Currently Reading Master and Man, and Other Stories (Penguin Classics) By Leo Tolstoy, Lev Nikolaevich, Graf Tolsto-I, Paul Foote see related

Alright! My computer has made its way to the US and back and is working once again.  Summer went by in a flash.  A typical day entailed sleeping in till like 11 everyday…grabbing lunch, going to the library for a few hours…working on my secondary project for a few hours….studying Russian, meeting up with the other volunteers for a drink/movie (depending on the day of the week)….then going home to sleep only to repeat the same sequence of events the following day.  Every Tuesday I hosted an informal English conversational club with Ukrainians still in the city for the summer who wanted to practice their English.   Sundays I started going to an awesome church downtown, and on Sunday nights went to an English movie club where Ukrainians paid to watch movies in English.  But since the Peace Corps volunteers helped with the explanations of key words and phrases of the movie before it’s shown, we got to go for free.

So nothing particularly exciting happened this summer… But, there were some periods of excitement.  I managed to go water skiing (yes, water skiing) here on the Dnipro River. The volunteers here befriended some Ukrainians here in the city, and one of their fathers happens to be a “businessman” in the city.  Now the word “businessman” here takes on a completely different meaning than it does in the states.  “Businessman” usually carries the connotation of wealth and corruption, aka mafia.    Whether our friend’s dad is legit or not (I'm pretty sure he is), he did take us out on his brand new Bayliner ski boat for a day which was pretty cool I must say. 

This past Wednesday I moved out of my host family, but my new pad only makes my old place look like the Ritz.  The university I'm teaching at is supposed to provide me with housing as part of their agreement with Peace Corps, and…well…I don't know…words can't describe the new hole I'm living in….but it’s like a time capsule from the 50’s Soviet era complete with a sofa/bed from who knows when.  Well at least I have a kitchen and half a bathroom.  It’s only half a bathroom because yes it has toilet, sink, check, and shower.  BUT the shower consists of a removable shower head stationed next to the sink, and that’s it.  No shower curtain, no discernable showering area -- just a shower head.   And from the looks of it, showers are supposed to be taken on the floor of the bathroom between the toilet and sink.  Oh as an added bonus, I don't have a water heater, so I'll be taking cold showers until the city starts its hot water service in October (The city provides hot water to its citizens but turns it off during the months of May-October, but still manages to charge people for it during those off months).  But my new apartment does have some positive attributes.  It’s just a walk away to the university which will be convenient once it starts snowing.  From what I understand they don't shovel their walks here.  There’s a grocery store right around the corner, and the city park is only a couple blocks away. 

Us on the river and at the yacht club.  Notice the color of the water in the second pic.  During the summer a nice green foam forms on the surface.  Locals say it's all natural, but I personally think it has something to do with the countless factories dumping thier industrial waste in the river. The last pic is the "businessman" who took us out.

Living in the lap of luxruy.  From left to right: my second host family's apartment complex; their living room(one of two rooms in the whole flat) where the mom dad and sister slept; the host family in my room; and last but not least, the local mcdonalds downtown that I frequented everyday before going back to my host family for dinner.

1. All the Peace Corps volunteers in DP and a couple of French guys at a friend's flat. 2.The entrance to the football stadium before a big game between our city's team, Dnipr, and Slovania.  I like how all their sports-related signs here have olympic rings on them, but ironically they'll probably never see the olympics in this country. 3. Me and a friend working for a church here hanging out at his place.

Currently Reading Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission By HAMPTON SIDES see related

Without the constant distraction of TV and internet, I've found that I have A LOT of free time.I think I've read more in the past three months than in the past 4 years.An older volunteer gave me this book I'm reading right now during training.It’s about the experience and subsequent rescue of American soldiers in a Japanese POW camp in the Philippines (highly recommended), and it’s interesting how one of their experiences almost exactly parallel mine here in the Peace Corps.It was when the prisoners had been living on rice and water for about a year, and they started playing this masochistic game every night before going to sleep of naming the tastiest dishes from home.There was not point of the except to make the others pine for those dishes.And I found myself doing the same thing with my volunteer roommates during swearing in.Sushi, fajitas, nachos, hamburgers…. Yeah the food here is decent enough, but after the novelty of the perogies and borscht wears off, the food suddenly becomes pretty bland.They don't believe in spicy foods because it’s supposedly bad for your health (yeah and that pig fat is sooo healthy).I would kill for some tex-mex with some hot salsa….man….

School’s just wrapping up here in DP.I have the next two months to pursue secondary projects or travel around Ukraine.I have a few projects in mind already but I have a tendency to talk about all my plans and ideas prematurely only to feel like an idiot later for not following through on them.The classic counting the chickens before they hatch.So once I get them off the ground, I'll disclose what they are.

I spent the 4th watching the Euro soccer finals between Greece and Portugal.  It's crazy how much everyone but Americans loves soccer.  I've always wondered why the rest of the world can't just play 'normal' american football.  But after living here, I think it's because american football is just too expensive for the average citizen of most countries to play. You have to get pads, a ball, a nice marked field, a helment, etc....but with soccer all you need is a patch of dirt of a round ball you can kick.  Although I didn't celebrate the 4th in the traditional sense, I did reflect on how fortunate I am to be an American and the freedoms I enjoy and often times take foregranted because of my citizenship.  These liberties allow us to speak our minds freely.  Whether we love or hate America or its leaders, we have to ability to say so.  Which, unfortunately, in many countries (like this one) results in less than desirable consequences.....God Bless America.

My first month at site has been pretty uneventful.I've slowly adapted to my host family’s food (although I was still somewhat shocked the other day when I saw what looked like a kidney from some animal in my rice the other day), and I have not gone through the culture shock and in some cases severe depression that is common for most volunteers when they first head off to site.I think it helps that there are many other volunteers in the city already I can talk to and hang out with.

The only thing that’s really been bugging here is that fact that I've already had two sinus infections since I've been here in DP, making that 3 total in the past 4 months.This I attribute to the countless smoke stacks spewing their filth into the air.Whereas most people in the city have adapted to these toxic fumes, my past sic months spentbreathing the pristine air of Yosemite has rendered my immune system useless in this environment. So Dp is apparenly the industrial center of Ukraine and once was the industrial center of the USSR.  It's famous for its large metallurgy plants and its rocket building facilities (during Soviet times, this was once a closed city to foreigners due to the top secret nature of the rocket plants).  It resides on Ukraine's main river, teh Dnipro, and is home to many powerful politicians, including President Kuchma.  As a result, or so the story goes, DP enjoys the bulk of Ukraine's public funding.  Supposedly some of the nicest roads and highways here in Ukraine are the ones leading from DP to the villages where the politicians are from....oops..time's up at the internet club.

All the volunteers then spent their last nights partying and saying goodbye because the swearing-in ceremony would the last time until the close of service all the volunteers would see each other again for the next two years.  As far as my language exam, I scored “Intermediate-High” which I believe to be a gross inflation of my actual language abilities because it only takes a trip to the local store to realize how atrocious and incomprehensible my Russian is.  Oh, I was also elected to the Volunteer Advisory Council (Peace Corp’s form of the student council).  I’m not sure what exactly that means yet, but gauging from our first meeting in Kiev, I am supposedly a liaison between the volunteers and the Peace Corps Administration and voice complaints and issues on my group on their behalf.

So, I said goodbye to Kiev and my old host family and started my new life with a new host family in Dnipropetrovsk.  I’ve been here about a week now, and just when I started to feel comfortable in Kiev, I get displaced to start the adjustment process all over again.  And I will have to undergo it again in September when I move out of my new host family to a place of my own.  Which, as of right now, cannot come soon enough.  I guess I was spoiled by my last host family, but this new one is going to take a little getting used to.  First of all they don’t wash their dishes.  Well they run them under the tap for a few seconds, but sometimes I can still taste the grease from food I ate a few days ago and taste other people’s spit on the cups.  Not pleasant.  I started drinking on the side of the cups opposite from the handle that most people don’t drink from, and when my host family asked me why I drink like that, I just told them that’s how some people do it in America.  And I guess the worse thing about my current living situation is that I think my new host mother is trying to marry me off to my new host sister, and she’s not being discreet about it either. 

Here in DP, school is coming to a close.  Right now I’m helping the teachers out with their classes until school lets out at the end of June.  Then I’m thinking about working at a business center in town part time.  For the next school year, I’m starting a Junior Achievement course here in addition to the business English and English courses I’m teaching so far.  As far as teaching economics or finance is concerned, I don’t see it happening  at least for this upcoming school year because my Russian isn’t good enough to order food at a restaurant let alone speak with economic of finance specific words and phrases…maybe next year.

Here's a pic from another volunteer (My computer is officially dead and is on its way back to the states)

Currently Reading Paradise Lost (Penguin Classics) By John Milton, John Leonard see related

The past week or so has been pretty uneventful.  Well, I think my laptop short circuited.  A couple of days when I turned it on, smoke puffed out the back and it's failed to turn on ever since (so if anyone has any ideas how to fix it economically, please let me know). I have about two more weeks of language training before I swear in as a volunteer.  In about 10 days, I have to undergo a language proficiency interveiw which tests my language ability so far and thus my potential ability integrate into my future community.  I'll be talking to a certified language tester for about 45-minutes, and in that time, I will be placed in three pontential language levels - beginner, intermediate and advanced.  Each level is further broken down into low, medium, and high.  Peace Corps usually sets a "intermediate-high" standard for volunteers to serve in their respective countries, and in many cases if people fail to achieve that level, they are not allowed to continue as volunteers.  But thankfully in my case, I think PC has recognized what an absolutely horrendous language Russian is and doesn't enforce the language cutoff policy here.  So as long as I score above "idiot-low", I think I'll be okay.

The past couple of weekends have been national holidays here in Ukraine, last Sunday was Worker's Day (like our Labor Day) and this past Sunday was Victory Day (like our Memorial Day).  Because the holidays are so close to one another, some schools and businesses have taken the whole week between the holidays off.  Unfortunately, PC doesn't observe such non-US holidays, and I have been stuck inside learning about the locative plural case in Russian while everyone else was out enjoying their time off.  I did, however, have a chance to experience a Ukranian BBQ, called a "shashlik", with the other volunteers and their host families.  And during this time I prepared an american-style bbq complete with burgers and fries while the ukrainian families prepared their traditional fare.  Ukrainian BBQ is different than the way we BBQ in the states in that they don't use a grill but instead put marinated meat (usually pork) on a skewer and hold the skewers above an open flame.  So when I made burgers, I had to make a makeshift grill with the oven rack from the house.  Also, they don't have burger meat here so I had to make my own patties and make some make-shift burger buns from this sesame bread I found in the market.  It was a lot of work, but it sure was worth it!  Everyone at home has no idea how lucky they are to have instant access to different kinds of food.  Just as an example, here they don't have, hot sauce (because they think hot foods are bad for your health), peanut butter, limes, and forget about anything resembling Tex-Mex.  Next "Shashlik" - Chinese Stir Fry.

Here are probably the last of the pictures until I can figure out how to fix my computer.

L to R: Jazz club in Kiev, My group and I at a botanical garden in Kiev, Watching Verdi's "La Traviata" opera at the Kiev Opera House