Ooovaha (Attention) Senorita!

When opening olives remember to tuck your thumb, otherwise make sure your Peace Corps med. kit is near by.

Howdy, howdy all. Nothing too exciting going on here in Kivertsi this Sunday morning. The weather is a little overcast, but the sun peaks through enough to help dry clothes that are out on my balcony. This week was a little bit of a joke when it came to teaching. We had no school on Monday, because of Victory Day. There were parades and celebrations in pretty much every town and city in Ukraine. I sat on my balcony while old men with canes proudly made their way to the park where with the World War II monument. I took the day to get stuff done around my place. Throughout the day, I could hear the music coming from the park all morning and early afternoon.

The rest of the week at school wasn’t the typical routine for me. My counterpart is a little stressed with the upcoming exams at the end of the school year. Every student from 5th to 11th will take these so for many classes this week she preferred to teach what would normally be my classes and sent me home to rest. The students’ attention these days is even harder than normal to get so I didn’t put up the fight and happily went home after short days of teaching.


The crew of Peace Corps volunteers who worked the last W.E.L.L. in V.Volynski.

Without lessons at my school on Wednesday, I went into Melissa’s University in Lutsk. I was a guest speaker and had a power presentation about all things American. I talked about popular spectator and recreational sports. One of the things that the students found most interesting was when I was explained why my beloved Chicago Cubs haven’t won a World Series in forever. They found the Billy Goat Curse super entertaining and interesting. Also during this same presentation I had a section on slang; words such as dude, whatever, nuts, crap. One of the words was buddy. I was got on a tangent with the word and eventually introduced the term butt buddy. Melissa watched in horror from the back row. All my life, I had used this term with one and only one meaning that being best friends. Post presentation, I learned that it has an alternative meaning. I wonder how many other things from my childhood I miss interpreted and wrongly use.

After speaking at the University, Melissa and I headed back to Kivertsi. She had never eaten at the famous Pizzeria in town (1 of 3 restaurants). Val met up with us to make us quite the American trio. We bummed into our favorite post office girls, Ira (21) and Katya (23). They both are super nice to me and normally if I’m Katya’s only customer she will chat me up for 10 minutes. We communicate with her broke English and my horrible Ukrainian. I think we both thoroughly enjoy watching the other one try to speak our non-native language. Anywho, they came in so we made it a party of girls by seating all at one table. They asked the typical questions to Melissa: how old are you, do you have a husband, do you like Ukraine, when is your birthday, etc. It was a nice dinner after a long day.


Dancing Sun Cows...interesting group name. More exciting than Green Bananas (my group).

Thursday after school, I had Friends/ (now) UNO club at my place. This week it was only three girls. Two of my 11th form students from last year and one second year university students that went to Val’s school (pre-Val). We sat around playing UNO and talking about the most random of things. They found it very interesting to learn that American university students get to pick which classes they have. At their university, once you pick your major then automatically you are assigned a group and schedule. I told them how at large universities you can find the most interesting class topics. We also talked about birthdays. I made the statement that I find it so crazy that all you have to do is say your birthday once and Ukrainians remember it forever. Not one second after I said this did Louda respond with “Your birthday is September 5th, right?” Insane!!! I’m pretty good with birthdays, but only because I write them down. Ukrainians seem to have some magical place in their brain not to forget family and friends birthdays.

After English club, I hurried to the Pizzeria for dinner number two of the week to meet up with my friend Tanya. I haven’t seen her too often lately, because she is busy at the hospital in Lutsk doing different medical intern rotations. After this summer, she will be an official doctor. If I’m right she is a year and half older than I am and is very excited to be so close to finishing her internship. We had a fun dinner of catching up and hopefully today she will meet me at the marshuka stop. I’m headed into Lutsk for community English club at the library.


TB Buddies: Non-Alcoholic Beer or Chocolate?

Friday at school was yet another short teaching day as I was done by 11. I went home read a little and eventually went for a long walk. As I made it around Val’s side of town I called her to see what she was up to. She said Ben was coming to town and invited me to join them at the Pizzeria. I said yes, so it was three dinners in a row. Instead of pizza, I opted for my favorite red borscht. We sat and enjoyed each other’s company while other volunteers (younger PCVs- group 39 & 40) made their way to Kivertsi. Ben had his computer with him so passed some of the time by showing us Britney Spears’ latest video. His love for Britney is so great (because she IS the hottest woman alive says Ben) he paused the video in two spots. Can you guess what they paused shots featured? Britney’s butt and flirtatious grin. At least, he did zoom in on her boobs. Oh, how Ben keeps things lively.

In this post, I included some photos of the W.E.L.L. seminar that was held last week in Voldymyr Volynski. It was the last of many and a pretty good time at that. Aidan’s school was so appreciative for us putting it on that they allowed us volunteers to use a couple of rooms in their dormitory so we wouldn’t have to crash in sleeping bags on the floor. It was a lot of fun to work with new volunteers that I hadn’t met before as well as hang with us oldies from group 37. Here in a few weeks, group 36 will finish their service and 37ers will be the official old farts. Oh, how time has gone by fast. Some days I feel like I just got here and others when cramming on to an already full marshuka seems so normal. Sort of sad to think only half a year left, it is going to fly. Better keep my camera charged to capture as much of Ukraine as I can.


Cheers to 12 successful English Workshops being held in Western Ukraine. Props to Aidan, Travis, Allison, Shelby for organizing and countless volunteers who helped facilitate them.

The weather lately is fabulous. I believed the highest it has reached is mid 70s which feels like 80s after the long winter. Yesterday, I walked around town for the first time in shorts and a t-shirt. This morning while enjoying a bucket bath, I noticed I even got a little of a tan line around my wrist from sitting on my balcony yesterday reading. Spring is in the running for tying with Fall as my favorite season. I appreciate sunny weather after the ever so dark Ukrainian days of the last two winters. My free time is so much better spent on a sunny balcony with a book instead of inside under many blankets watching god knows what TV series all, because I’m so cold I don’t even want to hold a book.

Well that is about all for today. I need to get a few things done before heading into Lutsk. After English Club, I’m headed to the internet café to skype with Bre. I love to catch up with my college bestie. I’ll bring Kleenex, because I’m sure I’ll be cracking up to the point of tears hearing her crazy adventures. Then after I need to swing by the train station to buy a ticket to Kiev and back. I’m going into the office to pick up more TB meds. I’m 1/3 finished with it. Can’t wait until November 7th when I’m done forever. Then since I’ll be in the office, I’m going to take advantage of having a good connection to the internet and a printer to work on graduate school information before heading back to Kivertsi on the returning night train. I love driving in American, but sometimes I wish the states had a railway schedule as efficient and cheap as Ukraine.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend. Miss and love you all. Go Bulls and Cubbies!

Kate



Cold dark Ukrainian winters have made me appreciate the colors of spring.