Peace Corps Mali

Privyet blog readers! Sorry I've been lacking lately.  Lots-o-stuff going on.  But, I did see from one of my fellow PCV Ukraine friends that Peace Corps Mali was recently shut down.  It really hit home with me as I began combing PCV blogs of volunteers in Mali and read their personal stories of playing the waiting game: finding out what was going to happen to them.

Mali is currently undergoing a coup d'etat (a sudden overthrow of the government).  Often times, I live in my own little world here in Ukraine not looking at news.  Horrible, I know; it's true though.  So, as I lay in bed last night {unable to go to sleep}, my heart went out to each one of those volunteers whose life is now forever changed {in a very abrupt manner}.

These are a few blog posts I read that truly touched me and made me think about my past year in Ukraine...and what I would do if something were to happen and cause us to have to leave so abruptly.

A good overview of the situation: here
Summary of a PCVs timeline & how PC handled everything:  here
An overview of a PCVs entire time {summed up in 3 entries} in Mali: here
Saying goodbye: here

One of the first things some of these posts made me think of is how utterly spoiled I am.  Yes, I signed up for PC.  But, we sometimes refer to Peace Corps Ukraine as Posh Corps Ukraine.  It's not Africa.  It's not South America.  It's not Asia.  Yes, we have our own trials here, but still.  I'm not faced with 115 degree temps where I have to fetch my own water {although the -25F temps we experienced kind of make up for it a little...}.  I have a giant supermarket about 100 yards from my front door.  I have incredibly fast internet.  I don't sleep under a mosquito net.  I have a washing machine {or a washing agitator as it should more properly be called}.  I live an incredibly comfortable life with hot water and a flushing indoor toilet.  But, if push came to shove, I was willing to go wherever Peace Corps wanted me.  I knew in my heart it would be Ukraine and I was right.  I knew 8 years ago that I would come back to this country I grew to love.

One of the other things that fascinated me reading some of those blogs is how utterly different our Peace Corps experiences are.  Even here in Ukraine, my youth development work is completely different from one of my friends youth development work in a village.  In Mali, the volunteers met under a tree for 8 hours of language lessons every day.  In Ukraine, we plastered the walls of our teacher's apartment from floor to ceiling in verb charts, conjugations, vocabulary, etc. I wonder...in Mali, did they use verb charts and tape them to their tree each day? :)  Seriously.  Our experiences are so{ooo} different.

My thoughts and prayers go out to those volunteers and their communities they left so suddenly behind.  I can't imagine the emotions that every one of them is going through.  Jessica made a great summary, that I'll end with:

"The people of Mali are kind, silly, respectful, patient. They hate conflict, break into dance when they hear music, are afraid of toads, and laugh and smile no matter how terrible their teeth are. Sometimes their children have the startling wisdom of grown-ups, and their grown-ups have the infectious spirit of children. There certainly have been times when I longed for America. Here, their methods are outdated, their food is monotonous, their transport is literally hell on a set of wheels, and their 9 month-long heat wave makes you wish for death at times. But some things are unique to and only to Mali. What is happening right now is unfair to the people of Mali. They deserve a non-corrupt government, they deserve opportunities, they deserve peace. They don't deserve this. Please hope for the best for Mali."

Sending lots of love and happy thoughts to Mali.  And almost Happy American Easter :)
Love love, Lyd

home sweet home :)

I'm finally back to my apartment in K-grad :)  It is great to be back.  There's not much else to say than I'm very glad to be home again!  Had blood work done this morning at PC and then went to lunch with Phil at a nice Italian restaurant in Kiev (he had to come get some paperwork done for the day). Our marshrutka ride home was one for the books...it started snowing on the way home and practically turned into a blizzard for a little while.  And, the road between K-grad and Kiev has gotten so bad that the pot holes span an entire lane.  This means that the driver is swerving back and forth for minutes on end.  After finally making it home, I was greeted with one of the sweetest care packages...but not from the states!  This care package came from my lovely and sweet site mates--Dan and Vicki :)

homemade cornbread, chili, chicken noodle soup, bread, butter, and a red pepper. 

Some of the food was still WARM (ie, fresh out of the oven) when Dan brought it over.  I could barely wait 5 minutes to dig into the chili and cornbread.  I'm full and tired and ready to curl up in my own bed for the first time in almost a week!  So excited.

Much love,
Lydia

P.S.  My water is off at the moment.  Lovely surprise to come home to.  I think my landlady turned it off...but I don't know how to turn it back on.  Wah wah.  Let's hope she comes and turns it on tomorrow :)  toodles

Valentine's Day kiddos

Excuse the past few days of skipped blogging.  I ended up having another round of sickness...though this one is hopefully almost over.  Tuesday, I taught all of my clubs like normal...and since I was sick two weeks ago for Valentine's Day, we celebrated Valentine's Day a week late!  I made a Valentine's Day powerpoint with random pics collected from searching google about things we do in the US for Valentine's Day.  Thanks to my parents and the Louy Fam, my kiddos had authentic Valentine's Day cards AND conversation hearts.  Words cannot explain how much my 3rd formers LOVED this candy.

Liza and Nastia

Margaret, Nastia, and Diana

Nikita and Andrei

Ivan and Yaroslav

The kids only ate a few of the hearts in class and I was confused when I asked them what they were doing with the rest of the candy?

"Taking it home to our families!"

I couldn't believe these kids were willing to share this candy with their brothers, sisters, and parents.  Definitely underestimated them :)

On Tuesday, I went home exhausted from teaching, but ready for the rest of my clubs on Wednesday.  However, no kids ending up coming to English clubs on Wednesday, which was good for me because that was when I started going downhill fast.  My throat hurt, my voice was giving me problems, and I felt nauseous alllll over again like before.  I went home Wednesday evening and fell asleep around 9 or 10 pm (way early for this night owl!).  I was supposed to play some English games with kids on Thursday morning at a school here in K-grad, but I called the teacher and informed her I had no voice to instruct games.  I slept all day Thursday.  Barely ate anything.  Friday was a bit better, but I called the PC doc just to update them on my illness, that is all still part of this viral infection.

I can speak pretty normally today, but am still trying to rest my vocal chords...doc's orders!  I managed to get all of my dirty laundry done today and have spent most of the day reading The Hunger Games book 2: Catching Fire.

Two of my sweet sitemates, Dan and Vicki, brought me homemade chicken noodle soup (that I'm saving to eat tomorrow!) and homemade cornbread (which I ate over half of today...).  Vicki asked the question, what have I been doing for 2 weeks of basically being in my apartment?  The answer: read and watch tv shows online.  I am now up to date on Glee, Modern Family, and the New Girl.  And, I'm on the second season of Desperate Housewives.  You could say I've had a little time on my hands.  :)

The weather has finally warmed up here...which means that all of the snow/ice is becoming giant {monstrous} puddles.  You know what that means...this girl will get to break out the pink rain boots soon! Unless it drops below freezing again...

I gave myself an hour-long manicure today.  I've never actually used all of the tools that came in my mani/pedi kit my sister-in-law got me...but I put them all to use today :)  and then used some of my LUSH cuticle cream that Kym got me for my birthday.  My hands felt like a million bucks!

Off to read more now.  Toodles :) and a shout-out to all of my McFarlin kiddos on the team-leader retreat!  Wish I were there with y'all :)

Ski Trip to Slavske {part 1}

I am almost 100% better.  Not quite, but almost :)  It seems that either my stomach has forgotten how to be hungry (hmmm, I highly doubt it...) or is still a bit queasy because not a whole lot of foods sounds great right now.  But, nonetheless, I wanted to begin blogging about the ski trip while it was fresh on my mind.  

Like any good trip in Ukraine, traveling to Slavske meant an overnight train ride.  Slavske is located in the far west part of Ukraine in the Carpathian mountains.  The trip was completely worth it, even if it meant being sick for a week once I got home.  

Traveling with me on the train were my new{ish} sitemates (and sweet married couple) Dan and Vicki.  I am so, so glad that they got put in Kirovograd with me and will be in Ukraine throughout the rest of my service :)  Dan is more OCD about things than I am sometimes (hard to believe, huh?) and one of his OCD habits is baking a perfect chocolate chip cookie.  I feel like I'll do a blog post {eventually} dedicated solely to his CCC's, but for now, just know that they're greeeeeeeat! (like Tony the tiger would say).  I tease Dan about his CCC's but am secretly jealous because I still have yet to get my CCC's baked to perfection.

Dan, sitting out in the hallway of the train on a jump-seat

It just so happened to be Dan and Vicki's first time on the train...which meant that I wanted them to have a good impression of train travel in Ukraine.  We opted for kupe seating (2nd class) which worked out perfectly because there were 4 of us in our little cabin :)

Vicki and myself eating CCC's with milk.  Perfection.

Who was the fourth roomie in our little bunk?  None other than one of my bffs, Miss Kym Starno.

Kymmy poo and Dan, dunkin' away

Our humble abode{s} while in Slavske were pretty much awesome.  Around 40 PCVs met up which meant we needed two mountain cabins to house all of us.

The house that I stayed in, with their big doggie, Rex, outside.

Unpacking in our own room :)

Dan and Vicki's room

That's all for part 1 of our shooping adventure!!  More soon :)

Sick. Round 2.

A I lay here in bed (which has been my activity for the past 3-4 days), I thought I'd give y'all a quick update on my illness.  My viral infection came back with vengeance last night at 2 am.  I was actually feeling decent all day yesterday, thinking that I was on the up-mend.  I didn't take a nap yesterday (because I started reading Twilight and started watching Desperate Housewives Season 1)...and wasn't really tired in the middle of the day.  But, by 7 or 8 pm, I was spent.  I crawled in bed and passed out until 1 am.  I didn't really have a temp all day yesterday which was a plus.  But, at 1 am I woke up freezing and feeling sooo achy and gross. I ended up taking a bath for 2 hours.  Debated about calling the Peace Corps Medical Office at 3 or 4 am, and decided that I could survive until 6 or 7 am.  Tried to fall back asleep then...and wait until I could call the doc.  

The doc on duty this week (there are 5 PC doctors--all trained in Western Medicine and with as good English as I have...if not better.  Every week, a doctor is "on duty" and has the emergency cell phone that must get countless phone calls at all hours of the night...sucky part of the job I'd say.) is Dr. Yuriy. He's been helping me since Monday when I called them and said helppppppp I'm dying.  Not really, but you get the idea.  I might have a tendency to exaggerate things when I'm sick (my mom is probably laughing at that statement), but I guarantee you, I literally thought I needed to go to the hospital this morning.  I even texted Phil at 4 am and told him that I might need his help in the morning.  Being the good friend he is, he responded back within MINUTES.  Pretty sure my sitemates are better than yours... :) moving on.

So, Dr. Yuriy was alert at 6:30 am this morning when I called him.  He told me it sounded like my viral infection was going to make a second go round today.  I've had a fever around 100 for most of the day.  I called my counterpart at 7 am and told her that I was feeling horrible again.  We had agreed the day before that my landlady would be coming to get my rent money today.  Olena said she'd come 15 minutes before my landlady should be here and that I could just lay in bed...which is exactly what I did.  

Phil brought me food and Sprite to drink...because I'm quite tired of drinking unending amounts of water.  Apparently, it was a foreign thing for Olena to hear that Americans drink Sprite to settle an upset stomach.  Apparently, the Ukrainian fix for that is kefir, which Wikipedia defines as "a probiotic fermented milk drink made with kefir grains."  I've accidently bought kefir once in Ukraine and will never buy it again.  I can't imagine drinking that stuff for pleasure, let alone when I feel like crap.  I had to laugh at this cultural difference though because Olena thought I was nuts for requesting she stop and get me a Sprite, and I thought she was equally nuts for telling me to drink the world's nastiest milk concoction.  

I'm over 60% done with Twilight now (purchased on Valentine's Day for the Amazon.com "deal of the day" for $2.99).  Let's just say I feel like a teenage girl as I wonder what will happen next, even though I've seen the movies. I started it yesterday and have yet to watch any movies or tv shows today.  You could say I'm a bit enveloped.  

Let's hope that this viral infection makes it final comeback today. I have barely turned on my comp the past few days, which shows you just how crappy I feel.  Toodles.

Surprise package!

After work yesterday, I went by the post office with hopes of finding something waiting for me.  What I found was a surprise package from my parents that included some Valentine's Day goodies for my kiddos!!!  

My kids will sport some Snoopy and friends Valentine's Day cards...

And because no Valentine's Day celebration is complete without these guys: conversation hearts

There were a few other treats in my package...including some pretzel M&Ms (which may or may not already be gone...).  AND, some unprepared popcorn!!  I'm excited to try making it on my stove :)

Thank you Mom and Pops for the lovely surprise!  I was hoping that my kids might get some American treats for V-day!  Happy Thursday!

Walking on water...

Okay, so it's not really water.  It's ice.  But, you get the idea.  I finally captured a man on the solidly frozen river going ice-fishing!  I only had my iphone with me.  

If you click on the pic, you can make it larger...

School was back in session today (was it bad I was hoping for another snow day?). I felt like I was in high school again...waiting for "Norman Public Schools" to scroll across the bottom of the tv.  Incidentally, when schools here close, I think it's solely a word of mouth type thing.  Maybe a hand-written sign on the door.

Last week when schools were cancelled, Olena asked me if I wanted to go buy some hot dogs or cottage cheese for cheap.  I politely said no thank you (two things I hate...not to mention I couldn't buy hot dogs for my doggies because they freeze in my fridge).  After she was gone, I realized why she was asking me that {very odd} question.  School #4 (literally how schools are named here) sits right next door to my work.  Because the cafeteria had already purchased food for the week but they were having to cancel school, the food would be bad by Monday when school resumed.  Olena came back very excited to have hot dogs for her doggie and cottage cheese to accompany her blinchiki (crepe-like food).

The sun was shiny and made my walk to work quite pleasant.  I tested out my ski jacket for my upcoming ski trip at the end of this week!!!!!!!  Words can't explain how excited I am to shoop down the mountain.  You can guess what this weeks way-back-Wednesday post will be about... :)

Hope nobody had a case of the Monday's.  Toodles!

Words of the day:
on time--вовремя
during--во время


Is is just me or do those words look ridiculously similar?  It's all about accent marks in Russian.  

Russian Language Refresher

I've been the laziest person ever today (literally: eating, reading, and watching tv shows.  kind of embarrassing).  BUT, everyone needs a day like that now and then in my opinion.  I chose today.

part of my lunch today: a modified version of this recipe 

That recipe called for Italian seasoning and parmesan cheese, neither of which I had.  Instead, I used lemon pepper spices, garlic salt, and regular salt.  Pretty delish.  And simple!

Back to the topic at hand: Russian Language Refresher.  A week ago, I was in the snowy city of Chernigov with 50-some Peace Corps Volunteers.  The goal?  To practice, improve, and motivate our Russian at site.  I enjoy speaking Russian in Kirovograd.  Well, in Ukraine for that matter {sidenote: if someone had told me 15 years ago that I would be studying Russian and enjoying it, I would have laughed in their face.}.  So, I was very excited to get to go to language refresher.  It's a great time to see your friends who lives far, far away, and I was hoping that it would be motivation for me to actually study Russian at site.

Every day consisted of a few lessons of your choosing.  I chose a class on perfect/imperfect verbs (very helpful), gerunds and verbal adverbs (horribly unhelpful to me because I can't even tell you what those are in English...), and verbs of motion (incredibly helpful and needed!).  OH!! And one of my favorite classes: Russian cursive.

Russian (and Ukrainian) cursive is truly an art.  Students learn cursive starting in the first form and study is for SIX MONTHS.   Generally, it is incredibly uniform (for boys and girls alike!) and simply beautiful.

The reason it is hard for us to learn is because many of the cursive letters look the same with a crazy amount of loops.

This picture floated around facebook for a while and made most PCVs here in Ukraine laugh and shake their head.  The first word says Militsia (police).  I can't tell you what the second word says.  Maybe something about listening?

This is my attempt at writing some words in cursive.  As my sweet teacher told me, "Your letters are dancing..."

Every letter is supposed to be at the same height and at the same slant.  And then you have to remember "connectors" which separate similar looking letters.  Sigh...in time :)

During the evenings at language refresher, you could choose different "fun" classes to attend.  Arts and crafts, jewelry making, chess, dancing, etc...and all of these lessons were taught in Russian.  I chose to remember how to do knitting and re-learn the art of cross-stitch.

My turtle! 

The last morning of language refresher, Catharine (a fellow K-grad oblast volunteer!), Jenny, and myself were working on our cross-stitch projects.  One of the PC staff members came over and asked Catharine if she had just started hers the night before.  In all actuality, Catharine had started hers three days before but hadn't had time to work on it outside of class.  It gave us all quite a good laugh :)  This picture was taken moments after that minor slip-up :)

Catharine, Jenny, and Lydia

Courtney and Anne in the back 

much better!  Anne is working on her knitting as you an see...

Also offered as one of the "fun" classes was a basket-weaving class.  One of my sweet friends Theo took the class and worked on her basket on the marshrutka ride back to Kiev...

The inside of a nice marshrutka {note: this is not what the city marshrutkas look like in K-grad)!  Meredith (with the brown curly hair) is also working on her basket :)

The last night of refresher a small talent show was held.  I'll let these videos speak for themselves.  On the video below, if you click on the red part that says "youtube" you can watch a larger version of the video. Enjoy!

 I honestly can't tell you what they're saying in this video, but this is a very common Ukrainian song :)

As a joke, someone signed up Nathan and Richard to count to 1000 in Russian.  They were pretty good sports about it...

Word of the day:
turtle--черепаха

K-grad Snow!

I walked to work today, even though it was SUPER windy outside.  I walked right into the wind for the first 15 minutes of my walk until I turned to go down a side road to my work.  Some of the sights along the way...

An old abandoned building about 4 minutes from my apartment.  I LOVE the striking turquoise of the doors and windows though.  As I was snapping the shot above, two of my favorite puppies came bounding through the snow.

I haven't named him yet.  He's probably 15 pounds if that.  Name ideas will be taken in the comments section.  He screams mischievous. 

This is his pal who also needs a name.  He's a bit bigger than the b&w one.  Maybe 20-25 pounds.   

Adorable.

Freezing and squinty because the snow is pelting my eyes.

A side road on the way to work...

A perfect little snowflake! (smaller than a pencil eraser)

Our snow-plow system: 4 tractors in a row that cause EVERY marshrutka/vehicle on the street to go uber slow.  I was impressed we had the tractors though.  They are on the bridge, and right after I snapped this pic, they caused a giant traffic jam on the main road in K-grad by ALL making a u-turn.  I stood there with my mouth gaping and forgot to snap a picture...

Frozen and snow covered river

Sometimes I walk on the left of the river down that side road.  However, today I needed some buildings for protection from the {Oklahoma like} wind.

Typical Ukrainian car.  Is it a Lada?  Not sure of the brand...

Looking into our courtyard at work.  Those are our two buses that I've seen put to use once (when I went on my week-long camping trip).

the spot behind me on the left is where the circus' always come set-up (about a 5 or 6 minute walk from my apartment).  There was a circus here less than a week ago...can't imagine how cold it would be to sit and watch with the temps in the teens.

Word of the Day:

ПОДТВЕРЖДАТЬ--to confirm

This word is hard to pronounce in Russian...but it can be used relatively often when you need to confirm a spot on a bus or to confirm a reservation.  Happy happy Friday :)

kids playing outside of my work on a giant block of ice...

P.S.  I finished the last of my queso tonight. I have eaten Mexican food once a day since last Saturday (minus Wednesday).  Can't wait til the next time I use my precious Velveeta :)

My Christmas Poem :)

Every year, my good ol' Pops writes my mom, my brother, myself, and now my sister-in-law a Christmas poem.  This has been going on for at least 35 years...maybe longer?  It's a Frost Family tradition to have it read on Christmas Eve or Christmas day, no matter how far away you are.  So, although my Christmas yesterday was one of the books, I ended up being able to skype with the fam (at 2 am my time nonetheless) and hear my Christmas poem!  Pops outdid himself this year.  Every Frost Family poem usually requires a lot of time on Pops' behalf, but also a lot of thinking about important/funny/random things that happened that year.  This years poem has to do with the Peace Corps (of course), so without further ado...

One Surprise After Another 

Your mom thought Africa was where you’d have to go;

She didn’t know you’d end up where they have a lot of snow.

You took a hush-hush trip to Dallas, driven there by Scott,

But afterwards, what you could tell us was really not a lot.

“What’s Lydia gonna do?” folks asked 10 times a day,

And all 10 times we’d shrug and simply not know what to say.

We’d say, “She’s working here for Cathy…now and then”—

“We’ll know more later on…but we’re just not quite sure when.”

All that was in 2010—the PC takes its good time choosing

While candidates spend theirs just wondering and musing.

But then, word comes that thrills your very being—

You’re in!  Eastern Europe!  So you go…skiing.

You’ll take your brother and good friend Jill,

Hoping they won’t have a spill.

Ol’ Pops can send you Peace Corps papers

While you’re up north pulling skiing capers.

You’re skiing, but you want to know—

Where is it that you’re gonna go?

Mom’s in the car—I’m in the house,

And you’re as quiet as a mouse.

The FedEx man has brought the news,

Which means that soon you have to choose:

Have me send it…the question’s how…

Or have me open it and find out now.

Up in New Hampshire, you think a minute

About the packet and what is in it—

It isn’t long…the die is cast.

You vote to learn your fate at last…

My knife cuts through the envelope

While all that you can do is hope—

I rush to ease your aching brain…

And tell you…it will be Ukraine!

  

Before we know it, you’re in Oster,

A faraway place on a distant shore,

Learning Russian in a hurry,

With new words coming in a flurry.

For forty years I taught that tongue,

But you were bored when you were young.

I failed your appetite to whet—

You knew no more than да and нет.

You used to ask me…”An adjective’s what?”

You really didn’t know diddly-squat

When it came to English grammar and such

And didn’t want to discuss them much.

Somebody asks, “Is that the dative?”

“No clue,” you say, “I’m just a native.”

Participles, verbs, or nouns

To you are terms that just cause frowns.

But you can get around по-русски

And hang with Phil and have a brewski.

You buy your tickets at the station,

And you can navigate that nation.

It’s not your most important care

Whether you have to wash your hair.

You’ve learned to cook, but here’s the catch—

Most things you have to make from scratch…

Without an oven or a range!

To live abroad, you have to change.

The бабушки know how to push in line,

But so do you, so you’ll be fine.

With e-mail, Kindle, and such stuff

You’ve somehow managed to write enough.

The techno-world can keep me puzzled,

But no way does it keep you muzzled!

This is my yearly, silly poem—

You’ve heard ‘em before, and so you know ‘em.

But from the heart, though far away,

It means have a wonderful Christmas Day!

Circa Christmas-ish 1991?

Cool acid wash jeans Pops :) Loved this years poem, even from 5500 miles away!  Hope y'all had a wonderful Christmas day, remembering what the day is truly supposed to be about.  Love love, from Ukraine :)

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 :)

42.

Do you know what the title of this post is for?  I want you to take a stab in the dark with what you think the answer is.

A)  The number of kids I had in English clubs today

B)  The number of days until Christmas

C)  The number of times I sang the ABC's song today

D)  The number of flights of stairs I walked up and down today

E)  The number of days until my birthday

Okay...so, are you ready?  Humor me, and email me your response (because I like getting email) or leave it on here (because it's like an email).  

But, I'm going to go ahead and tell you the answer.  However, I really am curious what all of you thought :)  

So...if you picked answer D, you're right.  Yup.  42 flights of stairs were walked by yours truly today. Let me give you a quick play by play, because I'm tired and ready to go to bed.  But...I've been slacking on blogging lately and felt a little guilty.  

My office has 4 floors.  I work on the 3rd floor.  Today, I saw an apartment (that I will not be renting) that was on the 5th floor.  That's 10 flights of stairs right there.  Bam!  

up 3--go to work

down 3--get peewee English club from their babushkas and moms on 1st floor

up 3--take peewee English club up to my office

down 3--finish peewee english club/take them back to waiting babas & mamas

up 3--work for 30 minutes

down 3--retrieve my visiting regional manager from 1st floor

up 3--take regional manager to my office

down 3--finished with regional manager meeting

up 5--visit apartment

down 5--leave apartment (that again, I will not be renting)

up 3--back to work

down 1--bathroom on my floor was locked by kids, must go down 1 floor to use different bathroom

up 1--back to work

down 3--leave work (finally)

If I did this everyday, I'd never have to work out!  Although let's be realistic...I haven't worked out in at least 1 month.  Maybe more...

Sidenote:  I didn't count any of the "half flights" of stairs that Ukraine is famous for.  IE, leaving my apartment, going into the grocery store, going into my work, etc.  

Another sidenote:  I don't really know if any of the other answer choices are correct or not.  You can let me know how many days til Christmas and my birthday though.  And there's a very, very good chance I sang the ABC's song at least 42 times today.  

C is for Cookie...

I love old pictures and videos. Anyone who remotely knows me knows that...and if you've read my blog for more than 10 posts, you've probably figured that out too.

Tomorrow, I have my first real English club meetings. So, on a whim tonight, I ran over to Phil's apartment (read took marshrutka #50 all the way across town) to get some beginner alphabet songs off of one of his hard drives. His poor computer is on the fritz...so he let me bring his flash drive home with the songs/videos on it. I took marshrutka #9a home (which runs the same route as 50 as far as I can tell...so why do they have two? Who knows.) and popped in his flash drive. As I'm going through some of the songs, a title catches my eye:

C is for Cookie

I had a flashback to this moment that is luckily captured on film (sorry it's kinda fuzzy...iphone vid):

"Singing" the song is the one and only Trey Pirtle. We were on choir tour two years, waiting to leave from a concert. Anyone who's been on choir tour can tell you, funny times are often had on the charter bus. Things like that happen...pretty regularly. And I usually have my camera ready. I'll post one more example, just because it makes me smile and reminisce, and then I'll get back to the point of the post...

sidenote: you might want to turn down your volume on this next video...fair warning.  Also, click in the middle of the video to start playing.

Believe it or not, everyone on that bus can sing pretty dang well. Maybe not when it's Backstreet Boys though. Continuing...

So, where were we? Let's recap: I plugged in Phil's jump drive, started looking through the files, found C is for Cookie, went off on a tangent, and we're back. Turns out, C is for Cookie is not just a song that the Cookie Monster sings! In fact, it's an educational video that is supposed to help kids with the alphabet. Maybe everyone knew that but me. I must have missed that episode of Sesame Street as a child...or maybe it was on while I watched Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.

Whatever the reason, I'm thankful to have an excuse to laugh hysterically at good times from choir tours of past years. And, to learn a new song to show my Ukrainian kiddos (and adults) who will be studying English for the first time tomorrow!  Don't worry, I'll save this song for a bit on down the road...

If you want to watch the original Cookie Monster version, here it is:

That video has over TEN MILLION views.  Pretty impressive, huh?

Happy Monday :)  I hope this blog made you laugh at some point during your reading.

You wash your hair how often?

Remember yesterday's post and how I promised you a great picture? It will come...but you have to read first. :)

Here in Ukraine, fashion and the way you present yourself to the rest of the community is a BIG deal. No longer do I have the days where I can go out in a a pair of Nike shorts and a t-shirt to run to Target (okay, no Target's here, but we'll say Furshet, which is the grocery store across the street). Technically, I still could, but the looks I would get on the street are usually not worth it. I think it's safe to say with the seven month mark approaching, that I have never worn makeup more consistently in my life than I have the past seven months here. This is the land of dolled up women walking on uneven roads with stilettos, with the makeup to boot. There are days when it's fun, and I've now fixed my morning routine to allow for the primping that has to occur. But there are also days when I just want to wear my "studio clothes" as I used to call them...aka, a pair of yoga pants and a mission trip t-shirt. Look, I'll even show you a picture of said studio clothes. This was back in the days of my furniture design class where my clothes were covered in a nice layer of sawdust by the end of the day. I would still go to youth activities and sometimes work at Cathy's looking like this. Ah, studio life...how I do not miss you.

Sanding my life away...

So, those clothes are not politically correct here. End of story. I'll tell you one more little tidbit of a story, then back to hair (the point of this post...sorry, tangent.).

During training in Oster (a village of 5000ish people), we dressed up quite a bit on days that we taught at one of the two schools. The boys usually wore a suit and the girls usually wore a skirt or dress of some kind. One day, I wore a grey skirt with a white button-down, frilly shirt. Nothing special, just nice business casual. I even have a somewhat crappy picture of it.

To illustrate what village life is like in Ukraine, let me continue. Mark (clustermate) had a host sister about our age. I walked to school and back home in that outfit, and was maybe gone for a total of 3 hours. I changed before class that afternoon so that I wouldn't ruin a white shirt, which isn't likely to stay white here in Ukraine. When we got to Russian class that afternoon, Mark told me that his sister liked my outfit. His host sister is 24 years old and had yet to leave the house that day. What's wrong with this picture? My walk to school is nowhere close to Mark's house...so how did she know what I was wearing? And that, my friends, is what village life is like. Every person in towns know what you buy at the magazine (store), what you wore that day, if your shoes were polished (or not, as the case often is for PCVs), etc. Anywho, back to the title of the post...

I go through phases with my hair. I typically let it grow and grow and grow until one day I decide I'm done with it and chop it ALL off (hopefully donating it to Locks of Love)...like I did the day before I graduated from OU.

I went from the left...to the right...overnight. (sweet Casey pictured too!)

I've never been a fan of getting my haircut. I don't think I've had a traumatic experience (other than the time I got my incredibly long hair when I was a child wound up in my mom's curling iron brush. That, was traumatic. And, the whole thing is caught on tape. And she told me not to play with it in the first place...lesson learned.). And it wasn't that I didn't love who cut my hair (sweet Rachel who now lives with Rosemary in Chi-town)...maybe I just don't like change? Who knows.

So, a few weeks ago, one of my friends Kristen posted a link to a blog she found: the daybook. I, of course, checked it out and found some random tutorials on it that I'm embarrassed to say I watched.

Why am I embarrassed?

Because one of them is called "how to create messy hair."

I thought, "Psh! I know how to do that, and my hair really doesn't do the 'messy look' very well...but I'm going to watch it for a bit anyway." Well, the girl does something I never thought to do: braid her hair at night and sleep on it. When I've done that in the past, my hair looks a poofy, crimped, mess. And heres' the picture you've been waiting for...

Dance Recital...probably circa 1996 or 1997?
I was a munchkin in the Wizard of Oz.

In the tutorial she unbraids her hair in the morning and then takes random chunks of hair and curls them. I thought, "Might as well give it a shot...". The first few times I did it, it didn't work well. My hair ended up in a messy bun or a ponytail (neither of which are very acceptable here in Ukraine). But, I eventually got an idea for how it works with my hair, and I am happy to say that I can now go three days without shampooing. The answer? Hairspray. The best part? Everyone at work thinks I spent a long time getting ready that morning. Ha, if they only knew... :)

PC Country Director Visit...

This morning, I woke up at 7 am to Skype with Mitchell to plan our Eastern Mediterranean cruise! Two hours later, we hung up (9 am my time, 1 am his time) and I started getting ready for a full day of Ukrainian adventures.

1 hour into the skype call...on the phone with Brenda on Travelocity.

I had to be at the center where I work at 10:30 am for a birthday party. My counterpart's boss, Natalia Constantinovna (who lead the camping trip I went on), was celebrating in true Ukrainian style. I stopped at the store on the way to pick up some chocolate (the go-to birthday gift here in Ukraine). We had realllllllly good cake and candies were passed around. To top it all off, we had a nice, juicy watermelon.

Natalia Constantinovna is in the turquoise outfit playing the guitar. These kids are all a part of the "Image Club" at my center. I have yet to actually figure out what the club is for. I know some of these kids from my camping trip, but I've gotten to know some new ones the past few weeks when they've had a summer day camp at our center. We've had "English" time where they ask me questions about the U.S., what I'm doing here, etc.

I managed to snag a group picture for her birthday! I'm not quite sure why the kids are all wearing white and black today. That is not their normal attire. However, today is flag day (apparently), which is why the gifted me with the Ukraine pin as seen above. I'm also shocked to see how many kids are smiling with teeth in this picture...that's a first!

After leaving the center, I headed to lunch to meet the Country Director of Peace Corps Ukraine, Doug Teschner. There are 8 volunteers that live in my city and only 2 of us were able to join him for lunch, but I'm glad I had the opportunity to do so! He was in Kryviy Rih (south of me) this morning visiting a summer camp going on right now that some of my PC friends are at (Camp Lead I think), and was on his way home to Kiev and would be traveling through K-grad on the way. So, Jasmin and myself headed to Kurchma for some traditional Ukrainian food with the PC Country Director.

Jasmin, Lydia, and Doug--eating at Kurchma

Since my work was not too far away from where we had lunch, I took them over to see it. What I pictured as a short tour quickly turned into an extravagant ordeal involving my counterpart, her boss (Natalia Constantinovna) and the director of the Center for Creative Youth. As some PCVs say, I got Ukrained (meaning you never will know what's going to come at you next).

Doug and I standing outside of my building--the sign is in Ukrainian which I cannot read. That was a tad bit embarrassing when asked what it said :) Oh well, he knows I speak Russian!

from l to r: Jasmin (fellow K-grad PCV), Olena (counterpart), Doug (PC Country Director for Ukraine), Anna Pavlova (Director for Center for Creative Youth where I work), ME!, Natalia Constantinovna (counterpart's boss...and kind of like my other counterpart)

The only person I planned on Doug maybe meeting was my counterpart Olena. But, lo and behold I couldn't find her in the building. So, when I saw Natalia Constantinovna, I introduced them and they started to talk...and it was quickly decided that we would go visit with the director of the Center for Creative Youth where I work and that Olena would be called as well. Before I knew it, we were having multiple pictures taken on multiple cameras (my camera, Doug's camera, Olena's cell phone) and then on top of all that, a professional photographer showed up out of nowhere (he's been taking pictures of the kids all week at their summer day camp). It was hysterical to say the least. To top it all off, a lady magically appeared with a ribbon tied in a bow that the ladies pinned on Doug for flag day. Jasmin and I were giggling to ourselves at all of the events that unfolded in a matter of 10 minutes. Only in Ukraine...

I'm still trying to get my posts ready from my trip down to Camp Bereg...bear with me! I have been exhausted after a week at camp, a less than perfect night's sleep on a train, and fighting a slightly sore throat. Tomorrow is a GIANT holiday in Ukraine (yes, two holidays back to back)--it's their Independence Day. I have to be at work at 9:30 am...and then there are activities until 10 pm. Then on Thursday morning at 4 am, I will head to Kiev for almost a week where I will be attending an Environmental Conference with 6 other PCVs and some Ukrainian university students as well. I'm stoked to learn what things they have to teach us--random side story and then I'll quit.

Ukrainians do not know or understand what a reusable water bottle is. I have two reusable water bottles with me here: this one and this one. I use them both every day. The insulated one keeps water cold for 12 hours. Uh-maze-ing. When I took them on my camping trip, I think every person on the trip asked me at some point what my water bottle was. They thought it was special...or magical...or something only the crazy American girl uses. Since I've been doing English club at the summer day camp at my center for the past few weeks on and off, I (of course) take a water bottle with me. The kids that had not seen it before were SO perplexed by it. It still amazes me. I really want to do some type of project at my Center with Environmental awareness since my eyes have been opened to the fact that these kids have no clue what a reusable water bottle is. Hoping and praying that something great comes out of the environmental conference that I can do at my site! I've rambled enough now. Toodles :)