Life as it is - One year in Ukraine

It's getting real a little more everyday. I'm leaving the sense of adventure and entering Ukraine as real life. I was waiting for a train with a friend who still marvels at what we're doing. "Does it ever just blow your mind where you are, what you're doing?" Honestly, at this point I just do it. Hopping a train to Kiev overnight for 13 hours is as exciting and novel to me as driving from Atlanta to Ringgold. Just another trip. I think my friend's point is that it's weird that somehow with our infantile Russian we managed to find our way to the train station, in the dark, and find the right platform to ride a train 13 hours filled with strangers in a foreign country, and it's become second nature. The new is wearing off, but with this normalization comes the progression of relationships.

I've advanced from being the object of wide-eyed amazement from kids at school to being greeted casually with the equivalent of "whuzzup" and handshakes. It's difficult walking down the hall as 30 boys from 5th to 11th grades attempt to shake my hand. And all I want is to pee. I really feel as though the kids like me, like I'm their friend. I'm not sure how important such relationships are to the goals of Peace Corps. The ability to throw a football doesn't really translate into enabling a kid to become a skilled worker, or does it? It's not like these kids aren't loved. I'm not dealing with AIDS orphans who are never held. But there's still something that seems so valuable in being able to connect with the kids at my school and show them how much I love them.

Every day at school I fall a little more in love with my students. They really keep me on my toes. Every now and then my 6th grade boys behave like, well, 6th grade boys. I'll be sitting in my office, writing copious unnecessary though required documents for my director, when after a short knock 5 boys burst into my office, further disgruntling my office mate, the building manager. In high pitched, chipmunk Russian:

"Ben, give us the footballs," says the boy who eats the ice off puddles.

"No, today's not your sports club day, it's class 7a today."

"But Ben, please!" says the freckly boy surprisingly called 'Dave'.

"No, I'll play with you guys on Friday."

"But Ben we don't have anymore classes and we need to learn how to throw footballs better," begs Ice Boy.

"What did I say?"

"Please Ben," boys in unison.

"Get out of my office, Galina Genadivna's getting mad," with mock severity, but sincere paranoia at what the woman across from me will do if they don't leave in 30 seconds.

"No."

"Yes."

"No. Give us the frisbees instead," cunning Dave attempts.

"No. I'm playing frisbee with 7a."

"Then give us the footballs."

"You'll lose them, no way."

"No Ben, we'll be careful."

"I said no, now get out," standing, herding the boys out of the office.

"Ben you're mean," says Ice Boy holding on for dear life to the door frame.

"Let go," I groan, and the little punk slips back into the office, grabs my bike helmet, and runs out.

I try to get mad. I try not to grin as I half-heartedly chase the gremlin out of the school. I just can't do it. I can't get mad, I can't be mean. They're too funny, too innocent, too much fun. I head back to my office, shaking my head and smiling, and a few minutes later Ice Boy bursts back into my office, hangs my helmet back on my bike, stops to wave, chirps "Bye Ben," in English, and runs out.

My job has turned me into a glorified P.E. teacher. The new volunteers who teach 20 hours of English a week hate me when I tell stories of playing ultimate frisbee with 6th graders most every day. Those volunteers are busy planning, teaching, are out accomplishing tangible results while I play, laugh, occasionally yell, and accomplish seemingly nothing. Even when I do broach the subject of English I play. I have English club instead of lessons and attempt to find as many non-traditional ways to teach English as possible in 45 minutes. This includes doing the Hokey Pokey and playing I Spy.

But this is just my day job. The storm is mounting, and I might actually find myself busy over the next year. I'm planning a week-long day camp for my school about leadership in June. I'm on the director's committee for a camp about HIV/AIDS prevention in early August. I'm a counselor for a camp the last week in August. I've just started planning a major project with grant funding in which I and another teacher will be doing trainings for our teachers, students, and parents on HIV/AIDS prevention, who will then go to the smaller schools throughout the county to train those students. This project will likely last until next January. And I'm in the working group which focuses on Peace Corps Ukraine's healthy lifestyles initiative, which has its own projects which support volunteers.

I'm quickly approaching my one year mark in Ukraine, and with 15 months to go it's not exactly downhill. One year really means I'm just now truly integrating and it's time to get down to business and put together some semblance of a project that will hopefully leave me and my community with a feeling of significance when I leave.

As a side note, I have truly experienced winter. We're having the winter of a decade here. "I'm so sick of this winter. We've never had this much snow this long," bemoans a naive young Ukrainian. "Ah, we had winters all the time like this 50 years ago," a wizened grandma proudly proclaims from the next seat on the bus. Still, this is apparently the worst winter in several years, and I have the privilege of suffering through it with the best of them. It's still hovering around freezing everyday. I go to bed with clear streets and glorious dirt showing. I wake up in the morning and everything is white again. By midday everything is clear again. But it's better than being in the north where there is still a foot of snow on the ground.

I just hope I don't have to stand outside a church for Easter in sub freezing temps.

Happy one year to me and the rest of Group 36!

Christmas 2009 (December 24 - January 7)

Hey everybody! I’m really, really sorry it’s taken me so long to get a blog post up. My trip over the holidays took a lot out of me and then it’s taken a month to get settled back into school. So I finally have enough brain power left over after a week to put something new up.

I'll start with my Christmas. Well, I got a site mate right before Christmas, who has an incredible amount of stuff in common with me, the most important of which is cycling. It’s nice having an American just across the city, especially one who’s easy to get along with. He and the other new kids weren’t allowed to leave site during Christmas, so we kinda worked together to host a big long Christmas party for all the volunteers in the area. We ended up with 8 people in my apartment, with a couple people sleeping over at his. Basically, we cooked, baked, and spoke English to our hearts’ content. For Christmas day, we went to the local bazaar, drew names, and had 30 minutes to spend the equivalent of $2.50 on gifts for each other, secret Santa style. Later, after we cooked a massive Christmas dinner with apple pie for dessert, we had a riot exchanging our gifts. It really made me feel like we were back at my house doing Robbins annual Christmas party. It'd been a while since I'd thrown a party like that and it felt really good. We started on Christmas Eve, and the last of us left on Sunday. I went to Kiev on Sunday for a flu shot and to fly out to meet Austin in Prague.

I left Kiev for Prague on December 29. My trip started off rough because we got 6 in. of snow the night before I left Kiev, then 6 in. during the day leading up to my flight's departure. When I magically arrived at the airport after a slippery bus ride, I was met by a wall of people dazed and confused about what was going on at the airport. The airport had been closed and thousands of people were stranded in the relatively tiny Kiev airport. My flight was scheduled for 2:45, and started check-in at 2:30. I thought to myself, surely it won't be on time, I've got plenty of time to get through the airport. I was standing with hundreds of people in passport control when a woman came and announced that those going to Warsaw (my connecting city) needed to ask those in front of them to cut line cause you're gonna miss your flight. I didn't even ask. I jumped up front, threw my passport down on the desk to the officer's dismay, and sprinted off to my gate. My flight left a miraculous 30 minutes late, just in time for me to make my connecting flight. Then I got super confused in the Warsaw airport and thought I missed my connecting flight. Turns out I had just forgotten to set my watch back an hour, meaning I had plenty of time.

Landed in Prague, figured out the ridiculous Czech currency, figured out how to get to the hostel, and decided to make a detour through the old town square. Milled around there, took some pictures at night, in the snow, and watched the clock for the first of many times. Feeling like life had finally paid off, I started off for the hostel. The further I went, the more I realize my hostel was in the redlight district. Sure enough, the entrance to my hostel was guarded by bouncers of the cabaret that shared the same entrance. Instead of having a callbox, or buzzer, or something sane like that, guests must, at all hours, call the host's cell phone to be allowed in the first time. Well, since nobody could tell me how to make a phone call in the Czech Republic either on my cell phone or a pay phone, I spent the next hour trying to figure out how to get in. After finally getting the hostess to come down and paying a $100 deposit I never got back, I went to bed. I had to cover my head with the blanket to block out the flashing lights from the cabaret across the street, and plug my ears with my iPod to drown out the droning music from the floor below. It was a well earned night’s sleep.

I spent the day browsing the Christmas market and went to meet Austin at the airport, I took him back to the hostel, and we hit the town. We ate on the square at a traditional Czech restaurant. We established the routine of searching for the most amazing hole in the wall Czech restaurants every night. During the days we killed ourselves running around the city checking out all the stuff there is to see. Saw several gorgeous gothic churches, climbed the tower overlooking the astronomical clock, laughed at the thousands of people who gathered every hour to watch the anticlimactic show at the astronomical clock, realized we often watched too, so maybe we're just as dumb, and went through, what I consider the highlight of Prague, the Jewish museum. I'd never been in a synagogue before, much less one that was 500+ years old. There was a really tight district where all the Jewish residents of Prague were centered. The coolest part, and I'm not morbid, was the cemetery. There were thousands of grave markers piled on top of each other because the thousands more dead were buried in layers in a very small area. Some of the markers dated back to the 1400s.

Somewhat exhausted, we set out to search for dinner before New Years. We had a terrible time finding a place to suit our tastes and our wallets. We walked ourselves silly till we finally stumbled upon this little quiet place in a cellar. Got down there and new we'd found the spot. We were surprised by the number of people already down there eating so early. Had our best dinner in Prague by far. After dinner we rolled our overfed selves around Prague trying to kill the last few hours of 2009. Then we headed out to watch fireworks from beautiful, ancient Charles Bridge. In the crushing mass of people we found our spot while dodging exploding M80's, and realized the people standing behind us were Ukrainian. I struck up a conversation in Russian and realized they live not too far from me. I was asked all the requisite questions: Do you like our Ukraine? Why of all places Ukraine? Have you found a wife there yet? We made friends, and I felt vindicated: if I'm not celebrating New Years in Ukraine, at least I can celebrate it with Ukrainians. Then all hell broke loose. The moment the church bells throughout the city rang in the New Year it seemed everybody had some form of pyrotechnic disaster in their hands to let loose. There were fireworks exploding everywhere. Complete sensory overload. Explosions flashed, bells rang, people shouted, the earth shook. I'm pretty sure I had shell shock afterwards. Then, in the words of Tolstoy, there was a massive movement of people from west to east, then east to west. All the people on the bridge decided to see what was going on in the square, and all the people in the square wanted to be on the bridge. It was like swimming upstream in all directions. Austin and I found the square looking like a war zone, large swaths of cobblestone cluttered with the debris of all the fireworks, some still erupting. People didn't dare enter the hostile zone, and we were sure to skirt the no man's land. We meandered around a little more to check out the mayhem, and finally walked in revelry back to the hostel.

We poured ourselves out of bed the next day to get Austin to mass to atone for our most recent sins, and fulfill Holy obligation. In the mental smoke lingering from the night's fireworks, we got lost and missed mass in a really important church. We ended up just shooting the breeze with a really cool monk who spoke 12130984 languages. He loaded Austin up with souvenirs to take back for his entire seminary, many of which became 'take one please' at the entrance to the cathedral. We milled around that part of the city, had some good lunch, and then headed up to Prague Castle, just in time to be late for everything. All we could do was walk around the grounds though we were dying to get into the exhibits. Only major failure we had the whole trip, and probably would have killed us if we had made it into all the galleries. Something to go back for I guess. Highlight of my last night was when I haggled a guy down $20 on a ceramic beer stein in Russian.

We left for Munich on January 2. Getting on the train to Munich, not surprisingly, wasn't easy as they didn't post the platform number until the moment we boarded. The train ride was super relaxing as we rolled through the snow blanketed countryside of Bohemia and Bavaria. Got to Munich and life felt normal for the first time in 9 months. Despite everyone around me speaking German, I got that inexplicable, indelible feeling I've had in New York, London, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Durango, Nashville- I could live here, I'm comfortable here. Munich was a surprising blend of modern with ancient. There was plenty to see, and it was interesting that there were as many German speakers in every church as foreigners. After we got checked in to our hostel, which blew us away with modernity and cleanliness, convenience and overall logic, we headed out to find dinner, and stumbled across Hofbrauhaus, the epic beer hall, and got our first taste of Munich. We had to charm our waiter with sideways glances and well timed head nods to get any attention from our waiter (it was worse than flirting with a pretentious woman- one wrong smile might signify desperation and we might never see him again) and the oompa band played songs that somehow everyone else knew. That pretty much sums up the spirit of Munich. The next day we actually made it to mass, went to a museum filled with Renaissance paintings, then started ticking off sites around Marienplatz. Next day we headed out to Nymphenburg Palace which gave us our fill of Baroque. We walked all over the neighborhood around the palace, which was really cool, but only out of necessity because we were lost again while looking for food. The place we settled on, after walking in a huge circle, had me call upon my meager German abilities to get us through lunch as the waitress didn't speak English. We headed back to the old town and walked through Residenz, another palace.

It was hard to say goodbye to Munich. Austin headed out early the next day and I got to see some other parts of the city, unplanned and whimsical, the way I do best, the only way. Had an uneventful flight home. Trudged through another foot of snow in Kiev to the train station and an overnight train ride later landed back in Konstantinovka, on Orthodox Christmas morning, January 7. It was an amazing trip and another epic New Year’s Eve. Austin and I are really setting the bar high for future New Years.

Holidays

Thanksgiving for me was well spent with about 15 other volunteers in a city in south/central Ukraine. We actually celebrated on Saturday instead of Thursday, and there were few differences from the holiday at home. We watched football, played football, went shopping, cooked tons of food, then became catatonic afterwards. Of course there were differences. We went shopping at thrift stores, played football in a sketchy paved lot behind a school at dusk (3pm), watched a recorded Jets vs. Patriots game, cooked chicken instead of turkey, and nearly passed out at a sauna instead of on the couch. I loved the Ukrainian flavor it had, and had great company. Sure did miss home though. At least I got to Skype with the whole family on Thanksgiving Day.

Christmas is going to be weird. Ukraine celebrates Christmas on the Orthodox 'Old Calendar' which means they will celebrate actual Christmas on Jan. 7. Thanks to Soviet influence, they will do the whole Santa Claus thing on New Years Eve, which is their big celebration. Which means Dec. 25 is just another day here. It was weird enough forgetting about Thanksgiving on it's actual day, but missing Christmas is a different story. My family, friends, and country are going to be celebrating and I'll be working at school, with nobody acknowledging there is anything special about the day. Going to do my best to make sure I'm around friends who understand at least for a bit on Christmas day.

For New Years I'm going to be in Prague, living it up with my bro Austin Foster, giving him some much needed respite from Catholic seminary. I'll arrive in Prague on Dec. 29, meet up with Foster, then head down to Munich on Jan. 2, parting ways on the 5th. The goal is to be in a different city for New Years Eve every year. We've done New Orleans, New York, and now Prague. It will be interesting to see where we end up next.

It's gonna stink not celebrating Christmas like usual, but the upside is I will get back to Ukraine in time to celebrate Christmas with my friends on Jan. 7. There are already some plans in the works for that. So at least there's the potential to celebrate Christmas twice!

Quarantine

So, once again, I've delayed writing due to lack of a positive perspective. Emotionally it's been a rough past few weeks. But somehow, I got the flu this week and my mood has lifted and the world is bright again, at least in my mind (the forecast for the next 8 days predicts about 8hrs of sunlight TOTAL). This post chronicles life post pleasant bike ride recorded in previous post.

So, as you saw in the previous post it was as if God sent me a rainbow of peace in the form of a cemetery, a babbling brook, and amazing fall colors. I was all set to travel the next week for fall break, regroup, have fun, come back and get going on the schedule we finally pounded out but had yet to actually realize. So I set out for my host family the last week in October. It was a great time. They were happy to see me, I got fattened up by my host mom, got to play with my 4yo host nephew, got to spend quality time with one of my training facilitators, got to harass the new trainees, and chill with my buddy Dave. It felt so great to go back. I felt like an 8th grader strutting through the middle school on the last day of class. I'll always have a home in Baryshivka, and that's something I never expected, especially at the beginning of training.

Then we met up with some friends and all got on a train to Kharkiv to meet up with even more volunteers to celebrate Halloween. We partied on the train. We partied at the pre-party on Friday. We partied all day and night on Halloween. It was a blast. Luckily I picked the costume of Sherlock Holmes cause it gave me an excuse to wear an overcoat and a hat as the temperature dramatically dropped from its pleasant 70 degree loftiness. Got to catch up with old friends, make some new ones, and speak a ton of non-broken English. But the event was punctuated by a startling announcement by the Ukrainian Prime Minister: UKRAINE IS COVERED IN SWINE FLU SO SCHOOL IS CANCELLED FOR 3 WEEKS.

Most volunteers looked at this news with glee as it meant a spontaneous 4 week vacation for most, as the week before the quarantine had been fall break. I, however, viewed the quarantine with trepidation, knowing all my momentum was about to be destroyed, and I had absolutely nothing to do for 3 weeks. Furthermore, I had a sneaking suspicion that since, at that point, the flu had only just started in the west, by the time quarantine was over, it would move to the east and wreak havoc. So we all set off for home, each contemplating ways to entertain ourselves, giggling a little at all the people wearing white masks.

The first week was marked by a cold for me. I went to school to make sure I wasn't supposed to be there, then stayed in bed for the rest of the week just to make sure I didn't invite swine flu into my body. The second week was marked by the breakdown of my computer. My wonderful, trusty college laptop finally gave up the ghost at the worst possible time. Without it I couldn't even listen to music. Well, I could listen to my iPod until it ran out of battery, seeing as I charge my iPod with my computer. But I actually began playing solitaire with REAL cards. I was that bored. I finally broke down after trying for a week to fix it and called home to beg for a new computer. My parents consented and I went a bought a new netbook. Not my favorite computer, but gets the job done for now. And easy to travel with. The third week just sucked. I was soooo bored it finally got to me and I just couldn't get anything done. Thankfully it went by quickly cause I slept through most of it. I learned undeniably throughout that 3 week period that I don't do bored very well. It's crippling for me. Everyone tells me I need to relax and let myself get bored every now and then. Well, all of you who said that, I did it, and it almost killed me!

I was able to see friends on the weekends, and even went on a day trip to visit another nearby volunteer who made me pancakes. But the weeks were made even more difficult as most of the activity I take part in during the week is related to schools, meaning zero activity during quarantine. No running, no basketball, no weight room. And starting the week before Halloween, the sun decided to show its face only in hour long intervals once a week, and rarely a day went by without rain. So that made cycling very unappealing, and sleep super appealing. It was a very depressing time.

So the inactivity finally came to an end and I went back to school, and slowly dug myself out of my depressive hole. We've been back for two weeks now, and I'm glad to be rid of my neurotic frustrations with boredom. Of course, I have traded them for problems at school, but at least that has something to do with my purpose in being here. I'll go deeper into those problems as they get resolved cause I intend to be objective on such a topic.

At the moment I am in my own secluded self quarantine. I was supposed to go to Kiev this weekend but canceled the trip. I'm doped up on Tamiflu and Advil, but seeing light at the end of the tunnel, and for once enjoying my few days off. Got a lot done so far. Just has me wondering, if quarantine for the east had been 3 weeks later, when it would be predicted the flu would get here, would a third of my school be sick, including me? I love panic as political capital.

Places Find You

So on my way home from school on Friday, after getting out of school early because of the start of fall break, I decided to take a little detour down a road that hat been begging at me for weeks. It was a steep downhill which apparently led to nowhere. What I found blew my mind.

I'd been looking for a place like this, but the industrial mecca that is the Donbas region really made it hard, much harder than when I lived in a small city during training. I just bought a new mountain bike off a volunteer who's finishing up his service. It was awesome branching out from the little dirt road down some trails and bumbling my way around.

That's right, I now have two bikes, but they have their purposes. Belo is for heavy lifting and commuting, and Artie is for fun and exploring. And if you know me, I need both. Turns out I stumbled upon the somewhat hidden city cemetery. It was absolutely massive. It stretches for acres and acres. And on checking the dates on the headstones, it's relatively new. Now I'm wondering where the old cemetery is and how big it must be. Take note of the picnic tables next to the graves. It's tradition to eat meals with your dead loved ones, especially on a certain religious holiday, of which the name escapes me.

It was especially poignant since the fading fall sunlight and golden leaves really made the place glow. It's one of those places that leaves it's impression. Even if I never return, it will influence my memories of fall forever. I wasn't there long, but it didn't take much.

Not sure if I would have ever found this most perfect place if it hadn't called me to it. I had no plans to take the trip, and nobody tipped me off about it. And the great thing was, while I was taking photos, sometimes the sun would disappear, making for unfortunately gloomy photos. So I would give up and go a little further, and the sun would pop back out, and the spot I would find myself in would be a better shot. It was like the place was controlling how it wanted to be represented.

Then of course I had to ride one of the steepest hills I've ever been on. Wasn't too long but it was a heart breaker. Can't wait to go back for picnics and just to disappear. So happy it found me.

Americanski Kozak

So the other day I officially became a card carrying member of the Ukrainian Cossacks. Basically, my school's director is a proud Cossack and works hard to instill Cossack heritage into the children at our school. There has been a Cossack representative speak or give gifts at every event I've attended, and there's even a small museum with Cossack artifacts at our school. Every 'homeroom' is named after a Cossack 'hetman' or general.

The occasion for my induction was the Ukrainian holiday for the Day of the Cossacks. My school prepared for almost two weeks for this holiday. Each homeroom had to learn how to march and chant their motto, name, and song. At the ceremony, each class paraded in front of Cossack representatives carrying their flags and reciting their chants. There was singing, competitions, speeches, and so forth, as usual. The difference at this ceremony was the induction of new Cossacks.

In the Ukrainian school system, after the 9th grade, students are allowed to choose whether to go to a college prep school or head off to a technical school. Seeing as this year could be the last year many of the 9th graders are at our school, it only made sense that their class be inducted into the Cossacks. They were made to kneel on the blacktop, repeat an oath, kiss a sword and cross, and get sprayed with holy water by an Orthodox priest. After the students' induction, it was my director's wish to have the new teachers get initiated as well. So we did pretty much the same thing, minus the oath but having to kiss the Cossack flag as well. I did so to resounding applause from the students. I was given my id card and certificate proving that I am now somehow a Cossack. The treat they gave the students after the ceremony? Porridge. It was really good.

So what is a Cossack you might ask? Basically, Cossacks were bands of 'warriors' who protected the villages of Ukraine in the middle ages. They eventually pledged their loyalty to the Tsar and became his personal protectors. They fought alongside the Russian army in several wars. They have passed into folklore and constitute a major part of the beauty of Ukrainian culture and art. They were disallowed during much of the Soviet Union, but since have resurrected. In some places that act as a parallel police force, or an army reserve. I've seen them guarding churches as they not only protect citizens, but tradition and religion as well.

I've been trying to find some analogy to help place the Cossacks in your mind. The closest I've come is a sort of Ukrainian samurai, though maybe a little more friendly and not so hardcore. They simply enjoy vodka and laughing too much to match the samurai in ferocity, though I wouldn't want to be caught dismounted when the Cossack calvary came across me. The state they are in at present is a little weird though. I would somewhat compare them to a rotary or kiwanis club honestly, if those organizations had a military connection. It would kind of be like if the confederates had willingly submitted to and fought alongside the United States Army, then the U.S. Army doublecrossed them, then the U.S. fell apart, and there was no war to fight, and the confederates values were legitimate, that organization would probably be similar to the Cossacks today. Hope you enjoyed that thought experiment, which will not offend you only if you are from the deep South.

So my life continues to be interesting, to say the least. My only concern is that I think I might be registered with a legitimate military reserve. If Ukraine, or even just the Cossacks, go to war, not sure where that leaves me. We've been joking that if the Cossacks go to war with America, I'd have to fight against my motherland. Kind of a 'Last Samurai' kind of thing. If they give me a sword I'm down.

Underqualified and Over-zealous

So I've been putting off posting the past few weeks cause I honestly haven't had anything very interesting to report. I was put in a holding pattern because the school didn't set it's official schedule for four weeks. And then there's the matter of my personal schedule, which is a mystery to everybody. For the past six weeks I have been going to school almost everyday filled with uncertainty as to what I'm supposed to do, and what to do to make that uncertainty go away.

The original plan was for me to go to school every-other-day and work a full day. I would observe different classes to get an idea of how Ukrainian schools work, help English teachers in their lessons, plan sports and English clubs, and most importantly, plan games for the kids during the breaks. Later on it was added that I would open the weight room a few times a week for the older kids. Sounds pretty good, but it's all just a theory.

I've more or less accomplished all of the above tasks, but all a little bit different than I imagined, of course. I observed several different subjects, which was very interesting, except my school strictly teaches in Ukrainian. I barely speak Russian and still can't make heads or tails out of Ukrainian, so unfortunately I fell asleep a couple of times during my observations, despite bringing my own work to do. I tried to help the English teachers, and this went more or less to plan, except they also teach the majority of the class in Ukrainian and when given the reins for the class, the teachers often steal them back in Ukrainian as soon as I get started. Then there are my clubs.

I started out by putting up posters announcing my English and American Sports clubs with places to sign up. Of course, over 50 kids signed up for each one. Oh well, I thought, at least they know about it, though I only expected a few kids to show up at each. I planned my first English club on a Wednesday. I watched as all the kids streamed past me out of school while I frantically searched for the key to the room I'd been assigned. When I finally got it together, all that was left were three 5th grade girls and a 5th grade boy. So we had English club. I went over introductions and we practiced with each other, and in my opinion, it was pretty successful for 5th graders.

After reflecting on who came to the club and how to get others involved, it came to my attention that my school's erratic schedule creates major problems for after school clubs. Looking at the schedule I realized that all the older students still had class while I was holding my club. And all the other kids were flying out of school to catch the bus back to town. I was working hard to remedy this when my assistant director informed me that I would no longer lead clubs after school, but instead would be assigned classes that were free throughout the day. Now, this is not ideal to me, since I feel this will lead to a lack of consistency as the free classes will change throughout the year. And it feels a lot less like a club when students are required to come. And it seriously limits who I get to work with. But the upside is I have a definite time and place to lead my club unaffected by the confusing end of day schedule. And I can still treat it like a club despite the fact it screams 'lesson'. Furthermore, I should have more than four at each club, though 4 is honestly a better number than 25.

Sports club has been treated the same way. I now have assigned classes as opposed to willing students after school. But I've been held up by my bike wreck and the Ukrainian postal system. I wanted to first teach kids the wonders of cycling. Unfortunately, the week before my first club I wrecked my bike. I held club anyway but it was rather pointless since I didn't have a bike to demonstrate on or even just ride with the kids. It lasted a whopping 5 minutes. But I was determined to at least make a showing. My next idea was to teach the kids American football with the footballs that had been sent from the States recently. Well, despite being pestered everyday by kids wanting to play, I still have no package after 5 weeks. Luckily, my mom and Diane came to visit bearing frisbees from Half Moon Outfitters. Diane and I taught a group of 6th graders ultimate frisbee which went over rather well. So until I can get a few footballs, the plan is to keep teaching ultimate. And my bike is somewhat fixed so I'm still going to go for rides with the kids after school, though I'm not going to call it club.

The games during breaks have been a blast, though they are complete chaos. I have kids screaming and laughing for a blazing 15 minutes. I just teach them camp style games I've learned and play with them. If it's an older group I'll do team building stuff like the 'lap sit' and 'human knot'. Sometimes I'll go to our 'game room' and all the kids will be there, and other times they don't show. So I'm learning to check the schedule first and go grab the right class as soon as the bell rings. Not sure how much these games fit in with Peace Corps goals but I'm sure having fun doing it. Somebody help me rationalize it!

Just last week I was told to open the weight room for 9th-11th graders. I took Diane down with me (it's in the basement) and it was hilarious. Immediately shirts came off and new maxes were reached on every apparatus. I didn't realize it but most of the kids down there shouldn't have been, as they were supposed to be in class. A teacher came down yelling at them and drove the delinquent boys out. Luckily I didn't get in trouble.

Now, they've changed my whole schedule so that I work everyday, but only the second half. This is a little better honestly, as it provides more consistency, especially since the schedule is set to repeat every week, a phenomenon which didn't exist with the previous one. There are two major downsides to this schedule though. First, I have been spending the days I had free working with other schools and organizations, which will be greatly marginalized since I only have a few hours in the morning to do such work now. Second, I will be dependent on my bike to get to school since the last bus going to school leaves at 7:30 am. My bike has proven itself rather untrustworthy. Otherwise I'll have to take a taxi which will get expensive if I have to do it everyday, which is possible in the depths of winter. We'll see how this works for now.

Unfortunately I often find myself improvising in situations I'm not so qualified to be in. I wish I knew better how to teach English, how to organize a workout, the finer points of healthy lifestyles. Instead I'm making it all up as I go, which makes me question my effectiveness. And it's hard enough to gain credibility without speaking the language. It kicks up a notch when you look like you have no idea what your doing, because you don't.

But I'm still idealistic and uncompromising like always. I'm taking the cards that are continually being dealt and doing the best I can with them. And like in poker, bluffing can be the road to success.