Wuthering Soviet-style apartments...nope, doesn't have the same ring to it

The literary character I most identify with tonight is Catherine Earnshaw. No, I'm not planning to haunt anyone, and Jason is definitely not Heathcliff (thank goodness). It's more that the wind is decidedly wuthering around my apartment building tonight, and thanks to my drafty windows, I get to experience this more fully than I'd prefer. (It doesn't help that in order to use the Internet, I have to have my laptop on my desk, which is right by the window.)

This past week was mostly spent working on a booklet for our teachers' seminar, which meant that I did a lot of typing in English and Ukrainian (so much fun typing in a different alphabet...note sarcastic tone) and made several trips to the copy center at the library. I think the one woman there sort of groaned inwardly whenever I walked in the door, because the teachers at my school wanted it all just so, but of course they sent the American to try and explain what they wanted when they hadn't told me clearly to begin with. I'm still not sure why they kept sending me...because the files were on my flash drive?

Went to Kharkiv on Friday for a goodbye party with the other oblast PCVs, as all the rest of Group 29 that's out here is leaving this coming week. Before the party, Robert and I went to the art market and I bought my going-away gift from my kids (which will now be given to them to give to me). I found a bread board with a Ukrainian cottage painted on it, which was what Nelya had suggested as a nice gift, and also a set of three paintings of flowers to hang as a set. I like them and they seem packable, which is a huge plus. Teresa came to the party straight from her goodbye party at her school, and she showed us the foot-and-a-half-tall ceramic vase that her school had given her. It was pretty, but I'm glad it's not my job to transport it back to the US!

32 days!

what the kids AREN'T giving me as a goodbye gift!

I'm home again from my travels, although it's starting to sink in that Balaklia's only going to be "home" for the next five and half weeks. So much to do before that point...

I had a nice visit with the Malkos, visiting with Mama Luda, wandering around Zgurivka by myself and my memories of two years ago, and watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in Russian with Sasha, which was entertaining not just for the movie, but for Sasha asking me at several points to explain what was going on. Neither of us had seen the movie before, and it had been several years since I'd read the book, so I got a kick out of him asking me to explain a movie that we were watching in my third language.

My arrival home got off on the wrong foot (literally), as yesterday at 3:45 am at the train station, the combination of a heavy bag, poor lighting, uneven cement, and the urge to get to a taxi quickly (and therefore home) resulted in me falling, scraping a knee and twisting my ankle. So yesterday was spent resting at home.

Today, I taught my 7A form, and then had the rest of the day free to work on a booklet for our (yes, it appears to now be a plural possessive rather than just Nelya's) seminar, as out of the two of us, I'm much more computer literate. So instead of trying to drill English into kids' heads, I get to be home, keep off my foot, and listen to country music while typing. Today was just creating the bibliography for the debate I wrote before fall break (if I'd been thinking, I should have made a link folder of everything I referenced, but going back through my computer's history accomplished the same thing, even if it took longer), but I think tomorrow is going to be typing the introductory pages...in Ukrainian. But I have my little cheat sheet that tells me the key equivalents, so while it'll be tedious (I'm not nearly as speedy in Ukrainian), it'll be doable.

The kids at school have been collecting money to get me a going-away present which will be presented to me by the school parliament. It's supposed to be a big secret that I don't know about, but Nelya's been keeping me in the loop, mostly so she can get my feedback on what I'd like. We've decided on something of the handicrafts variety, and it looks like she's going to secretly give me the money this week so that when I go up to Kharkiv to have a goodbye party with all the oblast PCVs (Group 29 people are already starting to leave next week), I can go to the art market and buy something that I'd like. Then I'll bring it back to her, she'll give it to Natasha, the school president, and Natasha will present me with it on behalf of the school. I will be suitably surprised and pleased, and we will all be happy. Wow, Nelya and I are sneaky!

Plus, this means that I can choose something that will fit in my suitcase, which judging by the pile collecting in my room, is filling up quickly. I'm trying to limit the majority of my "stuff" to mementos, souvenirs, and gifts, but somehow that's a large pile in itself.

"What did the children suggest getting me?" I asked Nelya. We're agreed that some type of traditional arts/crafts would be the most appropriate, but I was curious what the kids had wanted to do.

Nelya rolled her eyes. "A large stuffed animal, like the teddy bear you use in class, only bigger," she said, gesturing with her hands to show a two-and-a-half-foot-high stuffed animal. (Family--remember Kate's Mr. Turkey? He could have a Ukrainian twin!) Picking out my own present sounds better all the time... :)

The English Olympiad is scheduled for Saturday, November 24. I don't have to miss church!

Don't Be Born Beautiful

Six weeks from today! Wow...

Today I went on a DVD-finding mission to Petrivka, the biggest book/CD/DVD bazaar in Kyiv in order to find Ne Rodis Krasivoy. For those people who aren't aware of my mild obsession with the show, it's the Russian version of Betty La Fea, an Argentinian soap opera which the current US show Ugly Betty was based on. I watched it every night for six months, both when I lived with Marina and later on when I had my own TV. It was how I practiced both my Ukrainian and my Russian, since there were Ukrainian subtitles. And I just really liked Katya, the main character, who had brains but not beauty (although, of course, she had a makeover before the end...).

So anyhow, I decided to get the DVDs. A word of advice to Ukraine PCVs--if you find a show you like and you want to find the unlicensed DVDs (cheaper and also devoid of region settings), don't wait a year until after it goes off the air! I ended up finding episodes 101-200 (out of 200 total) for 50 hyrven, but wasn't able to get the first half, which are the episodes I haven't seen yet. One guy offered to sell me episodes 17-48 for 30 hryven, but that just seemed like it would complicate matters later on. One woman offered to sell me the entire series (after I had already bought 101-200) for 270 hyrven, but I would have had to come back and get them on a different day. So I think I'll either try Ebay or buy the licensed versions at Target in Kharkiv if my budget will allow it and hope that I can find a program for my laptop that lets me ignore region settings.

Off to Zgurivka tonight to visit the Malkos one last time!

cooking is fun

Discovered while reading over Sean's shoulder at the office: a blog devoted to Soviet propaganda posters!

Last night, the five of us in our apartment (me, Erin, Jessica, Robert, and Matt) went on a shopping trip to a HUGE western-style supermarket to buy fixings for dinner. It was quite the experience, whether running around looking for the best deals on Parmesan-esque cheese, trying to decide between chicken vs. shrimp, and the ongoing discussion about whether or not olive oil was worth the exorbitant price that was charged. (We decided against it, which made the cheapskate in me happy. And I still don't think our food was lacking in any way.)

So then we came home and cooked. We did a big pot of vermicelli, and I made sauce--sauteed onions and garlic in butter, then added tomato paste, a little water, and Italian herbs, and chopped tomatoes. At the very end, after that had all simmered, we added in a small container of shrimp (the amount of which were very "shrimpy" in comparison with our huge amounts of pasta and sauce). Also, we found garlic/dill bread, which was a nice side dish. Yay cooking!

Today, we slept in, made omlets for brunch, and now I'm at the office. I officially don't have TB, if any of you were in the least concerned. (I wasn't.) I'd hoped to get an apartment with people again tonight, but it didn't work out, so I'm at the Bratislava tonight. Oh, well. At least they have hot water.

Tif, Harry Potter 7 is out in Russian. :)

kyiv, the money pit

I'm in Kyiv, doing my COS medical, shopping for Christmas presents for everyone I hadn't gotten yet (I'm quite fond of the t-shirts I found for various male relatives, having been able to match interests and shirts), hanging out with friends, and just generally feeling poor, as it seems to be impossible to do or eat much in Kyiv for less than 25 hyrven.

Facts of interest:

~a group of us have a very nice apartment just off of Maidun Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square), which has worked out to about $17/night/person. Not bad, especially for Kyiv. If my sofa-bed didn't fall apart quite so easily, it'd be even better (and I thought I lucked out when I was the only person with my own bed!).

~COS medical was not a particularly pleasant experience, at least not the parts that I generally find unpleasant when doing a physical. However, Dr. Sasha was nice and gave me Valium to help me relax. I hate to think what it would have felt like without it.

~Related to that, when you're on Valium, don't try and find your way up Andrievsky Uziz (a twisty, turny little street with lots of art stands) by yourself to meet friends, especially when they think they're at the bottom of the hill but they're really halfway up. It's confusing.

~Last night, I went out for coffee (okay, hot chocolate and tea) with John, a guy I was a camp counselor with six years ago. Since then, he's converted to Orthodoxy and for the last three months, he's been in Ukraine serving as a short-term missionary at an orphanage for severely disabled children. We'd been hoping to connect up while we were both in the country, but hadn't been able to until last night, the night before he was leaving to go back to Michigan. It was neat to see how his experience here has compared to mine.

~I'm going to go take my LPI in Russian now. I'm still a little loopy, so this should be fun...

a lovely little place

Yesterday was Ukrainian Independence Day, and Uzhgorod was apparently the place to be. Wandering around for a while, I found an outdoor concert of traditional Ukrainian music and dancing, with performances from groups from all over Zakarpattia. I watched for a while, eating shashlik and cotton candy. Western Ukraine definitely does the traditional stuff well.

Slept in a wonderfully comfortable bed last night, the best I've had in quite some time (and the bathroom here is in the top five I've seen in Ukraine). Breakfast comes with the price of the room, so this morning I had homemade blinchiki (thin pancakes) with domashnii syr (sort of like cottage cheese), sour cream, and fruit preserves. It's a great place, but it's a little odd for me, after having host families, to have Ella ask, "So what time is best for you for breakfast in the morning?" I'm used to Mama Luda or Marina saying, "Breakfast is at ______," and then I make sure I'm up on time. :)

Today, I met up with Oksana, the secretary at Wesley Bible College, and she showed me around. It's quite small...they were originally in Kyiv but moved to Uzhgorod a year ago due to a fire in Kyiv, and last year they only had 5 students. But the facilities are nice, and Oksana and I hit it off well (she's a couple of years older than I am). We had tea and cookies and got to know each other a bit. She lives with her parents part-time but tends to have a lot of several-month-long house-sitting jobs, which I could relate to. The church she goes to (not the Methodist one here, but another evangelical church in town) is hosting a seminar on Israel this weekend, and she invited me to come tonight--apparently there's going to be music, perhaps dancing, and preaching. Should be interesting.

Then I came back to the center and wandered around. I sat on a bench and listened to an old street musician play his violin, bought myself a new black skirt for winter (on sale), and went to "Tortilla" for a late lunch. "Tortilla," despite its name, isn't really Mexican at all. I had the Hutsul-style pork (the Hutsuls are an ethnic group from this area) with homestyle fried potatoes. It ended up being a pork steak stuffed with hard salami, mushrooms, and what was either some sort of cheese or boiled egg white, all under a white sauce. It tasted very good, but it's so hot out and the food was heavier than I'm used to, being more Central European in style, and I couldn't manage to finish it. But it was good!

a muggy August afternoon

Kherson will hereafter be remembered by me as "the city where people make weird noises walking down the street." Seriously. I was walking down to a pizza place for dinner last night (in hopes of a non-squat toilet, which did not materialize), and a man was walking down the sidewalk in the other direction, screaming every few yards. He didn't look like he was in pain, so I have no idea why he did so. And then on the way back, a man barked at me. I'm not joking. It freaked me out just a bit.

To continue on with the noise theme, one of the women in my train compartment snored very loudly all night. One of the other women was kind and gave me ear plugs. This is at least my third train ride where I've ended up near a snorer. Sigh...

Got into Odesa around 6 am and took a marshrutka to the hostel, where I promptly fell back asleep until 9. Got up and had breakfast with a boyfriend and girlfriend from Vienna, who had thought about going on vacation to Italy but instead did Hungary and Ukraine. They were about the same ages as Kate and her Jason (both of us are dating Jasons, in case that wasn't clear...yes, it's confusing; no, neither of us are willing to find a new boyfriend just for clarity's sake), and that really just struck me. Kate and Jason went camping up around Mackinac (that's right, isn't it? or just up north?). Susannah and Mark went to Ukraine. Wow.

After breakfast, I headed out walking, and within forty minutes, had already been to two bookstores and the Presbyterian church, which is holding a free concert of spiritual music tonight for American foreigners. At least, as best as I could understand. I couldn't tell if it was for all American foreigners or just a special group of them, but the woman thought I could come. Although she also thought I was Polish at first. At the bookstores, I bought two kids' books of Disney stories in English and Russian for my English club, decided not to spend almost $40 for Harry Potter 7, and eyed a Russian textbook for English speakers, just to brush up on grammar. We'll have to see.

Then I wandered the streets, walked down the famous Potemkin Stairs (have any of you seen Battleship Potemkin? Dad?), took the furnicular (little tiny railroad thing) up, bought a silk scarf that was on sale (I may have to go back and get more as Christmas presents, as they were a good deal), and went to a nice pizzeria for lunch. I had a pizza with shrimp, broccoli, spinach, onion, garlic, and mozzerella cheese, plus incredibly good garlic bread with minced fresh vegetables on it. Which should tell anyone who knew me growing up how far my tastes have expanded.

Oh, I almost forgot...Odesa is humid. Ugh, ugh, ugh. Skadovsk was warm, but there wasn't the humidity I've noticed here. So I'm just taking it slow. I think I'm going out to the seminary tomorrow, and for the rest of the day today, I plan to keep wandering the streets, visit the literary museum and whatever else strikes my fancy, and go to the concert in the evening.

You know, I could get used to this vacation thing!

fun and sun and sand and little kids and sunburn

(Apologies to those of you who got an earlier version of this yesterday, but I'm saving time once again by taking the basic text and editing/updating it. So I recommend reading it again because there's more to it this time.)

The Black Sea is wonderful. I've spent a great deal of time over the last few days at the sea, either just being out in the sun or playing in the water with the Yukhemets kids. I have learned the word for jellyfish (there are a lot of them here, which the boys like to use to freak out Vlada and I by threatening to throw them at us) and have taught the kids the English word.

I'm staying with a young couple who make a living renting rooms here. (They say that the only professions around here are landlord, accountant, and salesperson!) They're Christians (his dad's the pastor here) and also some sort of cousins to Nadia. (Me to Nadia: "Are all evangelical Christians in Ukraine related to you?" Nadia: "We do have a big extended family...")

I'm definitely a bit sunburned, especially my back. SPF 30 is good, but it has its limits. Nadia and Vlada use some sort of cream, but it didn't appear to be sunblock. I've discovered that Ukrainians have a thing about getting very very tan. They think it's healthy for you.

Which leads to one of the more surprising cultural things I've noticed: 98% of females here wear bikinis, regardless of age, shape, or weight. This includes Nadia and Vlada (Liza and Snizhanna just run around in bikini bottoms, as do most small girls). I understand that it's part of the culture here, but it surprised me that the evangelical Christians also wear bikinis. I'm not saying that it's horrible or anything, just that women in the churches here tend to dress fairly conservatively--they're well-covered-up, with little to no jewelry or makeup, so I assumed that they'd be like conservative evangelical Christians in the US, where women generally wear one-piece suits (and I remember wearing t-shirts over our suits at some church functions growing up). Several Yukhemets kids have asked me where my swimsuit is (I have a tanktop and shorts combo made out of swimsuit material), and they give me weird looks when I say I'm already wearing it!

I'm really glad I'm here, and even more so that I'm with the Yukhemetses (although also glad that I'm not sharing an apartment with them...they have 12 people in the apartment sleeping on a bed, a couch, two chairs, and the floor, plus two out in the van...actually, according to Nadia, they aren't particularly sleeping). I go "way out" in the water with the older kids (but on the children's beach, "way out" is still only chest-deep, if that!), pull the little kids around on their floaties, and am the prime recipient of Valera's "Watch me, Miss Sally!"

Valera and I today, playing in the water:
Valera: Why do all the kids in my class like you so much?
Me: I don't know. Why do you?
Valera: Because we're always doing stuff together.

I thought that was really sweet. Of course, he also enjoys dunking me in the water.

I've quite easily resisted the temptation to do much souvenir shopping, as it's a lot of junk, and easily breakable junk at that, but I did get myself a brown-with-white-polkadots headband and a shell that says "Skadovsk 2007" in Cyrillic letters. I liked a crocheted scarf/shawl thing (cream-colored with pretty flowers), but then I saw it had sparkly beads sewn in. Not so much my thing.

L'viv, Day 2

Today we got our train tickets to Kyiv (only upper bunks, and a bit more than we'd hoped for, but still okay), and then went back to the center and wandered around. We bought more of the linens we'd liked (off-white with crocheted borders and ribbon embroidery)--I now have a dresser scarf, two smaller doilies, and a case for a throw pillow. I think I'm on my way to having a pretty guest room at some point.

The lady at the linens stall at the art market remembered us and said that we'd brought her good luck yesterday. Somehow we got to chatting and I mentioned that I lived out east, near Kharkiv, and then she completely switched over to Russian, and how old was I, and wasn't I just a clever little thing for being only 24 and having moved over here and having learned two languages.... She still wouldn't give us a discount on the linens, because we were buying the smaller pieces (she was willing to haggle for the larger ones, but we couldn't afford them), but she was nice anyway.

We also saw the Church of the Transfiguration and the Armenian Church. I was fond of the sign tacked to the door of the latter, which asked us to please keep the door closed to preserve the warmth between God and humans. :)

Then we ate lunch and walked home, stopping at a clothing store where I found a good deal on certain items of female apparel that I've been needing to replenish. Mom would be proud.

So now we're just hanging out at the hostel, enjoying the amenities. It's been a really great place to stay, and the people are interesting as well. The owner is Norwegian, married to a Ukrainian, and there have been people here from the US (all PCVs!), England, Switzerland (a guy who had spent the last 6 months backpacking around India and China!), Japan, Austraila...

I haven't changed countries? Really?

We survived the train ride, which actually wasn't that bad, although a little hot during the night, because we couldn't open our window because it was an emergency exit. Yeah, that made sense to us, too...

Our hostel is wonderful...the shower is heavenly, we can do laundry, the people are nice...and reading the hilarious phrases that the Lonely Planet phrasebook provides for those people wanting to know Czech made for 10 minutes of entertainment. And did you know that the Czech equivalent of "up a creek without a paddle" is "not even holy water will help him"?

L'viv itself is beautiful with a shabby Central European charm...old architecture, little cafes, cobblestone streets, and even a few street musicians. Today we visited several churches, the pharmacy museum, the art market, the used book market, and mostly just wandered the streets. Tomorrow we'll plan out what we haven't seen yet, and then we're off to Kyiv on the overnight train.

Pictures will come once I'm home again in Balaklia.

ps Mom, I got the email. That sounds good...sorry, I didn't have enough time on the computer to email you seperately.

the strawberry post

Ahh...I went to the bazaar this morning and came back with a kilogram of fresh strawberries, a kilo of onions, a bunch of dill, and a bunch of tiny new carrots. I love summer produce!


~*~


Yeah, I know I haven't posted in several days, but I was out of town this weekend. So here's my recap.


Thursday night, I visited the Shevchenkos, a family from my church who had invited me over for dinner when they saw me buying strawberries at the bazaar the previous Saturday. They told me there was no need for me to buy strawberries when they already had them in their garden. I went, but I also bought my own strawberries. :) We had borscht, strawberries with sugar, and varenyki (similar to ravioli, dough with filling that's either boiled or steamed) with cottage cheese and strawberries, with a side of sour cream. There are two little girls in the family, Maharita and Nastia (just finished 4th and 5th forms), and although we've been going to the same church for over a year, we got properly acquainted that night. At first, I was worried, because the girls seemed shy, but very soon that turned into, "And this is our room--this is Nastia's side and this is my side and this is my photo album and this is a picture of my best friend and do you want to put together a puzzle and here are our dolls and this is the cupboard where they live and Mama made these doll clothes but we made these ourselves..."


I really liked seeing that the girls made doll clothes...I love the Y kids to pieces--they're my family here--but I could never see any of the girls there sitting down to sew doll clothes. Someone else would go over to them and destroy the partially completed project, and then they'd start arguing, and in the meantime the needle would get lost and someone would step on it... I think the next time I go over to the Shevchenkos, I'm taking an old skirt lining I have and we'll learn how to make drawstring skirts for dolls.


Friday evening, I took the elektrichka an hour south to visit some other PCVs. The PCV down there had had a camp last week, and on Saturday, the counselors were all going on an excursion to Sviatahorsk (Holy Mountain), an Orthodox monestary just over the border into Donetsk Oblast. My friend Erin McS was coming to visit me after camp ended, so I had the chance to go on the excursion also. Friday night, we all (1o or so of us) went out to a cafe in the town and went dancing. Some of the American guys had had a bit much to drink (to put it mildly), and they were very active dancers to begin with...they were trying to dance with Ukrainian girls, but the girls were somewhat freaked out and pretty much kept fleeing the dance floor. Entertaining for those of us who were sober. Also fascinating was that in the center of the dance floor, there was a post with mirrors on all sides of it, and when the Ukrainians danced by themselves, they all watched themselves in the mirror. Cultural differences...


We got home around 1 am and then I got to take my first hot shower since February or thereabouts. Ahh, bliss...


Saturday morning, we got up and took a van down to Sviatohorsk. I had looked it up in my guidebook the day before and knew that, as a woman, I had to have a headscarf, but we stopped by the bazaar to get scarves for Erin and Jessica, the other girls. We had to have our heads covered, something on our shoulders (no tank tops), and skirts that were knee-length or thereabouts. The bazaar had all sorts of filmy-type scarves, and many people there were wearing scarves wrapped around them as a skirt, if they'd come in shorts or something. The guys were supposed to have long pants.


We saw the lower monestary and were able to go in for the end of the service that was going on, which, as always, was beautiful with everything being sung acapella. Then we went on a short tour and had a picnic lunch on the other side of the river. It was an interesting comparison, because everyone had to be so covered up at the monestary, but in the picnic area, the same people would strip down to bikinis and Speedos.


After lunch, we were feeling overwhelmed by Ukrainain hospitality and over-organization of what was supposed to be a relaxing day, so us girls took off to the bazaar by ourselves to go shopping. I bought two headscarves, a filmy white one and a navy blue one with gold flowers, and two candlesticks made of clay that I was told was from the mountain and glazed dark blue. The candlesticks, unfortunately, broke on the way home, but they were only about 40 cents each USD and since they broke cleanly, I think I can glue them back together.


Then we went on a hike up the mountain and back in the fields to a grave of one of the monks from long ago...during Soviet times, the monestary had been a hospital for psychiatric patients (I think...), but this grave had been hidden and wasn't discovered. Then we went to the upper part of the monestary, where we could see all the way back to the town where we'd been staying, a forty-minute drive away.


Facing the monestary on a different cliff was a huge Soviet-era statue of the first Party secretary, or someone like that. One of the Ukrainians who was with us commented that he found it poetic justice that the area around the statue is eroding, while the churches are being rebuilt.

Then we all went back to the town where we were staying, went out to a cafe for dinner, hung out at one of the houses where some of the guys were staying, and then went back to the cafe where we were the previous night. Our apartment decided not to stay late, so we had french fries and then went home for more hot showers.


One of the really neat things about the weekend was that Ethan, one of the PCVs who was in the apartment I stayed at, is a Christian, which is always encouraging to find out here. He went to Liberty University, where he majored in biology. We've had dissimilar experiences here--unlike me, he was involved with a church in his town during training and made some good friends there, but when he got to site, there's no Evangelical church there, so he hasn't been able to go to church for five months. We were able to chat a bit about being believers out here, which was really cool.


Sunday morning, Erin and I got up and took the train back up to Balaklia. We had a fun time--the highlights included watching the brass band in my town rehearse while a dad and his two little girls danced on the outdoor stage by the Palace of Culture; making the ultimate sacrifice when the electricity went out and we had to eat a half kilo of vanilla ice cream with strawberries; making homemade pizza; and watching Walk the Line.


Yesterday we went up to Kharkiv, got Erin her train ticket back to Kyiv, and then went out for Italian food (yes, food was an important part of this visit!). We wanted to go to the second hand store I really like, but it closes early on Mondays, so we went to a bookstore instead, where I found a children's jigsaw puzzle that's a map of Ukraine and Erin bought an armload of ESL story/fiction books in English to use with her kids.

So it's been a great weekend, but I'm tired.

yesterday, today, and this summer

Once again, posted a day later than I wrote it because Blogger wouldn't let me post. Not sure what's wrong with Blogger...

Yesterday was fun. I didn't have anything going on at school, so I hopped the 11:50 elektrichka to Kharkiv after making photocopies for my lesson today. When I got into the city, I went second-hand shopping at the store I went to a couple of weeks ago, but this time I actually had more than 15 minutes to look at and try on things. I found three books, all more-or-less mediocre but in English and quite cheap, and three shirts--two tank tops (one is white with a teal flower and the other is pale blue with some Old-West themed writing and design) and a light purple dressy summer blouse with embroidered flowers on it. All together, I spent about $15, which is a bit stiff for used clothing over here, but it's all really good quality and I needed some more summer tops.

After shopping, I hung out with Mike, who was also in town. We sat on the cement steps near the opera house and talked, complete with beverages (I found bottled lemon iced tea!). Later, we were joined by Marie, a French girl who's been studying at a university in Kharkiv for the past year but is going home on Thursday. I was planning to take the 6:50 train home, but we went out for supper and the pizzas we ordered took FOREVER and showed up less than 10 minutes before my train would have left. So I just took the next train. (Yes, Tif, the infamous 8:20 out of the main station!) The pizza was pretty good...pepperoni and red pepper slices. The crust on the edges was REALLY good, crisp on the outside but chewy within, and with a good flavor, but in the center it was too thin and the pizza was a bit greasy. But overall, good.


~*~


My summer plans are being formed, and I'm amazed how quickly my calendar's filling up.


Now-End of June-ish: Praktika at school


June 22-July 6: Tif's visit


July 14-July 29 (tentative, pending application approval): working as an assistant at the Summer English Intensive Program at Donetsk Christian University. I'm really excited about this opportunity. I was looking up evangelical weddings in Ukraine the other night (prompted by Yula's upcoming wedding), and ran across a mention of DCU. At the time, I thought that one of Nadia's cousins who I'd met at New Year's had studied there (it turns out he actually studied at a Bible college in Dnipropretrovsk...I knew it was something with a "D" in southeastern Ukraine), so I checked out their website and found the summer program. They still have a few slots open for workers, and I cleared it with PC, so hopefully everything will work out!

Early August (no definites, many possibilities): Brandi's visit? / Crimea with the Ys? / Lithuania with Kathryn? / Odesa with the oblast girls? / Krakow on my own? We'll see...

August 26-30: Peace Corps COS (Close of Service) Conference in L'vivska Oblast. Scary how soon all of that's coming up...

September 1 (most likely September 3, since the first is a Saturday...but you never know here): School begins again!

~*~


It's funny...I was not at all thrilled about working at praktika (summer school), but several PCVs have said that they're sort of jealous of me because I have something going on right now...they're bored. At least two people were like, "My school doesn't include me with anything like that." Mike also added that no one tells him when staff meetings are and he's not expected to show up for them...if I don't show up to ours, the director grills Nelya about my whereabouts and then I hear about it from Nelya that I really do need to come.


And I've been having fun. It's more laid back, and I'm not teaching every day. Half the time, I come, check papers for an hour, and go home; and yesterday, I got the day off. But today, I did music with my 10A form and we had a lot of fun. The kids complained about the music choices--"When are we going to listen to music that's popular in Ukraine?", but they had fun. And I picked several songs that they were at least slightly familiar with. I didn't, however, include rap or heavy metal, which is very popular, because a) I don't have any, b) you can't hear the words, which defeats the purpose, and c) the English-speaking artists that are the most popular here tend to have very profane/vulgar/obscene lyrics, which aren't appropriate for school.


Our playlist today:


"Honey" by Tina Karol
"Don't Know Why" by Norah Jones
"Oxford Town" by Bob Dylan
"Don't Worry, Be Happy" by MadHeads XL
"The Great Lakes Song" by Lee Murdoch
"Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer

a long post to make up for the lack of them this past week

I have a webcam!

Greg and I had a shopping day at Target (not the US Target, but the biggest grocery/department store in Kharkiv) on Wednesday. Greg found blue cheese, a mop, sticky-tac (apparently you can find it in Ukraine!), and a bunch of other random stuff, and I got my webcam, white-out, two copy-books, and peanut butter, which comes in little packets apparently, rather than jars. I haven't tried it yet, as I keep using my bread for other things (ie sandwiches), but I hope to soon.

So now when Jason and I talk with each other on Skype, we both have webcams and can see each other (although he generally looks sort of like a Monet painting, a little fuzzy around the edges, and when he moves quickly, the resemblance is closer to Picasso's work). It's almost (but not quite) as good as being able to actually go on a date. :)

~*~

My 10th form topic this week was "Making Suggestions." For their Thursday night homework, I asked them all to brainstorm three problems that they had in their lives. On Friday, I put them into groups and had them come up with answers to these problems. Below is a sampling, with suggestions in italics.

~No money (a very common problem): Need to work
~I get bad marks: Need to study
~My CD player doesn't work: Throw it out, buy a new one (which went back to "No money")
~I'm lazy: To overcome it (I was very proud of Natasha, as she looked up "overcome" in the dictionary to answer Olexi's problem)
~I live in Vilavatka (a village south of us) and I have to take the train to school (because the school there closed due to lack of students and the kids have to come to our school now): Move to Balaklia (to which Olena replied, "No money!")
~No boyfriend (from Lyuba, a very sweet girl who gets mediocre grades but works very hard for them): Yura, the class clown, said that he was available. Lyuba smiled in a way that said, "Not on your life!"

~*~

The highlight (perhaps "main event" is a more appropriate term) of yesterday was trying to fix the lock on my outer door. It hadn't been oiled since I moved in (or ever?), and yesterday, the key finally stopped turning...that is, when I could actually get it in the lock. Lena, my second-floor neighbor, told me that I needed car oil, what the container looked like, and that I needed to go to the hardware store. I went to the hardware store, and the following conversation ensued.

Me (holding up an empty oil container lent me by Lena): Excuse me, do you have car oil?
Shop-assistant: No, we don't.
Me: Where can I get it?
Shop-assistant: At a hardware store.
Me: Aren't you a hardware store?
Shop-assistant: Yes, but we don't have it.
Me: Well, at what hardware store can I get it?
Shop-assistant: At the bazaar. [which was already closed for the day by that point]
Me: My problem is that I can't turn my key in the lock. Do you have anything that would help me?
Shop-assistant: No, we don't.
Me: Thank you. Goodbye.
Shop-assistant: Goodbye.

At that point, I really missed Cantwell's in Lakeview.

I then walked down to the bazaar, on the off-chance that it was still open. It wasn't. Neither was the other hardware store right by it. So I did what I usually do when in a dilemma, and called Nadia. Valera answered the phone, which meant a bit more talking to do before I could convince him to go find his mom. When I got ahold of Nadia, she asked me to call back in a few minutes (I think so she could go look for oil).

I walked home, was met by the neighbor girls (who have been visiting me quite regularly with bouquets of weeds and grass all week), and decided to ask my first-floor neighbors, an older couple. It turns out that "Uncle Misha" (the girls said that since he was "Grandpa Misha" to them...no relation...he would be "Uncle Misha" to me) is a very good fix-it man who took my lock out of the door, oiled it, and put it back in, all while chatting with me about why on earth I speak Ukrainian instead of Russian. He prefers Russian. However, he told me he was glad that I'd asked him when I had a problem and that he helps out everybody in the building when they have problems. So I'm going to bake him cookies or something as a way to say thank you, I think.

~*~

Yula, Viktor and Nadia's oldest niece on Nadia's side of the family, was back in church this week. She'd been living with extended family and working as a nurse in Zhytomer, in western Ukraine, since just before New Year's, and the original plan was that she was going to settle out there. However, just before moving out there, she had met a guy (I can sympathize), and after a few months there, decided to move back home. It looks like Yula and Serogia are probably going to get married...they'd been thinking this summer or early fall, but Nadia told me today that it might be as early as next month. On Saturday, apparently, his pastor and close family members are going to meet with the adults of Yula's family (which includes aunts, uncles, and grandparents...her grandfather is also our pastor) to discuss the feasibility of this. So Yula's side of the family was going to get together this evening to talk it all over. It's very different from the US, with such a high degree of family and church involvement.

From what I've read, traditionally at such meetings between both sides of the family, if the girl wasn't interested in marrying, they'd give the guy a pumpkin. Yula's definitely interested, but I want to know where they'd get a pumpkin this time of year if she wasn't.