December 27, 2007
Another Christmas passes and a new year grows close. I like this time of year, it makes me stop and think about my life; what’s different from the year before, what may be different a year from now, and am I happy with what is going on in my life. And while every day has its ups and downs, its struggles to understand a babushka (grandmother) talking to you in the street, or figuring out which marshutka (big bus-taxi thing) stop to get off on, or simply which class-room you are supposed to be in, I can honestly say that I am happy with where things are going.
Christmas is a hard time to be away from everything normal to you, everything comfortable, especially since Christmas is the one time when almost all our family is able to get together and see each other. This was the first Christmas I have been away from my family, and while I was sad to be away, its hard to be sad when your students are struggling through Jingle-Bells or Frosty the Snowman. My students all wished me a Merry Christmas (once they realized that Christmas happens in America on December 25th) and Christmas Eve I went to the opening of the Christmas tree in my settlement. It is about 20 feet tall and on a pedestal so it spins, and they had Father Frost and his scantily-clad helper. I was lucky enough to get calls from my family in Minnesota, as well as my host-family in Rokytne and my friend Joanna. It made it much easier to be away from home.
I have been able to ‘teach’ a lot since I have arrived in Lugansk. I say ‘teach’ cause mostly I just teach my students the lyrics to Christmas songs and make them sing or answer their questions about me, but it’s a good way to get to know them, so that’s nice. Yesterday I went into downtown Lugansk to meet the other peace corps volunteer who lives here, Brian. He is doing business development but is right now looking for a new group to work with. So we went to a cultural college to meet with the teachers and students, and we gave them an hour class on American Christmas and I read “the night before Christmas.” It is very interesting to hear what Ukrainians think of our traditions and to hear about theirs.
Today was the last day of classes at my school, and the students put on a wonderful concert/skits for the rest of the students and the teachers. The students love to sing and dance, it is very cool.
I think that is all I have for now, great to hear from all of. Love,
Seth
Monday, December 31, 2007
Saturday, December 22, 2007
December 21, 2007
So here I am, sitting in front of the tv watching some football game, thinking about what Lugansk is going to be like for the next two years, and wondering why it is pitch black (I MEAN DARK) at 4:30 in the afternoon. I guess it is the shortest day of the year, but still, there isn’t even any real snow on the ground.
A lot has happened over the past week, and time certainly went by fast. Last Monday all of the volunteers packed up their things (I had 4 bags filled with cloths and books) and headed to Kyiv for our training closing ceremony. There was a tearful good-bye with our host families in Rokytne. It was very sad to leave the families that had taken such good care of us over the past two months. While my Russian definitely isn’t perfect, my host family was so helpful in me practicing everyday. Monday night we had a re-camp of all of our community projects we conducted in our cities, and had a talent show. It was wonderful listening to groups sing Ukrainian songs and dance. Tuesday morning we were in more meetings and met our counter parts (the teachers we will be working closely with in our new sights). Tuesday was a very long day, and it was nice to relax a little at night with all of the other volunteers, especially since it was the last night that all of us will be together again for almost two years!! We have already had some people leave from the Peace Corps, and maybe more will by the time we are done.
Wednesday morning we all headed out to the Teacher’s House in Kyiv. This was a very large building where the Ukrainian parliament once used to meet. We were there for our closing ceremony, where are sworn in as official Peace Corps Volunteers. The American Ambassador to the Peace Corps was there to swear us in, and it was very neat to all be together, and my host-mother was able to come and watch this special time. After the ceremony there was a short reception and then a buffet dinner back at the ‘resort’ we were staying at. Some volunteers had to leave for their sites that night, but my train didn’t leave till 9 Thursday night, so I had a lot of time to say good-bye to all of my friends and sleep. (training is extremely tiring) So last night along with my counterpart and a couple other volunteers who will be within an hour or two of Lugansk bordered a train, and were here by 11am this morning.
I will try to write more about all of this soon, but I am tired and still have a lot of unpacking to do. Hope you al have a merry Christmas and I wish I could be there to celebrate with you.
Love,
Seth
So here I am, sitting in front of the tv watching some football game, thinking about what Lugansk is going to be like for the next two years, and wondering why it is pitch black (I MEAN DARK) at 4:30 in the afternoon. I guess it is the shortest day of the year, but still, there isn’t even any real snow on the ground.
A lot has happened over the past week, and time certainly went by fast. Last Monday all of the volunteers packed up their things (I had 4 bags filled with cloths and books) and headed to Kyiv for our training closing ceremony. There was a tearful good-bye with our host families in Rokytne. It was very sad to leave the families that had taken such good care of us over the past two months. While my Russian definitely isn’t perfect, my host family was so helpful in me practicing everyday. Monday night we had a re-camp of all of our community projects we conducted in our cities, and had a talent show. It was wonderful listening to groups sing Ukrainian songs and dance. Tuesday morning we were in more meetings and met our counter parts (the teachers we will be working closely with in our new sights). Tuesday was a very long day, and it was nice to relax a little at night with all of the other volunteers, especially since it was the last night that all of us will be together again for almost two years!! We have already had some people leave from the Peace Corps, and maybe more will by the time we are done.
Wednesday morning we all headed out to the Teacher’s House in Kyiv. This was a very large building where the Ukrainian parliament once used to meet. We were there for our closing ceremony, where are sworn in as official Peace Corps Volunteers. The American Ambassador to the Peace Corps was there to swear us in, and it was very neat to all be together, and my host-mother was able to come and watch this special time. After the ceremony there was a short reception and then a buffet dinner back at the ‘resort’ we were staying at. Some volunteers had to leave for their sites that night, but my train didn’t leave till 9 Thursday night, so I had a lot of time to say good-bye to all of my friends and sleep. (training is extremely tiring) So last night along with my counterpart and a couple other volunteers who will be within an hour or two of Lugansk bordered a train, and were here by 11am this morning.
I will try to write more about all of this soon, but I am tired and still have a lot of unpacking to do. Hope you al have a merry Christmas and I wish I could be there to celebrate with you.
Love,
Seth
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Finall, It works
I remember the times when I used to get upset when the internet would take 10 seconds to load a page. Oh, for those days!! I wrote about 2 pages on my blog, and then the internet decided not to work, so now I am at home writing, and going to use my flashdrive to transfer it onto the internet tomorrow. Anyways, what I was originally writing (or as close as I can remember) Also, sorry this is so long, you can read as much as you would like.
You think you get into a groove here in Ukraine; wake up, eat breakfast, go teach, go to Russian class, come back home, eat, study, go to sleep. Much the same on the weekends with an occasional movie thrown in; and then something is thrown at you which completely throws you off. This weekend was pretty much that. I came home Friday night after a very long day of classes, cross-cultural sessions, etc. I walked into my house and the first thing my host-mother (Tanya) asked is if I wanted to go to a birthday part for her god-daughter, who was turning 2. I asked the usual questions; when, were, who, how long. I am very wary of these encounters because it usually ends up being a bunch of guys trying to get me to drink vodka, or people talking in extremely fast Russian (actually, usually not even in Russian, but Ukrainian or Sergik, a mix of both) and me understanding about 10 percent of whats going on. Anyways, so off I went. We got there at about 6:40 and already the table was packed (I mean packed, no room left on the talbe) with food and vodka. Right off the bat I explained that I only drank beer, and only brought one bottle, which was good cause every time I filled up my glass they would tell everyone to chug their glass. So we ate and talked (people talked at me, I would say STO, what? To my host mother, she would translate in Russian, Spanish and English) for 2 hours, then the dancing began. It was an eclectic mix of music, ranging from new Russian and Ukrainian rap to popular American music from the mid 1990s. They certainly do like their dancing here. After pretty much most people were fairly intoxicated, (I would like to point out that I was by far the youngest person there) the kissing began. They have an interesting tradition here (which I think I explained from the wedding) where one person dances around with a scarf, and when they point at someone from the ring of dancers they come over and kneel on the scarf and kiss (at the wedding I was able to get away with just a kiss on the cheek, I was not so lucky here) let me tell you it’s a little new for me to try to not have a married woman basically make out with me… not that it’s a bad tradition, just not quite used to it yet. So I tried to leave at least 3 times but they kept blocking the door, I finally got out at about 11:30, so much for my two hour stay. It was a very interesting Friday night. But the story does not end here.
The previous Tuesday at about 9pm the doorbell rang and in came our next door neighbor and her 18 year old daughter. I am also wary of these meetings because I never really know what the intentions of anyone involved are, and I am not looking to get married to a Ukrainian girl. So I talked to the girl and her mother for a while, and the subject of café’s and bars, and whether I liked them came up. About 10 minutes later I realized that I had agreed to go a bar with this girl and her friend the following Saturday. I invited my friend Zahar (another peace corps volunteer from California) to come, to back me up, and even more importantly, he speaks much better Russian then I do. So he came over at 7 on Saturday and we had a couple beers before the girls were supposed to show up at 8. So 9pm rolled around, and since my host mother was out of town for the night and my host father was asleep, we decided that they weren’t coming so Zahar and I decided to venture into downtown Rokyte alone and see what was up. We stopped at 3 different bars throughout the night, and each one we got the same reaction. Everyone pretty much stopped talking, and the looks on their faces were “who are these out of towners?” we got a bunch of stares as we were talking (I think quietly) in English and drinking our beer. We wanted to check out the discothèque and see what was up there, but when we opened the door and went oh… these are all our 9th, 10th and 11th graders, we quickly got out of there. Came home at 11 and went to sleep. (sorry, story still not over yet)
The next morning I was watching a movie in bed, still wearing my sweatpants, and I heard a knock on the door, but since my home mother was back home by that point I didn’t feel like getting up, but about 2 minutes later Tanya said Olya (my neighbor) was here and wanted to say hi. So she came in and just started talking in Russian/Ukrainian. What I understood of the conversation was that her bus from Kyiv (where she works) hadn’t showed up and she hadn’t gotten till 10:30pm Saturday night and had gone to my house but my host dad said I was asleep (I was still out walking around). Anyways, she asked if I wanted to try meeting again that night, and again, unbeknownst to me, I said yes. So Sunday night at about 7 I ended up going to a café and having ice cream with this girl. She speaks very little English (actually knows a lot, but is to embarrassed to speak it, like pretty much everyone else here) so I used my very faulty Russian to communicate for about an hour, after which we walked back home. It was interesting to talk with a native-speaker that doesn’t speak English. You have to be very inventive in your language. So my first ‘date’ in Ukraine was a success. I am going to learn this language purely so I stop getting into these situations.
I have less then a week in Rokytne, after which I head to Kyiv and have my Peace Corps swearing in on December 19th. My host mother and counterpart from my new school in Lugansk will be there, as well as the head of Peace Corps in Ukraine and American Ambassador to Ukraine. Should be cool. I will arrive in Lugansk on Dec. 21st. Hope to hear from you all soon, and if I don’t talk to you before then, MERRY CHRISTMAS. Miss you all,
With love,
Seth
p.s. i have my language practicum today, wish me luck!
You think you get into a groove here in Ukraine; wake up, eat breakfast, go teach, go to Russian class, come back home, eat, study, go to sleep. Much the same on the weekends with an occasional movie thrown in; and then something is thrown at you which completely throws you off. This weekend was pretty much that. I came home Friday night after a very long day of classes, cross-cultural sessions, etc. I walked into my house and the first thing my host-mother (Tanya) asked is if I wanted to go to a birthday part for her god-daughter, who was turning 2. I asked the usual questions; when, were, who, how long. I am very wary of these encounters because it usually ends up being a bunch of guys trying to get me to drink vodka, or people talking in extremely fast Russian (actually, usually not even in Russian, but Ukrainian or Sergik, a mix of both) and me understanding about 10 percent of whats going on. Anyways, so off I went. We got there at about 6:40 and already the table was packed (I mean packed, no room left on the talbe) with food and vodka. Right off the bat I explained that I only drank beer, and only brought one bottle, which was good cause every time I filled up my glass they would tell everyone to chug their glass. So we ate and talked (people talked at me, I would say STO, what? To my host mother, she would translate in Russian, Spanish and English) for 2 hours, then the dancing began. It was an eclectic mix of music, ranging from new Russian and Ukrainian rap to popular American music from the mid 1990s. They certainly do like their dancing here. After pretty much most people were fairly intoxicated, (I would like to point out that I was by far the youngest person there) the kissing began. They have an interesting tradition here (which I think I explained from the wedding) where one person dances around with a scarf, and when they point at someone from the ring of dancers they come over and kneel on the scarf and kiss (at the wedding I was able to get away with just a kiss on the cheek, I was not so lucky here) let me tell you it’s a little new for me to try to not have a married woman basically make out with me… not that it’s a bad tradition, just not quite used to it yet. So I tried to leave at least 3 times but they kept blocking the door, I finally got out at about 11:30, so much for my two hour stay. It was a very interesting Friday night. But the story does not end here.
The previous Tuesday at about 9pm the doorbell rang and in came our next door neighbor and her 18 year old daughter. I am also wary of these meetings because I never really know what the intentions of anyone involved are, and I am not looking to get married to a Ukrainian girl. So I talked to the girl and her mother for a while, and the subject of café’s and bars, and whether I liked them came up. About 10 minutes later I realized that I had agreed to go a bar with this girl and her friend the following Saturday. I invited my friend Zahar (another peace corps volunteer from California) to come, to back me up, and even more importantly, he speaks much better Russian then I do. So he came over at 7 on Saturday and we had a couple beers before the girls were supposed to show up at 8. So 9pm rolled around, and since my host mother was out of town for the night and my host father was asleep, we decided that they weren’t coming so Zahar and I decided to venture into downtown Rokyte alone and see what was up. We stopped at 3 different bars throughout the night, and each one we got the same reaction. Everyone pretty much stopped talking, and the looks on their faces were “who are these out of towners?” we got a bunch of stares as we were talking (I think quietly) in English and drinking our beer. We wanted to check out the discothèque and see what was up there, but when we opened the door and went oh… these are all our 9th, 10th and 11th graders, we quickly got out of there. Came home at 11 and went to sleep. (sorry, story still not over yet)
The next morning I was watching a movie in bed, still wearing my sweatpants, and I heard a knock on the door, but since my home mother was back home by that point I didn’t feel like getting up, but about 2 minutes later Tanya said Olya (my neighbor) was here and wanted to say hi. So she came in and just started talking in Russian/Ukrainian. What I understood of the conversation was that her bus from Kyiv (where she works) hadn’t showed up and she hadn’t gotten till 10:30pm Saturday night and had gone to my house but my host dad said I was asleep (I was still out walking around). Anyways, she asked if I wanted to try meeting again that night, and again, unbeknownst to me, I said yes. So Sunday night at about 7 I ended up going to a café and having ice cream with this girl. She speaks very little English (actually knows a lot, but is to embarrassed to speak it, like pretty much everyone else here) so I used my very faulty Russian to communicate for about an hour, after which we walked back home. It was interesting to talk with a native-speaker that doesn’t speak English. You have to be very inventive in your language. So my first ‘date’ in Ukraine was a success. I am going to learn this language purely so I stop getting into these situations.
I have less then a week in Rokytne, after which I head to Kyiv and have my Peace Corps swearing in on December 19th. My host mother and counterpart from my new school in Lugansk will be there, as well as the head of Peace Corps in Ukraine and American Ambassador to Ukraine. Should be cool. I will arrive in Lugansk on Dec. 21st. Hope to hear from you all soon, and if I don’t talk to you before then, MERRY CHRISTMAS. Miss you all,
With love,
Seth
p.s. i have my language practicum today, wish me luck!
Monday, December 3, 2007
a short one
Just wanted to say a quick hello. Heard that minnesota is getting pounded by a storm. I'm jealous. We have gotten a few inches here and there, but its not the same when it immidiately melts the next day. Training is winding down here. Only have 2 weeks left till i got to Kyiv to be sworn in as an actual Peace Corps Volunteer. Very tiring doing everything, but things are good overall. ALways great to hear from all of you. Take care,
WIth Love,
Seth
WIth Love,
Seth
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