The many different lives of PCVs...

I've found that some of my best times of brainstorming future blog entries comes at inopportune times. Sometimes I'll make a note on my phone, or try to ingrain the idea in my brain, but it usually never comes to fruition.  As I was just cleaning up my kitchen, a topic flickered through my head.  I finished doing the dishes and decided to sit down right now and type it up.  I'm also {highly} procrastinating going out to run errands like I need to.

Late last night as I lay in bed (quite bored out of my mind), I decided to sign onto facebook chat.  I never use fb chat but decided to see if anyone was online.  One of my sweet high schoolers (Rachel) messaged me and even said, "Whoah! You're on facebook chat?!"  Ha.  See...I never get on that thing!  But as I looked through the people online...lo and behold, my favorite curly red-head was on!  I couldn't believe it.  The red-head I'm talking about is Mr. Darren Downing Gore. 

One of my last nights in Norman before leaving for the PC...

I met Darren when I moved to Oklahoma in 2001 and no matter the distance between us, I can always count on a good chat (and a good laugh) when I talk to him.  He has a rather hectic schedule right now because he is going to Physician Assistant school at Baylor and going through rotation's at the moment.  So, I was super excited to see him online at a time where we could both chat for a minute.  Turns out he never uses facebook chat either, so was it pure coincidence we both happened to be online at the same time?  I think not.  Somebody up above was looking out for us :)

I wasn't planning on making this a picture montage, but Darren and I have been on many an outing together and well, some of these pics are just too good not to be posted.  This is totally not the direction the blog post was supposed to go today, but I'll get to the point in a minute!  Let's call this a decade of Darren, shall we?

Probably gonna kill me for some of these, but I'm 5500 miles away, so he can't do very much :)

Darren, David, and Mark--circa 2001 BASIC retreat 

Anna, Darren, Lydia--circa 2002 choir tour to Florida

bored on the charter bus...who knew that a person could fit in the overhead compartments?

Yep, he'll definitely be mad about this one.  This was sometime during high school at youth one night. 

Dinner theater 2005--Darren, Karen, Lydia, Swenson

Prom 2005--Bert, Lydia, Amy, Karen, Anna, Rose, Darren

Graduation 2005--Darren, Rose, Amy, Lydia, Kevin (Darren's brother-in-law!), Anna, Swenny

Choir Tour to Disneyland--2005

Disneyland 2005--Darren and all of his girls :)

 

Mission trip to Seattle--summer 2005

Lady Liberty, Darren, and myself--summer 2006

 

Birthday celebrations--2007

Tacky Christmas Party 2007

Opies Reunion--2008

Happy New Year!  Love Amy cheesin' in the background--2008/2009

Mexico 2010

My hot date to Jacey's wedding--2010

And last but not least, he came to surprise me at my going away party...we're both doing the "Darren smile" :)

So, that photo montage was completely off subject, but I had fun finding all of those pictures on my external hard-drive and on my laptop.  Back to the topic of my chat with Darren!

Darren has a friend from college (Katie) who happened to leave for the Peace Corps about a month or two before I left.  She is currently serving in Tanzania, Africa, as a teacher!  The story for how I came across the fact that Katie was leaving for the Peace Corps is somewhat creepy (or really creepy as Darren would inform me).  I went to post something on Darren's wall in early 2011.  Katie had just written a note on his wall informing him of her blog and that he could follow her service through that.  She didn't mention the PC once in that post, but the lingo was some of the same PC lingo that is used worldwide.  I found her blog and facebooked her...never having met this girl.  Okay, okay...kinda creepy on my behalf.  BUT, I love reading about her adventures in Tanzania and thinking how utterly different every PC experience is.  

Katie must have a sense of humor very similar to Darren's because anytime she posts something on facebook, I typically laugh (or gasp if it has to do with an African animal encounter in her house...).  One of her more recent posts on facebook said: "not too happy about this bat that has taken up residence in my pit latrine...".  Wow.  She's fighting a bat in her "toilet," while I'm fighting to keep my apartment semi-warm with temps still in the negatives.  

You can find Katie's blog here, with the most recent post detailing a snake encounter in her house.  Oh, Ukraine...I'll take your cold weather any day over the bugs and animals of Africa :)

Darren is probably shaking his head at the fact that I would post all of this, and I hope Katie isn't too weirded out since I have never actually met her.  BUT, what else could I write about on a Sunday afternoon?  Congratulations if you read all the way to the bottom.  Молодец!  Or good job... :)

Go with the flow...literally

After my marathon day yesterday (which I'll tell you about soon), all that I wanted to do was sleep in on this Sunday morning.  I stayed up late last night and skyped with my brother, and showed him this funny video my mom passed on.  Although it's not necessarily Christmas-y, it still reminds me of the reason for the season and I love it :)  

Pretty great idea, no?  :)  It still makes me laugh each time I watch it now.  Especially the little kid jumping at the end of the line.  

Back to my not-so-lazy Sunday.  I was awoken earlier than I wanted by my upstairs neighbors doing construction projects that included hammering, sawing, and drilling.  I had my ear plugs by my bed, put them in, and was able to sleep for another two hours :)  Shortly after I got up at 11 am (granted I didn't go to bed until 2 am last night), my doorbell rang (or chirped, as Kurt so elegantly put it yesterday).  

I stumble out to the door, guessing that it's probably my landlady or her husband here to work on things. I was supposed to be getting a new RANGE (the proper word for the stove/oven combo)...or so I thought.  Something must have happened (beyond my comprehension skills)...so the husband was here to work on the old one and make it operable.  I had plans to do laundry (by hand), cook (this recipe), work on some grant info., etc. today...but, well, plans change.  You have to learn how to go with the flow.  

As I set to work picking out what laundry I wanted to wash today,  the husband asked me why wasn't I using the washing machine (that is in one of the back rooms that I don't really use).  I answered that my counterpart's husband is supposed to come over and hook it up at some point. Vova (my landlady's husband) said, "psh!" and told me to help him move the washing machine into the bathroom.  I thought to myself,  "This is gonna be interesting..." and boy was I right.  I tried to document most of the process, albeit with iphone pics. 

How to Install a Washing Machine: Ukrainian Style

This is Vova, trying to fix my shower hose (which is now the SECOND one that has broken).  I asked him why they break all the time and he said (in Russian), "Because they're made in China." 

Let me explain a few things first.  This washing machine has a "washer" part on the left side and a "spinner" part on the right side.  There is no telling when this machine was last used...I'd put money on at least 5 years (or more) ago.  It has been sitting in the apartment for years gathering dust/dirt.  It has a hose that is for the dirty water, but no intake hose.  

I asked Vova, "How do we get water into the machine?"  His response was so Ukrainian it basically slapped me across the face.  "You get it from the bathtub and fill it."  Oh, of course you do!  I've honestly never thought about how a washing machine worked, but to Vova this was just another step in the process of washing clothes.

After I filled it up with a few buckets of water, we turned it on for the first time and boy was it was gross.  All of the black stuff you see in the washer is dirt/grit of some kind.

We ran it for a minute and chunks and chunks of dirt kept appearing.  We turned it off and I asked him what next to do.

You take the outlet hose, turn it "drain," and the water (and chunks of dirt) are put in a bucket.

The dirty water being emptied.  When the bucket is full, I'd dump the water into the toilet.  

 And then you repeat the whole process.  Fill bucket with clean water from the tub, dump it into the washer, run the cycle for a few minutes, turn the button to "drain," and empty a lot of buckets of dirty water into the toilet.  Repeat.

Almost clean water...note the dirt in the bottom still.  I think I repeated the whole process at least 8 times, maybe more.  

Vova, trying to undo a pipe for the water to be emptied into.  You can also see the right side of the machine that is the "spinner"...which spins the clothes to get them a bit more dry.  I didn't even start cleaning that side of the washer today.  And the whole process is put on pause because I broke my only big bucket by dropping it full of water in the bathtub.  Whoops.  

So, 6 hours later, he's gone and I can finally go make my split pea burgers.  He did a thorough cleaning of the stove in the kitchen and connected the gas to it.  It was almost a Lydia-worthy job of cleaning too...complete with bleach!  Good job, Vova.  More pictures of the kitchen later.  Time to start cooking now.

Did you get the pun of the title of the blog post?  Washing machine...flow?  You're welcome :)

What to blog about...

I'm a bit under the weather right now which is why there was no post yesterday.  So...today's post is going to be all sorts of randomness, including some iphone pics I've taken the past few days (because I've been too lazy to get out a real camera).  

I know my brother loves seeing shirts and other things in Ukraine that have things written in English.  On Monday, I went to school #14 here in k-grad with Olena (counterpart).  She was going to do an activity with a class on Euroclub which is one of the things she is in charge of at work.  I'm still not exactly what Euroclub actually is...hopefully will be able to tell you soon.  However, she wanted me to go and speak about government in the United States.  I, Lydia Frost, who has no interest in politics when talking with someone face to face, let alone to a class of students who don't know English very well.  I told her I would go and see what level they were.  As it turned out, we ended up in a performance hall with about 60 or 70 students from 5th grade to 10th grade.  Needless to say, I didn't talk about government (thank goodness).  I did a brief chat about what I'm doing here with Peace Corps, where I was from in the states, etc...and about 15 kids had their cell phones out taking pictures of me or videoing my speech.  Too funny.  But, back to the picture above.  This kid stood in front of me for a good 20 minutes doing an activity and I stared as his shirt trying to make out what some of the sentences (if you could call them sentences?) said.  They made no sense whatsoever.  So, I slyly got out my iphone to take a picture...barely captured this, when another kid came over and asked me how much my iphone cost.  Iphones are incredibly expensive here in Ukraine...and it makes me feel guilty to get it out and have kids see that I have one.  However, they're also incredibly intrigued by them, so it usually ends up that they are just curious and want to touch it (ew, germs).  Don't worry, I wipe it down once I get back to my office and disinfect my hands too.  Ah, the joys of working with kids... :)

On Tuesday and Wednesday this week, I had my first introductory English Club meetings.  The main idea was to meet anyone who showed interest; I also wanted to have a conversation with each individual to see where their English level was.  I've observed and taught in too many classes since I've been here to know that even though all the kids are in 7th form, they do not have the same English skills.  I decided I would be more than willing to do lots of English club levels as long as the kids and adults were interested in learning.  That may kill me in the long run and I may change my idea somewhere on down the line, but right now, I'm going with it (mainly because I have no schedule whatsoever and need something to fill my time with).  Tuesday was for adults and Wednesday was for kids.  I think I had 14 adults come and I'm not even sure how many kids...however, I'll tell you about my favorites :)

The schedule and information that is now posted on my office door.

On Monday and Tuesday, I had a few different mothers and babushkas come in with their child or grandchild who happened to be 5 or 6 years old.  The purpose?  They want their kid to start learning English before they even go to school.  These kids are ADORABLE.  Olena looked at me like I'm crazy to want to teach these little munchkins, and I probably am...but if I can teach them a few things and get them interested in the language, why not?  Another plus is the fact that these kids have about the same Russian level as I do.  Awesome :)  And they speak slowly and annunciate...two things that I fully appreciate in a Russian speaker.  It's a win-win situation!  There are 5 of them that will come on Wednesday mornings at 8:30 am.  That time may kill me...I'll let you know after our first meeting next week.

In other news, I got my SECOND care package from my parents.  My mom not so sneakily asked me how often I go to the post office and I said...it's out of the way.  I only go there if I know something is waiting for me.  I might go there once a week to check, but it's highly disappointing to walk all the way there and come home empty handed.  She was being very awkward about it though, and said, "Well some people might want it to be a surprise!"  Ha.  Good job mom :)  I haven't told her that I kind of figured it out then...but I was ecstatic to walk to the post office and find something I'd been waiting for since I moved into my apartment here in Kirovograd...

a bath pillowwwwwww :)

I know that may seem like a trivial thing, and it is, but I feel the need to justify it.  I have looked high and low here in k-grad and in Kiev and other places I've been.  Apparently, no one takes baths here for relaxing!  Strictly business.  So, I've been begging my parents to send one...and the nagging paid off.  Voila!  There are three things you should know about my tub before you judge me for wanting a bath pillow:

1)  It is metal.  Therefore, it is very, very, VERY cold.  I literally had to give myself a pep-talk every time I decided I would try to relax and lean back, bracing myself for the freezing metal.
2)  The back of it is completely straight, meaning it's not exactly meant for lounging.
3)  I have to sing the Kit-Kat song every time before I turn on the shower...oh wait, that's another one of my friends who will remain nameless :)

Okay, so really just two :)  The other thing you should know about my bathtub is that I now take bucket baths.  I had a wand attachment, but it decided to spring a leak two months ago.  After flooding my bathroom a few times (and neglecting to tell Catharine when she came to my apartment this past weekend not to use the nozzle...), I now use one of my kitchen bowls {strictly as a bathtub bowl} to dump on my head when I wash my hair.  I use the phrase, "when I wash my hair," because I've discovered that I can now go three days without shampooing.  I also feel like I need to explain myself on this note because you people in America are probably judging me right now....however, I'm going to save that post for tomorrow.  I promise, it will come with a picture you won't want to miss.  Three words: old dance recital.

I'm going to make another cup of tea (so Ukrainian...) and watch more reality tv.  The only thing that would make this better is if I had my bed from home...here in Ukraine.

OH, and a special shout out to Mr. and Mrs. Jeremy Frost for the pictures and Halloween card I got today.  My kids will love seeing an American Halloween card!  We're going to do a Halloween party at English clubs after Halloween...go figure!  Night night blog world.

Pooped.

I am exhausted.  I don't know how teachers do it.  I know I'm a little out of practice (albeit the 8 or 9 times I taught during pre-service training), but man...standing at the front of the classroom and yelling speaking very loudly takes it out of you.  Today, I taught at the Kirovogradskaya Oblast Teaching Training Site on the subject of HIV/AIDS.  For almost three hours...I tried to cram about 15 lesson plans into a two lesson time block.  The teachers were incredibly receptive before lunch; after lunch was another story.  But, I don't blame them.  They're full, sleepy, and tomorrow is their last day of the three week training...they're ready to go home.  I really don't know how my teacher friends (both here in Ukraine and those in the states) do it.  Brav-oh.  :)

So, what did I do as a little reward when I got home from teaching today?  I watched two episodes of the Glee Project.  I must have already been in Ukraine when this show began to air.  But, nonetheless, I discovered it over here.  Basically, the directors of Glee knew that there would come a day when the shows main characters would need to graduate from high school.  The object of the show was to find some hot new kids that could potentially become cast members.  Over 40,000 kids auditioned...12 made the show.  One of the episodes I watched today featured this number.  It starts off a little slow, but keep watching til around 1 minute.  I promise, your jaw will drop.

Oh, and btw, that's a guy singing.  Impressive, huh?  He dressed up as a woman for a previous episode and the producer of the show wanted to see it.  I could talk about Glee all day...but I won't bore everyone who doesn't watch the show. 

I'm going to go take a relaxing {scalding hot} bath to warm up before I crawl in bed for the night and pass out :) fare thee well blog world.  Night night!

A friend comes to visit!

My apartment is straight up cold.  There are a few reasons for this: 

1)  It gets no direct sunlight due to the courtyard that my apartment looks over.  This was great during the summer because it meant it was cool and I didn't even have to open my windows.  This is not great when I want clothes on my balcony to dry in less than 2 full days.  

2)  This is an old apartment building made out of cement.  As soon as you walk into it, it has got to be 15-20 degrees cooler than outside.  

3)  My apartment is on the first floor.  Warm air rises, cold air sinks.  You do the math.

I could probably turn on my electric heater that PC gives us, but I feel like a baby because it's still September.  So, instead I just bundle up.  This morning when I crawled out of bed, I put on my North Face "light" long underwear bottoms (the same ones I've sweat in all week when I've jogged.  nbd.), a pair of studio pants (lounge pants) over them, a t-shirt, and my Eastern Europe 2004 long sleeve tee on top.  And I was still cold.  You can see your breath outside in the mornings now just to give you an idea (fyi: highs have been in the 70s, lows in the 40s or 50s lately).  Anywho, just had to have a pity party because as I sit here at 10 pm, I'm cold.  

In other news, a friend of mine visited K-grad today!!!!! It was gloriously fun to see Theo, whom I met at Camp Bereg.  I also got to spend a week with her at the environmental training I went to in Kiev (which I still have on my list of things to blog about.  give me a little more time...).  When I describe her to people, I often use the words, "I want to pick her up and put her in my pocket."  She's adorable...AND, she just chopped off 10" of her hair to send to Locks for Love.  

Her counterpart took tried to get the flower stands in the background...kinda missed.  

Theodorable :)

Theo lives in Smila which is about 2 hours north of me.  She went on a photo excursion a while back with another PCV in my city, Karin, and today was the day that the photo exhibit began featuring some of their pics.  So, Theo came to K-grad with 4 of her students in the 11th form (seniors) and her counterpart.

We ate at my new favorite pizza place in K-grad called Mania's.  Their veggie pizza (never thought I'd say those words) is to die for.

I'll leave you with one more Lydia factoid: The best news I've discovered lately is that I can go three days without showering.  Count it. 1. 2. 3!  I only do this when I haven't gone jogging.  However, since my apartment is fairly freakin' cold (refer to the beginning of the post), I FREEZE when I get out of the bath.  And actually, I freeze while I'm in the bathtub.  So, to discover that my hair can last for 3 days without having to get wet was a miracle.  Now, I'm in no room to complain because I actually have an incredibly luxurious PC set up which includes: hot water, running water, and a bathtub.  So, how do I go 3 days without shampooing?  Curls and a braid, which also conveniently fool Ukrainians into thinking I spent a lot of time on my hair.  I'll go more in depth on this discovery another day...just had to share the news :)

El fin!

P.S.  There is a cat meowing INCREDIBLY loudly outside in the hallway.  Totally normal in my life here.

camping: Day 3 at Южный Буг

On my third day of my camping trip at Южный Буг, I spent much of the day reading in my tent. Let’s just say (again), thank goodness I have a Kindle. For all of the bad things I ever said about an electronic book, I hereby take every one of those words back. You see, when it rains on a camping trip, you have one of three options for where to go. 1) in your tent, 2) in the “kitchen” area of the campsite where a tarp was put up to cover the food and the campfires, or 3) outside in the rain. This wasn’t just a little April shower though…it was a torrential downpour on and off all day long. It was PERFECT reading and napping weather, and that is just what I did. After having been sick the night before, it was like the rain was God’s little way of saying, “Why don’t you rest today, Lydia?” I finished Harry Potter #2 today and started on HP #3, reading over half of it. I didn’t stay in my tent the entire day though. Don’t worry, I wasn’t that girl.

I did learn a few other things that I would bring on a camping trip if I were to go again. Everybody has these pieces of foam that go around their waste with a piece of elastic. I have NEVER seen these in the states…has anybody else? You actually buy it this way and some of the kids have their pieces decorated. The idea is that you can sit on the ground or on a tree stump and not get your pants dirty, because then when you get inside of your tent you get your bed dirty. Pretty ingenious. I would definitely invest in a small collapsible stool also. My but got tired of leaning on rocks and uncomfortable pieces of tree!

The girl on the left is wearing one of the camping pads around her waist...

and you can see another one of the camping pads (yellow) being sat on in the middle of the pic!

I will also present to you the lovely bathroom I got to use all week long. It was down this little hill seen above…

I was always incredibly nervous somebody was going to walk down the hill. They need a bell at the top of the hill or something like that.

And that is the end of my third day of camping! The third day of camping was also my brother's birthday...so happy late birthday Jeremy :)

My Not-So-Typical-By-American-Standards Saturday...

My Saturday was filled with things that I would have laughed at doing a few years ago…but actually, found pleasure (and great reward) in doing them today. There are a lot of things that I do on a daily basis here in Ukraine that surprise me by how much I actually like doing them. One of those things is washing dishes. (My parents are probably reading that sentence gawking at the fact that I like to do dishes now). My host family taught me that as soon as you were done with your dishes, you (hand) wash them. This was my teaching growing up as well…except the dishes went straight to the dishwasher after you rinsed the items first. Either that or I would leave them for my dad to make them “magically disappear” as we called it in the Frost household (in other words, Pops put them in the dishwasher for us). One of the reasons I have to wash my dishes here as soon as I’m done with them is because I simply don’t have enough of them to let them pile up in my {tiny, but cute} sink. I just purchased a coffee cup that is big enough to hold an actual cup’s worth of coffee (the 3 coffee mugs that came with my apartment are like espresso mugs…ie, tiny). That means that if I let it sit there overnight in my sink, I would have to wash it the next morning before I wanted my coffee or tea. It makes much more sense to do the dishes right away. Period. I basically have 3 of everything in my kitchen…spoons, forks, cups, plates, and bowls. I’m on the hunt for butter knives…because I’m tired of using my one sharp knife to spread butter. That and it’s pretty sharp. And I have to wash it about 5 times a day (spreading butter, cutting an apple, etc.). So, there’s one of my routines that I thoroughly enjoy.

What else did I do on my not-so-typical-by-American-standards Saturday? I did my first ever load of laundry by hand. And let me tell you, I can see why some great soul invented the washing machine. I started with sheets, which was probably not the smartest thing. But first, I had to rig my drying line up on my balcony. I’ve avoided doing this because there are a bajillion spider webs on my balcony and it kinda freaks me to think about clean clothes being out there with bugs. {FOR THE RECORD: I have done laundry since I’ve been in Ukraine. I simply was blessed to have a host family that had a washing machine and my counterpart here in K-grad has let me do laundry at her house as well. I promise, I don’t smell.} However, I have nowhere else to dry them and that is what the balcony is for here in Ukraine. Well, and in my case, that’s where my refrigerator is too. So, I rounded up a few nails from one of the extra bedrooms in my apartment that I don’t use, found a hammer, and got to work. Made me miss my tool bag that’s in my closet at my parent’s house. As it was, I only had enough plastic line for 2 lengths of the balcony, so I will have to purchase some more of that soon! Then, I got to work being a domesticated Peace Corps Volunteer. I washed a single flat sheet and two pillowcases and that was all that would fit on the line…and at that point, my back was aching from being hunched over the bathtub. I still feel like the sheet has soap in it by the way. But, I felt VERY accomplished having washed my laundry by hand.

To finish up my not-so-typical-by-American-standards Saturday, I decided I wanted to make something for dinner. From scratch. I’m by no means Julia Childs, and I wish that I had my mom’s cooking skills in the kitchen…but I’ve simply never been interested in it. I hope that changes over the next 2 years. {I can make a mean taco salad though…and fajitas as well.} Peace Corps gives you a little cookbook called “Babushkas kitchen” or something like that…that has traditional Ukrainian dishes and other dishes that PCVs have made during their two-year-stint here in Ukraine. As I flipped through it, I found homemade flour tortillas. Ding ding ding! I had been debating about making my host mom’s recipe for amalya (fried pancakes), but didn’t really want all of the grease that goes along with the most yummy thing ever. So, tortillas it was. I even felt ambitious as I went to the grocery store to see what their farsh (ground meat) looked like. But I decided I couldn’t cross that bridge tonight. Perhaps another day. I did find what looked like canned kidney beans, so I bought a can of those. {Sidenote: they don’t have green beans in a can here. They have corn, peas, pineapple, beans, olives, etc…but no green beans.} Then, I came home to start making them. I failed to realize two things: 1) I don’t have a mixing bowl. 2) I don’t have a rolling pin. That’s when you get crafty being a PCV. I have a skillet that I would need to brown the tortillas in and I have a small silver pan that was going to have to suffice for my mixing bowl. Now all I needed was a rolling pin. I tried rolling them by hand and squishing them out into a big circle…fail. I then found my can of glade room freshener and put it in one of my gallon size (clean) Ziploc bags. Worked like a charm. The first tortilla I put in the skillet burned. Had the fire on my electric hot plate up way too hot. It scorched my pan…which meant I had to wait for it to cool down and then scrub off the charred tortilla. {Another sidenote: I have yet to find a candle that smells good to leave burning. My kitchen smells like burned tortilla still as I sit and type this.} Round 2 of tortilla cooking went well…I got 4 or 5 tortillas pretty perfectly cooked. Then I noticed the cord of the electric hot plate looking weird. It has been taped and re-taped many times from what looks like someone getting the cord on the actual hot plate. I quickly unplugged it and sure enough…one of the two prongs looks melted. I had one tortilla left that I had to throw away because I wasn’t going to risk burning down my kitchen for a single tortilla. I’ve had my eye on a toaster oven (keep in mind I don’t have a stove or an oven) that has two hot burners on top of it…and I think I will be purchasing it soon.

I am feeling ambitious now that my laundry is done drying…and I think I may tackle the second sheet and maybe a few other shirts that need laundering. Oh, how my life has changed being a PCV…I spent my Saturday being a domesticated 50’s housewife. I wouldn’t change it for anything though J

Apartment pics!

This post will make many people happy...because it comes with apartment pictures! Hooray :)

Disclaimer: I took these pics the first night that I was in my apartment...after I'd been on a bus for 4+ hours...so my stuff was everywhere. I have since become more settled in and will hopefully post pictures of the rearranged and decorated apartment once I get everything in order (a couple of days!).

My front door...the darker door. This is on the inside of my apartment. A lot of Ukrainian apartments have two doors like this because the inner door isn't very secure, or in my case, doesn't even shut...The corridor is behind me in the picture above, the bathroom is to my left.

The entry way/corridor...the kitchen and living room/bedroom are to your right in this picture. On down the hallway is 2 bedrooms that are junk rooms...I don't pay to use these rooms, which is fine with me because I wouldn't know what to do with them anyway!

My bathroom! Which will hopefully have a washing machine in it (wishful thinking...). The landlady put the washing machine in one of the extra bedrooms that I don't pay for...not quite sure why. Still trying to get this worked out...

The first view of the kitchen

The other part of my kitchen! The oven and stove don't work, but it comes with a digital hot plate...I have since purchased my dish rack and a few other things for my kitchen :)

First view of the living room...this has now changed since I've rearranged furniture! The wood thing is a loveseat-esque piece of furniture with a drawer that pulls out underneath it. I put my winter clothes in it for now because it's not very easy to open...

The apartment has new windows and a new door to go out on the balcony. This will be VERY nice in the winter. Through that white door is my balcony, where I will probably hang clothes to dry. My refrigerator is also on the balcony...

The green thing is my bed, which is now where the loveseat was. They swapped places. The big furniture piece in the corner is my clothes storage space. I also have some hanging spots and shelves in the corridor where I can hang dresses and coats and store extra shoes.

And as a little teaser, here is a picture of my counterpart and I at the swearing-in ceremony!

Hopefully more posts soon! :)

first post from Kirovohrad!

Greetings friends and family!

I made it safely to my new city around 10:15 pm last night...yesterday was an INCREDIBLY long day...with lots of hurry up and waiting happening. But,the important things that could be noted are:

1) I am a PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER. Officially :)
2) I have an apartment all to myself (for the first time ever...both to live in an apartment and to live really by myself).
3) All of my baggage is here, safe and sound
4) I have an amazing counterpart
5) My work seems amazing at first glance (currently on the computer there...)
6) I have running water and even better, HOT water at my apartment
7) I could keep numbering, but I think I'll go back to paragraph form now...


As I said, I am sitting on the computer in the library of the Oblast (think state) Center for Creative Youth. My counterpart, Olena, came to pick me up at my apartment this morning at 10 am. I met the director of the organization (which seems rather large...gonna have to figure out some stats some point soon) who is incredibly nice and handed me a GIANT flower arrangement. That should be interesting to carry home on a marshrutka ride...bouncing all over the road. But it was incredibly sweet and I can't wait to put them in a vase and make my apartment smell lovely.

It was dark last night when we got to my apartment, but I met my landlady and her husband. They showed me how to turn on the gas to make the water hot. My apartment is actually a 3 bedroom apartment, but I do not have access to 2 of the rooms which is completely fine because I don't know what I would do with that much space. I have a bathroom with a tub and a toilet...and the tub also has a moveable shower spiggot (sp?). In the kitchen is a table with 2 booth-style seats, a sink, a stove/oven that doesnt work, but that is used as a prep space. I have an electronic hot burner that they showed me how to use last night. My counterpart is getting me a chainick (tea kettle) of some kind from work. Awesome! Then, the living room/my bedroom. Quite a large room. Twin size (ish) bed, a schkaf (things to put clothes in...it's got shelves), a love seat (ish) couch, a coffee table with 2 small stools (we're going to have ask to get the dining room table from the extra room because I don't really have a workspace that I can sit at. There is also a kitchen chair in the living room. Off the living room is a balcony that has my refrigerator, and I assume that is where I will place my clothes to dry. I'll post pics as soon as I can.

It was definitely weird to go to bed last night. I took a shower/bath in my tub...after having unpacked a little. I really want to go buy some cleaning materials and shelf liner before I truly unpack, even though the landlady cleaned everything. That is just my OCDness taking over. I think it's also the fact that I can finally have a place to call my own and to do whatever I want with. I can't wait to rearrange the furniture in the living room. Hopefully tomorrow :)

Looks like Olena and I are going to eat now, so I will try to write more later whenever I get a chance :) love love!

Time to Celebrate!

LPI's (language profficiency interviews) are over and done with! Hooray :) I was the last of our group to do my interview this morning which was fine because it meant I got to do some laundry at my house before that! The past few days have included lots of times for reminiscing (sp? Since I'm on a Russian computer, every word I type is underlined in red so I can't really tell when a word is mispelled!) so I thought I would share some of them.

On a cold Friday in May, a bus filled with other PC trainees stopped in Oster at the aftostantcia (bus station). It was SNOWING...absolutely freezing...and I had about 24980 things to carry. Not really, but it helps the story. I was super jet-lagged still (took me about a week or more to get fully used to this side of the world's time zone difference.) and just wanted to go to sleep (I think we arrived around 5 pm ish?). My host mom and host dad picked me up in a taxi (I'm not sure why, seeing as to how my host family owns a car...maybe because of the snow?). This is what one of the rivers looked like on that day...


Anywho, I sat in the back seat with my host mom and wondered what in the world I was going to say to them that night. I couldn't even ask if they had any kids. We drove for what seemed like a while (in reality, it was less than 3-5 minutes I would guess) and finally stopped. I couldn't see out the windows because they were completely fogged over. We stopped at a big metal gate (guess I should take a picture of that part of my house before I leave!) and started getting my stuff out of the car. My host dad wouldn't let me carry anything, so my host mom quickly shuffled me inside. At that point, two tall, blonde girls came bounding the stairwell and said "hello!" in English. I was ecstatic. I remember eating something that night with my family...don't know what, but it was almost immediate upon arriving. My older host sister, Katya, who speaks English very well, showed me where I would be staying, where I could put my stuff, shower, etc. All that I wanted to do was go to sleep...and if my memory serves me correct, I slept for at least 12 hours that night.

The next morning, all of our host families took us to our teacher's apartment (since we had NO clue where we were going...) for our first Oster cluster group meeting. I remember where everyone sat that day in our classroom. Those became "our seats" for quite some time until we rearranged the room. That mornings meeting was to go over all sorts of cultural integration steps that we might need to know when living with a host family. However, the biggest thing that stuck out to me was that I was dying of thirst. Our teacher, Zhenya, had just made tea. It hadn't occurred to me until that point that I would no longer be able to get water straight from the tap, for two years. Wow.

I guess I never showed y'all what my house on the inside looks like...whoops. I took these pictures a very long time ago, but it just slipped my mind that I never posted them. I think they're on facebook...but I know everyone doesn't use that. So, enjoy!

Part of my living room/dining room. We've eaten at the dining room table for Easter...and that's it. Just like the U.S.!

The other half of the living room!

This is the laundry room where our clothes get hung up to dry! And my suitcases that I don't need are stored in here...

This is the upstairs bathroom! There is a half bath downstairs which is where we brush our teeth.

My bedroom! I believe this used to be my older host sisters room (who is now married and lives in Kiev).



The door into my room is on the left, and the door with the clothes hanging on it leads out to a balcony which is where we hang our clothes to dry in the summer!

In other news, I started watching Glee Season 2 last night. Just watched the Britney episode today. I was a die-hard Glee fan the first season or so, but then I became busy and never got a chance to watch all of the shows I had DVRed. BUT, rest assured, now I can watch them :) There were some pretty epic Sue Sylvester quotes in these two episodes. However, I'm too lazy to look them up online.

Today for lunch, Mark, Cassi, and I hit up the pizzeria here in Oster (one of the two or three restaurants we're aware of...). On my pizza, I had chicken, pineapple, black olives, and tomatoes, which I'm still trying to learn how to eat. It's a texture thing...we'll see if I ever like them.

The last thing I'll leave you with is my SDL :) enjoy it!