Stage 1, Evacu-cation

"What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family"

-Mother Teresa

Have you ever experienced the feeling of unreality? Have you ever been walking around in the most familiar surroundings, or shooting the shit with the most familiar people when all of a sudden this wave of uneasiness and apprehension that none of it is real just crashes into you? Well, I have/am currently drowning in these waves. But it’s not a bad sort of drowning, at least, not all the time. I mean, right now my adorable little beagle has her front paws resting on my leg as I pet her head, a ritual we have gone through many times before but now there’s a feeling of a strange sort of nostalgia that I’ve been missing since I’ve been in Ukraine, mixed with regret. I’m not supposed to be here right now, yet here I am. Surrounded by the people I love and have been missing dearly for the past 6 months and yet I can’t help but feel guilty and out of place. It’s not that I don’t love and appreciate being home and with my family and my loving, amazing, fantastically supportive boyfriend (gods know I missed him SO MUCH), and I wouldn’t trade the world for the time I get to spend with them, the time I get to hug them and talk with them and share memories with them. It’s just…well...

Let’s go back about a week when I was sitting comfortably in my two room, five bed apartment in Bohuslav, writing lesson plans for the next two days while simultaneously studying Ukrainian for my tutoring session, while also fighting off a cold that was ruthlessly trying to take over. I really was comfortable. My lessons were a success and I was beginning to devise plans for reaching out to a secondary school to start an English club. I was even enjoying going to a fitness class that idolized Cindy Crawford workout videos.

I wasn’t blind or deaf though and wasn’t ignoring the atrocities happening just two hours away from my comfortable town of 16,000.

When the violence broke out in Kyiv I got worried. I got sick. I got disappointed. I got scared. Not scared for my life, no. I didn’t think that any violence would come to my town (and it still hasn’t). I was scared for the future. Was the country about to burst into civil war? What was this Yanu guy thinking (the President)? I monitored the situation the best I could and as the numbers dead started to rise it only lowered my spirits more. The cold I was fighting off grabbed hold in my devastated state and I canceled my Ukrainian tutoring session.

Peace Corps meanwhile, after a week of having lowered us to security stage 1 (see blog post: http://weloveme07.blogspot.com/2014/02/standfast-and-stock-up-on-wine.html for explanations of said stages), automatically put us back on to stage 2 when the violence erupted. My thought process was such: Alright, I just got my bags unpacked from the last security downgrade and I don’t really want to pack them again only to have to unpack in a couple days. However, things are getting more serious than before and I would hate to be that volunteer who consolidates with nothing but the clothes on her back because she was too lazy to pack her emergency bag.

So I packed. I packed EVERYTHING. My entire apartment into two suitcases, plus my emergency bag equipped with everything from shampoo to plates and utensils. Good thing too.

This was Thursday. That evening my counterpart called me and requested that I come and stay the night at her house. She heard that titushki (hired thugs) were in the surrounding villages and were burning down schools as they made their way to Kyiv (which might have them pass through Bohuslav--thank god they didn't. Presumably they were stopped by one of the many road blocks). My counterpart, a woman who whenever I asked her about her feelings on the whole situation would give me the calmest, most matter of fact answer that Bohuslav was safe and we don’t need to worry. Well, that night she was a little worried, which made me a little worried. So I took up my emergency bag and trucked over to her house for the night. We had a lovely meal of homemade soup and pasta. Then she showed me the presentation she was working on about Taras Shevchanko (a famous Ukrainian poet and human rights activist) for the national holiday in his honor. I gave her some power point advice, we laughed at T. Shev’s moustache, and we just had a real relaxing night.

I couldn’t go to sleep though. Not only because I couldn’t breathe out of my left nostril and my eyes were a watery, itchy mess from the best of a cat she owns. I was still worried about what the future held. So I checked my email after about an hour of tossing and turning (and nose blowing) and sure enough, there was the consolidation notice (or stage 3 of security statuses).

My regional manager (a wonderful Ukrainian woman who was on the phone the entire 5 hour car ride to our consolidation point) called me the next morning and said that she was coming to get me in a Peace Corps van later that afternoon to take me to the consolidation point down near the Moldovan boarder. But rest assured though, we were only consolidating for a few days. She had picked up the other volunteer who lived in Kyivska Oblast (we were the only 2 volunteers in that oblast) who I hadn’t met yet (there was a planned “meet your neighbor” event that was coming up where we would have met along with all the other volunteers in region 3 but, you know, circumstances). As we drove out of my town, we passed the administration building were, low and behold, a PEACEFUL, mind you, peaceful, protest was taking place. I had heard rumors of protests happening in my town but that was the first time I actually saw it. On the way out of Bohuslav we passed on of the many road blocks that I had been hearing about. This road block (like many I have heard about) was set up by protesters to make sure that those hired thugs didn't make it to the capitol. Thank god we didn't look like hired thugs. 

We picked up one more volunteer on the way and as we were finally embarking on the last 2 hours to our 

hotel we got the email to evacuate.

To be continued…    

Standfast and stock up on wine!

There are five stages of emergency Peace Corps has in place to keep its volunteers safe. This week we (all us volunteers in Ukraine) are celebrating together (or, you know, commiserating together) one whole week of being on stage two of the emergency stages, otherwise known as "standfast". Simply put, this means that we are not allowed to leave our communities under any circumstances (although how they'll know if you take a little jaunt to the next town over for a couple hours to buy some warmer clothes is something we won't discuss here). This is largely to keep track of all of us and make sure that we don't end up somewheres we're not suppose to end up. It also means that we're to prepare a bag with a lengthy list of items, tidy our apartment, and pack the rest of our stuffs away in suitcases with a list of what stays and what goes in order so that the things we want can be orderly shipped off to the states if need be.

I, and as i'm sure all of my other follow volunteers have done, started with a neat organized bag with neat organized piles of "other stuff" and "stuff to be sent to me" all arranged neatly around my apartment. However, as the days have waned by and no word of "consolidation" (get moving to a pre-determined destination as quick as possible to await orders) these piles have become less organized and my bag increasingly less packed. This situation in this country is serious but it's entirely difficult to gauge how exactly serious it is in regards to whether or not I'll be hoofing it to my consolidation point because the situation is, for lack of a more elegant explanation, complicated. So, although I still keep updated with news posts, I've become less apprehensive about everything and decided to pay more attention to what's going on in my community. I noticed that my neighbor hung up Spiderman sheets to dry (or rather, freeze), kudos to the little boy that must be living up there. Overall my community is rather quiet about the whole thing (as far as I can tell anyways, which isn't much to go on seeing as I can't hardly understand what people are talking about in the first place but there haven't been any demonstrations which I take, not as a sign of the people in my town not wanting to part-take in this ordeal, but rather as a sign that, given our relative closeness to Kyiv, they have all gone to Maidan to demonstrate there). 

I can't exactly say that I feel our security level will go down to 1 anytime soon as every day I look at the news I get mixed feelings as to what's going to happen. Peace Corps did add a half stage to their security levels though, one that I find particularly amusing (although completely serious, this is a serious matter of security). They call it "shelter in place" which was outlined as "under no circumstances must you leave your apartment". So...pretty much relive my entire winter vacation. So, I've stocked up on wine (and food...of course) and await further instructions. What would push PC to put us into the next stages of emergency you might ask? Here are a few reasons:

State of emergency

"Marital" law (I know, I know. I couldn't stop laughing either, but it's a direct quote from the email. It's serious business though, marital law. Not to be taken lightly).

Loss of all communication (internet and cell phones).

I'm not entirely sure what would push us from stage 2.5 to stage 3 but regardless i'm more than prepared to be a hermit and i'm likewise ready to take off at the first command. 

But I really can't say what's going to happen. 

In other news, here's some highlights from my January! 

• I went to church for xmas mass and didn't burst into flames! Even got gifted with a Russian-English bible! Unfortunately it was a Baptist church and not the Orthodox church I thought I was being invited to...oh well. 
• Santa and his merry gang of adults visited me on xmas eve but I didn't donate to charity but instead played the "i'm a foreigner card and don't know what's going on" because i'm a terrible person.
• I've started teaching and it's gone swell. Out of the eight classes I teach, there is only one i'm absolutely positive  that if I ever find myself alone with them without supervision from their Ukrainian teacher, they will commit mutiny and throw me out the window. 
• I started going to a fitness class put on at my college by the PE teacher. Said teacher always finds time to speak with me which is nice; however, i've been going to her class for two weeks now, which is two weeks of conversation, and she only just recently realized that I don't understand/speak Russian. Well, I could have told her that right off the bat only, I didn't understand what she was saying or what I should say most of the time so I agreed to a lot of things i'm sure i'm going to regret. Needless to say, she's switched to Ukrainian and i've understood about 35% of our conversations together recently and I may or may not be giving a presentation in English about how to play American Football. 
• Side note: can someone tell ME how to play American Football?
• I've also inspired my counterpart to come to said fitness classes with me. Win! 
• Said fitness classes involve watching Cindy Crawford workout videos. Win? 
• It's cold. Colder than I have ever experienced and I don't like it. My clothes have frozen on the line, my potatoes have frozen on the porch because I didn't have the hindsight to realize that, yes, potatoes can freeze. My mop froze to the porch. Everything is freezing and the warmest place in my apartment is my bathroom. Needless to say, I totally ate my dinner in the bathroom last night. 
• I have finished more books than I have finished in years due to not being in school, and it feels great!
• Side note: it's possible that I might be reading too many books and should probably find some other useful activity for me to do. Like, IDK, community service or something...humph. 
• I have some pretty awesome Ukrainian friends who bring me water from their parent's well because the well on campus is frozen. :D 
• The 83 year old lady next door brought me ice cream in a plastic grocery bag. No, I mean like, ice cream in the bag with no other container. Just in the plastic bag. It was pretty tasty. 
• I got sick, but i'm good now. 

Pictures!

Me and Nadia after our church adventure on orthodox xmas

Nadia's family

It's cold, level super bundle outside.

-Jamie

     

Year of the Horse at last!

Happy New Year everyone!

You'll be excited to know that I brought in the New Years with a classic Doctor Who Marathon and a skype date with my wonderful boyfriend, Mike. I also had a fantastic view from my window of fireworks being let off not far from my apartment :D

Here's a peek of my 2014 so far~

Natasha (blonde) and Ludmyla. They invited me over for a New Years celebration

New Years present I got from Natasha and Ludmyla. Closest I'll ever get to the real thing haha

I found some buddies in the park 

He's like Yogi

The obligatory Lenin statue in the center of town with the obligatory playground around it
(Kozelets had a set up similar to this therefore i'm assuming all town do)

A memorial of some sort

A cute little neighborhood I stumbled upon

These guys! They live right outside my apartment and pull my little heart strings
I love them 

The river splitting town

Turtle dude hanging out

#Ukraine

I broke down and got myself a new coat. Natasha and Ludmyla helped me pick it out :D

This jacket had me at thumb holes

Funny story about my new jacket. I walked around and around the bazaar looking at different jackets trying to get a handle on the prices people were asking. For a good, warm winter coat it seemed like 600 was the cheapest (around $70). I tried some on, I didn't like the fit of most of them (the style here is having your coat hang down to your knees) and my football shoulders were limiting my selection considerably. For some reason pastel is in this season and thus, it just seemed like I wasn't going to go home with a new jacket. Until we (myself, Natasha, and Ludmyla) stopped at a shop that was manned by one of Ludmyla's former students (this lady practically knows everyone in town either because they were a former student/are a current student or they are parents of former students/current students--one time I was walking with Ludmyla and this man jumped out from behind his stall and gave Ludmyla 200 UAH. Why? For some reason or another but it was totally random to witness haha). I tried on two of her coats (the only two that didn't hang down past my knees and were a reasonable color) and I actually liked both of them but ended up getting the one pictured. She was asking 400 for it (around $50), which seemed completely reasonable to me as all the other stalls were asking for more for the same product. I handed her a 500 bill and to my utter confusion she first handed me a 20, and then a 100. Noticing everyone was laughing except me, Ludmyla told me the clerk said the extra 20 was because I convinced her to make it cheaper for myself (which I totally didn't because I'm terrible at haggling and try to avoid it as much as possible). So I ended up getting the jacket for 380 ($45) and I now know that if I ever want to buy something that I need to bring Ludmyla with me to get discounts.  

Topic change!

As I'm sure everyone else does, I have all my pictures organized into files on my computer. However, I have mine all organized by the years I took them in (and then from there they are broken down into subcategories of where they were taken). As I was adding a new file for 2014, I noticed that I have exactly 1 decade worth of pictures on my computer! Starting in 2004 when I got my first digital camera to now! I'm putting together a little collage to sort of celebrate these 10 years of picture taking (however, I'm more than certain most the pictures from the years 2004-2007 are Myspace selfies).

Oh! Oh! I also found someone to fix my hipster glasses for cheap! I can come out of hiding as Jamie and finally reveal myself as Hipster Jamie, the most un-hipster-y person except for her glasses cuz she's a poser, in town! Exciting!

-Jamie

Merry Christmas from Ukraine

Even though Christmas isn't technically until January 7th here in Ukraine (according to the Orthodox calendar), my colleagues went out of their way today to make sure I had a little Christmas celebration today. It was wonderful:

The present I got from my friend Nadia
and my one lonely ornament :3

The group

I forget what the drink in the bottle is called but
it's a traditional xmas drink that's made from different fruits
and that i'm sure is supposed to have alcohol in it but
Lumyla kept is dry for school purposes :)

I had a lovely day with my friend Nadia on xmas eve. We made pizza! :)

It was delicious

I also went to a concert that was put on by one of the music students at my college. It was great and I really liked the bar that it was held in. Although, I did feel a tad bit awkward going to a place like this with my counterpart and the vice director of the school buuuuut, we only drank tea and listened to the music so it was alright haha.

 Merry Christmas to you all and I hope you have a wonderful day with your friends and family. I know I did :3

The life of a newly sworn in Peace Corps Volunteer

Many people (including myself) envision Peace Corps volunteers saving the world one village at a time, with their summer camps, community projects, youth projects, various seminars on how to do this or that or how to improve one such thing, writing grants to build this or install that. All in all, the life of a Peace Corps volunteer equals out to be busy all the time. So what am I up to at present?

Nothing. Not unless you count all those episodes of classic Doctor Who, Boardwalk Empire, and the Walking Dead I've finished watching. By those standards I've been up to a lot.

Now now, it's not because I'm slacking or my community isn't interested in doing anything. No, it's because I've arrived at my site at the end of the semester, kids are going home, teachers are scrambling to get their grades in the register, people are shopping for the holidays and frankly, there just isn't any time to even consider a project at the current. Everyday I am told to come to my college for one thing or another that doesn't usually take more than an hour and then my counter point gives me this look that's a cross between concerned mother and a person who is showing pity towards a child who has no toys to play with and says "go have a rest now". So I go back to my comfortable (and extremely awesome and practically better than any apartment I've have in the US) and watch my TV shows, do my Insanity work out (that shit is INTENSE) and patiently plot my schemes for after the holidays end. 

Seriously though, my apartment has more room than I know that to do with (as well as more beds than I know what to do with--you read that right. I have about 5 beds in my apartment and I only have theories as to why. So far though, I have only slept in one). The first night I was here, unpacking all my stuff, I got a little overwhelmed. There were so many cupboards and closets and places to put all the things and I just don't have enough things to put in them! I got it sorted out though, no worries ;) 

Not that I have been completely slacking. No, no. My counterpart (the teacher who is my official contact person for everything I need and who I will be working with the most) is a real "get goer", much like myself and we have sat down and gone over project ideas that i'm interested in and we discussed what she's interested in, which turns out that she wants me to jump right on HIV/AIDS projects with her students ASAP after the holidays (time to start studying and applying for shit) and tomorrow we are going to the vice director to show her the list that I so dutifully wrote out with notes and action plans on all the projects that I am interested in doing. So I have been doing stuff, and it's rather exciting stuff to. I do love planning. 

Oh, right, a little bit about my site! Well, I live in a town named Bohuslav that is home to about 16,000 people. I live right on campus in an apartment building that houses mostly teachers from the college but also some other working people and police officers. I live about a 10 minute walk from the center of town where they have just lighted up a giant New Years tree (they celebrate Orthodox Christmas here on January 7th, which puts News Years first, hence the "New Years" tree instead of a "Christmas" tree). There is an actual grocery store about a 15 minute walk away, but also a lot of little grocers around. My favorite is a little shop named "Mango" that sells fresh fruits and vegetables at prices comparable to the bazaar. I have also made friends with a shop owner across the street from my apartment and she finds it particularly amusing to listen to me stumble over Ukrainian as I try to buy chocolate from her. She totally thinks that I only eat chocolate, I'm sure of it. I only buy it because I've been invited over to people's houses and you can't go empty handed! Really, I'm not eating it all while watching Doctor Who in the dark alone. Really.

There is a river that splits the city (I forget what it's called but it's the same river that splits Kyiv so I should really know what it's called). Speaking of Kyiv, I am a 2 hour Marshrutka (bus--but not really. It's really just a van that someone put bus like seats into) ride away from the capitol which is radical dude. The bazaar is on the other side of the river and is a lot more crowded then what I am used to from being in sleepy little Kozelets. I had a thought to try and make friendly with some stall owners (because that's what's recommended so that people don't rip off the American with the "foreigner tax"), buuuuuut I don't see that happening because everyone was so busy running around everywhere that they just got frustrated at me when I tried to make idle conversation as they were getting my order. Oh well, maybe I'll have better luck next time. 

Bohuslav has a lot of little cafes, and shops and a church that I haven't visited yet and is just really cute. I like it. 

My college houses about 1,100 students. It is a Pedagogical College for the Humanities and has departments for music, physical education, economics, teaching English as a foreign language, art, primary school and pre-school education, social work, and I'm sure I'm missing some others but pretty much all these students are learning how to either teach their respected disciplines or work in them (such as the social work department). My teaching schedule has me working with the pre-school and primary school teachers, as well as the social workers and economists. 

There are 6 English teachers and I've had the pleasure of meeting them all. One of them will be leaving for Italy at the beginning of February to live with her husband (who's Italian) so I will miss her. She invited me over to her apartment and we chatted over delicious Ukrainian food and coffee and I met her mother who is a doctor and can speak a bit of English so our conversation was a mixture of Ukrainilish but it was nice. 

My counterpart has also had me over to her house for Ukrainian food (I finally had Vereneky--a sort of dumpling!). She has a daughter who is currently working as an intern at a hospital in Kyiv. She graduated from med school to be a doctor which is pretty cool because she's the same age as me. From what I have gathered of the education system here, students are able to either stick with a general education and graduate from a secondary school, or they can split off and go to a "college" or specialized school to start learning/training in a profession of their choosing at the age of 15, which puts them graduating medical school at 23 instead of 30 like some people in the States. I think I like the system here a little better. 

Pictures!

My Town

WWII monument in a park that's right outside my college

Student's dorm ( I don't know why the snow is colored)

Entrance to my college

"Bohuslav college for the Humanities"

Student's New Years tree

They decorated the school!

And the windows!

The English department:

My desk! I have a desk!

The lady in the gray shirt and dark short hair to the left of the picture is my counterpart Ludmyla. 

The sports students had a little festival last week that they invited me to! They gave out certificates to those students that did exceptionally well. Between every certificate presentation they had a performance by each of the sports clubs as well as some singers which I'm not sure has anything to do with sports but one of them sang the crap out of a Beyonce song. I'm beginning to think that all Ukrainians can sing because this isn't the first time that I've been to something official and there was seemingly random singing going on that was more than spectacular, if not out of place.

Sports celebration

The director of the college

soccer club

dance team (and I WILL find out where the Victoria's secret is...I will)

Cheer leaders

Wrestling 

singer

the group 

My apartment:

my xmas tree <3 td="">

my living room/workout room

couch that pulls out into a bed (bed number one that can sleep two)

my bedroom (the big bed is actually two single beds pushed together. The fourth bed is pushed up against the window)

my adorable tub!

my toilet closet

kitchen looking out to my enclosed balcony where I hang my clothes to dry

Kudos to anyone who can guess what I was watching :)

my entryway 

I heart my apartment!

Swearing in ceremony! That was exciting. We left Kozelets early in the morning and arrived in Kyiv around 10am. We had two days of PEPFAR (HIV/AIDS awareness) training as well as presentations from working partners with the Peace Corps. We were scheduled to go to the embassy on the last day to do the actual swearing in but due to the protests happening (and still happening) our country director decided to swear us in right then and there in the hotel. Surprise! He decided to do this in case we weren't able to make it to the embassy the next day but we were able to make it so we swore in twice. I was horribly disappointed that the embassy didn't have a Starbucks in it. I think all embassy workers would agree that Starbucks should be a must in all US embassies around the world. 

Training director, Irena Krupska 

Jake, busting out the Ukrainian national anthem like a badass

Singing/playing the American National Anthem

Out patient and god sent LCF's who we wouldn't have made it through training without

Natasha!

Second swearing in

Ludmyla and I

Surprise swearing in

Ludmyla, Doug (country director), me

Well, tonight I am going to a concert that one of the students is playing in. Tomorrow is Monday and thus will begin another week of trying to find stuff to keep me busy! ;) 

If any of you want my mailing address, just FB message me and I'll send it to you :) 

Oh, and it was mine and Mike's 6th month anniversary yesterday! Here's to surviving the rest of my service and a wonderful life together. Love you!

-Jamie