Jessteichuz's travel blogs:
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Welcome to Ukraine
Entry 4 of 20 | show all | print this entry |
Zdrastuvuitye!
I made it to Ukraine!
I spent the first few days catching up with my old Uzbek 18 compatriots, meeting new Ukraine-29ers, and getting oreinated to Ukraine by Peace Corps. I was placed in a Russian lanuage class which is very exciting because Peace Corps has the best language program in the world, so if I can learn a langauge here that I will for sure be using in the future, I'm set!
Our training sites are very spread out, unlike in Uzbekistan. We can be up to 2 hours apart, and travel to those places isn't as easy as it was in Uzbekistan. The martshutka system seems more complex, at least at first. You have to buy a ticket in advance! But even if you buy a ticket, you arent gaurenteed a seat. If the teller at the ticket window is nice enough, she will tell you to go around the corner,and wait for the driver to go there, as he will make an additional unofficial stop there for people willing to pay a little less for standing room only. We did it twice today. Welcome to Ukraine....
The town I am in is called Kagarlyk. Its a turkish town that speaks a langauge which is a mixture between russian and ukrainian. Being that I know neither, its okay ..for now. My host mother speaks only russian to me (upon request from peace corps). We live -just the two of us- in a small apartment. Its a two bedroom with a kitchen and bathroom. We have running water! Its not hot, you have to heat it up on the stove, but because its so close to the bathroom, its not a problem! It's very cozy. My host mother has two sons, at university in Kiev, they come home on the weekends.
My host mother, is wonderful and has had a few other PCTs before so she kinda understands 'crazy' american behaviors. She is a teacher and knows a handful of english words. with my handful of russian ones, we are getting by and communicating pretty well under the circumstances. She just talks and talks and I get maybe 2% of what is going on. The most frustrating thing is to understand what she is saying but not being able to respond back. It works though, I was able to tell her that I have a new baby cousin!
My apartment is about a 10-15 minute walk from the center of town, where there is a small squire with a soviet tank commerating the russian victory in the Great Patriotic War (other wise known as World War II).
Kagarlyk has a fantastic park... There is a defunct fountain there and behind it there is another WWII memorial, but this one is bright pink...In town, there are a few stores and our post office sells shampoo and conditioner- its a new capital campaign our russian teacher told us about- to sell random things in the post office...very convienient...
if you walk towards town, you will get to a statue of Lenin. Yes, they still exist here. In most major cities in the former USSR, they took them away and renamed streets, ect. but not here. Here they remain. For example, the internet cafe (about 45 min away in a neighboring town) is on lenin street and if I look at the window I see a big statue of him starting at me. he looks towards the old 'House of Culture." Keeping up with Soviet tradition, they still hold dance lessons and music performances here. This floor, where there is now an internet cafe, several portraits of soviet leaders (both men and woman, old and young),decorated with gold, military medals for being great heros of the soviet cause, still hang on the walls.
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