It's been too long since my last post! So much has happened since then, some good and some not so good. I'll start with the not so good. Last week I caught some sort of crazy Ukrainian virus that comes with a fever and painful stomach pains. So that was fun. My babucya was franticly taking care of me, which was very nice. She even tucked me into bed! Luckily, I got better in time for Victory Day!
In case you don't know, Victory Day in Ukraine is when people celebrate Nazi Germany's capitulation in World War II, or The Great Patriotic War as it's called here. We went to the center of the village at night where there is a monument to the village's fallen soldiers. The children did a fire walk where they walked with torches and then they read some poems. I think it would have been much more interesting if I actually understood what they were saying, but nonetheless it was pretty cool. After that we hiked up this hill where they have another monument to the soldiers. It's actually where 600 of them are buried. They have some tanks there and a trench that you can explore. After that we had Ukrainian class and then I went home and saw how people really celebrate Victory Day. With vodka, of course. We had some vodka and dinner with the neighbors and my host brother and the neighbor proceeded to sing the entire Ukrainian national anthem at the table.
Speaking of vodka, let me tell you about the party I went to last night/today. It was my host brother's and sister's joint 30th birthday celebration (host sister's birthday was just a few weeks beforehand), so the family rented out the canteen where the school normally feeds the students and had a catered party. With lots of food and lots of vodka. I think I can say now that I have mastered the art of drinking vodka in Ukraine and not dying of alcohol poisoning. There are a few options. One, you can refuse to drink completely (normally, by saying that you are sick or on medication or something like that). Two, you can drink every shot they give you and probably not remember much of your service in Ukraine, or possibly not survive it. Three, you drink about 1/3 or 1/4 of every shot that they give you, because you know that your glass will be full regardless of what you say. I believe the birthday couple went for option number two last night. Nevertheless, everybody had a great time with lots of dancing and eating very good food.
This morning I woke up around 8:30am (yes, mom, shocking I know) and got showered (a REAL shower!!! with hot water!!) outside and dressed and at around 11am family started showing up for the party part II! Ah, moonshine in the morning.
(Note: my family normally doesn't drink at all, only on special occasions!)
I've really enjoyed my time with this family and I'm really hoping to keep in touch with them. They always keep an eye on me and involve me in whatever they are doing. I'll be sad to leave them!
I can't even believe that I've been here for almost 7 weeks already. I'm still pretty worried about my Ukrainian language skills because it's just so much to learn in a short amount of time. The grammar and sounds are just so different. I'm also super nervous about where I'll be placed. Most likely it'll be a small village in Western Ukraine, but it'll be so different doing it alone! Well, I'll know in just under a month.
Also, we finally had our lesson on the post office, so I'll try and get some post cards out when I can. Sometimes the post office here doesn't work and we're not really sure why?
Ok, that's all for now!
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Sunday, May 1, 2011
In Ukraine, Ambulance is Taxi
Another week in Ukraine! Sometimes time feels like its flying by and sometimes it feels like I just got here. This week has been extremely busy and I have a feeling this coming week will be just as busy. We are teaching double classes on Friday because Monday is a holiday (again) for Labor Day. That means our Ukrainian classes will be even longer so we can have a short on one Friday. We also have to work on our self directed learning projects, grant for our community project, our portfolios, and our summer camp. Busy busy busy! It doesn't sound like too much, but combined with living in a new environment immersed in a new language, it definitely is. But everybody is still having fun and is in good spirits. We also have a new Ukrainian teacher for a few weeks. The PC wants us to experience a different teaching style. His name is Sasha, like almost all men in Ukraine!
I think my Ukrainian is coming along. I can now catch words and some commands when I'm in a group of Ukrainians. There are still many times when people just talk to me and I have absolutely no idea what's going on. It's hardest when that happens with little children! The 5 year old neighbor girls love to try and talk to me and sometimes I just have no idea what they are saying haha.
I also had some more cultural moments this week. For example, usually in America when you are waiting in line for the ATM, people leave a considerable amount of space for the person actually using the ATM. Not in Ukraine. Personal space is very,very different here! The lady behind me was almost touching my back while I was using the ATM! Another moment: yesterday we were waiting for the bus to go to Obukhiv in the morning. The bus stopped, let a lady off, and then rapidly sped off. We were all just very confused as to why the bus didn't stop. Matthew was talking to a Ukrainian guy that we met at the discoteque on Easter Sunday (where you naturally go on Easter in Ukraine) and he told us that a vehicle across the street would take us to Obuhkiv. We walk over there and it turns out that that vehicle was ambulance. So, we all pile into the ambulance and he takes us to Obukhiv! Needless to say, that was an awesome experience. Another experience happened today. I was walking toward the center of town and saw a grandmother and a 10 year old riding on a vespa. Guess who was driving. If you guessed the 10 year old, then you were correct. I'm not sure what the legal driving age in Ukraine is, but I'm pretty sure it's not 10 years old!
Ok, that's all for now!
I think my Ukrainian is coming along. I can now catch words and some commands when I'm in a group of Ukrainians. There are still many times when people just talk to me and I have absolutely no idea what's going on. It's hardest when that happens with little children! The 5 year old neighbor girls love to try and talk to me and sometimes I just have no idea what they are saying haha.
I also had some more cultural moments this week. For example, usually in America when you are waiting in line for the ATM, people leave a considerable amount of space for the person actually using the ATM. Not in Ukraine. Personal space is very,very different here! The lady behind me was almost touching my back while I was using the ATM! Another moment: yesterday we were waiting for the bus to go to Obukhiv in the morning. The bus stopped, let a lady off, and then rapidly sped off. We were all just very confused as to why the bus didn't stop. Matthew was talking to a Ukrainian guy that we met at the discoteque on Easter Sunday (where you naturally go on Easter in Ukraine) and he told us that a vehicle across the street would take us to Obuhkiv. We walk over there and it turns out that that vehicle was ambulance. So, we all pile into the ambulance and he takes us to Obukhiv! Needless to say, that was an awesome experience. Another experience happened today. I was walking toward the center of town and saw a grandmother and a 10 year old riding on a vespa. Guess who was driving. If you guessed the 10 year old, then you were correct. I'm not sure what the legal driving age in Ukraine is, but I'm pretty sure it's not 10 years old!
Ok, that's all for now!
Monday, April 25, 2011
Christ has Risen! Happy Easter!
Happy Easter everybody! Let me tell you, Easter in Ukraine was incredibly different from Easter in America. There are Easter baskets, but no Easter bunny. Just Easter vodka.
My babucya (grandmother) woke me up at 2:30am to go to the Ukrainian Orthodox church. All the women were required to cover their heads in the church, but the men weren't. Before entering the church and before leaving, everybody crosses themselves (the opposite way of Catholics) and bow. The service was extremely different. There were chairs lining the walls for the babucyas, but the service was basically standing room only. The priest was behind some golden doors in a separate room and he would periodically come out to chant and sing, but there was no real sermon. About 5 older Ukrainians were singing/chanting and everytime they said a certain word, everybody would cross themselves and bow. Then they would stop and the priest would chant and then the singing and bowing would start again. That's what we did for about an hour. After that, we went outside and I ran into James, so we chatted for a bit. Then about an hour later (it was FREEZING, mind you), everybody was lined up outside with their Easter baskets full of food for the priest to bless. He came out with a bucket of holy water and a sort of horse tail looking things and proceeded to chant and spray everybody with water. My host brother-in-law was super blessed as the priest soaked him in water. I think the priest took great pleasure in blessing everybody haha. After the blessing, we went home and had breakfast. Babucya poured us shots of fortified wine at 6am. Great way to start the day! After breakfast, I thankfully went back to my warm bed.
I woke up a few hours later and went on a picnic with my host sister and a few of her friends. We proceeded to stuff our faces in between shots of vodka for a few hours. My host sister made sure I ate plenty of food!! We also shot a BB gun (safe, i know) and BBQd. After that, we went out to the local discoteque which was fun. Lots of techno and dancing. All in all a pretty good Easter!
My babucya (grandmother) woke me up at 2:30am to go to the Ukrainian Orthodox church. All the women were required to cover their heads in the church, but the men weren't. Before entering the church and before leaving, everybody crosses themselves (the opposite way of Catholics) and bow. The service was extremely different. There were chairs lining the walls for the babucyas, but the service was basically standing room only. The priest was behind some golden doors in a separate room and he would periodically come out to chant and sing, but there was no real sermon. About 5 older Ukrainians were singing/chanting and everytime they said a certain word, everybody would cross themselves and bow. Then they would stop and the priest would chant and then the singing and bowing would start again. That's what we did for about an hour. After that, we went outside and I ran into James, so we chatted for a bit. Then about an hour later (it was FREEZING, mind you), everybody was lined up outside with their Easter baskets full of food for the priest to bless. He came out with a bucket of holy water and a sort of horse tail looking things and proceeded to chant and spray everybody with water. My host brother-in-law was super blessed as the priest soaked him in water. I think the priest took great pleasure in blessing everybody haha. After the blessing, we went home and had breakfast. Babucya poured us shots of fortified wine at 6am. Great way to start the day! After breakfast, I thankfully went back to my warm bed.
I woke up a few hours later and went on a picnic with my host sister and a few of her friends. We proceeded to stuff our faces in between shots of vodka for a few hours. My host sister made sure I ate plenty of food!! We also shot a BB gun (safe, i know) and BBQd. After that, we went out to the local discoteque which was fun. Lots of techno and dancing. All in all a pretty good Easter!
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Kiev and back again...a Erin's tale
So, this has been an exciting and exhausting week! On Tuesday, after class, we went to the arts and music school to learn how to make Ukrainian Easter Eggs. We thought they would take maybe an hour to make.....we thought wrong. They took 4 hours to make and we didn't even finish them! Ukrainians put a whole lot more effort into their Easter Eggs!! First, we picked out a pattern for our eggs. Then, we sketched the patterns with pencils. After that, we went over the lines with these pens. You would fill the top with wax and then hold it over a flame and it would drip slowly out of the bottom. It was pretty cool! As you can imagine, an intricate design would take forever to draw symmetrically, not to mention again with wax! We not only learned what some of the symbols meant, we learned something about Ukrainian teachers. At this point, Laura holds up her egg to the art teacher and says (in Ukrainian), "my egg is pretty, isn't it?" and then the teacher looks at the egg and says ".....no." Then she walks away. Haha, it was pretty amazing. Of course, Laura's egg was pretty, it just had to real Ukrainian symbols on it.
After we finished redrawing our patterns in wax, we dropped the eggs in dye. I was told I had to use red because it has crowns and crowns must be red. THEN we have to wait until the eggs dry and then cover whatever we want to stay red with wax. After that, we redyed the eggs another color. At this point, we had been at the art school for 4 hours, so we decided to come back to take the wax off and take our eggs home.
On Wednesday, we went to Kiev!!!! Well, first we went to Obukhiv for our Safety and Security session and THEN we went to Kiev. So of course after hearing all the horror stories about people who weren't smart about their stuff on the metro, I clutched my purse to myself and gave the evil eye to any babushka who looked at me.
Kiev was fun! It was definitely more of a business trip than a sightseeing trip. The point was to show us how to navigate and survive Kiev. Now that our group has gone to Kiev with Ira once, we can go alone. When we first got there, we learned how to use the metro and we found the main branch of the bank we will be using. Then we went by the train station and then visited the PC headquarters and had a tour of the building. Now comes the best part. We took the metro to the main street and then we had.........SUSHI!!!!!!
I don't know if you guys know how I feel about sushi, but it's just about my favorite thing in the world. It was happy hour so everything that you bought was buy 1 get 1 free. So much sushi!!! And so yummy!! It was very reasonably priced too for being right in the middle of Kiev. For 6 people, the total about about 500 HR or $62.50 or about $10/person. I love some things about Ukraine!
I'm excited to go back to Kiev sometimes soon and do some more real sightseeing.
Today was also exciting because we had our first Russian lesson! The PC decided it would be important for everybody to know at least a little of the language they are not studying (Russian or Ukrainian) because the entire country is basically bilingual. In the east and south, Russian is mostly spoken, but road signs will be in English. In the west, Ukrainian is spoken, but most everybody will speak Russian and it is possible you'll end up in a Russian speaking town or that your counterpart will only speak Russian. I'm already in Ukraine and I am still in the dark about some things in my near future!
Today, we also began planning our summer camp and community project. As of now, we're planning on have a 4 or 5 day summer camp dedicated to health and the environment. We will probably apply for a HIV/AID awareness grant to help fund one day dedicated to educating the students about the HIV/AIDs problem as Ukraine has the highest rate of HIV in all post-Soviet countries. We are thinking that our community project will be to record some dialogs and maybe some songs onto CDs so that the school will have permanent access to native English speakers for listening activities.
Tomorrow will be fun too! We won't be teaching classes because the school is having a sports day. We'll go to the school and hopefully play kickball with the kids. Then just 2 hours of Ukrainian lessons and 1 of Russian.
This weekend is also full of events! At about 3am on Easter Sunday, we will get up and go to the church to have the food blessed by the priests. After that, we'll come home and sleep and then wake up and eat and drink bahato (a lot) with the whole family. I think some of my host family's cousins are coming and they go to the school I teach at, so hopefully I'll have somebody to speak a little English with. I'll definitely update again after I come out of my food coma on Sunday.
That's all for now!
After we finished redrawing our patterns in wax, we dropped the eggs in dye. I was told I had to use red because it has crowns and crowns must be red. THEN we have to wait until the eggs dry and then cover whatever we want to stay red with wax. After that, we redyed the eggs another color. At this point, we had been at the art school for 4 hours, so we decided to come back to take the wax off and take our eggs home.
On Wednesday, we went to Kiev!!!! Well, first we went to Obukhiv for our Safety and Security session and THEN we went to Kiev. So of course after hearing all the horror stories about people who weren't smart about their stuff on the metro, I clutched my purse to myself and gave the evil eye to any babushka who looked at me.
Kiev was fun! It was definitely more of a business trip than a sightseeing trip. The point was to show us how to navigate and survive Kiev. Now that our group has gone to Kiev with Ira once, we can go alone. When we first got there, we learned how to use the metro and we found the main branch of the bank we will be using. Then we went by the train station and then visited the PC headquarters and had a tour of the building. Now comes the best part. We took the metro to the main street and then we had.........SUSHI!!!!!!
I don't know if you guys know how I feel about sushi, but it's just about my favorite thing in the world. It was happy hour so everything that you bought was buy 1 get 1 free. So much sushi!!! And so yummy!! It was very reasonably priced too for being right in the middle of Kiev. For 6 people, the total about about 500 HR or $62.50 or about $10/person. I love some things about Ukraine!
I'm excited to go back to Kiev sometimes soon and do some more real sightseeing.
Today was also exciting because we had our first Russian lesson! The PC decided it would be important for everybody to know at least a little of the language they are not studying (Russian or Ukrainian) because the entire country is basically bilingual. In the east and south, Russian is mostly spoken, but road signs will be in English. In the west, Ukrainian is spoken, but most everybody will speak Russian and it is possible you'll end up in a Russian speaking town or that your counterpart will only speak Russian. I'm already in Ukraine and I am still in the dark about some things in my near future!
Today, we also began planning our summer camp and community project. As of now, we're planning on have a 4 or 5 day summer camp dedicated to health and the environment. We will probably apply for a HIV/AID awareness grant to help fund one day dedicated to educating the students about the HIV/AIDs problem as Ukraine has the highest rate of HIV in all post-Soviet countries. We are thinking that our community project will be to record some dialogs and maybe some songs onto CDs so that the school will have permanent access to native English speakers for listening activities.
Tomorrow will be fun too! We won't be teaching classes because the school is having a sports day. We'll go to the school and hopefully play kickball with the kids. Then just 2 hours of Ukrainian lessons and 1 of Russian.
This weekend is also full of events! At about 3am on Easter Sunday, we will get up and go to the church to have the food blessed by the priests. After that, we'll come home and sleep and then wake up and eat and drink bahato (a lot) with the whole family. I think some of my host family's cousins are coming and they go to the school I teach at, so hopefully I'll have somebody to speak a little English with. I'll definitely update again after I come out of my food coma on Sunday.
That's all for now!
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Another week in PST (Pre-Service Training)
So, another week has passed in Ukraine and I am totally exhausted. This week was really busy and the rigors of the program are starting to wear on me, but I'm staying positive and I'm still having a good time and enjoying what I'm doing. Our schedule has been very, very busy and will be next week, but hopefully we'll be able to take our first trip to Kiev!! I'm a city girl at heart, so I'm very excited about that! Next week will be full of more Ukrainian lessons, Ukrainian tutoring teaching technical training, cross-cultural training, lesson planning tutoring, as well as actually teaching classes. They are pretty good about keeping us busy even when we have a day off with lesson planning, Ukrainian homework, as well as planning an English summer camp and community project for this summer. Lots to do!
Besides the trip to Kiev, I'm also excited about this coming Tuesday because we get to go to a class on how to make Ukrainian Easter eggs! I'll take lots of pictures and post them when my internet is working well enough. ALSO, next weekend is Easter, so we will go to church and then I presume we will eat lots of salo and I'm under the impression it's a big, fun family event. Speaking of salo, my host family killed a pig yesterday and today they made fresh sausage. Needless to say, while some things are pretty similar, some things are very different in Ukraine!
Besides the trip to Kiev, I'm also excited about this coming Tuesday because we get to go to a class on how to make Ukrainian Easter eggs! I'll take lots of pictures and post them when my internet is working well enough. ALSO, next weekend is Easter, so we will go to church and then I presume we will eat lots of salo and I'm under the impression it's a big, fun family event. Speaking of salo, my host family killed a pig yesterday and today they made fresh sausage. Needless to say, while some things are pretty similar, some things are very different in Ukraine!
Monday, April 11, 2011
I forgot!
How could I forget to write about this!? It was one of the most fabulous experiences I've had so far.
Sunday, I went to James' house to work on our lesson plans together and I had a great time with his family. I showed up during lunch time (I had already eaten lunch, but then I had a second lunch!) and we proceeded to sit and chat over many (many, many) shots of vodka and some beer. We had a great conversation and I learned a few new words I won't repeat here.
Then his host father, James and I listened to heavy metal blasting from James' host father's truck in his driveway. It was very surreal looking over rural Ukraine with Iron Maiden blasting in the background. Luckily, we did get our work done in the end.
Ok, thats all for now.
Sunday, I went to James' house to work on our lesson plans together and I had a great time with his family. I showed up during lunch time (I had already eaten lunch, but then I had a second lunch!) and we proceeded to sit and chat over many (many, many) shots of vodka and some beer. We had a great conversation and I learned a few new words I won't repeat here.
Then his host father, James and I listened to heavy metal blasting from James' host father's truck in his driveway. It was very surreal looking over rural Ukraine with Iron Maiden blasting in the background. Luckily, we did get our work done in the end.
Ok, thats all for now.
Our schedule just blew up
I had my first day of teaching today! I taught with James and I think it went really well. We talked about ancient books and the use of the passive voice. It wasn't perfect, but I think we did a good job and next time will be even better. The classroom is definitely very different from what I experienced in school. Some of the kids just knew every single answer and had no problem just yelling it out (even when you asked somebody else) and some of the kids seemed to not understand anything. Apparently this is a problem that we will learn how to handle while we're here.
So, they have most definitely upped our schedules this week! We are insanely busy. Today was a 9-5 day for us! It sounds like a normal work day, but when you include homework as well as being forced to practice what you learn because your family speaks the language, its more like a 16 hour day! Here was our schedule today:
7am : Wake up and run to the outhouse!! Oh, and its FREEZING and it has been snowing......AGAIN.
8:15: finish up breakfast (potatoes and cabbage) and leave for school
9:05: James and I teach our first English class!
9:55: Observe the other Americans teach their class and we do a debriefing session
11:30-12:30: lunch at the canteen (we have 3 course meal: soup, sausage (2 kinds), salad, kashi, and pickles tomatoes, and finally awesome cookies for dessert and its all served with a yummy apricot compote. this costs us 10 hyrivna per person, which is a little over $1!)
1pm-5pm: Ukrainian lessons
6pm: dinner! chicken soup, great ukrainian bread, meat and cheese
7pm: update my blog! and then go study more Ukrainian
Not only do we have lessons to teach and observe, we have language classes, lesson planning tutoring 2x per week, one hour of language tutoring per week, technical group training, and two group projects to plan for. So intense!!! We will have a brief respite this Wednesday as we have "health day," where the doctor will come out and teach us....about health? Not really sure!
I'm really excited about our lesson tomorrow because its cooking day! We get to spend 1/2 of our lesson (2 hours) cooking borscht and halupki (stuffed cabbage). We can only speak in Ukrainian so who knows what we'll end up actually making. It should be fun though!
Nothing else much is new besides that. I am still being harassed by angry geese on the way home and I don't know why they hate me. Ok, well I'm off to study more Ukrainian and then pass out!
P.S. We should be doing a chapter about sending letters/going to the post office, so once we do that, I'll try to have some post cards out to you all!
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