Merry Christmas!

We are Peace Corps Volunteers. Swearing In was on Thursday at the Teacher's House in Kyiv, a beautiful old building near the Opera House. The US Ambassador was not able to speak at the ceremony, but he came and addressed us beforehand. His speech was extremely interesting; he talked a lot about the current political situation in Ukraine and what the future may bring. It was quite the most interesting speech on the subject that I've heard....although I guess it's the only speech. It's not like I'm watching CNN or reading the NY Times. You all may very well know more about what's happening here than I do.

The Swearing In ceremony itself was quite impressive. Several of the Peace Corps training staff (those who have been whipping us into shape over the past 3 months) spoke first, and then Sheila Gwaltney, who is the Deputy Chief of the United States of America Mission to Ukraine (what a long title that is!) administered the oath. All we Trainees stood up at once, raised our right hands, and repeated after her:

Volunteer Oath

I             , do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the constitution of the United States of America against al enemies, foreign and domestic, and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge my duties in the Peace Corps of the United States of America, serving Ukraine to the best of my abilities and demonstrating the respect and consideration due its people. So help me God.

A couple of impressive Ukrainian officials spoke, welcoming us to Ukraine, and Karl Beck, who is the Country Director for Peace Corps Ukraine, gave a closing speech. And then we were volunteers. There was a nice reception, and our host families had come to see us "graduate" and say the final goodbyes.

I don't feel any different now. Training has been long (oh so long), and I'm incredibly glad it's over. Even I was getting cranky and mean towards the end of it all. Now comes nerves and the stress of becoming acquainted with a new family, a new town, and a new school...but without all the support that Peace Corps gave us the first time around. Now I'm on my own, more or less. But I should do OK.

And I got my LPI results, although I'm not completely happy with them, surprisingly enough. Why am I not happy? You'll laugh. I'm not happy because I think my score is higher than I deserve. I scored an Intermediate High.

So today is Christmas. Yesterday (when I typed most of this) we had our official celebration with the whole Peace Corps crowd. Interesting fact that might give you a Christmas laugh:

For the past couple of weeks, my cluster has been taking Russian folk dancing lessons. Why, you ask? For the Christmas Talent Show. Our Russian teacher loves talent shows, and so was determined that we'd have a fabulous act. We had costumes any everything, borrowed from the Cultural Center in Berezan.

Best comment I've heard so far on our performance: "When Russians do this, it's beautiful."

We got lots of laughs and applause, though. Out of 8 performances, we were definitely in the top two. One of these days I'm going to manage to get some digital pictures from a friend and I'll send them along.

So today is my last day in Kyiv before heading to Chernomorskoe (spelling is probably off still). Hopefully I'll have lots to tell you all next week. I should also have a new mailing address. (So if you're planning to mail me a letter, wait for a bit.)

Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season!

The final days of training

I...am now a redhead. And not just boring "red." Oh no. This is a shocking, magenta-red. No one was ever naturally this color. Everyone tells me I look great, hot, and "a little bit crazy."

I just had to go look in the mirror again, because it's just that fabulous.

When did this happen? Well, yesterday was our big end-of-training language test. It's called an LPI, which stands for Language Proficiency Interview. (At least, I think that's what it stands for.) The LPI is some sort of standard measure of fluency in a language; I think it's an international standard. All trainees take the LPI at the end of training, and again at the end of service. If you're curious, you can probably to a search to find descriptions of the levels.

I'll find out next week what my score was, but I expect to be Intermediate Low. Before I actually had the interview I thought I might manage Intermediate Mid, but then I forgot everything and stumbled over everything I tried to say. Usually when I'm talking to a native speaker they'll help me along with words I struggle with. (In Russian, every word can take about 6 different endings, depending on how the word is being used, whether it's plural or singular, and whether it's a masculine, feminine, or neuter word. These endings are called cases, and they are a bitch.) Anyway, during the LPI the interviewer does not help you figure out which case, or even let you know if you fished out the right one. This really threw me. Then there's also the fact that you're being recorded and there's a big fat tape recorder sitting in front of you.

Anyway, I think I'll probably get Intermediate Low, which is not a bad score. It means I can hold a simple conversation, but I screw up a lot. Par for the course.

It's all nonsense anyway. What does the test mean? Nothing. You know your language ability a lot better than the tester, and what really matters is how well you can do when alone at site.

I think, because I've been out of school and working for a few years, this whole thing has been easier for me than most of the others. I haven't taken a test that meant anything in 5 years, so I have little problem remembering that absolutely nothing is riding on the outcome of this one.

But the last two weeks all we've been talking about is the LPI. Our 4 hours of daily language lessons have focused on reviewing material that might be covered during the LPI and "practicing" interviewing each other. We've also been all at the end of our proverbial ropes, completely stressed out and ragged and ready for training to be over. Well, the LPI pretty much signals the end of training. No more language lessons, no more teaching until we're at site. Just packing and saying goodbye.

All of which leads back to my hair. I have always wanted red hair. I tried to die it a couple of times in high school and college, but it never came out. Mostly it was almost undetectable. And then I grew up and went to work and it was less common to die one's hair fun colors, not to mention pricey.

Well, in Ukraine, a lot of women die their hair. And my fabulous shade of red is actually pretty common, on both young and old alike. And I thought, "why not?" (Decision-making was also helped along by having a couple of friends die their hair, too.) So on Tuesday we went and made appointments, and as soon as I was finished with my LPI I hurried over to the salon.

It was quite a splurge. It cost 47 hriven: 20 hr each for 2 boxes of hair die, and 7 hr to the woman who died it for me. This works out to about $9.00, and is a significant portion of my current income. (I get about 500 hr a month during training.)

I had a moment, as the first bit of die was hitting my scalp, where I wondered what the hell I was doing. But really I love it--and I'll probably try to keep it up, at least for a while, instead of letting it grow out or dieing it back to brown when the roots start to really show.

What do you mean Ukraine's all over the news? Seriously?

Because nothing's happened. Rather, there's been no violence, which I thought would relegate Ukraine's current turmoil to a small headline somewhere near the back of the paper. But I heard the other day that we hit the front page of the NY Times.

So I imagine you're all wondering how I'm doing, and what's up in Ukraine. First of all, everything is fine. I don't know what they're showing on the news in the US, but the big demonstration in Kyiv (where everyone is wearing orange) is peaceful; everyone is calm and happy, if cold. I know people who have gone to Kyiv and seen the demonstration, so this is not just hearsay or relying on the (blatantly) biased news. The other rallies, the ones where people are wearing blue, are smaller--Kyiv is Yushenko territory. And Berezan, where I'm living, doesn't have anything more than a new splash of orange graffiti on one of the walls. Everything is calm. People are highly interested in what is going on; the news is always on, everyone is watching the court proceedings (which have never before been broadcast) and the demonstrations, and potential outcomes are exhaustively discussed. But I have not once felt in any way threatened.

Of course, the Peace Corps is keeping a close watch on everything. We are not allowed to travel, which is why I haven't posted anything before now. (Today is a special exception because there is a Peace Corps meeting in Kyiv for those of us interested in Multicultural Awareness.) But our Country Director, the guy in charge of the Peace Corps in Ukraine, has been meeting daily with the US Ambassador in Kyiv, and we've been getting daily status phone calls, all of which say pretty much the same thing: "The situation is still relatively calm but volatile, so stay home."

So we're all feeling a bit stir-crazy, but other than that we're fine. We are anxious to hear the news everyday, and wonder what will happen in the country and how it will affect our lives here, and we're excited to be here and see everything that's going on around us. These are interesting times.

I suppose I should tell you about Thanksgiving (we cooked chicken and stuffing, apple pie and mashed potatoes), Chernomoskoe (where I'll be living come January), and what I'll be up to in the next month, but....I'm lazy, and--as always--pressed for time.

Hope everyone is enjoying the winter! (We have snow.)

Crimea

Just a quick post to tell you all where I landed...in Crimea. Somehow I ended up in a small resort town called Chernomoskoe, which means "black sea." So now I know I'll get visitors, since I'm in a fun place!

Anyway, Chernomoskoe is on the coast on the Western tip of Crimea. It's a great little town that gets cold in the winter but hot in the summer. It should be great. Now, after about 24 hours of travelling to get from there back to Kiev, I'm sweaty, hot, and tired. So...

More in a week or so, when I have time to write!

Just Some General Chit-Chat

To start off, I just want to remind you all that I'd really rather have letters than email. Which is not to say that I don't love email, too, but maybe you could print it out and put it in the mail, too? It'll probably get to me faster. And I generally have a very limited amount of time on the internet (it's expensive), without access to printers. I read things somewhat hurriedly, and then I can't reread them at home.

Hopefully I'll have better access to the internet when I finally get to my site in January, but for now...well, I've only managed to get access 3 times since I've been here, and only for 45 minutes each time. So please write me letters! They really make me happy, even if it's just something stupid. (One of my friends got her first letter from home this week and burst out crying.) My address is on the main page.

I have a bunch of things to tell you all, so prepare yourselves for some length.

Site Visits

On Wednesday I will find out where my site is, and on Saturday I'll head there for a few days to meet my host family, visit my school, and see the town. The Peace Corps have known where they'll send us for three weeks, but have not told us. The suspense is awful--we're nervous and excited and scared.

They break the news at what is called the Coordinator's Conference. Coordinators are the liaisons from the towns where we'll be teaching. Since there is only one Volunteer in each town, there will be one coordinator for each of us. Usually they are teachers at the school where we'll work, and they are supposed to speak English. (Although from what I've seen, they may not speak very well.) The coordinators come and meet us in Kiev, at the hotel where we stayed when we first go here. The Peace Corps will tell us where we'll be living and introduce us to our coordinators, and after a couple of days of meetings we head off to visit the town. This will probably involve an overnight train trip, so in language lessons this week we worked on travelling words and discussed how the train system works.

My training group, which includes all the people who came from America at the same time as I did, has about 109 people, all of us destined to be teachers of some sort. Almost everyone is learning Ukrainian; only about 30% of us are learning Russian, because Russian is not the primary language for most of the country. This means that I'll probably be in the East, near the Russian border, or in the warmer, Southern regions. I don't really know, though, and I can't wait to find out.

I'll let you all know as soon as I can.


I Don't Need Anything

So a few people have asked me what they can send me. Really, I don't need anything. Right now, I don't really even want books because I'll have to move them all to my new town in a month, and it's already going to be hard to move everything I have. So, other than letters, I really don't need anything.

However....say you're reading a magazine one day, and you notice a picture that clearly demonstrates, say Anger. Or Sadness. Or Fear. Or any emotion. Or a picture of a person that looks interesting, or anything like that. Would you cut that picture out (when you're done with the magazine, of course) and send it to me? It's surprisingly hard to find magazines with good big pictures, and I've wished I had some to use as teaching aides. (Horoscopes might also be useful, but remember I'm teaching kids.)

I never thought I'd be asking for magazine pictures, but there you go.


The Orphans all Speak Spanish

On Thursday we visited the Berezan orphanage. You've probably heard stories about the horrible-ness of Eastern European orphanages, and how sad they are. Well, this one definitely does not live up to that reputation. It is a nice, clean building. The kids--raging from toddler age to late teens--are happy, like a big family. I'm not sure--I'm bad with estimates--but I think there were maybe 25 of them. And they were all very excited to see us. When we got there they came up to us and asked if we were Americans, and then just watched. (This is pretty much what happens in the schools, too.)

They were having a holiday/party, and we came to watch the performance. There was a little skit, and a bunch of games. There was one that reminded us of Duck Duck Goose, and one that was like Musical Chairs, only with stalks of wheat that the kids had to pick up when the music stopped. At the end we introduced ourselves and the kids came up to try to talk to us.

Imaging my astonishment when one little boy came up to me and asked me, Se habla espanol? Here's the really kicker, though--they ALL spoke Spanish, because they spend their summers in Spain.

Believe it or not, this was horribly confusing. I've had the strangest time learning Russian, because my brain seems to be filing it somewhere near where Spanish is filed. For the past month I've been trying to finish Russian sentences with Spanish words, and I sometimes slip a Spanish word in here and there. It's strange because it happens instinctively, and I can't seem to stop it. I haven't spoken Spanish in years, and all these words and phrases that I thought were forgotten are surfacing mixed with Russian.

Well, when I tried to speak Spanish, it was all gone. I could only remember how to ask "What is your name?" in Russian, and in the formal manner, which wouldn't be appropriate when talking to a little boy. Everything was mixed up, and I couldn't keep anything straight. It was the strangest feeling, like I was locked out of speech...I knew the words but couldn't get them out.

Afterwards, we all said how good it was to be able to communicate with them, although we only had about ten minutes before we needed to catch the bus back to town--not really enough time for me (or most of us) to switch language gears and actually talk without stumbling all over myself. All five of us in Berezan studied Spanish extensively (and one of us grew up speaking Spanish at home), and most of us had the same feeling of confusion and exhilaration. We'll definitely be going back as soon as we can.

A Word About Food

There is so much food here. Our host families feed us and feed us and feed us. And then, for good measure, they feed us. There is so much food it's ridiculous. Don't get me wrong--it's good food. There is just so much of it, and it's all very rich. I barely make a dent in what's set before me.

A typical breakfast includes:

2 fried eggs

1 sausage

2 slices of toast

sliced tomato

cabbage salad

cup of yogurt drink

tea

This is just for me. My host mom makes me breakfast, but she usually doesn't eat with me--she's off to work. I wonder if she eats breakfast at all, actually. I know the Peace Corps requires the host families to provide us with breakfast and dinner during the week, and breakfast lunch and dinner on weekends. So I think the families are going to feed us whether we want them to or not, because they think they must. I know one of the guys in our group tried to tell his host mom that he didn't like/want a huge breakfast. She pretended not to understand him--said that everyone had breakfast--but a few days later, when he asked her why she wasn't eating, said, "Oh, I don't like to eat much in the mornings."

Other popular foods, for both dinner and lunch (and these are popular "feed the American" foods--perhaps Ukrainians generally eat more variety):

• Vareniki - these are like boiled dumplings.


• Pelmeni - dumplings with meat, usually fried.


• Haladiets - I haven't actually seen this, but I've heard a lot about it--haladiets and it's awfulness has become a bit of a joke in my group. Only one of us has actually had it. It's apparently like head cheese, for anyone who knows what head cheese is. It's been described to me as "salty jellied meat." (Update: since typing this this morning, I have seen haldiets. It is as was described to me, although it doesn't taste as bad as I thought it would. The texture grosses me out, though.


• Cutlets - fried meat patties with unknown seasonings in them. Pretty good.


• Potatoes - mashed, fried, boiled, and in soups. Potatoes are in everything.


• Cabbage Salad - like coleslaw, only simpler. I like this pickled cabbage salad that my host mom makes. It's basically just cabbage and grated carrots with oil and salt. I think.


• Tomatoes - the tomatoes here are wonderful, and I'm going to be really sad when we can't get them anymore (and people start pulling out the pickled canned tomatoes. Usually the tomatoes are just sliced on a plate with salt and oil.


• Bread - the bread here is wonderful. You don't buy it sliced--these are real loafs. There's dark bread and white bread, but I don't know yet what kind of grain the dark bread is made from. It's a very dense bread, and the Peace Corps nurses tell us it's good for us. (They also tell us to avoid the white bread, but that's what my host mom buys most of the time.)


• Calabasa (sausage) - there are a lot of different kinds of sausage here, but in my mind they fall into two categories: salami and gross bologna-type stuff. I think I'm in the minority in thinking the bologna-stuff is unappealing, though.


• Macaroni - any sort of pasta seems to be called macaroni. Usually I see this served plain, maybe with butter or with some stewed meat on it.


• Buckwheat - boiled, usually served plain. This is pretty good, and it's another thing the Peace Corps nurses tell us is good for us.


• Pancakes - these are yummy, although I haven't had them often. They're smaller than American pancakes, and thicker, and probably aren't pancakes at all. But they're yummy, and taste more or less like pancakes. You are supposed to eat them with sour cream, but I like them plain.


• Mayonaise, Butter, Oil, and Sour Cream - are on everything. Salads here don't have lettuce--they have mayonnaise. Or, if you ask them please not to use mayonnaise, a heavy serving of oil. (Sunflower oil.) People cook with a lot of butter, and sour cream gets put on everything. The mayonnaise and sour cream taste different from their American equivalents, though--a little better, although I'm not sure how.


• Compote - this is a kind of juice. I'm not sure how it differs from regular fruit juice, except that it's homemade. It's also pretty sweet, so I don't drink it very often. (My host mom thinks I'm strange because I don't like so much sweet stuff.)



• Tea and Instant Coffee - Here's how my host mom makes tea: she puts some tea leaves in a teapot and adds water, then lets it sit for a while (anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour). She then pours a small amount of this tea into a cup, adds sugar, and fills the rest of the cup with water. She likes about a quarter inch of tea in her cup, two heaping teaspoons of sugar, and the rest water. I prefer maybe half the cup of tea, half a teaspoon of sugar, and the rest water. Not everyone makes tea this way, but it's pretty common. As for coffee...well I mostly don't drink that here. I don't like the instant stuff. Once I have my own place I'll break out the little coffee press I brought, but for now I drink tea.


• Borsch - this is the big thing. My host mom makes wonderful borsch, and it's a good thing I like it because I have it at least a few times a week. Would you like to know how to make vegetarian borsch? No? Ok, here's how:

Peel a few potatoes--maybe 5 of them--and dice them up. Peel and dice up an onion. Peel a beet and slice it into thin strips. I think that's called Julienne? Then rinse the beet strips a few times to get some of the red out (or your soup will be really dark). Slice up a few mushrooms and maybe some bell peppers. Thinly slice some cabbage. I'm not sure how much--maybe a quarter of a head. Grate a carrot.

Boil the beet in a pot of water for about 20 minutes, then add the potatoes, mushrooms, peppers, and onion. While that's cooking, fry the cabbage and carrot with a can of tomato paste. (They use a fair amount; probably a whole cup.) This is the high calorie version; you can also just boil these instead of frying them.

Add the fried stuff to the boiling stuff. Cook some more. Add lemon and salt and pepper. (Actually, the cook who showed my group how to make borscht used some lemon salt stuff. I am not sure what exactly it was, but something lemony.)

Serve with sour cream.

I'm supposed to know how to say all this (or at least a simpler version of it) in Russian, but I haven't felt the fluency yet. There are a lot of pauses, and a lot of forgetful mumbles, and a lot of grammatical errors and frustrated sighs when I try to recite the recipe.

During the week I usually skip lunch. I just can't eat so much! My host mom and I have a regular conversation (which we both find amusing). It goes something like this, only in Russian:

HM: Do you want [food item]?

Me: Just a little.

HM hands me a heaping plate of [food item].

Me: That's a lot!

HM: That's only a little!

HM sets five other dishes in front of me.

Me, with huge eyes: That's a lot!

HM: That's just a little.

Me, gesturing: That's a little and that's a little and that's a little...but together that's a LOT.

You can see how my Russian gets along. Actually, that conversations is a bit old by now. It's amazing how fast we progress.

Popcorn!

On Ukraine's election day (last Sunday) my host mom worked at one of the polling booths (I think), and so was gone all day. (Incidentally, the election did not produce a 51% majority vote for either of the two main candidates. Since Ukraine requires that a president be elected with a 51% popular vote, there will be a run-off election later in November between the two primary candidates. I didn't realize this until like the week of the elections.)

So, since my host mom was gone, she had her daughters come over to fix me lunch. (I guess I cannot fend for myself.) Ira (sounds like Ear-ah) and Yulia breeze in at about 1:00, and Yulia asks me if I like popcorn. She shows me a bag with three dried ears of corn. It was a very "Where does popcorn come from, Mommy?" moment for me. I never realized that the corn was dried on the ear. Wow! So before making the popcorn we had to take the corn off the ears.

All of which is not to say that I thought popcorn was born in plastic Orville Redenbacher jars or Jiffy-Pop bags, but still.... It's hard for me to picture a bin of dried ears of corn, where you pick your popcorn like produce.

While Yulia and I were taking care of the popcorn, Ira was flying around the kitchen. Ira always moves quickly--she's always doing something, always focused on something. She's very productive, and I'm a little in awe of her. (She's also a tiny, very young-looking woman, and I can't believe she's been married for 10 years and has an 8-year-old son--who is almost as big as she is. Ira is only 29.)

Before long, there was a bowl of borsch in front of me (along with a tomato salad, some bread, a bowl of popcorn, and some other things). Ira was busy making some apricot cookie things, which they translated as "pie." But they were more like cookie squares. She was throwing ingredients in a bowl, mixing things up, not measuring anything. It was amazing to watch. She was pretty unhappy with the result, though (I thought it was good). I think she doesn't like her mother's oven and thinks they didn't cook right.

Ira is an absolutely fabulous cook. (She reminds me of Katherine, my former manager.) For Yulia's and my birthday--we are both on November 3rd--Ira whipped up this absolutely fabulous chocolate and banana cake. Not only did it taste wonderful, but it also looked almost store bought. I was really glad to see that the sides were not perfectly curved, because that was the only way I could be sure, with my shaky Russian, that she really had made it, and didn't buy it in the store.


Drinking

Strangely, drinking hasn't been the issue I thought it would be. Maybe they are more careful with us because they know we're Americans, but also I think I have it easy because I'm a woman. The guys are definitely expected to drink more. But I rarely have to drink more than a glass of wine, and the men don't expect the women to drink vodka--although some women definitely do, especially at birthdays.

Drinking is a social think; mostly you drink when you're out with friends or celebrating something. And there are always three toasts, never just one. When glasses are refilled, they'll add some to yours even if you haven't drunk anything--just to be polite.

Most people have home-made vodka (which I have yet to try). I'm told that vodka is like a currency. You pay electricians, handy-men, plumbers, etc. partially in vodka. Oh, and if you're ever in Ukraine and someone holds up a mineral water bottle and asks if you'd like any, don't be so sure it's water--it might be some homemade vodka. (They'll probably warn you, though.)

In Search of an Internet "Club"

I have been here, amazingly, for 2 and a half weeks. How fast time flies--especially when you're scheduled solid. I've yet to visit a (working) internet cafe, but today we're going to Kiev, and there must be one there. The Peace Corps headquarters also have computers we can use, but with all 105 of us visiting Kiev for the first time today, I guess their 6 computers will be pretty busy. Something will work out.

And yes--you read correctly. This is my first visit to Kiev. The Peace Corps really holds our hands, and that includes prohibiting us from travelling away from our training sites for the first couple of weeks. Today is the day we are set free, so our language teacher is taking us to Kiev to see the sites.

Ukrainians are very proud of Kiev. When I meet someone (who happens to speak English), one of the things they always as is, "Have you been to Kiev?" When I answer that I haven't, they are so sad. "Oh, it is a wonderful city." (One of the Peace Corps officials who visited us last week told me it's "just like any other Eastern European city." Pretty cool, but once you've spent a couple of days there you've seen it all.) I'm really looking forward to the trip.

Anyway, you're probably wishing I would answer some more concrete questions....

Ukraine is very beautiful, and very green--at least when I got here. Somehow, that is what I noticed most flying in and driving to the "hotel" we stayed at for the first two nights: there are so many trees, and they are so very green. Compared to Ukraine, California is washed out and dull. (The buildings, on the other hand, all seem old. It seems like very few of them have been painted since Ukraine gained its independence.)

Overnight--or so it seems to me--the trees lost their leaves, the decorative vines withered, and the weather turned frosty. And I caught a cold. (I am recovering, exiting the snotty stage and entering a more cough-centric one. Thanks for asking.)

My home for the next 3 months is Berezan. Look a little east of Kiev on a map, and there it is. Berezan has about 30,000 people...but it doesn't have running hot water and there is no internet cafe. I guess we're a little backward here, because there is a town nearby that is about half the size and has both hot water and internet. There are 5 Peace Corps trainees in that town, and we Berezan trainees meet with them every Saturday. Last week was our first visit--of course the internet was down.

Some other highlights:

1. I'm learning Russian. It's hard! We had 6 hours of lessons a day for the first week, and only 4 hours a day since then. My language teacher is amazing.

2. I'm now going to the local school most mornings to either observe or conduct lessons. (Actually, I haven't really given a lesson yet--although I've unexpectedly been the lesson a couple of times.) It's really neat how interested in us everyone is. There is always a cloud of students hovering around us, just to watch and listen when we speak to each other. As I walk down the hallway, some brave souls shout out "Hi!" And "What's your name!" And "Angliski" (English). And then there are though who say "Bonjour," because they study French. Some of the older students, those nearing graduation, speak really well. They near fluency, and just need a little practice. That's what we're here to give.

3. My host family is really nice. I live with a lady who is just a little younger than my parents; she has two grown daughters, both married. It's just the two of us in the apartment.

4. My training group is great, too. There are 5 of us aspiring Volunteers in Berezan. We see each other every day (so far) for lessons, which is extremely comforting. It's nice to know that there are other people going through the same thing.

5. The food is good--I'm finally getting my appetite back--but there is so much fat in it. And they really try to feed us. I can't even eat a quarter of what gets put on my plate.

6. My name looks really cool in Russian! K - backwards E - P - backwards N. Sorta. You really have to see it, but I haven't figured out how to show you yet. ("Sheaffer" is even cooler.)

7. I'm having a good time.

To be honest (sorry!), I don't miss you all that much. (Silent "yet.") I'm just too busy, and everything is so different. Sometimes I'll see something that reminds me of one of you, and then I am a little sad...

There is some sort of Russian/Ukrainian version of Survivor. It looks a lot like the American version, except the women wear even less clothing (think string bikinis and European nudity laws) and the men are in speedos. (While the women are all very beautiful, the men...aren't. I guess that's the same in American Survivor, though.) Mom and Dad, I think of you whenever I see Ukrainian Survivor.

I saw a really interesting music video and really really wished I could call Jenny up to tell her about it, because no one else would think it was as crazy/cool and hilarious as she would. It was a duet. The man and woman were singing in English, although it obviously wasn't their native language. I think it was "Just another love song" or something like that. Anyway, remember that awful Paula Abdul video where Paula was dancing with the animated fox? Mmm-hmmm. Well, this video had computer animated sperm. Yes, you read that correctly. They had faces and were racing along track-lit animated fallopian tubes, and darting around the two singers. At the end of the song they reached the egg, which had big red lips and a ball gown (or maybe my memory is embellishing with the ball gown). One of the sperm got to smooch with the egg.

I swear to God this is true. It is the weirdest thing that I've ever seen.

I could go on, but I am about out of typing time--it's almost 7 and I have to get dressed. Please send me letters! They will make me happy. (Many hugs to those of you who already have--I've received a couple.) I haven't had much time to write so far, so those who've sent me letters have priority. Oh, and the US embassy opens our letters to check for Anthrax. (Again, I'm not kidding.) So no confetti, please--as if any of you would!

Packing is Painful

Well. Packing my apartment was difficult. Moving Day was stressful, although I had the help of lots of friends. (Thank you!) Driving the U-Haul was easier than I expected, and returning it wasn't too bad either; even though I was over the allowed mileage, they didn't charge me for it.

Packing for the Peace Corps was tough.

So some of you saw my two huge (and heavy) boxes, plus several bags of stuff I wanted to take with me. There were lots of books--no surprise to anyone who knows me--and things I'd been told would be useful, like a can opener and an oven thermometer. I had gifts to give to my host families, and clothes and shoes and blank journals and hundreds of other things I wanted to take "if there was room."

There was no room.

I'm glad my mom has a pretty accurate scale for her business. I packed up each of my two allowed bags, set them in turn on the scale, and then made the tough decisions about what had to come out to push the weight a smidge under 50 pounds. I packed up my backpack until I was afraid the straps would give out, loaded my purse until it was about bursting, and surveyed the carnage of my parents' living room.

There was stuff everywhere. Books and gifts and lotions and miscellaneous odds and ends (such as a can opener and an oven thermometer), plus trash and clothes that are not coming with me and empty boxes that need to be packed away. It was really quite stunningly messy, and I actually left it that way for my parents to deal with because we had to leave early to get to Phoenix by 4:00 on Friday, when the luggage store closed for the weekend. Why was that so important, you ask? Because somehow I'd managed to lose the shoulder strap for my giant black duffel bag, and that bag is next to impossible to manage without the strap.

I meant to make a nice list of everything I'm taking with me, but to be honest I don't have any idea what finally made the cut and what didn't. I guess it will be a bit of a surprise. I'll let you all know when I get there, because there is no way I'm going to unpack these bags before I get to Ukraine.

I am right now sitting in my hotel room in Washington, DC. Registration starts at 1:00 today, so I have a few hours to write this up and find a computer where I can upload it. Someone told me the hotel has a couple of computers--they charge $0.25 a minute to use them. They also charge to make phone calls to 1-800 numbers. Not a small charge, either. It's $1.00 for the first 30 minutes, and then $0.10 a minute after that. So if I don't call you even though I said I would, it's not because I don't love you. It's just because I haven't figured out where the pay phones are yet.

Last night about 10 of the volunteers (the Early Arrivals, or those of us flying in from the West coast, who couldn't get early enough flights to fly in by 1:00 tomorrow) met up in the lounge. This is a good group of people--no surprise there. We were all glad to find out we've been going through the same things. Of course the email list was great, but there's nothing like face-to-face.

So...I'm doing good, and looking forward to everything that's coming in the next week. And in the next two years. It's going to be grand!

A Post About Ukrainian Politics

I'll be arriving in Ukraine during an interesting time. (Ah, that most flexible of adjectives.) Ukrainian presidential elections are on October 31st. The president who is elected this October will be the third president of Ukraine since it declared independence in August 1991. The current president, Leonid Kuchma, is at the end of his constitutionally approved two 5-year terms in office. Although a court ruled last December that he could run for a third term, Kuchma has decided not to--in the face of much international outcry, I believe. His approval ratings are only at 7%, according to one article I read in the Action Ukraine Report. Imagine--7%. That astounds me.

In any case, Kuchma has decided to back the current prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich. (Whom I believe he appointed, I should mention. See here for a brief rundown of Ukrainian government.) The popular presidential contender is Viktor Yushchenko, who has a reputation for fighting corruption, and who has promised to open Ukraine to the West. (Which means turning away from Russia.)

Now, most of what I've been reading has a decided pro-Western bias, but the Yushchenko-Yanucovych race sounds like a dirty fight for the future of Ukraine.

The current government is beyond heavy-handed in its support of Yanucovych. TV stations and newspapers that present a favorable (or even unbiased) view of Yushchenko are being shut down with the flimsiest of excuses. Rallies supporting Yushchenko are being disrupted; in at least one case, the military sent trucks to block roads into a city where a rally was being held, preventing supporters from participating. And Yushchenko's (state-provided) body guards recently caught a government-sponsored spy who had been trailing Yushchenko and recording his conversations with a long-distance mic.

Reading all this, I can't help but feeling vaguely shocked. It's all so...so...un-American. Part of me is stuttering, "But...but...but it's not fair." (To which my Mom-voice replies, "Well, Carrie, life isn't fair.")

According to the accounts I'm reading, Yushchenko will win if the elections are fair. He's leading by about 8 points, or something like that. However, it's highly unlikely that the elections will be fair, even with international observers watching the proceedings. I could give a great example using a recent mayor election in a small Ukrainian town, but then this post would just get too long. (See here if you're interested in all of this.)

So what happens if Yanukovych wins--which I think is likely? Probably very little, actually--Yanukovych will keep Ukraine in the economic and social slump it's been in. Corruption will continue unabated, or increase. Ties with Russia will strengthen, and ties with Europe will remain tentative.

Ukraine is seen by Western eyes as a buffer country, limiting the reach of Russia, and--by being independent--limiting her power. And if Yanukovych wins, it will be seen as proof for many that the Ukrainian government is hopelessly corrupted. I wonder what happens then?

I just finished reading Borderland, a history of Ukraine, and I'm feeling sentimental. I want Ukraine to establish its own identity, one that is not intrinsically linked to Russia. Half the country feels, is, Russian; I want them to be Ukrainian, to root for this new country they are a part of. And, like most Westerners I'm sure, I hope Ukraine turns westward. Somehow, I feel that turning politically east will endanger the Ukrainian identity, even though it has withstood centuries of subjegation.

Kiev, or Kyiv?

There are two ways to spell Kiev, which I learned soon after I started reading up on Ukraine. I thought the difference was one of transliteration, with two different translation styles yielding different results. But no!

I recently signed up to receive the Action Ukraine Report, which is a sort of emailed newspaper, containing a lot of articles about Ukraine from a variety of news sources. At the bottom of the newsletter is this bit: "Kyiv vs. Kiev----SPELLING POLICY--Chornobyl vs.Chernobyl THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT uses the spelling KYIV (Ukrainian) rather than KIEV (Russian), whenever the spelling decision is under our control."

Well! Isn't that interesting?

On a more personal front, I'm coming up on the end of my employment. I have only a week and a half of work left (the work I get paid for, anyway). I'm trying to figure out fun stuff like voter registration and 401K rollovers and powers of attorney. I need to figure out when I'm going to find time to wash my car so I can take some pictures of it and put the For Sale signs in the window.

I also need to find time to go to the outlets in Gilroy to pick up a few things, and if anyone knows where I can find postcards of the San Jose area...let me know!

I had about a month of calm and waiting, but now it's over. There's so much to do.