September 10, 2007

On with the show

Point for technology

About a month ago my zip drive stopped working. It was due to my technological savvy or the fact that the computer I was on was in Ukrainian. Sure I could look up all the technological words in Ukrainian before I hit up the internet but really I don’t feel like it. At the end of the session I attempt to safely remove my drive. No go. Feeling distressed I just pulled it out. Now, in retrospect, that was a bad thing to do. So now I have the dilemma of having no way of taking in something I wrote to the internet to send stuff out. Or so I thought.

A problem for me is that I own a Mac. I like my Mac. It’s durable, dependable, and user friendly. Only downside is that my iPod only works with the Mac. It’s only formatted FOR Macs. But while staving off boredom I found that I could put notes on my iPod and I can look at my iPod and simply retype the information. Not as easy as just using it as storage but hey, it’s something. So this is my first attempt at doing so.

Fortune favors

These are some things I’m glad I don’t have to deal with:

1. Mass Media. Oh how I hate the celebrity gossip stuff. Who really cares?
2. Fast Food. Sure I miss the easiness of driving to whatever I’m in the mood for and stuffing my face. But you lose weight when you actually have to make your own food.
3. Family issues. Sure I love my family but the pressures of the family suck. I once received an email attempting to bring me into some drama in which I simply replied back “I don’t care. I’m 5,000 miles away from everyone. Give me the decency of not trying to bring me into it”. I got another email, I may have to send something similar again.

Hot wine, shashlick, wenches…oh my!

A week ago I was eating lunch with Ezra and preparing for my unknown work week ahead. As we were getting ready to go our separate ways he told me about a Medieval Fair the coming weekend and asked if I was interested. Knowing I had nothing planned, except maybe some reading and watching movies, I said okay.

The days went by, with a slow pace. An update came, definitely Saturday. I passed along the invite to Adam, Ashley, and even Linda. They were in, except Linda. On the eve before, i.e. Friday, I got a text from Katie asking about my plans for the weekend. I let her know what I was doing and a text message came back 30 minutes later with “I’ll see you tomorrow”. An event for three people, including Ezra’s girlfriend and now included Dayna, turned into 7. Crazy Peace Corps.

The next morning I woke up with the thought of “I should just make up an excuse and not go”. But I relented and continued to get ready. Ezra let me know that he would be late, that Adam, Ashley, Dyana, and Katie would be traveling together, and we’d meet them there. An hour and a half later we were off to only God knows where. It’s a little scary going absolutely nowhere you don’t know. But by God we did it. Eventually we found our second marshruka and waiting for us was none other than the other four. As a group we headed to Tustan in the Carpathians (pronounced Two ston) where the smell of horse crap filled the air. The games began.

After a well-deserved meal of shashlick we were off to watch some dressed up knights beat each other up. That itself was worth the trip. We eventually trekked up the hill to look at the castle’s remnants and enjoyed some good picture taking. Afterwards we headed to look for the stone lake. Alas we never found it.

Through the jokes and the laughs, especially at some girl that kept making out with people, we headed out. We were of course stopped from doing so. Ezra found it first then my eyes caught it. A chance to dress up like a knight in chainmail. Only downside to it all is that the guy that put on the stuff was behind us and therefore ruined a lot of the pictures. We also hit another snag. No transport. Marshruka’s were apparently only going TO the fair and not FROM. So we broke into groups and had to hitchhike back to the main road. Unfortunately for Adam and I is that the girls, who went first, got the last marshruka to his site. We now had to play a game of risk to see if we could make it to my site before the building closes. We didn’t make it. So we had three options: hope that we could stay with another volunteer (the married couple), cough out some dough for the hostel, or stay with an American in town. Fortunately the American was cool with it.

All things considered, a good day. It was cold, fun, full of laughs and walking. I could kill for more shashlick though.

September 5, 2007

Dear Lord...

At some point in training, I forgot where exactly, we all sat down with one of the PC doctors to talk about emotional health. Having scoured the internet for information on Peace Corps before departure I realized that "yes life would suck at some point". So the thought of this part of training was expected. In a nutshell we were told that "yes life will suck at some point".

It seems life hit that mark of suckiness here and there. I was positively ecstatic on Monday. New apartment seemed possible, had a package waiting for me, a new and better tutor (though keeping the old one as well), just in general life seemed positively better. Life likes to take a turn of events. For instance I've learned a very important thing. I do not like Ukrainian laws on post. I'm sure they are protecting themselves, and rightfully so, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

In order to send a package to Ukraine you cannot (CANNOT) have the name AND business organization on the package. Where was that during training? I've seen three packages be sent back to America. Today I got to see what I was not allowed to have. A baseball mitt, two baseballs, my Solio charger, cashews, and beef jerky. All were shown to me then bundled up and sent back to America. What makes it worse is that I had to pay 50 hrvn for it too. It was like torture.

On a brighter bud odd side of events. I don't have a weekend free until October 16th. In fact there are some things going on the exact same time. Not a big fan of that. Do I go cross country to see a pig slaughtered and eat it? Or do I go and help out with a softball program that I want to bring to my site? Do I skip a birthday party in my oblast to head to Kyiv to meet people? No idea. It's good to have things to do on the weekends, but really...no idea what to choose. Atleast this weekend I have a birthday party, Medieval fair, and a trip to Kyiv all lined up.

Ukrainian handshakes

Here are some guidelines to know when dealing with Ukrainian men (women need not worry as this does not affect you):

1) Men do not shake women's hands. You'll get laughed at, like I did.

2) Every time you greet or say good bye you must shake hands.

3) Every man you meet, even if you only know one of them, you must shake their hand.

4) The handshake must be firm otherwise you'll be made fun of, hasn't happened to me yet.

5) Never shake hands under a doorway. It's bad luck. It means a rooster will eat your mother. Actually I've no idea why it's bad luck but don't do it.

6) Never try to shake hands with something on your hands. It's offensive.

7) Don't worry if your hands are dirty. Shake anyway.

These rules are now embedded into my skull. In fact when I meet an American friend we always shake hands.

September 1, 2007

Personal Day

Some days suck. I think that's an easy way to identify off days. The past few days have been off days. These were due to an increase in speculation at my ability to teach ecology in Ukrainian to high school/early college students. I can't teach ecology in English. So naturally I'm freaked.

Add that with other stress factors...I took a personal day(s...two really). What did I do? Watched tv series on my laptop, ate whatever I had in my room, and only left to shower and to use the bathroom. Naturally my room looked...well really bad. I put my phone on lights only, meaning no sound at all, and have only talked with a couple people (by talk I mean two quick text messages). Probably would've been zero if it didn't include someone that's helping me with ecology lessons and the other with an apartment.

The mere realm of what I'm doing here has caught up and it's overwhelming. Plus I feel like the people I'm closest to are nowhere near me, so naturally it feels a bit lonely (that's an understatement). But I keep on trekking.

I think I'll take another "personal day". I mean what good am I to any one if I just want to snap at them. But I think I'm safe. I've only had one person call me in three days and my only emails are from the family.

It's like a sign saying "do nothing...now's a good time to go unnoticed".

On Supermarkets

There are supermarkets located in Ukraine, it is not Africa folks...they have stuff, and I have to argue that I have the best. Not only do they sell peanut butter, only bought to give to someone though, but they also sell random crap. It's like Super Target but smaller. My only wish is that they sold MATCHES! Which is kind of pointless. I bought matches but turns out that the kitchen in my dorm doesn't even work. Fantastic. But back to the point of my fantastic supermarket. They sell everything and make it nearly pointless to go to the food bazaar. Which to be honest I don't enjoy going to anyway because they sell meat in the "indoors" part and frankly I could never buy meat there. It almost drives me to want to be a vegetarian. Not really though.