Seth, 5-Rat, 1
I hope… I recently had a small run in with a rat in my kitchen, hall-way, bathroom… it started off as a fairly calm Tuesday night, and then I heard it; a small rustle was coming from my kitchen, my cupboard to be more specific. So I walked over to it, opened it up, and to my surprise what should jump out, a RAT. I was angry, and disgusted, and afraid of getting bit on the toe (why the toe, I’m not sure, but it was a real fear at the time) yet I had to get the dang thing out of my kitchen so I spent about 20 minutes chasing it around my kitchen with a broom. I had it cornered in my hall-way and the rascally thing snuck under a closed door, into my kitchen and then, just disappeared!! I gave it at least one point because it had ended up eating some of my rice, which is very expensive these days.
I kept seeing it the rest of the night but whenever I would chase it back into the kitchen it would disappear again. I thought I knew where, so I emptied my ENTIRE cupboard the next morning, AND… no rat. Or hole, or any thing to make me thing it could have gotten in there. So I thought it might be in the back of my fridge, but wasn’t sure how to go about digging through the back of a 20 year old fridge, so I asked my counterpart what we should do. She said they would call a company, and then told me that the school and the company had a falling out, so we should just go buy rat poison in the market. As I stood there buying 3 little packets of rat poison I had to be sure to understand, “DON’T TOUCH THIS WITH YOUR HANDS, EVER!!!!” that made me feel really reassured. So, using a plastic bag I was carefully to place one of the packets behind my fridge, and after 24 hours there was no sign of a live, or a dead rat….
So, enough about disgusting creatures. On Thursday evening I was lucky enough to jump on a train and head to the center of Ukraine for a semi-annual softball tournament hosted by other Peace Corps Volunteers. After a 15 hour train ride myself and another volunteer arrived in Krivvy Rig, which is supposed to be the longest city in Ukraine, somehow being about 40 miles long… or so I’ve been told. We then hopped on a marshutka (big bus/taxi) to the bus station, where we took an express bus to Kirvograd where the tournament was, and then another marshutka to a volunteer’s apartment. I was 3/3 that day on attempting to be understood speaking Russian, so I was very happy with my efforts.
Friday night was spent playing kickball and going to the center of the city to have some delicious beer and some very satisfying beers. Early Saturday morning we all met up at a REAL baseball stadium (I didn’t know they even existed here, but I guess Ukraine even has a baseball league) to play 3 games each. There were 3 American teams (all peace corps volunteers) and 1 Ukrainian team.
The Americans were split up pretty evenly, but my team had some rough spots so we ended up losing 2 games and winning 1 on Saturday. It was fun attempting to peace in a softball game, because honestly I have no control over how I pitch, so there was some good-natured joking about my pitching skills. Saturday afternoon was spent sleeping, eating more pizza and drinking more beer. Saturday night almost all 50 volunteers ended up going to a club, and it was one of the most fun nights I’ve had in Ukraine. It was cool to be at a place where you don’t have to worry about making a fool of yourself, cause everyone is making a fool of themselves, and there was some good music to.
Early Sunday morning we headed back to the stadium to play the championship game, just a best out of 3 tournament between the ‘all-stars’ of the American team (whoever wanted to play just subbed in and out) and the Ukrainian team from the day before. We had played poorly against this team on Saturday and none of us wanted to lose at our national sport so there was a bit of pressure, especially when the 2nd play of the game I threw the ball from 3rd base way past 1st base for a wonderful error. Luckily we had some good hitters on our team so the 1st game we won 10-6 and the 2nd 15-2. (softball is really only about making good catches and not throwing the ball away, but one Ukrainian did hit a home-run)
After the game we headed to an orphanage close by to play with the kids for a bit. They put on a bit of a show for us, and it was really cute watching 5 year olds do gymnastics wearing hand-me down Dallas cowboy sweatshirts.
I was able to buy someone’s ticket for a Sunday night train, and took a train to Donetsk where I jumped on a bus to Lugansk. Difficult place to get to, but a great weekend. Now its back to teaching, and in a couple of weeks, Turkey!
Hope things are great wherever you are!!
Monday, September 29, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
time flies by
September 21, 2008
11 ½ months down, 15 to go! Very rarely do I think about how much time I have left, other than when people ask me how long I will be in Ukraine, but as my 1 year ‘anniversary’ in Ukraine approaches, its very strange to sit back and think about what I have been up to.
The new school year started 3 weeks ago, and while there have been the usual bumps in the road; no idea what my schedule is, students who think they are to cool for school, different English skill levels, it has been a pretty good beginning. During the past 3 weeks I have also been able to go to Kyiv for and Environmental Working group I am part of, which basically just tries to spread environmental education across Ukraine.
Also, there have been some big celebrations in Lugansk. Ukrainian independence day was on the 24th of August, and then Miner’s Day the 29th of August, and then Lugansk Day, the 19-21st of September. All of those basically consist of lots of speeches, parades, and then on Friday/Saturday night a big concert in the central square (with a background of the Russian theatre and ‘Uncle Lenin’ watching over in the back. I have been able to see 2 fairly big names of Ukrainian pop culture, Tina Karol and Verka Serduchka. Tina Karol is just another good looking pop diva, while Verka Serduchka is a man, who dresses like a woman, with fake breasts, make-up, and giant star on top of his head. Its kind of funny when people refer to him as him, her, it. For a country that is extremely homophobic, they love this singer.
I was able to go and watch Serduchka’s concert last night with a couple of my students, so it was interesting to see them outside of the classroom. Next week I will be going to another volunteer’s site for big softball tournament, so that should be fun.
Nothing huge to report, but I love hearing from all of you. Take care!
With love,
Seth
11 ½ months down, 15 to go! Very rarely do I think about how much time I have left, other than when people ask me how long I will be in Ukraine, but as my 1 year ‘anniversary’ in Ukraine approaches, its very strange to sit back and think about what I have been up to.
The new school year started 3 weeks ago, and while there have been the usual bumps in the road; no idea what my schedule is, students who think they are to cool for school, different English skill levels, it has been a pretty good beginning. During the past 3 weeks I have also been able to go to Kyiv for and Environmental Working group I am part of, which basically just tries to spread environmental education across Ukraine.
Also, there have been some big celebrations in Lugansk. Ukrainian independence day was on the 24th of August, and then Miner’s Day the 29th of August, and then Lugansk Day, the 19-21st of September. All of those basically consist of lots of speeches, parades, and then on Friday/Saturday night a big concert in the central square (with a background of the Russian theatre and ‘Uncle Lenin’ watching over in the back. I have been able to see 2 fairly big names of Ukrainian pop culture, Tina Karol and Verka Serduchka. Tina Karol is just another good looking pop diva, while Verka Serduchka is a man, who dresses like a woman, with fake breasts, make-up, and giant star on top of his head. Its kind of funny when people refer to him as him, her, it. For a country that is extremely homophobic, they love this singer.
I was able to go and watch Serduchka’s concert last night with a couple of my students, so it was interesting to see them outside of the classroom. Next week I will be going to another volunteer’s site for big softball tournament, so that should be fun.
Nothing huge to report, but I love hearing from all of you. Take care!
With love,
Seth
Monday, August 18, 2008
RussIAN strikes again
Yes, another enthralling tale of how Seth’s attempts to understand the world around him is thwarted by his worst enemy… RUSSIAN.
The story starts off safely enough; 10 days ago I got on a bus to a city about 4 hours north of here for a 5 day English/Leadership camp that another Peace Corps Volunteer was leading. This was the 4th session of this camp that he had run, and he did a great job getting funding and getting kids to come. The past week it has been the hottest weather yet, so luckily there was a big, ‘clean’ river in the city, so Sunday I spent most of the day throwing a football around in the water with other volunteers. The camp started on Monday, and there were about 20 students ages 13-22. There were 12 volunteers, so I only had to teach 4 classes the entire week. (I taught American Tall Tales- Paul Bunyan and Johnny Appleseed) the rest of the time was spent playing volleyball and singing songs with the kids.
Wednesday our group was lucky enough to go to a Russian “Banya” (banya means bathroom in Russian.) I had thought that a Sauna (which they also have here) and a banya were the same thing, but boy was I wrong. You go into a small room two at a time, and its HOT, much hotter than I have ever felt a sauna to be (when I first went in, it was 120degrees Celsius! You get in there and you lie down on a board, and then someone (a friend or the guys who run the place) proceed to ‘whip’ you with birch branches. This causes the air around you to get even hotter, and sweat even more! When you can’t take any more you go outside and jump in a very cold pool of water, which causes a person (well, me in particular) to get very dizzy. You only do this about two times, and then of course… the food comes out. Their was salad, potatoes, bread, AND samaghon (a special Ukrainian moonshine, that has quite a kick to it.) It was a wonderful way to spend time after the camp.
Well, as I told some of you, I was supposed to go straight from this camp to another camp where I would be working in a national park, helping clean it up. I found out last Monday that it was cancelled because the park director brought to the news evidence that the government was using it for unauthorized purposes, so it was a big scandal. It was switched to another location, but my friend who was going to come with and I didn’t find out till Thursday so we decided not to go.
This meant that I had some free time before I had to go home, so on Friday I jumped on another bus for Harkov (biggest city in the east of Ukraine) to meet my friend Zach, then took a bus to his village which is right on the Russian border. His place is much different than mine, so it was fun to hang out there for a day.
One sad piece of news, on the way to his site my phone seems to have slipped out of my pocket, with all of my numbers, so I had to buy a new one on Saturday.
My new number is
(380) this is the country code 938270978
Whole number 380938270978
So now the real tale begins…
One of our friends who used to be in Peace Corps had been working in Harkov as an English teacher but is heading back to the U.S. in two weeks, so I knew this would be the last time I would get to hang out with him. We decided to have a “malchichnik” (a boys night) so about 9pm we headed out to a club that our friend had been to. Now, I have to explain that because he doesn’t work for Peace Corps, our friend makes A LOT more money than Zach and I do, so whenever I hang out with him I know I will spend more than usual. So… the club had a cover charge of 40 griven (only 8$, but that will get me a good dinner in Lugansk) Once we got in, we decided to order some drinks and snacks. Because it was a club, things are of course over-priced, so the cheapest thing was a bottle of vodka. I normally don’t drink vodka, but I thought what the heck. So we ordered juice, bread, and an assorted cheese platter. It was very funny for the waitress to take our order because our friend knows some Ukrainian, Zach and I know some Russian, and there was another American there who knows neither.
We just talked, drank a little, and ate. So, we finished our cheese, and our friend Adam said, we should get the fruit platter. We were all like “okay, that sounds good,” since all of the afore-mentioned food had only been 100 griven together. So about 5 minutes later the waitress brings some more bread and a platter of lemon slices with sugar. We all kind of looked at it, and were like “this is it?”
We asked the waitress and she said, “oh, no, your platter will be out shortly.” She then preceded to clear off a large portion of the table, and I though to myself, “this is ominous.”
The waitress appeared again… with the largest platter of fruit I have ever seen. It had pineapple wedges, pear slices, grapes, bananas, apples, grapefruit, and of course, kiwi. We all just looked at each other, and went, “dang, she must have thought we were rich Americans or something,” and begin to curse our lack of truly understanding any conversation in Ukraine. The check came out, and the damage was done, 250griven for a fruit platter, luckily split 4 ways, but still… I normally spend 75 griven every 4 days on food in Lugansk.
It was a good night though, and as I fell asleep at 3 am last night, I went dang, maybe I shouldn’t have gotten a bus ticket for 6:30 the next morning. I woke up today at 5:30, cursing myself for eating so much citrus fruit, sat on the bus for 8 hours, and now am back in lovely Lugansk!
Always great to hear from you all!
Miss you,
Seth
The story starts off safely enough; 10 days ago I got on a bus to a city about 4 hours north of here for a 5 day English/Leadership camp that another Peace Corps Volunteer was leading. This was the 4th session of this camp that he had run, and he did a great job getting funding and getting kids to come. The past week it has been the hottest weather yet, so luckily there was a big, ‘clean’ river in the city, so Sunday I spent most of the day throwing a football around in the water with other volunteers. The camp started on Monday, and there were about 20 students ages 13-22. There were 12 volunteers, so I only had to teach 4 classes the entire week. (I taught American Tall Tales- Paul Bunyan and Johnny Appleseed) the rest of the time was spent playing volleyball and singing songs with the kids.
Wednesday our group was lucky enough to go to a Russian “Banya” (banya means bathroom in Russian.) I had thought that a Sauna (which they also have here) and a banya were the same thing, but boy was I wrong. You go into a small room two at a time, and its HOT, much hotter than I have ever felt a sauna to be (when I first went in, it was 120degrees Celsius! You get in there and you lie down on a board, and then someone (a friend or the guys who run the place) proceed to ‘whip’ you with birch branches. This causes the air around you to get even hotter, and sweat even more! When you can’t take any more you go outside and jump in a very cold pool of water, which causes a person (well, me in particular) to get very dizzy. You only do this about two times, and then of course… the food comes out. Their was salad, potatoes, bread, AND samaghon (a special Ukrainian moonshine, that has quite a kick to it.) It was a wonderful way to spend time after the camp.
Well, as I told some of you, I was supposed to go straight from this camp to another camp where I would be working in a national park, helping clean it up. I found out last Monday that it was cancelled because the park director brought to the news evidence that the government was using it for unauthorized purposes, so it was a big scandal. It was switched to another location, but my friend who was going to come with and I didn’t find out till Thursday so we decided not to go.
This meant that I had some free time before I had to go home, so on Friday I jumped on another bus for Harkov (biggest city in the east of Ukraine) to meet my friend Zach, then took a bus to his village which is right on the Russian border. His place is much different than mine, so it was fun to hang out there for a day.
One sad piece of news, on the way to his site my phone seems to have slipped out of my pocket, with all of my numbers, so I had to buy a new one on Saturday.
My new number is
(380) this is the country code 938270978
Whole number 380938270978
So now the real tale begins…
One of our friends who used to be in Peace Corps had been working in Harkov as an English teacher but is heading back to the U.S. in two weeks, so I knew this would be the last time I would get to hang out with him. We decided to have a “malchichnik” (a boys night) so about 9pm we headed out to a club that our friend had been to. Now, I have to explain that because he doesn’t work for Peace Corps, our friend makes A LOT more money than Zach and I do, so whenever I hang out with him I know I will spend more than usual. So… the club had a cover charge of 40 griven (only 8$, but that will get me a good dinner in Lugansk) Once we got in, we decided to order some drinks and snacks. Because it was a club, things are of course over-priced, so the cheapest thing was a bottle of vodka. I normally don’t drink vodka, but I thought what the heck. So we ordered juice, bread, and an assorted cheese platter. It was very funny for the waitress to take our order because our friend knows some Ukrainian, Zach and I know some Russian, and there was another American there who knows neither.
We just talked, drank a little, and ate. So, we finished our cheese, and our friend Adam said, we should get the fruit platter. We were all like “okay, that sounds good,” since all of the afore-mentioned food had only been 100 griven together. So about 5 minutes later the waitress brings some more bread and a platter of lemon slices with sugar. We all kind of looked at it, and were like “this is it?”
We asked the waitress and she said, “oh, no, your platter will be out shortly.” She then preceded to clear off a large portion of the table, and I though to myself, “this is ominous.”
The waitress appeared again… with the largest platter of fruit I have ever seen. It had pineapple wedges, pear slices, grapes, bananas, apples, grapefruit, and of course, kiwi. We all just looked at each other, and went, “dang, she must have thought we were rich Americans or something,” and begin to curse our lack of truly understanding any conversation in Ukraine. The check came out, and the damage was done, 250griven for a fruit platter, luckily split 4 ways, but still… I normally spend 75 griven every 4 days on food in Lugansk.
It was a good night though, and as I fell asleep at 3 am last night, I went dang, maybe I shouldn’t have gotten a bus ticket for 6:30 the next morning. I woke up today at 5:30, cursing myself for eating so much citrus fruit, sat on the bus for 8 hours, and now am back in lovely Lugansk!
Always great to hear from you all!
Miss you,
Seth
Sunday, July 27, 2008
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.
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.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
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
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
Sunday, June 22, 2008
another update
so, its been a few weeks since I gave you an update on what life is like in "the" Ukraine. First off, for some reason, it is no longer, "the" Ukraine, but just Ukraine. I believe it is because when Ukraine was part of the USSR they were a region, so it was the Ukraine, the Latvia, etc. but now, they kind of take offense to it, so JUST DONT DO IT...
anyways, after the great trip to Budapest to see my parents I headed to another volunteers site about 2 hours away from Lugansk for a camp. The camp had about 100 campers from 5th-7th grades. From 9-2 every day for 5 days we had 2 1/2 hours of english class (let me tell you, its hard to decide what students should study for 2 1/2 hours and not be bored as heck. But the weather was great and the kids loved having Americans there to help teach. It went by really quick, but i was ready to go back to Lugansk and relax. And thats what I did for 5 days. Woke up, read, walked around, read, thought about running, read, and then would turn on the Euro 2008 Soccer championships. Good days!
It has gotten a little warmer each day in Lugansk so by now the average temp is 85-90, which meant that i really wanted to buy a fan. Which i did, for about 12$. It is plastic, and deffinitely looks like it was worth 12$. Anyways, putting it together was an experience, because even though the instructions were in English, they didnt really make any sense, so I ended up with 3 extra plastic parts...
On Thursday i took the trian to Kyiv, and Friday took a bus to Rokytna, my staging sight to see the family i stayed with for 2 months back in the winter. It was great to see my host mom and host brothers. The food was excellent and Rokytna is a lot prettier than Lugansk.
Now, i am just sitting in the Peace corps office waiting to go to another summer camp for a week.
Should be fun.
Miss you all,
with love,
Seth
anyways, after the great trip to Budapest to see my parents I headed to another volunteers site about 2 hours away from Lugansk for a camp. The camp had about 100 campers from 5th-7th grades. From 9-2 every day for 5 days we had 2 1/2 hours of english class (let me tell you, its hard to decide what students should study for 2 1/2 hours and not be bored as heck. But the weather was great and the kids loved having Americans there to help teach. It went by really quick, but i was ready to go back to Lugansk and relax. And thats what I did for 5 days. Woke up, read, walked around, read, thought about running, read, and then would turn on the Euro 2008 Soccer championships. Good days!
It has gotten a little warmer each day in Lugansk so by now the average temp is 85-90, which meant that i really wanted to buy a fan. Which i did, for about 12$. It is plastic, and deffinitely looks like it was worth 12$. Anyways, putting it together was an experience, because even though the instructions were in English, they didnt really make any sense, so I ended up with 3 extra plastic parts...
On Thursday i took the trian to Kyiv, and Friday took a bus to Rokytna, my staging sight to see the family i stayed with for 2 months back in the winter. It was great to see my host mom and host brothers. The food was excellent and Rokytna is a lot prettier than Lugansk.
Now, i am just sitting in the Peace corps office waiting to go to another summer camp for a week.
Should be fun.
Miss you all,
with love,
Seth
Sunday, June 1, 2008
a GOOD way to make your mom and sister cry
So, it started off as a typical Wednesday night... Me, sitting in front of my computer, clicking a way at espn websites, listening to music, and drinking a good Ukrainian beer. And then I get an e-mail from my dad. "Why don't you come to Budapest on Saturday..." I thought, yeah, right, like i can just get up and go to Budapest in 2 days, I am in the Peace Corps, come on. And then I thought again, yeah, thats right, I am in the Peace Corps, and im done teaching for the year, why the heck can't I go to Budapest in 2 days! (of course, I needed to get permission from the head office in Kiev, but that was a simple phone call and one form to fill out) so there I was, Thursday morning, 10 am, with one plane ticket to Budapest from Kiev, and now I needed to get a train ticket there for Friday night.
So, its always a little tricky for me to get the exact time, train, date, etc. that I want, but after a wave of panic going through me when the lady at the ticket counter told me there were not any seats left on the first train, she was quick to inform i could get on another train that left only 2 hours later. So, i e-mailed my dad back, told him i was coming (couldnt tell my mom or sister of course) and then waited till Friday, when i got on the 16 1/2 hour train ride (its kind of boring, but not that bad) to Kiev, where i went to the Peace Corps office for an hour, jumped on the bus to the airport, took the 1 1/2 hour flight to Budapest, jumped in a taxi and only 24 hours after I left Lugansk, was at the house in Budapest.
My dad, at this time, had just come back from a school party which both my sister and mom where at, under the guise of "getting some whiskey." So when i pulled up in the taxi, we hugged, i jumped in the shower, and we were off. The party was only 10 min away, and as we were approaching we saw my sister walking around the side of the house. My dad swerved to the side of the road and i jumped out at my sister.
She, hearing the sound of the car door turned, and it looked as if she had ran into a wall, she immediately started crying and gave me a huge hug. It was a great reception. My dad told me to wait, because he wanted to see my mom's reaction. She was in the back of a very crowded living room, so i waited outside as my dad ushered her over. He stepped outside next to me and she came out and just looked at him.
"What" she said,
"Look to your left" he said.
She turned all just shouted
"OH MY GOD" and also burst into tears and gave me a huge hug. It was a great reception, and its great to be back in Budapest for a week again. Great city.
So, my dad definitely earned brownie points for this one, and he earned it!
Hop all is well wherever you are.
-Seth
So, its always a little tricky for me to get the exact time, train, date, etc. that I want, but after a wave of panic going through me when the lady at the ticket counter told me there were not any seats left on the first train, she was quick to inform i could get on another train that left only 2 hours later. So, i e-mailed my dad back, told him i was coming (couldnt tell my mom or sister of course) and then waited till Friday, when i got on the 16 1/2 hour train ride (its kind of boring, but not that bad) to Kiev, where i went to the Peace Corps office for an hour, jumped on the bus to the airport, took the 1 1/2 hour flight to Budapest, jumped in a taxi and only 24 hours after I left Lugansk, was at the house in Budapest.
My dad, at this time, had just come back from a school party which both my sister and mom where at, under the guise of "getting some whiskey." So when i pulled up in the taxi, we hugged, i jumped in the shower, and we were off. The party was only 10 min away, and as we were approaching we saw my sister walking around the side of the house. My dad swerved to the side of the road and i jumped out at my sister.
She, hearing the sound of the car door turned, and it looked as if she had ran into a wall, she immediately started crying and gave me a huge hug. It was a great reception. My dad told me to wait, because he wanted to see my mom's reaction. She was in the back of a very crowded living room, so i waited outside as my dad ushered her over. He stepped outside next to me and she came out and just looked at him.
"What" she said,
"Look to your left" he said.
She turned all just shouted
"OH MY GOD" and also burst into tears and gave me a huge hug. It was a great reception, and its great to be back in Budapest for a week again. Great city.
So, my dad definitely earned brownie points for this one, and he earned it!
Hop all is well wherever you are.
-Seth
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