I managed to cross the "crazy American" cultural barrier today for both Ukrainians and Americans. The scene:
I was walking home from school and saw many branches lined along the side of my street. I am low on kindling for my petchka, so I asked the babushka (grandma) who was picking from among them if I could take some. She said sure, and so I pulled together several large branches and started to drag them away.
The crazy:
To you Americans, picture me in my teaching clothes, with my school books still under my arm, dragging three large branches up the street for use in my coal-burning stove. Now picture the babushka, also lugging branches, yelling after me, "Put on a hat!" in Russian.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Livin La Zhazon Ukrianski!
There have been many paths diverged in many woods since I last wrote here. Most of these were not in my control, like my new town or school or workload. To catch you up to speed, I now live in a town called Tatarbunary, which is located about 100 km south of Odessa, one of the more famous and beautiful cities in Ukraine. I work at a school known as a gymnasium, which means it focuses on languages. My students start studying English in the 2nd grade, and by the 5th grade most have added French and German in addition to their Ukrainian and Russian classes. These kids know their languages! I’m teaching 5-6th and 8-11th grades, which is about 21 lessons a week.
This workload is just a bit heavy at the moment, since I work with six different teachers and five different textbooks. Every teacher expects something different from me, and as we are still learning how to communicate with each other, it can be very challenging to understand their expectations. But the kids are really cute, and for the most part they are very keen students. They are THRILLED to have a “real” American wandering their halls, and they visibly light up when I walk into their classrooms. That was actually something I had to “get over;” my celebrity status was overwhelming at first. They’ve since calmed down (I think the first homework assignment had a bit to do with that!).
Another path my life has taken is my living arrangements. I live in a little two-bedroom house that can only be described as paradoxical. My only plumbing is my kitchen sink: I bathe in a bucket with water I heat on the stove and use an oolitsa (“street”) toilet (yeah, it’s an outhouse) that’s at the other end of my great garden. For my heating, I have a petchka, which is a kind of furnace built into the wall between bedrooms. To get it warm, I first burn wood and then add coal, which heats a tile wall on either side and by this means, it warms the room. I cannot even begin to describe the challenges this task has presented! Conversely, I sit and chat on my cell phone and last week I had Internet installed. My country life and city life are learning to work with each other!
As far as my social life, I’ve been running all sorts of paths. There are a few volunteers nearby to me, and so I’ve seen them frequently. I even had them over to my new house last weekend! It was surprisingly good to have visitors. I hadn’t really identified with my house/living situation until I brought others into it. They even helped me organize my last few “spots” of “junk.” Now I’m home!
Since the snow melted, mud has bogged most of my running paths. I am training for a marathon I will run with other Volunteers in Prague in May, and have had plenty of slips and skids lately. One such slip caused me to kick out my knee too hard and I felt something go awry, which I ignored. I subsequently overdid the running (“What pain? I must keep to the training schedule!”) and now I’m bona fide injured. The cool thing is that I am really irritated that I’ve got to take it easy on the running! Without knowing it I have reclaimed what I had senior year of college and have longed for ever since: my I-live-to-run mojo. Woo hoo! What a surprising blessing!
Like I said, the course of my life has been largely out of my control. Until very recently, I was feeling very frustrated by my new working conditions, how difficult it is to live without basic modern conveniences and a general sense of feeling undervalued. That’s partly why I haven’t blogged yet—I knew I’d be too whiney. But I’m now realizing that I really just need to “get over it.” Of course it’s hard; it was always going to be hard. And really, when I objectively look at it, and pardon my French, living here is pretty badass. For all of Ukraine’s modernity as compared to other Peace Corps countries in Africa, for example, I’m actually having more of the “Peace Corps” experience living this way. And when would I have ever lived without a toilet? Or trash service? Or ever known first-hand the complexities of the lump of coal?
See, I realized that my frustrations were so wrapped up in what I didn’t have. The woods were full of ominous shadows and conniving tree roots and cleverly disguised traps filled with bats and stakes. But that’s because I had my eyes closed. I can choose to see this path any way I wish, and choose to make of it whatever I wish. And in the end, it isn’t about me at all, but rather the people I meet along the way. My path is certainly out of my control much of the time, but I must choose to see flowers and birds and cottages and grazing cows, because shadows or not, they’re there. After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and this life is certainly worth beholding!
This workload is just a bit heavy at the moment, since I work with six different teachers and five different textbooks. Every teacher expects something different from me, and as we are still learning how to communicate with each other, it can be very challenging to understand their expectations. But the kids are really cute, and for the most part they are very keen students. They are THRILLED to have a “real” American wandering their halls, and they visibly light up when I walk into their classrooms. That was actually something I had to “get over;” my celebrity status was overwhelming at first. They’ve since calmed down (I think the first homework assignment had a bit to do with that!).
Another path my life has taken is my living arrangements. I live in a little two-bedroom house that can only be described as paradoxical. My only plumbing is my kitchen sink: I bathe in a bucket with water I heat on the stove and use an oolitsa (“street”) toilet (yeah, it’s an outhouse) that’s at the other end of my great garden. For my heating, I have a petchka, which is a kind of furnace built into the wall between bedrooms. To get it warm, I first burn wood and then add coal, which heats a tile wall on either side and by this means, it warms the room. I cannot even begin to describe the challenges this task has presented! Conversely, I sit and chat on my cell phone and last week I had Internet installed. My country life and city life are learning to work with each other!
As far as my social life, I’ve been running all sorts of paths. There are a few volunteers nearby to me, and so I’ve seen them frequently. I even had them over to my new house last weekend! It was surprisingly good to have visitors. I hadn’t really identified with my house/living situation until I brought others into it. They even helped me organize my last few “spots” of “junk.” Now I’m home!
Since the snow melted, mud has bogged most of my running paths. I am training for a marathon I will run with other Volunteers in Prague in May, and have had plenty of slips and skids lately. One such slip caused me to kick out my knee too hard and I felt something go awry, which I ignored. I subsequently overdid the running (“What pain? I must keep to the training schedule!”) and now I’m bona fide injured. The cool thing is that I am really irritated that I’ve got to take it easy on the running! Without knowing it I have reclaimed what I had senior year of college and have longed for ever since: my I-live-to-run mojo. Woo hoo! What a surprising blessing!
Like I said, the course of my life has been largely out of my control. Until very recently, I was feeling very frustrated by my new working conditions, how difficult it is to live without basic modern conveniences and a general sense of feeling undervalued. That’s partly why I haven’t blogged yet—I knew I’d be too whiney. But I’m now realizing that I really just need to “get over it.” Of course it’s hard; it was always going to be hard. And really, when I objectively look at it, and pardon my French, living here is pretty badass. For all of Ukraine’s modernity as compared to other Peace Corps countries in Africa, for example, I’m actually having more of the “Peace Corps” experience living this way. And when would I have ever lived without a toilet? Or trash service? Or ever known first-hand the complexities of the lump of coal?
See, I realized that my frustrations were so wrapped up in what I didn’t have. The woods were full of ominous shadows and conniving tree roots and cleverly disguised traps filled with bats and stakes. But that’s because I had my eyes closed. I can choose to see this path any way I wish, and choose to make of it whatever I wish. And in the end, it isn’t about me at all, but rather the people I meet along the way. My path is certainly out of my control much of the time, but I must choose to see flowers and birds and cottages and grazing cows, because shadows or not, they’re there. After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and this life is certainly worth beholding!
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