I have a blog?

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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.