johnny's in the basement mixing up the medecine

U.S. Peace Corps

Ukraine PCV Kari STromberg

PO Box 298

01030 Kyiv, Ukraine

that's my address for the time being. You all can just keep sending things of the flat envelope or bubble mailer variety until my permanent address is posted on this blog.

For the time being, here's the update. . . Tomorrow is my mid-session with my training director where they tell me whether or not I'm really bad at life or just sort of bad, or maybe if at all possible somewhat decent. Let's see not much has been happening since we're all on quarantine. I still have four hours of language and am successfully using 6 cases in Ukrainian, including adjectival endings (for some of them and generally not as successfully) you should be very jealous of this and by very jealous I mean you should not be jealous at all, but I'm one to relish in my grammar triumphs of the day.

Let's see what am I looking forward to you ask? OH my site interview which is in about two weeks where I tell them what I want what they think i'd be good at etc. we look at my resume together. Nevermind that I won't be finding out my real site until oh 3 days before I go there I just really am excited for teh interview. New things I experienced this week, let me see. . . My mom made ratatouille for breakfast one day which was delicious.

We had a health day in which in all seriousness our dr. told us if we were ever in the position where we felt threatened by sexual assault we should, among other things, poop our pants. I, being the only 5 year old maturity level person in the room, immediately started cracking up and got a mean look from a very serious medical doctor. Hopefully, he'll treat me if I get swine flu, i'm sure he will, peace corps Ukraine is most always accomdating and wonderful. HM, what else can I say? We had a nite at a cafe with another volunteer who came to visit where I was delighted to hear drunk Ukrainian men singing Ukrainian pop, things I could listen to every nite and not stop giggling, this same scene.

I have arranged with my peace corps next door neighbor, aka another trainee who lives two houses down to see the massacre of the geese when it comes in a couple of weeks. He has explained to his host mom that I want to see this and I'm pretty excited for the invite. let's be hoenst, I'm not one for blood and gore but seeing a goose slaughtered just makes me want to watch. I'm not sure I'll join in though I may be forced. I'm all up for this cultural exchange. I want to add slaughter a piece of poultry from start to finish on my list of resume skills. My host mom can crack a chicken's leg off like nobody's business and every time it happens I feel a little more plasticine american.

I have taken to eating raw garlic quite often now that flu season is here. Ukrainians say that you should eat onions lemon and garlic when the country is sick. I'm following orders, and starting to love garlic more than a used to which a. is a lot and b. kind of takes the idea of good breath of away

Well, I'll leave it at that for now. Someday I'll have a funny story about how my host dad walked in on me in the bathroom while I was in a towel, oh wait that happened, and it wasn't funny.

LOVE AND HUGS

Another Day, Another Way for me to open up to you

OK: so let's see what to include in this entry.

Let's see the last few weeks have been at the very least interesting.

Let's start with the fact that Ukraine is on swine flu alert aka quarantine. Which means as a peace corps trainee I'm not allowed to travel, etc. The schools are also closed for three weeks which means I don't get any time to teach in the classroom. Not so bad for me, well, because I'm used to being in a classroom, really bad for some other people in my cluster who have never been in a classroom and may not get much experience before heading out to site. SO, this all has caused an uproar and between bouts of utter and simple joy and frustration with the whole situation I find myself at a pretty even keel.

WHY, you may ask are things so great; BECAUSE winter is coming. This morning I woke up to beautiful frost covered fields with a nip in the air and rosy cheeks. I walked down teh street albeit a touch too early to my PCT neighbor's house listening to Jamie Liddel and thought it doens't get much better than this. (excuse the fact that i'm an efl teacher and don't use punctuation. I use it in class.) Either way, I'm ecstatic that snow and winter are on their way, and with them come the excitement of my site interview (i'm brainstorming what I want to say as far as what things I would like to be involved in) the inevitable sadness and excitement that comes with getting halfway through training and thus that much closer to site, and the fun times that came with halloween.

A girl who used to live with my family, named Jenny, came for Adopt-a-Cluster, but alas she did not get to fulfill her duties as our classes were cancelled because of quarantine. BUT because she was living with my family I inherited some awesome resources and had quality time to talk with her about what life is like post training. AKA post the time where peace corps plans every minute of your day so much so that you don't know what to do with yourself. Not true, exactly. I have lots of free time on weekends but when I'm teaching I use it to do visuals and lesson plans with friends. Mostly, I'm glad to have the social network, however small, I do while I'm here and hope it will last through the duration of my service.

UM, in other news, things that are under-rated; LETTERS! I absolutely love when the peace corps car comes and with it comes a letter for me. Mostly, because I like showing off about how much people love me back in the states to my cluster mates and ukrainian teacher, I kid. A LITTLE. BUT if you have the time and want, I would love a letter from you, and once we cover post office vocabulary sometime in the next two weeks in ukrainian class, I promise I'll get a letter out to you. With a beautiful stamp here from Ukraine. You should want this, you should send me letters.

For those of you going for gold medals in friendship, peace corps ALSO allows us to receive flat envelope mailers. When I get my perma address I'll probably publish this again!

The following is my current wishlist of things from the states that I would love to have here:
Long underwear tops (I have one, this was not enough I wear it to bed every nite)
theraflu (see above text on swine flu epidemic)
Winter hats (again it's cold I have one, maybe I should've listened to cheryl and brought more)
scarves (cheryl only let me bring two)
glue (i don't know where to buy it here)
masking tape(i use it a lot when I teach)
awesome markers and colored pencils (i draw a lot)
books (I'm almost half way through the books I brought including a couple I stole from other PCVs)
a friend received perfume samples, I'm jealous, send them to me b/c i can only shower every other day
cumin and/or tapatillo hot sauce
long underwear bottoms
wool socks (I hear smart wool rocks the world)
as you can see most of this is either teaching or winter stuff, I feel like I underpacked by only bringing 100 lbs, buuut this is what I think about most days
OH YEAH, TEA!! there's tons here buuuuut I'd love some from the states. Irish Breakfast??

a carnival of peace

Ok, so the latest from life. I'm still in Nosivka, though today I'm in Kiev visiting the peace corps office and then heading off with my cluster to see the rest of the city, or at least whatever we can see in a couple hours. Mostly, I'm excited to have a weekend off. we had a VERY long week. I taught two classes and tried my best to keep it together with fifth graders who were generally rambunxious and rowdy. I'm happy to have had the time with them, and I really do love the school I'm at. I'm going to try and take some pictures and such. i always promise these things but never seem to get them on a jump drive to transfer them onto anything, but I'm really going to try. It's hard to encapsulate my days into any kind of cohesive thought. But I'm happy to have close friends to laugh with and a family who is kind enough to let me live with them. I worked all week either learning Ukrainian or lesson planning (type a personality comeback) and we welcomed a new volunteer to our cluster who was supposed to go to Turkmenistan, but the assignment was cancelled. I am experimenting every day with using more and more ukrainian with my family and hope that by the end of this training I may be able to extract some valuable information about their lives and not just how to make crepes. . . we're working on this.

ok, love and stuff to all. I know this is a throw away type of post, but it's one to say I'm doing fine. Busy, but good. I am excited for the time when I can share more.

WElcome to Ukraine

Ok, so it would be hard to put the last few weeks into any kind of perspective or cohesive blog entry, but I think that I will have regular access to internet now that I've figured it out at my house. I asked Nastya my host sister to show me how it's done and as soon as I talk to Mom about it I think I'll be able to get on at least once a week. Ok, so I arrived in Kiev a couple weeks ago. Everything went smoothly except for some awkward moments on the plane with this crazy guy I was sitting next to.



I don't know how to put Ukraine into words. I live in a town called Nosivka, which is typically, post-soviet (we still have a lenin statue) but at the same time it's charming. And desipte the fact that I have regular and heated encounters with livestock, everything is going ok. I have a cell phone and will publish the number soon so everyone can see it and/or have it. Everything is going well, and after waiting about a week and a half (i was living only with my 12 year old host sister) I met my host parents. They're wonderful and I'm glad to have people looking over me. Last nite, I got to meet Grandma and Grandpa, who are probably my favourite people to date.

The good news is, my cluster, for the most part, is great. We have five people, and maybe one coming from Turkmenistan (long story) and the best news, Linnea, my friend from before actually is in my cluster. I live next to a guy named Joe who is hysterical as well.

Well, I'll try and be better about all this but that's it for now. LOVE to you all!

This time maybe I'll be bulletproof

Everything is wrapped up, literally and figuratively. I have two nites left here in Naperville, and I have but only three left in the states. Warm wishes come from every angle. I cannot help but feel that I don't really realise I'm leaving. My bags are mostly packed save the debacle that is the suitcase filled with my clothes and toiletries and my book bag.

For the record, I still don't know too terribly much about Ukraine, so I'm kind of on a learn as you go program. Here are my plans thus far as to how I can charm the rest of my group into undying adoration for my sardonic and dry sense of humor, and like all my good friends pleasure in the inevitable random things that tend to go horribly and hysterically wrong in my life.

Here are some quotes/clips/well wishes from others that I would like to include for comic relief and by comic I mean my friends are funny in writing, as well as in person. I, however, come off like an emo cutter whenever I try to blog. Here's to hoping this blog won't be like that and I'll actually share fun stories, like those from France.

really I should make this a quiz, I will number the quotes, try and guess who they came from . . . if you don't know anybody in my life it'll make it even more pointless and thus entertaining.

1. "Is it wrong that I'm already planning your hotel de ville wedding to some hairy Eastern European man named Sergei Ivanovich (is that even Ukranian?)"

2. " I guess we're going parka shopping"

3. "Doors open soon, so i'm going to leave you now. And i'll drink my pint thinking of you!"

4. "Why don't Ukrainian men want to date American women? is it because of Bush?"

5. " Keep happy and remember, alcohol and good music soothes all. Well, in my case, add a lot of chocolate to that equation!"

6. "stay safe and don't forget to pack scarves to protect yourself from radiation"

7. "i'm going to miss you. stay away from Chernobyl."

8. "don't forget to pack your crazy pills! ;)"

Come down from the mountain; you have been gone too long

So, of course, time is waning and goodbyes are coming in droves. It's hard if not impossible for me to imagine my life beyond all this. Most days, I get into a groove, do some packing, think about what it is that is absolutely necessary, etc. I'm what's the english word for nulle at this. Wordreference is telling me the best translation is hopeless or worthless, but the French connotation seems to have a bit more involved in it, a touch harsher than hopeless, barely functioning might be the most appropriate translation.

Either way, my godmother is coming this weekend to say goodbye to me. She makes this whole experience seem comical, as she does most things. She asked me a few weeks ago, what exactly I needed to get before I left for Ukraine. I told her the things still left on my list: a compact sleeping bag, an oven thermometer, yaktrax, etc. Upon explaining to her what an oven thermometer and yaktrax were, she exclaimed, "Kari, you cannot go there! Are you kidding me?" She, of course, is kidding. But it doesn't stop me from laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. I mean, honestly there are a couple of things I never thought I would need in my life, yaktrax is one of them. They would have been useful in Marquette, of course, BUT somehow in the states for all its excess, you do without, because you know in the end nothing bad is going to happen because you slip and fall. Now the thought of falling, somehow invokes this primal fear of bad injury and thus removal from the country and/or death. Like I'm in some kind of victorian England drama where I've a bad cold or I've twisted my ankle and somehow everyone is worried for the state of my well-being. Nevertheless, the thoughts of this life are all passing and fleeting.

I'm excited to see what awaits me in these months to come; to start feeling my soul in another language again. French has been therapeutic in a lot of ways, I found myself in French/France. I hope that either Ukrainian or Russian will bring me into new ways of being.

yesterday, when you were young, everything you needed done was done for you

Today, I got all my travel information for staging and for leaving the country.

I'm officially booked to leave at 6:20am from Chicago to head towards Philadelphia for staging for one day. Staging is actually a lot quicker and less time than I thought. I will arrive in Philly at 9:15am, and then I can head to the hotel, where I will register at 12. Our sessions start at 2pm and go until 7pm where we cover any number of things. And then, we are free to spend our last evening in the States. We get picked up at the airport at 6am the next morning and are taken to the airport where I have a 355 flight from Philly to Frankfurt and then I fly the rest of the way to Kiev.

Enough of the logistics, I'm starting to get really excited. It feels real, and as if it's coming on fast. BUT all that aside. . . I'm mostly excited to see everyone meet new people.

I've met some girls who I am going with already, and as far as I'm concerned everyone is fantastic. I really like a girl named Linnea who is originally from Champaign. We seem to get along really well and she's a francophile too so that's nice.

I don't think people really understand the peace corps process, this of course, is inevitable. In the end, the process of the bureaucracy and all that doesn't really bother me. Similar to everything I had to go through in France, except it's more papers and less having to go to the consulate, sous-prefecture, etc. All in all, I think it's pretty easy. I seem to be the only one. . .

OK I probably won't write until it's closer to the date. woo!