Dobre den, Mene zvati Jamie! Yak Vas Zvati?

Today was the big day. Today we all were ushered onto buses and hurried off to meet the families we will be living with for the next 2 months.

First though, this morning I went on a tour of the Soviet era nuke bunker in the basement of our hotel! It was kinda creepy in a weird sort of walk through history sense. There were a series of doors (the first two being curved so as to lessen the impact of a blast) that led to a main room that contained a ping pong table, a dart board, and some incredibly uncomfortable looking prison beds. There was also two toilets and a sink (all still functional) and ventilation shaft-things, air-conditioning that could either be hand cranked or turned on with a switch if there was still power. And of course a wireless radio and information on what to do if there is nuclear fall-out.  Our tour guide told us that bunkers like these are supposed to be inspected and kept up to date in case of any sort of disaster but of course, due to budget cuts, the one in the hotel was in rather poor condition.

you can't see very well but the door is curved. 

Everyone needs a stressed reliever when there's nuclear fall out!

am I right?

Here are the beds. And if you forgot your pillow, never fear!
That's what those extra boards are for :D

You know, it works at least...

The water cooler and the crawl space

The back exit that was filled with water
cuz it rained the other day which doesn't seem like this place
 would protect from radiation if it can't even protect from rain water...
Just saying.

command center

that says "air"

And if the power is out all you need is some man muscle and

you'll have air conditioning cranking out in no time!

After the tour we, once again, got talked at for numerous hours about safety (the safety coordinator is ex-soviet era police. Legit), signed some papers for registration and bank accounts, and went through a host family orientation!

Now, in my previous job I had sat through countless host family orientations for the short term exchange students that came to my university and they were all pretty boring and straight forward. I think my old colleagues could take a tip or two from how our Ukrainian LCF’s (I can’t remember the acronym but basically they are the ones who set up our host families, met them, did the house walk through, and they will also be our language and culture teachers/support link for these next few months).  They put together a 25 minute skit that covered everything we might encounter on our first day/night with our families. It was humorous, informative, and well done. They covered how to enter the house (no shoes!), what to expect at dinner (you won’t serve yourself and you’ll be offered alcohol of all sorts), privacy and personal space (pretty much you won’t have any and expect your stuff to be gone through and organized), bathroom etiquette (might only have half a bucket of water to wash with and then are expected to wipe the area clean when finished. And oh yeah, your host mother may or may not walk in on you w/o knocking to see if you need help washing your back), and clothing (what you choose to wear in the morning will never be acceptable, just leave it to your host family to dress you). The most important thing to remember is that host families do all of these things out of love and the constant need to have you fit in and feel like one of the family/community. They debriefed the skit with us and the most interesting aspect I found was the reason that our host family might go through our things is because they have this idea in their head that Americans are hopelessly unorganized and need all the help we can get. Also, because back in the Soviet suck era, personal space was unheard of due to crummy living conditions and small apartments so thus the non-comprehension of that. Apparently if you’re going to stand in line for something you better stand as physically close to the person in front of you (like boobs pressed against their back close), otherwise someone might mistake the gap you leave as you not actually standing in line and jump right in front of you. Awesome.

I don’t know my host family’s last name but my host mother’s name is Natasha. I also have a host brother who is in high school but I can’t remember his name at all. The father apparently died in a car crash some years ago. They are very nice and their house is a good sized house. I do have my own room and because my family has hosted 7 other Peace Corps volunteers they know exactly what to expect from me and how to treat me. That being said, food was not pushed on me, every time my host mom needed to get something out of my room (because it doubles as storage/ironing room) she asked politely (I learned the word for room very fast because of this. Kimnata). Although my host mom doesn’t speak English we had a pretty good conversation (I learned from her how her husband died, which I thought was pretty good –not her husband dying part but me understanding this situation). Her son does speak a little English and she was always calling for him to come and translate for us. I can’t wait for my language skills to get good enough that I can actually hold a semi-intelligent conversation.

Kozelets (the town I’m staying in) seems rather nice as well. There are 5 of us staying here and tomorrow we are meeting with our LCF to go get cell phones and do some other stuff. I’m going to look into making my internet situation a little better. According to my host brother, the previous volunteer had some sort of device that she plugged into her computer that gave her internet magically? I wish I had internet to look up this magical device but alas…I’ll be able to use my host brother’s computer when I ask. However I feel bad every time I do because it’s in his room and also his room smells like teenage boy. Awkward.

figure something out.

In the meantime, dopobachenya! I’m off to study then sleep!

-Jamie