For some odd reason I have the old dating show theme song running through my head right now, which doesn’t make any sense, since I’m thinking about cooking. But there just aren’t any good cooking show theme songs I can think about right now.

What I have come to realize in this country is that a man who isn’t completely incompetent in the kitchen in this country is something of an oddity. This started a couple of days ago when there was no one home and I need to make myself something to eat. Not exactly something in my mind all that difficult. However, my host family was rather worried and one of my host sisters made sure to peel potatoes before she left for the day. She actually peeled a lot, I don’t know why, must have thought I would be real hungry for lunch. So I came home that day with the full understanding I would need to cook, used about one and a half potatoes, grilled them on the stove and added onions, tomatoes, eggs, meat and cheese for a nice little meal. Something I would do with some frequency when I was living back in the States. My good friend Rodney once said it was one of my better dishes. So I did that, ate, washed the dishes and cleaned up, no big deal.

So later that night I came home and hear the same host sister tell my host mother it looks as if I didn’t eat anything at all. I pipe up and say, no I did eat just fine, I don’t think they fully believed me. I explained what I ate, and they were impressed. Then I proceed to hear from several other people they are impressed I can cook for myself. It happened again today. I haven’t entirely figured it out, but almost as soon as I got into this country I have had people worry about whether I will be able to feed myself. Sheesh, I have lived on my own and am here to speak about it. My only complaint at this point is that since I’m not in my own kitchen it takes a little longer for me to find things I want. Other than that, I am actually looking forward to when I can buy my own food and prepare it. Sure it may get old after a while and I will miss the good food my family prepares here, but I may not be going far. As for that story…

So it has been one long drama of trying to find a place to live since even before I arrived. There were two volunteers at my site before and there was some talk of me taking that place once I moved out on my own. The only sticking point was the price, which was high, but no other places had been coming up, until today. One of the ladies my host mother works with had asked me yesterday for how the word “management” translates into Ukrainian. So when she stopped by today, that was what I expected her to ask me, but she also dropped the bomb she had an extra apartment, she is living with it along with her family right now but is moving into a larger one shortly. Somewhere along the line a question just wasn’t asked and I guess she just found out yesterday I am looking. So I got a chance to look at it today and for my standards it was just fine and she talked with my Regional Manager and things seem to look positive. So yeah!

Small matter of making sure there will be a refrigerator when I get there, but that is a pretty minor matter, in my opinion. It was said it could be taken care of. Well this, is quite enough to read for a while, I need to work on a speech for Independence Day and think about bed.

Well I had to review my last post quickly to know where I left off, things can move at a snail’s pace or swallow’s (look it up, they move really fast).
Last week a couple of good things happened, the one that might have the longest lasting impact will be that myself and another local guy ran wire in the library in preparation for connecting a computer network and starting to offer computer and internet classes. It was one of those super days and I was able to walk home feeling as though I had accomplished something. Of course now I need to wait for a remodel of a room so I can actually set up computers, which I was hoping would be done already, but the two things that Peace Corps will teach anyone is patience and flexibility. Two things I thought I had, but am learning more of both quickly. That and people here don’t always have a lot of it, so it can test mine even more.
The second part of last week found me at an English Camp run by the Ukrainian Catholic University. I was only there for the last couple days of an almost month-long camp, so it wasn’t quite as active as I was hoping, the best way to describe it, as told by another volunteer as a Peace Corps PR tour, but did get the chance to meet some interesting people. Some of the most interesting people were some Ukrainian monks who are in a Monastery in Poland. I found them to be extremely engaging, curious about Peace Corps and truly honest good guys.

But the most interesting cultural experience was I had the opportunity to attend my first Ukrainian wedding. Another volunteer Liz Read her account here invited me to a wedding of two people from her town and with it being on a weekend I couldn’t see why not to go. One of the first things you’ll notice different at weddings, is there are plenty of very old traditions, which I didn’t always understand, and can they can go on the whole night. Plus this one was in a village so there was no way I could say no.
To get there we boarded a marshrutka (well two, but on the first we were told wasn’t going where we wanted to go so we jumped off, luckily, before it left). The second one dropped us off along the side of a rather deserted road and the only directions we had at that point was “third house”. Somewhere along the line the directions got a little garbled, because it sure wasn’t the third. We stopped and asked several women who pointed us in the right direction and as we got closer we were able to start to just follow the music. About 20 minutes later of walking on dirt roads we found the right place, not quite the third house, maybe the thirtieth.
Once there, I never fully understood what was going on, but rather just followed the tide of people and heard what explanations I could from Liz, who had been to one previously. Let’s just say I saw it start off with what was described as “buying” the bride with vodka(?), stuffed animals and carrying what looked like a washing machine into the house. Don’t ask me to explain why, I don’t know.
Then it was time to sit and eat; on the way each guest gives their gift and wishes to the bride and groom before they went to sit down. I thought that was kind of neat as each guest got the opportunity to talk to them individually, although briefly. Then it was time for food. One thing you need to be prepared for is to eat, and drink, the entire night. The tables are just chock full of food and drinks. And as to be expected there were plenty of toasts in honor of the couple and plenty more just for the sake of toasting. I was also promptly renamed Yura, several of the other guests at the table had a real hard time pronouncing my name, not an uncommon experience, so they just gave me a new name, that was the new part of people not being able to pronounce my name. So the rest of the night, I had to remember to pay attention to “Yura”, it got called out a good number of times and became more popular as the night went on.
After a good amount of food was consumed the whole place went out and we danced polkas, traditional dances and what I guess are traditional games. I found the games most entertaining, the one I participated in was basically pretending to drop your pants and do your business over a bucket and then run back, trade the over-sized underwear with the next person in a relay game. It came with sound effects and everything; I still shake my head when I think about it. The second game, which I thankfully sat out, was to see who could make the longest cord by tying pieces of clothing together. It started out with guys removing their belts and shirts (I didn’t see women get quite as involved in it), but ended up with competition getting the best of them and guys ending up in their skivvies. It was just as well I sat that one out. Don’t think this game will catch on soon at most receptions.
A cross between a game and a dance was also on hand, this involved handkerchiefs that several people had and a big circle of people dancing around them. The basic idea is a guy/girls waves the handkerchief at a girl/guy and they will dance in the center, put the handkerchief on the ground and exchange a kiss, then one of them goes back to the circle and the game is repeated. I was popular among the 40-something married women . But pretty much everyone got pulled out of the circle at least twice.
But it was then time for another round of eating and drinking. By this point I had what I think is an almost unique experience in Ukraine, an older gentleman who had been sitting across from me the whole night was concerned about the amount I was drinking, he didn’t want me to get drunk. Liz had never seen such a thing before and I sure hadn’t. To be honest, I didn’t feel like I had been drinking that much and had only been taking partial shots for a while before that. But it was real nice of him. I got a good kick out of it. It will be one of those things I will take with me for a while.
At midnight there was a group leaving and we were both pretty beat, but the adventure didn’t end once we got into the taxi with four other people, count that is seven people in one car (normal). On the way home, a wheel almost came off the taxi. Serious.
There was a sudden noise that I thought might have meant a flat tire, never fun, but it happens, but when we got out of the vehicle I could see that the tire was not where it should have been in the wheel well but about a foot outside of it with only a metal rod connecting it. My only thought at that point was, we could have died. But the driver jacked up the car, knocked the tire back into place with a hammer and we took off again, at a slower speed and him stopping to check it regularly. When the group of us got to Sokal, where I spent the night, he charged us extra for the hassle.
The wedding probably went on until 4 or 5 that next morning, maybe longer. But I had a good time in the time I was there and came back rather impressed. It was a good time.

I have a new sworn enemy in this land, which I have not been able to defeat or even feel as if I have made progress against. Mosquitoes, or as they are called here Comar, Comariv (plural).
I had always known that we never got along, but until I got here I didn’t realize the quality of screens we have in the states. An example of last night I was me swatting at them all evening, inside. I sleep under a mosquito net (I’ll include the picture), it’s not the most comfortable, but it keeps the buggers from buzzing in my years. Right now my feet are on fire from their bites, along with my left hand. They will go right through clothing; some make it through jeans, one way or another. Most of my bites were right through my clothes at a time I didn’t think I would need to use my mosquito spray I carry almost everywhere with me.
For all of you who don’t react very strongly to them, be glad. For me, I have had the bites well up to the size of quarters and turn red, blue and purple. Locals have told me it seems like I may have an allergic reaction to them, which may or may not be true, can that even be possible.
I have also become quite adept and snagging them straight out of the air, and crushing them. But the ones who have already fed are a little slower, for obvious reasons. I go for the ones who have not got their share yet, because I know they will be gunning for me later. It is a war and I plan to make them pay the best I can, leaving a trail of dead, crushed mosquitoes on the ground behind me.
So I think this is basically a venting post, I don’t have anything I can truly do, until maybe I move into my own place and seal it up tight against the little buggers.
Well, there’s not much more to say, other than right now I’m just feeling a little miserable from them and can’t wait for the cold to kill them, kill them all.

Read my SMS craziness here

I should consider renaming this blog my recounts of chance encounters of random similarities with people I have never met before. I was on the train back from some training in Kyiv, and I just happened to share a coupe with a guy who has a sister who lives and is a student (I think) in Eugene, Oregon. This is the first time I have found someone who had a strong idea where Oregon really is who isn’t from the U.S. And my Tillamook notoriety, well the cheese’s notoriety struck again as I met a volunteer who extolled the virtues of Tillamook Cheese.

As for the day-to-day activities, as I mentioned earlier I was in Kyiv for a week of Peace Corps training that gave us more information on technical skills as well as language. I haven’t always been real thrilled about previous trainings and found them marginally helpful, but I can’t say anything too bad about this most recent one, it offered pertinent classes and the language part, while it pointed out how much I screw up the, gave a lot of good pointers and correction assistance. Although I am dealing with one of the more complicated languages in the world, I have got to the point, that I am understanding large parts of daily conversation and most basic tasks I can achieve with only some difficulty now. I should be wiring the library where I have been working at pretty soon to network computer together in order to better teach some technical classes and internet classes to townspeople. This was a dream of the director of the library when I arrived and one of the tasks he gave me was to find a local person to help with the work, luckily I ran across a guy during a tour of a school who will be able to help. Once that happened things began moving pretty quickly and I picked up wire and tools to do the job in Lviv on Sunday. Let me tell you, people give you funny looks when you are walking through downtown with 80 meters of Ethernet wire and a staple gun. But I’m looking forward to getting to work and once I get that knocked out, I think I can begin teaching the classes that I keep getting questions about. August is shaping up to potentially be a big month and it will be interesting to actually feel like I am getting some work done, or at least see some fruit of the work that I have been chipping away at presently. I think one of the truest things I have heard about the Peace Corps experience is you will feel useless a majority of the time, but will be remembered for the times that you did something really good, and for the times that you never even knew you helped someone out. So even though I, and other volunteers may feel like they aren’t accomplishing anything, it isn’t necessarily true. It is encouraging to hear that, but doesn’t mean I can try any less hard, but only harder.

And on the recommendation of my mother, a quick account of my last Friday. I woke up at the regular time after returning from Kyiv the day before, hoping to catch up on what had been happening around town and maybe do a little catch up. The thought was in vain, we had an emergency consolidation drill. What that basically means is I get a phone call saying I need to drop everything and go to Lviv immediately bringing my “emergency kit”, which includes my passport, clothes, money food water and medicine. Obviously this is something that has the potential to be important since in the case of emergency it is helpful to think through some of the different contingencies if something did happen, political or natural. But it sure did put me in the frequent visitor category of Lviv and an honorary resident since I went back the next day for a birthday party in the city.

And finally thank you all who have been keeping up on the blog and leaving comments, I know I haven’t responded to all the comments personally, and apologize for that, but the encouragement is always appreciated. But I also want to allow all of you to help direct a little bit of what I write in future posts. If there are particular things you want to hear more about, tell me and I will try to go more in depth about them, either personally or in postings.

Just a quick post during this time I am in Kyiv. I had to come in today for training and will be here for the next week or so, which takes me away from all my easy access to the internet during this time. But just two quick anecdotes, as Ukrainians love to tell. The first was this rather odd flash of home yesterday. I had heard stories of this pharmacy that was real cool and had good products. I wanted to at least check it out because my toothpaste supply was running low and wanted to at least see if I could get a replacement of the same stuff, not getting blend-a-med, which I have heard horror stories about.
So I walked into the aforementioned store and it was almost like walking into a western store, Walgreens or the equivalent. Plus, the best feature of all is you can take what you want off the shelves yourself. Most stores in this country require you to ask for nearly everything stored behind the counter. It was a great time.

The second anecdote is on my way here, by train, I got mistaken for a Ukrainian. While it might not seem like that big of a deal back home, it is a rather unusual occurrence to have that happen and I don't expect it to happen again any time soon. Of course the train was rather dark and I was listening more than speaking, but still I was rather elated at that moment after being tagged as an American so many times before. Of course then one of the guys in the coupe, a military doctor as was explained to me wanted to practice his English, not the first time it has happened, but always entertaining. Once again, the train ride went well and have to say people here never stop to amaze me.

I’m well into my month of travel now in July and the first trip I successfully completely without major catastrophes. I was able to visit a camp that another volunteer set up and help out at it. It was also one of my larger trips on my own where I got to do it on my own and required more than just jumping on one train or one marshrutka. But a little about travel in Ukraine, it might be hard to get a picture back in the U.S. but I will try to not exaggerate anything.
First of all, let me explain what exactly a marshrutka exactly is, in some approximation. Generally they are a full size van, maybe larger with a slightly raised roof, seats are located inside and if you are lucky you might actually get one. But once seats are filled up people still pile onto these things, filling up aisles and just about any other space inside of the van. There have been plenty of times that I didn’t think even a single person extra could fit, but multiple people still cram on. When you need to get somewhere you will always find a way I guess. I don’t want to go too in depth, but I know a Canadian I met while I was here wrote her final paper on travel in Ukraine. There is plenty to say, enough to fill a final paper, although it might be hard to keep it all serious because it can be pretty funny at times. On my way, I noticed the distinct smell of body odor and alcohol, at 9:30 in the morning. Although on the way back, I’m sure I contributed to the body odor since I had only bathed out of a bucket of cold water during the time I was at camp.
The trip in itself was a success however, All I had were rough ideas of where I needed to go to catch these marshrutkas and no idea what times they left but managed to get on them and make it all the way there. The only real adventure was when I was in the small town of Ckole and needed to find a new stop for my last jaunt. Much to my chagrin, I had a dickens of a time pronouncing the name of the town, resorting to writing it out on a piece of paper and wandering around the town for a little less than an hour before jumping on a marshrutka at the last moment after a man told me it would get me there. Once I arrived at the camp, I guess it was a bit of a feat to get there on my own, from what I hear, people were impressed. I just took it as no alternative; I wanted to get there and needed to figure out one way or another. But plenty of credit goes to the nationals that helped me out with initial directions and the plenty of people in the town of Ckole that put up with my poor Ukrainian and even got me on the right marshrutka.
The camp itself was dedicated to developing a film on drugs, alcohol and cigarettes by students from the city of Cokal. A lot of the work, well pretty much all of it was in Ukrainian way beyond my basic level so I did a lot of watching and more just entertaining the kids, but it was a good time and made some good friends. The most memorable part of the camp was a 15 km hike to the top of a mountain in some rather hot weather. I packed a good amount of water up the mountain, came back with none of it and was wiped out for the rest of that day and part of the next. The other memorable part of the camp was the Ukrainian holiday Ivana Kampala, forgive me if I butchered the spelling. It is an ancient pagan holiday here which involves making wreathes so girls can know who they’ll marry, jumping over campfires, running around looking for a mystical flower in the middle of the night while avoiding evil spirits and walking across dew in the morning for wealth and fortune. All I really did was the dew since I left early the next day and jumping over a fire, I couldn’t say “no”. Unfortunately I don’t have the photo of me jumping over the fire right now, someone took one, but not on my camera, but I have posted a couple of photos from the hike.