Halloween!!!

For those of you who have been following my blog over the past year and half, you may remember Halloween last year in Harkiv, where I had giardia but still dressed as fire (the best of the 4 elements). This year was even better than last! First of all, there was no Giardia. My friend Rachel didn't allow me to eat anything leading up to Halloween that would even risk me getting sick. Second, we had the best costumes ever! Who can forget the classic scene in "Dazed and Confused" where Parker Posey and the other Seniors initiate the freshman by humiliating them? Well, we figured that the group before us completed their service and were beginning to leave, we were officially Seniors. And because of that, we were allowed to initiate the baby Freshman (aka. the group 2 groups below us). Which is exactly what we did. And it was sooo much fun! It was like the high school senior year we weren't allowed to have :)

Here are some other killer costumes from this year's festivities.

Old Soviet "Boy Scouts" (I cannot for the life of me remember what they're actually called)

Sasha, the Ladybug, Alia, Flavor Flav, and me (yes, I am wearing make-up)

Alia as Flavor Flav

I also took photos of my class' Halloween party, where I was dressed as Mickey Mouse and my friend Megan was Minnie Mouse, but in the chaos that was the Peace Corps party in Harkiv, I lost my camera. Boo. But there was "pin the tail on the pumpkin", pumpkin carving, decorations (thanks Mom and Dad for buying those), and Halloween Bingo. We also went trick-or-treating, something that none of the kids had ever done.

Next up. . . Thanksgiving! We're already planning a feast here at the office with all of my classes, and I'm sure someone will dress up in costume as an Indian (because they think that's PC, and there's no use trying to change their minds). And then I'll be off to Rachel and Alia's site, where we're having our Peace Corps Thanksgiving (about 15 people will be there), complete with canned cranberries sent from America!!

Other than that, nothing is new. I'm in the process of writing another grant for a media center that Luba and Oksana (my Ukrainian counterparts) want to start in one of the rooms in the office. We just won a grant to start a volunteer newspaper, and celebrated with cognac on friday in the middle of the day, in which we were calling a "business lunch". Of course, that was my idea :)

The Train!

Hey all,

I really don't have any real updates from the Antarctic (that's right, it's already 25 degrees at night). So, I've been trying to describe the train situation in Ukraine to my friends back home for a while, because they're nothing like anything I've ever seen before, and I finally found a youtube video to do it for me! Enjoy! (Aside from the music, everything the guy is saying is pretty much a direct quote from constant "conversations" and instance I've had on the train.



Ps. If anyone's in the DC area right now, I'm back until Friday morning, so call me!!! 202-997-4748

Quick Update

Hey all.

I know, I know, I haven’t written in forever, and I’m a slacker and a terrible person. But really only two of those things are true. I’m totally a slacker and haven’t written forever. The terrible person thing, I’d like to counter with something my new site mate told me the other day- “Jessie, you’re a saint”. So there.

The real reason I haven’t written is because things have kind of plateaued as of late and nothing new is going on. It’s the end of summer, and I’m back at work, doing 3 English Clubs, conducting trainings at local schools about financial management and NGO Theory, and have been getting back in touch with my friends in the city who I haven’t seen in a while, since I’ve been away or hanging out with other PCVs or otherwise unmotivated to do anything. My main project right now, however, is my sitemate. His name is Bernie, he’s 79 years old (turning 80 in January), and has no idea how to use either a computer or cell phone, not to mention his ipod. So, I’ve taken him under my wing and every week I work with him a little bit to teach him the basics. I have to say, it might be the most frustrating thing I’ve done while in Peace Corps. Even though I grew up before cell phones and ipods, I have always had some sort of computer in the house, and I adapted extremely easily with the technological movement, as did my grandfather (I had to teach him the basics over the phone, but that was years ago). It’s hard to remember that when Bernie was younger there was no such thing as a computer, there were only landlines, and people still wrote letters. So to have to spend 3 hours teaching him how to save a document or delete something from his computer. . . . well, it’s challenging. But I’m keeping my patience, and as a reward, he takes me out to dinner once a week. AND, I get desert out of it too!! So, it’s a win-win situation!!!

Other than that, nothing new has been going on. . . . it’s weird to think that I only have 9 months left. That means I actually have to kind of start thinking about what I’m going to do next! Okay, let’s face it. .. . in reality, I’m not going to sort that all out until I’ve been home and slumming for a month or so. . . let’s be real. But I still have to figure out where I want to live, what I want to do, etc. You’d think I have had 2 years to figure all this stuff out, but I haven’t figured out a freakin’ thing. Guess that’s what happens when you put your life on hold- it’s still there waiting for you when you get back, even if it’s a weird demented version of the same life. I guess only time will tell if that’s the life I want to come back to, or if it’s time to start fresh in a new city. Suggestions, anyone?

I know I've been a slacker with the blogging, because this country has left me with no expectations and therefore surprises. But just when you think you've seen/experienced it all, Ukraine comes and slaps you one across the face!!!

I was out tonight with my brother and sister in an Irish pub in Kiev watching the World Cup with Rachel, Elizabeth and Rachel's friends from the States who are here visiting. So we're watching the game when this super drugged up chick comes up and starts being ridiculously loud and obnoxious and speaking horrible English to us. We ginore her, but as always it continues. So finally I get up and say, "why don't you leave my ladies alone?" The rest of the convo goes something like this;

Chick: This is your girlfriend? (speaking about Rachel's friend who this chick was reallybothering)
Me: Yes.
Chick: They are all your girlfriends?
Me: Yes.
Chick: Are you a man or a woman?
Me: Can't you see my boobs? I'm a woman!
Chick: Oh! I'm a man! But tomorrow I will be a woman and then the next day I will be a man!

And then there was a lot of touching on her part and me making an extremely uncomfortable face. For the rest of the night she kept coming over to our table and I would always cringe in fear of being molested at the table again. Glad I escaped more of that!!

In other news- my whole family's here right now! It's been great! They came to my town and today we went to my host family's site, where we got a tour of the entire city. We also hung out at my host family's house, where my parents had the culture shock of seeing a super big vegetable garden out back and my host family had the shocked of seeing Americans think that tiny plot of land was big. It was super interesting!

It's really late right now, and apperently I've had a long day of many different adventures, but I promise I'll write tomorrow. Cross my heart.

No water? REALLY??!!

When I got home from work on Tuesday, I was dismayed to find that I had no water. This has happened before, so I just cooked something that didn’t require that much dishwashing and went on with the night. The next morning-still no water. And that night. This has never happened- 2 days without water- so I asked Luba, my counterpart, what was going on. Apparently her father lives in the same building as me, and he told her that we wouldn’t have water for a week!

Now, normally, had I been able to prepare for this by filling my bathtub with water ahead of time, I would be okay (not happy, but would be able to survive). However, since I had had no warning, I was not prepared at all. So I actually had to go to Luba’s house to shower, since I, like a good Peace Corps Volunteer, hadn’t showered in 4 days. The next day my landlord stops by and I asked about the water again. She responded with, “didn’t you see the sign downstairs?!” Well, no! And even if I had, it’s in Ukrainian, so I wouldn’t have understood it anyways! Sheesh! According to Luba, the sign says that because of a lack of money to pay the entire water bill, the water is going to be turned off during the day and only turned on again from 8pm-8am. Great. There go my relaxing nights! It’s a good thing I’m a solid time manager, because realistically with only 3-4 hours a night to do laundry, shower, cook, clean my apt and wash the dishes. Oh Ukraine! You never stop testing my survival skills, do you?!

Ps. Even though the sign says I'll have water every night, tonight I was without water yet again. This could be problematic in the future should the situation not remedy itself.

Easter part 2

So, I was informed by my very good friend Justine while I was in DC that I’m a terrible blogger and need to update it more. So here this one’s for you, Justine.

So, I got back to Ukraine two days ago. The flight to Kiev from London was half empty, because, honestly, who (besides people visiting Peace Corps Volunteers) want to come to Ukraine? So I got a whole row to myself and took a nice little nap. After a nice long sleep and day of drinking tea and schmoozing at work, I called my friend Galya, who promptly told me to get my ass over to her house and hang out with her and her friend. I show up and she’s trashed! Apparently in Ukraine, Easter doesn’t last one day- it lasts three! And all three days you drink and eat and drink and eat. So what did we do yesterday? We drank and ate, of course! I show up and immediately an fed a shot of vodka. And then another. I drank 6 shots of vodka in an hour (although technically after the first 3 you’re not supposed to count shots. . . bad luck). Galya then turns to her friend Sveta and asks if she wants to go for a walk. I follow behind, and once we walk Sveta home, she asks if we want to come in for a drink. “I have gin upstairs”, she says. So we go up, and I look at this so-called “gin” and notice it’s brown. Then I look at the bottle and realize it’s not gin it’s whiskey! 3 shots of whiskey later I finally found my way home (with a little help from Galya, who walked me there).

Moral of the story- this Easter is up there with last Easter, where we started drinking at 7 in the morning and where Rachel ended up in a village wearing a Santa Claus sweater!

Happy Women's Day!

Today, Ukraine, along with the rest of the world, celebrates Women’s Day. All the shops are closed, people get together with families to drink and party and celebrate women and all they accomplish on a day to day basis. It’s kind of like Mother’s Day, except it includes all women who work daily to make the world a better place.

What’s interesting about this is that while Ukraine has magnified gender roles, there’s a day to appreciate these women who cook, clean, have jobs, and keep people’s houses in order. These women are, in an overly gendered way, superwomen. They’re the ones who keep families together, who keep their children and men clean and fed, and who work for money as well. They’re the ones who get the shit end of the deal, having to do all of this and yet still more than half of them are beaten by their husbands, disregarded by their children, and underpaid. You bet your ass Ukraine better give them a day to celebrate their accomplishments. This is one of those times that the United States can learn a little something from Ukraine. Not to say that women in the States aren’t appreciates, but maybe there should be a few more holidays to celebrate women’s accomplishments. I know we have Mother’s Day, but what about the women who aren’t mothers? When do they get to be appreciated?

I understand that the United States feels a need to be different. We have different measuring systems. We play to our own tune in international policy and societal norms. Maybe it’s time we start sharing common values with our international neighbors and appreciate the women, not just of America, who strived and achieved great things, but the women of the world as well.

Happy Women’s Day, my ladies! I love you all!

Look Ma! I'm on TV!

For our volunteering school, we made a television ad that will run for a month. If any of you don't know, I'm the one in the middle of the ad, talking ridiculously slow (sounding mildly "special"). Now you can all say you know someone famous!

Mad props to the ladies

On this MLK Day, since there are literally no racial minorities people in my town (and barely any in the country in general), I began to reflect on “we shall overcome” as it exists in Ukraine. That, to me, is more in terms of women vs. men. As some of you know, I’ve decided to take up boxing. This is basically because it’s frigid here, and sometimes I get bored of bouncing on my trampoline. So, I thought, what the hell. Ukraine loves its boxing, and apparently there’s a very famous boxer from here, and I’m not planning on actually fighting anyone- I just want to go through the exercises. So, Luba, my counterpart, knows this guy who goes boxing every night. Last Thursday I tagged along. I swear, I don’t think any chick had ever set foot in the place. It was clearly a boy’s dorm, complete with homemade boxing ring with wood board floors and mats on the corners secured with duct tape. The first question I had to ask, because my bladder hates me, was, “where’s the bathroom”. The response- “oh, we don’t have one. We just go outside”. So of course I held it. All the boys were giving me seriously funny looks and were extremely surprised when I could keep up with every single exercise. I must say, I wasn’t bad for the first time ever boxing. But during paring exercises, no one wanted to pair with me, so Dima, the guy I went with, paired with me. For the rest of the class, I was getting very angry looks from everyone, as if they were saying in their minds, “what the hell is this chick doing in our boy space?” Of course, this made me more motivated (I totally felt like Demi Moore in GI Jane, sans super ripped muscles), and now I want to go as much as possible, not because I totally enjoy boxing, but because these boys are in need of a serious attitude adjustment.

Which leads me to my next point. I noticed during the first couple months here the substantial difference in gender roles between men and women. When sitting at a table where a man is present, he is cultural required to open and pour all drinks, while women are expected to sit and wait for their glass to be filled. Men are expected to shovel in the winter and do all other household maintenance work, while women are expected to do all the cleaning, sewing, home economics, and cooking. I noticed this from the beginning, when people would constantly ask if I felt safe living by myself, and if I was married (and then looked at me weird when I said no, and no, I don’t have a boyfriend either, and no I’m not looking for one). But it wasn’t until I went to boxing that it really hit me just how deep these roles go. Women work, but only because they have to for money’s sake. If money were no object, they would be expected to stay at home and take care of the children, or at least work part time and be home and have dinner prepared for the guys when they get home. Generally, both parents in a household work full time. So why is it that the girls are always the ones that come home and cook and clean, while literally (and I’ve experienced this as a guest) the guys sit around the table and entertain, or watch TV? This wouldn’t bother me so much if it didn’t infiltrate every aspect of life here, but since I live here, I’m expected to adapt to these cultural norms, which I just cannot for the life of me do. I’m sorry, but in the summer, when it’s hot, and I don’t like to wear dresses and high heels, I’m going to wear shorts. That’s just how it is. I think what it all comes down to, and I experienced this fully for the first time on Thursday night, is that no matter how bossy and “head of householdish” the old grandmothers are, the younger generation of women are just assumed to be inferior, and at times non-existant in the eyes of men. Unless there’s something they want from you, such as sex, food, booze, etc., they don’t see you as equal to them. I feel like I should try to find a Russian version of the “Feminine Mystique” and hand them out on street corners. It’s like I’m seeing the world as if it existed had the feminist revolution of the 60’s and 70’s never happened. It struck me that this is what my life would be had my mother and her generation not stood up and said, “enough of this”.

I guess the whole point of this babbling blog is, thank you. Thank you ladies, for crashing head first through that barrier, and allowing me to be raised in a society where I can be and do whatever I want, with opportunities be the best I could be, and be happy doing it. I feel like I can, at least on some level (because I get to get out of this environment at the end of 2 years), I’m getting a very real taste of everything you went through, and have super super mad respect!

Back from the 'Dam!

Well, after a nice long week of vacationing in Western Europe, I'm back in Ukraine. And strangly enough, it kinda feels good to be back!

Amsterdam was awesome. That town is pretty friggin' cool, coffee shops aside. Of course we indulged in the coffee shops and ate a bunch of brownies, but the more exciting part was having Asian and Mexican food (even though they weren't great, they were amazing to us!!!). WE spent New Years at this little party, which kinda reminded me of an 8th grade dance, which really bad Eurotrash music. BUt it was fun to hang out with my friends. And at the stroke of midnight, everyone in the city started setting off fireworks right in the middle of the street!! I swear, I almost got hit by one and kept hiding behind my friend Megan. I think Rachel took pictures of that. It was ridiculous! I've never seen so many fireworks in my life!!!

The last day in Amsterdam, I had a "Jessie date day" and explored the entire city, since we really hadn't done that yet. I went all around the Red Light District, and found this Tibetian store, which I proceeded to spend all the rest of my money of fun little trinkets. I also found the Sex Museum and decided to splurge on that. And thought I couldn't get into the Anne Frank House, I walked by. . . . I figured that was enough for this visit. That house isn't going anywhere.

Elizabeth, Rachel and I also had to figure out how we were getting back to Ukraine, so we went ot the train station and bought tickets to Prague, where we could then buy tickets to Krakow (or, in my case, Kiev). So we got to spend a day in Prague, roaming and exploring my old stomping ground. And surprisingly enough, I remembered everything about that city and how to get everywhere, including the bagel place, which made us all SO happy!!! After a day of Prague, buying hot wine and fun little goodies, and going to Tesco, which, by the way, is the best supermarket in the entire world (I kid you not), we were off to the train station once again, and we were off. The train we were all on stopped in Krakow and then continued to Kiev. But because I was going straight to Kiev, I was in a seperate car than my buddies, and I swear, as soon as I stepped onto the car, it was like I was walking into Little Ukraine. everyone was speaking Russian and they were all Ukrainian. Hell, even the rain car was a Ukrainian train car!! And, of course, the train moved as sow as Ukrainian trains. I spent about 32 hours in transit from Prague to Kiev. About 6 of those hours were waiting in Krakow for something or another, and another 3 were spent at the border of Poland and Ukraine. Thank god this train car had a toilet that actually flushed though! Usually the toilets just dump onto the tracks, which means in big cities you can't use the bathroom because they close them! I thank my lucky stars that this wasn't the case.

So, now I'm in Chirnigiv with my host family for Ukrainian Christmas. It's like coming home from college all over again. I love it! Apparently my family was invited over for dinner at my next door neighbors house tonight, and I'm tagging along. I asked galya if it was okay, and she said, "well, I said we'd all go. . . I just didn't say how many people was 'all'". So, I guess it's okay? She looks great, by the way. I think she's about 7 months pregnant and glowing! I can't wait to have a little host baby brother! (It's a boy). I hope they name it Jesse. Or Jessovich. Or something like that.

I hope everyone had a great New Years!!! Go 2010!