Update and Wishlist
So Summer has been busy. I have been away a lot, and will be away more for the next month. After Church Camp, I went to visit some relatives in the mountains. They live in a village of about 2000, their last name is the same as the village's name, and I ran into someone I knew there. It was fun, and they have three great kids but they couldn't climb on me enough; it was a bit exhausting. They loved my frisbee, but unfortunately, the loved it to death. They invited me back for the Winter, to go sledding and stuff, and I am looking forward to it. The menu still surprises me here, but I will have more on that in another entry. Suffice it to say that they have two cows and LOTS of milk and milk products, but all very fresh.
Then, I spent a week at home when I was supposed to go to another church camp. Because that camp changed dates, it changed everything, and my family still went back to the mountains, but host grandma came home to fend for me. I was REALLY looking forward to fending for myself. She (and grandpa) can be a bit stifling sometimes. I am like the son she never had, but I managed to fight her out of the kitchen some, and I got some good work done. Then I went for a day to a National Scout Camp. There were also 3 Ukrainians from the US, and one from Australia there. The Ukrainian Scout Movement, which is called Plast - a direct translation from Scout, is very strong in the Diaspora. I taught them to play kickball and dodgeball, and observed for a bit and then came home. I had wanted to go to the whole camp, but the director, who I spoke with only through a intermediary, is convinced that too many adults in camp leads to drinking and lying around and I would have been no different, so I could only stay one day.
Now, I am off to the other Church camp that was moved from last week, and then 10 days with the local scout camp, which I have been helping to plan. After that we will see, there are a couple of things in the works, with a short trip to my old host family to help dig up potatoes... and then school begins!
Speaking of school, and scouts, and things...if anyone is dying to send me a care package, here is a short list of things that would be really cool:
the Wizard of Oz DVD
The Seattle Fish Company "Fish Philosophy" video
some frisbees, official ultimate regulation size
Fantasia DVD, original or 2000
Pez
Abbott and Costello's "Who's on first" (preferably a script)
the Macarena
Litmus Paper
Whoopie Cushions (particularly but other gag gifts are good too)
Mad libs
Christmas and/or Traditional American Music (for beginning players of piano or other
instruments)
vegetable peelers (my favorite is when it has a horizontal blade; I believe Crate
and Barrel has a $2 swiss or swedish plastic one that is excellent)
Yes I actually have ideas for things to teach with all this stuff besides a few that would be gifts, prizes.
PS. Imagine that you are trying to teach a 55 year old woman, that you don't really understand regardless of which language you use, how to swim... Now imagine that the pool is about the size of 3 lanes and has about 10 people in it, none of which really swim well but all are making plenty of waves, especially the heavy set man at the end who keeps jumping up and down for no apparent reason... Oh, and your student doesn't want to put her head in the water... that was my morning.
VERY IMPORTANT
My wonderful sister sent me a really neat gift from Australia, and amazingly it arrived, because unfortunately when she read the cyrillic address that I sent her it was in french and assorted other letters. If you have received an address that looks like jibberish, it probably is. Ukrainian has no accents, accept for an i with two dots and there are none of those in my address. My name should look like a delta, then an asterick, then an o and then an uppercase H and my last name should look like an E on its back, a lowercase i and then a boxed U with a tail to the right. Hopefully like this джон шіц.
The English address will work, I am certain now, or I wouldn't have my lovely kangaroo from Australia.
My week at Church Camp
So I figure that my constant comments on the relative chronology of my posts is probably unnecessary for those of you that read regularly, and confusing for those of you that don't, so from now on, come as they may, suffice it to say that the date on the post is not accurate.
This last week I was is a small village at what a long time ago was a resort, but now is kind of primitive. I was there for a church camp for youth, and I had gone to help, but ended up just participating. It was very interesting, and very Ukrainian. I had a lot of fun. I also realized that this was the first camp I ever did completely staffed by foreigners. I have worked camps in England and Italy been to countless others, but never completely alone AND completely foreign, though there have been many situations of one or the other.
The people that had invited me to the camp, didn't turn out to be there. In fact I knew no one, except one priest who I had met briefly and was very busy because he was the head of the camp.
I was assigned to a cabin that turned out to have 9 other young gentlemen in it, the oldest being 18, and I wasn't so impressed with the conditions. I felt like a teenager myself again, but everything got worked out and it turned out to be a nice bunch of guys. Though I found out later in the week that they had been drinking while I slept. I think they wanted me to drink with them, but drinking was against the rules. That isn't what stopped them from asking though. I was always asleep because I didn't account for how exhausting working in a foreign language all day would be. Not to mention that the camp was so involved that I would have been tired normally. Oh, and there was only one key for all 10 of us. This was the same situation in many of the cabins, until we discovered that there were only like 2 different keys and used someone elses to open our house instead of waiting for the keyholder to show up.
There were no showers, period. The only running water was in latrine type sinks about 25 feet from the squat toilets. I do have to say that these were the cleanest Soviet Style toilets that I've ever seen (that declined as the week went on though.) This water source was the same water that some people attempted to bath in, water was taken for cooking, and dishes were brought to be washed.
The food was ok. Certainly nothing to write home about (which is what I am doing :-). The only vegetables were occasional cucumber spears, some shaved carrots for flavor in varrying sauces and LOTS of cabbage salad. The real problem was there wasn't enough. Portions were small, and one meal they actually ran out. The kids were always saying they were still hungry. There was a "mailbox" where you could drop notes to be read at the mail calls at meals (we had secret friends, like secret santas) and more than once a poem to a friend ended with a line about "how little soup was in the bowl. Also interesting was that we usually ate breakfast around 11 or 12 (after 2 hours of church services, and they don't believe in sitting in church, there are no pews), then lunch at 4 and dinner around 9.
In between meals though, there were many interesting activities. Some church based, and some definitely not. One night we had relay races complete with jump ropes and potato sacks in the dark, and another afternoon they played this game with paired girls and boys where they dared each other to take clothes off. Of course there is more to that game, but no amount of explaining could justify it.
Another evening we had a confession service. It was a bit different from a Catholic one. By the way, these are Greek Catholics I was with which means, the services are in Ukrainian and Old Slavonic, they follow Orthodox customs and so can marry, but they are acknowledged the Pope in Rome. At the service, everyone ends up shaking everyone's hands and saying "Forgive me Brother/Sister" to which the reply is "God forgives you and I forgive you." They do this while kissing each others shoulders 3 times. There is no exchange of Peace in services so this is the only collective interaction I have seen so far. I couldn't manage the response in Ukrainian so I would say it in English. At the same time people go into another room for confession, and I wanted to so I asked some new friends about the protocol and if they thought I could say my sins in English and off I went. The priest felt differently than my friends (he had come up to the camp for just this event this night and didn't know me) and he said that I could only confess in Ukrainian or he couldn't forgive me. So we settled with him listing off sins (his idea) and I saying Tak or Nee (Yes or no). It was a bit odd.
Another night was Ivana Kuppola, which is the day for John the Baptist. I think it replaced a pagan holiday here. It is on a different day than the Roman Catholic calandar. It is a neat event thought. Girls weave intricate head-wreaths of assorted wild flowers. Nowadays everyone wears them, but before they were only for girls who then threw them into a pond. The boys were standing on the other side and would try to retrieve a particular one. The wreaths are all distinctive because there are so many wild flowers and so many combinations. Nowadays, they also light a candle and put it into the wreath and set it out to float. I got some great pictures.
Everyone wished me a happy saints day, but then we discovered that if I was Ukrainian I would most likely be name Dmitro, because my birthday is on a very big holiday to Saint Dmitro and all the male children born that day have that name. When I told people that I was the 4th John, some debate ensued on which name would have been chosen.
One night, while we were off at the waterfall putting on skits, there were burglaries into all the rooms. There was another group of youth of a bit lesser repute staying there that night. The two crazy things are, 1)although the thing with the keys, they seemed to have pushed a small person through the small, upper window that doesn't lock (even though you can't keep them open because of the breeze thing) and 2) They went through all my stuff but didn't take my cell phone or camera. I am not sure they found the cell phone, it looked like they were in a hurry from the way things were tossed around (they did hit like 6 cabins), and I don't think they recognized my big 35 millimeter that was in the camera case in my backpack.
So everything really went very well, though I was definitely tired when I got home. I made a buch of new friends and I think I am going to go to another Church camp next week.
Random Thoughts III
I had my second "real Peace Corps experience" the other day. I was getting ready to go to school, and my host mom was in the kitchen and the neighbor from downstairs knocked on the door. I hadn't seen him before, and he was in a dress shirt and a bit flustered with two ties in his hands. My host dad wasn't home yet (he works nights) and my host mom wasn't having too much luck when I came into the kitchen; so I offered. Luckily he just wanted them tied, not an explanation how to (try that in a foreign language, or your own for that matter). And off he went, and I haven't seen him again, but I felt like my "expertise" helped someone out of a stressful situation that day. Sometimes, the things that feel like the greatest successes here are very small things.
I just came back from a conference in Cherkasi, which again was a very well put together training by Peace Corps, and we got to meet volunteers that are working on other projects and from previous groups. I got to know one that graduated from Strathhaven in 1999 (the highschool my brother and sister graduated from outside of Philadelphia). He plays rugby too. Small world, huh?
Gas and water utilities are charged by the person instead of the amount consumed, and the water isn't even on in the middle of the day or night, AND hot water comes from the city but only on Mondays and Thursdays (if you're lucky). This results in people constantly filling tubs with water and just letting it run sometimes. The same thing for gas. I try to encourage them to turn off the stove when they aren't using it, but I often still find an open flame waiting for someone that might feel like eating in the next 20 minutes. I really don't know if it is the disregard for safety or conservation that amazes me more. I gave my family a smoke detector.
Quick Geography: Ukraine has 24 oblasts and one autonomous republic. The oblasts are a lot like counties, but instead of unincorporated land belonging to it, all the land is divided up into region territories with region capitals. Region capitals, of which my city is one, often have a surrounding collection of villages at varying distances (villages is often pronounced by Ukrainian English speakers with a slight "W" sound along with the "v" which I find really interesting considering that Ukrainian has a "v" sound but no sound anything like a "w") The villages are regarded almost like a cross between suburbs and the countryside. Saying someone is from the village is common but really carries a pretty poor conotation.
Now is the season of haystacks; I think they are the first I have seen, and they are really cool to see, especially swaying in the breeze, and even better to watch them being built.
A few more food comments: They steak all fish regardless of size or boniness. They usually prepare it very well, but sometimes it just doesn't seem worth it with the bones. They use mayonaise on EVERYTHING just about, lots of sour cream also, but it is generally better than ours I think (the sour cream is a bit different). They sell condiments in bags, with screw on caps. The bags are really ingenious and cut down on space in the refrigerator and trash.
The roads (in cities, on highways, mountain roads, or country roards) is FULL of horrible potholes. Constantly. They literally add hours to relative short journeys. The geography here is great for truck transport, but the roads are not. One day, the Ukrainians will realize this and build some highways... I hope.
Somedays I feel like I am doing so well with my language. Like when I first got to site, I conducted a whole question and answer session in Ukrainian at the sports camp. I spent other days with the kids and teachers, and not one speaks English, but then the other night, I was caught off guard when it was my turn to toast at a party. I didn't know most of the people and I didn't expect to be asked. Usually, I prepare something beforehand(I have some stock ones), but this time I fumbled through something old and some new. It wasn't good but it was passable. Later that night, the 4 year old toasted. He did an excellent job; it ran laps around my toast. We joke about speaking at the level of a 5 year old. I thought I had progressed maybe to 7 or 8 in the past month. Guess not. And ironically, his dad loves to get into philosophical conversations with me, which usually end in his frustration more so even than mine, and him telling me that he isn't a philosopher but I need to go home and study more. Trust me, I am NOT the one starting these conversations, for once.
My new host family is very open with guests. Their friends come and go (almost like a college dorm room); the family comes and goes regardless of whose friends (husband's, wive's, or daughter's) are over, and it is generally a fun envrironment, but then sometimes we eat as a family while other's watch (I think generally they have declined food, an option that really isn't open to me, ever, at least yet), and then I feel awkward.
Finally, Plato (or Socrates) has a quote on Youth. It runs something like the youth of today have no plans or aspirations, they are always partying and have no respect for their elders or something along those lines. Does anyone out there have it? Feel free to post it, I would be much obliged! Or any other good quotes on Youth. I want to use them in class.
Eurovision was a couple of weeks ago. Did anyone see it. It was quite interesting, cheesy even at times, but a lot of good songs. The country that won the year before always hosts, so this year it was in Kyiv (shame on you, if you didn't know Ruslana won last year :-). It was quite a big event for Kyiv, and they had lots of promotions and publicity to separate as much money from tourists as possible. I only saw the competitions on TV, but one day Kate and I were in town on the metro platform, and a young guy approached us as we got on the metro. His name was Alexander, he informed us, and he had heard us speaking English and wondered if we needed a tour guide for the day. I answered him in Ukrainian that we were studing Ukrainian and living outside of the city so that wasn't necessary. He asked where, and didn't believe us when we told him (at this point the conversation was completely in Ukrainian and afterwards I was quite proud for maintaining it on the noisy metro). He couldn't believe that Americans were living in such a small town, studying Ukrainian. Then we talked about Peace Corps a bit, and what he was studying, and although I think he found it interesting to talk to us, it was obvious that we weren't going to need any paid services, and he excused himself a couple of stops later. I hope he did find some business that day; I was impressed with his effort.
Easter
In this string of belated posts, this is the only one that is being written long after the events. This fact is truly unfortunate because although I am writing from notes, Easter is quite a special time here (not to mention 6 to 8 weeks after the American and Italian variety), and I wish I had captured my thoughts while they were fresh. Nevertheless, my memory is decent, and this entry is an epic...in length AND deed.
The events started Friday night, when we went over to grandma's and grandpa's and slaughtered the chicken. My host mom didn't want to watch because, the chickens scream sometimes. This one didn't, but it did squirt lots of blood. Grandpa stood on the wings so it couldn't run around without its head, but it tried. I was rather surprised with how easy it lost its head, and I thought back to stories of my great-grandma keeping a live turkey in the bathtub during the week leading up to Thanksgiving. When we cleaned the chicken, it had one whole egg and 6 developing ones, all at different stages. Those were carefully kept (though I don't know what for), the chicken was plucked and cleaned, all the fat was removed, and then we took it home for the next step...Holodets.
Saturday morning, on my way to our technical lesson, one of the stoop guardians was out, and he asked me if I had liked the disco (at least he said something about the disco). I said I hadn't gone. I hadn't gone out with the volunteers the night before because I was fasting for Easter, but I thought they had just gone to a bar. The disco is the only other thing to do at night, and it is full of the 14-16 year olds from our internship sites. The stoop guardian said something more about the others and the disco as I excused myself, and as I walked away, I thought, "maybe they had gone to the disco, but how would he know?" Then I realized that one of Kate's students was his grandson (a topic that had come to light at another point; in fact). I think 3 degrees of separation would be quite enough in Ukraine. They had told us we would be living in a fishbowl, but how interesting to get news about the others' evening pursuits just as if I had read it in a paper delievered to my doorstep!
At the technical session we discussed environmental law and practices in Ukraine (not a long topic), and then painted Pysanky, a type of painted egg. Egg painting holds great significance here; one can guess this fact from the importance of eggs in the diet, which if I haven't stated, is BIG! Barely a day goes by when I don't have one during at least one meal in some form (or many). There are different types of painted eggs - died, decorated, edible or wooden - but the most significant is the Pysanky; these eggs are hand painted with wax, died and then added to, and died again. The colors and patterns all hold special significances such as wealth, love, prosperity, Christ, and pagan ideas. They are very special to give as gifts. You can't eat these eggs (for religious reasons, all though these customs predate Christianity), and so the white and yolk are usually blown out of the shell (an interesting excercise for someone that has had countless hours of food handling instruction- actually I couldn't do it, salmonella fear got the best of me, but luckily the others were all to eager to oblige). Mine turned out nice, though I don't know if it will make it home. I am going to buy the tool we used to paint the wax. It is like a pen, and it is used over a candle flame. It takes quite the steady hand. When we finished that session, I headed home for the bulk of the Easter cooking.
Although it sounds like a holographic videogame or the room with the pool in a Holiday Inn, Holodets (холодець) is actually meat jello. I had heard a lot about this dish. It is a traditional dish and generally adults love it and kids don't. It used to be made by boiling down meat and bone for days until it was thickened, and then chilling it. Now people often add store bought jellatin for ease. But none the less, it is nothing more than clear jello with meat chunks. I had tried and liked many other Ukrainian dishes that volunteers often complain about, and so I wanted to see this one in process. I helped prepare it on Saturday (after the fresh chicken had boiled all night), and I thought it looked pretty good, not to forget that we were fasting. The really religious abstain from eating meat, milk and eggs for the full 6 weeks of Lent.
We went on to cook other things, the whole rest of the day - rolls with cabbage inside, pastries with cherries or poppyseeds, different salads, including "shuba" which literally means fur coat, and is herring under layers of grated, cooked vegetables. And everything with lots of mayoinase. Then we started with the potatoes, and I had had enough of the knife, so I got my peeler out of my room. I hadn't shown my family the peeler before, because I was the third volunteer they had hosted, and I figured someone else had shown them, and they would be using one if they had liked it. I had used it when we made borshcht in class, and my normally progressive teacher had thought it was no better than a knife. But low and behold this was a new toy, and my host mother was very intrigued, almost giddy, which is very unlike her. She couldn't believe how fast I peeled a pot of potatoes (being a bit out of practice, I wasn't so impressed with my speed), and the tool for removing potato eyes almost put her over the edge with glee. I thought at the time, "This is my first Peace Corps moment!" I had shown someone something that the individual freely chose to adopt instead of foisting something upon that person. For weeks after I would come in while she was peeling, at first slowly but with time faster; I was impressed with her determination. My family sells most of the potatoes they grow and keep only the small ones. Ever tried to peel a small potato? I was very happy to give it to her.
Then I got to play with HER nifty potatoe gadget, which she can use quite quickly but gave me a blister. Nevertheless, I want one; it cuts potatoes into french fries, you pick the size, and it is certainly much faster than a knife. It does take a sturdy counter though and some elbow room.
If you really want the whole picture, you need to imagine a space about 4 feet by 7 feet complete with table, counter, frig, stove, and sink, plus two people cooking. Literally. If someone is at the table, you can't get past them, and it is difficult for one person to be at the stove and one at the sink, or one at the sink and one at the counter. There aren't really very many possibilities. And add to this that men NEVER help cook. So once in a while one of them would poke their head in to marvel at the site, at which my host mom would comment to them on my surprising helpfulness. They would smile with the expression that I imagine people make when they watch a clever monkey perform at the fair, and then they would wander back to the TV room, usually after "tasting" something for which they were supposed to be fasting.
Because of the tightness of space, I knocked a pot (Castryula) of perishky on the floor at one point, and we picked them up while no one else was looking. I then told my host mom about when I knocked 12 fish filets in the water and faught the baby sharks (akula) for them (true story). She loves talking about sharks though she says she hates it. Ukrainians love to fish and inevitably sharks come up when I talk about fishing, probably because I know it is bound to get a great reaction. But anyway, we finished cooking and went to bed. Easter starts EARLY.
The really religious start the night before around 11pm. At 3:30 am we got up and were at the church by 4am with aunts and grandmas in tow. The service was finishing, and the whole town was assembling, all in a long line that wound round and round the church. In my town (20,000) there is only one church (the Communists weren't terribly fond of them), and it seemed like there was a representative from most families there that morning, all with baskets. Beautiful baskets, full of colorful eggs, homemade breads, meets, cheeses, wines, cookies and pastries, and the Easter bread with frosting. They all laid them out in a spiralling line where the priest can bless them and they all lit a candle. It was so beautiful. And the priests' procession was quite impressive complete with banners and singers, and a small broom for copiously bestowing holy water. Chris's page has a good picture but it doesn't do the whole image justice.
Easter Part II
All that took just about an hour, at which point we went home and back to sleep. Then at 8 am we were at the grandparents where we had a huge meal (what we would usually eat in the afternoon on Thanksgiving), along with plenty of drinking. All the toasts were to Christ, and we had finished our drinking by 9:30am. During the meal, it was like "feed the American this, feed him that, does he like that?" I became quite a side show, and the grands still insist on talking at an unusually high volume to me. My host mom tells them all the time that I am not deaf. We had a big conversation about pineapples and bananas, and how they grow, and where are their seeds. And the Holodets you ask? Well it was quite dramatic. I have learned that whatever I say will (1) be remembered and (2) be applied to similar situations in the future; so you certainly don't want to say you like something you don't unless you can stomach it for breakfast the next morning (try cold fish with bones at 4:30 before a train departure; and I DID like that dish). But then again to say you don't like something is pretty insulting. Usually I eat everything, so they leave me alone and don't pay too much attention, but for the holodets all conversations stopped. My host mom fixed the plate complete with a heavy hand of beat/horseradish spread for which I know I don't particularly care, and then waited... and with the first bite my thoughts ran like this, "well, it really isn't that great, not really bad or good, but I don't want more"...so I said I didn't REALLY like it (or I REALLY didn't like it if I got the translation wrong), but that it wasn't bad.
I didn't get a very approving look, and now when people ask if I like holodets, and I tell them my opinion, they insist that they will fix me some that I will like. I have tried it again, and it is just kind of there. I certainly don't want to take it away from someone that loves it as much as they do; kind of like that bit of food left on your plate at the end of a meal while growing up, that your parents say 'children in China are starving for' and you think "Well then they can have it. I certainly don't mind."
Anyway, we relaxed the rest of the day. The weather and the spring flowers were beautiful. At one point I was resting on the one outside bench. From camp, I really like sleeping on benches outside when the weather is nice. My host mom came outside and was a little bit surprised, half comically, half horrified. She said I had to get up. I didn't understand why, and with some effort I understood that this particular bench is where they lay out the dead, much the way that I had been. So I had to move to a rather decrepit park bench and she still wouldn't let me lie down. So we sat and talked and then grandma got a call, and went back into the house. Now grandma is a sweet little old lady that has had on the same colorful old robe with holy stockings and worn sandals everytime I have seen her except at church when she had on a big coat. Well she came out of the house in a smart little skirt suit with her doctor's bag. She had been a pediatrician (doctors in Soviet time were typically women and not well paid), and was off to help a sick infant. I was quite impressed. It is funny to see people you know in only one way in a different way of life that is very normal for them but novel for you.
So the rest of the day we just laid around and then headed home. Later that evening, I went for a long walk, and on the way back, there was a pair of people talking and gesturing on the street. The rest of the street was very empty and so I usually steer clear of these situations by either inconspiculously changing directions or crossing the street. The people parted ways and the gentleman started crossing the street towards me, so a couple of strides later I also started crossing the street toward the side where he had been, at this point he changed directions, and headed right for me and said something about he was crossing the street to talk to me. I acknowledged casually and kept walking, he kept up pace, then asked if I was headed towards home. It quickly became clear that he knew who I was and roughly where I lived. He seemed harmless and we started talking, but he talked quick. I learned that his name was Vasil and he taught at the music school where he was headed for a concert. He wanted to come and first to show me his office. Long story, not so short, the concert was very nice and he really wants traditional beginner music from America. So if anyone has anything, that you would like to send this way, I would be very appreciative.
And then, you guessed it, it was leftovers for breakfast the next morning, and actually for several subsequent meals. I am glad that they didn't make me eat any more holodets. That day we went to the graveyard to clean up the family plots. This is what EVERYONE does, and it was a beautiful day to do it. I had a video of everyone weeding, scraping, painting and polishing, but unfortunately it was lost.
They clean everything up because the next Sunday is the day of the dead, when they bring Easter baskets to the graveyard. They leave piles of colorful eggs, and cookies, meat, cheese, Easter bread, and even wine on the graves and then have a small meal themselves, with the three toasts. I think they generally spend the whole day there, but the weather wasn't as good, so we made a quick stop by my host mom's infant brother's grave, then by both sets of her grandparents, ate in the rain and skipped great granpa's grave which we had cleaned in a neighboring and much older graveyard. Both the sunny day of work, and the rainy day of celebrations were very interesting. They were full of emotion, duty and I found them equally awesome in different ways.
And that ends the marathon that was Easter Tradition. The next week was Victory day (the previous post).
