Heat Wave

Hi everyone! Hope all is going well at home. Those of you who were about to graduate now have, I think, so congratulations!

It has gotten unbelievably hot over here . . . and if you didn’t expect to hear that, then think how I feel experiencing it. It is real, and unexpected – at least it was by me. I heard a week ago that we were having record temperatures (for this time of year, I guess), and that’s what it feels like. Being from Virginia, I’ve never really been able to understand places that are both very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter – I figured you sort of have to choose one (for anyone who’s curious – Virginia chose summer) – but, of course, there are such places, and apparently Ukraine is one of them. The heat wave started last weekend, and despite getting a screen for my porch door (which will hopefully keep the kitchen from getting too smoky when I cook, and angering my smoke detector), it was pretty hot in my apartment. So hot that I feel like I lost a day or two this week, just staring at the wall, unable to think or move. However, yesterday I bought a fan in the city, and that seems to have made a difference. I’m feeling more alert, and I think I’ll be ok . . .

Last Friday, I made an Italian dinner for my coordinator, and my host mom and brother. I wanted to show off my decorated apartment, and force them to try some non-Ukrainian food. I made spaghetti and garlic bread, cole slaw (lots of cabbage here), and brownies, so, overall, something you might eat in America. My former host brother was at first reluctant to try each dish, but ended up liking everything but the cole slaw. They asked for the recipes, so I think it was a success, and they liked my decorations (all the pretty pictures of pretty Americans).

My students are finishing up the year, so they’re basically taking tests every day – different days for reading, writing, listening and speaking. There’s still a bunch of cheating, but I’m learning to ignore it, which may be a good or bad sign. When I supervise them by myself, I still crack down on it. For my last English club of the year, I showed my kids “Finding Nemo,” which they seemed to like. At the end of the week, I was invited to the ceremony they had for the 4^th graders at the “small school” to mark their moving up to 5^th grade. It was very cute, they had songs and poems prepared – I didn’t understand most of it, but it was all very nice, and they gave me a notebook, because I’ll be their teacher next year . . .

Everything here is very green now, and walking to school every day, on uneven, rocky roads, I feel like I’m going on a nature hike. There’s plenty of nature, obviously, as well as all of the various farm animals wandering around, and dogs and cats . . . and then I start to feel a little crazy – and when I wonder why, I look down and realize that I’m wearing a button-down shirt, a skirt and dress shoes on this nature hike. Such is the life of the business-casual Peace Corps Volunteer . . .

So, the last day of school is on Thursday, called the “Last Bell,” and apparently there will be lots of celebration. I’ll get back to Bratslav just in time – after going to Kyiv to pick up my Mom, Dad and sister, who are getting here on Tuesday to visit for two and a half weeks! They’ll get to see the celebration, and then we’ll go traveling for the rest of their visit – so I’ll tell you about all of that afterwards. Thankfully, they are also bringing the summer clothes I left behind – which I am really looking forward to, in this heat. As for the rest of my summer plans – I’m sort of playing things by ear, but I’ll probably help out with some summer camps, and do another SPA round in June.

I got some great mail, so thank you very much to Tim, Marc, Melissa and Armand! I’ll try to have an interesting summer so that I can write similarly entertaining letters back to you.

It may be a while before I write again, because of traveling, but in the meantime – take care and keep in touch!

Love, Virginia

Below: the elevator buttons in Grant's building . . .

I've Had a Cold for a Week: Or, My Life as Paris Hilton

Hello everyone . . . how are you? Again, not much has been going on, but that’s never stopped me from talking before.

A lot of SPA Committee members had colds while in Kyiv, and although I fought it off at the time, the cold finally caught up to me two Saturdays ago, so I’ve been hacking and coughing and just being very attractive in general since then, which has caused me to miss some school, and, I’m sure, many funny stories for you. Meanwhile, it’s been getting very pretty outside – Ukraine really does change completely at the end of spring, it’s very warm and there are flowering trees, etc. absolutely everywhere you look, and, if I could smell right now, I think it would smell very nice outside.

Last Wednesday was V-E Day, Victory in Europe, which is a big holiday here, and I visited fellow Volunteer Clara and her host family. Although it was raining, they had a parade, with music from loudspeakers competing with that of the marching band. Veterans dressed in uniform, and everyone else dressed up as well, and we saw a concert which ran the gamut from poetry recitation, to rock music, to veterans singing patriotic songs, to young girls doing a belly dancing routine. I’m still shaky on Soviet history and all of that, but watching the celebration (complete with CCCP (USSR) banner, since that’s who won), it felt like I had gone back in time behind the Iron Curtain. Anyhow, it was very nice to have people cook for me while I was sick, although I had pretty much no appetite (I hate that), and they really liked the banana bread I brought for them (everyone’s reaction was “bread . . . with bananas?”).

On Saturday, we had our English club for adults again, and lots of people came (many from the club the Jacobs used to hold), and we talked about study and work programs available in the U.S. Human trafficking is a serious problem in the part of the world, so we tried to emphasize the importance of caution and checking programs’ legitimacy. Besides a tangent during which we discussed natural disasters in America (and in which we were asked why we didn’t just build all of our houses out of stone, to keep the twisters from getting them), we generally stayed on topic.

I made it back to school this Monday, and caught up on my English clubs there. For the older kids, I discussed the Beatles (after a suggestion made by the 9th graders, who had that John Lennon lesson), and tried to explain why they were important. My attempts included an explanation of the word “trippy,” and the story my Dad told me about how the Beatles, upon arriving at a hotel and seeing the crowd of crazy fans waiting at the top of the “up” escalator, turned and ran up the “down” escalator instead. I played them a few songs, and then broke out the real treat – a clip of Paul McCartney on “The Chris Farley Show” on Saturday Night Live (which can be found on “The Best of Chris Farley” DVD). I had to explain a lot of the references beforehand, such as the “Paul is dead” hoax, but they were able to understand the gist of it, and laughed a lot. (The gist, for those of you who never saw it, is that Chris Farley is a horrible interviewer, and most of the interview consists of exchanges like “Remember . . . when you were in the Beatles?” “. . . Yes.”) My favorite part is when Chris Farley quotes “In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make,” and then humbly asks Paul, “Um, uh . . is that true?”

Random thing I meant to mention before: while walking through Vinnytsia the other week, I saw a large Ukrainian man wearing a black t-shirt with white block lettering that said “You are a lovely friend.”

I’ve had some successful cooking adventures . . . pre-cold: tacos (making tortillas is surprisingly easy, and it makes you feel accomplished!), mid-cold: corn chowder, post-cold: chicken fried rice. Somewhere in between I completely failed at making falafel.

And lastly . . .

It occurred to me, during a recent shopping trip at “Ukrainian Walmart,” that in this country, I can be in a room filled with women whose hair is dyed various completely unnatural colors (pink, orange), and who are wearing totally skin-tight clothes covered with rhinestones, and I will still attract the most attention of anyone in the area, by a long-shot. Such is my life as the American. Then, while sitting at home sick, and reading about Paris Hilton in the Spanish Cosmo that Kristen sent me, it occurred to me that this is something I share in common (really the only thing) with Paris Hilton’s life. So, to show off what remains of my ability to translate Spanish, and to give you insight into my celebrity-like situation, here’s are some of the questions from Paris’s Cosmo interview, with my answers:

Is there a goal in your career that you have yet to reach?
To convince teachers to come to my English teachers’ club.

You haven’t commented on your recent reunion with Nicole Richie, your costar in “The Simple Life,” with whom you had a famous split.
No, I suppose I haven’t. (This is one of the pieces of celebrity gossip I’ve missed, til just now.)

Do you get tired of everyone (and the media) wanting to know about your love life? Of course, you still go out with your ex, Stavros Niarchos . . .
If by “everyone (and the media)” you mean everyone I meet in this country who asks me if I’m married, then yes. And I guess the rest of the question doesn’t so much apply to me . . .

Have you ever fallen in love with someone famous?
Everyone who knows me knows the answer – yes, frequently (generally actors on West Wing). I tried to convince Clara’s host dad that John Cusack was waiting for me back in America, when he was pestering me about when I was going to get married. He then accused me of living in the future instead of the present (though, in the case of John Cusack, I would argue that it’s really neither).

What do you write on your grocery shopping list?
Milk, or what Americans generally know as “cream” (I will probably think that skim milk is water when I come home); “Coca-Cola Light”; Nutella; the right tuna . . .

What is your favorite drink?
Coca-Cola Light! (which apparently gives Paris a terrible head-ache).

What is the best event, with important guests, that you have attended recently?
Coffee with the ambassador?

Well, that’s about it. Thanks for humoring me . . . I hope that everything is going well at home! Keep in touch!

Love, Virginia

Short entry, with more pictures

Hello! Well, I’ve been here seven months, it’s spring outside, and school is over in a few weeks – all very hard to believe! Hope everyone is doing well at home . . .

The last couple of weeks have been normal, except for a three day trip to Kyiv! A few months ago, at Sandy J’s suggestion, I applied for the SPA Committee, which is a group that reviews grants written by Volunteers for small projects for their communities. The projects can range from English resource centers, to summer camps, to tourism projects that promote local restaurants and traditional artists’ work. I didn’t mention the committee here til now, because I was half-wondering if someone who had accepted me would realize that I’m an English/Spanish major without any experience whatsoever in the area of grant-writing, but apparently that’s not a problem (per se)! The process of normal grant-writing is apparently very different from the way we do things here – we are more informal, with everyone continuing to try to make projects feasible all the way through the process. At least that’s what I think – I’m still learning, but so far so good!

I left on Tuesday, and got to meet my former language teacher, Yulia, for dinner (at McDonald’s, which I would frequent often in the coming days). She’s doing well, and it was fun to see her again. The hotel where Volunteers generally stay has BBC World! So it was exciting to catch up on world events a little, again. The next day, we started work on the grants, and I shadowed real reviewers to try to learn how things go. Everyone was very nice (and even took a few of my suggestions!) and lots of the grants were very interesting; they included a tree-planting project, a film-series for university students, and a girls’ softball league. Everyone worked hard to make the project plans realistic, and I’ve never heard so many people use the phrase “That being said . .” so often in a discussion before! It was fun to meet other Volunteers, and have some good food, etc. (including lunch at TGIF’s with a fluent English-speaking waiter – like, the best English I’ve heard from a Ukrainian here. He had worked in the U.S. – apparently that does the trick). I will, ostensibly, be back for another SPA round at the end of June.

I also got to see a little of Kyiv, as you can see in the pictures . . .

On Saturday, a few of us went to Vinnytsia to have our English club at the library there – and one of the members had suggested we talk about American teenagers. The best movie I had for the subject was “Clueless” (the 10th Year “Whatever” edition, no less) – I know it’s a little outdated, but I’ve never even seen “Laguna Beach” or “The O.C.,” so it was the best I could do. Plus, it’s clearly a classic movie, necessary for any serious discussion of teenage life in America. I showed a few clips – like the beginning when Cher picks out her clothes with a computer program, the makeover scene with Tai, and the party where Tai keeps changing the way she wears her sweater in an effort to fit in – and tried to connect them to real life. I mostly explained that it was, of course, a ridiculous exaggeration of reality for the purpose of comedy. But I also went on about how the story is based on Jane Austen – revealing how young people have been obsessed with the same subjects forever, or at least several hundred years . . . . and I explained that although the movie’s point would seem to be that Brittany Murphy (Tai) is pretty and fine the way she was, and that all the obsession with image is silly, she has actually since turned into an unrecognizable, very skinny, blonde person – which would seem to confirm the real-life pressure on American girls to look a certain way. Despite my sort-of intellectualization of the clips, the club generally wanted to know things like: when are kids allowed to drive in America, and do Americans really sit on the grass all the time? (Answers: 16, and yes.)

We’ve had three days off from school because of Workers’ Day (I guess a kind of Labor Day?), and I finally got around to decorating my apartment some. I put up a little Irish montage on the wall, because I couldn’t think of anything else to do with the St. Patrick’s Day decorations Kimmy and Gigi sent me . . .

. . . And speaking of being sent things, I got some nice mail recently! So, thank you to Paige for the magazines, and to Kristen for the package for which she became the victim of extortion (buying official Postal Service tape), that included a Spanish Cosmo, which is probably above my Spanish reading level by now – thank you both!

My cooking adventures were few, because of my trip, but I did make empanadas, and discover which can in the stores has normal tuna-fish inside of it.

Ok, that’s it – I hope you’re all doing well! Take care, and keep in touch . . .

Love, Virginia