Saturday, April 26, 2008

getting adjusted 04.26.08



when was the last time you saw a group of grandmothers with their hair dyed various shades of eggplant sitting outside of their apartment building chatting amicably and keeping track of all the comings and goings of the entire complex?

… or the last time you’ve seen a group of young women wearing long leather jackets and knee high leather boots dodging puddles and mud among 800 year old buildings?

… or the last time you saw a person on a crowded bus reach down to wipe dirt off the collar of a complete stranger?

… or the last time you’ve seen someone pass a $20 bill up 8 rows of people to the front of the crowded bus to pay the fare, and not only expect, but receive their $19 in change right away?

needless to say, it’s been an interesting first few weeks of getting adjusted to my new life here in chernihiv. everything is new, everything is an adventure, and everything takes more time in a new language than you might expect. but at the same time, it’s pretty amazing how quickly you can adapt to new customs and be able to get around comfortably.

in the last couple weeks our group of 27 has visited many types of organizations around the city including various city government departments, youth organizations, the city employment center, a professional women’s organization, and the local technical university. each one of these visits has given us various perspectives of life here in chernihiv, along with a basic idea of possible needs and future priorities. our next task is to take this information and come up with community projects in groups of 4 to 5 volunteers to complete over the next two months. of course, we only know so much about the language and culture at this point, so i’ll keep you posted on the lessons we learn J

in addition to the work, i feel like i’m adapting to the other parts of life here pretty well so far. after 4 solid weeks of Russian class, i figure i’m picking up every 5th word or so of my host family’s conversationsJ and after about 10 mins of confusion with my host dad this morning, i was finally able to get out my question of “whether or not he knew if the tulips were blooming in front of st. catherine’s church because i wanted to go take pictures later today”.

the food is amazing, although that’s a huge topic that i’ll save for another post. i’ll just say that i’m discovering some great alternatives to things that i was used to cooking in the states. i’ve been making some version of a cuban panini for lunch, and i even made a couple attempts at chocolate chip cookies this week with my host mom. of course, i then learned the Russian phrase for “million calories”.

i’ve also pretty much thrown out whatever portion control i learned in DC, at least for the next few months while living with a host family. i’m constantly amazed at the amount of food i eat, and yet i’ve definitely lost weight. so far, all of the walking must be good for me because my body is a happy camper!

another fun thing has been discovering the local soccer team. a few of us went to a game last week, and i think we’ll be making it a regular event. the team is called desna (after the river that runs beside the city), and i believe they are generally towards the top of the Ukrainian second division (although that was me translating an answer from Russian myself, so i need to do some independent research to confirm). who can complain about $1.50 tickets?

lauren also made it up for a visit the other weekend from kyiv. (i’ll be posting a couple pictures on the picasa site) she’s doing great, and i’m definitely jealous because she was just able to take her first vacation yesterday. she’s on her way to Krakow for the next few days with a couple of fellow teachers, and then they’re going to try to swing down to bratislava before heading back to kyiv at the end of next week.

i’m gonna wrap things up because i need to get started on some work before the day starts slipping away. tomorrow is easter, following the orthodox calendar, and i know that as soon as my host mom gets back from work this afternoon, everyone will be put to work. i’ve seen the preparations for easter eggs, special easter bread, homemade kolbasa, and other good looking stuff in the fridge; my mouth is watering already!

hope everyone is well! the crazy part of our schedule is basically over now, so i’ll have more time the next few weeks to make more regular posts. next up, easter and amazing food!

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

first week 04.02.08

it’s hard to imagine that it was only one week ago that our group started our trek to Ukraine. so much has been going on in that time that it’s hard to boil it down to a short page of text. i can’t speak for everyone, but i know that since i’ve arrived i’ve had a lot of questions answered (and probably thought of even more).

on to the big stuff though…

as i mentioned before, i am about an hour and a half north of kyiv in chernihiv (the Russian spelling is Chernigov which you may also see on a map). the city itself is amazingly rich in history and culture, and i’m hoping to have time to explore as much as possible over the next eleven weeks. i’m not going to be able to begin to describe it all, so if you are interested, i highly suggest checking out the Wikipedia entry for some basic info and further links.

the training seems like it is going to keep everyone very busy though. in three days of language lessons, we’ve already covered what is probably a month’s worth of material in a college Russian class. pages of basic vocab, business terms (many of which are cognates, and so are fairly easy to remember), three different cases/uses of pronouns, meeting and greeting, hobbies, likes and dislikes, the list goes on. even though my Spanish background does not really help in terms of the words, the structure and grammar ideas are similar. and even if my host family doesn’t quite believe it, i pick up a few more words from their conversations everyday :)

of course, all of that is only half of the puzzle. on top of those 3 and a half hours of language lessons every morning (starting at 8, for those of you who know what time i used to get into work!), there is also the community development work that we are learning and preparing for. this includes technical language class, technical training (in English) about different development ideologies and tools , and site visits two afternoons a week for the next four weeks. after that, we’ll be expected to take the initiative on a small community development project with our team members to implement in the last month of training. supposedly, some of the organizations that we will be visiting over the next few weeks have ideas already, so that should be interesting to hear. we’ll see what kind of ideas our group puts together (i’ve already got a couple ideas, but i’m trying not to think about things too much until we’ve met with a few organizations and hopefully figure out a few of the current priorities around town)

after all of the peace corps work though, i get to come home to a host family that seems to have dynamics very similar to my own :) my host dad doesn’t sit still and is always doing things around the apartment. he’s also got a pretty corny sense of humor that transcends language boundaries (he literally JUST handed me a pen that gives you a shock when you click it). my host mother checks to make sure my jacket is warm enough before i leave, and i’ve already been dragged back twice from the doorway so she could wash something off of my sleeve that i couldn’t see. she also gives her husband 'the look' when he tries to show me everything with any English on it around their apartment, and laughs at his childish happiness when he’s using his homemade rotisserie. so if you hadn’t figured it out by now, i feel right at home!

i also live with a host sister and brother who are twins and just turned 19 on Monday. they both speak English very well, although my host brother studies at a university in kyiv during the week so he is only around on the weekends. they have another older sister who is my age, but she lives in the south of the country with her husband and young child.

being able to speak a little English in the house has been very useful so far. we’ve all been able to learn about each other pretty quickly, and as i get more comfortable with Russian, they will help me with that as well. my host mom is a high school teacher, so she is always telling her daughter that she needs to speak to me in Russian so i will learn.

all in all, the little i have seen of Ukraine so far has been amazing, and i’m looking forward to whatever comes our way!

*one note that i did want to throw out there regarding the information on this blog. it seems that the peace corps overall is trying to come up with a good policy regarding blogs and the information that they can propagate unintentionally (google ‘infamous peace corps postcard’ for an interesting example). they asked that we password protect our site so that the information only gets to those people who we specifically want it to get to.

since it is not required, i do not really want to password protect anything as reading blogs was an amazing way for me to do research on what volunteers were actually doing and experiencing before i was able to actually be here. i feel that i have traveled enough to be aware when i may be crossing boundaries into territory that could become misunderstood, and i do not plan to use this blog as a way to complain to family and friends about how things are different between the us and Ukraine. if anyone reading this happens to come across information that you think may be misunderstood, please let me know and i will edit or remove it. and please remember that everyone can see any comments that you post. thanks for your help!

arrival 03.27.08

well I have officially made it to Ukraine!

and just to summarize very quickly, i will be learning Russian and leaving for chernihiv tomorrow (Friday) to meet my host family for the first time.

it’s been a whirlwind few days and i still feel the after effects of the flight, but here is a quick update of what our journey has entailed so far.

traveling internationally with a group of 64 is a pretty impressive logistical bit of fun. we all made it safely, although there were some tired people on the layover in munich. overall, the trip was very smooth though, and we reached kyiv with the sun just starting to set, allowing us all a decent view of the city as we drove through.

kyiv (incidentally, this is the ukrainian spelling of their capital city) seems to be an interesting mix of historical and soviet architecture sprinkled with new apartment towers, planned communities, colorful markets and bustling people. you can see the development taking shape just in the new billboards lining the highway advertising all types of products. it is definitely a place i’ll have to explore more, although that will probably have to wait a few months until training is over.

as for the volunteers, we were whisked off to a “typical soviet resort” where we’ve spent the past couple days getting prepared for the training about to take place. the pc staff welcomed us in with a traditional Ukrainian welcome ceremony of bread and salt, and we have since eaten our fill, gone through initial medical screenings, received welcome speeches from the pc director and the us ambassador, and had an initial language lesson to hopefully prepare for that first meeting with the host family (probably the one thing i am nervous about!)

everyone from the ambassador, director, training coordinator, and on down the line have all stressed the same good piece of advice over these two short days. and that deals with our definition of success as we begin our transition into this new culture and eventually discover our assigned projects.

peace corps has three goals for a reason. the first one relates to our specific projects by trying to provide skilled American men and women to assist another country’s project needs. the second and third goals relate more to the cross-cultural component, providing a mechanism for Americans to share our culture with Ukrainians and for pc volunteers to share Ukrainian culture with those still in America, respectively.

when, as Americans, we inevitably get frustrated at some part of our projects over the next two years, that will be one of the most crucial times to remember goals two and three. a successful peace corps experience is built on all three goals, and the relationships established, images of a role model, and cultures appreciated are the things that will be remembered by your Ukrainian friends and community members long after the volunteer has returned home.

well, we leave for chernihiv tomorrow afternoon to meet the families that will be helping us over the next three months, and i still have some language studying to do in the hopes of lessening the awkwardness of that first meal!

i hope everyone is doing well, -c