One Month Analysis

1 down and 26 to go.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Somewhere between the expired eggs that the markets don't refrigerate, the raw meat I eat on a daily basis and the canned goods that expired in 2005, I caught food poisoning on Thursday. It wiped me out for 4 days, but somehow I still managed to attend all of my meetings and classes.
Sunday was just an awful day. The party Saturday night was fun even though I had to hear a lecture about how Ukrainian parties are much better. After the party the drama started when we took cabs to the disco. Long story short, people were buligerant and there was a serious lack of communication. I did nothing wrong and Sunday my host family was not talking to me nor was their friends. Olga started talking to me again Monday and my host mom is finally coming around. We had a long talk about our cultural differences. That day I was seriously ready to pack up and get the hell outta there. On top of that, I somehow broke Nikita's favorite toy gun, the satellite dish went out as I had control of the remote and I forgot to eat this discgusting cheese Andrey spent money on just for me. Did I mention I spend most of my free time either sitting on or kneeling in front of the toilet or watching ridiculous movies? Andrey scored about 10 English DVDs for me. Unfortunately between "What a Girl Wants" and "My Big Fat Wedding", the choices were not so great. You know when I am watching "Cheaper By the Dozen" and loving it, things are bad. Oh yeah, and their pet guinea pig died on Tuesday and Nikita was devastated. Hmmmm....wonder why he died (shut up, Heather).
Tuesday I had my first of 6 classes on grant-writing. It was interesting but it is going to be a long 3 weeks of this class. There was a voulnteer there who has been in for a year and she shared some stories with us. We also heard a Chernihiv native tell us how appreciative he is that we are doing all of this in his city. After that, we went to one of the many beer tents to hang out for Brian's birthday. I was sick so stayed for one quick one. There were some cool older Ukrainian guys there and they provided good entertainment (see the pictures below).
Today we had our first meeting with the employment center to discuss our project. We found 2 translators who are 17 year-old girls who speak amazing English and 5 other languages. The meeting went a completely different direction as we ended up drinking tea and talking about soccer and coming out with a plan of doing a completely different project for them. It is still a good thing we're doing, but not what any of want to do. We have to sit in on 2 Russian seminars next week and be guest speakers after that. Then we are doing a train the trainer workshop for them. At least it's still somewhat in my field.
Saturday my cluster is heading to Kiev to sight-see and do a small amount of work for the day. I'm just excited to have a change of scenery and see more of Ukraine. We are also talking about a trip to Egypt. For $400 we can take a 5-day all expenses paid trip there. Some of the people have been there before and say it is just awesome.
Well, I'm gonna go puke now. I'll probably see the doctor Saturday in Kiev. I'm feeling a little better today and have discovered an amazing musli-granola cereal with hot (expired) milk that is really the best thing I've eaten here so far.
Thanks for all of your phone calls, emails and most importantly your support and encouragement. This is the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life (well almost) and although I spend 6 days wanting to come back home, the 7th day is always rewarding beyond words. Hearing from you guys really means a lot to me and I miss all of you!