Merry Merry Christmas

Since this will not be a typical Christmas season for me, I decided to start off my Christmas morning in prime fusion.

I got up, and fed the cat, Zoshia, who I have been baby-sitting for the last week for my neighbor. Next I cooked myself some breakfast while watching the Christmas classis; Battle Royal! Ok, maybe it is not a Christmas classic, but hey, on my Christmas I make the rules! For those of you who have never seen the movie, it is a Japanese film about a time when the youth loose all respect for adults and the government until the older generations enact in law Battle Royal to make an example of bad behaved classes. The legislative act chooses 1 class each year, drugs them, puts them on a deserted island with weapons for three days for an all out blood bath. Each class member is equipped with an electrical collar so that they can be monitored throughout the battles and if by chance there is more than one person left on the last day, all of the triggers on the collars detonate. The result being no winner. It makes for a great movie and I was happy with my choice. I plan to watch a real Christmas movie later on tonight- probably “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Opening my present.

After breakfast and a movie, I showered and cleaned the house to the Weezer Christmas album since it is the only Christmas music I have. To tell you the truth, Rivers and the rest of the guys in Weezer make a good holiday CD- very tasteful.

To quote my father, Vince, “You know Patrick, it probably won’t be your favorite Christmas, but you sure will remember it forever.” He is right. You know, I have been in the zone for the last few months that the holidays have been going bye quick and easy which makes it easier when I think ofhow much I would like to be with my friends and family especially now.

On my way to school

A typical Christmas season involves a slow and snowing drive down Interstate 89 and 93 to Falmouth where I am met with all of the Christmas foods you can think of from my mother and grandmother. My grandfather’s snow blower always shuts its self down after two passes in his driveway, and after we shovel our driveway, its across the street to the Twohig’s to help finish the job. I think he has got it sorted out this year though, at least I hope so for my Dad’s sake. Christmas eve Eggy and I go see a movie at the theater, but I can never remember which movie we see, since it is not the movie, which is important, but the company.

The next day my Mom, Dad, Riptide and I open our presents and as my Dad cooks his famous breakfast Riptide goes to town on the wrapping paper- earning his name for sure. Then it’s off to the Twohigs to meet up with the rest of the family, and the celebration becomes funnier and funnier with each coming year- last year we even sang as a family, it was probably one of the lamest and coolest things we have done all together. We literally sang all 12 days of Christmas in a line- can’t beat it. And I cannot forget my father famous retelling of “Twas the night before Christmass…”- A fan favorite! Many of the same things happen but the repetitional feeling of the same jokes, stories, movies, and sometimes presents is something I really wish I had this Christmas.

Not a bad walk to school huh?

I did get to do some of the things I usually do though- the movies. I also have a small Christmas tree as displayed in the pictures, company- the cat, and I even had a present to unwrap underneath the tree. My counterpart Valentina gave me a gift all wrapped up last night after her family had me over for dinner. One thing Ukrainians have a knack for is filling you up to the lid. One of the first words I learned when I got to Ukraine was “Eat eat!” “cushait cushiat!” and this was no exception last night. They even get you when you aren’t eating at their house. I have hardly gotten a chance to show off my food buying skills at the bazaar because of the constant bombardment of jarred Ukrainian cuisines.

Since I have such wonderful family at home too, the night before I left for DC my mom gave me a stack of envelopes that were cards written to me in advance- so far I have opened a bunch, “Open after you get to your host family,” “First Day in Ukraine,” “Halloween,” 2 labeled “Thanksgiving,” and now I have opened my 2 Christmas cards- one in particular that I enjoyed from Maureen and Leigh. When I first looked at it I had thought that Leigh had signed with her left hand, it turns out it was a left over card from many years ago- a message from the past! So a special thank you to all of you who have written the cards for me they are awesome- Grandma and Granddad, Liz, Sue, Maureen, Parents etc. My host brother called me a few nights ago and reminded me not to forget to open them and let him know what they say. The gift that keeps on giving!

In other interesting news, school has been great. I was worried that since I had had such a great training school my new one couldn’t possibly meet the same standards- I don’t know what they are feeding these kids here, but they are so polite and nice, always saying hello, and asking questions. There must be something in the хлиб. I have taught a few classes and I am gettign ready for next years schedual and clubs. This weekend will be the Olympiads comeptition where students from diferent schools compete in diferent subjects- I will attend the English competitions tomorrow morning and root on my pupils.

Well that’s about that. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

I can see Moldova from my house!

Literally, I can see it from right out of my window! So if you are reading this you know that I have finally made it, literally and figuratively. I have made it to my permanent site where I will live and work for 2 years and I have made it to Official Volunteer status- no one may ever refer to me as a lowly Trainee ever again.

I am way donw west southern central Ukraine the most western light blue name tag in the second most green State- or Oblast.

So on the 6^th my host Dad drove all my luggage and me to the park to be picked up right where we were dropped off just 3 months earlier; under the guise of a statue of Vladimir Lenin. This time I was far more prepared since I can see much more than “yes”, “no”, and “good.” We all waved farewell to our Ukrainian families who had acted as our guides, friends, families, and teachers, headed off to great Kyiv. After a short drive we arrived, through our luggage in storage and started our 4 days of meeting after meeting.

After a few informational sessions we finally heard the news we had been waiting months and months to know; where we would be serving. Drum roll please……. My new home, my site, my город, Mohyliv-Podilskyia. MP is a town of about 34,000, a big step up from my last site of 7000. It is the second largest city in the Oblast, which is called Vinnytska. It has a pretty lengthy history being incorporated sometime in the 3rdcentury I was told. The lands were given as a dowry gift to a man marrying a rich man farmer's granddaughter, and the town is named after him. The town was very prosperous because of its position and easy access to the Black Sea and Turkey via the river that separates Ukraine and Moldova- the Dniester

US Ambassador to Ukraine, Country Director of PC, Head of TEFL Program- A SMC grad by the way, Representatives from the Ministry of Education.

At “swearing in” we took the oath read to us by the American Ambassador to Ukraine in which we had to swear to uphold and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic so help me God, among other things. After a short celebration we started to roll out of town to our respective villages, cities and towns, spreading all over the country. As you can imagine it was both terrifying and exciting since we had no clue what was really waiting for us at our new homes.

Of course we need not worry since Peace Corps has more than prepared us linguistically, technically, and culturally to deal with a number of different issues and I have already recognized myself using different techniques learned in training.

The entranceway of my crib

So some details about my new place or as I call it, my little ski lodge. Well, its not really like a ski lodge, its an apartment, but its got a lot of varnished bead-board in it, its super cosy and I have a coat rack make of deer hooves and antlers. It is kind of strange since I have never had to live by myself, especially so far from anyone I know, but I have had people like Ira Glas from This American Life and Peter Seagal from Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, stopping by each night as I cook dinner and eat.

Where the devil sleeps... and outside there he hangs his clothes to dry too.

Unrelated, but interesting they say almost all towns once under Soviet control have a statue of Vladimir Lenin, the once General Secretary of the USSR, but not in Mohyliv-Podilskyi! They actually have a monument of John Lenin! Its one of only three memorials in the world, one in England, one in Japan and the last here!

An empty room I dont know what to do with.

I have already started going to my school Gymnasia 3 which is about a 30 min walk from my house. There I have been being shuffled from class to class introducing myself, going through normal teenage interrogation, and getting the feeling for the place in which I will be trying to drop some serious knowledge, na sayin? I have been extremely impressed in the level of English speaking of the students and total lack of fear in approaching me and asking any question. In one 10^th form class two students got into a pretty serious debate over the pros and cons of school uniforms where other students were backing them up. Part of our teaching has to do with extra curricular activities and judging from this I have come to the conclusion that a Debate Club will be in the near future of Gymnasia 3. I think it will go over pretty well.

My Kitchen- stocked and stoked

Alright MTV, I've shown you my crib, now get outta here!

Though the town is a lot bigger, it has not lost its small town charm. Everyone has been more than helpful and my counterpart and the other English teachers have been introducing me to everyone here. I now have my address so if you would like to send some goods via mail to me jut email me and I will send you my address and directions for mailing to Ukraine! I hope all is well and the season is upon you. It comes a little late in Ukraine. Christmas is January 8^th here. But nonetheless Merry Christmas!

Тбой добраволец,

патрик

The end of training

Well, I have three days until I finally go to Kyiv and open that fateful envelope which holds so securely the next two years. Besides the details about my site that I have ben waiting oh so patiently for, this envelope also contains the results of the Language Progress Interview. I think I did really well on it so I am excited to find out which level I was placed into. When it comes down to it, the interview cannot hurt us at all and is only a way to gauge how much we have learned in our language classes. Aka you cannot fail. Nonetheless, I studied pretty hard for it so we'll see if I've still got it.

The Interview took place on the first sunny day in weeks probably and it was a beautiful one for sure. I think that helped me. Walking briskly to class, sun in my face, sunglasses on, and dancehall pounding though my earbuds I went over the vocabulary I had trouble remembering. Trying to memorize lines this early in language learning can be pretty frustrating. Because we lack the more intermediate skills to express any abstract thoughts, you have to dumb down everything. I wanted to say things like; "I love to fly-fish, it is therapeutical and I think it would be a wonderful way to discover Ukraine and its nature" which will then turn into "I like fishing because the river is very quiet, and the river has beautiful nature." Another example "I like to create black and white photographic obras using surrealism to obscure what the human eye see" but I can only say "I like black and white photography, I work with surrealism." I hope that later in my service I will be able to express in Russian closer to what I can in English and Spanish.

PS if you are wondering how I could have used surrealism, its a cognate! Gotta love cognates!

Anyway, the day was a great one, and after the interview I was in a wonderful mood, switching off the dancehall and trading it for a gnarly cumbia, I watched as Ukrainians rode their bikes down iced over roads that more resemble the bumpy dark ice at Kennedy Memorial Rink in Barnstable than anything you would drive on. Another pleasant sight is how Ukrainian's wardrobe and accessories change after the first snowfall. Once flakes are spotted, Ukrainians let the fur fly! Men walk in tall fur hats and fur collared leather jackets, and women adorn elegant fur hats of their own or pull over a furry Inuit style hood from their massive jackets. They rally have winter fashion down here, and I have got to get with it! Mothers have put away their baby carriages and everywhere you look sleds slide through the streets. This ain't your typical snow day, Ukrainians put their sleds to work, they carry children, groceries, tools, whatever you usually carry can now be rested on a sled and pulled. Pretty cool if you ask me!

So above you will see me learning how to hand wash my clothes. Chances are that I will be keeping my clothes nice and clean like this for the next two years. Its pretty labor intensive, but as you can see, I'm totally getting the hang of it. As I was elbows deep in soap I thought back to the washboards that used to hang in my grandmothers bathroom and how I could really use one of those right now- my great grandmothers would be so proud of me if they could only see me now!

I would also like to correct a mistake I made in the last post. When I thought I had made a mistake leaving my wet clothes to freeze outside overnight, I was actually right! Though it is painfully cold to hang wet clothes outside, letting them drip for a while outside gives them the fresh outdoors scent that American companies strive to chemically substitute in your store bought machine wash. SO YEA! Maybe I'll have to do a little extra work, but I'm sure going to smell good!