Wet Hot Ukrainian Summer

"Well guys, we've made it to the end of the summer in one piece, except for a few campers who are lepers." 

It was definitely a wet, hot, and American summer in Ukraine this year. Logan and I worked at two summer camps through the month of June teaching English. I can't say for sure if all the children made it through unscathed, but I can assure you that they are all alive. 

Put all the good things about Ukraine (and the former Soviet Union) into a summer camp and you get Severyanin summer camp, run by Vladimir Nikolaivich who sometimes wears a jester hat with a serious face. Order, organization, performances, beautiful (beautiful) camp counselors, efficiency achieved! It's so magical that it's almost alarming. Sometimes, at the nightly disco, I'd watch all of the children follow their elders' dance moves perfectly until everyone was moving in the same way. A little bell would go off in my mind, like a bell ringing from the past. Except it wasn't just a regular bell, but the bell on top of a shop door opening and closing as people standing in line enter and exit with a loaf of bread. The flashing lights and music drum-and-base kicked me out of my trance until I was back in 2013--after the fall and just before bedtime.

Put all the not so great things about Ukraine (and the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union) into a summer camp and you get the second camp we worked at this summer. Disorganization, no counselors, no clear authority figures, no efficiency, no тихий час (quiet time), and wild children running around screaming and trying to one-up each other. We were a symbol of collapse, of havoc, of being left alone to fend for ourselves. Whatever we built got destroyed, literally. Even the giant spiders that built their webs on the gazebos at dusk were victims to the destruction. (Side note: a girl captured one of the spiders that captivated Logan for thirty minutes each night so she could hide it in another girl's bed). Whenever we made any progress, we watched it disappear in the form of rocks being hurled from one screaming child to another. BUT, we had each other--Logan and Cynden were there and I'm grateful for that! Even if it meant bonding over the fact that we all had food poisoning together.

I should say that I wrote these thoughts in the middle of my days at this camp when I was feeling a little low and disappointed. It wasn't all terrible. We met some good people, I taught some kids how to play poker, and we learned a lot about each other. Sometimes, the worst experiences end of being the best (and the funniest). All the other experiences stand in comparison and give us the perspective we need to take them with us forever.

Below are some photos of our Wet Hot Ukrainian Summer.

After summer camps, we adventured to Budapest, Prague, and Vienna so stay with me if you want to read about palaces, bubblebutts, cathedrals, sunsets, and the best self-created two-bar pub crawl.

From  the Number One Summer Camp

Logan teaching the campers how to play American Football!

Drawing the play on his belly

I love banquets!

Aftermath of the salt/clay/garbage pit

The mountain man guide that "led" us into the mountains and left us to forage

Carpathian Cyndle

Christmas in July Santa Drawing Game

We survived!

Poker

Day trippin' in Romania

Walking across the border

Last Last Bell

We celebrated the last bell on Friday, 24 May. I realized it was my last last bell in Ukraine and so I took a lot of photos, to document and to remind me later. Every great moment felt like saying goodbye, even though we still have seven months left. However, time does not pass in a normal way when you are a Peace Corps Volunteer. I know that seven months will transform into 7 days, into 7 seconds before take off back to America. I've got to stock up on my memory capital. Here's some I'd like to share with you:

Old School Uniforms and Dance

This metaphor is very popular in Ukraine

Setting up the table for eating, drinking, and drinking.

Back at the Liman, smell of fish and salt

Ladies of the Liman 

Three small swallows and a giant falling

We are the tide coming in 

Pioneer Boy lost his hand in battle

Games

Choreography

Tra la la-ing in the forest

My Manfairy

Congratulations 11th formers on graduating!
Congratulations School 16 for finishing a wonderful year!

April and May Holidays

Look who has come crawling back, out of the dust which lies untouched on the top of all my shkoffs because April was poetry month. Ok fine, that dust has been untouched since forever because I hate dusting, but I did spend an entire month writing poems and stories and one of them is going to be published in the postcard prose section of The Literary Bohemian in June!

Other than writing, I have been waking up to blue skies. It has not rained in weeks and it is sunny every day. You'd think that every day would just melt into the next, but going to a Ukrainian wedding, planning a teacher seminar, showing up to a non-existent parade on May Day, experiencing Orthodox Easter, and seeing Stalin's flag waving on Victory Day have broken the days up quite nicely.

Ukrainian Wedding: Lena and Sasha, 2013!
We went to our friend Lena's parent's apartment to witness the fun and games before the official wedding ceremony. Logan and I stood outside the apartment building where family members and friends were gathered. Sasha arrived and was immediately asked questions in order to be allowed to pass through. We guessed he answered right when he stepped into the building and started up the stairs. We were really confused as the guests trailed behind him, making their way up the stairs too, so we followed them until we made it to the fourth or fifth floor. There, Lena was held captive until the captors were convinced that Sasha was telling the truth as he confessed his undying love to his wife to be, "я люблю тебя!" The ceremony was short and sweet and Logan and I were the only ones who did not bury Lena with flowers. (Why do we always forget the importance of flowers in Ukraine?!) The reception was held at a Crimean restaurant and it was lovely. It was similar to an American wedding reception, but with more games including one where a man had to be wrapped like a baby in a diaper. Sorry for the blurry photos; I was basically dancing the whole night and my camera just can't hand my moves!

Teacher Training Seminar
I received a SPA grant to help promote Leadership and Volunteerism in Ukraine and we had our first seminar this April. My counterpart was ill so a colleague stepped in to help. The seminar was very active, which was perfect, although I wished I could have had a little more time to do a recap at the end. I want to thank the Peace Corps Volunteers that helped me create a living library about Volunteerism at this seminar (Thank you Joey, Rachel, Cynden, and Logan!).

May Day Mayhem
We (Logan, Joey, Cynden, Kristen, Sarah, and I) went to the square in the morning and waited for a parade that never came. We think it was because the mayor is in jail and the intermim mayor has gotten too wrapped up in mayhem to remember to organize a parade to celebrate Melitopol's workers. When we saw no balloons or flags, we decided to walk to Gorkova Park and get some shashlik. After the men left for their camping trip in Crimea, the ladies got together and had a feast with cookies, fruit, champagne, and the like until there were just two of us left. The day was young so Cynden and I called a cab and visited our friends in Krasnaya Gora. I'll let the pictures finish this story.

Ukrainian Easter (Paska)

Orthodox Easter was celebrated on 5 May this year. I went to my counterpart's house and baked some paska (a lot of paska) and the next morning we went to the church to "bless" eggs and bread. We stood outside the church at seven, waiting for the gates to open so we could be pushed in like cattle and find a place to stand in the churchyard. People laid out bottles of wine, opened bags of cheese, uncovered their paska, and the priest came around and sprayed us with water. It was actually really funny. Everyone was laughing, dripping wet,  and wiping water away from their eyes, except Logan who used me, Olya, and her daughter as a shield. 

Victory Day, 9 May

There was no parade for Victory day, either, but there was a ceremony in the center of town. It was a blast from the Soviet past and I loved it. The Ukrainian national anthem, the speeches made by Melitpol's oldest to youngest, the flag of Stalin blowing in the wind, the triumphant singing, the marching, the letting go of balloons, the watching them fly away. A man passed out in the crowd and a woman took photos of him being carried away on a stretcher to an old ambulance that looked like a drawing a little kid made sixty eight years ago.

Oh, and then there was this gem:

Look closely at the family in the background

Unforgettable: That's Where We Are

My seventh form students congratulated me on Women's Day on the 8th of March. They hovered over my desk and asked me, "What presents did you get?" I pulled about six chocolate bars out of a bag along with a dragonfly magnet, a dish towel, a princess eraser, a small bottle of perfume, a card shaped like the number 8, and a Valentine's Day mug (An afterthought, perhaps? The graphics on the cup included little lips and the quote: "I want you I love you I want you!"). I gave all the teachers that I work with a chocolate bar and a personalized haiku and after school, we went to the cafe and got some snacks, drank some conyak, and talked in good Russian, bad Russian, and English. You can guess who spoke what. 

Later that evening, Cynden, Logan, and I went to a club in Melitopol. It was our first club experience in Ukraine.  It was also one of the first times I have been invited to something that started after 10pm since college, maybe. The woman at the door asked us why we were talking so much and collected our left hands to give us bracelets. I felt like I was at a NYC venue with a bitchy ticket lady and I loved it. When we opened the door to the main dance hall, I was transported to the eighties where they somehow figured out a way to play music from the future. Fog filled the dance floor, surrounding only itself since no one was dancing. We screamed over the music and watched people come into the low lit red and blue neon room with silver accents. We drank some conyak and cherry juice to get the true 1980s Robitussinesque buzz. At some point after midnight, the club host wished all the women a "Happy Women's Day" and proceeded to play a really long rock ballad on his electric guitar.

Dancing was really fun. I am embarrassed to admit that I definitely tried to shuffle on the dance floor, which was surrounded by mirrors, so no one could hide from whatever nonsense was going on. The strangest thing of all was not the stripper poles or even the empty lady cage floating above the bar, but the fact that when I looked around at everyone dancing, I saw women just staring at themselves in the mirror, wiggling not for others or with men, but for themselves. It was definitely an unforgettable experience! 

It's kind of awesome to be able to say that so many unforgettable things have happened and will continue to happen to us here in Ukraine. We are lucky to live in new place, to meet new people, to experience life in a foreign country, to witness and understand the similarities and (sometimes strange) differences in our cultures. A friend of mine put into words what I have been thinking a lot about recently--because we live here in Ukraine as Peace Corps volunteers, we will forever be invested in what happens to this country. It's true. By being here, we care so much more now about this part of the world. Maybe we don't always agree with or understand everything that goes on--like the mirror dancers or the Russian that's being spoken to us--but we will carry it with ourselves forever.

Photos taken by Miss Cynden:

waiting for the signal to go dance

Ladies!

blue, red, black

Where am I?

Sasha is wise!

Speak no evil

Valera, Valera

Why!?

"Welcome to the future... 

...where the blue lights are endless"

Men's Day--23 February 2013

On the last week of February, the sixth form girls stayed late at school to prepare prizes, surprises, and to make posters for their fellow male students. All this preparation was for Men's Day (День Мужчин) or, The Defender of the Fatherland Day (День защитника Отечества). This holiday used to honor soldiers (in the Red Army) until it was extended to all men after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

It was adorable. These girls were working so hard with their class teacher, Lena, and they were diligently painting an airplane red on the congratulatory men's day poster. I asked Lena, "Do the boys work so hard to prepare for women's day?" and she replied, "Well, their mothers do!"  

Men's Day was over a week ago, but it's still Ukraining men in my mind. Maybe it's because I am "женщина--друг человека" оr man's best friend, which was written on a handmade medal that was given to me by my friend Vitali on Men's day. Logan's medal read "Миру мир--студентам BEER" Which is something like, for peace on earth--be a student of beer. We all went to Vitali's house in the Red Mountain region of Melitopol to "congratulate our men" and celebrate. There were small competitions which Logan and Jon participated in (the two American men of the bunch). First, they had to strip down to their boxers and wrap themselves in a blanket before the fire of a match went out. Then, they had to put their clothes back on before the match was spent again. At some point, there was a pushup competition. Don't worry, I used up all the memory I needed with my camera, which is safely stored, never to be released. You'll just have to believe me or live in doubt until I one day have enough courage to leak this sensational video footage.

On this night, the women sat inside, chatted, sipped, braided hair (ingredients for a фотосессиa). The men stood outside by the fire drinking conyac and making shashlik as their jackets breathed in the smoke. It was because of these jackets, the following day, that we became woozy, smelling the fire and  remembering how much we consumed the night before. We survived and are now gearing up for the eighth of March which is Women's Day. It may just be the biggest holiday in Ukraine and I think it's awesome (and sad that I had never really heard of this international holiday until I came to Ukraine). After women's day, and rightfully so, we will celebrate Maslenitsa (Ма́сленицa) which is literally a week of eating pancakes, shaped like the sun. More on that, later.

Where did January Go? Где Января?

Well, I'll tell you. Но, я вам скажу!

January went whizzing past the New Year, which was spent with our Ukrainian friends. We danced, we sang, we drank champagne and homemade conyak, shashlik (bbq) was literally man-made while the ladies prepared a variety of salads, including Ukraine's national Olivie (салат оливье). We celebrated at 10 for Russia, and then at 12 for us, while we lit sparklers and ran into the night to see fireworks in the distance.

Then, January jumped over a good friend's birthday party and into a freezing lake the next day where we "washed away our sins" (or maybe just our fears) for Jesus' baptism, or Кришение (video to come).

January carried us to Kiev on a hot and sleepless twelve-hour train after which it lifted us away to a small hotel in Chernigov where we remembered that we studied Russian for three months before shamefully forgetting to study for 12 subsequent months. But January, my speedy savior, thank you for giving me new motivation to learn Russian.

That whole ordeal, obviously, made January take a quick marshrutka ride to our host family, who met us with open arms, wine, vodka, games, laughter, and delicious food.

January, you conquered yourself and faded into February, but I won't forget you yet.

Photos taken by Nastya and Sasha Telikova

С Рождеством! (Merry Christmas!)

Today I squished and squashed through the snow with students on the way to the last week before winter break! The class schedules for the week have adopted the very exciting mayhem timetable which includes no kids showing up to classes and many kids running around the halls and into the gym or auditorium to prepare for the impending Christmas spectaculars. For the past couple of weeks, I've been teaching my students about how Christmas is celebrated in America, how different cultures all over the world celebrate New Years, and we've played lots of Christmas games. Every time I show my Christmas powerpoint and I get to the final slide (see photo below), I get a little teary eyed reflecting on so many holiday memories with my family and friends.

This past weekend, a few Peace Corps friends came to our apartment to celebrate the holidays (and the continuation of our existence on Earth)! We sang good time favorites like The Christmas Song, Silent Night (in the dark), and a modern rendition of The 12 Days of Christmas, Ukrainian style (sort of).

Speaking of songs, today, my sixth form students agreed to sing (you) a song! This is from us in Ukraine to all my family and friends this holiday season! Merry Christmas!!!