Our Link's Village from Training

During training, every other Saturday we would go two hours to visit our link and have a technical training session. I always enjoyed going to visit them because it was a much more picturesque and quaint. Doesn't look so bad, does it?

Me in N-- by the River

This photo was taken last April in my city. I was sitting by the river sending a text message. We had a lot of people in the city that day and it was hard to keep track of everyone, hence the sort of pensive/frustrated look on my face.

Me in PC HQ

Last February we had a training session inside the headquarters and I had my clustermate snap this photo before the session started. If you look closely enough you can see Cheney winking at you.

Visiting the East Side of the Dneipro

I keep a map of Ukraine in my living room and faithfully upon return from visiting a new place, I find it on the map and push a pin into the city or town. It is a way of visualizing where I have been in the country and what areas I still should visit.

After this summer I noticed how lop-sided this map had become. Ukraine is often talked about politically, linguistically, and even culturally as being divided into two areas--the west and the east, the mighty Dneipro being the dividing line. By those simplified terms I live the west, even though people here would associate themselves as being more like those in Eastern Ukraine. Despite the south being more "Eastern" in thought, it does not excuse my own failings for not travelling on the "other" side of Ukraine.

I made plans to visit my clustermate in her city, a town of over 100,000 people. I enjoyed the visit very much, even despite the obnoxiously cold weather at the time and the rain (and the cold that was burgeoning inside of me). She took me to a museum and of course to several restaurants and cafes where I got to enjoy some new cuisines (Tartar food) and new people.

My clustermate lives in a city not used to seeing foreigners, so people are extremely friendly and curious. We met a couple at a cafe who ended up sitting next to us on comfy couches as we watched some belly-dancing acts and a wedding party and some live Casio-tune style Ukrainian wedding singer act.

Her site I felt was very easy to navigate, as I quickly learned my way around, which I always consider a plus. It seemed to me to not be in as bad a shape economically as I would have suspected, being a little industrial city in a country where many industrial jobs are being phased out. My clustermate assured me that it was a safe place, but of course moments later we saw a man with crutches getting kicked and punched in the face just mere feet away from us. Not one to let that dampen her spirit for her site, she reiterated the towns safety and believed that perhaps the man did not pay his bill. (Actually, physical violence is more visible here and is often a way of settling such disputes, such as failure to pay or, as I witnessed about a week ago in my own site, car accidents).

As I prepared to leave on Sunday night, I couldn't help but think that she did have it made. She lives in a great apartment (the most American one I've seen) inherited from a former PCV. She has high speed internet and cable TV, in addition to a guest room. It was hard to leave.

But that I suppose ended up being an omen as we headed to the bus station we saw a throng of people trying to stuff themselves on a Donestk-Odessa bus. I quickly realized that that was not going to happen for me and we waited in the cold, wet, and extremely sketchy bus station for about another 2 hours. At the end of this time another bus entered and another (but smaller) mad dash ensued. The driver quickly announced that only two seats were available and as I waited it out, I realized I was not going back to N-- that night.

Cold, wet, and extremely pissed off, I went back to my friend's house and texted my coordinator to leat him know I wouldn't make it to my classes the next day. Thankfully, I had a nice warm place to stay and good company.

Halloween in Ukraine

As you can imagine Halloween is not a holiday celebrated in this country and thankfully so, for then I could exploit it to the hilt, making the same lesson plan for all of my 5 classes and 2 clubs. Things like Halloween are priceless for me, especially when combined with the strange gummy worms that turned students' tongues, teeth, and lips black. Trick-or-treat indeed.

Besides giving about 90 talks about Halloween, I also got to participate in the English Club's annual Halloween party which included tons of spooktacular decorations, kids dressed up, and of course, candy.

For the "adult" club that the volunteers run, I was asked to play hostess while we did a variety of games (like find the punchline to Halloween jokes: what instrument does a skeleton play? A trumbone. Get it. Ha! Hilarity!) Of course, I had to go in costume and the best I could do on such notice (I have in Ukraine only a few of my things and certainly left any and all costumey things at home) was to dress up like a cowgirl because my sitemate has a penchant for plaid shirts, and I own jeans and rope. It was lame. And I think that the Ukrainians were expecting something...well....frightening. They think of Halloween as witches, vampires, werewolves, monsters, and Frankensteins. Not some grown up trying to dress up like she would on any other day except with a rope and her sitemate's shirt. Oh well.

It was a lot of fun though and tons of photos were taken. If you ever happen to come and visit this English club you can see for yourself what a good time everyone had.

Before I left, there were cameras a plenty brought out. Sometimes being a Peace Corps Volunteer is like being a minor celebrity (hey, wasn't that the guy who was in that deoderant commerical? Go get his autograph! It's sorta like that.). Besides the game and general fun we had during club, the other really neat thing that happened was that they gave me a small jack-o-lantern. This may not really seem like anything exciting to any of you, but to me it was a small gesture the reminded me of home. I took it home, lit the candle and put it in my window, wondering what my neighbors across the small courtyard in the other identical Soviet-style apartment building would make of it, if anything at all. Small pleasures, small pleasures. Now onto Thanksgiving, where I again will be able to stretch one lesson plan into five!

Back to the Old Routine

I have been somewhat sparse as of late, being quite busy. Also because of my internet situation, I have not been writing so much as I have not wanted to go out to a internet cafe, instead opting for the painfully slow callback routine on the dialup service I have been using. But I have realized that I'm just going to start having to go put on the boots and coat and head outside from time to time to keep in touch more often.

November has also been a really busy month for me not just in terms of work , but also the extra-curricular's. I have been continuing tutoring, along with all the clubs, so I never really have a night to myself to even cook dinner, let alone sit down and write. I have been travelling a lot recently too, going first to visit a clustermate in her small city, afterwards heading up to Kyiv and then to a cluster to visit a new PC training group. I did all of this while miserably sick too. This weekend I am heading out to visit my cluster couple who have been so kind to treat the rest of the cluster to Japanese food in Dnipropetrovsk (DP, as we like to call it). When I have an opportunity, I will try to write about these experiences as well as post some old photos that I got from my clustermate!

Imagine the Audacity

Three students approached me on my way to another lesson and started with “we are all ill…” and wanted excused from our fifth pair class (I was heading to my third pair) but used some Russian words and looked at each other and knew they could not explain. I was a tad angered by the “we are all ill…” line and saw that a group of 2nd year translator students were sitting nearby. I called out for one to come and translate. “They have no classes till your period and they want to know if they can go home.” I looked at her incredulously. “Are you kidding me?” I thought. My eyebrows came together and I shook my head no.

After that I went up to my favorite group, getting ready to give them an exam, but just as I was settling in an old man with one student came in and started asking who as in charge and then the girls pointed to me and he suddenly spouted off that he has the room for the pair. I told him that badly spoke Russian and the girls would have to translate. He refused to move though. He ordered my “leader” student to go to the department and find another room and requested a second to get the key for a locked room across the hall. Again, I was aghast. We got moved to another room where I just looked at all their faces and I was ready to explode. “So let me get this straight,” I started, after apologizing for any remarks I would make, explaining that if I didn’t say it, I’d just continue to be angry. “So we had to leave even though there are more of you and even though we had the room because he’s older, right?” They affirmed by shaking their heads. I could not believe that that had happened, but they did not seem surprised at all.

The best part was however that during the break (I have these students back to back) I went over to my room to see if he had gone, but he had not. A student went with me and we asked him if the room would be free next period (as it said in the schedule that it was mine for both classes) and he said that it would be, but now he was busy with a student. There was no one in the room besides him. I later heard my student relate this ridiculousness in Russian to one of her classmates who was in disbelief. While apparently it is normal to have to give up ones classroom for an older person, it is not normal to say that you working with a student when no one else is in the room!

Lesson Learned: Don't Complain!

This semester I have started teaching other students besides those concentrating on interpreting and translating. I was excited at first, but that dissipated into an annoyance whenever I have to walk into the classroom for one of those courses.

The English levels are noticeably lower, if even existent, and students are more… disruptive, probably as a result of just not understanding or caring. English is not their field, so why cares about learning it, or listening to this lady who only speaks it?

It’s hard for me to justify simplifying a lesson about culture to college students because of language abilities. To me, that would be the equivalent of making hand turkeys with them or construction paper jack-o-lanterns. They are 19 and 20 years old. There is no reason to dumb down the material, just to take it slow and explain in simpler terms and use Russian when all else fails.

Several students remain interested, but it is increasingly difficult to psyche myself up for these classes. The last time I met with one group, only one student paid attention and I lost my gasket and yelled at all of them asking, “what am I doing her [in Ukraine] if you don’t behave or pay attention?” Sure, I felt like an asshole saying those things, but it’s also like admitting what they already suspect: that life is better at home. Of course, my definition of better is probably not what they would imagine. It has nothing to do with making more money, having a car, etc, but simply being able to communicate with anyone on the street. To not feel like an idiot or avoid people and/or situations where you possibly have to explain something you have no idea how to. My job is what keeps me in Ukraine. I enjoy my work and especially my students. Whey they act like jerks, it gets my attention and I cease to want to be in the classroom, therefore meaning to me, why am I here?

After this class, I went back to my coordinator and told him flat out that I hate that group and that they can’t speak English. To prove my point, I told him that one of the students did her homework (to bring and talk about a news item from the States) in Russian. I asked her to translate it and she could not do it.

It’s a combined group or second and third year students, as my other non-interpreter and translator group is. My coordinator asked “the third years too?” I admitted that they were better. A fury of discussion in Russian ensued between him and the head of our department. Of course this was all about me, but without me understanding what was going on. The head from the department of the students in question was called in and they talked as well. From what I could understand, it seemed that he agreed with me. They (my coordinator basically) then sought for me to substitute a new course, the 2nd year interpreters and translators for 160 minutes every other week. This is now in addition to keeping the first course, minus the second year students who could not speak, so it’s really not a substitution at all. Essentially, I felt duped into this as it was all decided in Russian without my approval. I already teach one half of this class 80 minutes a week without structure, and now I’ve got to figure out some sort of new thing to teach without starting one of my typical courses, because they’ll probably have me next semester or next year for those.

Needless to say, I will never complain about getting a class that can’t speak again. I’ll simply make an agreement with them in the beginning and we’ll all make construction paper pilgrim hats and learn how to order cappuccino’s in English.