatedness, and a fever. I ran a few errands before it all struck, but when I came home, I went to bed and stayed there for about 4 hours. I want to get healthy enough that my first few days in Donetsk aren't spent in bed recovering, so today and tomorrow I guess I'm taking it a bit easier than I had originally planned.

I think my body's been trying to tell me to slow down for the last month or so, and I haven't really been listening. Oops.

Anyway, I loved L'viv. It was small enough that we could walk everywhere easily (although we did take the 50-kopek tram from the train station to the center once, which ended up giving us a nice little tour of the outskirts). The architecture was beautiful--it really hit me that when you build something, you have a choice. It can either be simply utilitarian, like much Soviet architecture (or large and grandiose), or it can be pretty. For example, a concrete balcony versus a wrought-iron one. I'll try and work on posting pictures if my Internet connection is happy with me in the next day or so.

I also liked staying at the hostel. First off, of course, there was a hot shower and a bathtub with even better water pressure than the shower. :) But really, one of the neatest parts of the experience was meeting people from all over who were also staying there. While we were there, there were people there from Great Britain, the US (other PCVs!), Finland, Switzerland, Spain, Canada, and Australia. Most of them knew little/no Ukrainian or Russian, so I helped some people out with understanding their train tickets. It was interesting to hear some of their stories--the guy from Switzerland, who was probably my age or a little younger, had spent the last six months in India and China, just backpacking around. He had then gone to Kazahkstan and flown to Ukraine (to avoid having to get a Russian visa), and was now going to travel around Eastern/Central Europe a bit, although he said he was a bit tired of travelling by now.

[Side note: Tif didn't end up shooting an AK-47 after all, as it was more expensive than she'd hoped for. You can all breath a sigh of relief/regret (take your pick) now.]

Tif and I also had a good day in Kyiv, although Andriivski Uziz, a street that usually is packed with souvenir stands and art booths, was pretty much deserted, and we couldn't figure out why. We met up with my friend Tanya and went out for milkshakes, which were very good. The only bad part of the day was that we had been planning to get a hotel room at the train station, but there weren't any available. The receptionist, who spoke English, wasn't very polite about it all. It was raining, and we didn't know where we'd end up. I was on the phone with Tanya, who was looking up Kyiv hotels online and sending me the info. Kyiv is notorious for being expensive, and we were trying to keep costs down, which added to the frustration. We ended up renting an apartment for a night (a common practice in Ukrainian cities, as apartments are generally nicer than most hotel rooms...PCVs often chip in together as a way to cut costs), which ended up costing us the same as if we'd stayed at the train station, plus the landlady was very friendly and impressed that as young American women, we could speak the language and were capable of taking care of ourselves in a strange country. :)

Friday morning, I said goodbye to Tif, who took the bus to the airport to begin her long journey home, and after lunch, I headed out to Zgurivka to see the Malkos. Sasha had left for L'viv the day before (trains passing in the night?), but I had a good visit with Mama Luda and Tato Kolya. Saturday, I took the train home from Kyiv, and I got back to Balaklia around 3:45 am Sunday morning. No, I didn't try and go to church later on...I was asleep!

The one thing I'm sorry that I didn't get to do on my vacation was go to "Festival of Hope", the Franklin Graham crusade in Kyiv last weekend. I wanted to, and I considered taking a later train Saturday night that went to Kharkiv and then taking the elektrichka home Sunday morning, but I decided that really, I was tired and needed to get home. Based on how lousy I feel today, that was a smart choice, but I still wish I could have gone.

This week has included being interviewed by a 14-year-old for the local newspaper, dealing with a burned-out lightbulb that appears to be corroded and impossible to remove from the light fixture, trying to get money off my US debit card, and hanging out with my neighbors last night. Today was mostly spent in bed. Hopefully I'll feel a bit better tomorrow and can get a few last-minute things done, and then tomorrow around midnight I get on a train to Donetsk for the English-language program down there.

I think I'm going back to bed now!

big update!

Yeah, I'm still alive. My apologies to all of my faithful readers who keep checking back and wondering why I haven't posted recently...it's a combination of general busyness, Tif's visit, and three days when the Internet didn't work. However, my Internet guy has put my connection on a different channel (I don't know exactly what this means in English, but it seems good) and now my connection is a lot faster...and I can upload photos! (See previous post.)

Let's see...going back about two weeks now, before Tif came. My friend Andrey's church did a series of evangelistic tent meetings for four nights in an area of town where a lot of my kids live. Each night, they would have a general meeting explaining the basics of Christianity with music and a sermon, which was then followed by a meeting that was more youth-oriented on topics like AIDS, alcoholism, and drugs. At least 25 of the kids from my school were there (we only have about 280!), whether sitting and listening or occasionally drifting over from the cafe/bar across the road. I don't believe that anyone got saved during the meetings, but hearing the Gospel is a rare occurence over here, and I simply pray that seeds were planted that will come to fruition later. I know that the mom of one of my seventh form boys really enjoyed the meetings and wants to start attending church regularly. I myself really felt convicted to pray for my kids...the barriers of language, culture, and my role as a PCV limit my ability to witness to them in words, but going to the meetings regularly and praying fervently for each child by name were things that I could do in spite of those barriers. It was a boost for my own faith.

Tif arrived last Friday, and we've had a grand time! She knows the language and the area, so a few days she was off visiting people she knew from before and finding souvenirs, but we've been together a lot, especially in the evenings...cooking, listening to the music she brought, and having random conversations on any and all topics. Oh, and finding out that the cafe on the corner has a lot of good food at cheap prices! I enjoy eating out once in a while, but I would feel odd doing it by myself here in town.

Sunday was Yula and Serhii's wedding...I had wanted to do a huge post about that event alone, but I think I'll just leave it with all the comments I wrote about the pictures in my last post. If you have questions, let me know.

Monday we bummed around town, took pictures by the statues of Lenin and Taras Shevchenko (Ukraine's greatest poet), and stopped by to visit Robert, the new PCV in my town. He works at a non-profit organization that helps invalids, large families, and families with invalid children. The organization had gotten a LARGE donation of used clothes from Canada, and the director had invited me over to look through and see if there was anything I would want. Most of it wasn't anything I would/could wear, but I ended up with two sweaters.

Last night was the school-leaving ceremony for the 11th form (US graduation). It involved lots of music and dance numbers, including small children dancing (very cute), a harem dance (weirdly fascinating and not what I would consider appropriate for the occasion...Tif caught some of it on video), and me singing "Fly Me to the Moon" in English. It was a very nice ceremony, and the kids were all dressed up--the boys in suits, the girls in prom-type dresses. After the ceremony, there was an all-night dance for the kids...last year I stayed, but we were planning to go to Kharkiv today and so we left after the ceremony.

Woke up this morning at 7 am to a severe thunderstorm and me having a sore throat and feeling exhausted, so we stayed home and are planning to go to Kharkiv tomorrow, as we thought it better that I rest today rather than keep pushing and get very sick when we go to L'viv next week. So I went back to bed and slept until after 11. Then we had pork stroganoff on toast for lunch (don't ask, we invented the combination earlier this week and it's really good), and Tif went off to go exchange money and look for Harry Potter books in Russian to complete her set, while I attempt to catch up on blogging.

Next Monday, we head for L'viv in western Ukraine, which is supposed to be a beautiful old city reminiscent of Prague or Krakow. It'll be about a 24 hour trip from Balaklia to L'viv, but we're up for the adventure. Then we get back to Kyiv on Thursday and Tif flies out on Friday morning. We're planning to go out to McDonald's that morning for her birthday, but we'll see how that goes. I think I'm going to visit the Malkos in Zgurivka next weekend, then come home for a few days, and then I'm off to Donetsk again.

Tif's back, so I'll close for now. :)