Monday, October 15, 2007

My life has invaded my dreams!

Last night I didn't just fall asleep. "Fall" is too gentle of a word. It was more like I was bitch-slapped asleep. I started dreaming while I was still aware of my physical presence. I could feel what position I was sleeping in, I could feel my pillow, I was aware of the time, but I started dreaming other people were in the room. I dreamed Cindy and E and Larissa were in the room and we were having another Russian lesson in my room! In my dream I was actually laying on some of the Russian papers with phrases written on them (Like "otkooda vwieu") and they were talking to me in Russian and expecting a reply. In my dream/real life I tried to answer but was too exhausted. (I really wouldn't be surprised if I really did try to answer irl) I was also thinking to myself "Why are we having a language lesson this late!?"

The dream then morphed into a great one. I dreamed I was in Ukraine and met this great guy. We were speaking in Russian and I found out he was an ex-pat and had been living in Ukraine for the past few years. He really liked me and as we were talking I asked if he liked the show "Friends" and he said "No, I prefer Stargate." He then proceeded to show me his stargate tattoo! I practically flipped out in my dream.

Back to reality. I went to bed at 8pm and woke up just before 9am. I only woke up once in the night to use the bathroom. Amazing and rested I was! My host sister made me breakfast (The host families agree to make breakfast and dinner for us) and I washed all our dishes. She and I watched some music videos together (her: Enrique Iglacias is so good looking!) We also were looking out the window and giggled together at the two guys looking out their window in the apartment down the way who weren't wearing their shirts. She walked me down to the bazaar to buy some toothpaste (pasta) and some other things. Her shoes are amazing.

After we finished with our purchases (she helped me pick out an appropriate Ukrainian hair scrunchie. It's very blinged out with the sparkles) I went on to the center of town.

My frustration today: I lost the back of my phone! How the heck does that happen?

The center is about a mile and a half from my house. It was a nice walk and I started noticing different businesses and trying to memorize where things are in my community. I met up with Cindy at McDonalds (it's the only McDonalds here in Chirnihiv, so it's a great recognizable landmark). We started searching around for the internet cafe, and spent a good half hour looking for the sushi place, which we knew to be near the internet cafe. We stopped in a restaurant and bought some food and then found the library and studied for a while. I think I know my numbers. I at least can recognize them. I can produce about 80% of them.

When we got to the library a woman stopped us. Apparently you can't take your bags upstairs in the library, so there's a bag check at the front. I had to take out all my study materials and leave my bag. The great thing was that the lady had a piece of paper already prepared in English that had that rule as well as things like "Unfortunately you cannot check out materials because you do not have documents"

Upstairs there are all kinds of card catalogs and paintings on the wall and tons of desks/tables. We went to a room filled with tables and chairs. Great place for studying! Apparently in Ukraine it's not cool to study at a cafe or restaurant. It's kind of weird. I met a few Ukrainian students (I needed them to write "21" in Ukrainian for me). They spoke some English and Andrew introduced himself. They were history students!

Cindy left while I was studying and went to the internet cafe. I stayed for another half hour? and made my way over to the internet cafe as well. She was in line for internet. The internet cafe we went to has 26 computers. You give them XXX Grivnyas (their dollars) and they give you a receipt with a number on it. You go to that computer and when you are finished you hand the operator the receipt and she gives you money back. I gave her 20 grivnyas. Apparently it was only .70 or so an hour (that would be $.14US. Awesome.

I spent a good three hours in that internet cafe. I emailed my friends and family, I chatted with my best friend Selene, and spent a good two hours reading blogs. It was great. It totally recharged me. Remember the smoker analogy? Well, I got my full pack in and was able to leisurely smoke it. Ahhhh. That's what it felt like to me--slipping into a warm bath and not having any pressures. My host mom called when I had almost finished up and I had the guy next to me talk to her. I bought her some flowers on the way home--3Grivnyas ($.60US) and bought a ton of baby pears for only 2.5Grivnyas ($.50US). I waited for the bus and experienced my first EEK moment. I knew where my bus stop was and tried to get off, but the bus took off and I was like "what?" I got off at the one down the corner, but it's very frustrating not to be able to say "WAIT! It's my stop!" when you need to say "wait! It's my stop!"

Got home and gave the flowers to my host mom (I swear to you that if they're always that cheap I'm buying fresh flowers for myself every week in my apartment). She made me a great soup with potatoes and carrots and onions in it and flavored with dill. Mid eating that she brought me a plate of seasoned rice, two hot dogs and a tomato. While eating that she brought out a purple dish. It was very pretty--it looked like frosting or sour cream on the top which was purple from beets, there was a design in the top made of carrots, and a beet flower in the top. I told her I'd try a tiny bit (tchoot-tchoot) and in it was chicken and sour cream and maybe rice? Some was hard to identify. I told her it was so-so and thanked her for it.

When you eat in a Ukrainian home, understand that an empty plate means "Please give me more." So if you're done eating, leave food on your plate. Trust me.

My host mom and I then chatted for a bit. By chatted I mean drew pictures and looked up words in the dictionary. I read her my paragraph about my family. Here is my paragraph:

This is my family. I have a mother. Her name is Deana. I have a father. His name is Joel. My father is a carpenter. His hobby is repairing radios. My mother is a librarian. Her hobby is church.

Nice job, me! I asked my host mom about her family, and we figured out both our families between the dictionary and pictures, and she helped me with Russian spelling of names. Then into my room for studying and writing of blog. And now you're up to date.

10.06.07

I'm trying very hard to keep up with my journaling. It's Sunday night and I'm writing Saturday's entry. Not too bad. So far I've only gone a full day without writing.

We were given a task to complete yesterday. We had to go on our own to School Number 1 by 8:30. I totally had it planned out and was going to walk in the morning, but my host dad insisted on going with me. First I thought he just wanted to leave at the same time and he was on his way to work, but nope, he totally went with me. That was cool, though, because I already knew how to get there, so it just reconfirmed what I already knew.

Met everyone at 8:30am and started our Technical Training at 9am. We learned about what we're going to be doing in and for Ukraine.

As a teacher trainer, these will be my tasks:

--travel to schools outside the Oblast Center in order to conduct techer-training events.
--Conduct one day teaching seminars at Institute on English Language and on active teaching using communicative TEFL methods.
--Development of scopel sequence of teacher recertification seminars.
--Continue professional development and support of PC secondary school TEFL volunteers; peer technical support during site visits.
--Organizing/facilitating summer TEFL camps for teachers/students
--Participating in the development of English Olympiad materials
--Organization and facilitation of English clubs for teachers
--Development of teaching materials (visuals, cards, audio, video materials)
--Grading
--Classroom management
--Teaching in Ukrainian Schools
--Secondary Community projects

Our ultimate goals will be to:
--Work effectively within a Ukrainian educational environment demonstrating ability to implement current teaching methodoogies and techniques
--Use teaching skills to positively influence educational community development

During these three months we will end up doing about 10 lesson plans, teaching about 10 classes, and additionally teach three classes to our peers. I'm signed up to teach Lesson Planning, Extra Curricular Activities, and PDM intro (I have no clue what that is). We also have 4-5 hours of language training five days a week and homework every day (which I love! seriously!). It's pretty intense--like being back in school.

While we were in our lesson, I noticed my socks were getting wet. This is a "slipper society". Because it is so muddy during the wet times and the streets are not pristinely paved, your shoes get dirty and so every house you immediately take off your shoes. I thought I had spilled my water, so I looked around and noticed that the floor was REALLY wet. I looked behind my chair and between the carpets I saw a river of water in the hallway. Apparently this is one of the negatives of having a first floor apartment in Ukraine--when people flush toilet paper it can back up the systems, and it screws over the people in the lower floors. So her plumbing was backed up and we had to relocate.

After all our tech training we had a cross cultural breakdown. We have an hour each week to chat with the LCFs--Language/Culture Facilitators. We talk about what's happened in the last week, we ask questions, and they try to explain. Having someone break down culture is awesome. Being able to ask questions without offending is really great. We covered bathroom etiquette, housekeeping, food, etc. A few things that popped out were: apparently Americans drink a LOT of water. One of the ladies said that Americans laugh at Ukrainians for not drinking any water and Ukrainians laugh at Americans for drinking too much water. Their philosophy is that they get enough liquids from their soups (because borsch is practically manditory every day!) and so they don't drink water during meals at all. Another thing they said was that my earrings would have to go. They didn't exactly say that, but really, I have to take out my earrings. Big sigh. No zero gauge stretching these next two years. They also said that after 3 days someone staying in their house becomes family or "that weird person living in the house." heh. One way to distinguish between guest and "family" is--who does the guest's dishes? If the family insists on doing the guest's dishes, then the person is a guest. If they let the person do their own dishes, that person is family. Needless to say, that night I insisted on doing my own dishes.

After all that, my language group decided to meet at 3pm for a picnic with our families. There were about 15 there: T&M and their host mom and host brother, E with her host mom and host sister, Cindy with her host mom and host brother, me and my host mom and Larissa, our language teacher. E, Cindy and I all brought desserts. We walked for about half an hour through the forest and finally came to this really great area with fires burning. These two guys had left a fire burning unattended, but it was set up okay--on vodka bottles. What a great use of glass! The moms laid out the tablecloth and food and we all hung out and ate and toasted and drank. It was finally my turn. After all the "eat eat eat eat eat"s from host moms, I pointed to our desserts and said to the host moms "eat eat eat eat" (pronounced "yest"). ha ha ha It was really funny and they all laughed.

After food we played some games to help with our Russian. We had to stand in a circle and introduce the person to our left, us, and the person to our right, then the person to our right would introduce us, then themself, then the person to their right, etc. We also were randomly given names, we had to find the people and ask where they were from, what their hobbies were, and what their occupation was. I've decided that kids are a lot of fun to learn language with, because somehow they have infinite patience, can repeat the same thing over and over, and aren't hung up on understanding every word you're saying if you slip into English.

After all the games, we walked home. I'm starting to figure out Chirnihiv. There's basically one main street and a few minor streets, then some footpaths. It makes it easier to navigate, and I'm connecting dots, as it were.

When we got home I did some homework--copying some of the verbs I'm learning into my notebook, recopying the notes I took in class, then I about split my head open with my yawning. I was EXHAUSTED. I went into the bedroom and made the bed, then laid down and started reading my homework. When I finished that I was plumb tuckered out and I went to sleep at the crazy hour of 8pm. All the insomnia was finally catching up with me and it kicked my butt.

10.05.07 Same as it ever was

Am awake with insomnia. Apparently my body isn't doing as well with the 10 hour time difference as I thought. While it's 2am and change here, it's 4pm and change there. I'm pleased to report that your tomorrow is looking good. Except for the first night when I was EXHAUSTED, I haven't yet slept an entire night through. This is the third day waking up at 4am, 3am, 2am.

Today was a good day! Let me break it down thematically

Food: Breakfast was marvelous. The food I've eaten has been very rich, and while it is extremely tasty, I'm a little worried that I won't be able to leave at the end of two years because I will be too big to fit on the plane. I've had so many bready-foods. This morning it was delicious pancake rolls--they were about the size of a deck of cards, they were sweet like pancake batter, and perfectly cooked to a slight crispy on the outside and warm and doughy on the inside. I put applesauce on mine and was immediately chided by my Mama. (It was great, though!). I also had a savory pancake type dish, which was flatter and had less sweet and had bell peppers in them. First I thought they were apples, so the savory flavor surprised me. So this morning--Mama has 4 of the pancake rolls for me, a large savory pancake dish, and sweet chai (tea). You see my dilemma! Delicious food = more of me to love, no delicious food = no delicious food. But, we were running late, so this is also the first time Mama didn't continue to tell me Eat Eat Eat Eat in Russian. For dinner I had BORSCH!!! It was seriously the MOST DELICIOUS THING EVER. Holy crap it was so good. Mama Ala said she would teach me on Sunday. I also had applesauce filled blintzes. YUM!

Going places: This morning we all met at the center of town (McDonalds--there's only one here) and took another bus to the consolate building (I think that's what it was). We got back to our language teacher's apartment without her help! Hooray!

Language: I was able to ask for and buy sugar at the store! Hooray! Also, feel like I'm keeping on pace with the class. I do have hours of studying ahead of me, but that's how I keep on pace.

Relationships: I feel like I'm really bonding with Cindy. We have things in common, we have fun together, it's just good. I also bonded with my host mom's granddaughter. She helped me with learning my numbers. It's crazy to me how patient 5 year olds can be sometimes, and she has so much more of the language than I do. So seriously, we spent a good 30-45 minutes doing numbers. She's also started hugging me a lot. I'm not used to kids hugging me, and it's strangely nice!

Daily life: I successfully washed my own delicates today. My host family has a washing machine, but it's only for pants/sweaters, etc. Any smaller items (bras, undies and socks) get washed by hand, and so I washed my first "load" by hand today. The 5 year old kept me company and I was trying to teach her "Row Row Row your boat. I'm also starting to get into a routine, which I love. I love routines. Wake up, take off the pillows, fold the blanket, fold the sheets. Put pillows, blanket and sheets in the cabinet. Put decorative pillows back on the bed. Get dressed, eat, fix face (I'm actually trying to do makeup every day. In Ukraine it's things like that that show people you care. Seriously.), take vitamins, leave.

And of course: a new simcard! I can finally send and recieve messages! The nice thing is that receiving phone calls is FREE! Woot!

But, of course these accomplishments cannot come without trials. Here were my trials for the day:

Food: I am a big girl! It's hard not to turn down delicious food. In addition to feeling like I'm putting someone out by not eating their food, I love delicious food! I did manage to say "Excellent but diet!" and I scraped off the loads of sour cream she poured over the blintzes. I am totally willing to try everything, but it's hard when you don't know how to say things like "I did enjoy that slice of pork fat on my bread, but it's not something I can eat everyday."

Language: I don't think I have ever really had a full appreciation for how frustrating it is not to be able to express yourself. I'm so into clear communication and emotional conversation and I'm reduced to nouns and pantomimes. I can't say "Today I learned..." I have to just show them the pages from class. I can't say "I want to take a shower first and then eat" I have to say "doosh" (Russian for "bath") and hold up one finger and say "Yest" (Russian for "to eat") and hold up 2 fingers. Having a master's degree and not even being able to say "It's really beautiful here and I really appreciate how much work you've done for me to be here" instead I say "Spaceeba" (thank you) and "harasho" (good) a lot. It's like being a gymnast and being paralyzed from the waist down. You, of course, rejoice that you can move your big toe, but on some level you think "it's just a toe!!!"

Dope moments: I dropped money for a new phone and sim card. I'm an IDIOT--I had a triband phone and was completely caught up in the heat of the moment and spent over half my cash on a new phone. It was the cheapest and I REALLY REALLY hope that one of the other volunteers will take it off my hands. On the up side, my cell phone works now!

Being an addict is hard! Thankfully my addiction is to technology and internet and the only real physical hardness I have to worry about is actually physically bonding with my couch. The only true benefit an addict like me would have in going to a mud hut in Africa (most people's first thought about Peace Corps) is that the technology just isn't there in the villages. It's not even an option. Here, however, in my building I feel like I have all the cigarettes I want but no lighter. That's right--wireless network, I can connect, but CAN'T GET ON THE INTERNET. The times I have been able to get online have been a 5 pack a day smoker's equivalent of getting a few drags in while someone is watching you. A few minutes here, a few minutes there, the class is waiting, the person is waiting. I'm looking forward to Sunday when I can relax on the internet. heh.

The plusses really do outweigh any minuses which come from not being able to speak a language and not really knowing a culture. I love it here. I have wanted to be in a situation where I'm learning a new language in a structured setting for several hours a day, and in this case my expectations were far exceeded--only five people in my language class! AND, after the 3 month language training period I can have a personal tutor. My entire two years in Peace Corps! That absolutely amazes me.

10.04.07 First day in school

First day back in school

Last night I went to bed a little early and woke up around 4am. I kept hearing these noises. At first I thought they were the heater--a sort of metallic thwanging. I opened up the door to my balcony in my room and it was rain.

It was just light enough to make out the silhouettes. The city I'm from is huge and you can't but see hundreds or thousands of lights when you look outside. Outside of my apartment there were 40. Yes, I counted. The sound was rain hitting the metal roof. I was pretty wide awake, but really didn't want to be up at 4am, so I plugged in my iPod and earphones and put in Battlestar Galactica OST, which I often listen to before bed. I was able to fall asleep.

I got up at 8am and got dressed, hung out a bit, then my host mother, Ala, made me breakfast. I had a tomato-garlic-vinaegrette salad, cheese blintzes which were amazing!, tea with sugar, and was full. I was chided for drinking water with my meal, but I was uncertain why, regardless of how many words she used. Through her pantomimes I think she was saying that drinking water with this food would bloat my stomach?

Off to school!

We were a tiny bit late, but thankfully I wasn't the last person there. X and Cindy were already there, and we were waiting on Tom and Mary. We chatted about host moms and our host dads and the food and our rooms until they showed up. Then on to the lesson!

My studying paid off and I did pretty well on the reading! We did a lot of practicing phrases like "how are you?" "What do you do?" "Where are you from" and we even got to practice with one of the host families on the phone! It was a little scary and yet fun!

Then off to the market! We all went outside and were so happy to have Larissa, our trainer with us. We went in some local Ukrainian stores. They are so filled with sausages and desserts and liquors! We made our way to the bus, and I'm glad she was with us, because they were very different than the busses I'm used to. First, they are very tiny and are more like a van. The number appears on the side and the front on a yellow card. People squish in (Cindy and I wonder how long before we'll be able to squish as efficiently, because we're not so good at it) and pass their money up to the front and a lady gives change. There is no buzzer or bell, you simply wait until the next stop and get off at the right place.

We ate at a cafeteria style restaurant. For just about $4US I got a sausage, a tomato/cucumber/cheese salad, a bowl of mushroom rice and a coke lite. I split the sausage with Cindy, who split her chicken/egg patty with me. Yum!

Then off to the stationary store! I bought more school supplies. The store people are very nice. I was surprised that index cards seem to be unheard of, and that the paper type of choice is graph paper! Seriously--finding a regular college-lined notebook is difficult. I also bought rechargable batteries. Now I need to buy the charging unit, which is about $20.

Back to our teacher's house. We took the bus again and landed back by her house. Her house is right by a local market, and outside there are many babushkas selling potatoes and fresh veggies and fruits. At her house we were given our textbooks and homework. Did I mention I love homework? I really do--chances to practice in a controlled setting. She also gave me my second key of the day.

Ukrainian keys are wild. I've never seen anything like them. They remind me more of big toothed saws than of keys, and if I were to collect something new I think I would collect Ukrainian keys. To lock our apartment door from the outside, you must first open the door. Once it is open, you trip the double lock from the inside--they're two long pieces of metal bent near the ends, that when unlocked face up and down. When you pull them together toward the middle, they spring forward and lock. Once you've tripped the lock, you insert the key. No turning, just shove it in. Shoving it in springs the locks back, and with the key still in the door, you close it and then remove the key. Done! Door is successfully locked.

Vasa, my host father, picked me up and walked with me to our apartment. He tried to initiate some conversation with me, but my Russian is so poor that he and I ended up awkwardly smiling, but knowing that the other wanted to talk but couldn't. Same in the apartment. He showed me some pictures of his family--his brother and his mother. I showed him some pictures on my camera of my parents, but it's sad how few pictures I have of them! Mom--send more pictures soon!

When Ala got home she made me dinner. An awesome potato/pasta soup flavored with dill, mashed potatoes, deviled eggs with an extra dab of mayo on them, slices of pork fat to eat on your bread, blintzes, and cole slaw. Seriously. I had a little bit of wine with my food, and while I was eating, my host mom's other daughter, her son-in-law, and her two grandchildren showed up.

The family was really nice. Ala's son in law spoke a tiny bit of English, and he was very jovial and friendly. He shook my hand and introduced himself, and joked with me most of the evening. Joking can be hard to do when you don't really speak the language, so I totally give him props for making me feel included. One granddaughter was maybe months/a year old (how old are kids when they usually start to walk?), and the other was 7. I gave the 7 year old some Pop Rocks and a candy necklace. The daughter also talked to me a bit. Very nice family.

Then on to studying. I almost know the entire Russian alphabet, but I still pause on a few of the letters! ИЙУ always get me, and sometimes EЁ get me too. Grrr. I know, be easy on myself.

To study, I wrote out the alphabet three times. I also rewrote the conversations from class, and the vocabulary words. I got my host sister to record on my camera the conversations so I could listen and repeat a few times. I also practiced reading out loud.

I want to succeed, and I know that if I keep studying hard I can do it.

10.03.07 On My Way to Chirnihiv

We packed up and left Kyiv today. Packed all our things back in bags and finished our pre-training. I'm going to be in a big city with internet! Hooray!

Our bus left at 2:45 (though it broke down before getting to us, delaying our leave by an hour or two). We all stood around and hung out, played Mad Libs, and bs-ed until the groups left. Our bus was late, so we went to the store. I bought a bottle of Georgian semi-sweet wine (my favorite!) for my host family, and I bought some yummy milk chocolate for myself.

The store was great! There were a lot more American brands than I thought. It seemed like a regular grocery store except with different brands and you couldn't read the signs. They sold everything from liquor to fruit to Tide with bleach. The Ukrainian dollar is about 5.05 per US$1. Candy bars were ukrainian $3-$6, and the good wine was anywhere from Ukrainian $40-120.

We waited more and I had to use the bathroom. I'd heard about the "squatty" toilet in the main building, and I had to go pretty bad, so I decided to try it out. Thankfully I had two ladies with me to walk me through it.

First, I rolled up my pants legs, then walked into the stall. In order to get in, you open the door and walk up two stairs onto a platform with a porcelain sink in it with porcelain sides to step on. You are supposed to face the door, so you stand on the porcelain, face the door, pull down your pants to your knees, squat down and hold your pants out of the way. I was concerned about my hair fallin in it because my hair is really long, but I think I got through it okay. After wiping you throw the toilet paper in the trash and then flush. Success!

Finally got on the bus and loaded my many suitcases (I have THE most luggage from anyone in our group!). I immediately fell asleep on the bus. I woke up when we stopped, and I looked out the window. There were trees everywhere, and everything had an orange and brown color to it. Then you realized it was because of the autumn trees. Leaves were everywhere and to my right was a sort of tree park, and the trees seemed to go on forever. We were in a very old style village, and the host families were there to greet their volunteers. Everything felt like a Hans Christian Anderson story--it was absolutely gorgeous.

Peace Corps Policies

Today was medical and I had to get a series of immunizations. Now I feel like I was punched in the arm and it makes blogging difficult. Do you see what I deal with to get you the news? Pushing through the pain.

Blogging policies are that if someone posts anything publicly that they must be reviewed by a Peace Corps person to make sure they are culturally sensitive. This makes total sense, but since I am a very prolific blogger, it means blogging very differently, which means that for the most part most of my posts here will be friends only and not for public consumption. Anything posted publically will have been reviewed and okayed for publication. Really and truly the only reason for the friends only will be because I like the instant gratification of posting, not because I have a plan to write terrible things about Ukraine.

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It's like you're 5. I am going to be writing about my successes. Small things are really what get you through the day and through two years and being able to celebrate them with people is important. I plan to post daily/weekly/monthly successes and please, cheer with me!

My success: I was able to ask for my room key in Ukrainian and be understood! "Trista pedisyat david" means that my 359 room key is handed to me.

We were given our assignments today, and I am so happy with my results. I am learning Russian and I'm going to a big city: Chernihiv. There are a total of five people, including me, in our cluster and for the next 12 weeks we'll be learning Russian together for 4-5 hours per day.

My first Russian lesson! I learned how to say "My name is...", ask someone else's name, and say "pleased to meet you." We also learned to say "I want/I don't want..." and "Where..." (they taught me to say "where internet?" so I should be set!)

After class we went to a Ukrainian past and history and I don't think I realized how tired I was until I opened my eyes at the end and had a crick in my neck and the lecture was over. We then ate a wonderful food. One of the volunteers told me what it was, but I can't remember the name. It was rice and meat wrapped in a thin dough with a thin sauce over it. It was so delicious! Along with that we had cucumbers and tomatoes and bell peppers. I love their cucumbers so much!

The city I'm going to is Chernihiv, and it's the capital of the oblast with the same name. An oblast is basically the Ukrainian equivalent of a state. The city I'm in is huge and has several universities and museums and ballet and ballroom dancing. I'm crossing my fingers that they have swing dancing!

So I made up my Russian flashcards and am going to go play some games with my clustermates. I'm very excited and can't wait to learn more!

10.01.07 First Impressions

So I spent Saturday night packing until 3:30am. We had to be downstairs at 8am with our luggage, and I didn't totally finish packing things up until 7:50am. Thankfully I made it down to the lobby in time. Thankfully also, one of my group members only had one check in baggage, so she let me "use" her and she offered to check in one of my bags. Thank you, Kelly!

Went out to breakfast with Emily, my roommate. Well, we searched. We did stop in at Walgreens to pick up some shoe insoles for me, since I apparently ate through my old ones. Got some snackies for the road as well.

On the way back to the hotel we passed a vendor. Score! I ordered a breakfast sandwich and a kielbasa. I didn't plan to eat them all, and in fact, gave half of my breakfast to another volunteer. The vendor's name was Muhammad. Very nice man and I think he probably undercharged us.

We got on the bus and headed for the airport--JFK in NYC. It was my first trip to NY and I got a bunch of pictures from the bus. My first time seeing the Statue of Liberty! MFI (my first impression) of the Statue of Liberty: It's VERY green! Also it must be really cool to be able to see that daily, the way in Seattle we see Mt. Rainier or the Space Needle daily. Something touristy for tourists, but an integral part of daily life for residents.

MFI of NY: The apartments are JUST like the Cosby show! Shoved up against one another, different colors, yards pressed up and gardens in the back. I think it would really create a cool sense of community. Also, I didn't realize people actually play handball! ha ha. I felt like I was watching a movie.

We got to the airport and it was a fiasco. We were split into groups of about six, complete with a group leader. My group got split up and Kelly and I were the last two to catch up. Got in the most massive line. Thankfully there was beautiful eye candy and German arm porn! This guy had the greatest arms and no sleeves. I had a little line crush going on!

At the front of the line the woman made me check in my carry on. GRRR!! $105 later and three trips back and forth and I finally have my boarding pass. Another line. Take off shoes, coats, belt, pull out laptop, oops, left a coke in there, drink it quickly, walk through metal detector, oops, left on my belt, finally success. Redress and repack and on my way.

Flying from New York to Frankfurt takes a long time. It takes several conversations, a book, naps, stretches, and even then you've still got a few hours left! My seat mate was Keith and we chatted about movies and tv shows and books. He is a big heavy metal fan and we had fun talking about everything. I was wearing long johns under my pants, and where I was sitting didn't get much air. I was so uncomfortable and sweating so much that I got up and changed out of them. I finally got a little sleep, but spent most of that time reading someone else's copy of Stardust.

Touchdown in Frankfurt! All the pilots threw down the football and did a dance. We got there late, but thankfully in plenty of time for the plane trip to Kyiv. MFI of Frankfurt: The men are delicious. I went to McDonalds in the airport (fast familiar food), and holy cow they have McRib! I got that, a coke, and a box of water. Seriously--a box of water. $9 and went back down and waited. We boarded and saw the most awesome posters.

The posters were four pictures, two repeated. There was a picture of Mars by a picture of the moon by the same picture of the moon by the same picture of Mars. The first said Madness, the second Romance, the third Romance, the fourth Madness. One had a woman's heel and a jalapeno with the captions: pain pleasure pleasure pain. Tattoos and henna: traditional trendy trendy traditional. They were amazing.

MFI of Ukraine: WOW! You could immediately tell the women residents by their SUPER pointy high heeled shoes. The woman who checked me in looked like a model--smoothed back hair with a rhinestone headband, glitter eyeshadow, mascara. Gorgeous.

The Ukrainian airport had a Heinekin machine instead of a Coke machine! Seriously! We got outside and it was SO HOT! We were greeted by Peace Corps people and they were so friendly and helped us out to our bus. We walked up these TALL stairs and onto a burning hot bus, which thankfully had curtains. I sat next to one of my favorite people: Anastacia. We were given instructions and walk around money and headed over to the compound for our training.

We were given a room with a roommate. My roomate is another teacher trainer. Very nice person and although we have little in common we're getting along really well. We had a Ukrainian greeting ceremony and dinner, a small orientation ceremony then went to bed.

MFI of our rooms: very practical. Small beds, very warm wool blankets, tiny bathroom. Everything in the bathroom is very tall. The toilet paper was unexpected--it is unbleached brown paper with no roll. It's just rolled up but no cardboard tube through it. The shower is very small and missing a small part of the door. I took a shower and it, apparently, takes a dexterity check of 12 to successfully take a shower. I think I rolled an 11.

Taking a shower in this building takes a few steps. Because the room is very small, you have to decide where to undress because there's not really enough room to do it in the bathroom. First step complete. Then the question is: where do you put the shampoo/soap. I ended up putting them on the sink ledge. Check. The third involves a combination of soaping up while balancing the hand held shower nozzle on the water control, then putting the soap down and grabbing the shower and turning it back on and rinsing off. I think half my water got on the floor and I completely blame my lack of dexterity.

Dinner consisted of a sort of chicken omelete--a thin piece of chicken cooked in an egg. It was very tasty. We also had cucumbers and tomatoes and a carrot/apple/strawberry juice.

I relaxed in the room and watched a few episodes of Weeds until I was falling asleep too much to follow the episode and I went to sleep.