I will try to sum up three weeks in just a few paragraphs….
My town, where I have my three months of training has a population of 8000. Yes, 8000. It’s so tiny! I had no idea it was that small. The town also has a 13-person police department, 2 schools (grades 1-12) and also 4 colleges, which draw about 2000 commuting students everyday. The deputy mayor said that the town is very safe and “there are no gangsters”, so that’s good! Also that most places are safe, and that if college students hit on us in the center of town, just “use our humor to tell them politely that we are not interested.” I don’t think “using humor” is the easiest thing to do when there is a severe language barrier, but if this happens, I will try!
Right behind my house is a nice little forest and one of the colleges is located there (I saw a whole bunch of students out having a dance party of some sort and Akon was blasting from a stereo.) There are a number of statues and monuments in the forest there that we walked to. A large statue of a man named Shevchenko who was a famous Ukrainian writer. There is a big statue of Lenin and also a WWII monument. My town is really great and has some beautiful areas. There are two rivers running through it—one of which eventually leads down to the Black Sea. It even has a beautiful sandy beach, but it is too cold already to swim.
The food here is great—my host mother is a fantastic cook. And let me just say what they serve in the states and call “borscht” is not borscht. Borscht is not beet red liquid with sour cream on top. Real borscht is flavorful and delicious. She makes AMAZING borscht. I don’t even know what is in it—beets (but not many), carrots, chicken, beans, potatoes, more veggies. So delicious. Also she has the best garden ever—we eat insanely good tomato salad every night with the best tomatoes I have ever had. I also hope parsley is good for you since we eat the parsley from her garden by the handful every night.
Even though my Russian is very very minimal and her English is nonexistent, we are still communicating and we already have established some jokes, and I also have jokes with her sister, who lives across the street. I am looking forward to when I can have meaningful conversations in Russian, and not just be able to say “I like tomato”, “I like borscht”, “I like baseball.” I mean seriously I sound like the character in Anchorman who says “I love lamp”, “I love carpet”. Okay I can say more then those things, but I am just looking forward to the day that I can really keep up with my host family, and also so I can understand what they are saying about me, since I know they talk about me all the time!! J
In general, from what I had heard about the Ukrainian style of dress has pretty much been true. Many short skirts, high heels, lots of make up, etc. Women wear heels through the rain and mud and they never seem to get dirty, yet the second I step outside, even if the sun is shining, I somehow manage to get my shoes covered in dirt. At our school, even the students dress way stylish. I mean 5th graders wearing crazy amazing boots, skirts, heels, funky jackets, shiny tote bags. Amazing.
Here is a summary of what learning Russian is like: Our language teacher explains a grammar rule and shows a chart, like for instance, a chart on how to make nouns singular and plural. Seems simple enough, right? NO. First make sure you can figure out if the word is female, masculine or neutral, then decide in which way you will be using the verb that goes along with the noun, and figure out if that verb will be used in the nomitive, genetive, dative or accusitive case, only then can you make the noun plural or singular. And now, ignore that ENTIRE chart you just read, because there are a million exceptions to the rules and very few words will actually follow a consistent rule. This is the point that we all crash and burn and say who invented this crazy language!?!?! Then we complain and smash our heads on the table and beg our teacher for a break because we cannot handle the insane grammar rules of this language. Then he says no, and we endure 3 more hours of inconsistent, confusing, crazy grammar and vocabulary words that we cannot pronounce correctly with an alphabet that we are still trying to figure out. Today we had a Russian test. I think we all bombed it. Oh Russian—you are such a mystery to me.
So I don’t know how this happened, but I didn’t bring ANY hot sauce with me to Ukraine. Seriously, I don’t know how this happened. Although I guess that makes sense since I finished packing at 1AM the day I left for Philadelphia. My procrastination in packing might also explain why I brought like 20 pairs of tights and only 2 skirts. Oh well. One of my fellow volunteers brought a bottle of Siracha and when we have our lunch breaks during Russian, we slather that on everything we eat. We have finished half the bottle after only 3 weeks. Yikes! If you want to be my most favorite person ever, send me a bottle of Tapatio or Siracha once I have a permanent address. I will be forever grateful.
I have a cell phone! WOOHOO. I finally feel like a real person. I was getting tired of seeing 7 year olds walking through town showing off their cell phones. It’s very exciting. We all got Bluetooth phones to try to get Internet on our computers. Not sure if it will work. We shall see! My host mom was so happy that I have finally been able to have contact with people back home. Every day she had been asking if I talked to my mama and everyday I said no, I haven’t. And now that I have (and with other people!) she is happy, and so am I! If you want my cell number, let me know!
While training is stressful, I am having a great time.
I miss you all very much and wish you were all here with me!
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