Perpetual Change

Too Much Fun

So spring has come.  It is amazing to me how fast we can go from substantial snow on the ground to light sweaters and sunny days- a week actually.  And now it is time to start planting. But two weeks ago, when it was a bit wetter than I would have liked, was spring break.  As everyone talked of their plans, and how relaxing it would be, I wasn't so sure.  Looking ahead to my week, I was pretty sure that I would need a vacation when the holiday was done.  And in fact I did, but I took the next week kind of easy (for me, at least).  I had to take the next week easy, because I had had too much fun and I wasn't really ready to start teaching again.  But, thank goodness, I hadn�t been sick at all.  Many people here are sick with the measles.  Does anyone in the USA get that anymore?

The first weekend, some other volunteers came to visit Kelly and me.  I have always had very funny adventures with Edwin and PJ, and this was no exception.  On Saturday, I took them to see a historic nearby town, known for all over the USSR for its medicinal waters.  The place is quite something to experience, and they wanted massages to boot.  Unfortunately, all the unusual water treatments were available but the cash register was not, so they had to settle for traditional massages; got to love the customer service here.  Then, we had a nice lunch and they headed back towards Lviv.

That night I went to a new pool to swim.  It was the usual zoo; about 30 people in 3 lanes, with no idea of what exactly the word lane means; I won�t go back to this one either.  I hope our outdoor one opens up soon.

Then I had a couple days to catch up before Wednesday when, at 6:30 in the morning, I had 8 students and 2 teachers arrive from Kharkiv - 31 hours away.  They write letters in English to my students about the differences in Eastern Ukraine.  In reality, other than language, there doesn't seem to be a big difference, but that is very far from the general pre-conception.

We had a fantastic 3 days where they saw my town, Lviv, the town with the waters, and the birthplace of Ivan Franko (a national poet).  They stayed with host families, and then I left with them on the night train for Kyiv.  It was exhausting, but one of my favorite projects so far (not hard for all you Fine Sheetz clients to imagine, huh?).  There were tears when they were leaving (from some of my more apathetic students).  I was touched.  We hope to visit them in the summer.

They were seeing Kyiv for the day before catching another night train home (bring back memories Sando?).  I wanted to tour with them, but I had yet another project brewing.  They called and texted throughout the day to keep me posted.  It was nice to get to know some of the students more personally.  In all of my previous experiences before Peace Corps, I have had a very personal relationship with my students and campers.  Here it has been more distant because of my role, and I do not really like it like this.

I was going to Kyiv because there is a new group of volunteers in trainng.  Two of which will be coming my way soon to sites I helped to develop.  I was their mentor for 3 days.  It was very exciting to be the experienced one in country, and even more fun because they live in such a small training town (2000 people) that everyone is so friendly and interested in us (more what I expected for my service, and definitely not what I have, my town is 70,000).  It was also fun because they get along well with their families, but are only in their 4th week of language training, so I could help them communicate a lot, and there was plenty the families wanted to say too.

However, they put me up with a new family, who it turned out was Moldovan and spoke NO Ukrainian at all, only Russian.  I did not do so well communicating there.  It was incredibly frustrating. I only understood about 30 %, which they did not seem to realize.  HOURS of talking, and hundreds of photos all the way back to 1937! It was almost like training all over again.  My heart goes out to all you volunteers in Surgic areas.  Surgic is a hybrid of Ukrainian and Russian, something like Spanglish, but rather unitelligble unless you know both languages fluently.

I did have lots of good adventures with the new trainees, and I see them again in a few weeks, but for now it is back to the grind at school.  I hope everyone's springs are as sunny as mine.

posted by jjs @ 9:40 AM