Okay!

Enough TB talk for now. Eric, where are some pictures of our trip?

About Tuberculosis

Because maybe all you know about this disease relates to women in white dresses and corsets and Doc Holiday coughing up blood, I thought that I'd share a bit of what I learned from the pamphlet "About Tuberculosis" that I found in the PC Med office while I was staying in sickbay.

TB is a disease caused by tiny germs that are breathed into the lungs. These germs are spread when an infected person: sneezes, coughs, laughs, sings, or speaks.

The pamphlet says the most common way to get TB is by spending a lot of time indoors with an infected person. My doctors, however, state that it can be easily passed on while doing something as simple as riding the metro or a marshrutka. Of course, I want to blame my second host family. Anyway, TB is not spread on dishes, drinking glasses, or other objects.

It is also important to note that there is a TB infection and TB disease. TB disease is the sort that can cause death if left untreated. A TB infection can be treated and stop the TB germs from causing the TB disease.

When you test positive for TB germs they give you a chest X-ray to see if the TB germs have affected your lungs. If you test positive for TB, you have to undergo 6 to 9 months of serious pill popping, sometimes, according to the pamplet, you have to have a doctor watch you every day to make sure you are taking the pills properly. During this time you may not consume alcohol either, as it will destroy your liver.

I also learned from the internet, I believe, that over a third of the world's population has tuberculosis, so before you decide to make fun of me, think of the literally hundreds of millions (or is it billions?) of people who do not have adequate health care to be tested or receive treatment. If you still choose to make fun of me, please note that as of now I have not been diagnosed with TB. It is a "questionable" result and I need to be retested in another 3 months. My x-rays came back normal.

Consumption, Not just for your grandparents anymore

So, it appears that my TB results came back "questionable" and I have to stay in Kyiv over the weekend to get a chest x-ray on Monday. I have known several other volunteers who have gotten TB while here, and it's never been a big deal. Because the results were inconclusive, I will have to come back up in a few months and retake the test, but they want to cancel out the risk of it being in my lungs now.

If I do test positive in the future, I'll be on antibodics for nine months and will not be able to have any alcohol. That isn't really a big deal for me, but at the same time, as soon as you are told that you can't do something, you get angry that you can't!

I'll let you know the results of the test when I am back at site.

On the Road Again

I have started my trip homeward back to Oocryeenya. Germany was a wonderful time. It was great to see my old sitemate again, hang out with his family and enjoy some honest to goodness American meals. When he met me at the McDonalds by the train station (had to take a bus from the airport) he said, "hope that pot roast is okay!"
Okay??? As family and some friends are aware, pot roast is my absolute favorite meal. I was in heaven. Because his parents are still connected into the military there, his dad even picked us up some root beers from the commissary. You can imagine that it was hard for me to leave his place, but as he himself is travelling back to the States as I type, it would have been strange if I moved in!

From his parents home, I went to visit a former student who is an au pair. She lives really close to the my sitemate, as it turns out, and she showed us the castle in Heidelberg. It was a tad strange to be the guest of an au pair in a German home, but the family was nice to me. My student mentioned that the mother was more talkative to me than she has been to her or others. I assume that is because I am an American, and not an au pair from a developing nation. Who knows. But they were very kind to give me a ride in the wee hours of the morning to the bus station in Manheim where I got a bus to the airport.

My impressions of Germany were basically as follows:
1) the scenery looked somewhat like Lancaster County and Western PA. This only made sense to me, as so many Germans settled in this part of our country. This is also not uncommon for other Europeans to settle into landscapes that resemble their homecountry.
2) The cities and suburbs look like they were all ordered out of an Ikea catalog. Yes, Ikea is Swedish, but it seems to me that they flew in a big box, opened it, and there you have it. Everything was super modern, super neat (in the sense of orderly), and super clean. Considering that so much of the country was rebuilt after the war, it shouldn't be so surprising.
3) The language is ridiculous. I was amused in the past by Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Hungarian, but German takes the cake. My first day there I must have drove my sitemate nuts saying "flippingy flootenhop" because that's what it all sounded to me. I did learn how to say such important things like "good dog" and uh, I think that was it. I will not be learning German in the future.
4) Unlike Justin Timberlake, the Euro is NOT bringing sexy back. It's tough enough being a Peace Corps Volunteer travelling in the EU, because we are poor to start with, and the Euro is kicking the US dollar all over town. It was one of the sadest experiences I have had in a while, handing over a nice $100 bill to only get 67 Euros back. Ugh. At least it wasn't the UK.

Once I am back in Ukraine, I am heading to Kyiv for midservice medical. I was going to do it later, but upon reflection, I did not want to take off any time from my university to go up to Kyiv. I ended up with more American money left than I thought (as I used the ATM more than money exchange, since the rates weren't as good, unlike in Ukraine) so I should be set for the three days.

I am hoping that Eric will post more pictures of our Ukrainian trip together, and I think that I am going develop at least one roll from this trip to see if my old camera is still functioning. It also seems to be on its last legs.

Zdravstvuitye Ukraina

Well, I did it. I finally traveled to Ukraine to see Molly. I am lucky to have been invited. I am glad that I went. I’d had all sorts of warnings about what to expect, but it was a wonderful experience.

Having the chance to post as a guest on this blog puts me in mind of the kid from the children’s story who fell asleep over the book that he was reading, fell in, and woke up among the characters in the story.

I flew from Dulles to Frankfurt, then on to Vienna and Odessa. In the airport terminal I had a bit of a scare because there were notices on the walls of the terminal describing the paperwork that must accompany your visa. Silly me -- I had not bothered to arrange for a visa. I had read on the U.S. State Dept. website that no visa was necessary to visit Ukraine from the U.S. as a tourist, but for a moment I considered the possibility that they would put me on the next plane home when they found me visaless. Molly would have no clue as to what had happened to me.

After standing in line to get my passport stamped, I picked up my bags and went to the customs area, where I expected some special attention due to the resupply aspect of my mission in the country. They would have had a lot of Bigelow tea, hot chocolate, pasta sides, milk duds, etc. to rummage through. A uniformed official asked me a question in basic English (“Worth how much?”) about my bags. I answered with a question: “you mean just what I’m importing, or everything, including what I will take home with me?” He didn’t understand my response and waved me through in irritation. But on my own initiative I took the time to fill out a customs form, because I did not want to be thrown in jail in case someone later complained that I’d broken a rule. Some officials looked over the form, asked several questions and checked out some particulars from my luggage. As a result, I was the very last of the 100 or so passengers on the plane to finish with customs.

By that time a bright-eyed, smiling, inquisitve face was already peeking into the customs area from the double doors that led to the center of the terminal.

Meanwhile, one of the other passengers on the plane, a middle-aged man, had dressed up as Дед Мороз (Dyed Moroz or Father Frost), the (secularized?) Ukrainian version of Father Christmas. He entered the terminal with a hearty greeting to all the people who were gathered by the customs exit to meet arriving passengers. I had arrived a few days after our Christmas, but before New Year’s and Orthodox Christmas, which is celebrated by the Julian calendar.

Molly and I greeted each other in the terminal. I had not seen her since August of 2005. Then she watched over my luggage as I made my first survey of Ukrainian bathroom facilities. The bathroom was equal to the average of what one finds in the States – midway on the continuum between the Charles Hotel and a gas station. So what’s all the fuss about? Then we took a taxi to the lot in Odessa where one catches one of these marshrutkas or shuttle buses that Molly is always talking about.

Sitting in the back of the marshrutka to M——, we discovered the man who had dressed up as Dyed Moroz, now reunited with his Ukrainian wife. They opened up a bottle of champagne back there and offered us some. Ms. Personality chatted with them a bit. The marshrutka was so crowded that Molly and I couldn’t sit next to each other, but we sat diagonally across the aisle and talked. After a while I was ready for a nap – I had been traveling for about 24 hours -- and tried to sleep sitting up. Molly nudged me awake whenever my nodding head threatened to come to rest on a shoulder of one of the men to the left or right of me.

More photos to come.

—Eric


The Odessa airport terminal from the window of a bus that shuttles passengers across the tarmac

Upcoming Journey!

Soon I will be leaving to go to Germany. The trip will serve a few purposes: 1) rest and relaxation in a new place 2) to return my former sitemate's guitar to him 3) to visit my student who last year went to Germany to become an au pair.

It's especially neat that my former sitemate's parents live so close to where my student's au pair family lives. They are about an hour apart, which will make it a heck of a lot easier for me to get around!

I am hoping that I can convince my friend to go to Stuggart--I want to hit up the Porsche Museum there (or the Mercedes Benz, but I like Porsche's better). He has promised hikes though and a relaxing atomsphere, as well as an awful UAH to Euro exchange rate (I don't even want to think about it!) My student is just looking forward to have someone visit her and wants to show me around the area where she lives. She says that it's very beautiful and I'm super excited to get away for a little while and enjoy all the luxuries of Western Europe.

Be On The Lookout!

While Eric was here, I asked him if he would be willing to write an entry (or as many as he liked) about what his feelings were about Ukraine. He agreed, and so I am anxiously awaiting the results of this and also the posting of some of our pictures from our trip. Since I will be out of commission and in Germany soon, his posts may appear in the meantime.

Tachometer

Over a month ago I was approached by a woman who was doing some post graduate work at the university across the street from me. Her English was so-so and she asked if I would tape some dialogues for their distance-learning program.

I had (and still have) no idea really who this lady is or how she heard about me, but like a good Peace Corps Volunteer, I nodded my head yes and agreed to go one evening when it was inconvenient for me, but convenient for them.

Immediately, when I arrived there I realized that this was not exactly what I thought it would be. They had me meet the director of their program, made tea for me (after I declined coffee, which I think they thought was strange) and made small talk. (How long had I been in Ukraine, where did I study, was I married, what are my degrees, do I hope to get married, there are many nice Ukrainian boys, etc). I was wondering when we'd get down to business. I smsed my tutor to tell her that this meeting would take longer than the hour I had alloted.

Finally everything got set up and I was given many dialogues and vocabulary to read as everything was recorded into the computer (ah, technology). It started off well, until I got to reading someone's name (a Russian or Ukrainian one which I often have trouble reading still) and burst out laughing. Despite this they were full of compliments, asking if I had done this before.

I was aware at how ridiculous all of this was: I am not the best pronouncer of words and here I was becoming the authority, espeically with a British text that had been adapted and was not always gramatically correct. I tried to fix what I could where I could (articles were left out, etc) but thought sometimes, "heck, just read it and get out of here." But each text got more difficult and I stumbled through parts of it, and the praise of my meter and speaking voice quickly deteriorated. While at first it was basic, "I am a teacher, let's introduce ourselves" it soon became "this is a tachometer" a word I hardly know how to pronounce, let alone exactly what it does. I made up the pronounciation of it and "ammeter" and continued for the next hour to read about motorcycles, water cooling engines, four stroke engines, cooling ribs, air engines, combustion, petrol, bonnets, boots, and spanners.

As ridiculous as I thought it was, it was depressing because I realized that I had no one that night to share the story with. Typically, I would have went home and called my sitemate and related it to him, but now that is no longer an option.

Either way, it was incredibly timesome but yet incredibly humorous at the same time. They asked if I would do more in the spring and while I said sure (again, remembering that I am a Peace Corps Volunteer 24/7 has me agree to more things than I would normally) but quickly pointed out that another volunteer will be here then and perhaps they'd prefer a male voice next time. They just looked at me blankly. At any rate, some mechanical and electrical engineers will probably believe that I'm British and I will become the voice of English in their heads. Weird.

Still Here

Eric and I have been having a wonderful time in Ukraine. We spent New Year's at my site with several other Volunteers dancing in the streets, watching fireworks go off in every direction, including being shot out of windows. It was a spectacular site to witness and I was glad to share this with him and with the other Volunteers, for all it was their first New Year's in Ukraine. I believe that it will be my last.

It is exciting to be on the "downhill" of service. My last New Year's. My last Christmas. And so on. I'm already looking forward to what comes next, whatever that may be.

Soon I'll be heading to Germany to visit my old site mate and a former student. I'm excited, but so much needs to be done in the meantime, most importantly, sending off Eric safe and sound on the 11th.