YoYo

Description of Peace Corps Service

2009-12-07T20:22:00.002+02:00

Jesse “Josef’ Bartels

Ukraine (October 2007 – December 2009)

After a competitive application process emphasizing professional skills, motivation, adaptability, cross-cultural understanding and medical fitness, Peace Corps invited Mr. Jesse “Josef” Bartels to serve as a TEFL Volunteer in Ukraine.

Pre-service training

On October 1^st, 2007, Mr. Bartels joined the 33^rd group of Peace Corps Volunteers to serve in Ukraine. He entered an intensive 12-week community-based training program that included 200 hours of Ukrainian language training, 150 hours of technical training in TEFL methodologies and community development, 8 weeks of classroom teaching practice and 60 hours of cross-cultural studies (history, economy, cultural norms).

While a trainee, Mr. Bartels worked with the Kivshovata pubic school to organize and conduct a teacher training on communicative language learning techniques and methodology. To reinforce language and cross-cultural learning, Mr. Bartels lived with a Ukrainian family in the town of Kivshovata, Kyiv Region, throughout the 3-month training.

Assignment

U.S. Ambassador William B. Taylor swore in Mr. Bartels as a Peace Corps Volunteer on December 20^th, 2007 in Kyiv, Ukraine. Mr. Bartels was assigned to Velyki Mosty, a town of 5000 Ukrainian and Russian speakers in Western Ukraine.

The rich plains and forests of Ukraine have witnessed almost constant struggle between competing peoples since before recorded history. Ukraine ended 750 years of foreign domination by gaining independence from the USSR in 1991. Less than 20 years later, Ukraine is behaving like any young nation. The learning curve is steep as an adolescent government attempts to remove economic controls in an effort to emulate the economic success of Western Europe. Ukrainians, however, have a mature culture and language, traced back to the Kyiv Rus. Each exploiter and occupier has strengthened Ukrainians into a people unbreakable and proud, not of their government, not of their young unsteady nation, but of whom they are, their long heritage and what their country will become as its potential is fulfilled.

Many people in Ukraine realize that a greater openness must be reached in order to achieve success in the global community. Mr. Bartels’ work as a teacher provided many opportunities to share American culture and its approaches to problem solving, authority and creativity. His work was part of a nation-wide effort in Ukraine to reorient itself toward a free and open society.

Working under the Ministry of Education, Mr. Bartels worked as a full-time English Teacher at Velyki Mosty School Lyceum, which has 88 teachers and 900 students. This school specializes in the sciences and Mr. Bartels’ work was directly supervised by the assistant principle of social sciences. He introduced American teaching methods emphasizing the communicative method to English teachers, many of whom learned English using the translation method. While teaching between 16 and 18 hours of English classes each week (TEFL), Mr. Bartels also conducted 3 pedagogical seminars and distributed informational material on communicatory methodology. Teaching 2nd-10th grades, Mr. Bartels strived to create student centered atmosphere where English was truly used as a language, to transfer information and ignite curiosity. Mr. Bartels specialized in using ‘realia’, that is to say real tasks including radio listening, website design, text message and pen pals assignments that incorporated the real life experiences of children in Velyki Mosty. He received supervision and critical feedback from the TEFL Project Lead Specialists from Peace Corps, and from the pedagogical director at the regional level. In addition to English, Mr. Bartels taught computer technology as a classroom resource to co-teachers.

As an HIV prevention educator, Mr. Bartels designed, organized and implemented an HIV prevention project which included 2 trainings of trainers and 8 peer trainings that increased youth knowledge about the biology and transmission of HIV. These peer groups in turn trained 8 other student groups which showed increased knowledge and tolerance while demonstrating a decreased propensity toward risky behavior (measured by pre and post training questionnaires). Together with his counterpart, Mr. Bartels overcame social obstacles and taboos by focusing his trainings on abstinence and faithfulness before condom use. Through the trainings, pamphlets, exercises and posters, he worked to fight against stigmas and discrimination. Mr. Bartels used a President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR) grant to bring a trainer from Kyiv in order to provide local educators with the expertise and comfort necessary to safeguard their communities.

Mr. Bartels’ after school activities included 3 academic clubs that each met for 2 hours every week. These included Health, Ecology and European Affairs. Each club created a project at the end of every school year. His ecology club concentrated on project design and management. Pupils then designed and implemented 4 community projects including trash pickups and tree plantings. Mr. Bartels facilitated a two-day tolerance training with the European Affairs club for 8^th-10^th grades. With his Health club he taught 7 lessons about tobacco, alcohol, obesity, nutrition, household chemicals and HIV/AIDS.

As a Co-Chair of the Peace Corps Ukraine Environmental Working Group, Mr. Bartels maintained, created, collected and provided information and project support throughout Ukraine. With support from the Environmental Working Group, Mr. Bartels organized and directed 2 overnight week long summer camps teaching pupils environmental awareness through a focus on local issues to help Ukrainian youth become active, informed, initiative taking leaders in their community. He was also the American volunteer director of the ‘Survivor’ camp, a sustainable ecological education project started by Peace Corps volunteers in 2005 which is now operated mainly by Ukrainian directors and staff.

Mr. Bartels’ language ability progressed quickly reaching Advanced High by July 2009. As a result of his work in school and his language ability, he was selected by Peace Corps staff to present a report to 200 University and School Directors and to the Minister of Education on the current state of English Education in Ukraine. He gave this seven minute speech in Ukrainian and received many compliments on his language ability.

Following careful needs assessment and student surveys, Mr. Bartels Created an English Resource Library. Using book donations from the USA, he established a title list of 200 books for pupils and teachers at all levels. He also created the catalog and organizational system by which checkouts will be monitored.

Pursuant to Section 5(f) of the Peace Corps Act, 22 USC 2504(f), as amended, any former Volunteer employed by the United States Government following his Peace Corps Volunteer Service is entitled to have any period of satisfactory Peace Corps service credited for purposes of retirement, seniority, reduction in force, leave, and other privileges based on length of Government service. That service shall not be credited toward completion of the probationary or trial period of any service requirement for career appointment.

This is to certify in accordance with Executive Order 11103 of April 10, 1963, that Mr. Jesse Josef Bartels served successfully as a Peace Corps Volunteer. His service ended on December 2^nd, 2009. He is therefore eligible to be appointed as a career-conditional employee in the competitive civil service on a non-competitive basis. This benefit under the Executive Order extends for a period of one year after termination of Volunteer service, except that the employing agency may extend the period for up to three years for a former Volunteer who enters military service, pursues studies at a recognized institution of higher learning, or engages in other activities that, in the view of the appointing agency, warrant extension of the period.

Then signatures and stamps

very official looking

The Last Days

2009-12-01T11:22:00.002+02:00

Trucking to Germany with my neighbor is not going to work out. He's leaving today and I'm still doing paperwork and eye exams in the office (looking for a some phantom opacity on the crystal that may indicate the first stage of cataracts). So I got a bus ticket, this year from Lviv to Frankfurt. Oh the fun of 27 hour bus rides.

So, today and tomorrow in the office, back to my site for one day, and then on my way west. Excited for change. Sad to leave.

December and still warm in Ukraine.

And some photos from my last few months...

shedding possessions

2009-11-25T15:55:00.001+02:00

Who would guess that it was possible to collect so much stuff over two years?

We really are like pack rats. This moving habit of mine keeps the possessions to a minimum, but even so, impressive.

I have between 8-10 days left in Ukraine, depending on which truck driver I catch a ride with. Questions of sustainability are weighing heavily but when I think of individuals whose lives I have affected and who have changed me, I recognize a mirror effect. So if I feel those changes within me, I'm sure they are within those people as well, and those changes are sustainable.

A more open mind, flexible priorities and unlimited generosity is what I've learned to value.

I'll be interested to read my students' blogs to see if I can find any of my influence there. (where did I put that link?)

It's interesting how for me, because I'm in Ukraine, for a set amount of time, this part of my life is beginning to have clear edges, defined by location. My students experiences with me however are not contained within within any frame. Just another year at school, with some weird American guy, but still, just normal life.

Cold autumn rain.

One more essay to write and resumes to edit.

How do you end a blog?

Two weeks left!

2009-11-15T20:40:00.002+02:00

Three weeks of quarantine combined with fall break before that and my Continuation of Service conference before that has lead to 5 weeks without school. This has given me much needed time to write essays, finish graduate school applications, and track down my less than stellar GRE scores.

Now I have one week of classes and saying goodbye, one week of packing and then it's on the train/bus to Germany and airplane back to America.

Of course many mixed feelings, but overall ready for a change, and really anxious to get back to some academics.

Have some other blog entries saved on my computer, but I always forget to put them onto my flash drive.

It's been raining for weeks, and will rain into the foreseen future.

Really wish I had time to apply for a few more jobs, but school first. I'll get all these applications off on December 1st, and then focus on finding employment from now until school starts.

Carrot cake smells like it's ready, so I'm off to the kitchen...

Reflection

2009-11-14T19:54:00.000+02:00

What can I conclude at the end of my Peace Corps service?

Well I’ll attach my official description of service soon, but until then, let me say a few things in response to
“how was it?”

For the surest answer, read earlier entries in this blog. But of course all experiences are changed by analysis’s hindsight. As for my thoughts now, they are poorly seasoned and relatively bland.

I would do it all over again, of course very differently. I’ve learned more about myself then anyone learned about English, me or America.

I made positive changes, after I was relatively fluent in Ukrainian and only where I had strong and close community support. I only wish that language was the largest obstacle.

I have many new friends.

This reflection is still premature.
It needs more seasoning.

Time and Opportunity

2009-11-10T19:46:00.000+02:00

Algerian font matches

out of proportion feelings

time running out

running running out

Violined OUt

calm inner self

transition

opportunity time

Breath

Make lists

accomplish tasks

all will be done in thy

time is plenty

but still

it’s gotta all come out

Rant

old clothes ragtime

new clothes giveaway

few clothes bringaway

red clothes run

Campstove sell

sleeping bag roll

music stand donate

notebook gift

trophy soccer jersey

duct tape

books

But all that doesn’t even compare to the time and energy I need to say goodbye

not for a time

a few months

see u on facebook

but years, maybe forever, and you don’t even have email

I doubt you can afford to pay international postage

Fortitude seems unfair

I was accepted, trusted and part of their town

now I just go?

"all my hopes for you to settle down here for good

bring your parents too!

it’s just as I suspected

Despite all his words

America must be nicer

look at him an all his opportunities

he’ll make a decent living with half the sweat I do

24 and he can still mess around as if he were 17

hasn’t even started his career yet"

And then there’s the newlyweds on the bus

Ivan says he had a great English teacher in his village school

She’s dead now, Гірник graveyard

Ivan has worked 500meters underground

four years down

twenty one to go

mine #9

electrical engineer

$300/month

coal

three months married

Natalia wants to get pregnant

he says she just doesn’t understand

the financial pressure

of having a kid

they’ve been talking about that new factory for six years

I have no choice

the mine or drugs

a hard life or no life

I can’t believe you are here

I don’t care about the election

Проти Всі!

Take my number

call me

you are a good person

May God Give You Happiness

Goodbye

That sure puts my silliness in perspective

How lucky I am

Life is just shining down on me

a gift of time and opportunities

thank you

but why me?

October 7th

2009-10-07T12:31:00.000+03:00

‘If only’s never get you anywhere

but…

no, I won’t dwell

stinky excuses

soccer is frustrating

because I don’t practice

because my Achilles is not healthy

because I haven’t taken 3 months off to cross train

because I don’t have access to cross-training facilities

one more game

wow, how stinky these excuses are

after all, what equipment do I need to do yoga?

short-timers disease

the beginning of

the new

failure to make due

looking farther than

my horizons

2 months to a swimming pool

Cleanup project this weekend a great success!

70 kids, teachers, and politicians

2 tons of trash

350kg of glass bottles

6 anti-littering signs

but most importantly

I did much less work than last time

which means

the kids are getting it

how to organize

delegate and support each other

empowerment through youth led development

small project design and management

next up

getting the movie theatre up and running

through some sort of club

keep going

I’m good at pushing through

but it’s going to be a shock

when one day

baby roots ripped up

put back in the 2003 hole

grow now?

too many leaves

pages of experiences

torn tubers

can I make the project design and management club

self-sustaining?

if not, what was the point?

people still litter

cut down trees

forget how HIV transmits

or neglect to inform their teenagers how to use a condom

Ha!

that old dream

immortality

as if one person could change the world

but oh they can

but not without proper commitment and preparation

both of which I will

in the end

fail to demonstrate here

back to school I go

for preparation

and commitment

will make a home

without the escape backdoor

back to where?

“wont you go back”

they’ll ask

back to my white skinned American male advantaged

rung on the opportunity ladder

No man

“I wont go”

because I don’t want to

I can’t

I’ve witnessed too much

and I refuse to take my wrongful place

in the unjust system

on a rotten ladder

to that false red “developed” fruit

progress and better quality of life

Open your eyes

I try

so many truths competing

left center right

economics a force for good?

the power of greed harnessed?

at least the system acknowledges selfishness

but why are environmentalists so single minded?

I hate the leftist exaggerations

that corporations are evil, as if they are giant monsters

and not merely the combined greed of thousands

no, combined good intention, to work and provide for her family

normal and natural on an individual basis

but when combined, capable of truly externalizing the social costs of exploitation

the investment in guns, oil, gold and metals

so distant from the people who have a stock

willing or not

Can’t you see that the richest countries are also the cleanest?

It is only when people have basic comforts

then they worry about picking up trash

what do you care

at your computer

Minimizing pollution

being less bad

than that guy in the hummer

what have you done today to eliminate poverty?

get on the phone already

with your senator congressmen state politician folks

but better yet

I don’t know

take a sign and stand by the road on your lunch break?

organize a flash mob outside REI?

too much intention

not enough action

Your country is doing things

do you know what they are?

what are my brothers doing in Afghanistan?

why can’t they be planting trees, building schools and teaching kids English slang?

why are they crawling through caves and hunting men?

Autumn Leaves Falling on Winter Hopes of Spring

2009-09-29T16:28:00.001+03:00

two years and no trust in student centered learning

no chance to take a class through the joys of communicating with a foreign language

two years and trusted only to play with them

"We're giving you younger students this semester because we feel that you don't focus on grammar enough to prepare our students for their standardized tests"

Ok, well if you don't feel that using language is at all useful for grammar, then fine, just do drills and fill in the blank exercises all day.

It's ok, still get to see some of my favorite 8th, 9th, and 10th class, even if it is done on the dl

Good thing teaching English is only one third of my work right now. The other thirds are with my Ecology club, which has become a Project Design and Management club, and with my Healthy Lifestyles club, which is focusing on abstinence from drugs and sex now.

My mind is spending more and more time on the other side of the Atlantic

dreaming of being back in an academic setting

getting some more skills so that the next time I have a wonderful opportunity to live and work as a agent for change

I have a blog?

2009-09-08T17:04:00.001+03:00

News?

School started Sept 1st.

Closing one grant

seeing if there is any way I can get some funding to get computers and internet in the town library

doing one more cleanup

possibly starting a recycling pickup point

yeah, nice and busy

playing soccer after missing every game this summer by being at 4 different summer camps on the 4 sides of Ukraine

spent more time in my tent than I did in any bed

mornings are already getting cooler and darker

then the time change hits which makes it dark by the time I get home from school

yeah, time to move south

Crazy summer

camps coming out my ears

ears of corn

pears smashing themselves

sweetness juicy

bees love pear juice

too many

plums to eat

apples to dry

peppers to pickle

tomatoes to trickle

potatoes to dig, sort, dry, store, clean, peel, and eat

homemade

ketchup

salsa

condensed milk

tomato sauce

corn cakes

Harvest Time

Elo visits to climb highest mountain

cell phone works only for me

bucket showers in the pig house

Grad School application time

MPH in global health or rural medicine

eventually leading to MD?

First want to work with more projects like the ones I've done here

except to be actually qualified and know in advance how to facilitate successful community health projects

then perhaps I'll continue my education expanding from the preventative side to the diagnostic+treatment side

Lots to think about and learn and do.

On the train

2009-07-12T18:27:00.001+03:00

All the way across the country in any direction takes more than 24 hours.

Have a nice layover in Kyiv, finally got into the WWII museum.

Finished with Survivor Camp in the Carpathians, fun to teach first aid and live in a tent, poop in a hole, wash in the river, with sand

now off to an ecology camp

wishing i had a bit more time at home now that i know theoretically how to get my town recycling plastic and paper

there's a company in Lviv that will send a truck out to pick up materials and pay by the kilogram

but I won't be in town long enough to get this project off the ground until late August

reading harry potter in ukrainian

still

each page takes a long time

although it is all understandable

words are still read at the letter level

not the whole word recognition thing

ok, I bet that rice is done

cooking in the pc office is fun

and saves a whole lot of money

because kyiv prices are like nyc prices

amazing news from home

congratulations all of you

Chasing the ball

2009-06-02T14:40:00.001+03:00

There's so much I've failed to report in this blog. Living life and not writing about it. But here goes a quick sum up since the last report on the break I took to climb Mt. Hoverla.

Our cow died, by our, I mean Maria's, the grandma I live with. While I was out hiking in the Carpathians, she, the cow came back home from the pasture and decided to eat 40liters of unprocessed wheat grain. This left no room in her stomach and she swelled up as the grain absorbed water. The town doctor/vet was called, but nothing could be done without surgery. So after Maria's third sleepless night talking to and massaging the cow, they called the butcher and sold the milk cow for meat. They saved some of their investment, but the price for meat is not nearly as high as the price for a working milk cow that was only 9 years old. But the price didn't matter to Maria. For her it was like loosing a limb. She had milked this cow three times a day for 8 years!

During the fight to save the cow, Maria's son's wife disappeared for a few days. This left a house with three kids and no parents, since Maria's son was on one of his transport runs to Poland. This puts a lot of pressure on Maria to run two houses at once, and is forcing Ira, the oldest sister, who I teach in 8^th grade, to grow up faster than a kid should.

I guess I haven't written much about my living situation since I moved in February, but that's because everything has been working out fine. We had turkeys, but we ate them. We have 9 chickens and one rooster. 14 chicks hatched yesterday morning. The house is surrounded by a small yard which despite its limited size has fruit trees, potatoes, tomatoes, beans, peppers, poppies, morning glories, strawberries, onions, garlic, and parsley. Almost every inch has something growing on it. Not only is there a garden around the house, but she has two other fields 5mx10m and 5mX5m which have cucumbers, corn, more potatoes, more beans, carrots, and squash. I helped with some of the farming, particularly turning the soil and breaking dirt clumps, replanting tomatoes and trimming strawberries. I really wish I could help more, but I spend most days in school, and often on the weekend I like to get out of the village on Saturday and then Sunday is not a proper day to work on.

Maria wanted to buy two piglets to fatten over the summer, but never found the black ones she wanted, and thinks it's too late now.

April Showers extended for May

2009-06-02T14:39:00.001+03:00

Today after class I rushed to Lviv to meet some friends and go to the last professional football game of the year. It was a derby between FC Lviv and FC Karpati which the former had to win to stay in the top league. A relegation match. So, as Ukrainian professional soccer compares poorly with the MLS, it was not a pretty game.

Before the game started we had an adventure trying to get cheaper tickets. My friends waited for me to finish a long transaction at the bank (last part of my grant) and by the time we arrived at the stadium, they were only selling more expensive tickets, not due to lack of seats, but according to a profitable supply and demand calculation. Walking around to the other side of the stadium to check with the other ticket counters (they don't use computers and can't see what the other locations have sold), we encountered a group of boys who had found a hole in the fence and were paying the police officer who guarded this hole a price much cheaper than any remaining tickets. Deciding that as Peace Corps volunteers, it was a bad idea to support corruption, we went back to the first ticket office and paid the higher price.

What happened on those mountains?

2009-05-13T17:25:00.004+03:00

Oh yeah, forgot to finish that story about the high ridge line in the Ukrainian Carpathians. We (Jim and I) started hiking at 1630 after hitching with a rafting outfit and then paying the driver another 50 грівень to take us the last 7km to the trail head(we forgot to bargain, but since the first 9km were free, it's ok). Then we bought lots of bread and cookies and started walking up the hill. We took bets on when the first snow would be visible. Jim is recovering from a high ankle sprain and I have tendinitis in my achilles so we sort of hobbled up the hills, past the cheese cabin (unfortunately too early for the sheep to be up in the mountains, so no cheese yet), past tree line, across snow slides and over boulders until the old top of the hills opened up (so old that not much sharpness remains) into a beautiful flower covered tundra.

Getting dark temperature dropping nice campsite except for the boulders under the tent stove running low on fuel last three cities had no camp fuel will be easy summit in the morning up black mountain the 4th highest in Ukraine 2028m buckwheat dinner not all the way cooked spicy ketchup wash dishes later to cold to hang outside the tent sleep

sun hidden long rising late start summit by 0900
back to get the now aired out tent and sleeping bags and started on our 17km walk to the base of Hoverla the highest mountain in Ukraine which at less than 8000ft is really not very high but still cool even if the neighboring Romanian mountains are so obviously taller walking and more walking need a real hiking pack and boots completely dead nice walking sticks found on trail both of some fruity wood lost trail only once under snow lots of hikers going other direction, difficult to melt snow for water carrying ice cold nalgenes inside our jackets to melt water partly sunny so many purple crocuses dark clouds gathering some rain drops hurry to lee side but find no wind break more time before sunset tent up mountain tops shrouded in mist cold wind no camp fuel left break and sausage for dinner early to bed.

That's not rain landing on the rain fly sounds more like grasshoppers bummer its actually ice pellets nothing visible pack up and summit before breakfast snow blowing trail invisible no compass or map trying to cut back in correct direction steep icy snow face much quicker slide down on butts avoiding rock wedgies snow getting wetter lower altitude rain at freezing bushwhacking so wet breakfast needed 1000 wring out socks good thing their wool argue about whether to continue bushwhacking back in direction of trail not sure how far in that direction or follow goat path down to who knows where decided goat path because drier and easier going two hours goat sheep logging truck road and much lower later first people all day have fire invite us for tea nice to dry and warm up new friends still 10km to train station we've ended up in another oblast like crossing a state border without even knowing it walking easy flat now police checkpoint didn't register for back country camping good thing I took off my hat and addressed him in the formal and he was drunk longest 10km in a while making Jim miss his girlfriend who is leaving for Prague an interesting last few km to train station a tiny village not on our road map in fact there is no road only a train station pretty close to Romania two hours on slow 3rd class train unhappy drunk dirty men who feel no hope missed bus in яремча making Jim miss his train my fault because trusted hand signals of driver instead of just stubbornly getting on the bus I was lucky catching last bus from Oblast center north toward home Jim waiting till 0100 for next train through Kyiv almost missed stop sleep easy on flat floor so warm indoors thank you fellow volunteer for letting me crash on floor

Next day at last through Lviv and home missed three days of school trees I planted still alive projects and clubs not really active without me where is sustainability got to put so much effort into getting people to do things they don't normally do and are not paid to do all day spent proving that this is good for students school Ukraine our town but some victories small and sweet

Marching

2009-05-13T17:23:00.003+03:00

I forgot about the marching
every class 6th grade and up must prepare a march for a competition next week
they have chants and songs and flags and different steps
obviously more important than English class
or HIV prevention activities...

May Day, Victory Day and Mothers Day

2009-05-13T14:13:00.003+03:00

We have had at least three holidays in the last two weeks, of which I took advantage to return to the Космач festival in Kosmach. This year the organization was poor, and even though more people and bands came, there was no second stage or sound equipment for them to use. Many more Americans showed up, but somehow (good weather forecasting?) the Poles and Germans knew not to come this year. The weather was cold, dark and rainy, but the charm of the small mountain village remained (picture forthcoming).

Then I met Jim and we hiked the highest ridge line in Ukraine. The weather was great for the first two days, but the third day reminded us why we had enjoyed relative solitude. The snow blew in stinging ice pellets and the trail was all but covered in snow.

There transpired quite an adventure, most of which is described by video on my facebook page. The rest I'll have to describe later because I have to go run a competition for Euro club.

Easter is so Awesome!

2009-04-22T15:27:00.002+03:00

Ok, so I'm rather neutral on the Christ part and all the beliefs behind this holiday, but looking at it from a purely ritualistic or traditional standpoint, it is really powerful.

So of course Lent is observed normally by not eating red meat or drinking hard alcohol (alcoholics exempt). Then there is Cave Friday, when the boulder was rolled in front of the entrance to Jesus's resting place. On all big religious holidays work is prohibited, even washing clothes and getting water.

Then Saturday was spent out on the fields turning over the soil by hand because our (my Ukrainian grandma and I) piece of land is two small to rent a horse drawn plow. Got my first sunburn of the year and actually wore through my Millionair gloves on the rough natural branch handel of my shovel. I got my soil turning technique down pat left and right handed and learned how to ensure that the chicken poop gets mixed with the soil and not only stuck to my shoes.

We also re-planted the peppers from the windowsill to outside under clear plastic supported by bent willow branches. Need to be covered bacause it's still down around freezing at sunrise (which is now at 630am). Then we took our basket of Paska Cakes (hot cross buns) hard boiled decorated eggs (different leaf shapes left white while the egg was dyed in onion skin water) meat, salt, butter and other stuff to church, had it blessed with holy water. Ok, the saturday evening blessing is the most beautiful religious ceremony I have seen. Everyone comes in their best clothes and stands in rings around the church with elaborate baskets full of amazing food. The Preacher comes with his holy water followed by a procession of medieval flag bearers (and a money collector). The sun is setting, everone is crossing themselves, candles are flickering in the breeze, and I forgot my camera again and forgot about the video function on my phone, actually forgot about everything except the pure beauty of the moment. There was some singing in the background, little children running all over the place and a sense of hope.

I slept too well Saturday night, and actually slept through church (started at 5am, so don't give me a hard time). When Maria came back from church, I went for a run and then broke Lent by eating meat and drinking wine. The whole day is spent eating and drinking. I went over to two other houses, and out to the forest. Beautiful clear sunny days, not hot, not cold, every minute of cold winter seems worth it to have this contrast.

Then of course Easter is 3 days long. 3 full days of not being allowed to work. What a tough life. Ok, forgot

previously

2009-04-22T15:16:00.002+03:00

so the money was being collected to pay for those sheets which should have been returned to C). I felt that if they were my sheets now, I would pay the money and then maybe sell them used.

I went to the director with the money in my hand and was forced away as she became offended that i had offered my money. She said that the teachers I work with deserve a lower salary, and to make this difference they will by me sheets. I said that is wrong, and I will buy my own sheets.

The next day she (director) collected the money and now relations are definitely strained between me and her. I considered giving the money back to each teacher, figuring out what share they had paid. But instead I just gave the sheets to the owner of C) and will do something nice for the teachers later this year, coffee cookies type thing. Maybe bake them banana bread.

The director did by these sheets in the beginning, but if anyone has enough money to buy sheets for me its the director and not the teachers I work with. Well, i'm not even angry about this anymore, so I really have no motivation to write more about it.

Drama from the Top

2009-04-15T16:44:00.001+03:00

And all over bedsheets.

My living spaces in Ukraine:
A) Host Family, bedroom, 3 months
B) Host Family, bedroom, 1 month
C) Apartment, 3 rooms, 6 months
D) Apartment, 1 room, 6 months
E) Host Grandma, bedroom, 2 months and counting

When I moved into C), I just used the old sheets that were there, not really thinking about it.

Two weeks after I moved into D), a woman knocked on the door and delivered new sheets, saying something I didn't completely understand. Not imagining what they could be for other than using, I promptly started sleeping on them.
Two weeks later, I hear that the brand new sheets were supposed to go back to the owner of C) in a trade for the sheets I already used, but now that I had used them, everything was ruined. Owner f C) just let it go and said don't worry about it.

Lets remember how the cost of my apartment which Peace Corps cannot afford is supposed to be covered by my community. It's called a community contribution and helps add value to my position because I'm not just "free". School director decided that this community contribution should collected from only the teachers with whom I work (perfectly fair in her mind, because they have less work, they get less money (how is working with me easier?)).

Room E) is cheaper and no longer requires a community contribution. Thus last week I was surprised to be asked to verify my hours with every teacher. I knew that this sort of check was in order to collect money, but why...
to be continued
Internet closing...

who did this?

2009-03-31T16:54:00.001+03:00

Found two dumptruck worths of trash on my morning run route
in no way a safe dumping ground
just well hidden from any onlookers
a narrow part of the road through the forest
made it hard to go around with a swamp on one side and undergrowth on the other
pisses me off
makes me sad
come on Ukraine
think about the future

yesterday confronted some kid who just threw a can on the ground
he obviously hadn't even considered what he was doing
it was just habitual
he responded 'of course i'll pick it up and take my can 3 meters to the trash can'
"без петан" (without a question)

First Goal of the Season again

2009-03-30T11:26:00.001+03:00

and again
a cheep rebound
but i was in the right place
following the shot, even if it was out of defensive instinct
just glad i didn't put it over the bar as so often happens in from 5 meters out

Snow has turned to rain
achilles hurt too much to run this morning
did some yoga instead
but forgot when I was supposed to be breathing in and when out

got to school early
clocks still said 7:05 because the time changed yesterday
but that first hour went too fast as usual
and I still didn't have all the things done I need to print out for today when class started

Luckily 4th grade has a test, so I don't need to be there.
So I'm hunting for a printer with ink.
First HIV peer training today. I'm nervous to see if they take it seriously at all

3rd graders need recess

2009-03-25T13:02:00.001+02:00

I want them tired out for my lesson.
As it happened today, one girl had her birthday and brought chocolate candy to share with everyone right before my lesson. Talk about sugar rush.

I think the system where the same group of students stays together all day creates some problems. The kids are grouped according to overall school performance, which means each English class has a wide variety of abilities. I have been against tracking in the past, but it is clear to me now that a competitive atmosphere spurs learning (to an extent) and huge skill ranges kill competition. If I was a perfect teacher, I would be able to design lessons where the stronger students help the weaker, but that would require all new class rules, different seating, etc. Even then, the weaker students need to learn how to read, even if it is a struggle, and stronger 6th graders don't seem to have the patience to wait for a weaker classmate to slowly read a passage. Group reading activities focused for these student's who don't yet read well bore the stronger students.

I propose a complete reorganization for at least the older grades, where they have their individual schedules, and may go to a high level biology class and a lower level English class. Now I see some students who I inspire to work harder on English, but they are stuck amongst students who do not want to work harder, and since I cannot simply teach my lessons to a few students, I get bogged down with motivating, exciting and disciplining and those who had some hope sit quietly at their desk, having already done all that I have asked, and stare out the window while I explain for the third time the task to a boy who is convinced that he will leave school, work in the factory, marry, have kids, hang out with his friends on the weekends and make ends meet even if he never makes enough money for a car or to pay for the tests and the bribes necessary to send his own kids to university. Plus you can buy a degree anyway. So why work in school to get good marks in order to attend a university where again they can't pick the classes they take and half the professors just read from their notes in order to get a degree which nobody believes is real?

Still snowing...

2009-03-24T16:29:00.000+02:00

I guess I don't really need springtime. Bring it on windy snow from Poland. See if I care. You can't catch me because I'm the ginger running man.

I'll try to attach some photos from my HIV prevention training.

How do I describe my peace corps service in few enough words to fit on a resume?

Task Lists and Due Dates

2009-03-19T15:16:00.001+02:00

I have so many things to do each day that every day has its own task list.
My goals and objectives are located in many different spheres that without a list, I would forget somthing.
Today, now that I've finished teaching and lesson planning, I'll write an application for students to apply to my ecology summer camp, then update my resume, then type my student's letters to america, then start an article for the cross cultural guide for our Ukrainian counterparts, then a paragraph about lessons learned in teaching safer sex practices in very religious western Ukraine, then well, that's probably all the time I'll have before my Ukrainian tutoring, so the other half of my list will get carried over to tomorrow. Tomorrow I must go to Lviv to get my summer camp preparations there going and copy a booklet "I want to conduct trainings" (produced by unicef and in the Russian language) for my kids, get some cool STI posters from the reproductive health center and meet with the non-profit that wants me to support their river health project in my region.

So what am I doing writing in my blog?
Procrastinating, something I've avoided recently, but feels needed on this day of neverending snow.
It has snowed quite often for the past month. I wonder when spring will come. Back to work...

HIV prevention Training of Trainers

2009-03-19T14:57:00.001+02:00

My HIV prevention trainings of trainers on February 27^th and 28^th were successful except for one major flaw. The teachers and students who attended the training are still not ready to conduct trainings on their own. But I am working to continue their education in presentation techniques because all the teachers agreed that this sort of presentation is needed and very useful. It is very difficult for them to conduct an interactive training based on activities and discussion rather than lecture because they have never done it before. Even in university few student's are exposed to true academic discussions and I haven't heard of any doing interactive multimedia presentations. So, I will present some positive and negative points that arose during my trainings.

The students were very enthusiastic and open minded.	The trainer from Kyiv arrived two hours late.
The teachers were knowledgeable and willing to discuss.	One teacher said that educating kids about condoms is not part of our culture.
One boy decided he isn't ready to have sex.	One person on said that they will not always use a condom with new or casual sexual partners (post training questionnaire).
All participants showed a greater tolerance of people living with HIV and less fear now that they are sure how the virus can be transmitted.	Most people still would keep their distance from a HIV positive friend.
Everyone learned more about condoms.	Some 10^th graders weren't sure what ejaculation is.
Everyone agreed that the training was really interesting and useful.	Nobody wants to conduct these type of trainings on their own despite agreement that the curiculum as it stands is not sufficient.

I want to go plant tomatoes, and not sit in school working anymore today

2009-03-05T17:00:00.003+02:00

Whoa, lots of work. I had collected a whole bookcase of books to read after my free time this summer only to realize now that I havn't finished a book in over 2 months.

I should report about how my HIV prevention training went, but that feels like work because I actually have to write up an official report. So when that is done, I'll just attach it and post it on my blog.

I'm starting to get all my teaching materials organized and in a way that my co-workers can take advantage of years of American lesson plan writing in Ukraine. I have collected lessons from many volunteers who have developed their own or modified lessons from earlier volunteers.

Spring is coming, storks have started returning in pairs from Africa, and the snow is melting.

Dehydration

2009-02-27T17:20:00.001+02:00

People came to my birthday party
chicken fajitas, chocolate pound cake and chocolate chip peanut butter oatmeal cookies
the classics

Week flew buy with a million little things to do for my training
first training was today
everything successful for the most part, only 12 teachers, but good, positive.
I have a lot to tell but my head hurts and I need to get some water.
So I'll explain everything later

Everything with the living situation is great
no running water has really just made me more environmentally friendly
the house is warm and the outhouse is cold
there's a gap between the door and the roof and the snow actually blows in
but it's warming up
today is already rain mixed with snow
and I was thinking how warm freezing really is
off to go trudge through the slush
come on springtime

Feb. 18th

2009-02-27T16:26:00.001+02:00

All moved in. Amazing how much stuff I've accumulated in 6 months, mainly books that I haven't had time to read yet. Highlights so far.

Grandma Maria stating outright that drinking cold water will give me a sore throat.

Amazing home cooked food that appears magically in large quantities at all hours of the day.

Morning poops where the wind actually comes up through the hole in the seat. The wind is generally 18F.

A really cool 8^th grade host sister who really doesn't live with her grandma, but has made an effort to visit every evening. She knows I can speak Ukrainian, but still uses English to practice and improve her language skills. She plays piano on the wonderfully out of tune stand up in the living room. She is amazingly polite and thoughtful for an 8^th grader.

First few bucket baths. I literally stand or squat in a washing basin and try to get wet while keeping my room dry. I stay as close to the heater as possible.

This week is pretty hectic as I try to unpack, really get into teaching 3^rd and 4^th grades, and start buying stuff for the official HIV prevention training next week. I'm also trying to throw myself a little birthday party, but I keep forgetting to invite people. Could be really small. Just me.

So now I'm sitting in my office feeling at 17:36 wishing I had put off planning to go to Ukrainian tutoring, but realizing it's too late to go now anyway. I also just forgot I was in Ukraine, because sitting in my office typing on a computer with that tired feeling that comes at the end of a work day feels no different no matter what country you're in (of course I'm sitting near my heater and wearing a sweater and wool hat). I might have less to post about if I were in the US. So, now to plan a 9^th grade lesson on flags, 8^th grade on passive voice and great Britain, 6^th grade on holiday plans and 7^th grade…darn I lost the planning for that class, I'll have to find the teacher in the morning plan the lesson during my free period. The way my schedule is now, I teach 4 lessons Monday through Thursday, and have reserved Friday to work on my PEPFAR project (which will include traveling to other schools with my peer educator group).

Now, why are flags interesting?

Ministry for Magic

2009-02-10T20:25:00.002+02:00

On Friday the link between PC and the education department invited me to speak at a workshop type event where the minister of education would be present. Only catch was I had to prepare a 7 minute presentation in Ukrainian. Of course I didn't practice as much as I should, and was still editing my note cards as I sat in the audience, but overall it came off nicely, understandable if not grammatically correct. But grammar has never been my strong point. Over all a huge honor to speak to the Minister of Education of Ukraine while representing the Peace Corps. First presentation in a foriegn language to an audience of 250 people. I recorded it on my phone but am not quite ready to listen to all my mistakes yet. Fun day. Yet again, full of adventures.
Now over to the train station to spend another night on the train back to Lviv, only to return again on Friday night, because I have to be in Kyiv on Saturday to chair the Environmental Working Group meeting. Busy times. Good because it distracts me from the last futile efforts of winter to make my life dark and grey.

New Base

2009-02-10T20:11:00.002+02:00

So what happened?

Landlord sold the apartment.
School director pissed because she fixed up the apartment for me to live there.
Some empty apartments, but in the process of being sold, or owners nowhere to be found.

Grandmother of my best 8A student offered to rent me a room in her house. She lives alone even though she is not very old. She has two sons, both of whom live in town but are married (hence the grand-daughter). Or maybe only one is married and the other works at the military base. I only talked to her for a couple minutes while checking out what will be my new room. It has a gas heater and two beds. The house has no plumbing. The outhouse has a bucket under the hole. Where do they take the poop? Fertilizer I'm guessing. I wonder if that's something i'll get to help out with. I didn't even really take enough time to explore what animals she has. One dog I'm sure, but maybe others. I move in on Monday, February 16th. It's bound to be an adventure, as host families always are.

More or less what I said in Ukrainian at a meeting in the Ministry of Education today

2009-02-10T19:10:00.001+02:00

Mr. Minister. Respected Colleagues

Ukraine has bright, energetic, curious and beautiful children. Your children are willing to learn, eager to trust, full of potential.

Only this semester I have begun to teach 3rd and 4th forms. Since I believe the greatest improvement comes from a critical examination, most of the following comments will from areas that I believe need improvement based on my work in the 5th form in the school liceum of Velyki Mosty, Lvivska Oblast.
.
The top classes are really good, not only in English, but in all subjects. The struggling classes are far behind. Some 5th formers can hold basic conversations in English. Other struggle to read. Primary school is certainly not the beginning of this separation, but it definitely widens the gap. The main question is why there is such a large gap between the best and worst classes. This question can lead us to improvement for all children who study English. I see three areas to improve.

The first sphere is the general atmosphere and relations between the teacher and the students. Where there is a positive, organized, cooperative and professional relationship, the students do better. Based on conversations with volunteers all over the country, the relationship between students and teachers often mirrors relations between teachers and the administration. Where there is positive cooperation in both the classroom and principles office, students will find success.

The second sphere is the link between psychology and education. I see de-motivated kids every day when their grades are based on ability rather than effort. Those students who are behind are not encouraged to catch up. These children are often simply on a lower level of psychological development, and have no less intelligence than their successful friends. Also the best students are not motivated to give more effort, because they already have good marks.

The third sphere concerns "Multiple Intelligences". Each child has an equal ability to learn language. Learning language is hard wired into children’s brains. However, each child learns differently, which makes a teacher’s job challenging. Howard Gardner, in “Theory of Multiple Intelligences”, names 8 different kinds of intelligence. This leads us to the conclusion that there are at least 8 different learning styles, if not more. Many children combine various intelligences, but nobody is strong in all of them. Therefore, learning English requires activities for 5 senses and 8 different learning styles.

Some students use Karpiuk text books. Others buy their own foreign texts. Karpiuk has a great amount of material, but sometimes seems to loose sight of the fact that English is a skill, not specific information. Some exercises in Karpiuk are difficult even for me to complete because the content is not clear. Focused on information rather than the performable skill of English.

In conclusion, the greatest problem I see is also our greatest opportunity.

To improve the atmosphere in the classroom by setting clear expectations, maintaining fairness and always being professionally prepared.

To increase motivation by challenging all students and providing equal opportunities for success.

To remember all the different paths toward skills and knowledge, and that each class must reach out to as many learning styles as there are in the classroom.

If the future depends on your youth, then the future will be bright.

Last days of January

2009-02-03T10:16:00.001+02:00

First two weeks of school done, only taught a few classes. Trying to replace my tenth graders with more fifth and sixth graders, but so far my schedule hasn't changed.

This past week, the third week of school I missed to attend winter language refresher in resort for the improvement of health), the woods. It was a bit like being back in college. I really miss sustained academic thought. Language refresher was 3 packed days of Ukrainian study and practice with 40ish other volunteers and 9 instructors. We had great small classes, useful topics, excellent grammar, even extracurricular dance, arts, and culture clubs before dinner. Ukrainian language movies, catch phrase and chess followed dinner. Slightly nerdy, volunteers' normal use of alcohol was curtailed by a ban, which led to a very tame (perhaps in part due to the cold grey mist and 8am breakfast). Now light enough to run at 7:40am, I enjoyed the new network of forest trails, giant fields and even some

Teacher Collaborative meeting tomorrow in Volodomir Valinsk. Many volunteers are actually experienced qualified teachers who have lots of great stuff to share. Since we are introducing many foreign education concepts, it's nice to have a support network within which to share success and failures. We also share resources and project ideas.

Sunday back to Mosty to check out the one option I have for a new home. It's on the second floor of a house with a mother and daughter living on the first floor. Not exactly sure how separate it would be, perhaps it will be like moving back in with a host family. Hopefully I'll find out Sunday.

As far as I know everything worked out for my grant, but I'm still waiting for the money to appear in my account. I'm getting worried because the training of trainers is planned for February 27^th, and I need money for the coffee breaks and brochures.

Getting ready for the meeting of the environmental working group, of which I am the head. Got the agenda all done, now just have to conduct a productive and successful meeting. First for everything I guess.

I made it through January on only my emergency reserve of money, because I spent my entire January allowance on the train from Heidelberg to Luzern while I was hanging with my brothers. But the February allowance is in my account, and I can get back on my chocolate kick.

One more month of solid winter, then the flowers will poke through the snow and rain will start competing with the snow to make mud even more effectively than the cat in the hat can make pink snow.

Cold Muddy Water

2009-01-22T16:08:00.000+02:00

Locked out of my apartment by my landlord with a key that I don’t normally carry let to the discovery that he had already sold the apartment where I live and I have one month to move out. Why didn’t my school director tell me? She surely knew. It upsets me how she takes everything into her own hands, worried to let anyone else have power. This means lots of work for her and bitterness for everyone else, most of whom feel powerless.
I got the key back by bus the next morning after spending the night at another teacher’s house. I love how things can be sent by bus here, even laptops can be sent between cities for a few dollars, only requiring someone to meet the bus as it comes through the village and pick up the item.
As usual, teaching schedule up in the air. I have Ukrainian Language Refresher next week, so I really won’t start teaching until February 2nd. Looks like the grant money should arrive soon for my PEPFAR project and hopefully all the other parts will also fall into place.
Fell hard into a mud puddle on my way to school this morning. I’ll blame the rain falling onto the ice as well as being momentarily distracted. Decided to go home and change rather than show off my muddy dress pants to the whole school. I didn’t have to teach first period anyway. Glad tomorrow is Friday. Feel like I need a weekend to regroup.

Attitude Matters

2009-01-22T16:06:00.000+02:00

Wise people see every problem as an opportunity.

When something goes wrong, look no further than yourself for the solution.

Thank goodness the students have returned to school, because without them, all the meetings and rules and reports and paperwork was starting to feel pretty useless.

I’ve run into a lot of negativity recently. And to be fair, conditions are not perfect for educating Ukrainian youth. However all of this negativity is encompassed by those two sayings.

First is the acceptance of problems without seeing the other doors that are opened. This is true of the horrible books we have for instance. The opportunity this creates is for material to be selected from other sources that exactly fit what our students need. The books are either so far over their heads, or so boring, that it is tempting to just see this as an insurmountable problem, rather than an opportunity to create a custom program.

Then there is our relationship with the administration. It was explained to me that the reason every crowds toward the back of the room during teachers meetings is not so they can sleep unobserved (that’s been my plan), but rather because they are actually afraid of our director and administrators. What I have come to notice through my increasing fluency is how the teachers are treated like children, yelled at, reprimanded, and looked down upon. Actually it’s poor parenting of large, clever children. I’m sure that it’s been proven somewhere that an atmosphere of authority creates more disobedience than one of teamwork and trust (I’d be interested to see how the military combines these tools). So the teachers are blamed for problems, offered no solutions, and in the process become unmotivated, bitter and lazy. Both sides are guilty of blaming the other for shortcomings. This examination must be turned inward so that each person finds what they can do better for the benefit of our kids.

Anyway, while listening to these “problems” I was surprised to hear the theory that the Ministry of Education was being shortlisted, cut of at the knees even at the top, in order to prevent an educated populace, which might demand more equality and organize against the oligarchy.

Holidays Forever

2009-01-13T12:38:00.003+02:00

Getting on toward a full month of eating, drinking and relaxing. There has been some work in there, dealing with inflation on my grant request and attempting to get a book donation, but alot of visiting, long holiday dinners and watching movies (also some reading, but not enough). Letter writing and running through snow. Consistent negative temperatures have helped to keep snow on the ground for almost a month now, but running through the drifts does nothing good for my achilles. Christmas started on the eve, Jan. 6th, continued for three days after that, and now there is old new years, and then next Sunday there is some other holiday. Everyone else has gone back to school, but my town traded spring break for one more week of holiday now. Of course the first week I won't have a teaching schedule, and then the second week I have Ukrainian language camp, so I really won't start teaching till Feb. 2nd, which will make the long stretch till Easter more managable. Well
I hope America can make some new jobs by the time I come back. It's pretty frustrating to watch how many people are loosing their jobs thanks to decisions that were made for short term gain rather than longterm sustainability. There are some things to be said for a King, who must keep things going well for more than 8 years in order to keep his head. Not that I support the death penalty for politicians, but maybe some sort of financial penalty? Also interesting to see manufacturing wages being blamed for lack of american car manufacturer profits where as we just bailed out wall street banks without cutting any executive salaries. Because having more rich people creates jobs and economy growth four times more effectively than government spending, oh how I love the trickle down theory, right... Do we have to go all the way down this road before we look back and see that the New Deal was not less regulation and unconditional support for white collar workers, but in fact the opposite which pulled the economy back from hungry belly homeless status. Anyway, got to read more history to really make any arguments about this, but after seeing Germany, I must say there is something to be said for social spending and high taxes. Go see for yourself if you still think deregulation and small government is the solution...

Swimming is hard.

2009-01-01T19:50:00.001+02:00

Silas can out-swim me with the same incredible decisiveness with which I can outrun him. Cool.

Living with my brothers.

2009-01-01T19:33:00.000+02:00

Maturity means washing the dishes, taking out the garbage, caring if the bathroom stinks and knowing how hard it would be to get rid of cockroaches/mice if they ever found this feasting place. I know that everyone has to learn these lessons individually, but it certainly requires patience, because I certainly will not give in and wash everyone’s dishes just because I’m the only one who cares that there are 5 days worth of dishes from 5 people sitting on two tables, every counter and the stove. The obvious solution would be to lock up some dishes (3 people contributed to the dish collection so that there are in excess of 20 of every kitchen utensil). Maturity would be not opening that cupboard and instead washing some dishes when you can’t find any clean ones. Living is not difficult, but it takes teamwork. There are more than 100 bottles sitting on the back deck, piles of trash in the kitchen, dust and piss on the bathroom floor and dust throughout the house. Of course not doing chores certainly has freed up more time for relaxing. I’m exaggerating slightly, because since I didn’t have absolute patience, I have washed a large number of dishes, and either set an example or made people feel sorry for me so that for the last 3 days since I returned from Switzerland, the kitchen has been ok. Bathroom is still bad.

Maturity is realizing that cleanliness is only one lifestyle choice, and having an open mind to other choices is necessary and desirable.

Too much relaxation is boring

2009-01-01T18:46:00.000+02:00

So I’m a bit bored just hanging in Heidelberg, but Silas seems quite content and Liam didn’t get any days off work and is also distracted by . So my hopes to go to Berlin were dashed, and my wants to tour Salzburg and Bonn to do the Mozart and Beethoven museums were unfulfilled, because travelling alone is ok, but seems silly, especially when I could be spending time with my brothers. So, some fun nights out at bars, cooking and hanging out, one day of driving around seeing castles, but a lot of sitting and relaxing, reading and enjoying unlimited wireless internet. But at the moment planning a trip to Frankfurt and the Goethe museum because I still have two full days in Germany. Of course holidays aren’t over, because I still have Orthodox Christmas back in Velyki Mosty, and old new years, on the 14th of January.

Hanging with my brothers, and stuff

2009-01-01T18:32:00.000+02:00

Germany is nice, although also very expensive. After a few days, Liam had to go back to work, so I hopped on a train to Luzern, Switzerland. Situated on the end of a long lake and surrounded by mountains, everything was quite impressive even though clouds obscured the top of the mountains. I actually wanted to visit Lausanne but I couldn’t find anywhere to stay there, so Luzern it was. I couch surfed and my host was kind enough to lend me his bike for a whole day. Since the cable cars up the mountains were prohibitively expensive, I decided to ride his bike up to a 1500m pass. Unfortunately, I had to ride 24km before the climb even started, so after 6km and 500m vertically up the mountain, when I reached the sign that said the pass was closed due to snow, I was relieved because riding up a road that gains 1300 meters in 15km is more difficult than I had remembered. Of course the freezing weather, lack of clip less pedals and sore but didn’t help. I decided that Switzerland would be great in clear weather, and warm weather as all the water I saw was crystal clear and looked great for swimming, except for the ice. Also there were sailboats all around covered or out of the water for winter, but the wind was steady and strong. My host also introduced me to a traditional Swiss dish of a giant potato pancake with chicken mushroom sauce on top. Delicious. Back to Heidelberg, blue skies and brothers on Sunday, but glad that I got a small taste of Switzerland.

Germany, First Impressions

2008-12-31T13:14:00.000+02:00

I woke up on the bus to frozen fields, fog and mist, flying by on the right. The left had Volkswagens, BMWs, Mercedes and Porsches. The roads were silky smooth. When we passed construction sites, the resting equipment was lined up perfectly in rows, angled slightly, accurate to the angle of the front tires. I got a nice tour of Eastern Germany, stopping in many cities before reaching Stuttgart. Super fast train up to Heidelberg, and my holidays officially begun.

Holidays Begin

2008-12-31T13:03:00.001+02:00

Everything wrapped up nicely at the end of the semester, aside from my grant budget spiraling out of control in correlation with inflation and the global financial crisis.

I got on the bus, and sat there, 5 hours to cross the border out of Ukraine and into the European Union. The Ukrainian check point involved cash exchanging hands, the Polish bag searches and sniffing dogs. Visas were scrutinized, stamps were stamped, but finally, we made it onto the much smoother roads of Poland (about equal smoothness to NM).

My neighbor until Dresden was an older Russian lady, who loved to talk and taught me some more Russian. It was amusing when we hit a word that I couldn’t understand and she couldn’t remember how to say in Ukrainian, because she would turn around and ask the neighbors all around how to translate that word. So the whole bus listened to our conversation (Ukrainians don’t talk much on public transportation and the movies hadn’t started (we had automatic tv screens fold down from the roof, like a Boeing) and generally silence prevailed) and learned lots about the strange American who was living in Ukraine.

Stuff

2008-12-17T16:32:00.001+02:00

I always try to be positive, but sometimes things outside of my control are truly frustrating. I don't have the willpower to compose a well organized argument, so I'll just let frustrations flow, numbered for easy scanning when you get tired of reading whining.

1. Bribing and cheating in universities is alive and well. Students buy course papers, buy attendance records and it's fairly easy to buy a diploma. The reasons go far beyond laziness. The quality of many classes is fairly low, and the grading system is absolutely opaque. Some classes the professor reads out of a book and the students copy down notes. Some others students are asked to present their HW on the board, only to be told that there is only one correct way to do this. Grading is up to each professor's discretion. There is no requirement to publish rubrics or expectations at the beginning of the semester, and no requirement to disclose a student's mark to that student until after the course has been completed. I'm speaking about two universities in Lviv, and not about the entire Ukrainian higher education system. What worries me is that these universities are well respected and rank high in Ukraine. It goes beyond academics. Bribes are expected to reserve dorm rooms, and even get spots in certain classes.

2. It's not all bad news; I finally figured out that classroom discipline depends very heavily on giving daily grades. So, really good that I figured this out. Really bad that it took me so long. There's a great Ukrainian word for this process, дійшло, which translates to something like "it finally soaked through my skull".

3. Workplace attitudes especially among higher ups are negative. It's just work, no reason to worry so much about it, and everyone would be much happier if there was some humor added to the stress. It's almost like there is some job description that says "this is a serious position, it requires a serious disposition, no smiling allowed".

4. I hate when people tell me to take off my hat. This goes back to second grade when mom told me that Quakers have a long tradition of not taking off their hat for royalty, to demonstrate the equality of all mankind. Of course this always gets me in trouble in school. In high school it got me sent to the principles office and into a long philosophical discussion about how agreements require concessions on both sides, and both teaching and learning in a school requires a common code of conduct, which can even include clothing. Anyway, it was freezing yesterday in school, and I just buzzed my head so it felt particularly cold. It was late in the day, and the students were only taking a test, so I had my wool hat on as I wondered the classroom making sure they weren't cheating. My former host mom/boss/assistant principle walks in a chews out the students for missing on of her classes. Then just now she finds me and says "make sure I never see you wearing a hat in school again", as if somebody told me that there is a no hat rule in school (I could have assumed it). I do respect her for not telling me in front of students, but what really gets me is that women are allowed to wear hats, but men aren't. I really have to pick my battles, and this one I won't fight, but it gets under my skin.

5. My bus to Stuttgart is 27 hours. Actually this is a positive, because I'm going to Germany and will escape some of the above for a while. So yeah, that's it. Now I'm going to be positive. I must get lunch, go to a parents meeting, teach the ecology club about water pollution, meet with director about the aids training in February, pay rent, check post office, go to Ukrainian tutoring, make dinner and do it all again tomorrow. Three days till holidays! Sweetness.

It's not rocket science

2008-12-09T14:44:00.001+02:00

A study done by The Ukrainian Center for AIDS Prevention just released
some really interesting findings. "A nationally representative sample
of 6841 women age 15-49 and 3178 men age 15-49 were interviewed. This
represents a response rate of 92% for women and 90% for men. This
first part is hard numbers from the national registry for May 2007,
which records 5909 new cases of HIV in Ukraine in that one month.
While Intravenous Drug Use still accounts for slightly more HIV
spread, unprotected heterosexual contact is about to pass it.
IDU new cases in May, 2007; 42.7%, 2468 individuals.
Heterosexual contact new cases in May, 2007; 39.0%, 2256 individuals.
This is especially alarming because only 10 years ago, over 70% of
new cases were a result of IDU. HIV has jumped from a very high risk
group of individuals to a relatively normal segment of the Ukrainian
population; heterosexually active individuals who don't use condoms.

Also this week I showed A Closer Walk about HIV and the world in
general. The film is already getting older, but still enlightening in
its examination of HIV around the world. It's especially valuable to
show here because there is a 14 minute segment on Ukraine, though
unfortunately it only focuses on the IDU problem. The most powerful
part of the film for me was hearing Paul Farmer explain how stopping
and reversing huge epidemics is not very complicated. The medical
science exists and needs only be implemented. Behavioral changes have
been identified and must likewise only be enacted. HIV is relatively
hard to spread. If you have sex, use a condom. If you use drugs, don't
share needles. Yes some cultural complications arise, but overall,
duh.

There was a huge segment on women's rights, and how the world's
continued ignorance of women's rights and education is a huge factor
in the spread of HIV. Indian women, for example, are under huge
pressure to have babies once married, and even if they know their
husband is HIV positive, women will often choose to have a baby and
get the virus (as well as possibly giving it to their baby) rather
than be forced into divorce, poverty and shame.

Back to Ukraine and that study. Higher risk sex is defined as sex in
the proceeding 12 months with a partner who is neither a spouse nor a
co-inhabitant. 33% of respondents had had higher risk sex in the last
12 months and of that group, only 56% used a condom. That seems bad to
me. Anybody know USA rates?

Now, why did we put up all those notes all over school explaining how
the virus does not transmit? -94% of those surveyed would keep it a
secret if a family member was infected.
Three quarters of those surveyed would take care of a family member
who is HIV positive.
84% would not buy fresh vegetables from a shopkeeper who has HIV.
63% say that a female teacher with HIV (no symptoms) should not be
allowed to continue teaching.

And then the good news, more than 85% of those under 50 years old
agree that children age 12-14 should be taught about using a condom to
avoid HIV. That's where my job comes in, because even the health
teacher I work with is reluctant to bring condoms and explicit
language into the classroom. In health classes they talk about the
basics, but nothing like we do in the US (talk about sex, buy condom,
check date, get erection, roll condom on right way all the way to the
base of penis leaving space at the tip for semen, ejaculate, withdraw
before penis shrinks holding base of condom, remove away from vagina
and dispose of condom). Those sorts of specifics are just ignored, but
with aids, trail and error is not an option. So we are going to have
professionals start it with a session in February, and see how they do
condom demonstrations, keep kids learning even if they are giggling
and blushing, and provide effective education. That's what I wrote the
grant for, to bring in those educators, provide materials and
hopefully get sexual education up and running here in Velyki Mosty and
in the surrounding 5 villages. Ideally we can train some 9th and 10th
grade students to do the trainings and then go with them as they
conduct HIV prevention trainings.

That's all I got today. Now back to Ukrainian study, because I'm
determined to beat Caitlin's LPI score this time. So many great books
waiting to be read on my shelf, but no time. Grammar and vocabulary
here I come.

Mud Running

2008-12-09T14:41:00.001+02:00

I don't plan to push off of each step, but rather to flow over the
ground, keeping my cg's trajectory stable and steady, minimizing all
centrifugal acceleration. Winter should really be called mud season,
as should spring and autumn here. It's not that there are more dirt
roads than NM, it's just the soil type. Perhaps the roads here aren't
prepared, more of just scars in the earth. The mud builds up on my
shoes, flinging off in all directions, slippery, variable in
consistency. When possible I run on the grass next to the trail/road.
Running shoes are getting old again, so road running is not advisable.
Achilles seems to be doing better, but that could just be the complete
absence of soccer.

Working on organizing a huge amount of pedagogical notes and
activities I received onto my flash drive. File names are all messed
up, and some are just silly with the procedures for the lesson plan in
a different pdf than kids part of the lesson plan; Eliminating
duplicates, organizing, planning so that I can apply rimes of great
activities and communicative games to my classroom. Next I will get my
printer working, so that I can print stuff out at home, then copy it
on my way to school, and become a more effective teacher, with
materials to use in my classes. Chalkboards and textbooks are nice,
but kids respect printouts, pictures, cartoons and cards much more.

All this English stuff is nice, but the healthy lifestyles classes
still feel more important. This whole past week was coined "health
week", and kids from many classes made posters about everything from
smoking to chemical spill procedures. My kids of course did HIV/AIDS
posters and effectively plastered the school with little slips of
paper giving examples of how HIV does not transmit. "HIV does not pass
through sweat"; HIV does not pass through spit"; HIV does not….kisses,
hugs, sharing dishes, toilet seats, combs, coughing, phlegm and so on.
Most of the older kids know how it transmits, but it's important to
remember how it doesn't to eliminate fear, stigma and discrimination.

Winter here begins December 1st.

2008-12-03T16:30:00.002+02:00

Thanksgiving came and went. Wonderful gathering out on the very border of Poland. Curtis'last days in Ukraine. Had turkey, stuffing and lots of other ukrainian dishes. Talked with Silas and Mom. Good holiday, much better than last year when I didn't even take off. Crazy that it's my second thanksgiving in Ukraine.

Grant came off nicely. Will hear in about a week of it's success. I hope.

Was late today for the open lesson in my ecology club. I hate being late. Some sort of military/police exercise stopped all the roads as I was trying get back from Lviv. Only 6 min late, but that's not good when other teachers and principles are observing. At least the lesson went well.

Still no internet at home.
will call the guy again tonight.
computers at school closing
must go
yo

First snow

2008-11-25T16:45:00.001+02:00

Makes the cold weather worth every chill.
Trying to write my first real grant.
Will just copy it here when I finish.
Might get internet in my apartment later this week.
Thanksgiving will have turkey this week.
Chris has the unfortunate turkey identified
it's still alive right now and we're hoping he doesn't develop an attachment in the last 3 days of intensive feeding.
Then back to work on friday
monday is international aids day
ribbon to buy and cut and staple
signs and posters to tape up
the prevalance rate in Ukraine is estimated to be 1.6%
Go here to see for yourself.
There is no condom education in school
the last travelling educators to give presentations in my school about the aids epidemic in ukriane left the kids with the message that since condoms can fail, you can't trust them.

Today..

2008-11-21T14:59:00.001+02:00

What was the other story I wanted to tell? Something about when the
transmission dropped out of the bus I was riding on, and I ended up
standing on a windy cold roadside in the wind for 2 hours watching
trucks full of sugar beats rumble past and hoping that the next rain
shower would miss. Everybody else on the bus was headed for a big
city, and it was not long before a bus came that would get them there
in a round about way. I however was headed for a little town.

Now, why do I write so rarely in my blog? This semester I have decided
to be a good teacher. Last semester I was ok, but there is a big
difference between those designations. That difference is defined by
preparation time. I have the spirit, I love the kids, I'm not afraid
to do ridiculous things to keep my kids engaged, but all those things
take planning so that I can implement them.

On top of that, I've been preparing HIV/AIDS lessons for the health
classes and helping out with the Tolerance program in the EuroClub and
preparing for international Aids memorial day in 9 days and writing a
grant to train some of my students to be trainers and go to village
schools and conduct trainings.

Now, need permission to take off for thanksgiving...

Ballot Journey

2008-11-13T16:31:00.000+02:00

New Mexico sent my absentee ballot so that it arrived in Ukraine exactly one week before the election. Mail back to New Mexico takes at least two weeks, so I needed to get it to Kyiv where the wonderful folks at the PC office would DHL it for me(I love inventing new verbs). The only problem was how to get it to the office there, not that Ukrainian mail is extremely slow (2-3 days to cross the country) but anything going into the PC office has to pass through security, the same security that embassy mail goes through. Anthrax sniffing, bomb testing, paper cut proofing… That normally takes a week. Luckily, my friend Curtis was headed that direction the day after I received my ballot. Unfortunately he lives 3.5 hours away. How to solve this problem? But of course had the ballot to the driver of the bus that goes through his town with $2. He told me he would be there at 17.30 and for my friend to meet the bus then. I called Curtis and he graciously agreed, the bus was on time to the minute, and later that evening Curtis carried the ballot with his own hands through the metal detector into the office in Kyiv. I hope they counted it after such a journey.

November 3rd, another creative title

2008-11-05T16:19:00.001+02:00

My director observed one class which did not go super well. It was Monday morning a few weeks ago. On Mondays there are announcements before the first bell down in the main hallway. Often the announcements go beyond the beginning of first class. I was already upstairs in my office and went to the classroom 10 min before class but it was still locked. At 9:05 the class was unlocked and we all went in. My lesson involved new vocabulary then used to fill in the blanks in a Shevchenko poem. Since I didn't have a chance to print a copy of this poem for every student, I had to put it up on the chalk board which took another 5 minutes. During this time, the director of the school walked in and planted herself in the back of the class.

The presentation of vocabulary went well, directors presence in the back of the class guaranteed perfect discipline. Then applying these words in the poem also went smoothly, with the students speaking English and understanding the context in which the words are used. And then the bell rang. Yes, time management failed.

The director afterwards told me frankly that from a pedagogical standpoint, the lesson was not effective because it did not include all 4 skills (writing, reading, listening, speaking) and it involved no visible evaluation of the students.

The most painful step came tonight when after the teachers conference, the director asked me and the teachers I work with to stay late. We did and she went over the fact that we need to have matching conspecti for each lesson and cover all 4 skills plus evaluation. Then it came out that I was much more effective with the younger students because of my emphasis on speaking and listening. Also younger students often see me as such a cool dude that I have no discipline problems and I can easily keep the whole class engaged.

I am here to focus on communication. This is more than combining the skill of listening with the skill of speaking. Communication involves interpretation of what you hear and an ability to fill an information gap with the language that is in your active vocabulary. The best way to do this is through real life simulation. Communication in real life happens in small groups, most often pairs. Thus it would seem simple to give pairs of students basic outlines, dialogs, situations or other communication tasks and have them work and practice together. However, students want to sit in class and do nothing, at least when they are in 8^th grade or above. I try to make every activity relate to their personal life, something with sports, Ukrainians, cars, news, real life stuff, but even so, if I do not enforce my tasks with grades, students will not do them.

This for me as a home-schooled student is baffling. Why when you are given a chance to learn English from an American for free doing interesting and different activities rather than working straight from a 1960s book would you not take advantage of it? I went to high school just to play soccer and then realized while sitting in class waiting for soccer practice that this was a great opportunity to learn. The teachers found all these great resources, then stood up in front of us telling us how to understand it, then assigned homework which allowed us to use new information. Information combined with application created knowledge.

Next semester I will start teaching even younger students becoming even more like a living pronunciation guide. I will be lucky to keep my 8^th graders and most likely work with 2^nd-7^th grade. I can't help but feel like a failure. I wonder if I could have done better. It is really good that my school is so strict in enforcing the planning and everything else, but it has also crimped my potential in the older forms. The students of 8^th-11^th grade do not have the capability to communicate in English. They can translate, and retell texts, and transcribe, but not communicate. For me to teach this skill would require going backward, and using much easier and simpler themes rather than the books they currently use. If a student cannot tell me in full sentences what they did during fall break, how on earth can they answer and ask questions about the future of the English language? Or Ukrainian's space and rocket scientists?

It's not necessarily bad. The younger students do learn by ear much faster, and generally have a much higher opinion of movement based learning and games, which are super effective. Maybe my time here will be more effective teaching younger students. I will also try to focus some frustration into my ecology club (Sixteen 6-8th graders who are doing a lesson on decomposition times and recycling tomorrow), teaching and getting good materials into the biology classes on HIV/AIDS, and hopefully getting involved in the EuroClub' tolerance project.

The EuroClub has a volunteer from Poland come every week and he took them to a 5 day camp and some other workshops in Lviv. He is a volunteer with European ???? organization and will be here for a year. He also teaches some in Lviv because he only comes out to Velyki Mosty once a week. Anyway, he has been doing great stuff with discrimination, stigma, xenophobia, racism, all focused around the theme of tolerance. Hopefully we'll become friends because his English is pretty good and he likes football.

Ahh well, I got home at 8pm and am so discouraged and frustrated that I just ate cabbage and plopped down in front of a movie. I don't want to do any thinking. I need to plan for tomorrow, so I'll probably sleep a bit less and wake up early to plan, but I don't want to do anything tonight.

That's all for now.

Trash moved from River banks to dump.

2008-10-24T15:52:00.000+03:00

October 11th, draft

2008-10-24T15:40:00.001+03:00

This Saturday, October 11th, 2008, 40 Velyki Mosty students, adults and teachers embarked to cleanup the banks of their river Rata. The first part of the project involved cleaning up 10 cubic meters of trash along the river, putting it into a truck and taking it to the dump. The second achievement was raising awareness and preventing further littering in the future. The woodworking teacher at school was able to provide 6 anti-littering signs to post on trees where people most often enjoy their chashlyk and fishing. This project was initiated and organized by a group of two students and one school boy. They had attended a summer camp which focused on small project design and management. They wish to thank the school, factory and city council for all it’s help in their endeavors. They are already planning their next project for April, possibly involving tree planting.

Successes
10 cubic meters of trash cleaned up and moved to dump in the woods.
Participation of students, mayor and teachers.
Wooden lacquered signs with ecological slogans posted on 6 trees near the river.

Unfulfilled dreams.
Not all the trash was cleaned up
The small details in the action plan were not clear (what to pick up, which bottles could be recycled, how many piles for the truck, and overall plan of action, prize distribution…
There was no participation by adults other than teachers and the mayor.

October 21

2008-10-24T13:45:00.001+03:00

Pepper season has passed without me getting any canned (sealed in jars to save for the long dark months when all fresh fruit and vegetables are out of my budget) but cabbage season is still going roaring. Last night I had my first experience with a big grater grating huge amounts of cabbage and carrots to mix with salt and spices which will now sit for 3 days before being brought to a boil and sealed in jars. Now that I know exactly how to do this, I may try a few kilos myself, though I sure wish it was with peppers or pickles rather than cabbage. The 3 days does not even approach sauerkraut stink and I have come to like the taste of cabbage, especially with all that salt.

I have a lot left to learn about teaching. Last week I had the assistant principle sit in on a class and this week the principle sat in. Both women had useful suggestions on how to improve my lessons. I need to stop making excuses for various shortcomings and work within the system that exists here. Difficult printer access sucks because getting each kid things that he can hold and touch becomes too much work. Kids pay so much more attention if there is some material besides chalkboard and book. I don't understand why, but I think it appeals to the way our species actually learns, easily apparent in any baby. Pick something up, look at it, smell it, taste it, figure out how to use it. I don't know why these instincts must be called upon to learn past continuous tense but even just making flash cards helps immensely.

I still have social/lingual trouble with the difference between thy and you (informal vs. formal personal pronouns). Verbs also conjugate according to this distinction. It is largely a matter of age, and if someone is considerably older than me (+>10) then I use formal. But then sometimes older people call me by the formal out of respect, or because I'm American. When a certain familiarity is reached then informal can be used regardless of the age. The most difficult has been enforcing my students calling me by the formal, because that where some of my control comes from, the difference between them and me. It rubs the wrong way against my quakerness and also against how I remember my best teachers, who treated me as an equal. It's amazing how foreign this built in inequality feels, and how recently it left our own language. I hope we can get rid of capitalization soon, but I'm not too confident. I wonder silently if this is one of those connections between culture and language which might explain certain major differences like parenting authoritarianism.

Planning a camping/cabin trip with other teachers for fall break next week. I will go to longest cave in Europe before that this weekend with my friends from training. My language has gotten rusty as I've been lazy about studying this last month. I never really got back into my routine after summer ended. Ok, time for one more class, a difficult one because nobody, including these 10^th graders still want to be in school at 3pm. Then my ecological club of 6-8^th graders which is lots of fun will do activities concerning "Leave no Trace". Then Ukrainian tutoring before dinner, studying, reading, violin, writing and bed. Not that much time left in the day.

My blog is always last on my internet 'to do' list

2008-10-13T18:30:00.001+03:00

That combined with far less free time this semester accounts for how rare my posts have become.

This saturday I helped clean the river banks in Velyki Mosty with 35 students, 3 teachers, Curtis and the Mayor. This cleanup was organized by the students I took to camp this summer and was generally a success. While we have not yet completed the evaluation, we cleaned up 8 cubic meters of trash and recycled over 200 beer bottles (no other type of glass is recyclable, yet). It was cool to see how the director of the factory gave us money for trash bags, gloves and cookies, the mayor gave us more bags, gloves and a truck, and the school allowed us to recruit students for labor and make no littering signs with the woodworking teacher. Overall a solid small grassroots project. Our next action is already planned for April, and will include tree planting with the cleanup.

Soccer regular season is over, but we are playing in a post season tournament. So much for achilles rest. But the weather has been beautiful, and yesterday I could almost ignore how rusty I was while limping around the goffer pocked field and just enjoy the sunny autum breeze. we won 4-2 thanks to our golie stopping two penalties, one of which I committed. It's also really nice to have that base of friends, sitting up in the pizza place on sunday night rather than getting ready for monday.

Teaching is going alot better this semester. I have completely given up trying to teach out of the book or with methods that the teachers here already use. What's the point of doing that if I'm supposed to introduce new methods. Besides english, i'm teaching or helping to teach sexed, which right now is limited to HIV/AIDS education. We've done exercises on personal impact, now are doing in depth biology, and next will have a unit on stigma and discrimination.

Then I have my other community project dreams, revamping the youth center or getting computers and internet for the public library. Maybe I can turn the old abandoned school building into a community center. Of course saying that I will be the agent of change is an exageration. As I learned very clearly from the cleanup project, the most I can realy do is connect resources in favorable ways. I can't create things or actions from thin air, but I can forge connections and think about problem solving with existing solutions with a unique outsider's perspective.

So this feeling of productiveness, variety of projects and activities has really made V. Mosty feel like home. I'm still reluctant to buy anything, such as a desk lamp, carrot scraper or second plate, but I think this month I will overcome those feelings of impermanence, even as I pass the 'less than one year to go, I'm not really counting any more' mark. It's odd to see how the experiences of volunteers really start to diverge at this point. Some keep counting and don't really get settled. Others have decided to go home after this first year. I'm lucky enough to be on the other side, really taking advantage of the opportunities that having food, rent and a job opens up. That's all for this month. I've got to write an article about our cleanup for a newspaper up in Chervonograd (in Ukrainian, uh oh). Also got to write a letter to a bunch of environmental nonprofits on behalf of the working group that I'm co-heading. The Environmental working group is a volunteer group works to provide and distribute resources to educators, runs an environmental summer camp (or a few this next summer) and works to get other environmental projects off the ground. I'm kind of the talking head, trying to make sure everyone is clear on what they signed up to do and making relatively meaningless executive decisions coin toss style.

That about sums up my last month. This post is going to be really long. Now, can I get some pictures up also?

Autumnal Equinox, September 21st, 2008

2008-10-06T17:27:00.001+03:00

Rain again. I am thankful that my body can still run, because without running, this weather would lead to depression. Writing in Californian FB font wishing for some SoCal weather, though I guess this is about right for NoCal.

Umbrellas are silly. If it is going to rain, I want to feel the cold stinging against my face, slight penetration of my old jacket at the shoulders, and full visibility of the racing low dark clouds. I am constantly annoyed by others' umbrellas as I am poked, hit, and bashed. People are blinded by them, stupefied by fear of dampness, unwilling or unknowing to lift them up and let me pass. I weave and duck my way through their colorful domes, laughing when gusts discombobulate their occupant's best efforts to stop nature with a shape that was meant to fly in the wind.

Children have unfathomable amounts of energy. Listening to the teacher less classroom next door, I cannot distinguish the myriad levels of social relations that unite the band in their war against authority.

I look forward to seeing my brothers in December. I dread the 9 hour days and 15 hour nights that are coming. At least there are lots of holiday celebrations and food.

I finally got gmail on my mobile phone. Pretty cool to have that ability, especially on days like today when the internet isn't working in school and Nathaniel is making his way toward me without a cell phone. Super happy that Nathaniel is visiting.

And just like that

2008-09-29T18:42:00.001+03:00

the school year is off and running
18.5 hours of teaching
environmental cleanup project
euroclub
ecoclub
lots to do, days getting shorter
lost our last soccer game
played poorly
out of shape and achilles shredded
skipped the end of the year party because i'm tired of people trying to make me drink
you would think that they would get it by now
home now because i've been in school for almost 10 hours
time for some bean soup

rain

2008-09-19T16:23:00.001+03:00

pretty much got my apartment set up

lots of dust since it was not lived in for a while before me

trying to dry laundry in a one room apartment when it's been raining for 5 days and will for another 5 days is proving problematic

the laundry is becoming worse smelling than it was to start thanks to mold.

still no teaching schedule

we'll see on monday

still looking for tent

can't find any of the two models i want anywhere

maybe I will end up ordering one and sending it to liam

want to get some camping in when the babina summer starts (indian summer here is called grandma summer)

Apples are cheep now

got to make some apple stuff

I think trying to dry them would be futile

Blog block.

2008-09-19T14:46:00.000+03:00

I have so many things to write about when I'm not around a computer or don't want to turn it on, but then when I want to write something, I have nothing to say. So, like any communicative situation when there's really nothing worth saying, I'll start with small talk.

The old classic, weather. Every day this week is 50F and raining. The weather prognosis says there might be slight relief on Saturday. I have been on and off with running and the weather feels colder and wetter on days that I don't get my blood moving with a morning run.

Achilles still hurting, got a prescription for physical therapy but haven't gotten over there to actually sign up. Part of me is waiting for a schedule because I want the therapy to be part of a routine, something that will fit with a disciplined life of stretching, yoga, abs, running and healthy eating. Why am I so dependant on routines?

So how is work going? I don't have any work yet. Still waiting for a schedule. The assistant principle in charge of assigning me classes had a meeting in the district center on Tuesday, and a birthday party to go to yesterday, so, still waiting.

Saw "The Barber of Seville" Rossini Opera in Lviv last night. No super musical skills, but good energy and pretty funny. My new phone works great for Ukrainian, but having some coding troubles getting internet. The only page I can access on my phone is facebook, and the only one I want is gmail. I'll get it fixed eventually, and then I'll get the bigger memory card to have 2gb of music and pictures. Look out ipod, you could be replaced. It's nice that the phone can read all types of music files, I can put them on and off without itunes, and get them from other people through Bluetooth. New gadgets are so fun.

The internet at my school keeps getting better, so I am reluctant to pay for internet through my phone at home, even though I do want to figure it out, just to have the ability, especially if I decide to apply for grad school.

Well there is about to be a class in this computer classroom, so maybe I'll go check one of the other two. Really hope I get the biology and health classes that I have been promised.

Why can't I think of anything entertaining to write on this blog? I guess that I have grown accustomed to all things Ukrainian so that I no longer find them entertaining. They just are. My life just is, and why would anyone want to read about that? I really hope Nathaniel makes it out here on his Europe wanderings. Other than that, I really just need to start teaching so I have some stuff to work on. Starting to feel useless.

Still waiting for a schedule

2008-09-09T17:55:00.002+03:00

In fact all of the teachers are still waiting for a concrete schedule
This is how it is every year, i'm told, everything is up in the air the first two weeks. It's not for want of trying, the asistant principles work late into the night. I just wonder why they bring the students back to wait through the disorganized half productive classes before anyone really knows what kids they will have during the semester. Patience

potato harvest time

2008-09-06T13:22:00.003+03:00

Got my first chance to dig potatoes yesterday
i think that's where the term 'back breaking work' comes from
the constant bending over to pick up the potatoes is tiring
but it was nice to be out in the sun and wind working and being productive
I only worked for about 4 hours.
got about 50kg of potatoes
I got a lot of chaff for mentioning that potatoes came from South America
they then started listing off all the things that people from the Ukrainian part of the USSR invented or created.

Why do farmers burn their fields?
It seems so wasteful
can somebody explain?
It was one of my jobs yesterday to clear the field of all the previously mowed fallow and pile it up so that it could be burned. I don't understand. They need more nitrogen?

I noticed that many families hire a tractor to turn the field and then just go pick up the potatoes
I was glad that I got to do the actual hoeing, but even more glad that I don't have to bend over that many times every day
time for my bus...
josef

Who am I

2008-09-03T14:08:00.001+03:00

to ask you why my new smaller and not as luxurious apartment costs the same as the giant super furnished twice as big great view one I had before?

Respectfully, let me explain.

As an American, I value honesty, openness and information.

Do I suspect you of asking the same price and then pocketing some on the side. I didn't, until you gave no reason why the price is the same, and refused to give me the phone number of the actual landlord, so all my interactions have to go through you.

You and our school are supposed to provide housing free of charge, and PC will help pay for utilities. PC is not supposed to pay the full rent amount. Why do you require the teachers I work with to buy gas, water and electricity. Do you really think it makes their life easier to work with me in the classroom? In effect they have to pay to work with me. Why can't you use some of the school's general funds. Surely $6/month is not too much to ask? Of course what exactly those funds are for and how they are spent is also a mystery. Why the secrecy? Because nobody else will stand up to you? Because the parents respect a strong leader and prefer order over fairness? I really don't understand the system. If you will tell me, I will believe you. I am a trusting person.

I hope you don't get too offended when you read this. It is not meant as a personal affront. It is meant as a cultural clarification to explain why I dare to ask such questions and be so upfront. I would be more comfortable if everything was out in the open. This school is on the right track. The quality of our students and their achievments show that. I believe that we can achieve even more with an increase in openess, free idea exchange and flexibility. Not only in monetary matters, but in academics as well. Your young and old Ukrainian teachers have valuable ideas. Are you willing to try new things? Willing to create a two way street?

Yes, this letter reflects my immaturity, and yes, I have no idea how things are done here, and I should really mind my own buisness and keep my mouth shut. If only I could...

PS, I managed to find out why the price was the same buy asking my host dad, who asked his wife, who asked the you, and the info eventually trickled back down to me. Thank you for aswering that the old apartment was actually much more expensive than we paid, we were just getting a deal because I was an American, and the new apartment we actually had to talk down the price to what we are paying now. Inflation in the housing market since we are so close to Lviv and people who work there can live here and commute. Get ready for Suburbia...

School has started, but I have not

2008-09-03T13:45:00.001+03:00

I got a new phone which will let mу use gmail as soon as I set it up. It also understands Ukrainian, which means the end of blacked out texts. Goodnews. It may also let me get internet on my laptop if I use it as a modem. All these tricks require coordination between my mobile provider and the software on my phone which is sort of tricky because it is a brand new model, so my provider doesn't have the settings all worked out yet.

On sunday I missed a wide open goal from 2 meters out, just a supeк soft volley which the golie had no trouble blocking. It's better than slamming it over the cross bar, but still, come on. I'm pretty rusty, been skipping soccer practice because the less I play soccer the better my Achilles feels. I've been running this week and that seems to be helping my flexibility and the Achilles is no worse ofа for it. The auto correct feature on this version of MSword keeps making things into Russian words. Great.

First day of school was on Monday. Didn't prepare as much as I wanted, but I'll probably still have time this week seeing as I don't actually have a teaching schedule yet. In fact most teachers don't have a schedule yet, the kids are just getting their books, and man this would drive me crazy if I had any power. Where is the efficiency, planning ahead and just do it attitude? Older americans say that stuff is slipping away in america too, but I am going to bring a boatload of it home with me, because it sure beats the alternative. Patience.

August 19th

2008-08-27T15:06:00.001+03:00

The phone company which all the other volunteers use and which is half the price of any of the competitors does not work in my new apartment. Just not enough altitude to get reception a little ways down the hill and on the second instead of fifth floor. It's also the company which I use to call home, or anywhere international. Today I tried everywhere in my town, even the top of a climbing structure. Looks like I will need to keep looking for a sweet spot, or only use this sweet company when I go up to Chervonograd, down to Lviv, or just about anywhere besides my town.

Got to get some community mapping done and design this community survey to further focus our environmental cleanup project. I also am starting to dream big because I saw a truck filled with crushed plastic bottles drive through my town headed south. There has to be recycling somewhere, and that would be a cool thing to get started. I know recycling has some problems, especially plastic recycling, with huge energy costs, harmful air pollution and a poorer quality plastic in the end, but it seems better than the bottles just immediately going to the landfill…ahhem, I mean the pit in the forest or field.

I tried to set up physical therapy today, and the lady told me to come back tomorrow. Hmm. I got to start running, especially without a set schedule right now, I'm falling back into my adolescent habits of staying up real late, sleeping in real late anв getting nothing done till after noon. Can't waste that kind of daylight, especially since each day is getting so much shorter. Screw the pain, I'm going running tomorrow. I'll ice and stretch and take ibuprofen and just hope that the Achilles tendinitus goes away the same way that the plantar faciitus did. Time.

The weather has been beautiful. I'm going to miss this warmth so much in a few months. At least I got my hot water working today. Not that I'll use it for a while since I've come to enjoy a cold shower. Helps save water also. Bed time. It's nice having this computer to get some thoughts out every day. I can't forget about my real journal or violin though. I wonder how long you, the reader, will be able to keep up. I know that I fell way behind in elo's blog and now don't even have a chance of catching up. So…I need to stop writing.

August 18th

2008-08-27T15:05:00.001+03:00

Ok, almost have windows re-installed on my laptop (notebook in ukrainian). Next will be microsoft office, then a slow filling out of other programs, since I have to find them all on cd. I was an idiot when I was trying to reorganize stuff on the computer that Brooks so kindly donated to me and moved some files that the computer needed for startup, so it couldn't find them. Sam even warned me as I was doing it not to mess with it if I didn't know what it was. Oh well, now I have more incentive to learn Russian since both the operating system and the whole office suite is in Russian.

I'm most excited to be able to watch movies, but being able to type lesson plans and generally have things organized in documents/folders. It's odd how I'm more likely to write stuff down if it's on a computer because my typing is so much faster than my penmanship. I hope the computer doesn't distract me from my violin.

The students and I who will attempt to start a trash cleanup program on the banks of our river. Ideally we'll get trash cans and an agreement with the city to empty them. Then we'll organize 3 cleanups a year combined with me teaching environmental lessons in the school and facebook/vkontakte groups. Doing a community project is not easy, but doing something is far better than only planning and talking. I can't wait to get started.

My spork broke. Curtis won't stop making fun of how his is titanium and still whole while mine is plastic and now in two pieces.

Thank you brooks, for the computer.

Sam, I miss your fresh perspectives.

I ate too much watermelon.

I need to sleep. Sure wish I could watch the Olympics.

Independence day

2008-08-25T14:45:00.000+03:00

Yesterday was Ukrainian independence day

great time in Lviv, lots of people dressed up in army uniforms, scantily clad women selling cell phone contracts, priests, choirs and outdoor church services, rock concerts and the philharmonic sharing one outdoor stage

in usa we just celebrate independence, not really caring too much who we gained independence from

Here it is made very clear that ukraine escaped russia's cold and oppressive embrace

People express their nationality as defined in opposition to Russia, with hateful, violent graffiti, tshirt slogans and slang

maybe that's how we used to feel toward England, in 1803?

I sure hope russia doesn't try to make eastern ukraine succeed the way they're supporting northern georgia

then again as a pcv, i'm not supposed to express political opinions, oops

physical therapy

2008-08-20T16:06:00.001+03:00

requires a prescription

just like the usa

the doctors are super overworked and underpaid

I waited for half an hour as the line to see the doctor got longer, and longer, and longer

and yet he didn't show up, rumors that a car crash kept him up at the hospital

which combined with the other doctor being on holiday...

but the masseuse was happy to see me

she said "how can we not cure our star american footballer? Hope to see you soon..."

I have some other blog entries on my flash drive, but no flash drive allowed at this internet club either

Why are all the tents sold out?

went running today, I can't just sit around all day

Got to find a plastic tub to do my laundry

new place only has a shower

i'm making apricot/white cherry jam, watching alot of lost, and generally waiting for the school year to start

maybe i'll get one more trip in before school

Sunday is independence day (unlike the USA, where we don't think of it in terms of us vs. great britain, here alot of nationalistic spirit comes out in antagonistic terms against russia.)

then thursday is a big religious holiday called praznik, not sure what that means

will report more later

now back to the tub search, want to get a new cell phone so i can get internet at home

and need to map out the river where we are planning the cleanup

if only google earth had airial photos of Velyki Mosty

probably do, back from soviet times, maybe still classified

is my absentee ballot going to get here?

back home, new place

2008-08-18T18:12:00.001+03:00

old apartment vs. new apartment
pink bedroom--carpets on the wall
building built in 1979-vs1984
normal toilet--backwards display everthing on a shelf before flushing toilet
tub and sit down showers-stand up shower that makes the whole bathroom wet
big kitchen-small kitchen
2 frying pans-10 frying pans
nice flat queen size bed---lumpy fold out couch
great view in two directions--light pole and houses
fridge in the kitchen--fridge in the hall
machine that spins clothes and water--real washing machine not hooked up to anything (inoperative?)
full set of silverwhere--no butter knives
overall, satisfied with the new place, hopefully I can get the water heater working before cold weather
the windows are new, so there should be no draft
now what else was on my mind?

Beautiful weather

2008-08-12T16:29:00.001+03:00

last day with Sam

feel sort of bad that I will send him on a train by himself back to Kyiv (arrives 2:53am), then he has to get the bus out to the airport, through customs and all the rest without knowing any ukrainian in a predawn postindustrial megalopolis

today was spent in and around Lviv

nice food, hot day, hotter transport

back to school on monday

moving apartments in 8 days

got stop collecting stuff

searching for a tent

had enough of the big canvas behemoth that i lived in this summer

pretty excited to watch some movies and tv shows now that I have a computer

hopefully I still read and play violin also

and now to find a yoga dvd

got to improve flexiblity

and want something to do each morning instead of running

achilles physical therapy starts in september

ok, what on earth is going on in the olympics?

Got to find cable

peace

Whirlwind Romania

2008-08-10T14:19:00.001+03:00

Nice mountains
old buildings
villages, animals
I think I like peopleless wilderness better
more to come now that I have a computer
Thank you Brooks! and Sam for carrying it here
undecided about internet, but the computer is a start
off to cross the Carpathian Mountains, again...by train

So much fun!

2008-08-05T10:32:00.005+03:00

The environmental camp was a huge success. We basically taught grassroots project design and the response was great. Add the sun every day, woods, lakes and rivers, great volunteers and a pinch of luck. Now i'm in Kyiv, Sam arrives tomorrow, staying with my first host family tonight. Is my flash drive dying if it's making sounds when working? Maybe putting it through the laundry did affect it?

The week of Interweb

2008-07-25T10:37:00.001+03:00

My fourth internet session in one week. If only I was permitted to upload pictures... It's pretty easy really, just 30 min north on a packed bus, a 10 minute walk and the internet club is nice before all the teenibopers come in to play online games in the afternoon.

Mainly this week is just resting between camps. I've reaquainted with my violin, studied Ukrainian every day, read a few books including some Gogol short stories, and begun trying to use up my solid kitchen stocks (flour, sugar, salt, oil, oats, potatoes, lots of other grains). It is now definite that I will be moving to a new apartment by September 1st. Nobody knows where this new apartment will be. My landlady's other daughter is coming back from a nearby village so that her son can attend our school, a bit better than the village school. Of course eating this stuff doesn't make sense in the fruit vegetable season, where everything else is fresh and cheep, so I'll probably just leave it in the apartment, or carry it to wherever I'm moving to.

The kids I'm taking to the next camp (two girls from University and my most talented 7th grader, Dima) I'm working at don't have sleeping bags or pads yet and we're leaving on Monday. I'm excited for this next camp because it is already well organized, and I know alot of the other volunteers who will be there, people who just get stuff done, in a cheerful manner, without complaining.

I'm teaching environmental ethics, I think I already said that. Also have to come up with a bunch of icebreakers.

And right after that camp Sam is coming. Romania...?

Wow, a post in presentish tense

2008-07-22T11:29:00.001+03:00

After returning from the lakes, I am quite happy to have a week in my town to unwind and clean clothes. I feel guilty seeing all of my neighbors and knowing that I have probably already travelled to more places in their own country than they will see in their whole life. I had to restock my fridge, but think I may have gotten too much stuff seeing as I have other camp that starts in 6 days and I have to move out of my apartment at the end of August. I should be working on my stores of grains and flour, so I don't have to move them. I have not found another apartment yet, but it's really up to my school director anyway. I have heard rumors that I will be moving into a building on her property, which is fine, but will not be nearly as convenient as living in the very center of town.

I am reading some short stories by Gogol, known as a Russian author, he was actually born in Ukraine.

My violin playing is pretty rusty.

My soccer team lost again on Sunday, despite me being there. We simply don't pass quickly enough. Many players were absent at weddings or on vacation. This loss takes us out of first place in our league and sends us to tied with 5th. I am really out of soccer shape, and the day after the game, I had trouble walking, mostly because of my achilles. I've decided to start physical therapy but have to wait until after the camp season so I can complete a sesson uninterupted.

So, one more summer camp, taking three students from my town, teaching environmental ethics and leadership. Then Sam will arrive and we will make a quick loop through Romania on a whirlwind tour. Then it's time to report back to school for lesson planning, teachers meetings and remodling. Hopefully I can avoid all fumes and work only on outside projects.

I'm excited for the olympics and need to find a tv to catch the running events.

What else is going on? I guess just a week to unwind a bit and get organized for the last part of summer. How is time moving so fast?

Yet more fun, Shatsk Lakes National Park

2008-07-22T11:10:00.001+03:00

If you look a map of Ukraine up in the northwest corner near the borders with Belarus and Poland, you will see some lakes. These are filled with clear water and surrounded by forests. A friend from language refresher invited me because he had been invited by some friends from his site. The tent area was a bit dirty and stinky because people didn't use the dumpsters and the toilets were so gross that many people made their own out in the woods, so there is room for improvement. The weather also didn't cooperate as we would have liked, only about 6 hours of sunshine the whole time. But it was nice to hang out at camp, on the beach and in the forest. We also walked 9km to a more secluded lake and found it to be much cleaner and if I go back, that's where I'll make camp. I am now an expert at baking potatoes under a campfire. I know this is not very impressive.

Language Refresher, July 10-14

2008-07-22T11:02:00.001+03:00

One of the best parts about Peace Corps is getting to learn another language. It helps with the second and third goal the JFK layed out for PC. 'To give citizens in other countries an better understanding of americans and to give americans a better understanding of other peoples'. The first goal is to provide trained men and women to increase technical capacity, and strong language skills obviously help in this respect also. I've already mentioned that the initial 3 months of language training was excellent. In continuing support of our language skills, PC Ukraine provides summer and winter language refreshers. Basically a summer camp filled with classes and fun activities in Ukrainian. The teaching was excellent, lots of 1on1 tutoring and generally fun activities including games with sticks, cooking, poetry, dancing, singing and acting. I have nothing but good things to say about the experience and am completely psyched to continue my language study. If I can get a good semester of study in this fall, I might start to study russian in the spring. That would be cool, although just a start of course.

I tried running again after a month of rest on my achilles. Little improvement. I timed a 4km run for the fun of it (I know, a great way to treat the achilles on the 4th day of running) and confirmed my suspicion that not running for a month really hurts fitness. Awesome games of soccer and volleyball, historical movies, sauna+cold plunge, generally living the life. Instead of going home after this vacation...

Survival Camp, July 1-9

2008-07-22T10:48:00.001+03:00

I missed the first two days of digging pit toilets/compost pits and mowing grass and generally preparing a campsite in the wilderness for 50 people. The camp was situated about 4km outside of Kosiv ontop of a ridge maybe 400 feet above the valley floor. The first days of camp were pretty successful, but then the discipline started to slip, and there was a weekness in leadership which left many students feeling unfulfilled. It was supposed to be an english only camp, but no one enforced this. The morning excersises also stopped after the first few days. However, there were many awesome things that happened.

On the third day we hiked up PipIvan, the 4th highest mountain in Ukraine. While only slightly over 7000ft, the hike was really beautiful, winding through sparkling medows and dark enchanted forests (I will upload pictures, but this internet cafe does not allow uploading of any kind) for about 11km. This was a long hike for our youngest campers (14yr olds) and I ended up on rear guard trying to keep them moving. All went well to the top, we had a nice lunch at the old Polish observatory, and then gathered one bag of trash each to bring back down the mountain. I could not believe how much trash was up there. It would have filled two dumptrucks at least, and I felt that our 50 bag subtraction barely made a dent. The way down our rear guard 14yr old girls got dehydrated most likely because they weren't drinking for fear of having to pee somewhere without cover (above treeline). They also were sunburned and generally tired. The 5 hours down the mountain was a test of patience, which I passed, thanks in a large part to Jim and Curtis, who joked, sang and walked every slow step down the mountain.

Jim and I also had some wicked boot skiing on a patch of north facing snow. It was a great patch of hard icy snow maybe 50m long that got steeper and steeper as it went down and ended in a boulder field. Curtis has videos which will appear on youtube?...

The bus ride home was fun because we sang almost the whole way. The number of traditional songs that Ukrainians know is one of the coolest things about their culture, and something that Americans can not compete with.

Teaching ecology lessons at the camp went ok, but I have nothing to brag about. It could have gone better, that's for sure.

Another highlight was the Ivana Kupala celebration. This literally means the bath of Ivan, and was an old pagan celebration involving young maidens, big fires, dancing and drinking given a saint's name and incorporated into the church calendar. We hiked down to the river, cooked shashlik (shishkabob) while the girls all made flower wreaths and the boys wore white traditional dress shirts. After eating, the wreaths were placed on the water with a candel floating in the center and sent downstream. The boys all waited downstream to try to catch a wreath, this being symbolic of...Unfortuantely, the wreaths all got stuck in an eddy, and it was left to one forward thinking Jason to plunge into the water and pile all the wreaths onto his head. Then there was jumping over the fire in pairs. If your hands held together, than you would be set together for life, but if not... So is it bad that I jumped over with students? Overall a really fun night.

Camp ended up being a really good learning experience for how to make camp better in the future. Only two of us American will still be in Ukraine when it is time for the same camp next year. Hopefully we can make it more survival oriented and less gourme cooking for 50 people over a campfire. Each group of 2 americans and 6 ukrainians had to cook four meals each. This involved a long treck into town, carrying tons of stuff back up the mountain, and a lot of potatoe peeling. In the future, if the camp is called survival camp, the food needs to be plain and boring, much less work and maybe only one resuply trip into town. Just a thought.

The Journey home June 27th-29th

2008-07-21T18:45:00.001+03:00

The three of us bought round trip train tickets from Poprad, Slovakia to Budapest because they were cheeper than the one way. So I used nina's and my return tickets to get to Zita's house and again all the way back to Kosice, Slovakia. From there I took the bus back to Uzhgorod, retracing my steps back to Lviv and Velyki Mosty. It was a long journey including a long conversation with a Ukrainian journalist who was absolutely pissed at the slow progress of Ukraine and wished he had been born in another country. He thought that it was a mistake have drawn the borders in a way that put Uzhgorod in Ukraine rather than Slovakia. His English was excellent and indeed he did not remind me of many Ukrainian men I have met. Then there was a huge downpour of rain and hail which I waited out hunched up inside of an atm. Unfortunately my boney but was not lucky enough to punch the keypad in a way to make money come out. When I finally got back to my site on Saturday, I decided to stay through my soccer game on sunday and the European Championships Final and go to my next camp a day late on Monday morning. The trip down through Ivano Frankivsk made me miss the fast trains in Slovakia and Hungary alot. How does it take 6 hours to go 200km? Hmm, this brings me almost to July, with 4 minutes of internet left...

Budapest and Mezokovesd

2008-07-21T18:37:00.001+03:00

is completely modern. It was also really hot. Cool buildings, museums, castles, and baths. Those pesky turks who ruled here for 700 years left public baths in almost every city. It is a cool shade of culture and empires and conqering history. The events and sights seen in Budapest are too numerous to mention. The exchange rate was interesting and very confusing in math. I bought some new clothes with the fashion advice of Claire and Nina (the first clothes I had bought myself since high school) and was glad not to know exactly how much they cost. I also accidently bought a cd when we were dancing on the grass at an outdoor impromptu band performance because I though I was giving a 100 bill, not a 1000 bill. It was dark, ok, and it's really only about $10, I think...

That same night/morning, Claire and Nina finally got a taxi to take them to the airport (though I think again they used their exchange rate to profit on us americans) and I took the train out to Zita's town in Eastern Hungary. Her town is called Mezokovesd and is as hard to say as it is to spell. It was a completely different world out in the agricultural village town system than Budapest, but still what seemed to me to be a very prosperous country. Zita and her family were great hosts, showing me the whole town and surounding countryside, and nieghboring castle town and going to more Turkish baths (we couldn't swim because we didn't have swim caps) and local wine and teaching me how to play tennis and yeah, one packed awesome 24 hours.

The highest point in the Carpathians

2008-07-21T18:23:00.001+03:00

High Tatras national park looks almost like the Tetons. The trails are well marked and well populated with tourists from all over europe. There is a system of huts to sleep in much like the AT in america. We only went for a day hike and didn't summit anything mainly because we packed way to little water. The coolest part was as soon as we got off the bus in a little town called Nova Lesna at the base of the mountains, these kids playing in the park invited us back to their house where they had a few extra bedrooms for travellers just like us. It was very affordable, and I got so excited that I accepted the grandmother's dinner offer also, much to the chagrin of my fellow travellers who were not nearly so accustomed to a diet consisting of cabbage and meat. I thought the food was fine, but it was by no means subtle. Ok, I think this brings my blog up to sometime in late June. What did we do next???

American Women in Velyki Mosty

2008-07-21T18:15:00.001+03:00

After another long border crossing (come on EU, let Ukraine in) we (Claire Nina and I) made it back to my city-like village. It was nice to have a more relaxing day, and highlights included blueberry picking, swimming in the river and making banana bread for Ira's birthday. Unfortunately, by the time we got to her house on a trail which didn't really exist, we forgot to sing her happy birthday.

The next day we explored Lviv, it was cool to see new reactions to things that had become routine for me. I saw my second ballet and made a complete fool of myself trying out some dancing moves afterwords.

That night we took a train to Uzhgorod, a border city mixing Ukrainian, Hungarian, Roma, Romanian and Slovakian cultures. Most poeple there seem to think of themselves as more European than Ukrainian. We could see the mountains in the distance, but didn't have time to get out there. It was nice to stay in a hotel with a stand up shower.

The next day we crossed the border to Slovakia. Everybody was bringing things they bought in Ukriane across the border to resell at higher prices. Trying to understand what one dude on the bus was trying to get us to take for him until we crossed the border provided an introduction to Melanie, a Switzerlandian girl who was brave enough to travel Ukraine by herself.

Slovakia was absolutely beautiful, the same rustic feeling as Ukraine, but cleaner somehow. Maybe it was the addition of trash cans in public places, or maybe a growing recycling industry, but it was nice to see a really clean country.

Krakow, way back when

2008-07-19T13:57:00.001+03:00

I will try to update a crazy summer in a series of out of date, surely inaccurate and probably dreadfully insufficient posts. Starting where I left off.

Krakow, June 16^th and 17th. My bus arrived earlier than I thought it would. I had time to kill and a bladder to empty before Claire and Nina would arrive at 9:30. The only problem was Central Europe's obsession with pay toilets. It was not expensive, but I had no local currency, so, beginning to move into the pain stage of bladder control, I found an atm and got some money. Went back to the bathroom, but my money was too big and the toilet lady could not give me change for such a large bill, so, back upstairs to find some breakfast and break the bill. It all worked out in the end, but I wish that some public funding could go to free toilets in all big cities. It would make metros and city parks so much better smelling.

As the train stopped, I happened to be standing exactly outside the window of the train car that Nina and Claire were in.

The night on the bus made me quite tired. Krakow is beautiful, castles, churches, dragons, rivers. Only one night in the hostel. Day two out to Auschwitz and Birkinau. Overwhelming death and sadness. Almost dulling to the senses, especially walking through a room full of shoes, human hair and a reconstructed gas chamber. The sense of memory is strong, but I think I feel more touched by the synagogue I walk past everyday in my town, a more relatable level of history, where the actual reality is imaginable, horrible and terrible, but not overwhelming. No more internet time here. Next entry, Claire and Nina's visit to Lviv and Velyki Mosty.

away from internet

2008-07-14T18:22:00.001+03:00

I promise to update everyone about at least some of the adventures (lots of camping, and swimming) I've been having on Saturday. I'm home for one day now and headed up to some national park with lakes tomorrow morning. Saturday, blog update. Got it.

Travelling

2008-06-23T22:41:00.001+03:00

Krakow, Lviv, Velyki Mosty, Uzhgorod, Nova Vesela, and Budapest tomorrow

so many amazing experiences

will write later

cloudy, cool, aimless

2008-06-13T13:51:00.001+03:00

Camp continues. Today was the Mr. Camp competition to match the Ms.
Camp competition last week. There were introductions, physical tests,
dancing, cooking questions and questions about how the modern husband
should act. I am not all here today, too much sleep combined with no
running (decided that the weekend in Kyiv combined with the upcoming
days in Krakow are a great excuse not to run for a few weeks, and
already my Achilles feels better, although I am starting to feel fat
and lazy. Should I go to soccer practice today? If I don't, I might
be really rusty for the game on Sunday) has left me with lights on and
nobody home. And then today there was really nothing to do. After
the morning game show thing, there was lunch, then a break dance
competition. Now I'm sitting around trying to get internet to send in
my lesson plans for the upcoming camp and see if Nina-Claire managed
to get off the plane on their Prague layover. Their plan was to only
have carryon baggage so they could make their Europe loop by arriving
in Prague and departing from Budapest even though their tickets were
round trip NYC-Budapest.
I cut my shin on a plow yesterday while crossing the river Rata in
the back of a bumpy horse drawn wagon while 18-wheelers and old soviet
cars sped around us on the narrow bridge. Distracted by truck
threatening to overrun us from behind, I lost my balance and fell into
the horse-drawn-plow which was sharing the back of the wagon with me.
Whodathought plows were so sharp. No pain on my soccer hardened shin,
but the blood started pouring immediately. I could see the bone as
Ira cleaned the cut when I arrived at Ukrainian tutoring. It stopped
bleeding overnight, but now has started to trickle again, down my leg
and into my shoe.
Just today I learned that I will miss a tour of the local castles
with the 7th grade class because I will be in Krakow next week. The
planning may happen ahead of time, but I never find out things until
right before they happen. I didn't even know there were castles
around here. Ok, maybe I'll try the internet again.

Why are we here?

2008-06-09T19:26:00.002+03:00

Why does pc send volunteers to Ukraine? Everytime I come to Kyiv and see giant cars, new apartments, food prices I question why she needs peace corps. I guess there are some alterior motives that the state department has for sending us here. There are also great things we can do because we have so much more resources than our counterparts in Africa. But even so, that doubt never leaves.

Doctor confirmed today that I have achilles tendonitis, and recommended that I take 3 weeks without excersises that strain my achilles. This along with ice followed by heat and physical therapy if I can find it in my town. And 800mg ibprofen/day. If my plantar fasciitis went away, my achilles tendonitis should also go away. I just don't want to wait and I certainly don't want to stop playing soccer and running. I'm already down to 20 miles/week and 2 days of soccer, how much less could I do and maintain happiness/sanity? My upcoming travelling will certainly help.

On Saturday, I'll go to my neighboring oblast to meet Curtis and some other friends and cook shashlik(meet on sticks) in the forest. Then on Sunday, I'll catch my soccer game on my way to Krakow to meet Claire and Nina. The three Americans will procede to Lviv and other points south in Ukraine before making our way to Budapest. I'm really looking forward to sharing my new country and home now that the weather is beautiful and the vegetables and fruit are almost ripe, well, I guess they're really not even close to ripe yet.

I missed daycamp today with my doctors appointment in Kyiv. 4 more days of camp hanging out with my 6th graders and trying to remember camp games I havn't already shown them. Maybe we'll get to go to the forest and do a scavenger hunt. I don't know what I was going to say further about that.

So much time with computers this weekend, yet somehow not too much work accomplished. The environmental working group was productive, getting a lot of useful lesson plans and resources up on google docs where everyone can access them, but my preparations for camp have been procrastinated all day today. I need to write one more lesson plan, write a few paragraphs for the newsletter and a blurb for the weekly pc email. The deadline is really next weekend, so it didn't feel that urgent, even though my computer use may be dangerously small. I guess it was worth having a relaxing day to do what I wanted on the internet, between my two emails, facebook, couchsurfing, blogging, runnerunner, news and achilles research, I guess it was not completely useless.

The new pc office in Kyiv is really nice, shower, kitchen, lounge, and computer lab. Again, not what I imagined the pc to be like. On Saturday night I stayed with 14other environmentally oriented volunteers after our meeting in Kyiv in a 3 room apartment which cost $175 for the night. The floor with couch cushions was actually pretty nice.

On Sunday night I went down to visit Patrick about an hour south of Kyiv, nice town though way different than mine because it sits on the main highway. Tonight I will spend on the train on my way back home, kind of nice to get both travel and lodging in the same ticket. When the times work out so perfectly (10pm-6am), I don't mind that the train goes so slowly.

I'm watching another beautiful sunset outside the open window, weather so far equalling Seattle last June, but they say it will get hotter. Off to take a shower with water pressure before I walk to the train station.

A long time waiting...for them to upload

2008-06-02T13:24:00.004+03:00

Motorcycle club stopping for lunch in the park outside my kitchen window.

The walk across town with my co-workers to Olena's welcome to the world party.

Another Olena comes into the world, amazing silver colored eyes. Iryna is my Ukrainian tutor and Olena is her 3rd child.

Graduation and the Day of our Town

2008-06-02T12:55:00.001+03:00

Also the first day of summer!

Friday was the last day of official classes.

Saturday was graduation for the 11th formers (high school ends at 11th grade here) and the weather was perfect as they had thier ceremony out in front of the school. The major differences between my high school graduation and theirs were...

They didn't have to wear silly robes.

They played the national anthem twice rather than once.

Three students marched with the flag.

All the students marched around the square three times for good luck.

The orthodox priest gave a long speach and everyone crossed themselves multiple times.

Everyone let a baloon float into the air instead of throwing hats when the ceremony was over.

There were many more flowers here, many of my students gave them to me, other teachers got them, graduates got them, young kids, everyone.

There were many awards anounced, from the region, oblast, school, and other organizations.

The military band played a little award jingle for every award.

Only half of the students had University spots, the other half still awaiting test dates and other hurdles.

That's all I can think of, it seemed pretty normal all in all.

Sunday I let myself sleep in, waking up yesterday for graduation was a violation of my normal Saturday policy.

The day of Velyki Mosty started around 12 with speaches, a band, awards and dancing in the center park. I was momentarily jealous watching the group of young people break dancing thinking how much cooler they are than me. Then I realized that there are things I can do that they can't, and if I really wanted to learn to break dance, I could be good at that also, although I would probably have to sacrifice something else. Not that I want to start break dancing, but I do want to have a strong body and many of those moves showed body control, strength and flexability of which I am jealous.

Then the celebrations moved to the stadium for the young soccer game, then my soccer game (we won 2-0, starting to realize that we are the only city in a division of villages). Immediatily after my game, fake trees, tall obstacles, flaming hoops, bags with drugs and coats hiding guns were spread across the field. It was a dog show with the german shepards from the local border patrol base. The highlight was watching them take down suspects who tried to run (wearing protective clothing of course). I wonder what the wounds would look like if you were taken down by a german shepard wearing only a tee shirt? It was cool to have my host dad there explaining the personalities of all the dogs I was watching because he is the veternarian for the base and knows all of them.

After the dog show, I stopped to do some tourniques (like pullups but you pull yourself up, invert, sticking your feet straight into the air and then rotate all the way around the bar before lowering yourself down) on the way home for dinner and a shower. At first when my host brother showed them to me I couldn't do any. Now my record is 3. I'm determined to do 10 by the end of July. Back to the stadium to watch the band, felt decidedly alone because everyone was having picknics out on the field with their families and, well, I didn't have one there.

So I went back to my apartment to eat chocolate cake while listening to harry potter (talk about comfort eating/emotioal safe zone/reality escape) and eventually regained the social courage (because everybody knows me, everybody looks, points, says something to their neighbor about who I am, why I'm alone and what I do (I am starting to relate to Harry Potter, except I don't have two friends)) to go back out and see the fireworks instead of just falling asleep in my apartment. Glad I did, found some of the soccer team (they were completely drunk) to watch the fireworks with and then danced for a few hours with the English teachers. The band on the roof of the lockerrooms played an interesting mix of Ukrainian folk music, European disco and American pop while virtually the whole city danced in the dirt parking lot of the stadium (I was glad we weren't on the other side of the lockerrooms trampling the grass).

Today my achilles is especially sore, probably from dancing, and I am hobbling around school getting ready for the summer camp which starts tomorrow. Played games with my 6th form for a few hours this morning. Now time to get some actual plans written up. #1, capture the flag...

World News

2008-05-28T12:22:00.001+03:00

World food shortages, human rights violations, war for economic advancement, war for ethnic/religious purity, ecocide for profit, oh how reading the newspaper cheers me up. There's no way to solve everything, but each piece has a solution. The problems and solutions are so interrelated that cooperation becomes paramount. I think of the alcoholism in my town, drunks already passed out in the park at 10am. I have not directly asked them why they drink so much, although I have had some lengthy conversations trying to understand slurred Ukrainian. Perhaps they have a feeling of hopelessness, depression, or pure boredom. No job, no money, no future. An analysis of what caused these individual feelings is useful only if it uncovers solutions. Many of the individual frustrations (got fired from the mine) can not be simply reversed (there's no more coal there) and new solutions must be invented. The lack of jobs has to do with the economy, the government's failures (broken promises) and the public's inattention after the Orange Revolution. The lack of meaningful future employment hinges on a lack of continuing education, no way to better of skills or social mobility, and a hanging indecision within a government supporting neither full scale farming/industry nor high tech service.

What can they do? Why are there no more jobs? What sport or club can they pursue? How can my town's community spirit be used to support these alcoholics while being firm against their excesses?

Evacuation

2008-05-23T17:46:00.001+03:00

is the same word in Ukrainian, so that part of the explanation was easy to understand. After I got him to slow down, I understood that because the furniture factory a few blocks away was on fire, school was to be evacuated. I looked out the window, and sure enough, clouds of black smoke billowed up and headed toward the center of town. It didn't make sense to leave school and walk into the smoke like all of the students were doing to get home. I was pretty appalled because it was acknowledged that it was quite likely that gloo and various unnatural wood products were probably burning. Wouldn't it be better to keep the students inside rather than let them walk out through the smoke? The smoke was not coming towards the school, and when I went home, I took the long way all the way up wind of the factory to avoid it. Scary stuff, yesterday.

In other news, one more week of school. Feeling lazy today and don't really want to go to soccer practice. I know I'll feel good once I get warmed up. Fake leather soccer cleats suck. There's a reason they're so cheep. Students barely containing their attention. Summer is so close. Bad weather outside helps, makes it look more like winter. I am following the DIII track national championships closely to see how the goats and bee do. 10k seemed to have a rough finish, but I still say well done. Let's go Goats!

Got to be useful

2008-05-21T16:24:00.001+03:00

Can students learn from testing? The answer is debatable, but I am grudgingly going to admit that my students are firming their knowledge by preparing for the tests that I am going to give them. The trick is telling them what is going to be on the test, and exactly how it is going to be formatted, so that the review process is not overwhelming, but instead a productive and focused revisiting of familiar material.

Time really flies by. Not every week has seemed to move so fast, but the last 4 or 5 literally vaporized. One semester down, three to go, I'm going to be an old man before I figure out what I'm doing with my life. Next semester I will be much better prepared to teach. Experience is key. Summer plans are firming, weather is warming, and time is flying.

Today after I finish giving tests, I'll head up to Червоноград (Chervonohrad) to buy train tickets for my environmental working group meeting in Київ (Kyiv) the week after next. Really got to figure out how to contribute more to this group but lack of computer really hurts. Hopefully I'll get a computer this summer and then start contributing more information and resources. Even planning projects and summer camps is difficult without a computer because they require documents. Documents live on computers. Maybe I just need to spend more time in my computer lab at school. Before class I'm always finishing this or that part of a lesson plan, and after classes, I just want to go outside, or to Ukrainian tutoring, or English club, or Chervonohrad. Guess I need to start making to do lists and make sure that I stay relatively productive once teaching is over for the summer.

How do I do a secondary project? What does my community want/need? I need to meet the mayor. She is a retired teacher which should help. Putting my language skills to the test.

Pink Eye

2008-05-16T15:29:00.001+03:00

Again? There must be something in the water which gets on my contacts and infects my eyes. This is the third time since December I've got the infection. That's why the PC strongly recommends not wearning contacts, but my lifestyle does not allow glasses. Running, soccer and even my classroom activities would be negatively affected. Maybe it's just my body is not used to working in a school. Maybe it's the fact that I went to bed at 5am after my first Ukrainian wedding experience last night/this morning. Why I thought I could teach the day after is a mystery to me. Worst of all, there's a teachers meeting in a few minutes which means an hour or two of reports and suggestions and I will probably not understand (not only because of the language).

The wedding (actually I just attended the reception because the wedding was only open to family) was spectacular. Gifts, giant bread, toasts, eating, dancing, games, and repeat. 10 hours of eating, drinking and dancing, and I came to school today, that's dedication. The bride was stolen and the groom had to collect money to buy her back. The groom washed the bride's parents feet and then beat their feet with nettles. There was a wall full of balloons and each one had a houshold task/priviledge. The bride and the groom took turns popping the baloons to see what tasks would befall them in the future. There was lots of traditional singing and really fun circle dances.

Totally worth the pink eye. The only drops my town has really sting and leave white crusty stuff around my eyes. Got to buy the better drops the next time I'm in a city. Well, it's that time. Glad it's friday. I might go to sleep tonight before it's all the way dark. Days already long. Today is actually hot. Seems like a really quick change from cold to warm.

waiting

2008-05-13T15:03:00.001+03:00

for itunes to download so I can put more Ukrainian music onto my ipod so that I can learn Ukrainian more quickly. Music is great for language learning. But it is taking so long and all the English teachers are going over to Iryna's house for a baby shower type thing and I don't want to be late. 83% come on... Silas is going to prom. Summer plans are coming together nicely. Going to stay on this side of the globe I think, although my cousin's wedding adds one more temptation to go back and see all my friends and family. It is cool that sometimes I surprise people with my language skills now, mostly because they think an American would want to learn Russian. They are pleased and feel respected that I am learning clean Ukrainian. 92%

I just finished a eally great collection of essays by Adolf Leopold. "Sand Country Almanac" I think, although I might have gotten the name wrong. It is a series of environmental works writting in the 1940's. He provides a philisophical framework for the concept of conservation and environmental ethics. On top of that it's really well written and is not a "we're all going to die" type depressing environmental book. 96% I want to recommend this book to everyone who appreciates plants, animals, air, land, water and the outdoors.

I started a book called "Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs" but I don't think I'm going to finish it. He goes on too many tangents on what could be some interesting social commentary.

99%, I gotta run

I can't possibly say everything

2008-05-06T14:39:00.001+03:00

I have less time to write in my blog because I’m working more? Sort of. The last two weeks have also been full of travel. The week of Easter vacation was quite enough relaxation, and now I’m ready to get back to work and take advantage of the few free lessons that I have to really teach some interesting topics. The schedule always seems to get a little crazy around exams, and at this school it seems to have left me a few extra days to fill with what I want, in English of course. I have four more solid weeks of classes then two weeks of summer school. During summer school I can play games outside, take kids camping and teach almost anything I want. More like camp I guess.
So, instead of writing a comprehensive discourse on my adventures, I am spending my computer time preparing to teach about creative writing (how not to plagiarize), alcoholism, gender equality and Billy Joel. I will summarize my week since the PEPFAR in one, completely incorrect, mostly incomprehensible, but interesting sentence. Sort of like real life.
Easter was a lot of church, amazing ceremonies, blessings of the bread, eggs, and meat which lead to three days of eating because lent was so hard without, more meat in the forest on a spit over a campfire, delicious, hosted two volunteers for a night, convinced I have the best apartment, super slow train to Ivano-Frankivska, long bus to Kosiv, up into Kosmach Music Festival where Ukrainian president showed up while forbidding festivities on the first day because a helicopter crashed in the Black Sea, met a grandma on a mountain who didn’t believe the four of us were really Americans, she bought us juice and thought that John could take a train to NYC, many nationalities, Italian folk music met cool reception among Hootzle fans, UPA veteran proud of his country and it’s freedom, cotton candy not as good as fresh goat cheese “Brenza” on fresh bread new favorite snack, left before the music ended, met a political science major and fiancé on the bus who want to go camping this summer, home in time for soccer practice on Friday evening, fitting that it rained for Saturday’s practice because yesterday’s game was played in a downpour, trees disappear to the north, looks like Kansas hill country, bus stopped in almost every village to get a bucket of water out of a well and refill the radiator, starting to be able to get some humor and personality into my Ukrainian, back to my old tutor, she has a 1 month girl with reflective silver eyes, want to discover a community project, still learning my community, lots of work to do.

Spring Exploded

2008-04-25T16:13:00.001+03:00

Leaves, bugs, warm weather, and sunshine

Last week I attended a training seminar on how to implement a community project to combat the spread of HIV AIDS.

I will get to observe an older pc volunteer implement his own project in neighboring community before I attempt my own.

It is amazing to see how different organizations work together to improve a very scary situation in Ukraine.

Learning how to do a community project is also enlightening. Obviously, community participation and action is essential. Therefore, a lot of work must be done to set up any project, surveying exactly what the community wants and needs, and then creating motivation, interest and potential to fulfill when the actual project kicks off.

The particular conference I attended with one of my school's biology/"safe life" teachers was organized by PC and conducted by the All Ukraine Alliance for people living with HIV/Aids and funded by the US PEPFAR project. My school already teaches about the biology of infectious diseases, but has absolutely no sexual education. We'll see what I can do to combine these important topics.

I am motivated and excited to get started on all of the things that I plan to do while using teaching English as an excuse to be here. Not that I don't enjoy teaching English, but many of my students do not need to know it, are not motivated, and there are some very good english teachers already teaching in Ukraine.

Well, this is Easter weekend, and the holidays stretch into next week. Not sure how many days I have off school, but plan on getting a little camping in early next week. Tomorrow I'm going to a Ukrainian professional soccer match, the strongest team in the country ("Shoktar")is playing the Lviv team ("Karpaty"). I guess I'll cheer for the home team, even though I think they're going to get crushed.

I was really re-energized not only by the aids conference, but by the Haverford alumni magazine my dad sent me, where I am reminded that great things are expected and regularly completed by my peers. The world can be improved, one village at a time, infectious diseases are an easy target, and my community will be well educated by the time I leave.

Random notes: Dying eggs requires white eggs and food coloring...?

I tried brown eggs with onion skins for yellow, beats for red, and iodine for brown, oh wait, the eggs were already brown.

When there's no teaching, I have alot of time on my hands...

to be continued...

2008-04-17T16:51:00.001+03:00

It's amazing when someone asks me what I think and I have so many things to say that I can't organize them at all. That's what I feel like right now. What's the point of even starting, there are so many things to say. Our little group of local English teachers met today and I found myself with too many things to say on a few different topics.

Who is responsible for teaching critical thinking? Our district methodologist brought a sample of what future tests will look like. Not only were the writing essay topics interesting, but they required independent and creative thought. It was pointed out that many of our students would have trouble with these tasks in their native language because they get have little experience synthesizing information to form arguments.

I have gotten all sorts of interesting tidbits recently about monetary practice within our school. First a bit of disclaimer. There is no way to prove whether these shady activities actually exist, but the fact that there is no transparent system makes almost anything believable. I report this heresy only to provide some motivation to make monetary transactions transparent, and to urge greater public scrutiny of all public institutions.

First, I hear…

april 15th

2008-04-17T16:47:00.001+03:00

What both creates and solves all problems? Time. Once again I am humbled by the silliness of worrying. The student loan debacle will work out somehow and all my worrying and stressing was pointless. Some nervousness can be creative, with an energizing focusing effect, but then there is the negative type of worry, that distracts and hinders positive action. Competitive running has given me lots of experience with different levels of nervousness. I think it helped me to do the variety of ridiculous tasks in a small amount of time to end up with two jpeg files small enough to send over my dialup internet while still containing all forms, signatures and certificates I need to submit to my bank.

Saturday was spend cleaning the stadium, nearly 6 hours picking up trash, glass, sweeping and replacing the bleacher benches that had been broken by angry drunk boys/men. The stadium looked good by the time we were finished, but my legs were a big sluggish on Sunday just from spending that amount of time standing and sweeping and pushing wheelbarrows etc.

Sunday was the pre-season "independence cup" final. I was assigned to man-mark their best player, a big fast guy with good skill. It became a delicate task after I earned a yellow card early in the game for a dangerous slide tackle on offense. In self defense, if I had gotten the ball I would have scored because I slid inside the offensive as the defender was desperately clearing the ball from his goal line, so I think the yellow card was worth it. Their best player was loosely assigned to a right flank position, but he really roved all over the field. I marked him out of the game, and may have been part of the reason he got so frustrated he eventually earned his second yellow card (for yelling at the ref) to get thrown out of the game. I only had one really good offensive opportunity, an option between a poor angle shot and a cross over a defender to the far post to a wide open teammate, but I somehow screwed up the cross, too much finesse rather than just kicking the ball. A few other balls were sent for me into space, but I didn't have that extra spark of speed to get around the defender and catch them before they rolled out of bounds.

The stadium was filled if not packed. The local tv station came, and there were loud speakers set up, the flag raised, and even walked out onto the field with kids like professional teams do. It was an even game, but my team finished a few early opportunities, then we relaxed and started passing and moving for each other while the other team just got more frustrated. Ended 4-1, their one a penalty kick which our fullback earned by being a little slow to get forward after a corner kick, keeping a player onside which he was not marking, and so a desperate slide from behind caught legs rather than ball.

After the game I was awarded the mvp award, but I do not deserve it. I got it only because I am "the American", "Our volunteer". My teammates were happy to see that I knew I had not earned it. I tried to give it to the real mvp, our captain, but he said "if it is truly mine, then I give it to you as a gift. You will undoubtedly earn it someday, and on that day most likely will not receive it, so take it now and earn it next time". Said like a true captain.

After the game I was interviewed by the tv station, didn't really understand the questions, but just said that we had played well and won. Yesterday I could not figure out how to switch off the cable and onto the antenna to see myself on tv, but all of my students and teachers saw me and said that my Ukrainian wasn't too bad.

Liam's Bday, april 9th

2008-04-17T16:46:00.000+03:00

I screwed up big time. I never verified that my student loan deferment was accepted. Just assumed that I would hear something if it was not. The letters and warnings were all sent in paper form to my mom's house. She is in Costa Rica. For some reason my loans don't qualify for the public service deferment, instead I have to fill out the economic hardship deferment. I downloaded the correct form today after getting an emergency forbearance over the phone last night. Unfortunately I accidentally deleted all of the photos off of my ipod in the process. Super bummed. I thought I was deleting somebody else's photos because there is file named "stuff from Josh's ipod" which I thought I was inside of when I saw the large photo file. The bright side is that I did not accidentally delete all 7 of my recently acquired Harry Potter books in mp3 format. My steadily accruing string of lesson plans and other random information make the disk quite full (all information I need or might need I store on my camera or ipod), or at least it was quite full before I deleted my photos (tear). Of course I have those photos backed up on cd in NM, but no way to look at them now. I should get an actual little external flash so I don't have to carry my electronics everywhere, of course it's nice to have my camera with me, because Kodak moments are fairly common.

So, frustration boiling within for being careless with my loan status and my photo stash led to a fast 8 miler through woods and fields with some pickups thrown in on smooth sections. The gophers are working overtime. Who eats gophers?

Now my achilles hurts, which is another frustration I don't feel like dealing with right now. Guess I will play violin, clean my bathroom, or find some other activity that makes me feel useful. The network is down at school which means only one computer can get internet which means everybody waiting for one computer. I got 5 minutes today which is barely enough time to load gmail. Downer few days, hope I can score a goal in the game on Sunday and help my team bring home the cup. I also got accepted into the PEPFAR AIDS/HIV training in Kyiv which will start on the 21^st. That week of school combined with the Easter break week following will give me two weeks away from teaching. Time I could use to re-energize.

With all the other money drama, I almost forgot the latest development in the ever surprising Ukrainian education finance system. I had a feeling that our school had more money than the government gave. I learned about the $2 million World Bank loan in my district, and now also how each class is responsible for providing a sum of money to buy books, chalk, and all other "school needs". This comes from parents.

Anyway, the latest deal for my apartment rent is 92.5% funded by the Peace Corps and the other 7.5% by my school. The director of my school negotiated this with my director in the Peace Corps. Yesterday she called in all of the teachers I work with and told them that they were responsible for paying that part of my housing expenses. Not all the English teachers, only those teachers that I work with. They must pay every month, and even in the summer. The teachers have to pay to work with me? This makes it even harder to introduce new and unusual techniques, which some of the teachers are already hesitant about, and now they have to pay to watch me do my weird communicative method which may or not improve their students' test scores on the old and less than communicative tests. The other reason it pisses me off is that the English teachers recently each gave the director a cash gift of 50UAH for her 50^th birthday. This sum would exactly cover the amount needed for my living for the entire 23 months they are being asked to pay. Yet instead of my director just taking it out of her pocket, she takes it from teachers who make less than half of what she does, and already have to contribute to a variety of other school funds.

And a news update

2008-04-07T15:42:00.001+03:00

No school today, religious holiday, and most students just didn't show up. Nobody knew before hand. So I have a lot of time, waiting for the administrators to finish work for the day so that I can tie up the phone line to get some internet. Went out to the bar with my team after the game last night and ended up having some really interesting conversations about how to take the first steps toward improving the economy and democracy. We also spoke about why nationalists are vehemently against having two national languages even though so many people in Ukraine speak Russian. Basically I was able to understand that the Russian language is tightly linked with the country of Russia and not disassociated from the empire that has impoverished and exploited Ukraine and its people for so long. Will it be separated? It seems dangerous to have a national language which so much of the population does not use. It must make that part of the population feel less included. But I can also see how after so much, a Ukrainian nationalist would want to separate Ukraine from Russia as much as possible.

Can anybody tell me what NATO is? What are the advantages of being in it? Is the US seriously still worried about communists taking over the world? Have there been conflicts where NATO has intervened militarily? Ukraine is debating joining, and obviously Russia does not want this to happen. Why would Ukraine want to be part of NATO and the EU? I feel like NATO is some kind of US lead nuclear weapons club. Need to fill my empty head with knowledge. I feel so ignorant.

Pre-season independence cup

2008-04-07T15:41:00.001+03:00

I figured out that the games we have been playing are part of a pre-season tournament. Yesterday was the semi-final match. Next week will be the final, and then the following week the real season will start which is about 20 games plus playoffs. I am struggling to score. I had three good chances, but each one failed to put all the details together to score a goal. Times are estimates.

85^th minute I received a beautiful cross about 18 yards out on the right corner of the penalty box. I was open enough that it was effectively a 1v1, me v goalkeeper situation although I did not have time to beat the goalkeeper on the dribble because my defender was only about a meter behind me. I had been visualizing how I was going to score for the whole game, knowing that I had to finish my one chance. I was running at full speed and instead of trapping the ball, I was already looking up to see where I was going to place my shot, checking out if the keeper was coming out or miss-positioned to either side of the goal, so, screwed up the trap, ball bounced strait off my shin guard ruining my angle at goal, and making it a 50/50 challenge with the keeper. I beat him to the ball, but my flailing toe-poke nutmeg attempt failed. It was cool how I became so focused that everything went perfectly quite. Too bad I focused on the keeper before the trap.

100^th minute sprinted all the way down the field to get involved in a counterattack, the ball was crossed, I judged the lofted flight perfectly, but my defender was playing the body and doing a good job boxing me out and I was unable to make one decisive move to get in front or get some separation from him. It ended up being a wrestling match and I did get my head on the ball but could not get any power or form into it as I was being wrestled to the ground. Of course I got called for the foul because they always give those to the defense.

115^th minute our corner kick, misjudged the flight and overran slightly, too late to go back, so put every last ounce of energy into my vertical jump, and amazingly, got high enough, higher than the crossbar even, but was so surprised that my legs had gotten me there that I was not focused on directing the ball down and into the net. I was being undercut at the same time, but that was way down by my legs and should not have affected my head. Ball went over the crossbar.

In the first play of the game I was a little sluggish and missed a slide tackle, no real physical contact, but it looked like I was mean. This first play made it so the ref was watching me closely, so later on when I committed a professional foul at midfield to stop a counter attack I got my first yellow card. I got called for a lot of fouls, being lighter than and not as strong as our opponents, there was no way to hold my position on headers or when shielding the ball without using my arms, which, in soccer, is illegal.

The second most challenging part of the game was playing 120 minutes as a winger. That is something I have not done since I was 14. I was marked up against three different players, and by the end my legs were shaking any time I was not running, which was not a problem because I was always running. I did a good job getting back on defense, and normally getting in front of my man on offense, but today walking is difficult.

I was not put on the list of 5 penalty kick takers because no one has ever seen me take a penalty kick. We won the shootout thanks to our amazing goalkeeper who stopped two of their attempts. Not as satisfying as winning the real way, and frustrating that I could not finish any of my three perfect chances.

I really like my team, there is a fair amount of yelling on the field, but that's also part of the culture and most conversations are what people in the US would call "heated". Speaking of yelling, it's kind of nice not to understand what the crowd is saying about me. It takes no effort to ignore trash talk. On the contrary, it would take a conscious effort to understand it.

Freedom of choice

2008-04-07T15:40:00.001+03:00

My American friends here think I am crazy and illogical for proposing that the following argument applies to ear piercing. Making decisions for your children which you could without harm postpone so that your children can make those decisions is reducing the number of opportunities your child will have to feel self empowered. I will use circumcision and ear piercing as examples.

Circumcision is not reversible, or at least you can't get those nerves back even if you can grow more skin. The only medical benefit is a slightly lower chance of getting aids while having unprotected sex, based on one sole study. The cleanliness argument is a farce. So why have your boy circumcised? Maybe it will make him feel more normal in the gym shower (although that assumes that more males are circumcised than not). Maybe it is better to get all painful things done to your baby at an age where they will not consciously remember them. Do painful subconscious memories sound healthy to you? Maybe it is a family or religious tradition. If it is, then won't it make the boy feel more committed and apart of the family or religion if he makes a conscious choice to make the painful sacrifice to join the tradition and symbolism of the group? The problem with doing it when he is a baby is that it is not reversible. If he decides he as an individual feels more inline with a different religion which does not require circumcision, or just wants that extra pleasure back, there is no way to go back. He might even be bitter that you as a parent made that arbitrary decision about his body before he could give his opinion. The advantage of waiting and letting him make the decision is that he will feel empowered and respected. He will know what he is giving up and why.

Ear piercing may seem completely irrelevant, because it is all but reversible. The advantages of piercing your girl's ears when she is too young to make that decision are no conscious memory of pain, and perhaps a feeling of normal if you live in a society where most girls pierce their ears. The advantages of waiting and letting your girl choose if she wants her ears pierced are: she will realize that you respect her body as her own and feel like a self determined individual; she will gain an awareness of the fundamental structure of choices, in this case some pain is traded for the ability to decorate her ears. "But even if I pierce my girl's ears when she is 3, she can later choose to let the holes heal up". The choice to undue an arbitrary decision your parents have made for you is somewhat less empowering. Instead of realizing her newfound power as an individual, she unavoidably becomes focused on how many things have been decided for her, the power that you still have over her. She will always have those small bumps in her earlobes to remind her of the decision you made but did not have to make.

The reason this argument initially appealed to me is that there seems to be some correlation between choice, self empowerment, freedom and success. The ability to examine and question the world that we live in needs to be fostered. The things that women wear often strike me as examples of choices that are made without fully examining the reasons and assumptions behind those choices. Yes, dressing up is fun, a way to show confidence, get attention and feel beautiful. But if you cannot feel beautiful, confident and normal without wearing makeup, a short skirt and high heals is that ok? I have made a huge assumption that some women cannot, but then why do they dress up every day, putting up with blisters on their feet, barely able to walk, chemicals on their faces and in their hair, and clothing that shows or hides? Is it ok to feel ugly without makeup? Is it ok to just feel prettier with makeup? Is that really who you are? Can clothing and decoration be part of your identity? Are you happy and satisfied with the person under the clothing, makeup and fancy walk? Ironically, extremely skimpy clothing seems to be both proof of self confidence, and an attempt to gain it by drawing attention. "I'm beautiful, don't you think?" How many of these actions are fostered and supported by parents? These behaviors seem unexamined and perhaps have more impact on a child's future than seems apparent. Thus I am curious about such small things as the clothing that you buy your children and if you pierce their ears or not.

Random thoughts on parenting and choice. I want to thank my parents for always giving me choices rather than having an authoritarian system of laws. I was always made aware of the consequences of my choices, but it has provided me with a viewpoint that is somewhat different than most people. I notice choices that I make. Many people do things without realizing they have a choice. Realizing alternatives is the first step toward a critical examination of my life and a questioning of the options that I have. This has lead me to find that happiness itself is essentially a choice. Since I am aware of the choices I make and their consequences (at least I can guess some possible consequences), I can do things that have a higher probability to make me happy. If I am not happy, I can with careful thought figure out why, and then trace those reasons back to certain choices that I have made, and re-evaluate based on the other options I have for those particular decisions. What an empowering viewpoint! I can decide whether to be happy or not.

I have also discovered another way to be happy without necessarily changing the choices that I have made, but instead examining the outcomes within a different set of parameters. I identify what in one particular unhappy moment what is making me unhappy, and then I examine other sides of that same thing to see what parts of it are making me happy. This could be applied to time by myself. The occasional unhappy loneliness can be immediately flipped to show the unprecedented time to think and reflect, time which I have never had before in my life other than the occasional hour in meeting. Self reflection while cleaning my apartment, cooking, reading, playing violin or working on my balcony garden becomes meditation when my surface train-of-conscious thoughts are used up and I my head becomes quite and focused. At least I think that's what meditation is, it's good enough for me.

April 4

2008-04-07T15:39:00.001+03:00

Pedagogical Priorities: In America (the part of America on the north side of the equator within the borders of the United States of America (why do we get to be American's instead of United Statesians and is that unfair?) My nationality encompasses two continents, HA!), we often say "math is not his strong suit". In the US, this does not translate into "he is a weak student", or "he is slow". This could be a self fulfilling political correctness (it's actually useful!) or could reflect our beliefs about opportunity. 'No, he will not be a mathematician, but he might be a great writer.' It pisses me off when people here get labeled as week, stupid, dumb and written off to go work in the mine and live in a bottle. To me, it feels like libel, which the student often internalizes (no effort is made to keep these views secret).

How to spend my week off school for Easter break?

What is the correct response when 9^th grader girls say the equivalent of "hey there hottie". I have been going with the faked ignorance, pretending I can't understand what they are saying, but that only seems to encourage it, because they think they can say anything and I won't understand. I guess I'll just have to start saying "not allowed, you can't say that".

The most delicious meal in recent history was grilled cheese sandwich dipped in Ukrainian salsa. I am addicted to chocolate. I carry a lot more weight up to my fifth floor apartment then I carry down.

There are very few jobs here that a student could have, before or after classes, or working only on the weekend.

To buy a computer or not?

budabubump chshhhhhh

2008-03-31T16:35:00.000+03:00

All of my students are excited about April fools day. Need to stay on my guard tomorrow. Made bread on Saturday. Planted vegetables on my balcony on Sunday. Ran into some of my students Saturday evening smoking out at the stadium. Talked to them for a while, probably teaching them more English in that hour + than I have the whole school semester. Also got some ground level information about the lack of HIV/AIDS knowledge and why they don't wear seatbelts, think smoking and drinking are ok in moderation, lack of sexual education and so on. Very interesting. This week my goal is to teach two environmental lessons to my 8^th form and begin investigating how Ukrainian people can communicate with their government in 10^th form. I love these long evenings, time has changed and the sun sets at 19:40, light till 20:30.

Yesterday

2008-03-27T16:13:00.000+02:00

Chocolate cravings? Weird. Maybe skipping lunch was part of the reason I couldn’t resist the chocolate I was planning on saving. I’m still waiting for warm weather. Keep getting little teases, and then I look out the window to see snow coming down. Maybe I need to have the bone spurs on my heels surgically removed. Why do I always fail to play violin 7 days in a row? I always miss one somewhere, deciding instead to watch soccer or read on the couch. It’s so much easier to make progress if I play every day. Instead I am stagnant in skill and ability. It feels like I’m developing bad habits and need to figure out a way to catch them myself. This is the first time since I was six that I have not had regular violin lessons.
I’m worried that this blog as a cross cultural window will cease to exist because either there are no more differences that I haven’t already commented on, or I have become accustomed and even new things generally fit the pattern and fail to stand out as different. Oh well, it always was more self centered anyway, which might even be more interesting. I think of textbooks when I think of impersonal cross cultural accounts, but my favorite books always are intensely personal. Not that this comes anywhere near to an actual book. Paid too much rent, part of the reason I’m broke right now. I have $15 in the bank and less than that in my pocket. It’s ok, I get my next living allowance tomorrow or the next day, and I have plenty of food.