It's a Small World Afterall!

My language tutor found out this spring she had been selected to partake in a prestigious program to do graduate studies in the USA. For months she's been waiting to find out what university she would be going to, asking lots of questions about education, jobs on campus, life in the States, etc, etc.

While I was at Spanish camp, I recieved a text message from her while she was in Kyiv attending a meeting to give her more information, including where she would be heading. "Have you ever heard of the Ohio Bowling Green State University?" I squealed and called her immediately, telling her it was my university. Of over 100 possible universities, if she chooses to go, she will attend where I too went to graduate school. What a coincidence!!

The Visitor Returns

In just a few weeks, I will be picking company up at the Odessa airport again. Obviously I am incredibly excited, but am still putting off things like mopping my floors.

We are attempting to cram as much into the visit as possible, going to not only Crimea, but also the beautiful country of Croatia, which I've wanted to visit for over a year now.

Preparing and planning for the trip has taken an extreme amount of time, checking train schedules, buying train tickets, searching for flights, hotels, etc. It's been somewhat exhausting, but I know that it will all be worth it in the end.

Before the arrival in Ukraine though, I am off to my clustermate's Spanish camp, where I will be the expert copy maker and girl Friday, seeing as how I do not speak Spanish. It will be fun though, and perhaps a bit of a cluster-link reunion before she leaves, since she will be the first in our little sub group to leave.

I am too Big for Ukraine

The past several days have been a running theme. While preparing for my upcoming trips to Crimea and Croatia, I've needed to make a few purchases. One of which being a bathing suit. Although here in Ukraine no one wears one pieces, instead everyone wears a two piece, so I finally decided it was time to fit in like the locals (and dudes, they all wear speedos. Imagine how fun shopping for one of those must be). I walked all over the huge bizarre by my house trying on many different styles, but learned extremely quick that while the tops fit, the bottoms did not. This would be because Ukrainian women do not have hips. One woman even went so far as to say that they also do not have a попка either (a behind). I searched all over for one particular style asking for anything above what would be our equivalent of a size 10. It did not exist. Finally I realized that I'd only fit into the kinds with the adjustable bottoms, exposing way more flesh that your average American would be comfortable revealing, but hey, when in Yalta...

So today, because my brown sandals snapped last year in Budapest, I went in search of a new pair. This proved to be even more trying than yesterday's search for a swim suit. First off, Ukrainian ideas of fashionable shoes do not match my American ones. Typically there is tons of glitter, flowers, rhinestones, and spiky heels that seem impossible to walk on. Sensibility seems to be the last thing on the designers mind.

Granted, I've been here long enough to appreciate their uberfemininity and on occasion will covet a pair or two. I first went to the mall where you can get better quality shoes (yes, I have a mall, just like an American one--except with a grocery store and bowling too) and found a couple of cute shoes that were not flashy, and yet maintained a certain sense of style. "сорок" I said, thinking that my shoe size is a 40 in Ukraine. The woman looked all over and finally brought back a pair and when I looked at the back I noticed that it said 8 1/2 USA. Huh. I'm a size 10. Obviously this shoe did not fit. I asked for a 41, 42, or 43. She looked at me like I was nuts. "нето" she said (my least favorite word in the Russian language). I then took off back to the bizarre from yesterday where I learned that no where are there shoes in Ukraine larger than a size 40. When I saw a cute pair of sandals and asked for a size 42, the woman looked at me in disbelief and came out to measure my foot. She then asked the other woman behind the stand "do we have a size 42 or 43?" to which the woman replied "seriously?" Seriously....

There are ugly orthropeditic type shoes that I can buy, but seriously... I'll just keep on going with what little I got and live with the fact that I am simply too big for this country.

Я знаю тебя

Several weeks had passed since the free champagne incident. I went and visited several of my linkmates from Western Ukraine and was heading back on yet another overnight train, its destination, an oblast center above Crimea.

Finally, after several hours of silence, the two women who sat across from me started talking. After staring at me for a bit, one asked where I was from. "America," I responded. "Oh, I know you. I saw you in A--," naming the town where the free champagne was given. "Where did you see me?" as I probably blushed, not intending to ever see any of those people who had witnessed several of us doing intrepretive dances to Justin Timberlake. "At the cafe." "Uh-huh. Day or evening." "Evening." At this I burst out laughing for minutes. "As they say in my country, it's a small world..." and called my friend in Northern Crimea to tell her about the coincidence and to which she was similiarly dumbfounded at the improbablity of it all...

Free Champagne

A while back I spent the weekend with a small group of PCVs in Northern Crimea. Several of them are leaving soon, so it was an opportunity to say goodbye and to relax in a smaller community.

We all gathered at an outdoor cafe for part of the afternoon, talking shop and drinking. Occasionally a cool tune would pop on the stereo and some of us would go and dance, which seemed to amuse the all female staff. After a fabulous Mexicanski dinner at home, another volunteer and myself were itching for round two. "Where's the club? Let's go to the club." The PCV whose site it was seemed less than excited (clubs are usually just full of young students--who they teach), but we bargained our way down to ice cream at that same cafe and we'd bring some cds for them to play. We'd dance to two songs, eat ice cream, and go home. A deal was struck.

When we showed up, the staff was excited to see us and would certainly play our cds.
But what was supposed to be two songs ended up being one particular track (JT's "Sexy back") on repeat at least four times. We would roll our eyes when it would eventually be played again like "are you kidding? We just heard this song 2 minutes ago!" but eventually we'd get up and do something. Somewhere around this time a waitress came to the table with a bottle of champagne for us. We looked at it and each other confusedly. Who gave it to us, who are we going to offend by not drinking it, etc, etc. We sat around for another ten minutes when the waitress came back and asked if we wanted glasses. Nope, we replied and just said we were tired. We debated leaving it there, but didn't want to be rude, so it it back so the next a.m. the other PCVs who pooped out early would be ashamed of their lazy selves.

We went back a third time the next day for dinner and in our company was a young Ukrainian woman, a friend of the local PCV. When she went to order juice the waitresases asked her about us--where did we come from, how long we were there, and complimented us on our energy and presence. They just really enjoyed our company, and us theirs. Hats off to the second goal. Sometimes you don't feel like such a schumck about it.

You Know You've Been in Peace Corps Ukraine too Long When...

Since starting the tb medication, every month I am to call the PC doctors to have a doctor ask me whether or not I've been suffering from any particular side effects (dizziness, vomiting, yellow eyes, yellow skin, etc). Once that was done I said I was on a train to C--. "Oh to vist [name of my linkmate]." "Yep," I said. "What are you two going to do?," he asked. "Talk about all the meds we are on," I replied to which he fell into laughter.

Sadly, it could be true. But instead, we've got work to do...

Beaches, taxis, and Chris Norman

Several weeks ago a group of PCVs went to the beach. It has continued to be crazy hot here, so the shore of the Black Sea is the best place for a retreat. After a nice sunny day swimming in water warmer than I can ever remember the Jersey shore being, I was ready to head home while everyone else wanted more. (Remember, readers, I can no longer drink, which has furthermore decreased my interest in socialization).

After several attempts in asking for a taxi to the bus station, my companion flagged one down. The driver, once I got in the car, proceeded to persuade me to let him take me all the way back to my site over an hour away. I was skeptical of how much this would be, and just asked to go to the local bus station, but he was persistant. He inquired how much a marshrutka would cost, and he added an extremely modest sum of money and asked for 30 UAH. In comparison, we paid 20 UAH just to go from the local bus stop there to the beach. A less than 10 minute drive.

This seemed like it was too good to be true, but he was insistant, so I decided to sit back, relax and for once in Ukraine, actually use a seat belt in a vehicle that did not belong to the US government.

He told me many things and asked a lot of questions. He served in the Afghanistan war, his daughter was a student at the teachers university in the foreign languages department, where my former site mate taught and she had talked about the PCVs who have served there to her father. He tried to teach me about Russian humor and for some reason called his daughter to have her tell him the English word for wool. I never quite understood why.

He got very excited sharing his music with me, as he pumped up the volume when the band "Smokey" came on. He loved this English band, he told me, and was amazed I never heard of them or their lead singer Chris Norman before. Guess they are just big in Ukraine.

After an hour together we arived at my site and he took me directly to my door. I offered him 50 UAH, instead of the agreed 30, and he looked for change, telling me that he was a gentleman, but I insisted, saying that he had given me a Russian language lesson. Finally he agreed to take it. It was only later that I realized that he was probably already heading to N--, so that is why he asked for so little money for the trip. Taxi driving was his hobby, he owned a store and his daughter lived in the city. But when the rest of the crew the next day attempted to get a cab back they were told it would be 200 UAH ($40)--a really huge sum of money, so I had clearly made out rather well, and scored a possible ride back in N-- the next time from the beach, and all in the name of posnakomnitsa or "getting acquainted." Sometimes being a foreigner can be a good thing.