A Messed-Up Situation and Weekly Update

What is the foremost thing on my mind these days? Funny you should ask. Pretend Satan has taken over your body and you're close. Up until this week I thought Ukraine, or at least Chernihiv, was a safe place and all the crap Peace Corps told us about safety was a waste of time. Here's the thing. Tuesday night about 2:45am, I was woke up to the sound of a girl screaming. Not just screaming, but the last 20 minutes of Texas Chainsaw Massacre screaming. I shot out of bed and looked out my window. I saw nothing and my mind was still half asleep. This went on for about 10 minutes. Should I go out there in the pitch black with no flashlight and try to console a girl in Russian? Is she just really drunk? About every other night there is screaming out there, but nothing like this. My fiorst thought was that maybe a love one died and she was just freaking out. Suddenly I heard a lady's voice in Russian asking her "what is happening?". Things quieted down and I went back to bed. It wasn't until Wednesday night that my heart sunk and I felt like a complete helpless coward. Marina, who did not hear a thing that night, was told from a babooska in the building that this girl was brutally raped right under my window. Apparently she is okay now, but I have spent the last 2 days feeling like complete s**t. I could have done more than just sit there. This is just an indescribable feeling and it sucks. Now I am haunted by this girl's screaming in my head about every 20 minutes.
So after that pleasant story, onto brighter things...
Sunday we never made it to the concert. Apparently it cost more money than we planned, it was raining and cold and it started at 5pm which means we would have no way home. The trip to Kiev was a total waste of time and money.
Monday and Tuesday were spent in a stressful panic as the 5 of us scrambled to get everything together for our presentation. Between meetings, buying material, doing run-throughs and everything else, I think we were all exhausted come the big day. How did it go? I think really well..better than I expected. We all made a smooth transition, had no technical difficulties with the exception of the copier breaking at the last minute, and the feedback from PC was constrructive yet they had good things to say. We had an audience of about 35 people. It is all over now and afterwards we all celebrated with beers at a new bar in town that had a Cuban theme. A huge weight is off our shoulders at this point and the only thing left to stress about is our final Language Proficiency Interview next Wednesday. This is where they evaluate us and our language skills through a 20 minute conversation in Russian.
Tuesday we had an HIV/AIDS class in the afternoon where we met 2 Ukrainians infected with HIV. It was a depressing afternoon to say the least. I can't believe this disease and how crazy it is in this country.
Today's tech session was on teaching English and conducting English clubs which I found very valuable since my library wants me to teach English 4 times every Sunday. I got a lot of good advice. We also learned about proper ways to work with interpreters.
My home life still sucks now and, if it's possible, even got worse. Since Andrey has been out of town, Marina is going wild with parties every day. She called in sick the rest of the week and expects me to lie to Andrey's parents tonight so they will babysit Nikita while she goes to the disco with her friends. Man, I can't wait to evaluate this host family next week. Andrey, meanwhile, broke his arm playing soccer in Crimea. He comes back Sunday just in time for the end of training host family picnic.
That's about it for now. I'd like to thank everyone for sending another round of packages, but starting today, please hold off until I get my own apartment in about 4-5 weeks.
Has Big Brother started in the states? If it has, someone tape all epsiodes for me. They have a rip-off show here called Dome 2, but it is super lame. Big Brother rocks and it wouldn't be summer without it!