Bomb your hood?

Fav Ukrainian graffiti

I'm sitting in the 2B form, while the 6 & 7 year olds write down transcripts for everyday life vocabulary, like "to clean teeth" aka to brush one's teeth. This is always an internal struggle for me: do I point out the mistakes in the book and try to correct them, do I force every one to only speak American English to me (none of this 'I have got a pencil' shit, it's "I have a pencil"!!), or do I let go and just be thankful they're learning English words, no matter if they're not used exactly right. For now, I'm lying low. We were told to adjust for a full 6 months before we try and revolutionize anything. Anyway, my favorite raspy voiced student, Serioja, is squirming in his suit. Nearly everyday he wears that suit and it's as natural on him as it was on Al Capone. I can perfectly picture him 40 years down the road,telling dirty jokes while downing shots of vodka with his droogs. Usually, he finds much more interest in throwing his pens onto the floor and hiding under his desk than focusing on English, but today he's surprisingly attentive. He's been put in the 'lost cause' category, as something to be survived rather than developed. As an American, it seems to go against everything I'm used to. We're all about the lost causes, about involving everyone and discovering everyone's "hidden potential". So I love trying to engage him before/during class. The only direct response I've ever gotten from him is "Я не знаю английский язык!" aka "I don't know English!".  Up, I spoke too soon, he's chewing on pens. I'm always heartbroken when he's not in class.

scorched-pig policy. beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Stunning picture Kristen (my PC neighb) took of a burst water tank in our village

When I was 4 years old, I remember sitting up in my brothers' room during nap time and I took down from the shelf our picture bible. A picture bible is basically the kid friendly stories from the bible in comic book form. Anyway, the book was still about as big as a regular bible and got used just as much in our household…So during this nap time, I decided I was going to accomplish a great feat: read the entire bible in one sitting. I figured it had never been done. Page after page I turned, fastidiously, glancing at maybe one Jesus figure or identifying a fish, until I had made it. All the way to the end! No snack breaks! For a good year or so I completely believed that I had read the bible. I spent that year pretty damn proud of myself, and then I learned how to actually read. I realized my folly but I haven't forgotten that feeling of accomplishment. Right now I'm "reading" Anna Karenina in Russian. This means that I read a paragraph or two at a time, identifying a few words I recognize, and then looking up a word or two.  I'm on page 3. I have that exact same sense of accomplishment about every paragraph achievement. I know in a year or 2, when I can actually fluently-ish read Russian, I'll look back and shake my head and say, oh wasn't that cute, she thought she was parsing a Russian novel. But for now, I'm still beaming and wanting to shout at everyone "LOOK WHAT I CAN DO!" while awkwardly jumping in a half circle.

First borsht-making experience

So, BTW, what do I do? Right now, I teach, occasionally, I observe, I lesson plan. Our school has 3.5 English teachers (I'm the .5). I usually have 4-5 classes per day and I have two English clubs per week on top of that. Soon I'll be adding more development-ish projects to the mix. The English clubs are where I get full control over the content and methodology, which is a nice breath of fresh air for me. Our school has never had an English club before but I think I'm slowly building capacity for one. On Tuesday I had a record breaking 9 students show up. Usually I have a whole presentation/activities prepared on a specific topic (NYE, birthday parties, etc.) but on Tues we let our hair down and played kings (minus the beer in the middle). Kings actually makes for a great language learning tool. Nine nine bust a rhyme? Finish the sentence? Categories? Thumb Master? We were killing it. I love to see my old life and new life come together in such a productive way.

how many blurry homeless cats can you see?

Um, here's some pictures from the Swearing In Ceremony that was held in...December. This does not reflect the event's significance on my life. It only reflects my shirking from regular communication.

The U.S. Embassy compound in Kiev.

magical snow forest

Our cluster + the best TCF in the world. And pant suit power

My beautiful counterpart, Tatyana!

I had to drag Tatyana to stand up with me. There might have been a scuffle.

Promising to defend the constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic (looking at you, lucine)

Mr.  Big Wigs.

Dougie Fresh (PC Ukraine director) giving his speech

U.S. Ambassador

The Mayfields!

Cody giving his русский speech

My Carlotchka, who recently told me there's a good chance she's developed diabetes due to her ravenous cookie intake. You and me both, Carlotchka

Ah...awkward moments with 1/3 of Peter, Paul and Mary. Perfect way to wrap up the ceremony.

Booky update: finished Sense and Sensibility and fell madly in love with Miss Austen. MADLY! 3.75 stars. But I needed a break from all of the 'will he or won't he' drama so I turned to Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq for my next romp. I'm about 40% through and sometimes I need a punching bag with Wolfowitz's face on it. Seeing as how I just added over 130 books to my kindle, courtesy of Kristen's hard drive, I'm a little (lottle) in book-nerd organizing heaven right now. I'm shocked I'm able to get any lesson planning done.

Next post I promise to include pictures of my new home. And I promise to post again before I move out of this home.

Jackpot

About 15 years ago my fam and I lived in Alton, IL. One night my mom, on a whim, brought home our first ever lottery ticket. During dinner we went around the table and Sean, Brendan, me, mom and dad described what we would buy if we won. The only two things I said I wanted were bell bottom jeans and a lava lamp (went through my hippie stage around 11 years old). As a family we all watched the winning numbers being pulled and I was legitimately surprised and hurt we didn't win. I wanted that lava lamp so badly I couldn't imagine that the cosmos would see anybody else deserving of that money. Fast forward 15 years and what's the first thing I see when I walk into my new home in Konstantinovka? My lava lamp. 

I've written a few really long emails since I've been at site, and rather than re-tell the story of my first few baby steps, I'm just going to copy and paste from some of the emails. Sorry to anyone who finds this redundant.

learnin russian in chernigov

After swearing in as PCVs at the US Embassy in Kiev, we were sent off with our counterparts and scattered throughout Ukraine. First experience riding on a train coincided with first experience riding overnight on a train. We (my counterpart and I) had a kupe, which is just a 4 person room, and we shared it with one other random man. It took around 12 hours to get from Kiev to Melitopol and then we had a taxi driver take us to my village. At 7am I arrived at our house and the director of the school was there waiting for me. We got all my stuff piled into the house and then everyone else left. At that moment I felt like weeping/running back to America. It was just overwhelming to think that I'll be here for the next 2 years, and how much I miss my family and friends. Training was so different because time was broken down into a manageable 3 month chunk and I was surrounded by American/Ukrainian support teams at every turn. Now i'm pretty much on my own to figure out everything from traveling, to cooking, to teaching, to the language. Well, that's not entirely true.

But I sucked it up, unpacked my stuff, watched season 1, episode 1 of Gilmore Girls and then headed over to my landlord's place for tea. I live in the small house on the property and my landlords live in the big house, not 5 feet away. The family consists of parents (around 40 years old) and two boys (9 and 12). Aside from the random matchmaking attempts, they're all great. The boys are learning english but that basically only means they can say "my name is…". So really no one speaks a lick of english, which is great for my Russian skills, both practicing and pretending to understand. During tea on my first morning, Alyona (landlady) called up my american neighbor to come on over. Now I knew I would be living next door to another volunteer, which in and of itself is already unheard of in peace corps life, but that's not the craziest thing. Here's what is: I 'met' her back in Cleveland and was already well acquainted with her house/village. Kristen (american neighbor) came over and we chatted for a little with Alyona. She learned Ukrainian during her own training so Alyona would try to speak Ukrainian to Kristen and then Russian to me. It makes my brain hurt just thinking about it. Once Alyona left, Kristen and I chatted about random things concerning the village and I kept thinking that her voice sounded just like someone I knew but I couldn't place it. Then all of the sudden I was transported back to my dad's couch in Streetsboro watching youtube videos about PC Urkaine. I completely interrupted her to ask if she was the same girl with the videos about her house and village. She said yes and there you have it. I'm living right next door to the same girl who I made everyone watch this summer on youtube. HOW INSANE IS THAT!?!?! I remember thinking that if I ended up with a life similar to hers, everything would be okay. That was exactly what I wanted. and now i'm basically living it. So if you watch that video, I live in the house to her right (if facing her house). She's in romania right now, hanging out at irish pubs and I couldn't be more jealous. I need to figure out how to copy that life too.

Walking behind this man during a foggy twilight was
one of those "I'm at home" moments

So....what else has been happenin' at site? Well I've survived two Christmas Eves, two Christmas days, a NYE in Donetsk-area, my first solo journey navigating the train stations of Ukraine and completely guessing which train I'm supposed to hop on (also pissed off the conductor on my return train trip because I accidentally opened up the coal hatch and about 50 gallons of coal came pouring out onto the floor before I had any idea what was going on), kholodets (shudder...), a 3 hour teacher's meeting at my school held completely in Ukrainian, one English club where 4 students showed up, getting lost in the fish section of the Melitopol bazaar, not throwing up after getting lost in the fish section of the Melitopol bazaar, carrying my first care package home from the post office (hour long trip) on top of my head like a Ugandan women carrying a tub of water home, opening said care package from john finnegan(care packages from him feel like you've one the garagesale/thrift store lottery) and avoiding multiple attempts from my neighbors to feed me samagon (Ukrainian moonshine). I still have one more holiday to survive though, old New Year, which will be celebrated this Sunday with my landlords. All in all, I love my site. Village life is completely different than life in Chernigov (walking behind babushkas leading/conversing with their goats always makes for a fun trip to school) but I think I prefer my quiet life here. Sometimes I look around me and think that I feel more at home in Ukraine than I ever felt in the America. Sometimes I look around me and want to slump down, yell at everyone to just speak English already and call Duff to tell her to come get me.

Whether or not this experience will prove to be my winning lottery ticket, no one knows. But I think someone was trying to provide a little sign on my first day at site to re-assure me that всё будет хорошо (everything will be ok).

Here's a link to my neighb's blog. Not only is she a great writer, she's head and shoulders a better picture taker/updater. So just follow her blog and when she writes about stuff she's doing, just think "hey, finn's right next door." and it will kinda be like you're reading about me. In her latest post you can see what my landlords look like! (kitten crushable hands/pirate hat/two boys)

I'm woefully behind on my picture postings. These are all from training, including a few from our trip to Kiev (that I stole from other volunteers). Promise to post pics of my new house soon.

A Kiev monument to magicians. maybe.

How'd that get in here...12-OH..

Kiev

Beautiful, beautiful Kiev

Kiev

scaffolding at it's finest. future holmes on homes contender.

beginning of my autobiography or an essay on the weather in ohio or both? you decide

Update on books read: finished The Godfather (3.75 stars, waiting for a dreary day to watch all the movies), finished Dracula (love loved, made me queazy multiple times, 3.5 stars), finished the first book in A Series of Unfortunate Events (needed a breather after the count), finished Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (a few lols, entertaining, 3 stars), finished A Clockwork Orange (never watched the movie. fantastic book. lots of russian slang thrown in, if you're into that type of thing, I AM. 4 stars), just began my first Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility. Very very excited to take this literary foray into Austenworld.


"He claimed that there was no greater natural advantage in life than having an enemy overestimate your faults, unless it was to have a friend underestimate your virtues"--The GF

CARE PACKAGE CENTRAL

I completely stole my neighbor's blog post about care packages and just changed the name and house number. 

So now that I'm finally settled in at site....YOU CAN ALL SEND ME CARE PACKAGES!!! You do have to manage writing my address in cyrillic, but it will be a fun exercise for everyone! If you really are lost, just google it. I'm sure there's some youtube videos that can help you out.

It should take 1-3 weeks for me to receive a care package, and it will probably be held at our post office until I go pick it up (unless it's a small padded envelope, then I might receive that directly at my house). So I might get stuff in time for Christmas!! Kristen, my neighb, also told me that her mom usually uses medium flat rate boxes from the post office. It's $47 but can fit quite a bit and weight doesn't matter. The karma that I'll be sending back to you for sending me care packages will be worth more than all the gold teeth one can find in the mouths of Ukrainians. 

So what should you send me? Thanks for asking. See the separate tab at the top of my blog for care package suggestions, so it will always be easily accessible. Oh and I'd love to receive cards too! Less expensive for you and I can decorate my house with them.

Here is my address:

Сара Финеган
вул Кiрова, 8
с. Костянтинiвка
Мелiтопольський Район
Запорізька обл.
Україна            72364
UKRAINE

—————————————————————————————————–

english version (use this only for customs)

Sarah Finnegan
Street Kirova, 8
Village Konstantinivka
Melitopolsky Rayon
Zaporizhzhia Oblast
Ukraine          72364

regulations for sending packages:

• please do not send valuable items through the mail, as mail sometimes arrives opened, with items missing, or does not arrive at all. (and don’t declare values too high, no matter what's in the package)
• use padded envelopes versus boxes when you can (the harder to open the better)
• write on the outside of the package: “goods for personal use” (things are less likely to be opened this way)
• please do not indicate anywhere in the address or on the package that it is for official use or project related (i.e. peace corps or TEFL project).

make sure you do NOT send the following items:

• money, credit cards, valuables/expensive objects, and any type of jewelry
• documents such as personal identifications, diplomas, and certificates
• any kind of medicine, plants, seeds, alcoholic beverages (darn)
• DVDs, CDs, videotapes, audiotapes, any type of dictionaries.
• (you can ship CDs, DVDs and other media into ukraine, but they cannot be returned to the U.S. unless you can prove that they originally came from in the U.S. Therefore, people shipping such items to Ukraine need an itemized list certified by the company doing the shipping)
• flammable, explosive devices, sharp objects (which is pretty much common sense)

regulations for mailing food:

Дашка says "send woman america". we're still working on her english

• not more than one box/pack per one kind of food
• all food weight should not exceed 4.5 lbs.
• total value of it should not exceed $100
• food should not be raw – it must be canned or cooked or otherwise prepared
• it should be factory packed.

the WORST blog update of all time.

i know you're thinking, 'twice in one week?? i don't have time for this', unfollow. sorry for the inconvenience but i recently found out some pretty important information and will only have guaranteed internet access for the next 12 hours.

after that i'm being thrown into the ukrainian wilderness and forced to fend for myself in a world where high speed wireless internet lives in the same fantasy land as unicorns and dracula (currently reading about the later, so it's on my brain. did you know van helsing was actually a character from the book!?)

so where might this wilderness be? the one and only largest village in europe. aka konstaninovka, the reno of ukraine. warning: don't google konstantinovka, it will give you other random cities or scantily clad ukrainian women. just google melitopol and then you'll have a good idea of where my general location will be (and this will also show you scantily clad ukrainian women). allegedly, my village/house is within walking distance of the big city. that's right, i said house. i will be living in my very own mini house right next to the house of my landlord.

aaaaaaaand i've run out of time and i need to get up at 530am to finish packing so i'm cutting this blog post off at the knees. i felt i needed to blurt something out there since everyone else did their own "last day of training" obligatory blog post. but now i feel guilty for not talking about my feelings or giving any meaningful information about my life...

these pictures should do the trick:

Great Patriotic War Memorial (aka WWII) in Chernigov, complete with eternal flame

game of thrones memorial. bum bum buhdeebum bum bum..

underground monastery ceiling. 

underground monastery bunk.

underground monastery bones.

belltower

belltower with a view

gingerbread house

tour guide with cannon

ukraine's favorite/friendliest poet, shevchenko. he just adores kids.

river flowing alongside chernigov...still can't remember it's name.

there's an entire story that goes along with this squirrel. no energy for stories. suffice it to say, squirrel sightings are a BIG deal in ukraine.

I Forgot I Had a Blog

Bless me blogworld, for I have sinned. It has been many weeks since my last post. I invented this thing so I could effectively communicate with friends and family back home. Well no one should be surprised at my absence because for me "effective communication" involves carrier pigeons sent out once every 12 months.

Here are some firsts that I've experienced today: first snow in Ukraine (we're on hour 8 of snowfall so this 'first snow' won't be ignored, dan); first language test in Ukraine (called the LPI); first injury in Ukraine.
SNOW: Of course the site of snow blanketing soviet era building makes my heart go all a'flutter, but after my 45 minute walk home with a formidable wind whipping snow into my face and blinding me no matter where I turned, I was a little glad to be out of it's reach and under my nana blanket.
LPI: Went fine. My idea of prepping for the test this weekend was to drink beers, play chess, and shop for my fabulous new Ukrainian style wedge boots. I think my LPI scores will reflect my efforts. We'll take another LPI before we end our service and that's where I better reach "damn, she's good" level.
INJURY: We have this game we like to play in the creepy creepy stairwell of our LCF's apartment called "turn off the lights and hide in a dark corner for the next trainee to walk by and then scare the shit out of them". Today was the first day I played the roll of scare-ee. So after I screamed bloody murder my next instinct was to attack and kill my friend. I charged at him, leading my with shoulder, and he ending up blocking my charge and now my shoulder hates me. It was very difficult lifting my arm to add salt to my borsht tonight so this injury is having extremely serious effects on my quality of life.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...UKRAINIAN CAT PICTURESSSSSS!!!!!

the usual breakfast joint

My first cat slideshow of this blog is of a perfect little place I like to call kitten grove. Everyday on my way to class I pass this magical area where thousands (7-10) homeless cats congregate to get their morning meal provided by a kind, local babushka. I shall greatly miss kitten grove but I have faith that 'if I build it, they will come' to my site.

waiting to be served

caught her showing off her gymnastics skills

Discussions over a hot cup of morning tuna

straggler

come on buddy! everyone's welcome at kitten grove!

i've been spotted..run

enough with the cats..for now. here's some of my favorite graffiti on our LCF's apartment building

soccer players across from kitten grove.

my favorite ukrainian, alia! LCF extrordinaire being celebrated on national teacher day. she's displaying all her gifts from us (i got her the cookies she's eating)

making blinchikis

too busy eating to take a picture of the batch of completed blinkchikis. this was all i managed to get a picture of, the disfigured final blinchiki

political posters that were everywhere in october.

i didn't not steal some

so Chernigov is famous for it's churches/monasteries. here are some pictures of them

original bricks displayed, meaning they're probably 800ish years old. wishing i hadn't waited months to post these pictures because now i forget what the symbols on these bricks signify

this is the church that you're greeted with as you enter the city (bottom right corner of picture is part of a cannon that also points right at you as you enter the city)

Here's a piece from my last blog post draft that I wrote a month ago. It's still kinda relevant but very boring. However, I doubt anyone's even reading this anymore after all the cat pictures (editor's note: finished godfather<4 stars>, now reading dracula):

I'm procrastinating. I have to write (in russian don't ya know) a 3 page essay about my life in Ukraine, that's due tomorrow. So I'm updating my blog, writing emails back to friends/family and watching The Walking Dead, in order to see what all the fuss is about.

Today I visited my first track in Ukraine and challenged a 3 year old boy to a race. He won fair and square. It was the first running I've been able to get in here and it felt amazing. Tomorrow I'm sure it won't feel amazing.

Also finished my second book in Ukraine a few weeks ago, A Book of Common Prayer by Joan Didion. 3.75 stars. Now I'm firmly embedded in The Godfather by Mario Puza. I actually haven't seen any of the movies all the way through, so the plot points are all new to me. But I suggest if you love the movies, you'll love the book. Not a difficult read at all.

Of course anyone who truly loves books buys more of them than he or she can hope to read in one fleeting lifetime. A good book, resting unopened in its slot on a shelf, full of majestic potentiality, is the most comforting sort of intellectual wallpaper.
~David Quammen