Monday, January 25, 2016

A Piece of History & A Slice of the Street Life

Saturday was the first day it felt like I was really in Ukraine, but even still, it's all so surreal. We went to downtown Kiev and visited the Big Mama statue and the World War II museum.  I've always loved learning about the second world war, so it was a dream to be able to walk through something like this. It was an indescribable experience. The whole thing was heartbreaking and unforgettable. Nearly everything in the museum was really from the war. There were only a few replicas. The war came to Kiev in 1941. Ukraine was a lot more involved in the war than I previously knew. We watched documentaries that included a film from 1941 of soldiers and victims walking the streets that we had just walked. It was such a different feeling to realize I was standing in a place where the Nazis once stood. So crazy. It is something I will never forget.

Okay, onto the stories that might be slightly more interesting to read. So, here's a story that will frighten my mother and make my dad and brothers proud. Eleven of us piled onto the bus to go to the museum and all. A Ukrainian man was speaking to us in Russian but that's not super unusual, so we just ignored him, as we should, and it was fine. Then he got up and came over to us, still going off about something in Russian, also not super unusual, so we continued to just ignore him. When he started touching us and getting a little in our faces, our coordinator started talking to him in Russian...all of us Americans completely clueless as to what was being conversed.  Whatever she said to him proved to have failed, when he still stood there talking to us. After ignoring him stopped working and he got closer and touched more of our girls, a few them started smacking his hand and telling him "no" in Russian when he reached for them. Still didn't work. We just got off at the next stop, but he stood by the door of the bus and touched each one of us as we walked out. He hadn't touched me at this point because I was in the corner, but I was getting off, and he grabbed both of my shoulders, and I SHOVED this man off of me. He wasn't aggressive at all, but I'm not about to let some crazed Ukrainian man lay his hands on me. We still don't know what he was saying, but it was pretty funny.

After the museum and all we went to Independence Square and found a cafe to eat lunch at. The street was on was beautiful! Independence Square and Maidan are essentially the same place, so we saw where the recent riots occurred in 2014. Again, it's a very interesting experience to walk the same streets where such turmoil and chaos once existed. The buildings in this town were so pretty. But what most caught our attention on the way back, was the three people standing in the street holding clothed monkeys. Our head teacher, Kate, was almost giddier than I've ever seen her before (which is saying a lot). She begged our coordinator to go ask them in Russian how much it cost to hold them, and I don't think I've even seen a more excited three-year-old than her in the moment she found out it was free. The trick was, it was 50 hryvnia to take a picture. But that's a less than 2 dollars so it's way fine. I was a little confused when another man grabbed my hands without warning and put them out in front of me, but I soon understood Kate's excitement when he put a small monkey in my hands! I didn't even really know what was going on until I was holding it, but it RULED. Men handing us monkeys in the streets is not something I expected to encounter in Ukraine, but hey, I'm not complaining.


I'm really starting to love it here. We're making so many memories, trying new foods (shwarma is way better than it sounds), laughing more than is publicly acceptable, learning a lot, forgetting how to talk other than the way we do while teaching, getting really good at looking angry at everything, and loving every minute of it. Ukraine rules.

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

"We're not in Kansas anymore."

Aye, aye. Where do I even begin? Everything in Ukraine is so different! There are many things here that have made me think of the quote from The Wizard of Oz as I realize that I really am not in America anymore. "We're not in Kansas anymore." I suppose I'll attempt to make a list of sorts including some of these differences that have caused such realizations.

First, people don't smile here. At all. In America, smiling at everyone on the streets is normal and friendly, but in Ukraine, such a gesture is considered very forward and...inviting...of such things I'd really rather not invite. We have to be very careful not to smile at people, especially not in public, and ESPECIALLY not at men. It's very dangerous, which is weird. I've also noticed that when people push through crowds in the streets or on the buses, they don't apologize or excuse themselves. They just barge through! And no one talks. It's seriously completely silent, aside from the sounds of buses, and the occasional person yelling about something in Russian.

Second, transportation. Everyone here takes the trolley bus, commercial bus, or the metro to get places. It's completely normal to have a commute up to an hour or two. I have an hour commute from my host house to my school. The buses are kind of crazy! The commercial bus is similar to a taxi. You have to wave it down for it to stop, and you tell them where you're going when you get on and pay, but then you have to yell the name of your stop again when it's coming up since there are so many people. That's a little nerve-racking when you don't know the area well, but it's worked out so far! The trolley bus is a little different, more similar to Trax. This is what I usually take to school and back. You just look for your bus number and get on when it stops at set times. The trick is that it only stops for about .3 seconds, and it only announces the stops in Russian, so that's fun. Also, unlike Trax where you pay before you get on, you get on the bus and someone wearing a vest with something written in Russian comes up to you, and you give them 3 hryvnia (Ukrainian dollars), which would be much less than one US dollar. They then give you a small ticket, and then you have to punch it in a....ticket puncher....? I don't know what to call it, haha. It's like a hole puncher kind of. In the beginning, the trolley was just scary to me, but now it's kind of fun. Although it's still a little unnerving that no one smiles or makes eye contact or talks. And the metro. It's just like the subway in New York. And luckily, this one says the stops in Russian AND English. Yay!

Third, the food. My host grandma is a really good cook, so I really don't have much to complain about here. (Only the fact that they don't believe in ingesting anything cold. I don't know how I'll survive four months without cold water!) I really like most of what she's made for me so far! What's most different, is what us girls call "second dinner." Every dinner is like a three-course meal here. But two of them are dinner and one of them is tea and a cookie. It's rather funny, except for when you're full to your eyes and they bring you another plate. Then it becomes slightly less humorous. Many of our meals here have consisted of chicken, pickles, and buckwheat. (P.S. if you've never had buckwheat as a lonesome side, keep it that way.) But they also eat a lot of bread and drink a lot of tea, so Ukraine suits two of my four main food groups anyway! (The other two being quesadillas and avocados.)

Fourth, crosswalks? Lanes on the road? Traffic lights? All of these are pretty much just decoration for the most part, that sometimes are followed as the rules they were intended to enforce. People also walk on the road and drive on the sidewalks, it's fine. Oh, and the sidewalk is ice. 3-inch thick ICE. That's fun, we pretty much ice skate everywhere.

Fifth, their music videos are basically pornography, and it's okay if children watch them. I'll just leave it at that.

And finally, "inside shoes." In Ukraine, everyone wears shoes inside. Slippers or sandals. Sometimes I can slip by my Babushka in only socks, but never have I succeeded for more than 30 seconds going barefoot without getting yelled at in Russian. I suppose maybe soon I'll stop trying to fight it and just conform to the Ukrainian ways, but we'll see.

So, there's a little bit about Ukraine and some of the cultural differences I've experienced in my first few days here!


This is a ticket from the Trolley Bus.

One of my meals for breakfast. I've noticed that for breakfast,
they put things on their bread, but at dinner, they just have it plain. 
I thought that was interesting.
Mine and my Babushka's "inside shoes." She made me borrow her slippers.
A couple pictures from the cathedral we took a walk to today. :)
This is just down the street from where I teach.



Saturday, January 9, 2016

The Beginning

Traveling has always been a dream of mine as it seems to be for everyone, but for me, it was just that: a nonserious dream. I hadn't actually planned on traveling, and I just figured I would travel if I could, but the only thing regarding traveling that I was actually serious about was that I knew I wanted to go on a humanitarian trip at someday. But see, even then I was planning that for a day called "someday" that doesn't exist. So how and why did I decide to drop everything and leave the country for four months? One night I went back to my apartment after school and work, and my roommate ran up to me, completely ecstatic about who knows what. She was holding a flyer and started talking one-hundred words per minute about this traveling or study abroad or volunteer or something program. After I finally got her to calm down enough to understand what she was saying, she told me about the International Language Program (ILP) with which you could travel to your choice of eight different countries and teach English to children for a semester! As we had both been recently discussing how much we wanted to get out of Provo and do something else, this seemed like the perfect getaway, and a great opportunity for me to go on that long-desired humanitarian trip of mine. We looked into and talked about this program until 3 AM. We were indescribably excited. Knowing I wanted to go to Europe and NOT somewhere hot, the very next morning I applied for both Lithuania and Ukraine. (My roommate applied as well, but her plans changed when her life took a new and exciting course as she got married!) It didn't even occur to me until the next day that I should probably inform (it was a little late for asking) my family! Oops! Luckily I have the best parents and siblings in the world and they were very supportive. Within three weeks I had been interviewed, accepted, and assigned to the program in Kyiv, Ukraine! Around the same time, I decided to serve an LDS mission. Appointments and documents for both my mission and Ukraine filled my schedule for the next while. Within just a few months I had it all finished, and now it's all so close and becoming so real! I leave for Ukraine in less than one week! My parents will send my mission papers off for me in March while I'm gone, and at the end of March, they will hold my mission call up to a camera and I will read it over Skype! I'll return home from Ukraine at the end of April, and leave for my mission some time after my 19th birthday in July! So, here's to The Beginning. The Beginning of my travels, new adventures, new opportunities, and the beginning of my journey on which I intend to find myself. I hope you enjoy reading as you follow me on these adventures!