Germany, Wedding, Prague, Camp: Oh summer, I love you!

I’m back back in Ukraine, back to “life”, and I miss the hell out of my cat, Skittles.  As a child we had cats and our neighbors had a dog we played with, but mostly, we were raised to think animals have no souls and cats cannot get attached to their owners. When  I saw tiny little Skittles outside with obviously no family, I thought to myself, “OK, I’ll take her in, and when I leave, I’ll just put her back on the street. At least she’ll survive a year longer than she would on the streets.” So here I am, a year later, about to go home in 4 months, and I am panicking to find a way to get her home with me. I’ve grown to love that little fuzzball…and I truly think of her as my little daughter. (Yes…looks like I’ll be the crazy cat lady when I get old…)

Germany was a blast! No problems with the plane and none of the 11 Vodka/Cognac bottles I brought to my sister were broken. (Yes, 11; since she is getting married soon, I thought i’d spoil her). However, when we finally got all our stuff and walked out to the waiting zone, my sister did not even see me. She only saw Conor and then loudly exclaimed, “Holy SH*T! You’re tall!” and then carried on staring at him with huge eyes. I was like, “Hello! Sister! Over here, haven’t seen you in over a year, Helllllllloooooooo!” ❤ you sister. hehe.

The first few days of the trip were with my sister. She showed us around a bit, ate some great food, went to some bars, drank ACTUAL coffee, and mostly lazed around and watched Narutu. Like a lot of Narutu. Possibly a good 60 plus episodes.

Then we met the adorable German, Johanna. This was probably the most interesting, and the most planned, part of the trip. Johanna spoiled us. We went to see a famous castle built by [whats his name???] who was a famous Bavarian king who ran out of money building too many castles and then got declared mentally ill because his advisers didnt want him ruling anymore. Then he and his doctor were found mysteriously drowned in a lake…cool castle he had, and nicely placed in the middle of an island. (Also, check out the size of that slug!)

The next day we went to Salzburg, the Mozart and ‘Sound of Music’ town. We went to a castle overlooking the town and the view was beautiful. Unfortunately though, we were in a hurry and had to leave after only a few hours. Cool though, to say I was in Salzburg. And I loved the movie. Mozarts cool too.

After that, we went back to Johanna’s [AWESOME] house and celebrated her birthday with a Pancake cake. It was delicious. However, I had been in the emergency room while with Corita due to a severe neck ache and I was unable to eat anything, for fear of not keeping it down. I ended up just stopping the meds because I wasnt able to enjoy any of the famous Gemany beer and delicious food. (Not to worry though, back on meds in Ukraine, ones that are allowing me to eat too!) Happy birthday Johanna! Gettting old! :D:D:D:D I love my adorable German Friend….I will never forget you.

Next stop was a wedding in the south of Munich of my two German friends. (I studied with the groom, Nic, in Finland in 2007). Besides Conor and I, Nic and Johanna (Another Johanna) are probably the most fantastic couple I have ever met. After being together for 6 years, they finally got married and they seem just as much in love as when I met them 3 years ago!

The wedding was really interesting and the food (and alcohol!) was AWESOME! The had some really cool, unique ideas to spice up their wedding. One idea was a photo booth where a camera was set up and all you had to do was push a button and pose. Of course there are going to be some crazy pictures from that!

Another idea they had was have pre-stamped postcards addressed to Nic and Johanna. Each guest was to write a wish or promise or something on the postcard and then tie it to a Balloon and let it go into the air. When they are found, the finder is supposed to put it into the post. 🙂 Cute, eh? They also rented a Sauna and hot tub the night before and provided free booze. Hmm, what other ideas? Oh yah, they has a magazine they were selling with funny stories of them together, pictures of the guests, and jokes about Bananas (since the bride hates bananas). It was really clever.

After all the fun and cultural experiences and friends, Conor and I were more than ready to head to Prague and just relax and do what we wanted without a schedule. (Though we love you all dearly!)

Prague was amazing! The city is so beautiful and there is so much history. The main square was my favorite, but it was wayyy too crowded. They had a really cool clock with the zodiac signs on it, and a church with a dead hand of a burglar hanging from the room and a super awesome cathedral. I could go on and on and on.

I think though, that one of my favorite times in the trip was drinking a beer and Becherovka (A Czech cinnamon alcohol drink) in an underground medieval bar lit by candles. I had a similar experience in Estonia 6 years ago and these types of experiences have always been the coolest.

Funny enough, the worst part of the trip was when Conor and I got the brilliant idea to take a boat ride down canal. Of the 2 hour ride, 50 minutes was spent waiting in line to be transported to the upper level of the river (I forget what its called). We then spent 20 minutes going one direction, 20 minutes waiting for another boat to get out of our way, and then 20 minutes back. We didn’t see much.

Coming back to Ukraine was as sad as I thought it would be. A few tears maybe. It was weird seeing so many things and wanting to just turn to my side and giggle about it with Conor. But I will live. 4 months more and I am home!

I planned to go straight to camp to keep myself busy. The camp was in the mountains in the west of Ukraine. There were about 20 staff, 4 from the US, one from Azerbaijan, and one from Poland. All around, the camp was the most organized Ukr camp I have ever been to (since time and a plan man almost nothing here), but the Ukr staff were a little hard to get on with. It wasnt that they were bad or anything (except one which I will tell about), its just that no one introduced themselves, or took an effort initially to welcome or talk to the foreigners. They were great with the kids though, so I have respect, but there was just such a huge gap between the locals and the foreigners, which I personally didn’t like.

The biggest problem at the camp though was the director of the English teachers. Argh…just a rant, I apologize! She was TERRIBLE! She had absolutely no idea how to work with foreigners and no effort to even TRY! The lady was constantly belittling us and telling us off in front of the entire staff for stupid reasons is an accusing manner which just vexed the BEEEP out of everyone. Example:

Every Sunday we have a movie day. We have about 3 1/2 hours for the movie and discussion. We chose “The City of Ember” (great movie). The movie ran for 1hr 45 minutes, which meant we had approximately the same amount of time to discuss the movie as we had to actually watch the movie. For a woman who has taught English for so long, I can’t believe she planned it that way. Getting kids to talk for that long is like pulling teeth. The first 10 minutes are pretty easy; the next 10 minutes are bearable; any more discussion and the kids want to pass out. Its impossible. No one wants to discuss a movie for that long in a second language.

So, this Sunday, after pulling teeth for 30 minutes, we still had an hour left before the lesson was done and we were out of ideas to get the kids to talk about the movie. We decided to watch an episode of Simpsons. Now, I know that sounds bad, but it wasn’t. We watched a very harmless episode about aliens…and the camp was Outer Space themed. The episode contained no bad language, no racism, no sexism, no drugs/alcohol/sex, etc. It was innocent. It perfectly ended with 15 minutes or so to go. We talked about it and then let the kids go 10 minutes early since lunch was next anyways.

Oh boy did we get chewed out. The next morning in the staff meeting, the lesson director said accusingly to all the American staff, “Excuse me, what makes you think you can let the kids go early??? That is not ok. Jamal and Ewalina were able to keep the kids entertained up until the very end but for some reason you guys are incapable!!! And who gave you permission to watch Simpsons???”

I’m strong-willed hate being accused of things that I don’t deserve, so I responded for all of us. Oh boy did I respond…I argued the same thing I wrote before, about how it was bad planning, not thought out, (oh, and this same director slept through the last movie rather than assisting in our discussion so she had no idea.) Not only that, but I arrived at the camp and was given no instructions except that I would be teaching Astronomy, which I know NOTHING about. NO lesson plans, no guidance. It was the same for this damn film…no guidance. Nothing. As for her argument about the other 2 teachers keeping the kids busy until the end, they had little kids, and they made crafts after the film. But last time I tried doing any sort of games when I had extra time after the lesson, she yelled at me about that too. Why would I think it is appropriate this time????

This lady just wanted to fight, to argue, and she was picking on us about things just because. Even though we had valid points and she has been totally unhelpful in every aspect, she still continued to yell at us until finally we all just walked out fuming. On more than one occasion, we overheard her talking bad about all of us and laughing at us.

At the end of camp, we told the main director about how this lady had treated us. Every single one of us said we won’t be coming back and that we wouldn’t recommend this camp in the future if the terrible lady still worked there. Sad day, because I liked the camp overall.

Did I mention that I have a new apartment? Just moved the week before I left for Germany and now I am setting it up. Pictures…eventually…It has one large room for a bedroom, one medium sized living room, a larger-than-before kitchen, and the bathroom and toilet room are separate now. The place is more modern…nothing is falling apart…no more leeks…and soooo many windows!!! I love it!!!

I signed up for the GRE (General Entrance Exam) for Grad school! I am soo stoked! I never thought I would go on to get a graduate degree…My family never really talked about it, so I had no idea why I would get one! (ha!) But now, I am studying my arse off and soon to take the exam…Wish me luck…Im on my way to being edumacated. (That was on purpose)

I think that’s all folks. See ya next time!

COMMENTS COMMENTS COMMENTS. NOM NOM!

UEFA Euro Cup 2012

Conor and Johanna are back! Awesome and terrible. Not really terrible, but rough. The three of us are currently living in my one-roomed apartment and it is crowded. There is only one bed, so 2 people are on the floor with sleeping bags; we have three laptops in use, but only one internet cable; only 2 outlets for plugs that easily get overwhelmed and blow out the power; one bathroom with only 4 hours of water in the morning and 4 hours of water in the night; and one tiny college-sized frigerator for all our food. Cabin fever is rampent. However, we have spent almost every weekend camping with our good friend Igor, which gives us a chance to run wild and have plenty of space.

The first weekend, we went to the Blue Lakes, which is in the north of Donetsk Oblast. Absolutely BEAUTIFUL, and absolutely impossible to get to without a car! Though it was totally worth it and amazing! Before we made it there though, we took a short stop to the famous cave monastery in Sveta Gorsk.

       

The second weekend was spent at the Sea of Azov which is also in the Donetsk oblast and borders with Russia. This second trip was my first time camping ON the beach. Fun, but sand is still to be found everywhere.

The majority of this month has been spent working in the 2012 UEFA Eurocup football [soccer] games. Conor, Johanna, and I are all volunteers for the games, Conor working as a volunteer manager and Johanna and I working as emergency volunteers. Conor mostly distributes lunch vouchers and clocks volunteers in, while Johanna and I mainly assist in distributing tickets on game days.

One day, we somehow managed to get free seats into a game Ukraine vs. France. The game had been delayed by 45 minutes due to lightning, so when the game started, there were several free seats. All volunteers that weren’t working got in for free sitting at FRONT SEATS AT THE HALF FEILD MARK!!! It was AWESOME! Except when we tried to buy a beer and it was watered down. But otherwise, AWESOME.

Accomplishment of the month, I completed an advertisement video for the HIV/AIDS working group that I am a member of. The idea of the video is to attract new PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) to the group since currently membership is down. Here is the video; please watch!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLggT7Yuh9k

The next project I am doing for the HIV/AIDS working group is creating a manual for volunteers who want to make HIV/AIDS -themed day or weekend camps at their sites. The manual will be largely based on the manual I used to make the Women’s empowerment camp that I did back in March. I hope to have it finished by the end of the summer.

Johanna and I went to school the other day and started to write “Hello World!” on the sides of the World map project i did last summer. It looks awesome. The side part is red so we are writing in black and the contrast is amazing. Just some extra touches.

I am still studying for the GRE and enjoying my summer. Exactly one month from yesterday, Conor will go home. Two weeks and 1 day from now, we head to Germany to see my lovely sister. Which brings me to the most exciting news of this month: My lovely older sister Corita is ENGAGED! I am so incredibly happy for her and it is so wonderful to talk to her and to feel her smile through the camera! Congratulations sister; I love you!!!

Write again soon. Love when you comment! 🙂 (Makes me feel loved!)

PS: Pictures from trip with gramps have been added to the last post!

Crimea then Crimea again.

Vacation over, back to school! (For a week only!)

As many of you know, I was on a 2 week long hike through the Crimean mountains. It was awesome! (10 days actually). We took a train down to Bakchesarai and then we started hiking. In our bags, we carried our clothes (winter jackets!), a bowl, cup and spoon each, sleeping bags, tents, pots and pans, cameras, and any other toiletries we needed. They were heavy bags! (However, I am sure that my bag was the lightest!)

Almost every day we hiked for about 5-6 hours until we made it to Yalta.It was one of the most amazing things ever to know that we walked so far and then to look down onto Yalta and see the blue sea. Unfortunately, we did not stop to enjoy the sea and swim. We only went to a nearby store, refilled our bags for the end of the trip and then caught a trolleybus to the next town over.

Then we started to make our way back up north to Simferopol. Around about this time, the group started to get a little uneasy and it was decided that the walking would be lessened and we would spend more time at campsites. It was only 2 nights that we did this, but it did give the trip a more relaxed feeling.

Before the last two nights, we had been hiking until we could no more, and there were a lot of badly thought out decisions in our route. Also, some money may have gone missing, but I wasn’t too worried about that, as I agreed to pay what I paid, and was unable to pay no more.

All around it was an interedting trip. I probably wouldn’t do it again with the same group, but the views were fantastic and it was nice to spend time with Conor.

After the trip, everyone headed home and I headed to Kiev. I CLOSED MY GRANT!!!! For all of you who donated, THANK YOU SO MUCH! Good news is that we will receive another donation for 6,000UAH in August, so we will be able to buy books for maybe 2 more grades. With the Partnership Grant, we were able to buy books for the 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th grades only. This means that over half the school will have new English textbooks! Hopes are that they will find a way to get the textbooks for the last few grades with a little bit of fundraising…we’ll see!

Also in Kiev I had another X-RAY to see if the Tuberculosis had become stage 2. It hadn’t. I also had blood tests to see if it was out of my blood. Turns out I’m ok. No TB. All gone. The medicine worked and I don’t have to take it anymore. So for all of you who were worried, we can now have a beer together to celebrate the end of sleepless nights. (because you weren’t sleeping because you were worried and I wasn’t drinking because TB meds are terrible for your liver.) Get it? Hehehe.

I headed home after all this, but I wasn’t there for long. Within a week of getting home, I was already heading back to Kiev to get my grandfather. But oops, I forgot to mention that Johanna is back! She came back 3 dys before my grandfather got here, so it was like 2 surprises at once!

Gramp’s visit was AWESOME! We had so much fun! And it was unbelievable how healthy he was and how much he could walk! I took him back to my town to meet my teachers and friends and they loved him. My neighbor made vareniky for him and they talked about history together, (With me as a translator…Hard stuff that!) I took him to one of my classes, (it was supposed to be 3 classes, but they were canceled [surprised?]). My students put together questions and then interviewed him. It was fun, and then we gave them Reece’s cups. Mmmm.

After school, we had a little brunch with my teachers made up of American goodies my grandfather brought, (Salsa, Ranch, Reece’s cups).

Next we went to Crimea. We went to three cities: Sevastopol, Yalta, and Sudak. Sevastopol was my favorite, but mainly because it was such a comfortable city to live in I think. We saw a parade there on the 9^th of May (Victory day) and it was busy! We also went to an awesome Panorama museum that had an awesome exhibition of a battle against the British and French in the city. It was super well done. My favorite part of the city was a big ferris wheel we went on. You could see the entire city from the top! It was a little old though and the creeking and swinging about without restraints was a little frightening. Otherwise, awesome!

Then too Yalta! It was one of the weirdest things ever to be in Yalta looking up and to remember our camping trip when we had been looking down into the city. To be honest, Yalta is way to touristy for me and super expensive. Most of the time we spent outside of Yalta, but we slept and went to the beach in the city.

There were three main things we saw during our stay. The first is the Lavandia Palace, which is where the three main world powers (Stalin, Churchhill and Roosevelt) met to decide what happen to Germany after WWII, (The Yalta Conference). It was pretty, but it looked like any other palace. It was mostly just cool because of the history.

Then we went to the top of the Ay-Petry mountain, (using a Gondala?). Also kind of scary, especially since we knew the Gondala had probably been created back in the Soviet Union. Gramps was surprised to see that there was a little village/tourism center at the top. You never would have imagined it from the bottom. There was several men trying to sell food, tours, horse rides, etc at the top, but we decided to pay 5 dollars to go to the peek of the mountain. (You have to PAY for that here!) It was a pretty steep climb but Gramps was super beast about it! Great job Gramps!

After the climb, we were both ready to head to the beach, but we had one more stop. Crow’s Nest. A little Disney-like castle built on the edge of the water. It was a lot bigger from farther away but as soon as you are right up on it, it is tiny! Still cool though and I am glad I saw it. Then to the beach…

The next day, I had planned to get up early and take a bus to Sudak, about an hour away. However, on this day, they decided that they weren’t going to run any buses to Sudak so if we wanted to get there, we’d have to go through the capital. Argh. So that meant that a one hour bus ride on ONE bus turned into a 5-hour bus ride on three buses. Totally worth it though. Gramps ended up spoiling us by paying for an awesome hotel directly underneath the Sudak castle, which included and big swimming pool, breakfast, and a balcony. All for approximately $60USD a night. (Before that we had been staying in hostels). The only downside is the hotel didn’t serve coffee with breakfast. UNBELIEVABLE right? So Gramps and I got up every morning and the first thing we did is wander the city looking for coffee.

The Castle took about 4-5 hours to explore. It was big and actually pretty hard to explore since it was on a steep cliff. Gramps once again impressed me by walking the whole thing. This was one of my favorite days because when we got to the top, we just sat there, talked about life, the universe and everything and looked down into the town.

Sadly, because we were having so much fun, the trip flew by. I thought we had 2 weeks together but I swear it was only like 3 days. The last days of the trip were spent in Kiev where we met Conor again. He was there to close his service (he’s done!) along with several others from his group. We had a nice goodbye dinner with him and my Gramps and then the next morning Gramps was off. It was sad. So quick, but really, I’ll be home soon too. And I’m ready. The next month I will be spending with school camps and the UEFA cup. Conor and Johanna will be crashing with me for a little while so I won’t be lonely. Then off to Germany to see my sister Corita. August I will spend studying for the GRE and then the last semester here starts in September. September 26^th is my COS (Close Of Service) conference. Scary how things pass so quick. But it will be nice for it to fly since I will probably be lonely after Conor and Johanna go home. Plans are home in December and then off to start school in Colorado. (If all goes as planned.)

Write again soon. 🙂 (As always, I LOVE COMMENTS!) (And more pictures will be posted as soon as Johanna gets back and uploads them!)

Camp GLOW! (Like Mars)

Hello everybody!

I’m back with wonderful news about life, the universe, and everything.

The most recent news is a wonderful trip I will shortly be taking the Crimea in the south of Ukraine. Conor, me and NGO group will spend 8 days hiking through the Crimean mountains and sleeping in tents. I am so stoked and I wish we could just go already!!! Its going to be cold though. It snowed until the very end of March and they predict one last frost in May, so I am preparing myself. But I still think it will be awesome! (Preparation for a hopeful hike through the App. Mountains of NC. 🙂

On other awesome news, I just completed a 3-day camp for girls of the 9th and 10th grade. The theme was Women’s Empowerment. We had 13 girls show up, 3 PCVs and 4 Ukrainian helpers.

Day 1: Self-Esteem/postive body image

Day 2: Healthy Relationships/communication

Day 3: Female leaders/empowerment

Here Luda points out the differences between two pictures, one with photoshop and one without. This lesson was to demonstrate that photoshop can easily “take away imperfections” and make models look perfect, but in reality, they are just beautiful women that probably never needed “touching up”.

Here, Jenny has a discussion with the students about female leaders/role models. Megan Fox claims to be a role model, but an atypical one. She may drink alcohol, smoke and use bad words, but she will teach your daughter to be independent, speak out against wrongdoings, and stand up for what she believes in.

Camp Song time! “Let me see your funky chicken!”

My Ukrainian friend Valentina gave an interesting presentation about finding love. She teaches to students that they need “to find themselves” before “finding the one”.

Alona and Mary did a super hilarious advertisement about a drink. (beer maybe?) Alona is the ocean in this picture and Mary is the costumer who will soon be enjoying a nice drink on the beach. This activity included several different magazine advertisements, some of them actually showing what they were advertising (this one!) and others simply using female or male bodies to sell their product. Interestingly enough, the students misunderstood an Abercrombie & Fitch advertisement for being a fitness center advertisement. hehe.

Speaking against advertisements that make women feel competitive and needing to put on tons of make up and use photoshop to feel beautiful!

Giving compliments to each other to boost our self-esteem!

Here, students are demonstrating a skit in which a neighbor woman can hear child abuse in the apartment next door. Students are required to think of what the neighbor woman can do to help or stop the situation.

In this situation, a young neighbor child tells you that there is no food in her house. What can you do? These girls smartly thought that we need to first find out the whole situation. Are they bad parents or just poor?

How to handle a situation when your friend tells you that she is pregnant.

What should you do when your boyfriend is pressuring you to have sex?

Crossing the River Activity: Papers are used as stones to “cross a river”. Once you go across, you can’t go back. Three people are also blindfolded!

Organization game: Without touching the ground, one must get in order of youngest to oldest.

In this game, the students must move a cup full of water out of the circle without entering the circle or moving the box the cup is on. The only materials they have is string, paperclips, and tape.

Having a discussion about powerful women. 🙂

Conor talks about Gender Stereotypes and equality.

The Matrix!!!

Blindfold Maze Walk!

Relay Race!

Over the rope: Ukrainian Style: (A Napkin in place of actually stepping on Alina’s pants)

527 Poster Contest!

527 is a free hotline for Ukrainians that they can call if they want to work, live, or study abroad. All they need to do is give the number the info for where they will go and the 527 volunteers will find out if it is safe or not. This number is to help prevent the trafficking of Ukrainians.

The winning poster!!! (3D!!!!)

🙂 Comments are appreciated!

Mars has been known since prehistoric times.

Please take the time to watch this video…all the way to the end. Thank you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc

So funny cultural thing: As of last weekend, it is illegal in Ukraine to drink alcohol in schools. 2012, and it just became illegal to drink in schools.

Also, happy Women’s day! This is a huge holiday here…in fact I have off school for today and tomorrow for this holiday. Apparently it is international but I only ever heard of it in Ukraine.

Update soon!

In 2005, radar data of Mars revealed the presence of large quantities of water ice at the poles.

Hey!

Back from PEPFAR training, I am an official HIV/AIDS trainer. It was a blast. As I think I mentioned before, I took along my student, Alina, and another English teacher, Lydia, to the conference and they are also certified trainers, which is awesome since I will be leaving shortly (9 months being shortly). Now we will do a project to spread information about HIV/AIDS in our community and school. Last Dec. 1st, I had a training in my school which included 6 students who attended Camp HEAL (HIV/AIDS themed-camp) conduct a training to the 9th, 10th, and 11th classes. While we will not be going to Camp HEAL this year, we will train 6 students so that we can once again have these training’s on DEC. 1st. The idea is that these become permanent training’s in our school. We will also have an art contest leading up to Dec. 1st and the winning art pieces/photos/etc will be featured in an HIV/AIDS calendar. Or so this is the plan. Wish us luck!

There is a lot of stigma about HIV/AIDS in Ukraine, as I would assume is the same in most countries. This activity was basically to instill some understanding into the participants.

Listening to the HIV+ speakers tell their stories was inspiring. They were so positive and it helped disprove some of the pre-notions that becoming HIV+ is the end of the world.

Showing the proper way to use a condom, including NO OIL BASED LUBES!

School ends early this year due to the 2012 UEFA Cup. To those who don’t know, UEFA is the biggest European football championship and it happens every 4 years. I will (hopefully) be a volunteer for these games in the Donetsk region…we will see. The point though was that it never seizes to amaze me how small a priority education is here. I could go on forever about this but basically I have had my classes canceled by a range of reasons from “It’s a teacher’s birthday party at 1pm today so you won’t have that class” to “there is no running water so we can’t have school today” to “the parents think it’s too cold outside, so we are canceling school”…actually, those are some of the most legit reasons I have heard…there is definitely worse.

Funny Story:

I’m talking to my sister Elisa on skype the other day when she tells me she is sending me a care package. Jokingly, I asked her if I could see what’s in it. She agreed, but with a sly grin on her face. She pulls up a huge box, and slowly starts taking out the first item…I was so excited…except it was wrapped. And the next one was wrapped too. All of them. So my sister basically showed me a big box of wrapped presents, which she has informed me hasw to wait until her next paycheck to send, and that means another month to actually get here….So damn, so I am sitting here, waiting, excited, knowing there is a box of goodies coming my way, and I have no idea what is in it. Haha, well done Elisa. Well done. The anticipation is killing me. That’s a Kerchmar for you.

For reference, this is my sister Elisa:

My lovely AWESOME grandad comes in May! WOOP WOOP! I am so stoked…I cant wait for the next few months to pass! (though not really since Conor finishes his service in May.)

Anyways, I am stoked. He is the coolest 81 year old grandad in the world and he is coming here!!! I will probably take him to my site; show him off a bit; take him to the capital; and then maybe end it in Crimea, since I have never been there. He said he wants to see as much as possible. (Please bring Parmesan cheese).

So not a lot going on here….mostly just teaching and waiting for the holidays. The most drama I have had is with my 11th class. Sadly, they have gone from being my favorite class to now being my worst class. I hate teaching them now…they just talk and talk and make fun of me in Russian. I know they are getting anxious since they are almost graduated, but on a daily basis, the understanding bit is tough.

While I have been writing this blog, there has been continuous loud singing from my neighbors. It sounds like holiday singing. I think it is a bunch of older ladies, based on the sound…occasionally it breaks but it’s pretty much been continuous for the last 3 hours. interesting, eh? I will blog soon, if anything interesting happens. Summer is coming and so in my grandad so maybe next time there actually will be some news! Comments are always appreciated and thanks for reading! 🙂

The first successful flyby of Mars occurred in 1965

In the last few weeks, I have been asked several times by both Americans and Ukrainians, “Aren’t there little tiny holes in condoms that make them ineffective and useless against pregnancy and STDs?”

Answer:

“Some people claim that condoms have tiny pores or holes in them through which sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV can pass. This is not true. Many studies show that condoms do not have pores big enough for HIV to travel through. Most latex condoms have walls that are approximately .05 mm thick – a virus such as HIV would therefore have to pass through a barrier around 500 times thicker than itself to reach the outside.”

Condoms are 98% effective!!!!

http://www.avert.org/spermicide-condoms.htm

Mars has approximately half the diameter of Earth.

My sister left this past weekend. I’m sad a bit. And homesick a lot now. I hadn’t felt homesick at all the first year but now its kicking in. Its ok though…right about the time Conor leaves, it will be summer so I’ll be super busy with camps and traveling and then I hear the last semester is easy. 10 ½ months left.

So yah, sister. It was fantastic, except she got sick. The first day we spent in Kiev. I showed her a few sites, hung out with some South Africans in our hostel, went to the Peace Corps office and generally had a good time. Highlight of the trip: The Water Museum. This place was recommended to me by a bunch of volunteers so I decided what better time to go there than when my sister is here! Right? Haha…I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was literally a museum about the water system in Kiev…cool, but strange, and COMPLETELY RANDOM! It was funny…we were on an elevator  ‘to go down to the pipes’  and see the old system….except it wasn’t really an elevator…we didn’t actually go up or down…but it was pretty convincing…I almost believed it until the end when we arrived where we had started without ever going ‘back up’. Highlight of the museum: Seeing a GIANT (fake) rat in the GIANT pipe and being put into a GIANT bubble.

After Kiev, we went to visit my Babushka in the country. Nikki and I walked through the local bazaar in the morning and I was able to show why I have gone mostly-vegetarian since I arrived here: tables and tables of open meat with flies and dogs about. Appetizing much? I also got to show her the availability of fashion here, which, sorry all Ukrainian readers, is severely limited to sparkles, gems, and bedazzled shoes (mostly with heels) and shirts and pants too tight for any normal-sized being to wear. All of that aside, Nikki was actually contemplating buying a pair of heels here!

We returned to my babushka in the afternoon and the LOVELY lady offered for us to make the most amazing Ukrainian dish in the world: VARENIKY! She mixed up all the wonderful mixings and then Nikki helped stuffing. I didn’t help though…except for annoying them with pictures. I tried once with my babushka in training and it was major fail….however, I would just like to point out that Nikki’s vareniky were HUGE. The most gigantic vareniky in the world: pictures to be posted. I think I ate about 16 vareiky. Nikki wasn’t too happy when I egged my babushka on to continuously add vareniky to her plate. Hehe.

The next day we headed to the train station in the next town over. The plan was to put her luggage in the storage and then walk around town. We headed there about four hours before our train left. Of course, something had to go wrong….the storage lockers were too small to fit her GIGANTIC bag loaded with a life’s worth of clothing. So instead of having a wonderful tour, we sat in the train station for four hours entertaining ourselves with occasional bathroom-runs, remembering the good times, and drying our socks and shoes on the heaters.

Trains are fun in Ukraine, or so I think. My train experiences have ranged from having shots offered to me, having food offered to me, receiving free VIP tickets to a DJ show to reading a book silently to not be noticed and then falling asleep only to wake up to seeing a babushka finishing off the rest of my dinner that I had planned to eat after my nap. Of all the 50-something rides I have taken, my ride with Nikki topped them all. First we arrived to two top bunks made and luggage which obviously indicated two passengers in our area. Except after four hours of playing cards and then finally going to bed, they never showed up. Even at 12am when I went to the bathroom, they still had not arrived. It wasn’t until 2am in the morning that Nikki finally encountered our kupe-mates climbing up to the top bunks and then proceeding to have sex above us. Its disturbing enough to have feet hanging over the sides and noticing the disturbingly rhythmic motions….but it’s a unbearable when their sheet falls on top of you. By far, the worst train ride ever.

The first two days in my city were fairly uneventful. Nikki attended my ‘class’, (not classes since for some explainable reason my students had been sent home). On the 19th,, the Day of Baptism, Nikki got a true taste of Ukrainian culture. As tradition goes, each person is required to go into the center of a cross cut into an ice covered lake and dunk themselves three times. As Ukrainian tradition goes, you then run back to your clothes, hurriedly put your clothes on, and then take a shot of vodka. Johanna joined us for the event, except that us three girls insisted that there was no way we were taking part in this crazy holiday. We did, of course. And DAMN, it was COLD! So cold that after the third dunk, I couldn’t breathe.

We decided to play the day in extremes so after the baptism, we headed to the Banya, (a steam room intended to make you sweat out all toxins, different to a Sauna which is the dry version). It was AWESOME. We spent about $10 each for 4 hours for an entire building to ourselves, including a pool-table room, an actual pool, the Sauna, two bedrooms with pretty heart pillows, a fully equipped kitchen, a room outside the sauna for sitting and relaxing in-between shifts, and finally a bar and sofa-relaxing room equipped with a stripper pool. Oh yah, also included in that $10 was 2 bottles of vodka, two 4-litre bottles of beer, and a ton of salads, chips, sausages, cheese, and bread. Jealous some?

I had been to the sauna several times with a group from rock-climbing so I decided to bring some body stuff.

Step 1: Rub bath salts all over your body as an exfoliate. Wash off.

Step 2: Rub a mix of sour cream and coffee grounds all over your body as an exfoliate and moisturizer. Wash off.

Step 3: Rub a mix of cooked oatmeal and honey all over your body to add vitamins to your skin. Wash off.

Result: SUPER soft skin.

Now something funny about this; I learned this in Ukraine, except that no one on this day had ever done this, Ukrainians included. Hmm.

The activities in the next few days were fairly unexciting, albeit culturally educating. One event in particular happened in Donetsk that really pinpointed this culture. Nikki and I went to visit Johanna and to see the city. We spent the day walking around and then we watched a film in Russian. After that, we met Johanna and some other people in the local Ukrainian-food café. They were there to study German. During their lesson, Nikki and I sat and chatted with 3 guys who were there just to hang out. When the lesson finished, the guys insisted on taking us ice skating to celebrate Nikki’s only night in the city. Sadly, when we arrived, it was too expensive for our budget. At this point, we (girls) were already considering just going home. The guys offered to pay, but we knew they couldn’t afford to pay for us and anyways, we are proud women!

Well, then they offered to go to Liverpool, which is a Beatle’s-themed café/bar with free entrance, except this day of course, which decided to have the same entrance fee as the ice skating because of a special band that was performing….thus too expensive, again. We decided to head home and catch the last bus of the day, but when we arrived at the station, the bus had already left. At this point, we already knew we would have to take a taxi home, so we all headed another bar…Murphy’s Law, it was closing. We were frustrated as hell and we literally were begging to go…except in Ukraine, guys have sooo much pride and we could tell that making this night special for Nikki was super important. With one more location to go, or I personally would have burst, we headed a local student-bar which never ever ever charged. The bar was located in a mall and the mall had 4 floors. We of course went to the wrong floor. Instead of just going to the right floor, the guys decided to secretly pay for us. Even more so, when we entered the bar, they also paid for all our drinks. Now, this wouldn’t normally happen since they were young, students, and none of us were dating…but at this point, they were so set on making this a good night and doing their duty as men, that we pretty much had no way to stop them paying without offending them. It was a lost cause. The night was fun, not excellent, but it surely was culturally educational for Nikki to see how the gender rules work here.

Sunday evening, Nikki left. She was about to brave it alone when she met a PCV on the train who luckily helped her out. Aside from leaving her Facebook logged in on my computer and thus allowing me eternal hacing access, she made it safe to Ireland in one piece. I miss you sister!

PEPFAR (HIV/AIDS) Training next month! Will write about it soon!

Observations by NASA have revealed possible flowing water during the warmest months on Mars.

Happy New Year! Bring it on 2012!!!

What a great year 2011 was…here is a short recap:

I spent the first day of the new year with my neighbor and her nephews eating tons of tradition Ukrainian food. I started teaching my first official classes of the year. I went to Germany and then Austria to visit my sister. I spent the summer mostly traveling except for one week at Camp HEAL. I started school again. I wrote and submitted a grant for new books for my school. My students from Camp HEAL helped me to conduct HIV/AIDS training to students in my school.

So now, one year of service left and I’m starting it out with a bang. The Deputy Director of ALL Peace Corps is coming to my site! Also there will be the Director of PC Ukraine and two other high-ups from the PC Ukraine office. Fantastic! Apparently it has something to do with PC Washington wanting to see how the Ukrainian PC program is working. Our regional manager is one of the most experienced so he was chosen to show off his volunteers. Me and Conor also are some of the lucky few!

As far as the book project goes, it’s a kind of sad story. It looks like I will have to change the budget and just accept what I have been able to raise ($1080 of $4123.71). Either that or I will extend the project until February and hope that sending 100 more requests will convince someone my project is a worthy cause. Its kind of a downer, but I guess some books are better than none.

Christmas was a BLAST! I bought stockings for each of my friends and I sewed their names on each on in Russian, except Johanna’s was in Ukrainian on accident… I had over Johanna, Conor, Janine, and Charlie. Janine is another PCV and Charlie is the guy that trained with me a year ago. On Christmas Eve we went to my towns comedy club to celebrate their (10th?) anniversary. It was funny, what I understood of course. Then everyone headed back to my place for some cards and board games. (No alcohol of course).

Christmas morning was awesome. We did a secret Santa to lessen the costs, but of course I got Conor and Conor had me. I got Conor an awesome Russian style hat and a matching scarf and he got me a Russian version of Monopoly, (which is complicated when you forget the rules). After that, we got ourselves in the true Christmas spirit by watching “Home Alone“. We then went to our local pizza place for lunch and then for supper the girls put together some tradition American foods for a full Dinner. We had peas, mashed potatoes, gravy, a whole chicken (my first time cooking a WHOLE chicken and it was great!), an American style salad, and an apple Pie. Small, but perfect. We topped the evening off by watching an American classic, “Rush Hour.”

New Year’s Day was just about as awesome. This time it was spent with Johanna and Conor and some Ukrainian friends. Ha…but this night started off a little strange. Firstly, we started off the evening with us 3 volunteers and our good friend Sergui playing with my new Monopoly game in the office. Around about 11:30pm, we made the decision that we wanted to go outside to the big tree to celebrate New Year’s with the crowd. (In America, I would assume the town center, near the big Christmas tree would be an ideal place to celebrate, at least for some.) We stepped outside and there was NO ONE. I mean literally the streets were deserted, except for 3 random guys who were selling popcorn and fireworks and somehow knew Conor, though he didn’t know them. (That happens often actually). Ha! So with 25 minutes to go until the new year, we made the decision to run to my house not far away and prepare our celebratory shots there. Maybe its hard to express how funny this is via writing, but it was hilarious and mind-blowing that we would even need to bolt to my house to make it somewhere for the new year. Where were the people??? At 1am, we were summoned by Conor’s organization to celebrate by tree, where we had first assumed the people would be. This time the center was packed and everyone was drinking as expected. So lesson learned: New Year’s is a time to spend with family. After 12am though, everyone heads to the streets to get wasted.

My sister is coming to visit me in a week! This will be my first from anyone since I have been here (16 months!). I am really stoked! We will spend a couple of days in the capital. Then we will go to visit my Babushka that I lived with during training. And then to my city! After this, she will go to Ireland to study abroad for a semester!

Next month I will (hopefully) be taking one of my teachers, Lydia, and a student, Alina, to an HIV/AIDS training, PEPFAR. After that, I will write a grant and we will do some type of HIV/AIDS project in our town, though on a much bigger scale than the training I did.

Anyway, off to bed. If you haven’t has a chance to donate to my project, I would really appreciate anything you can give. Although I doubt we will get all the books, one more donation would at least mean more books. Thank you!

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=343-264

Follow-up Photos!

Hey guys,

Here are the photos I promised!

These first ones are from the orphanage:

The other volunteer’s children.

Ola and me! 🙂

Outside the Planetarium!

Colia and me!

Colia, me, and Ola…I think…

Ola with two little ones. They were cute. 🙂

Here we are sitting in the Planetarium waiting for the show….which I might have fallen asleep in. Sad, because I love Planetariums but the narrator had such a soft voice.

Me and Nastya, such a cutie!

Sergui and Conor, trying to look smart…

And then we had the HIV/AIDS training, which went AMAZING!!!! Seriously, Kudos out to my students Vasia, Vlad, Irina, Sveta, and Kate who conducted the trainings. And THANK YOU SO SO SO SO much Johanna (My favorite German) for helping me. 🙂

Here are the results:

Johanna: She came to my town to help me with the trainings. We had one training in my class supervised my Johanna and then I supervised another class upstairs.

9th class putting “Condom Use” cards in the right order.

We were the only school in our city approved to give a condom demonstration to our students; This was the first time the kids had ever seen a condom demonstration in their lives, even the 11th class. Most of them had no idea what the tip of the condom was for or that you can’t use any oil-based products on a condom. I call this SUCCESS!

My student, Irina, teaching HIV/AIDS to the 9th class.

The winning HIV/AIDS poster from last year’s poster contest.

This year’s winner:

Sharing needles for drug intake is a huge problem in Ukraine. The problem continues since needles are increasingly expensive and there are no needle exchange programs available.

Here is a logical diagram that shows the factors that  affect a person’s choice to use or not use a condom.

And in English:

In Ukraine, the two #1 causes for the spread of HIV infections is through  sexual intercourse and the sharing of needles.

This poster shows how HIV/AIDS is concentrated in Ukraine.

FYI: Ukraine has the highest number of cases in Eastern Ukraine, (Russian included).

(oblast=county/region)

Odessa Oblast is #1

Dnipropetrovsk is #2

Donetsk Oblast is #3

Mykolaiv Oblast is #4

My fellow English teacher, Victoria, and me with an advertisement for free HIV/AIDS testing!

Vlad and Vasia rocked in their classes! Congrats guys!

Conor’s organization put together a free concert to honor HIV/AIDS day. There was a lot of dancing and singing; many pictures of American pop-stars from the 80s who died of AIDS; not a lot of information about HIV/AIDS itself, or how to prevent it, but it was a great effort and at least it brought the issue out into the open!

HIV/AIDS ribbon! For those of you who don’t know: A red ribbon is dedicated to HIV/AIDS day!

Johanna!

The free testing center brought to our town thanks to Conor and  his organization, “A Step Forward”. Sadly, they were only able to purchase 30 tests.

Johanna and I, SO SO Sleepy after staying up all night making posters and then spending all day doing trainings.

Lastly, as of December 17th, I have officially been at site for a year, and I will officially have one year left!