Ukrainian Cultural Experiences and February Update

Dear Family and Friends,

            The sun came out this week for the first time in two months! Spring is in the air and I think I might be able to say now that I have made it through my first winter in Ukraine  without losing all sanity! Despite the “waterproof” snow boots no longer keeping the water out and the jagged ice covering my entire path to school, I have made it through with only a handful of falls onto my butt (Yak Trax saved my life!) I cannot express how relieved I am to finally see the sun and know that summer holidays are only a few months away!

            Since my last post regarding the holidays and a general update on how my first month at site passed by, I have experienced a few Ukrainian cultural moments as well as been able to travel a little bit and so I would like to share these experiences with you.

            My first cultural differences experience occurred over a few separate occasions over the last two months. I do not quite understand why this is still true today, but in Ukraine, especially in the minds of the older generations, there is a terrible fear of “the draft.” Now when I say draft I do not mean to an army, I mean a draft in the terms of a cool breeze coming in through the window. Back during the Soviet years, mainly the Stalin years of starvation, Ukrainians were so afraid of becoming sick as they were so malnourished that the cold was seen as a silent killer and anyone who was chilled was destined to die. It is not uncommon to hear a “babushka” say that you should bundle up because if you get cold you will die. Now that extreme of a consequence would make most Americans laugh I believe but here it is accepted and strongly followed as truth. My host mom deals with this fear by heating the house to about 90 degrees. This extreme has made sleeping quite uncomfortable and difficult. A few days after arriving to site I was able to open my window and I began to open it in the evenings to cool down my room. My host mom’s fear that I would get cold in the night brought her to nail shut my window when I went to Nova Kahovka for New Years. Rather than causing a fight, I pulled out my trusty Swiss Army knife and unnailed shut my window as the house was still 90 degrees. This led her to renail shut my window which I unnailed shut again and a fight ensued over her fearing I’ll be cold and me telling her a sauna is not the answer. The fight was intense but we are now ok as Peace Corps is going to buy me a new window which will be plastic (the current one is an old drafty wooden one) and will keep out the draft when closed but more importantly cannot be nailed shut – safety hazard to the max! My host mom though has informed me that we cannot change the window until it gets warm out as she does not want the cold to get in during those hours of construction. Oh the Ukrainian draft fear!

            My second Ukrainian cultural differences experience was quite a comical one. As I mentioned above, my “waterproof” snow boots held out about as much water as a pair of nylons and with the snow beginning to melt these last few weeks, my feet were always painfully soaked through. I began bringing a change of shoes to school, as I’d arrive with dripping socks and boots and have to be at school all day. When my school director learned of my boots situation she freaked out (if you take the above story’s extreme reaction to a cold fresh air, then you can imagine how terrified the director was that I would die from my wet feet dilemma! They also worry that I am weak and will die so I am often asked to eat extra and taken care of like a child to ensure “their American” survives). The director said she would take me to the bazaar to help me buy a new pair of boots. I was very grateful and walked with her to the bazaar. This day had been especially cold so the water on the street had frozen and made the walk to the bazaar slick with ice. Now when Ukrainians think of snow boots – they think of stiletto heeled leather boots with fur lining – about as impractical as you can possibly imagine. As we walked to the bazaar I had to hold the arm of my director to help her over the ice as I was still wearing my snow boots and yak trax and she was wearing her “snow boots” – a pair of 3 inch heeled leather boots with no traction. The director took me to a stand and immediately pointed out a “beautiful pair” of stiletto heels with way too many sparkles and buckles. Despite my insistence that the boots needed to be flat and practical, the heeled ones kept coming. I finally found a pair of very classy boots with an inch heel in my size that she approved of, but I really wanted a pair that I could attach on my Yak Trax. We walked around the bazaar and I pulled out all the men’s snow boots – cheap ones that looked like they were from Walmart or galoshes that were made of foamy rubber that were incredibly uncomfortable looking but waterproof!! With each pair I grabbed at in enthusiasm to their practicality my director gasped in horror that I would buy such ugly boots and put them down and pulled me back to the heeled boots stand. I did buy the 1 inch heeled boots ($31!) and later that day bought from my host mother’s stand a pair of galoshes for $3. Neither of these will be appropriate for next winter but it is a start from the wet feet of before. I then had to help my director back to the school once again as she almost fell multiple times due to the ice but continued to exclaim how much better the boots I bought would be than the snow boots I kept showing her I wanted. I just don’t get it!

            On the topic of travel, I mentioned in my last post that I had plans to head to Kiev and to Crimea. The Crimea trip was canceled due to a change of scheduling so instead I made it back up to Kiev twice. Peace Corps has many “working groups” a volunteer may join to further develop projects that work on different topics for the betterment of Ukraine and its citizens. I have joined two of these groups: the Safety and Security Counsel and the Environmental Working Group. These two groups had meetings in Kiev in consecutive weekends and offered me a chance to escape to Kiev for some city time and American conversing. The first weekend was crazy with snowy weather! I have attached a few pictures below of the city including one of myself in front of the President’s governmental offices building where the camera couldn’t even focus on my face as there were too many snowflakes in the way to confuse it! I was able to spend some quality time with my friend Meaghan (the NU alum) and we roamed the city to see a few landmarks I had not yet seen. I will admit that I had McDonalds the first night I was in Kiev with some PCVs – Big Mac and fries, not at all what I’d chose to eat in the states but at that moment delicious! The best experience of all from the two weekends was on Sunday evening of the second weekend, I went to see the Ballet at the National Opera House in Kiev. The ballet was “The Marriage of Figaro” a comedic ballet in two acts. The ballet began at 7pm, ended at 9:10pm and my train was at 9:44pm about 2 Metro stops away. I did leave 5 minutes early and made it to my train 20 minutes early so no worries. The ballet experience was spectacular. I sat in a box (I believe my first time ever sitting in a box seat). The ballet was fantastic with the male playing the older housekeeper role complete with numbers on pointe – hilarious and easily my favorite character. And the ticket was only $4! I am planning on making the opera house a frequent stop on my trips to the city as there is a different performance nightly be it ballet, opera or other talents.

            As for life at site things are moving along smoothly. My 9^th grade English club has been proceeding along well and I have been asked to begin a 7^th grade English club on Thursdays. I had my first “communication lesson” with the English teachers this last week where we conversed in English only for an hour to get them to practice free speech rather than the daily habit of read and translate. And lastly I have been teaching four men on Tuesday evenings English as an adult English club following my bandura lessons (two of the men are music teachers so I don’t have to change venues!) These English classes/clubs on top of my regular classes plus the new responsibilities of my two working groups have increased my daily activity (I am the new co-vice president of the Safety and Security Counsel which I am quite excited about!). All this has been a nice change of pace from the excess free time I had in January. I am though about to complete War and Peace which I must say was my greatest accomplishment of January/February!! Bandura lessons have been difficult as I learned the left hand/bass clef two weeks ago and have been working to put the two hands together without looking at my left hand constantly. My fingers are blistering from plucking the thick strings – if I was coming from a bass or cello background it would be a lot easier than the violin background of small strings! However I have been loving the experience and I was able to get my Bandura teacher to take my picture at the last lesson. Please check it out below!

            I have one last thing I would like to comment on before I close this blog post. This coming summer I have been so fortunate to be offered one of the spots as a camp counselor at ABCamp. This camp has been designed to increase civic service among Ukrainian youth by empowering and inspiring them to become active leaders in their community. The camp will take place outside Kharkov, the second largest city in Ukraine  and will be led by a mixture of Ukrainian and American volunteers. The camp is currently fundraising the money that will be needed to provide the facilities and general needs of the camp in order to keep costs down for campers wishing to attend. I would like to ask you all to please take a moment to check out the donation page (below) on the Peace Corps website and consider if you may spare some money for the cause. I have appreciated all of your words of support and encouragement and would love your support with my upcoming participation in ABCamp. 

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=343-171

 

            I hope the spring brings warm weather to you all and lots of sunshine!!

 

                                               Love, Megan

P.S. Should you be interested in learning more about what is going on in Ukraine. The best place to read about Ukrainian news is on the Kyiv Post website - a paper written for Ex pats living in Ukraine. It has all the coverage of the latest Presidential Election which just came to a close this last week with the Russian supported Yanukovych taking the win. 

http://www.kyivpost.com/

Pictures Include: My house covered in snow, the 7ft snowman built at school, in the music school practicing my bandura!, two types of seats on the train to Kiev (the first being a side seat which I had my second trip up and the second is a lower middle seat which I had this trip), the Golden Gate of Kiev which is the ancient entrance into the city, ice skating on Maidan, House of the Chimeras, the Presidential building sign, The Marriage of Figaro and following pictures are of the Opera House both on the outside and then on the inside. 

Winter Update from Ukraine

Dear Friends and Family,

            Happy New Year and Happy Old New Year!! Since my last post following Christmas in 2009 I have experienced a few Ukrainian holidays and been able to take a few small trips that I would like to update you all on in this blog post!

            As I wrote about in my last post, Christmas here in the Eastern Orthodox religion is celebrated on January 7^th and is actually not as large a holiday as New Year’s Eve/Day. So my first Ukrainian holiday came on New Year’s Eve. That week in school the teachers had a special little New Year’s party that began with gathering in a room with a New Year Tree (decorated like a traditional Christmas tree in America but called a New Year Tree), we held hands in a circle and sang a traditional Ukrainian song while Yuri (the Music School teacher) played along on his accordion. It was a really neat experience to walk around in the circle as the teachers all sang along though the general Ukrainian words of the song flew over my head. Following this song Santa Claus (the gym teacher) presented all the teachers with bags of candy for a New Year’s treat. It was a huge bag of chocolates. Ukraine does not have Santa Claus but Father Frost and Snowgirl (his granddaughter often a blonde girl who helps Father Frost) but the teachers had gone with a Santa Claus costume instead. It is tradition to receive presents on New Year’s Day much like we receive presents on Christmas Day. That day, following school, I had plans to head to Nova Kakhovka – the neighboring site where my friend Alia Scheirman is a volunteer (and a native Minnesotan!).  As I was going to miss New Year’s day in Velyka Lepetykha, I swapped gifts with my host family that night. I received a new pair of socks with a large tiger on them (this is the year of the tiger and it is therefore good luck to have tiger items). I gave Tolia and Lyuda both shot glasses from Minnesota. They liked them and are now proudly displayed in the kitchen. Following the swap I walked to the bus station on the outskirts of my town and took the 2-hour bus to Nova Kakhovka where Alia, Lucas (a Michigan native volunteer living in Berislav only 20 minutes from Nova Kakhovka) and Lucas’ counterpart, Natasha picked me up to head to Alia’s apartment. We dined on chili Minnesota style and Ukrainian salads while we watched Ukrainian New Year’s celebrations on the television. At midnight we ran outside of the apartment to light our sparklers though this one 12 year old kid made our sparklers look like baby’s toys as he shot off bottle rockets and roman candles from his hand in the middle of the apartment quad. The obsession over one’s personal safety is just not the same here as it is in the US! I spent the whole weekend in Nova Kakhovka, a city of over 50,000 and was able to shop at the Walmart like “Oscars,” eat at a pizzeria and walk through an outdoor zoo complete with turkeys, goats, and muskrats! It was a very nice weekend and a great escape from my small town!

            When I returned to site it was actually the holiday vacation but Velyka Lepetykha had faculty meetings Monday-Wednesday before Christmas Day on Thursday. I only was required to attend the meetings on Monday and Tuesday for the English teachers though both meetings were entirely conducted in Ukrainian, what’s a Russian speaker to do!? Haha.  I was anxious for Wednesday as my good friend Kelsey Rote from my training cluster came down to visit me from her site in the Kirovograd Oblast (located about 8 or 9 hours by train north of Kherson) as she was also on her holiday vacation and quite bored in her small town and thought it best we spend our free time bored together! She arrived in my town in the middle of a snowstorm that turned into a rainstorm that then turned into sun the next day for us to walk around my site! I’ve added some pictures below from our tour of my town including our time down by the river. The Dnipro was not that cold despite the freezing cold weather of that week. I showed off my Minnesotan skills of surviving the cold by pretending to sunbathe near the icy water (Kelsey is from Oregon and does not take the cold weather well at all!) The best part of our time together was our trip the next day to Nova Kakhovka where Rudy (another cluster mate of mine) was visiting Alia for her holidays and so we were able to spend the weekend all together. Unfortunately the timing of Kelsey’s visit meant that I did not spend Christmas day with my host family, but I found they do not celebrate the holidays as over the top as the traditional Ukrainian. Instead the plan for Christmas had been to sit and watch TV all day and eat dinner as usual. Therefore, I do not have much to update you on as to Christmas traditions that I personally have experienced. To me it seems to be more along the lines of a Thanksgiving holiday where a family eats together and spends most of the time relaxing rather than doing such things as gift exchanges or singing holiday songs etc (these are saved for New Year and Old New Year). However I have heard that many Ukrainians celebrate both Christmas as well as New Year’s very over the top with food, drinks and a massively large amount of family members gathering together under one roof.

The one holiday that I did get to experience which I thought was very interesting is the celebration of the Old New Year. Before the Gregorian calendar was adopted, Ukraine used to celebrate the New Year on January 14^th. The tradition to celebrate the Old New Year is still very special for many Ukrainians. On the evening of the 13^th, women and young girls go around from house to house singing to men and boys and throwing grain on one another for good luck. Then, following midnight, men and boys go around from house to house singing to the women and girls and throwing grain back at them for good luck. My experience with this tradition came on the evening of the 13^th, three woman and a male (so not exactly following the rules) came to our house and sang 5 different traditional Ukrainian songs with interludes offering hopes that our family would have wealth, happiness and health in the new year. It was really nice and I recognized the carolers as members of the faculty from my school – they were fabulous singers! The following day the entire school was covered in a thick inch of grain throughout the building as kids had brought to school the grain to throw at one another. This became a bit of a discipline problem during class but was really crazy to see how everyone got into the act of decking each other with grain and screaming “good luck!” At what point in American traditions is it ok to chuck things at the teacher and have it be a good thing!

            Lastly, I wanted to write a little about teaching in Velyka Lepetykha. Following the New Year vacation I began to teach full time. My first week I taught the 4^th graders but this was swapped for the older crew of 9^th graders so my final span of students includes two sections of 5^th grade as well as two sections of 6^th grade, and then one each of 7^th, 8^th, and 9^th grades. I teach 3-5 classes a day all days of the week a total of 18 hours a week. I am working with three different English teachers including my counterpart Tonia. I am actually co-teaching which means that I do not teach all 45 minutes of the lesson but provide the communication and activities of each lesson and therefore get about 20-25 minutes a lesson. This has allowed for my introduction into a full schedule of classes to be a bit more relaxed as I do not need to stress over full lessons, however it has also been a bit of a downside as I cannot do as many activities or any longer activities due to my shortened time frame. I am hoping that once I prove myself unquestionably able to teach and handle these students then I’ll be able to teach more classes for the full 45 minutes. As a sum up of my experience thus far teaching is difficult!! The level of English of my students is surprisingly low at all levels. What makes life most difficult is the range of levels within one class as within each grade there are students who blow me away with their English vocabulary as well as students who cannot tell me their names. This disparity has made partner work and general communication quite difficult. My 5^th and 6^th graders are quite enthused to do just about anything I attempt in class (though quite rowdily) where as my 7^th graders drag their heels through anything that I attempt to teach them. My 9^th graders have been some of the most interested of my classes as I believe they are old enough that they realize me being there is an advantage for them in learning English and they pay attention with great detail. I have begun my first English Club after school with the top 10 students of my 9^th  grade class. I taught an introduction lesson with a side theme of New York which went very well and I have a lesson on baseball planned for this week! I am also starting a communication hour with the four English teachers so that they may work more on their own English skills. One of Peace Corps’ favorite words is “sustainability” and so I want to help develop the communication skills of the English teachers over time so that they may arrive at a more comfortable level personally and in turn push their own students in the future. I am looking forward to viewing their progress as the teachers here are very well equipped for read and translate exercises but speaking freely does not come easily for any of them and I would like to help expand that.

            On a personal note, I have begun Russian Language tutoring. I had my first meeting with a tutor this last week and spoke Russian for 2.5 hours solid! I will continue to meet with her weekly to improve my own communication skills. Another activity I have picked up for fun is music lessons – I am learning how to play the traditional Ukrainian instrument the Bandura. This 54-string instrument looks like a very large ukulele and sits on one’s lap and is plucked. I had my first lesson last week and I will continue to work on it weekly! I was very excited to pluck through the C Major scale for the first time on the bandura and my teacher Olga immediately put me through 4 short songs to practice. I plan to be more committed in my practicing than I was with the violin. And I promise to get a picture of myself with a bandura for a future post. I am also going to try to see if I can get a short video clip of myself playing the instrument for a future post too! As my town is so small, there really are very few things to do following the school day and so I am working on filling my time with other means of entertainment. The English lessons/classes and my own Russian and Bandura lessons will sure help! I also am continuing to think of future trips to take and places I want to visit while in Ukraine and Eastern Europe! I went to Kherson, the capital of my oblast, this last weekend for my H1N1 shot and spent a wonderful weekend with Americans eating baked spaghetti one night and chicken the next – it was delightful! I am planning on heading back to Kiev in February and then to Crimea the following week for a Peace Corps meeting – both trips I will be happy to comment on in the upcoming post! Traveling is my own personal high and anytime I can see a new place I am so energized that I feel these future trips will allow for the more difficult moments at site to be all worth while!

            Ok, I think that is enough updating for now. I do hope that you all passed a wonderful New Year’s and that 2010 is treating you all very well! I cannot believe it but I have now been in Ukraine 4 months! Only 23 to go!

                        Have a wonderful and happy February,

                                   Love, Megan

P.S.I began this list the other day as I feel I have gone through so many different cravings over the last 4 months that it would be interesting to note down what a Peace Corps volunteer may crave when in a country that does not have everything a simple stones throw away!

 

Cravings:

Dad’s French Onion Soup

Mom’s Christmas Cookies/Bars/Treats, Kristin Ostebee’s Sugar Cookies

A big cheeseburger! (I’ll be in Kiev in February so I will see how good McDonalds looks then)

Banana bread/cake –especially SSM middle school banana cake

Grilled Vegetables, fresh red and yellow peppers

Chipotle

Ranch Dressing

Brown Sugar

Mexican Food, Mom’s Chicken Enchiladas 

Pictures Below include: My clothes out on the line (please enjoy the NU tshirt!), the bridge in my town connecting the two halves of Velyka Lepetykha, the New Year's Tree in my school, Santa delivering presents to the teachers, a picture with my school director Tamara on the left and Tonia my counterpart on the right, the old movie theatre in my town, a statue from the WWII monument with an angel and a bandura, me sunbathing by the Dnipro, Kelsey touching the river, in Nova Kakhovka near the river, at the Zoo cafe with Rudy,Alia, and Kelsey, at the disco in Nova Kakhovka (we were practically the only ones there so each song was dedicated to the Americans!), near the New Year's Tree in Nova Kakhovka and then by a snowman while in Kherson this last weekend with Alia and Lucas.