Week #2: Cold = Breaking Out My Sweat Pants

November 1st, 2009

Good bye October, Hello November. Well it is current sunny and 47 degrees here in my small town. Last night, I busted out my fat pants (sweat pants) as Sarah Perrone would call them. I’m listening to my awesome worship music on my computer while doing my morning chores. After I’m done, I’m hoping to take a walk around town to lessen the effect of my consumption of potatoes.

The way time passes here is a little strange. Days seem to go by so slow maybe because I’m staring at my watch the entire four hours of language but the weeks seem to fly by. I have been in country over two weeks now and it seems like I have just gotten here. I’ve seemed to establish a routine with my host babushka (grandmother). I take my breakfast at 7:30am before she leaves for work then I have an hour and half before I need to be at language class which means a small not even five minute walk over to my LCF’s house. Each day consists of 4 hours of language and I also have 1 hour of individual tutor time as well. Build in an hour for lunch and I often don’t return home until after dark which means 6ish here.

This past week our school that we are interning at was closed for a week holiday break. Monday classes were supposed to resume and I was scheduled to teach 5th form English on Thursday as well as observe other cluster mates and Ukrainian teachers throughout the week. This Friday while hanging out with my cluster after lang. we were called and notified that our teaching would be suspended for the next three weeks because of a flu outbreak. As a precaution, we are not allowed to travel outside our community which means no urban life but more unfortunately no internet. Peace Corps doesn’t play around with safety and well being of us volunteers. I guess I understand their logic but at the same time there isn’t much to do around in my small town on the weekends. Looks like I’ll have the ability to get some more studying Ukrainian in this weekend.

I’m a little tiny bit more confident with the small fraction of Ukrainian that I know. Things like please, thank you, how are you, good morning, good night and such come quickly to my mind but I really need to expand beyond that. With great difficulty, I can read Ukraine. Normally, I butcher it but doing more than I could last week so I count that as a plus. Attempting to conjugate verbs and what not, seems impossible right now. I often speak out of tense but can get my idea of what I mean out there. My new LCF is great. She is a very patience and positive woman. I’ll be sad to see her leave in two weeks. PC does a rotation with our LCFs (3 weeks switch 3 weeks switch then the final 4 weeks with our original LCF). I’m staying positive and trying to take in as much as I can.

Yesterday, was Halloween which is not a celebrated nor really recognized holiday here in Ukraine, but us Americans refused to let it pass without our own mini celebration. With our technical training canceled yesterday since we can’t travel we had a first free Saturday. Allison and I took the free morning as a time to walk around town. We crossed the main road in town and walked a road until the edge of town then walked back on a different road that had abandoned buildings. I took some photos and we pretty much just enjoyed walking in the sunshine. After our late morning stroll, we headed back to Allison’s house. Her family is farmers. They sell milk, butter, and cheese. They also seem to have a sweet tooth which means there is always a bowl of cookies and candy. The mother fed us a delicious vegetable soup for lunch.

We then got the chance to help cook. I forgot the name of what we cooked but to me they were hot pocket like with mashed corn, carrots filling. After frying them, you lather them in oil and garlic and then toss them all around in a pot. They were amazing and Allison’s HM (host mom) made us eat way too many of them. Pretty much the afternoon consisted of all the women of the family cooking while the men were working outside for a little but them came in and watched TV while enjoying the product of our labor. I hopefully will get to put up a video clip or at less pictures of the whole experience.

Allison and I were also entertained by Vadim, the cutest but most rambunctious 18 month little boy. At one point, he would tap me with an empty bottle and then run into the other room. While he was in the other room, I hid behind the wall so he couldn’t see me when he entered the kitchen. I then jumped out to scare him a little but nothing serious. I success scared him to the point of some alligator tears and he immediately retreated to the living room for his grandpa. We all laughed but I felt bad for the little guy. But hey it was Halloween!

Eventually, Allison and I headed out to meet up with the other volunteers. We enjoyed too much candy and some wine at Laura’s house while watching “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” We all headed back to our respected houses. I got home at 8pm which seemed so late because it gets so dark here. I ate dinner with my family and read a little before going to bed.

Well my laundry is probably almost done. I am blessed with a family with a washing machine but there is no dryer which means I have to hang my close around my room to dry so if I want clean, dry pants for tomorrow I need to get on that. Hope everyone at home had a lovely Halloween. Miss you all.

Cross cultural learning moment: While at Allison’s I used the restroom. Then told her that my toilet paper didn’t flush for some reason. She gave me a look like I was insane followed by “Are you crazy you aren’t suppose to flush the TP.” For the past two weeks, I have been flushing instead of throwing away. ScHmIdT happens.