Weekly Update

Tuesday was Victory Day. We went to this Soviet World War II museum which was really interesting. We had an English tour guide and it made a big difference. It was painful to see how the Jews were treated back then and to see graphic photographs of it all. I got home in the late afternoon to find out Andrey pirated Spiderman 3 so we watched that on his computer. I guess my Russian is getting better because I understood the entire film except one scene he had to translate for me. When that got over, we ate dinner. What was for dinner?? It looked like delicious chicken soup so I dove in. I noticed a peculiar taste and at that moment Marina said to me, " You do like fish heads, don't you? Just be careful of all the bones". I choked down the rest of it and Andrey had the idea to get on a bus to watch the fireworks show downtown. I was reluctant, but I was glad we went when all was said and done. We stopped and grabbed some beers and when we headed into the center it was like Vegas on New Year's Eve. Most of the city was out at 11pm and it was a huge street party. We ended up staying out pretty late. We walked home and stopped into this pool hall and played some Russian billiards. The differenece is all the balls are white and you can hit any balls you want. The first person to hit 6 in wins. The tables are twice as big as American pool and I sucked. They did have one American table so I taught Andrey and his friend how to play "real pool" and I still lost :) I finally got to bed at 4:30am and had to be up at 7am.
Wednesday was an awkward night. Andrey and Marina were in a screaming match and then not speaking to each other. I felt very uncomfortable and left the house to hang out with olga down the street so they could have some privacy.
Thursday we had our last session on grant-writing. I came home and watched some more lame DVD's.
Our project finally has life after several meetings and a busy week. We are putting on a seminar June 6th for 6 organizations and a group of college students on "selling yourself" (e.g. resume-writing and interviewing skills) so our original idea came backl to life in the long run. We sat in on one Russian seminar at the employment center Tuesday and brought an amazing translator with us so that is a big reason why we had success. We spent the last few days drafting our proposal and applying for a grant to pay for this thing. Wednesday at Jonathan's house I expereiced something amazing....food! His host mom rocks! She cooked so much food for us and it was all delicious. Good to know I'm the only one who got the shaft in the food department. I am going back there tomorrow with our translator to watch the last 5 episodes of "Lost". Jonathan's mom in the states mailed him a DVD with the last few episodes on it and I am excited!!! Our translator, Andrey, also is a huge fan of the show so tomorrow should be a good day. Speaking of packages, I finally received my first one!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was mailed April 6th from my parents. Cutoms took out the food that was in it, but I was glad to get something. My mom put a hot wheels car in there for Nikita and now he thinks he is the coolest kid inUkraine. He is so proud to have an American living with him and he loves to show me off to his friends.
On the down side, I am completely broke. I have enough of my pay to get me to my site on Tuesday and that's it. I get paid again when I arrive there. Therefore, it will most likely be a boring weekend.
Last night totally sucked. When I got home Andrey and Marina were shouting for hours and hours again. She's a screamer when they argue and it went on until about midnight. My dinner last night was a bag of mushroom flavor potato chips. She offered me dinner, but I saw it was left over fish head soup with nothiung but bones floating around in there so I kindly passed.
Today I laughed harder than I have in years. In language class, we had our Tech teacher come in and teach us Ukrainian cuss words. It was for our safety and for the business teachers mostly. The handout had every possible word and phrase imaginable and some of the translations were hilarious and made absolutely no sense. We just got out of another meeting with the director of the employment center and tonight I have the house to myself WOO HOO!!
I won't be posting for over a week most likely. I will be back around the 23rd. I can't afford phone minutes this week so I apologize for the lack of calls. I will be back in touch when I get back from visiting my new city.