some "woo girl" decided to scream right by the mic
yes... ukraine does a "count up", and yes, we were just as befuddled.
i guess i shouldn't have assumed that everyone partakes in a count down but come on, who would have ever though, a count up? in retrospect, it does actually make more sense, with seconds adding up to the new year. oh ukraine, you always surprise me.
kiev had their electric ish in order because it was a led central.
but honestly, in the words of the famous barney stinson new years in kiev was "legen...dary".
by the end of the evening, I ended up finding a few things...
i found my twin
i found my sitemate
i found my cluster
i found a sparkler
i found fireworks
i found a mask
the day after was also a site to see. i'm not quite sure if kids here actually believe in santa when you can find 20 of them roaming around khreschatik
I'll be frank, if you don't know what movie this post is referencing, we probably shouldn't be friends / the film warrants a spot in your Netflicks queue or at least an illegal streaming.
So truthfully if you remove Fievel's jacket, cow boy hat, gun (because they're outlawed for the public to own), and add a mustache he could probably pass as a Ukrainian cossack. I'm now realizing I've put way too much thought into this - maybe I should go to bed?
Anyhoo...
So schools in Ukraine celebrate autumn by taking a week off, or in the case of my school, two weeks. So in light of a week with nothing planned, I decided to go visit my clustermate Mary-Kathryn at her site in Chernivets'ka Oblast and help her at her work for a couple days and then do some site seeing in the area.
Starting off at her site, the Jamaican sounding town of Kitsman, I managed to take only 1 photo (which MK was not too pleased about) however I feel it definitely encompasses all that is Kitsman.
While in Kitsman, I/we managed to...
cook mac and cheese for her work English club
"correct" her apartment
meet her cool sitemate who also is fond of making fun of midwestern accents
be presumed as MK's Romanian "man"
Like any good excursion, I had to check another Oblast center off the list. With my guilde book not prompting any real excitement for what could be found in Chernivtsi, and I quote, "with Chernivtsi such a jumble of sights, and perhaps only the university a crucial one...", MK showed me around. Chernivtsi isn't any major city in Ukraine but it was very pleasant. I always seem to time weather in the West because it was an awesome day. My one word description of the city would be pastely, and it has a crazy university. Examples can be found below:
From there, we moved on into the Ivano-Frankivs'ka Oblast. The place with the giant egg (an annotation I added to my guidebook), or to Kolomyia was our next stop. Kolomyia is actually home to our first of many LCFs, so we got an expedited locals tour because he had to be on our way to Ivano later that day.
symmetry makes me smile
Ivano is like a mini L'viv, with tourism slowly building. A stronger ability in the Ukrainian language is needed here over L'viv, with English rarely heard. Speaking Russian here would definitely grant you a few stink eyes - which I kind of enjoyed. I've observed that certain regions claim more pride to their Ukrainian heritage over others. Coming from a region where both Russian and Ukrainian is spoken interchangeably, communication is often more complicated. Anyways, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:
If you feel so inclined, you can get your ukr dance party going while you read.
So as most of you know, my birthday has come and gone and Ukrainians spared no expense in "expressing their wishes of wealth, happiness, and that all my plans find their way to success". I tried to make it clear that I'm not one to enjoy celebrating my own birthday... however I guess either they didn't understand my Ukranglish / didn't listen.
The day consisted of a few things repeated over and over...
flowers - enough to where I presume a small garden was decimated (a moment of silence please)
the happy birthday song sung in with an Eastern European accent
home made cards
A few highlights of the day included a massive torso sized cake that the faculty refused to eat, a jar of Nutella gifted by the 5th form, and Robin Hood.
An interesting thing about Ukraine is that each city has it's own "day", for instance Myrhorod Day (which I think pertains to the day the Nazis left said town/city). Anyways, Myrhorod day ended up being celebrated my birthday weekend. So, once my school day ended, I made my way to Myrhorod where I spent the rest of the day with my sitemate Robin.
The 8:45 morning train was actually on time and wasn't late arriving to Kyiv - in essence my true birthday present from Ukraine. I was able to grab my Mickey D's and shawarma fix and hung out with friends for the rest of the weekend. This weekend may or may not have included ending up in a 80's grunge hangout (denim jackets included) where presumable self titled DJ Mr. Coco spoke some broken English words of wisdom...
"my name is Mr. Coco"
"make some loud"
"it makes me feel like oh my god"
"why is it so dark in heaven?"
"ladies get your booties moving"
All and all, a successful birthday number 1.
(We also may have taught hipster Ukrainians how to electric slide - great success)
With The Dead Weather & The Black Keys playing in the background, I finally got in the mood of updating my blog (odd I know, usually it's Luda Keys that gets me going - or is that Andrea?). So as of 10 days ago, I'm officially a Peace Corps Volunteer in the eyes of both the Ukrainian and US governments!
And just when I'm in the writing mood I'm being summoned to the yard - I guess I'll come back to this...
Ok, I'm back. However five hours may have elapsed - helped make bbq, blah blah blah, sauna, blah blah blah, ok Kyiv ceremony.
So I managed to pack all my stuff back into my two big bags, duffel, and backpack except for the some 25 lbs of books that PC decided would fun to give us (not to mention a space heater, fire extinguisher, and fire alarm we received later). I was forced to purchase the infamous "Baba Bag" for the remaining items - I even sprung for the more expensive nice material one at Natasha's advice because it would last longer (which ended up being $2.50). I think it may be my favorite purchase so far.
The day before my departure we exchanged goodbye gifts.
Natasha - micro SD card I had for her new phone
Zhenya - duck tape for his car that I believe you can't buy in Ukraine
Sasha - vase for her flowers she planted
Natasha expressed how they (as in the volunteers she'd had) always have to leave right when they begin to understand the language.
The final morning of the 13th with the Chornenka's + Sasha was a sad one. Zhenya tried to make me late so the bus would leave without me and I probably broke my back with all the bags. We met up with all the other families and cluster mates which ended up being a hot mess and a giant wet blanket - which we all know how much I love. We took a few final family photos, a large group shot (that I'm still in need of someone to email me), and of course some farewell hugs. We then road off into the sunset... or the pouring rain at 8:30AM.
We were greeted in Kyiv to a welcome lunch which included KIT-KATS (no joke - I flipped)!! Following Lunch was logistical meetings, blah blah blah, and then SITE PLACEMENT ANNOUNCEMENT! I found out I'll be moving to the small village (1,200 people - be jealous) of Harkushyntsi, 10 minutes outside of the rayon center of Myrhorod (43,000 people) in the north eastern part of Poltava Oblast. From what my counterpart is saying, it's a well known vacation spot in Central Ukraine with beaches and resorts - sounds good to me.
as my host brother Zhenya describes my current village
found pic of my town on google images - now I just need to find it
It's funny how everyone, including myself, was so hyped up on finding out where they were going that when we finally found out where, it was like oh cool, well I know absolutely nothing about this place and I can't even pronounce it. People fled to maps to find out where geographically they'd be located and others they'd be near to. It was comforting to find out I'd be quite close to three other volunteers in my group.
The 14th was when we met our counterpart who'd we'd be potentially working with for two years. I actually ended up talking to the wrong Yulia for a good 10 minutes before I realized it - comical after the fact I guess. However my counterpart Yulia is a friendly biology / english teacher who lives in the Myrhorod but works in my town - after our initial meeting, I think we'll get along well.
The 15th was AIDs prevention day - which only made me think of Team America.
The actual ceremony on the 16th reminded me a lot of my college graduation - lots of standing, speeches, and a little Ukrainian boy playing the accordion (he was bomb).
Also, Natasha and the other families from Kozelets came to the ceremony which was really awesome. Lots of news crews caught the action.
A sum up of the event can be found here. However because of my train departure time, I literally had to leave 15 minutes after the ceremony ended so I really was only able to say a quick hi / goodbye to Natasha, some of my cluster, and the refreshment stand. As frustrating as it was, I realized I only live three to four hours away - unlike some of my cluster that live 14 hours away, hahaha.
So in Kyiv there is this free art exhibit that rotates every two weeks and the one currently on display when we went was freaking awesome. Let's just say I now know what being in a rainbow is like.
As you can tell from the title of this post, I may have caught the travel bug just a bit - but it's not my fault (or so I tell myself). Kozelets is perfectly located an hour and a half in either direction from two big cities - Chernihiv and the capitol Kyiv.On the 17th, four of the five of my cluster mates made the trek by Mashuka (mini-bus) to Chernihiv in the wee hours of the morning.
One may ask why the fifth was not in attendance? The lone ranger was actually under the impression she was going to milk a cow that day - which she's been wanting to do for some time now. Unfortunately... said activity never happened (which was quite hilarious) and this presumed cow wasn't even mentioned at all throughout the day, haha. Anyways, Chernihiv was a blast. The weather wasn't pristine however it was perfect for a day of walking around. We met up with a few groups who are doing PST in Chernihiv so we got a mini / fast paced tour of the city. We had an awesome time with only a little blip in figuring out how to get home to Kozelets - however it all worked out.
On the contrary, the 22nd turned out to be a scorcher in Kyiv - however the Ukrainian people still managed to be in their winter coats while I was sweating my life away. We were advised to not keep anything of importance in our pant pockets due to the prevalence of pick-pocketing so it was all zipped away in the million compartments of my North Face. However that meant I had to basically keep my jacket on the whole time! If I lost that - my life would have been over. The field trip to Kyiv was actually part of our PST curriculum so our LCF Natasha came along and had a scavenger hunt planned for us. Kyiv is really pretty with all the conveniences of what I think of as a city - McDonalds, Subway Station, and even an underground mall! We had to ask for a lot of directions to locals in Ukrainian and most people were very willing to help out - so it was much appreciated. The main point of the visit was to get a tour of the Peace Corps Ukraine headquarters. There was actually a fair amount of current volunteers visiting the office as well so it was fun to ask questions and get perspectives of people who've been there for quite some time. They had internet stations and showers for volunteers to get cleaned and caught up on life which was pretty neat.
With all the new sights I've managed to overlook one of Ukraine's favorite things - EASTER - which happens to be in two days! I'm not actually sure what's going to happen but I do know that there is an eight hour church service that spans though the night and into the next morning, delicious delicious comidas, and hopefully wifi, haha. My host mother Natasha has been in the kitchen the entire day cooking / baking and our house smells bomb so I can only assume good things are in the near future. I looked in my fridge last night and there was probably 75 eggs - so maybe I'll go hide a few to share the easter egg hunt tradition.
I've actually felt a bit under the weather the past couple days so I plan on sleeping all day tomorrow to hopefully knock out the bug that's got me down.
