NEW BLOG

I am switching blogs! The new blog address is:
http://easterneuropewhatjusthappened.wordpress.com/

If you want the password, please send me an email and I would be happy to give it to you:
rose.cheyette@gmail.com

It's been fun blogger, but I need some password protection!!

Конотоп, Суми, Киев и Ржишев

Do you ever have moments where you completely forget where you are, what you are doing and what is going on? This did not happen to me very much in the states, but it happens to me fairly often in Ukraine, usually when I am traveling. This happened to me a couple Fridays ago. I was on a marshrutka traveling to another town to see a volunteer. I was looking out the window and I saw something that looked just like a baseball field. For a second, I thought, wow, there is a baseball field and I thought I was back in the states. And then I was like, wait, there are not baseball fields in Ukraine. Then I was like, wait, I am in Ukraine. Then I was like, wait, hold on, why am I in Ukraine?! And for a split second I completely forgot what I was doing and why I was in Ukraine. But then I came back to reality. It was a very strange moment.

Two weeks ago I participated in a teacher’s camp in Sumy, which is the capitol of my Oblast. Sumy is about 2 hours by marshrutka from Konotop and about 300,000 people live there. The camp was for English teachers, and there were about 9 of us volunteers there to teach the teachers about different things they can bring into their classrooms—ideas for activities, how to hold debates in their classes, information about HIV/AIDS, as well as other lessons about teaching and leadership. There were about 25 teachers there. It was SO much fun. The teachers were really enthusiastic, excited to share their knowledge with us as well as learn from us, and I made some new Ukrainian friends who are excited to show me around Sumy some weekend soon. It’s really nice meeting wonderful Ukrainian people and making connections, especially with people who are my age.

The camp was on a Saturday and Sunday, and on Sunday after camp, one of the other volunteers who were there said that she had found online that there was a synagogue in Sumy that she wanted to try to find, so a whole bunch of us set out on an adventure to find this synagogue. (It also happened to be Purim on that Sunday, which was a nice coincidence.) Well we got lost, but then we asked a nice man pushing a baby carriage where it was, and he led us through Sumy to the street we were looking for. Suddenly before we knew it, we were washing our hands, saying a blessing, and stumbled into a huge Purim celebration. The synagogue was full of Ukrainian Jewish people, and the rabbi there is actually from California. At first we stood and watched as he read from the torah (probably the fastest I have ever heard Hebrew being read. Maybe the fastest I have heard any language. It was amazing!) And then we were given seats at the tables. Before we knew it, we were eating, listening to kids sing songs in Russian and Hebrew, drinking vodka and watching a man juggle bottles lit on fire! It was such a fun, interesting and amazing experience. Hearing Russian and Hebrew being mixed together, speaking with other Ukrainian Jewish people, just the whole experience was awesome. The rabbi and another man who was speaking a bunch talked a bit about Peace Corps and that we were American volunteers, and everyone clapped, which was nice. I am going to try to go there for Passover, and the rabbi gave me the phone number of someone in my town who works at a Jewish Community Center! Apparently there is a somewhat active Jewish life in my town, which I had no idea about, nor did my site mate. So I will give him a call soon.

You know it is interesting. For much of, I am not sure about most of, but for much of my life, Judaism is something that I felt not much of a connection to. I mean, I have always loved many of the holidays and certain traditions. But I am somewhat of a rebellious person and much of my life, for instance when I went to Hebrew school and went to temple, I wasn’t really going because I enjoyed the services or felt a connection. Yes I loved the temple I used to go to, but I loved it more for the people and the activities (when I was a child) that we would do there. Recently I was speaking to an English teacher at my school, and he said that his parents were Atheists and so that was how he was raised. And now as an adult, he is starting to find an interest in learning more about religion and finding out about what is out there on his own, without his parents telling him that religion is bad. I think this is the same for me. I am not saying that my family ever told me what to believe, but being the rebellious child/teenager I was, and the rebellious adult I still feel I am at times, I think that I would rather figure out and experience things on my own. I think I feel more free to do what I want when it comes to Judaism and decide how I want it to be in my life. Additionally, Ukraine has an interesting though quite sad history of Jewish people, so I think it would be interesting to learn more about it here first hand.

Last week I went to a 4 day PEPFAR conference in Kyiv. The purpose was to educate us-- the American volunteers and our Ukrainian counterparts so that we can go back to our site and know how to apply for a PEPFAR grant and go about implementing a project, related to HIV/AIDS prevention. The days were full of seminars, lessons panels and activities all related to HIV/AIDS. It was 25 Peace Corps Volunteers and each volunteer brought a Ukrainian colleague, and we were split into two groups. The Ukrainian colleagues did pretty much exactly what we did, but in Ukrianian/Russian and we learned in English. But every day we did have an hour- long language lesson, learning HIV/AIDS terminology in Ukrainian/Russian. We learned about the history and biology of HIV/AIDS. Learned about transmission of the disease, about stigma and discrimination, as well as the situation in Ukraine. Two HIV positive Ukrainian women came and told us their stories of living with the virus. It was a great week, and I am excited about the prospect of applying for a grant and doing some work within my school and community related to HIV/AIDS.

The weekend after the PEPFAR training I went to see my host family for the first time since training ended. It was so much fun. I ate so much borsch, vareniki and golubtsi. It was crazy. The 8^th of March was International Women’s Day, which is an official holiday in Ukraine, and my host mom’s nephew and his daughter were in town, so we had a big women’s day celebration. It was me, my host brother, host mom, my host mom’s sister, her two sons and granddaughter and the neighbor and her son. We ate a lot, toasted many times and gave little presents to each woman. It was really nice to be back where I had training. I also went to visit another host mom from training, and it was fun to see her. It was a great 4 days of speaking lots of Russian, relaxing and eating amazing food. My host mom and I had fun watching “Ukraine’s Got Talent” as well as a Ukrainian version of “America’s funniest home videos”. I am planning to go back there for Easter. Easter in Ukraine is apparently an amazing time, so that should be fun. Also my host mom’s granddaughter will be there for Easter, so we will finally be reunited and have some crazy times!

I have SO much laundry to do. I don’t know how it all piled up, but I really really don’t want to do it. Ultimately, I don’t mind hand washing, but when there is so much, that’s the worst. Plus I feel like nothing ever really gets that clean. Grrrr. Okay, enough complaining, I am gonna go tackle the laundry situation.

Miss everyone back home lots. Bye bye!

10 Февраль

I swear, Ukraine is bringing out a new clumsy side of me. Between slipping on ice, breaking dishes in my apartment and getting chalk all over me everyday at school, I am a mess. Was I always this clumsy? I have no idea. It’s a mystery to me.

Last week I started Russian tutoring. I will have tutoring twice a week and I like my tutor a lot. She teaches literature at a different school in Konotop, and she also tutored the previous volunteer that was in Konotop, who left about a year ago. She does not speak any English, and I think that will be a good thing overall. It will force us to speak only in Russian. If everyone spoke as slowly and clearly as my tutor did, life would be a lot easier here! And she gives me a lot of homework, which is great. We are going to go through my Peace Corps Russian books that I used during training, and she is assigning me other written work, and the newest and scariest task is to learn Russian cursive. Russian cursive is SO confusing. It is not hard to write, it is just hard to remember which letter in cursive is what letter, and there are some tricky things about it. Example: the Russian alphabet has the letter M. The uppercase version is M and the lower case is just a smaller version--м, still angular, not curvy and lowercase like this “m”. Make sense? Okay, so in Russian, there is also the letter T. BUT the cursive version of T is a lowercase “m” (in the Latin alphabet). So basically whenever I see an “m” I think it means the letter M as in Mary, but no, it means the letter T as in Tom. Maybe this does not make sense if you are not learning the language. But it is so confusing. I always like to pretend that it is in fact a lowercase M and not a T, so for instance the word “torte” I like to pronounce as “morm”. Yeah. I’m weird.

Last week I went into my school psychologist’s room for the first time. My school has two psychologists, one who works with the younger grades, and one with the older grades. Myself and the psychologist that who works with the younger children are applying to attend a 4-day PEPFAR (U.S. Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) training in Kyiv that will take place the beginning of March. I really hope that we got a spot. She is very interested in learning about HIV/AIDS and working on projects at our school, as am I, and I feel that there are definite gaps within my knowledge. Mostly, I want to learn more about HIV/AIDS in Ukraine and learn the skills necessary to educate others in this country about the problem here.

This past weekend I experienced my first camp. It was here in Konotop, and was organized by Dan, the other volunteer in my town. It was a two-day camp focusing on leadership and public speaking, and there were about 20 or so students from a number of different schools in Konotop. It was SO much fun. I was incredibly impressed by the student’s ability to use their English to really think and have original thoughts about what it means to be a leader and how to speak in public. It is always an exciting thing seeing students break out of their shells and as we used to say at Citizen Schools, take positive risks. I can’t wait to work at more camps! At the end of this month we will be having a camp for English teachers in Sumy, and there will be another public speaking camp in Konotop in April, which will be a blast I am sure.

Right now it is snowing, again! I can’t believe it. Will it ever end?! The other day there were snowflakes the size of my hand. I am not kidding. I was teaching my 9^th formers and I suddenly looked out the window and made a crazy noise when I saw how huge they were. My students all laughed. I think they think I am nuts.

I was recently listening to this new podcast that I am obsessed with called “Stuff You Should Know.” It’s really good—I suggest you subscribe to it. They had one called “What’s Up with Competitive Eating”. In it, they discussed competitive eating, and they mentioned a famous Ukrainian competitive eater named Oleg Zhornitskiy who ate four 32-ounce bowls of mayonnaise. I can’t even eat a spoonful of mayonnaise. I did not expect Ukrainians to eat and cook with so much mayonnaise. Although I guess it is a very European thing. Don’t Germans dip their French fries in mayonnaise instead of ketchup?

I decided to fill out one of these survey thingys. I stole it from someone else’s blog (thanks Julia!) I don’t usually fill these things out but was in a procrastinating mood and decided, what the hey! I added in a couple things, to give it a Ukrainian twist.

1. How many piercings do you have?

7—3 in each ear and one nose ring.

2. What are you eating right now?

Nothing! But I just made dinner—kasha and cabbage carrot salad. It was delicious. Welcome to my life as a Ukrainian.

3. I love the sound of...

The ocean. Babies giggling. Terrible karaoke singers.

4. Most annoying sound?

When Tillie and Juan used to make pigeon noises at me.

5. Favorite city?

Oy. Top cities would probably be San Francisco, Capetown, DC, and Seattle.

6. Most frequently read publication?

The Onion News.

7. Colts, Saints, or could care less?

Care less! Usually I pretend to care at least a little bit about the Superbowl, but this year I didn’t even pretend.

8. Cats or dogs?

Cats that think they are dogs.

9. Frozen Yogurt or Ice Cream?

FROYO

10. Longest flight ever taken?

11 hours—Capetown to London (immediately followed by 7 hours back to Boston). My hands and feet got all puffy and weird since I hadn’t moved for hours. Even though the stewardess suggested that we walk around to get the blood flowing, I insisted on staying seated and silently freaking out about being on an airplane.

11. Favorite appetizer?

Spicy calamari. Or at least that’s what I want right now.

12. What item in your closet currently makes you happiest?

Long underwear!

13. What current trend do you hate the most?

Showering is so overrated.

14. Favorite facial moisturizer?

I prefer throwing water on my face and hoping for the best.

15. What song is constantly on repeat right now?

I heard this song on a Podcast—the group is called Manooghi Hi and the song is called Kismet. Check it out. It’s really good. Seriously. Do.

16. Favorite Ukrainian food?

So many! Blinchky, Golubtsy and Borsch. Also the bread here is the freshest and most amazing bread I have ever had.

17. Favorite Russian word?

Students I meet are always asking me this question and I never know what to say. If I had to choose now, with my somewhat limited vocabulary I would say the following three are up there as my favorite Russian words:

чуть- чуть (pronounced choot-choot) and means “a little”.

хорошо (pronounced horosho) and means “good” or “all right”.

And since, I am 5 years old, I gotta say that I love the word пуп (pronounced poop!!) and means belly button. Haha, I know I know. I need to grow up.

Well that is all for now. Thank for reading! I am sure many of you have seen this, but I will leave you with it anyways:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzLtF_PxbYw

"Daddy, I'm Freeeeeezzzing!!"

Two years ago, my friend Tillie was visiting me in Boston in February. We were sitting in the Boston Common, chatting and people watching. It was a really cold day, and this father and son walked past us. The father was dressed very appropriately for winter, but the son was not. As they walked past us, the little boy said to his dad in a sad, shivering voice "Daddy, I'm freeeeeeeezing!" We could not stop laughing. Okay maybe you had to be there and that is really cruel, but hey, it was funny at the moment. And now in Ukraine, I perpetually feel like that little boy. Freezing. No matter how many layers I wear of long underwear, wool socks, sweaters, mittens, it is SO DAMN COLD. So, little freezing Boston boy, wherever you are, I feel your pain.

This winter, Ukrainians are completely shocked at the amount of snow that Ukraine has been getting and how cold it has been, at least in my part of the country. One teacher at my school said that he thinks it has been about 10 years or so since it was this cold, this early in the year. He said maybe February can reach such lows, but usually not in January, and usually not this cold. And one older teacher in my school said that he does not remember Ukraine having this much snow since he was a child. I would call myself a winter person. I really do enjoy winter, but at the same time, this is getting kind of old. And I am fully aware that there will still be a couple more months of winter. So... that's nice.

I think that I have become impervious to embarrassment. I have fallen on the ice 4 times in public in my town. I would say generally I am not someone who gets embarrassed easily. But I think we all know, there is something just so mortifying about falling down or tripping in public. But I can say that at this point, after it happening so much in town, I just don’t even really get embarrassed about this anymore.

So the marshrutka drivers in my town keep thinking that I am a student, and keep charging me the student price. I have been correcting them and giving them the full amount for an adult, but should I just start paying the student price if they think I am a student? Or do I continue to insist that I pay the full price, since I am, in fact, an adult? I think I will keep paying the full price, since it is insanely cheap. But I always feel kind of weird when they stare at me, trying to figure out if I am an adult or a child. Sigh.

So, much has happened these last few weeks. First off, I have had some of my first experiences traveling alone. Not anything far away, but still, my first time navigating trains and marshrutkas alone. For the most part, they have been good. There have been some interesting occurrences and confusion along the, but in each case I arrived at my destination in one piece, and that is all that matters! I think it helps that I am not too shy when it comes to asking people for directions and help finding where to go. Even if I end up sounding like a crazy person, I would rather be a crazy person on the correct bus than a crazy person on the wrong bus. When it comes to asking people for directions in Russian, I have begun to learn who is the most helpful when it comes to getting help. So here goes. Lesson 101: Asking for directions with a language barrier. Best scenario is a woman with a child. They tend to be a bit more patient and helpful, even when I totally butcher the Russian language. If a woman with a child is not available to answer questions, then I would say a middle aged woman. But not one who looks like they are in a rush. Slowly approach and say “excuse me” and attempt to straight forwardly ask your question. If neither of those are available, I would ask a middle aged man. Of course, asking someone who is working at the bus or train station is best, but sometimes that person cannot be found, or they are busy, or they are just unapproachable. And word of advice, asking a police officer might seem like a good idea, but not always. They may want to flirt with you instead of telling you where your train platform is (although this particular police officer did point me in the right direction, only after flirting and being just a wee bit skeezy).

Something else I have learned. Sometimes it is necessary to have a Russian translator when trying to speak Russian. What do I mean by this? Sometimes I butcher Russian so badly that another Ukrainian person needs to translate exactly what I said, in Russian, to another Russian speaking person. When this happens, I just laugh and feel like a big dummy. This happened when my friend Cait and I were trying to buy bus tickets to a town just 40 minutes from her town. It was the most confusing interaction in Russian I have ever had, and it was going terribly until a nice Ukrainian girl came over and helped translate--in Russian--to the woman behind the ticket counter. Oy.

I am enjoying Ukraine. I really am. But sometimes I just feel so silly and so confused with what is going on. I don’t know exactly how to explain this, but there seem to be these unspoken rules of things that just happen. Many times when I walk into town, or get onto a marshrutka, or go into school there just seem to be these things that happen and I have absolutely no idea what is going on, but everyone else seems to know what is happening! I feel like a little lost baby, walking around aimlessly, just completely disoriented. Usually I just laugh off these moments. I can usually find the humor in these situations. But sometimes I just wish I could just leave my apartment and not feel so lost and confused and 2 years old. I know that this will get easier, and it doesn’t bother me that much. Just sometimes I wish that I felt less crazy!

One good thing though is that I tend to find one person, or they find me, who takes on the role of making sure that I am okay and that I am not totally lost. Well not always, but some of my travel experiences have been much better because there was one person who made sure that I got off at my stop, or showed me where my bus was, or protected me from drunk men who tried to feed me fish and then got into a fist fight practically on top of me. (That was a fun day…) I mean, even if these nice people had not been there, I could’ve handled it myself (at least I like to think that I could!) but having them there was nice.

Ukraine is big on nicknames. When I was in training, my host family and my host mom’s friends called me Rose, but in my site, from the minute I got here, I have gotten many nicknames. My favorite nickname is pronounced Rose-och-ka. Many teachers call me this, and just today, I ran into a babushka that lives in my apartment building. We have only spoken once and that was about 3 weeks ago, but she greeted me with “Hello Rosochka!” I really like it.

So, surprise! I’m a teacher! Well, I guess it’s not a surprise, but I have to admit it was kind of a surprise for me. I mean, obviously I have known since August that I was going to be a teacher, but it didn’t quite hit me until I walked into my first classes, the Ukrainian teacher left and there were my students, staring at me, waiting for something to happen! I am teaching 9 different groups of students. One 7^th grade class, three 8^th grade classes, two 9^th grade classes, one 10^th grade class and two 11^th grade classes. I am teaching 18 hours a week, which from what I have heard is average for Ukrainian teachers.

I like my students a lot. They have character, are funny, kind and for the most part, interested in learning English. And the teachers at my school are great too. They are friendly and helpful, and the teachers that I attempt to speak with in Russian are patient with me and actually praise my Russian! I did not think I was very good, but so many teachers have said that I speak good Russian and understand a lot. Starting soon I will have Russian tutoring 1-2 times a week. I have not met my tutor yet, but she teaches Russian and Ukrainian literature at one of the other schools in Konotop. I am really looking forward to starting tutoring. I hope that it is something that I will be able to stick with.

I made my first Borscht last Thursday. It was very exciting and very delicious. It lasted me 6 days—I just finished it tonight. Next time I make it, I am gonna try to make a spicy version. I think the next Ukrainian recipe that I attempt will either be Varenyky or maybe Golubtsy. I'll let you know how that goes...

Bye!

Здравствуйте!

So so SO much has happened since I left my training site. To go back a few weeks, the Saturday before we left, we had a wonderful host family goodbye party. It was a blast. Lots of delicious food, fun conversation and the families surprised us with some interesting Ukrainian traditions. This included something where we rode around on a broom, pretending it was a horse, and then had to run in circles, and then they hung a piece of bread from a stick and without using our hands, we had to try to get bites of the bread, and if we laughed, smiled, or could not successfully get a bite of bread, they put ash on our faces. It was hilarious.

It was a fun last weekend in training. It was sad saying goodbye to my host family and other people I had become close with, but I will definitely see them again, hopefully in the near future. On Monday we all had a big goodbye at the bus stop and we were off to Kyiv for 4 days. While in Kyiv the four days, we had many info sessions, seminars, were given a ton of information and then on Thursday we had our swearing-in ceremony. It was very cool. Many important Ukrainian people were there—people in charge of education, the new US Ambassador to Ukraine was there, as well as local media. The ceremony was only about an hour, but it was pretty neat. I am no longer just a trainee—now I am an actual volunteer. Hooray!

After the ceremony, we all began departing to our sites. Things got a bit crazy at this point. A big bus full of us volunteers and counterparts departed from where we were staying. It should have only taken us about half an hour to get to the train station, but we left two hours early. Alas, this was not enough time. We got stuck in the worst traffic jam I have ever seen. For 3 hours we were stuck in traffic just blocks from the train station. But we could not get out and grab our bags because we were surrounded by cars, and also it was in the negative degrees outside, so it was just way too frigid. So all together about 40 people missed their trains and we had to head back to the place we were staying. On Friday, they were able to book us new tickets—although when we left on Friday, some people were still waiting to leave because much of Ukraine was getting hit by bad snowstorms. We got to the train station—3 hours early of course, but that was fine. The train station is really beautiful in Kyiv, and a bunch of us sat in the magnificent café in the station, which was fun. Finally, it was time for my train to leave, and myself and my counterpart were off to Konotop!

Konotop is a big-ish city—about 100,000 people (just a little bigger then my training site of 8000 people!) in Northeast Ukraine. By train, I am only 2.5 hours from Kyiv. I am so thankful to be so close. It is so convenient, and super cheap to get to. My Ukrainian counterpart is Elena and this is her second time being a counterpart. Last year, her school had a volunteer, so she has had some experience in this role. She is AMAZING. So kind, so funny, speaks incredible English and has been teaching English for 15 years. She is married with two children, one of whom attends our school. I feel really fortunate to have such a caring, funny and helpful counterpart. I really like her, as well as the other English teachers at my school. They are all incredibly kind and helpful, so I think it is going to go very well.

I am living in an apartment pretty much right in the center of town. My apartment has one big living room with a couch that turns into my bed. And then a small but cute kitchen and a bathroom with… drumroll please… hot running water. I am really lucky to have this. The only real downside of the apartment is the non functioning oven, but I think once I get a bit more settled, I might look into seeing if it can be repaired, or maybe buying some sort of toaster oven that is big enough to bake in. But it is cozy, warm and convenient. I have met a couple of the neighbors, and they are really nice, and one really sweet pensioner has checked on me and when I was locked out of my apartment the first weekend (long story) she invited me in, made me some food and patiently attempted conversation with me.

Konotop is a really great town. It’s beautiful and has a lot of places to go and things to do. It has a few supermarkets, a few nice café’s, an internet club, and many other great places. It has a marshrutka (mini-bus) system, as well as a tram! Konotop is one of the smallest towns in Ukraine to have a tram. A tram is an above the ground subway system. Kind of like the green line in Boston. They go really slow, but they are fun and inexpensive, like most of the transportation in this part of the country. The origin of the word Konotop is kind of cool. Legend has it that centuries ago, Catherine the Great and her army attempted to attack this area, but since Konotop is on a swamp, the horses got stuck and they drowned. And that is why it is called Konotop—which literally means drowning horse.

My school is great. It is an intensive English and Mathematics school. It has about 700 or so students and 13 English teachers. I will work with the 7^th, 8^th, 9^th, 10^th and 11^th forms. Last week I observed classes and chatted a lot with my students. I am very impressed with the English level of many of the students. I met every student and class that I will be working with, and I did a little interview session with each class. They asked me a lot of questions; we talked about Ukraine, the states, school and all kinds of topics. Even though I love little kids, I am pretty excited to work with older grades. I think I will have a lot of opportunities to work with students in many different ways, not just as their English teacher. My school is already asking me to brainstorm ideas for outside projects and different kinds of funding we can get. Now the school is on winter vacation, so I have a little over a week free to get to know my town, maybe do a bit of local traveling, and begin preparing for teaching.

I am starting to feel more at ease, at home and comfortable in Ukraine. There was a period during training, to be honest much of training where everyday I was asking myself, why am I here? I felt very torn and confused about my role as a volunteer in Ukraine, teaching English. I saw all these things going on in my training community—insane amounts of drinking, underage drinking, trash everywhere and learning about the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the country. I was seeing all these things and asking myself, why am I here teaching students about holidays, and colors, and the present perfect tense when these other issues seem SO much more important? I was feeling pretty negative, and it sucked. It downright sucked. But then some friends gave me some positive advice, some real solid advice, which really, really helped me. Since these pep talks I got, and trying to just be more positive in general, I have been feeling much better. I was definitely sad to see training end, love my host family, love my cluster and love my training site. But I was ready for training to end and ready to embark on this new adventure, of actually being a PCV. Additionally, many of the problems that I see, I am looking forward to finding ways to get involved to address these within my school, and in other ways.

I feel good now. Looking forward for school to start but having this extended time off is allowing me to explore Konotop, get to know some local people and get settled into my apartment. I have said this before, but I am constantly amazed at the friendliness, kindness and hospitableness of Ukrainian people. I don’t know, maybe it is just because I am a foreigner in a new place, maybe not, but I have already made some strong connections with Ukrainians in Konotop, and I feel really thankful for them.

I had a great New Years. I went to my landlord’s house and spent the evening with her and her husband. It was really enjoyable. We ate, chatted, ate more, watched TV, knitted, looked at photos, ate more, drank wine, ate more, and then finally went to sleep at 2:30 in the morning. It’s funny how now that I have been living on my own, cooking food for myself, I forget that Ukrainians know how to eat. Especially on holidays. I forgot about the whole pacing yourself thing, since you pretty much sit for five hours straight eating. But it was delicious—my landlord is a great cook. The next morning we got up, had breakfast, and my landlord had me drink cognac… at 10 AM to help get rid of my cold. That was interesting… but yeah, it was a really great New Years. I cannot believe it is 2010. I mean really, it’s kind of insane.

Well that's all for now! I got internet this past week, so I will update this thing fairly regularly. Until next time...

До свиданья!!

Hello!

I can't say much now, just wanted to say that I am safe, happy and living in wonderful Konotop in the Northeast of Ukraine. Below I have posted my permanent address, and soon I will hopefully get internet in my apartment.

That's all for now. But I promise, there will be more to come in the near future.

Cheers from snowy, beautiful Konotop.

Rose

One more week...

So this past week, my town’s coolness level was raised—by a lot. We found out some very neat things. First off, we just now found a place in town that prints for you—and of course it is on my street. Like basically next to my house. All you have to do is hand this nice girl a flash drive and she prints every document you need. That could’ve saved us a lot of time when we were handwriting lesson plans for hours. Secondly, our town has a library with very sweet librarians who love visitors. Very cool. And lastly, the best thing of all, is that our town has a cookie factory in it!! Yes—a cookie factory! We had heard rumors of this mysterious cookie factory but no one could confirm this, so we just figured it was a myth. Then on Wednesday night we went to dinner at the home of an awesome Scottish and Polish couple that lives in our town, and as we walked to their house, we passed this building we had always wondered about. The lights were on and we could see women in white hats working. We asked the Scottish man what it was and he said—it’s a cookie factory! And we could smell the cookies later on that night. It was amazing. They called their friend who works there to see if we can get a tour of it. She said that she was not sure because there are “many secrets there” but she is going to ask her boss. Seriously, this is straight out of Willy Wonka. I really hope we can get a tour in before we leave. I feel like as soon as you get comfortable in a place and find your groove, you have to leave, and that is what is happening here. It’s like—all these amazing things are happening here, and we leave in a week. Ah well—that’s life I guess.

I obtained some awesome Ukrainian souvenirs this week. We have a neighbor who spends a lot of time at our house and is a good friend to my host mom. We have gone over to her house a few times for dinner, and earlier this week we went there. I was admiring a hat she had—one of those traditional giant Ukrainian/ Russian fur hats. I told her that I wanted to buy one of these in Ukraine at some point and she told me that I could have hers! I was so surprised and didn’t know how to say in Russian “Really? Are you sure? I can’t possible take this!” But she said that she doesn’t wear it because it doesn’t fit her head, so she wanted me to have it. It’s so great. Then she gave me an Orange Scarf, commemorating the Orange Revolution that took place in 2004. It says “Our Ukraine” on it in Ukrainian. Then when I got home the other day, my host mom had bought me all of these souvenirs in town. A magnet of Kyiv, a really nice mug with chickens on it and a typical Ukrainian home on it. And another AMAZING thing—In Ukrainian history, there are these soldiers way back in the day called Cossacks and she got me a little figure of one of these (they wear these big hats and have crazy moustaches) and he is attached to a little cup which has the name of my town on it. It’s amazing. Yay for Ukrainian souvenirs. Then I remembered that I had two Obama magnets, so I gave one to my host mom and the neighbor. They love them and kept shouting “Obama!” loudly.

On Saturday we went to Kyiv with the Scottish and Polish couple we know, and met up with our friend from New Zealand there. It was a really fun, relaxing day, and we finally got to see some of the beauty that Kyiv has to offer. The marshutkra drive was terrible though. I felt so car sick and almost lost it. And by lost it I mean I almost lost my breakfast. That would’ve been bad… throwing up on the marshrutka. I need to find a way to not get car sick on them, since they will be the main form of travel I will use while I am in Ukraine. I think the mixture of how fast they drive, how bumpy the roads are, my fear of car crashes, and then on top of that, the fact that I then get worried I am gonna throw up right there and then adds to my nausea. Yeah, it’s a mess. If you have any anti-nausea suggestions, they are more then welcome.

So we arrived in Kiev and met up with our friends. We took the metro to the edge of Khreshchatyk—the main downtown area. The first time we took the metro in Kyiv a little over a month ago, I think I was just so overwhelmed that I didn’t realize how far underground the metro is. Okay first of all—the escalators go fast—like scary fast. We saw a woman attempt to get on it and her heel broke off. it’s jumping onto a moving vehicle—crazy. And some of the escalator rides are a full 5-8 minutes. Seriously—these stations are SO far underground. For all of you in Boston, imagine the escalator in Porter Square times 5. Maybe more. It’s crazy. Anyways, we walked a bunch around—checked out some stores, and then hopped on the metro again to the outskirts of the city to a major second-hand shopping area. If you’re familiar with the stores Dollar-a-Pound and the Garment District in Cambridge, it was basically those two stores spread out over a huge crazy stretch of land. It was amazing. I bought one thing—a white cardigan. I tried to haggle with the sales women—it was originally 60 UAH, I tried to get it down to 40, but she said I could pay 50. Not bad—my host mom said that was a good price and was glad that I tried to get it lower. We spent a little over an hour there. There were a lot of good things there, but it was overwhelming. I think I would like to go back there in the near future, once my language skills are better so I can really bargain with them and try to get some good deals.

We hopped back on the metro and got back to the center of the city. We finally made it to Independence Square, which even on the grey chilly day was quite beautiful. We walked around a bunch and then climbed a large hill to go to St. Sophia’s Cathedral. We didn’t go into the actual cathedral—it was a little expensive (although I think next time I go to Kyiv I would like to shell out the money and just do it). It is the oldest cathedral in Kyiv—some of the artwork there dates back to 1017. We climbed to the top of the bell tower—which was built in the 18^th century. It was a beautiful view of much of the city.

After, we went to St. Michaels Cathedral, which was also beautiful. The original St. Michael’s church was torn down by the soviets in the 1930s—the original was built in 1108. All women must cover their heads inside churches, which is the respectful thing to do, so we put our scarves over our heads and went in. It was so beautiful—there were candles everywhere, and many visitors were buying candles and putting them in the many candle holders placed all throughout the church. It was really neat.

Then we went to an art gallery, and then we went to an Irish Pub to watch a rugby match. It was a neat place—very international—Scotts, Brits, Ukrainians, New Zealanders, South Africans, Americans—a whole mix. It was fun. Then we quickly went to a grocery store and bought some things, and then headed back home. It was a really fun day—we saw a lot of Kyiv, and I feel like now I have a much more accurate idea of what the city is like. Next time, I would love to hit up some museums, especially the Chernobyl museum.

So, we are in the home stretch now. Monday—Russian class, Tuesday—Russian class, then back to Kyiv for a excursion to some teaching English resource center, Wednesday—Russian class and a goodbye/thank you meeting with the teachers and principal at our school, Thursday—language proficiency test (yikes!) Friday—I have no idea, Saturday—host family goodbye party, Sunday—packing and hanging with my host family, and then Monday we leave our town, our families and are off to Kyiv. I feel ready to leave but I am sad to leave my town and my family. By Monday afternoon, I will know where my site is, by Wednesday I will have met my Ukrainian counterpart, and by Friday I will most likely be at my new site. CRAZY!!!

Not sure when the next time I will write will be. It could be in a week. Could be in a few weeks. We shall see. But if it is not till after all the holidays, well then—Happy Holidays and all that good stuff!

Much love,

Rose