A new home for all

Hello everyone! Well, it's official i'm sworn in as a peace corps volunteer and I'm at my new site!! so, the drum roll for all including me last week is where is my new site. WELL, I live in LVIV! Not many of you know about Lviv, understandable, i don't know anything really. Other than the fact that, when I was doing research about Ukraine i found all these articles about the interesting and artful city in the west.

for the record here's my new address:
Kari Stromberg
м. Львів
бул. Липиського 16
індекс 79058
Ukraine

So, what can i tell you in only a few short minutes? i live in an apartment attached to the cantine/cafeteria of the school where all my basic needs are met. The staff here is wonderful and friendly and glad to have me and I'm glad to have them as well. My room is cold, but beyond anything I could have hoped for. I'm grateful to have running hot water and a flush toilet and use of the cafeteria kitchen when i need to cook. They provide me with everything including letting me use the school internet whenever i need. I am the luckiest PCV this side of the Dniper. So, in short, I'm happy I'm excited and I'm spending my birthday today with the PCV in my town who has been here for three years as I venture out and try to navigate the bus system to get to the center of town using limited ukrainian.
love and hugs to all

So here we are. . .

Here it is, my last blog before heading to Kyiv for swearing-in and site announcement where I will become a so-called official peace corps volunteer.

Not much has changed in the last few days, only that I wanted to post some pictures before time ran out. Oh yes, well, I've passed all my tests save for one big one tomorrow. The Language Proficiency Interview. Other than that, life moves and undulates and keeps me busy and I continually miss you all.

Here's a pic of my host family to keep things interesting: that's my host father Yuri, host mom nina and host sister Nastiya

the silver storms that lie ahead

So, I'm coming down to my last week in training here in Nosivka. I will soon be leaving the comfort of my host family, cluster and overly planned schedule and will be heading into the real unknown.

Yesterday, I went to the "Big" city of нижин with Linnea in search for shoes as mine, (the ones babusiya took earlier) are falling apart. The thing about it is, I have big feet. even for the US, I mean a size ten is pretty standard and you can find it anywhere, but still selections etc. can be limited. I knew coming into the Ukraine deal, as I did going in to France, that finding shoes to fit my said large feet would not be easy. But I had been lead to believe that if I made the trip to the big city I would be able to have said larger sized shoes. So, let us begin with getting to the city. We got off at what we thought was THE bazaar, turns out it was a tiny bazaar about a 30 minute walk away from teh bazaar we really wanted to go to. This being said, we walked the rest of teh way to the bazaar, no big deal. Along the way, a woman walking by us tripped, in my sadistic humor of laughing at her, instant karma came along and I ALMOSt, and by almost I mean my foot was less than an inch away, I almost stepped on a dead cat. Yes, a dead cat, on the sidewalk. I took this as well as one can when they almost step on a dead cat. I will say that the day was considerably better than if I had actually stepped on dead cat. All the same, I have learned my lesson in indulging my desire to laugh at others for tripping, now all I see is dead cats.

Second, we go to the bazaar. There are so many booths. I am so excited I see lots of different kinds of boots in so many colors and styles. This is a good day, there are so many more boots than I have ever seen at the bazaar in my home city. After finding a couple booths with styles I liked I asked for a size 10. No luck, I try a few more, still too expensive or no size 10s. I go to the last booth and ask for a boot in a size 10. She legit says to me, "Size 10 (or in this case 40 b/c it's europe) no I don't have that, seriously, go to a store" awesome. So no luck in the shoe department.

After that, Linnea and I went onto the street where there were three men dressed up in furry costumes. One as ALF (yes the 80s tv show puppet), one as from what linnea tells me the squirrel from Ice Age and the other as spiderman. I'm not sure if any of you know this, but I do not in any way appreciate people dressed in furry animal costumes, masks freak me out and I don't know what they're thinking or doing and I just don't like it. I've found that furry people can sense this fear and thus always come after me. I hate this. Alf snuck up on me and I ran away like a three year old child scared of santa. They were trying to pass out puppet show tickets, but i was not having it. Oh well, we did have a nice time at the cafe afterward.

Let's see that's life for now. My final week. A lot of tests etc. coming up. My final lesson with my favourite 6th grade class. AND other awesome stuff. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone at our swearing in retreat in Kyiv and I'm sure that all will be well and happy. I'll try and post just once more before i leave Nosivka or Kyiv in case of no internet at teh site.

How long will you ramble?

OK, so an update a tad overdue. Well, here we are in December. What has changed? Not much. We're all off quarantine now so it's back to the grindstone of language class, teaching class, teaching sessions, our community project (which went off yesterday!) and any other thing they decide to dump on us.

I am happy to say that I have made wonderful friends and am getting along quite well with my host family. I have enjoyed another thanksgiving abroad, for which (with the help of others of course) I made a full thanksgiving dinner, minus gravy because we didn't have any drippings from our obviously free range turkey. As I told my mother, free range is the only option. I try to cancel out the bad environmental policies of Ukraine with the good ones. No one is near as wasteful here as in the US. For the most part, it's all locally grown food, as everyone pretty much supports themselves in the vegetable in fruit department. Everyone composts. And most people walk or bike wherever they may be needing to go.

Beyond that, the redo of our kitchen and most of the downstairs of my host family's house is almost finished. This is great because it means there's a chance that I won't have to stare at topless women as I make my way down to the bathroom. Apparently, Ukrainian papers are filled with topless ads which are now littering and protecting the woodfloor of the bottom floor of teh house.

Ah yes, my host mother and I have had many great conversations over the past few weeks where she has begun to joke with me. A couple days ago when there were no lights and I went into the root cellar to find a jar of pickles she joked with a friend to close the door on me and then she said, "bye bye kari!" Thanks Nina, you're a peach. Actually, she makes me laugh a lot and I am pretty happy to have her around!

In the boring department for you and exciting department for me, I finished my interview and will soon find out where I will be placed. By soon I mean, I'm actually leaving in two weeks so I have to find out where I'm moving because I can't live here anymore. They tell us three days before we leave for our new site where we are to live. Again, I said this before I leave. In peace corps, I know pretty much everything that's going to happen it's just a matter of specifics like where, when, etc. These specifics are very important to American life, and I'm learning to live without them in my life here. Also, in my interview I stressed I wanted to be somewhere creative and so I'm hoping an art like school pops up my way. Harder to place us TEFLers in some ways. Specialized schools in arts etc, like the YD people get generally also don't specialize in English and thus don't need us. But I really would like to be somewhere with some kind of art or music program. Drawing albeit corny and middle school pictures has become a great stress relief here.

The highlight of my day, I received a package from my parents containing wool socks and another containing Emergen C of teh raspberry variety. I consider this a small victory over the Ukrainian mail system which I'm not going to lie I have a hate hate relationship with. I appreciate teh fact that it gets mail out and all but my thoughts on pricing and effectiveness have yet to be addressed. I don't plan on changing this, but it's one of those things I'm finding harder to adapt to.

So that's that, a small post about nothing really at all. Oh yeah, I mean, I'll probably post pictures before I leave this city as I won't necessarily have internet at my new site, I'll work on it. I'm slow it happens!
love and hugs

what happens when we all wake up?

Another few days have passed here in Ukraine. We're awaiting the return of our original LCF (language teacher) and getting ready to come back from the quarantine that has given us this nice three week break from teaching.

I wanted to write a couple things out so that I don't forget them.

ONE: a story about the cat that lives at my host family's house. His name, as I've been told is Bucks, but it varies. Everyone but Tato call him Bucks, Tato calls him Peter Petrovniya and Patrick American Boy. This makes me laugh, really really hard. I know that it is not their purpose to confuse me about the cat's name but that's what's happened. I figure the cat is just as confused as I am considering Half of the family calls him bucks half calls him Peter and I speak to him in English and not ukrainian. Regardless, Bucks has become one of my favourite parts about living here. In fact, I used to hate cats, no longer. . . Bucks is selfish and generally unwilling to give love, but he does enjoy being around me, probably because I scratch under his chin and feed him sausage when no one is looking. I am considering adopting a cat when i get to site mostly becuase I'd like the company and I've heard it's pretty easy to get them back the US if you so choose. Bucks also likes to sleep with me sometimes (as I've found out from talking with my host sister) he will begin the evening in her room and then come to mine in teh middle of the nite. She called him a pervert, I thought it was pretty appropriate. I'm beginning to resent him if only a little because he has decided 1. to hog the bed and 2. to lay on top of me while I'm sleeping sometimes I notice, and sometimes I do not. He however, insists on lying on me but refuses to lay on my feet where I could really use some extra warmth. I think that he doesn't want to lie there because my feet are cold and this negates both the process of me wanting to be warm and him searching for warmth.

Story two: Last nite i watched a movie at a friends house. When I went to leave I noticed my shoes were missing. No one was home, I figured someone in her family had mistaken my shoes for their's and put them on. We couldn't find anyone and as I had to get home I had to put on my friend's shoes (who luckily wears a size 10) and was about to make my way home when the gate was closed. My friend ran back up to get the key when grandma( who only speaks russian) comes strolling along to say goodbye to me, lo and behold grandma is wearing my shoes. Now, this doesn't bother it's just that, I don't know how to say excuse me but I think you're wearing my shoes in Ukrainian let alone in Russian. So, when my friend comes downstairs I explain to her that her grandmother is wearing my shoes and so I would really like to change with her, considering i have to walk back home. . . and then we kind of awkwardly smile at her and point at the shoes to let her know that in fact she is wearing my shoes and I would really like them back. We finally do exchange shoes and I am able to walk home on the dirt road to go home. . . but at least I had my shoes returned and no one was hurt.

That's all for now I'm being surrounded in the computer room! love and hugs

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??