It's the little things

So, summer is more than half-way over, and I want to rewind back to October of 2007, 2 weeks after I arrived in Ukraine. One of the firs things Peace Corps Ukraine (and probably Peace Corps anywhere) tills trainees is that you will have your up days/weeks/months/ and your down days/weeks/months. What you hope is that your ups are for longer and more frequently than your downs.
After almost 10 months in a country, that while it has many similarities to America, is still very, very different, I look back on that big piece of knowledge. I can agree, you will have times that work and your language is going great, and times that your week pretty much stinks and you can’t understand a word someone is trying to tell you…
But isn’t that life in general? There will be ups, downs, backs, forwards, times you understand your work and the people around you, and times that things just don’t make any sense.
My point… today, today is an up day. Why? That’s a little harder to explain. The weekend started like many others. I went out to a nice sushi place with a new volunteer and his host sisters. Saturday was spent reading and ‘studying’ new words of the GRE. When plans with some American University teachers fell through, Brian (from Lugansk) Adam from a town near-by, and Jeffrey from the Crimea came over to just, hang out. And it was great. So I wake up on a lazy, and I mean lazy, Sunday morning. Rain is slowly making its way down under a dark grey sky. Adam has spent the night and I ask him, any plans, “nope, another great day in Ukraine.” So why have our Nesquick Chocolaty Pebbles (yes, they do have that here) and just watched some classic American tv dubbed over in Russian. 1pm rolls around. “you hungry” Adam asks. “Sure, lets get some Shaurma.” (excellent, greasy food) So we headed downtown, got our delicious meal, and then headed to the library where I putted around, briefly reading “The GRE for Dummies.” Got some movies and headed on home. About 5 pm the rain started coming down a little harder. Popped in the North Country, though it might remind me of home…
Excellent movie, kind of depressing. Realizing that it was going to be day of no productivity what-so-ever, I popped in Pocahontas right after… don’t ask. By that point it was 11ish, and I could hear the rain really coming down, and see brief flashes of lighting. “Sweet, a storm is coming in.” So I made a pot of tea, opened up my window in my kitchen, looked out over my big parking-lot across the street, and watched the best storm I’ve seen here roll in. A bold about every 30 seconds. Sipping on my Celestial Seasonings, felling the mist blow through my window, listening to the thunder rumble its way across my valley, I thought “this ain’t so bad” (and yes, these days I think in non-grammatical English.) Reading a recent Sam Cook article about a trip to the Quetico, it helped me realize something. We all need time to connect with ourselves, time to realize who we are as people and what we stand for. Be it looking out at a beautiful moon over a still lake in Canada, or watching a storm roll over a dirty neighborhood in Ukraine, make sure you have that time to remind yourself what is important.
Miss you all! Love, Seth
P.S.
To really put a kicker on it, as I was typing this, the closest bolt yet hit and set off all of the car alarms and dogs in the area. Pretty good.

back...

So, after 10 days in the mighty west I am back... well, at least in Kyiv. The last time i wrote i was on my way to a 10 day summer camp in just outside of Kosiv, in far-western Ukraine, and now I am finished with probably the best week I have had in Ukraine.
Kosiv is in the south of Ivano Frankivsk Oblast, and right in the heart of the beautiful Carpathian Mountains. I took a train out there with some other volunteers and we arrived Sunday, June 29th in Kosiv. From there, we had to hike the 80 minutes to our camping site. Now, you have to remember that for the last 6 months i have basically just been in Lugansk, where a. it is flat, b. its kind of dirty and c. its dry So i was blown away by hiking up the side of a fairly steep, wet, but absolutely beatiful hillside to our camp for the next 10 days.
Now, I'm not sure how many of you usually go camping with 50 people, but let me tell you, they do it a little differently here. The theory of "leave no trace" is unheard of, so when we arrived at the top of the hill we bypassed the already set up campsite to go into the maddle of a large meadow, and immediately started cutting grass with a scythe (seen in pictures). That stuff is hard work. We had to cute places for the tents, paths to water, etc. We also had to build 3 different toilets (digging toilets and foodpits in thick clay is a good time!!) We also designed some pretty cool firepits and made sure everything was ready for the campers to arrive on Tuesday. Over the next 9 days we taught about 3 lessons a day to 30 campers, ranging from camping, to ecology, to first aid. The rest of the time was spent hiking up and down the hill to a beautiful (well, the water was clean, even if there was trash everywhere) river or hiking into town to prepare food for 50+ people, always a good time.
We also were able to hike Pip Ivan, the 4th highest mountain (2,023meters) in Ukraine, which tooks us 8 hours in total (hiking with 50 people is an entirely new experience. While we were there we were fortunate enough to celebrate a holiday called Ivana Kapala, kind of like a mid-summers holiday which celebrates love. We had some great roasted meet and practiced our jumping over there fire to create good relationships between people.
About 4 days it poured, and many of the students tents failed to pass the test of keeping them dry, but overall, it was amazing. I am exausted as well, and am looking forward to going back and resting a bit in Lugansk before my next big camp in August.
Great to hear from you all.
With Love,
Seth