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.

June 29, 2006

The week has been fairly eventful here with some items that had been on my to do list for too long finally finishing and other meetings going well. The first and what I see as my biggest success was finally putting out a student newspaper that had been about 2 weeks delayed past the date I wanted to have it published. A little lesson on how deadlines and other things can come up a lot. But now that it is out, I am feeling a lot better, it was a collaboration mainly student writers and mostly teacher editors, I basically tried to direct traffic of it all because for starters, I don't read Ukrainian all that swell and it would have taken me ages to try and edit it myself. But I did most of the layout with help from another older student and we printed it out. The highlight of the paper, according to others and not myself, is an article about me titled roughly translated "Dobrotvirir through the eyes of an American." Can't say I have read what I said yet, but sure there will be things I'll be embarrassed about later in there.
In addition I had some meeting in Lviv this week and things are looking good for getting a technology club with internet access set up at the local library here, which will open a lot of new opportunities and allow me to explore some other ideas. But I am very excited about it, along with the director of the library of the possibilities. Also met with a Vice-Rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. Ever since graduating from Gonzaga, Catholicism never seems to be too far away but can be a good thing. He is an American, but has spent several years here and was able to give me some advice on language (keep practicing) and had a nice lunch. The university has a lot of potential for me to work with me thinking of holding some conferences there.
One of the things I am still adapting to in this job, life, however you want to call it, is the lack of structure, at least at this point. It has its frustrations, there are some days I feel completely useless, which was the first part of the week, and then other times when the lack of structure means I can do and dream as big as I want. The only challenge now is to be able to come through on those dreams and deliver for people.

As for random thoughts, sorry to all of you who were rooting for the US in the World Cup, did anybody watch it there? In this football (soccer) crazy country, I have watched nearly every game and in case you didn't know, Ukraine is doing really well and made it through two rounds. It is also their first time at the Cup. When Ukraine beat Switzerland, the country went pretty wild that night. In a game that lasted over 120 minutes, regular games last 90; it finished at about two in the morning with Ukraine winning on penalty kicks. Cheers could be heard all over town as celebrations were going on, and this was in a small town. Scene of Kyiv and Lviv showed a lot more people going wild for Ukraine. It definitely has added a spice to life this summer.
This will be a busy month for me, with helping out at two different summer camps and training in Kyiv tossed is as well, it might be difficult for me to post a whole lot more, but I will do my best to get posts up when I get the opportunity.

Well, now that the history has been updated a little bit about what has been going on in my past I want to put a little more recent news up. I arrived at my permanent site at the end of last month and you may have been following some of the goings on through pictures, but that can't exactly tell the whole story.
It is impossible to entirely wrap up what has happened here in the past three weeks, but I have been bouncing around between organizations at this point trying to get a hold of different goals and hopes people have. The best way to describe it is through "ups and downs", a saying that has been repeated by other new volunteers I have talked with as well. You will have your good and bad days, but overall, it is hard to adjust to a new community where you do not understand everything said to you and often do not have any good outlets for expressing frustration or glee.
But I think what is always more enjoyable to read are little anecdotes from daily life and yesterday had several of them.
What yesterday day did was fulfill two of the stereotypes that are talked about in training, one of them I had prayed would never happen to me.
To set the scene it was early yesterday afternoon and the temperature had peaked at 30 degrees, centigrade, in the mid 80s for all of you in the states. I needed to go to an adjacent town for a meeting with the regional administration and help out at a summer camp a bit. That requires me getting on a mini bus crammed with people, already a bad situation with a bunch of sweaty people. But to make matters worse, there is a fear of having open windows on moving vehicles, the theory is: you will get cold, then sick, and finally die. So as we are getting started I am enjoying the bit of a breeze from a window that was already open, then two older women start complaining about the open window. So of course they get closed and I commence to sweat buckets. About 30 minutes later I finally get to my destination, walk off the bus in a rather poor mood being cooped up in there, but having to laugh at the same time. Summer is going to suck for transportation.
Second funny story revolves around how we are told to expect to be rock stars at some point during our time in country. My first experience was during victory day celebrations, where I was asked to speak 30 minutes before they wanted me to give a speak, in English to be translated. You may have seen those pictures. But the more recent incident happened when I was asked to speak at a summer camp, same day as my min-bus incident, only later. So I had a nice spirited discussion with the kids there in a combination of English and Ukrainian, they were early teens I think, or maybe 11-13. At the end of it, they (all of them) wanted my signature. I didn't really take it seriously until they brought out a piece of paper and I commenced to sign my name, 20 times. Then they all came back and wanted me to write out my name so they could actually read it. Can't say I had signed signatures before, but there are now 20 kids out there with a little slip of paper with my name on it. Strange.
So there is a brief update about me, Enjoy, leave comments and I hope to put more up soon.

After a first full day at what looks like will be my new site, I am enjoying it. In a change of pace, which I will only describe as different, I am now with a family that speaks only a little English. This is good for my learning of the Ukrainian language, my first family was helpful with the ability to speak either language, a big help since I was coming in with zero language and appreciated being able to get my point across. Now I am having to communicate fully in another language, which I am enjoying and able to get simple messages across, but also shows how much I still need to learn and study. I am still in the process of building blocks and cannot just hear a new word, remember it and be able to use it. But it is also comforting to hear that while the volunteers currently at this site can comprehend this I have no idea what was said, they are still learning new words all the time as well.
But as for my time exploring the community, thus far I have been talking a lot with one of the two current volunteers and hearing about how much he has done and where I may be able to pick up from where he and his wife are leaving off. The biggest lesson is that I can’t try and do just that, but rather take what they have prepared and make my own thing. A good lesson to hear and necessary to remember.
Two of the primary projects for me at least initially will be working on the school newspaper, an excellent starting point where a lot of work has been done, and co-teaching some technology classes. The idea of me being a general teacher does not seem to be a focus at this particular site, which I enjoy, but will be able to build from my primary site and what looks like a dynamic site at the local library to create some very interesting programs. The director of the school at my primary site is not wanting me to teach alone right now, which I am fine with, but does want to work with me on more specialized projects and help teach some of the technology classes. My initial impression of him was good as he is an energetic person, but also willing to speak his opinion of what he thinks will and will not work. It is a relationship that has already been crafted by the current volunteer and I think I can continue to build on it.
As for the English teachers at the school, I have already fallen in love with them and look forward to working with them more. They are also an energetic bunch and seem to enjoy the company of an American, which is good, but also don’t seem to be trying to impress me too much either. They have been very welcoming of me thus far and I look forward to more interaction with them.
So overall my impression of the site is I could not have gotten much luckier. It is a small site, yet is very compact and has a lot of facilities I think can be put to good use.
I am sure I will find my frustrations, which I have been warned do occur daily, but my biggest and basically only frustration thus far has been the mosquitoes. They are already out in force here and as usual, I am a favorite target. If I am going to survive this summer, I will need plenty of bug spray from the central office in Kyiv. Otherwise I’ll end up shriveled up and dead, not a fun thought. But if I can avoid that, I think this site should work out pretty well.