Kyiv Visit and Night From Hell

The stomach meter is currently back down to about 32%. I was well Friday and Saturday, but today things aren't so pleasant in that department. Let me shed some light on this subject and you can draw your own conclusions about this surreal life I'm living...
First things first...Kyiv frickin' rocks!!! This city is awesome. There is so much life there, history, architecture, cathedrals, shopping, amazing food, and I could go on. It was a ton of fun and it was like stepping into Western Europe for the day. We left at 8am and took a 2 hour bus ride to Kyiv. The bus dropped us off at the Metro station and we had to take the train into the heart of the city. We must have had good luck because of the small handful of people I talked to this morning, 4 of them got pick-pocketed. Our assignment when we got off the train was to go on a scavenger hunt. We are currently studying the topics of "The City" and "Things Around the House" in language class. In this chapter, we are learning how to ask and receive directions. Olga, our teacher, was with us and she gave each of us a piece of paper with a tourist attraction on it. We had to take turns asking strangers for directions and leading our group to that place. Our first stop was the Peace Corps headquarters in Kyiv. It was a very nice, and extremely secure, building complete with a lounge that included a library and a home theater and medical offices (if I knew the stomach meter was going to drop, I would have talked to the doctor there). We ran into some of the other Chernigiv clusters there, but never got to meet up with the other groups that traveled to Kyiv from small villages. We lefter there and visited 3 awe-inspiring just breathtaking cathedrals that my pictures don't do any justice to. We saw the golden gate of Kyiv which used to be the main gate to the city that protected it from enemies. We visited a huge underground mall and fouund the protests that have been going on all month. They seemed very calm. There was live music and it was more like walking into a Lollapallooza concert than a governmental protest. Olga took us to her favorite restaurant for lunch where I ate the best meal since I left Montana. I ate a huge bowl of borsch, potato pancakes, chicken, a ham omelet, garlic buns and followed it with an amazing Ukrainian beer. I was stuffed and completely in my element. We then ran into another cluster and we headed to an Irish pub where we watched soccer on a big screen and enjoyed a couple more beers. They had Guiness on tap for $30 grievnya (which is expensive here, but only about $6 in the U.S.). Instead we stuck to the locl brews which were still pricey. We were warned how expensive Kyiv is, and it is no joke. I saw so many great souveniers I'd like to pick up for gifts, but just could not afford them this time.
By the end of the day, I was exhausted and stuffed. We waited in a very long line to board the bus back to Chernigiv. I made the mistake of buying one of these deep fried dough thingies with what appeared to be tater tot casserole in the middle of it. It was really good, but I don't think I needed it. My stomach is ready to kick my ass at this point.
I finally get home around 8pm and the real fun begins.
(sidenote: remember when I said I was extremely lucky to end up with my host family? I am second guessing this now. They are great people, but every day grows longer in this apartment.) I walk in exhausted and wanting to just relax to a movie and pass out. I am dying for a glass of grape juice that I bought with my money. I go into the kitchen to find that the kid drank the ENTIRE carton in one day. So now not only do I have to sneak food into my room after I buy it, I will have to store warm juice in there as well. Peace Corps pays the familes to buy food for us and it seems that my money goes to nearly all food that I never get to eat. It makes me wonder if they are just in it for the money and are planning on buying a big screen TV or something once I am gone. A perfect example, now my host dad says, would you like to drink a couple beers tonight? I say, okay because it souunds like a good idea. He sends me to the market and expects me to pay for all of the beer. I buy 4 bottles and a bag of chips. I get home and he drinks all the beer with his friend and eats my chips. Anyway, at this point my gut is busting and just killing me. Marina approaches me saying she has spent all day preparing this huge chicken dinner for me. The last thing on my mind is food. She lays the guilt trip on me and I find myself struggling to eat this chicken feast. I am sweating at the table forcing myself to eat. She thinks I don't like her cooking and gets upset at me. I do the dishes and head straight for the toilet for an hour. I am finally sitting at my desk uploading pictures and Nikita walks in behind me. "Paul, look what I got!" I look into this butter container he has and inside are 3 huge cockroaches. I freak out because he keeps trying to put them on me and they are jumping out of the carton onto my desk. Apparently he likes to catch them and bring them inside to play with. They are all petting them and playing with them like they were pets. He even lets it walk around the dinner table. They all get out of the carton and they let them explore the living room. I head to my room and shut the door. Andrey comes in and says "Paul, you have to go with me to pick up my friend". I say okay because he assures me it will not be longer than a half hour. We get in the cab and head to a new disco that opened up last night. He uses me saying I am an American and we skip out of the cover charge. We find his friend along with some others that speak English. They bombard me with questions and in a very friendly manner take me to the bar. I'm not thinking about drinks, I just want to go home. I turn around and his friend buys me a huge shot of this sambuca and green stuff that is on fire. The bartender screams at me and gives me a straw. I drink it with all of them and say "thanks for the drink, but I really need to go home now." His friend then says I owe the bartender $25 grievnya. I'm pissed, I pay and leave with Andrey and his friend. Instead of getting into a cab, we end up walking down to the river and talking for an hour. We finally go home and end up staying up until 2am. I had to wake up early today for a meeting with my disfunctional project group. We are the only group who doesn't have a definite project due to circumstances beyond our control. After I'm done here, I need to go to the bazaar to buy a razor and shaving cream. I've used an electric razor my whole life. Why do I need to buy this stuff? Beacuse I stupidly plugged my razor in without a power converter and fried it. Replacement razors are expensive and scarce here.
So there it is. I apologize if I seem like I'm constantly complaining on here, but I AM!!! I keep telling myself things will get better and I'm hoping they will. We are already in the planning stages of getting our permanent sites. We find out in 2 weeks and then go to visit them for a week. Part of the reason for the Kyiv visit was so we know where to go by ourselves when we come back to headquarters for a debriefing. I just want to get my own place and start living a somewhat normal life again.
The weather was perfect yesterday and today it is going to snow. I guess I took the Montana weather with me. The best part is, the heat in our building has been shut off for the year and I freeze at night now because I didn't bring a sleeping bag. Some people say their sleeping bag is the best thing they brought. I say the best thing I brought was my gigantic bottle of Tums which is almost gone by now. So add that to the fact that the Ukrainians I've met don't use soap when they do dishes, don't open windows on buses when it is hot outside because breezes could kill a person, don't brush their teeth or bathe properly, and I could go on. I knew I would have to make some cultural adjustments and it's not all that bad. I just don't understand some things here. I should justify all of this by saying Ukrainians are all around better people than us. They are extremely family-oriented, peaceful and hospitable. The women here are all attractive, everyone stays in great shape. There is no "bar scene" really. People would rather stay home on the weekends and be with family. They take their holidays very seriously, they respect one another and cherish what they have; quite the opposite from how we operate in the states.
So, yes, I'm hanging in there. No, I'm not quitting yet. Yes, I miss all of you, but I have a lot to experience first.
Thanks for listening to my rants and complaints. Have a good week!

Kyiv Pictures

Of the 90 pictures I took yesterday, these made the final cut...

God, we are cool!

Zach and I taming a legendary, extremely dangerous fire-breathing dragon.

Can someone please confirm that this is, in fact, Wilford Brimley? I thought he was dead, but I stand corrected..

My brief visit to heaven.

Our cluster posing for the cover of our family band album cover. Watch out Partridge Family!!!

This cathedral was designed by the same guy who designed some of the most famous cathedrals in St. Petersburg.

This is us walking into exactly where we weren't supposed to go for safety sake. The best quote was when we came out of an underground tunnel and found ourselves directly in the middle of the protestors. Someone from our group summed it up by simply stating "Oops."

Let's play a game. Can anyone find the drunk guy passed out with his head next to a sewer vent? It's kinda like "Where's Waldo?" but different.

I'm not sure, but I think the girl in front was ready to nail me with pepper spray.

This was a fraction of the protesting going on there. Those tents are full of people camping out in the center. I sat here wainting for Bono to take the stage, but it never happened.

The few, the proud, the Peace Corps. I'm the guy with no stomach.

Quick Hello

I am meeting some people later and had some time to kill since we had a short work day so I thought I'd zip into the internet club.
I'm in better spirits today and the stomach meter is back to 92%. I am excited to do some traveling tomorrow. It sounds like all 75 of us are heading to Kyiv tomorrow to see the Peace Corps offices and sightsee.
Last night was a late UNO night (PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SEND ME SOME OTHER GAMES!!!). Today we had to do presentations in language class and I did mine on my life in Billings. I showed pictures and translated everything into Russian.
Now wer are going to play soccer and unwind at the beer tent because it is beautiful outside for once!

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!

More Pictures

Viva Ukraine! It's a tough job, but it's the least I can do for my country.

A cool building in downtown Chernihiv.

A great picture.

Every meeting we attend has USA flowers, flags, etc, and of course....tea.

Me and my host mommy.

another one.

Marina and our departed little friend whose name I never learned to pronounce.

Me and Little Nikita. He is eating what they refer to as a potato chip. Me and Olga #13 (the one with a kid who lives by us).

This is me getting made fun of for attempting to prepare a Ukrainian recipe.

A Ukrainian toast at my party last Saturday.

My cluster (minus Teri)

A local Ukrainian showing Brian how to properly rip a fish's head off and eat it on Brian's birthday.

Week #4

This week was bananas. We made visits to the Chamber of Commerce and met with the heads of all the youth organizations and NGO's in the city. Our visits are now all done. Yesterday our mission was to analyze all of our visits and come up with 6 community projects based on these organizations' needs. We came up with HIV/AIDS, NGO Advising, Professional Women in Ukraine, Sister Schools in America, Youth Development and my idea was an Employment Assistance seminar. I got 5 people to join my project. We are meeting tonight to discuss the details, but right now the plan is to put on a seminar in a few weeks in which we assist young people and unemployed citizens on interviewing skills, putting together resumes, etc. I am glad there was interest in this because this is what I wanted to do out here since most of my experience is in this field.
Today I had my first evaluation. They pretty much just drilled me on safety, health, language and community integration and asked what my concerns were. It sounds as if they want to break up our cluster and break us into 2 groups, but none of us want to leave.
Wednesday, we had some people over and we played cards with a Ukrainian deck...it was like learning all over again. Olga and her kid spent the night and it was a late one.
Yesterday we were supposed to go to a Russian sauna. Those of you who haven't heard, I guess they get you completely naked and beat you with a birch branch. You then diuve into ice cold water. It sounds insane, but I hear the next morning you are a changed person. I hope they mean that in a good way. At any rate, the girl that made our reservations screwed up and we have to reschedule.
We are talking about traveling to Kyiv next weekend. Some people are going this weekend, but the demonstrations in the capital are bacoming violent and Peace Corps is recommending holding off. On top of that, I am running low on cash this pay period. I have been buiying a lot of groceries. I store them in the kitchen, but the next day it is all gone. That kinda stuff is considered rude in the states, but obviously not here. I have come to the conclusion that I either need to store it in my room or at our language instructor's apartment. Most of my money goes to minutes for my phone and food. It was nice to talk to Shawna (briefly), Jessica and my family this week. Julie, I will try this weekend.
Tomorrow my host family wants to have some Americans over so I invited about 10 people over to play games and then we are all going to the disco...again. It should be a blast if all goes well.
There is an American here at the internet club right now. It's kinda weird to hear an American voice.
Chernihiv is finally starting to feel like home. I am not scared to walk down the street or ride the buses anymore and that is a good sign. It's going to suck when we have to move again after making friends and establishing ourselves here.
Until later
До Свиданю И До Завтра

IMPORTANT!!!

First, I can't express how grateful I am for all of you that have sent out packages.
I found out yesterday that you are not allowed to mail food or CD's/DVD's here. If you want to mail me this stuff, don't declare it on the customs label. Instead, you may write "personal belongings" on it and it won't be inspected and confiscated. Shawna and my parents' packages most likely won't ever get to me because they wrote "food" on the shipping label. I'm really bummed about this because I could really use a care package about now. The best bet is to just wait until I am moved in to my permanent site and you can mail it to me directly there with little to no problems.

Random thoughts

I'm obviously bored and in the typing mood.
I had an hour-long conversation about Ukrainian music the other day with my host family. Let me paint the picture for you on what a typical day is like at my house. From 7am to 2am Marina has the radio blasting. The station plays the same 10 songs over and over and over. The music here is pretty much all techno or really bad pop music. I am going insane and you know it's bad when you start to sing along to bad pop music in another language. As most of you know, I am a rock and roll kinda guy and despise pop music. I finally asked them if there are any rock groups in Ukraine or radio stations. The response was that there were some, but nobody listens to that kinda music because Ukrainians are peaceful people. I just shut up and buckled up for a long 2 years. However, The Rolling Stones and The Scorpions are coming to Kyiv in the next couple months.
Next topic...
I am having difficulty remembering some of the cultural differences here. For example, empty bottles are not allowed on tables so after I am done with my beer, I can not for the life of me remember to put the empty bottle on the floor.
Smiling. Ukrainians don't believe in smiling. They instruct us not to smile as it draws attention to us. If you smile at someone on the street, they assume you are a lunatic. If you smile at a baby or tell the mother it's cute, that baby will have a bad life according to urban legend.
I love to whistle and if you whistle indoors in Ukraine, it brings bad luck into the house.
I always forget to wear my slippers around the house and it is pretty much mandatory in Ukraine to wear slippers (tapachkeys) all the time.

I have been watching "Lost In Translation" over the last week. One reason is because it is one of my favorite films and the other reason is because that is pretty much my life right now.
I realized how limited my DVD collection is here. If anyone sends a package out, slide some movies in there for me. ANYTHING!!!

Some of the topics we have been learning in language class so far are: Getting Acquainted (how to greet someone and tell them about yourself), food (how to order in restaurants and markets) and time and weather. Speaking of which, 2 more things I can't get used to is the wacky celcius tempurature scale and military time. When someone says it's 30 degrees at 17:30. I wanna climb into a hole.

That's all I got today. We are getting internet at home sometime this week so hopfully I can post more and add more pictures. I'm off to watch "Smokin Aces" in Russian and eat fish eggs and duck liver after squating in the shower and cramping up. Viva La Peace Corps!!!

PICTURES!!!!! (thanks Rachel!)

Some friends (Ukrainian and American) at the birthday bash. This was just about the only picture I could post here that wouldn't get me in trouble.

some pictures from Friday's school production...

This is me trying a Ukraianian delicacy called Salo. Salo is essentially raw pig fat placed on bread and supplemented with a clove of garlic. Almost as good as Ukrainian meat jello or fish soup. You can tell how much I loved it.

Ukrainian McDonalds gourmet lunch with some of the PCV's that were in town Saturday.

Some of my clustermates cooking that pasta lunch on Friday.

BEST PICTURE EVER!!! After me singing "Yesterday" during a karaoke sing-off.

I believe this was Easter dinner #3 before heading out to the disco party. Geoffrey is a PCV and is in the front right. It was his birthday and his host parents are sitting at the end...they rock!

The local cathedral.

Pasxa (Easter) Sunday at the church and the blessing of the baskets.

A typical night of playing UNO. My host "parents" on left and their friends on right.

Some of my technical training classmates.

Some of our technical trainers.

Olga's apartment where we have language class everyday. Olga is on the right.

Our living room (although we just rearranged it when Andrey got satellite tv with 2000 channels)

My bedroom...notice the huge, comfy bed :)

My host family (Andrey, Marina and little Nikita)

Here we are waiting for a bus. This activity occurs about 10 times/day.

Not sure what this is, maybe a museum, but this is the main square.

One of the main roads in my home town.

Lenin statue in the main square of Chernigiv.

This was our room...nice and cozy for 3 grown men.

This is the room we stayed at in Prolosok. This is the lovely bathroom I described a few weeks ago.