The bittersweetness of life

Grandpa and Halia on our birthday in 2008

It has been a very sad and tough couple of weeks.  Unfortunately, I had to say goodbye to Grandpa Roth (even though it is comforting to know he is no longer in pain).  I am so lucky to have so many good memories with him as well as having such a good relationship with him.  Fortunately, I was able to talk to him while I was out here to fill him in on all my wonderful stories.  Before I came out here, I was able to spend a lot of time with both him and Grandma.  After watching him work on his stamp collection several times, I have decided to officially start collecting stamps myself!  Don’t really know how he did it, but it has already been an interesting adventure trying to find stamps here. 

(Bear with me-- I am taking you on a wild ride of tangents and very poor English)  The Thursday before Easter, I attended the Russian Orthodox Church in town for “Clean Thursday”.  After cleaning myself I put on a nice outfit, a scarf on my head, and was on my way!  I was uninformed that I would be standing for a 2+ hours for the whole service, the choice of trying to “fit in” and wear heels was rather a very uncomforting choice, but nevertheless, church was very interesting and a great cultural experience.  Easter Sunday, Kate (my host sister) woke me up at 3 in the morning so that we could get ready to go to church to bless the food. 

"Pasca" bread (easter bread)

The tradition here is to take a basket filled with: Pasca bread (Easter bread), meat, eggs, and other goods to take to the church in order to get it blessed.  After the church service/blessing is over, everyone goes back home with their baskets and candles lit where they then eat the food that was blessed before returning to bed. Once I woke up, I ate some more and then relaxed a bit.  It wasn’t long after that my host mom told me to grab my soccer ball (yes I already bought a ball) and to get ready to go into the “woods” for a picnic!  The Easter celebration picnic was wonderful!  It was spent with friends and their families and all in all it was great company.  We played a lot of games, ate tons of food, and took just as many pictures.  After the sun started to set, I quickly rushed home so that I could skype my family.  Though it has been a really hard/sad time for everyone in the family, it was nice to talk with them and be somewhat of a part in the Easter celebration.  Thanks to technology I was able to watch them as they sat and ate brunch, while I sat and typed up a lesson plan for my healthy lifestyles class. 

Easter Picnic!

Also, in the past 2 weeks, I have had the best classes and the worst.  Fortunately, I know that even when the whole lesson fails, it isn’t the end of the world simply because all the kids love the fact that they are being taught by Americans.  Teaching in Ukrainian to me is very silly.  I don’t know if they understand the information that I am trying to teach them but no matter what they say I just kind of nod my head and say “Mulidets!”  

Kate and I "doing" HW

It is crazy to think how PST is already becoming crunch time.  In the next 4 weeks we need to successfully put on a Benefit concert for the abused kids in town so that they can attend the rockin’ summer camp that is held in Kulykivka.   As part of training we are required to put on a summer camp in town.  The funny thing is Kulykivka already has a kickin’ summer camp full of fun, games, competitions, and trophies.  We still don’t know what we are going to do with our summer camp, but we are keeping all options open.

We have successfully got the Benefit started.  June 4 will be a wonderful community concert full of Americans doing a traditional Ukrainian dance (yes, us Americans), Americans performing along side with all the Ukrainian talent that is in this town.  We have got the go-ahead by Culture Palace (where it will be held), administration, school, and we are still trying to figure out all the logistics with where exactly the money will go/ how it will be distributed before we talk to Social Services and Department of Youth. 

We actually had out first dance class today and it was rather entertaining watching all my clustermates on the dance floor.  Once we arrived to dance class, I was visioning us in the small dance room that I saw when we went to tour the place, but we were treated like stars again and were rehearsing on stage!  I now understand why Halia loves to perform on stage—it was quite fun!

So all in all, everything here is going well.  It is now high speed and I am sure before I know it training will be over.  I have 2 more lessons to teach, summer camp, 3 English club meetings, and a benefit concert to put on (on top of all the language classes of course.  The sunshine is now out, and everything here is turning green and absolutely gorgeous!  Though it has been tough to be away from family with Grandpa passing away, I am extremely happy to be utilizing his “wanderlust” gene that he has passed down to me.  But family, I hope you enjoy the bitter sweet time together.  Wish I could be there with everyone!

Until next time,

God bless America

thank you for the wonderful words friends.  I have posted them on my wall

These are my cluster mates, everyday for about 6 hours...  They are special...

Time is going by so fast, yet so slow at the same time.  I am about to throw up the language.  It is like the feeling of stuffing your face so fast with food that the food actually never makes it down to your stomach so you throw it up.  I am getting some of the language stuff down to the stomach area of the brain, but there is so much information in a traffic jam pretty much stuck between my eyeballs.  I was given the advice to take everything a day at a time and that is exactly what I am trying to do. 

Each day there has either been an interesting encounter, a lesson learnt, a big laugh, some GOOD food (or sweets), or just language class(it is VERY rare to have only a 4 hour day of just lesson class….- it has happened once).

Here are a little bit of some memorable moments…

 mom's friend, mom, me, kate, luda, robin, and simon

Got meat? 

The day I went on a picnic…  My one day off Kate told me that we would be going on a picnic!  I was so excited to go do something outside, that didn’t require me to dress up, study Ukrainian, or try to figure out where the heck I was.  After watching Titanic in Russian,  Kate, me, my host mom and her friend grabbed all the “supplies” for our picnic and we were on our way.  When Kate told me picnic, I thought “delicious sandwiches, maybe some cookies, juice, and some fruit!”  We walked down the street, past the stadium, and into the trees we went!  After about 10 minutes of walking around to find the perfect spot, we set our stuff down. Robin, another PCT, and her host mom met up with us shortly after we got there. My host mom told me to start gathering sticks.  I never know what is going on EVER, so this feeling of confusion didn’t surprise me. .. I am going to get straight to the point so you are not reading for days.  We went on a picnic, built a fire, and my mom cooked shish cob abs (sp?) over the fire that she built from scratch (ya, no big deal or anything!).  This meat was PHENOMENAL!!  It tasted kind of like the duck poppers my uncle makes.  I don’t know what kind of meat it was because I told my family that it would be best if they not tell me what kind of meat I am eating.  Along with our delicious shishcobabbed (I really have no idea how to spell this word) meat, we had some nice greasy sausage, compote (like juice made from fruits sitting in boiled water, I think), pickles, and of course you can’t forget the bread!!  I whooped out my hacky sac and Kate, Luda, Robin, Simon and I started playing.  Kate sucks at it, but that it ok, she just reminds me more and more of my sister J.

The day I left without a “jacket” …  After a Sunday of great “fall” weather and a pleasant picnic, I had a presumption that the next day would be the same!  As I was getting ready to walk out the door I was debating whether or not to put on my winter jacket.  I decided I would check outside to see what the temperature was—I thought “warm enough, a sweatshirt will suffice!”   2 hours pass after language class where we then started walking to the school to grab some lunch, when I walk outside I found it to be easily 10 degrees colder than it was earlier that morning.  Stupid me…  I wasn’t “freezing” but I was a little uncomfortable.  Once I got home that evening, the first thing my host mom asked me was “did you have a jacket today?”….   that is what I get for living in a small town.  I was then told that I can never leave the house without zipping up my jacket so that I don’t get sick.   Lesson learnt: don’t leave the house without a winter jacket even if it seems like it will be nice and living in a small town—world travels faster than you can walk.

The day I found something BETTER than ketchup…  I thought I was growing apart from ketchup, being able to go without it for long periods of time, but I was wrong.  After 2 long weeks of eating a whole lot of potatoes without my best friend Ketchup at my side has been difficult.  When I eat those plain potatoes in the school cafeteria, I imagined what it would taste like with some ketchup on it or at least some spice.  Well, I never thought I would say this, but I found something better than Heinz ketchup.   It is called “Torchin” Chili sauce and it is DA BOMB!  It is spicy and ketchup put into 1 successfully!   I have had spicy ketchup before and it has never been better from the original ketchup, but this I tell you, it absolutely delicious!  I told Kate that I was going to buy a whole entire box filled with this stuff! (I don’t think she took me seriously).  All I can say is, bring on the potatoes as long as I get to bring my friend Torchin Chili Sauce with me.

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The day I felt like a celebrity…  Last week we went to the school to see a performance they were putting on for us PCTs.   Once we got there, I felt like a celebrity.  I walk in the doors only to see many people in traditional Ukrainian outfits greet me along with giving me bread dipped in salt (a Ukrainian tradition). This entire school performance was dedicated to us Americans.  It was awesome.  Listened to live traditional Ukrainian music, listened to multiple singers, got a brief educational lesson on the school’s history ( I didn’t understand much of it though), and then after all the performances, I got to stand up in front of everyone and introduce myself in Ukrainian.  The introduction was the notecard pictured in my previous blog.  After the performance, we got interviewed for the Kulykivka newspaper—which made it to the front page apparently (I have no actually seen it).

The day I cooked my first meal in Ukraine… After finding out that my mom does not like to cook, I asked Kate if she would want to make dinner with me.  After agreeing, the two of us opened up the Babusia cookbook PC gave us.  After trying to figure out what to make, we came to the realization we had no food except potatoes and meat (what kind, I don’t know but it was really bloody looking…) we decided to make Gnochi with a white sauce.  It turned out alright for first time cooks, and our mom “loved” it!  Kate and I made a good team.  I somewhat knew what I was doing, and she was pro at cutting potatoes in her hand.  She had finished cutting (peeling) 10 potatoes right as I finished cutting 1.  It is scary cutting stuff right in your hands!!!

The day I was “ill”… I have been having some stomach issues the past couple days which have not been horrible, but just a little uncomforting.  On top of stomach issues, the weather has not made me feel any better.  Plus, I am still not the greatest in terms of “dress”.  I always seem to wear the wrong thing on the wrong day, and it is getting really frustrating.  When I went into town (Chernihiv), I had 4 layers on.  Definitely thought I would be OK.  My host mom told me that it was going to snow and it is windy and that I should put more clothes on.  After 5 minutes of insisting that I would be fine I embarked on my super journey of “I told you so”.  Once we arrived in town, it was cold.  I mean COLD! As my cluster group was browsing around in the wonderful Outdoor market, all I was thinking about was how cold I was and I should have listened to my mom (it gets better).  After our errands and lunch we headed to the bus stop to catch the bus.  Hmmm… funny thing—It never came!  After over an hour of standing/sitting in the cold, we decided to take the train back home.  I got home and my mom kind of chuckled and did the “I told you so” look.  I had 5 minutes to eat before I had to go outside again to walk to the concert that we got to go to for free (that is a story in itself).  Once I got home around 9, my sister kept asking me why my eyes were red.  I was trying to say that they were my contacts but, my mom and sister SWORE that I was ill.  Well, lucky for me, I got to do a cultural activity.  My mom put hot boiling water in a bucket along with some delicious fruity smelling bath salts.  My sister then went on to explain to me that I will be sticking my feet in the bucket of hot boiling water to get rid of my “illness”.  What I did was tap my feet on the water until it finally got used to the temperature.  Once after about 5 minutes, my feet hit the bottom of the bucket and I was able to keep them there without screeching from pain of it being too hot.  Lucky for me, my mom brought the whole entire tea kettle into the family room so that once I got used to the water, I could add more boiling hot water.  Yay me!!!  After about 15 minutes total of this, I was told that my feet were  gooood and that I could be done.  As I said goodnight, Kate sternly told me that I need to keep my feet inside my blankets tonight and pull the covers up all the way.  Lesson learnt: seriously listen to the mamma.  She always knows best.  New Cultural experience: the boiling bucket of water to cure illness activity!

Anyways, to wrap things up, everything is going well with me on this side of the country and each day has been very memorable.  I will save the good story for a post of its own.

Macar loves Rusty!!

Well….

Until next time,

Я хочу чилі соус з мої картопли будь ласка

Love, Mo