AIDS Day

December 1st is World AIDS Day.  I held a seminar at a school for the 9-11th forms.  Ukraine has the fastest growing rate of HIV in Europe. In Crimea (where I live) the number of people infected and the rate of infection are the highest in the country.

In the evening I helped the house of culture hold a World AIDS Day concert for the town. A lot of people showed up, and it was a great event!

 I was lucky that my Russian tutor could come and translate for me.

Some of the dancers at the event.  Please note the boys in black mesh shirts!!

Thanksgiving in English Club

It has been a long time since I have posted anything on here, so I am making a bunch of mini blog updates... here goes!!

At a Thanksgiving-themed English club lesson, the kids made hand turkeys and wrote what they are thankful for.  Some of them turned out very cute!! 

 A librarian and I searched all over town to find crayons.  We finally found some and the shop keeper asked what I would use them for; I was the first person in town to buy crayons! My mom has sent some Crayola products over which have been a huge hit at the library and we use them almost every week at English club!

Funeral

Things have been extra quiet in my apartment building these past few days.  Yesterday a baba (old lady) told me why.  A Daduska (old man) had died in our building.  Actually he lived in the apartment right below me and for the last three days his body has been lying in the apartment.  It is custom for the body to remain in the apartment until the funeral; which is usually a open-casket and held at the house. 

…So, my day started normal, this morning I went to the bazaar since its 'big bazaar Thursday'.  On my way to my Russian lesson I decided to take all my fruits and veggies home.  I turned the corner to see a big group of people standing around the entrance door of the building.  The apartments are small so I figured people were just shuffling through the apartment, paying their respects and then gathering outside.  When I got closer I saw that the Daduska was lying outside in his casket.  I freaked out a little and had no idea what to do, and you can bet that all of the Ukrainians were watching the American. This country is full of superstitions and interesting/unique/sometimes strange traditions.  All I knew about funerals is that you need to buy an even number of flowers…I didn’t want to do something offensive so, I quietly passed people and walked upstairs to my apartment.  

I called my tutor to ask what to do. She said that it is not polite to say ‘hello’ during a Ukrainian funeral and that I should just walk out quietly.  So, with that in-mind I walked outside and was grabbed by some babushkas that I talk to daily.  We stood there for a long time watching the wife of the Daduska (I don’t know his name) cry, talk and pray over the body.  Then the wife and another family member got into a fight.  The Babukas that I was talking to rolled their eyes and we started to talk about the price of gas.  

Even though I have been in Ukraine for 8 months I still get random culture shock moments.  Today was one of them.  I never imaged to be standing outside my apartment at my first open casket funeral talking about the increase in gas prices. Ukraine still amazes me. 

After spending another 15 minutes standing with everyone the Babuskas sent me on my way.  By the time I back for lunch, everyone was gone and the body had been moved.  

Life is short. Better make the most of it.

Early (6:30am) yesterday morning I was at the bus station to headed off for Bakhchysaray.  Bakhchysaray is a town in Crimea where Genghis Kahn built a palace.  The palace survived the eradication of mosques from Catherine the Great because she thought the building was 'romantic'.

The entrance into the Palace

After walking around the palace I went to find Usta's Workshop.  This is a Crimean Tatar run store where everything that is created and sold is from local artists and then profits go directly to the artists.  They have pottery (see pictures) as well as beautiful jewelry (wayyyy outside of my Peace Corps budget) and some embroidery.  What is really cool about the store is that a Peace Corps volunteer helped found the shop a little over three years ago!  I was able to speak with a man who makes jewelry and another man who made pots.  They showed me all over the store and outside where the fire the pots.  It was a really great experience!

The pots stay inside of the kiln for no longer than 11 hours and  someone has to sit to tend the fire all the time.   

Here is a picture of the pottery room!

I made it home a little before seven Saturday night, it was a trying and long day with several miles walked, 4 buses and 5 marshutkas.  Today has been a wonderful lazy Sunday.  I made apple sauce this morning.  One jar for the librarians to try, a jar for my Russian tutor, a jar for a friend and a jar for my self...  It was the perfect thing to make on this cold morning!
This evening my landlords came over and turned on my heat!!!!! I am so happy and thankful that I will have heat this winter, last night was colddd!  They also were able to shut some of my windows with the help of a few hammers.

yumm 

Hope everyone had a great weekend! 

This past Friday was a Cossack holiday.  For those of you not up to-date on Ukrainian and Russian history- a Cossack is a person from Southern Russia, Ukraine or Siberia and who historically have been noted for their horsemanship and military units.  The group originated in the 15th century mostly by fleeing religious persecution.  Anyways, on Friday I went to two different events celebrating Cossack life.  

Friday morning my counterpart, a rayon administrator, the director of the House of Culture and I went to a village to watch their celebration.    First we were greeted at the village library.  My counterpart and I are currently working on a grant to get internet and computers into our library as well as two village libraries in our Rayon.  This is one of the village libraries.  

The program and concert started as children dressed up in their traditional Ukrainian clothing lit candles  to place in front of the Icon.  Each child had a small paragraph, in Ukrainian, that they recited about Cossack history.  All of these children speak Russian in their homes but education is taught in Ukrainian.

There were many different skits and dances representing different aspect of the harvest time.  My favorite was these three boys who danced with kettle bells! Each KB weighted 20-30lbs, pretty impressive! 

In the afternoon I went to a Cossack competition between two Seventh Form classes at school.  This was very fun to watch and be apart of.  Over the summer I had been to a sports competition between villages, some of the events were the same in this competition (just modified to fit the ages).  These events are competitions only between men and boys.  Although girls can be included in parts of the dances. 

The starting of the competition, reciting historical facts about Cossack life.

Arm wrestling competitions

At the competition this summer the guys used bags of seeds, the boys at school used pillow.

Tug of war

The last event was a group dance.

Both classes with some of the girls.  

Food!

There was another birthday celebration at the library this week! In Ukraine it is customary for the birthday person to bring in treats for everyone to share.  This particular birthday had some tea, a desert that was like jelly, pastries, candy, grapes, pork, salo (animal fat) and the sweetest red wine I have ever tasted.  The celebration started at 8:30am.  Not much was accomplished on Tuesday!! 

Last night I went to my friend Tanya's apartment and she helped me make, what she calls an "everything sauce."  It has tomatoes, red bell peppers, red hot peppers, a white root which is spicy but I don't know what it is called in english and a lot of garlic (4 or 5 bulbs of garlic)!

It was very easy to make, all you need is a crank grinder.  Once everything was grinned we added a little salt, mixed everything together and the sauce was complete! You can put the sauce on pasta, salad, bread or anything you want! Last night for dinner I made a breakfast sandwich: bread and spicy sauce with an over-easy egg!

 The finished product! With a kilo of tomatoes and bell peppers I have four jars which will last me several weeks.  Its is wonderful to have something spicy to add to the bland Ukrainian food!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Fishin'

Last weekend I went with some friends to a lake for some fishing! Although the fishing portion of the trip was not as successful as the guys had hoped for, we had a great day!

Apparently the girls didn't have very much faith in the guys' fishing abilities, and they brought lots of food!  Some of the items were: sausage pizza made with a ketchup and mayonnaise sauce, open faced sandwiches with butter, canned fish and cucumbers and an eggplant dish! The main dish was Shashlik which is Ukrainian BBQ!

The Shashlik is prepared the night before so it has plenty of time to marinate.  Last weekend the Shashlik was assembled with lots of onions, parsley, apples, olive oil, salt and pepper.  Yum!

To me, shashlik is a lot like giant shish-kabobs!

For fishing in a "stocked" lake the fishing was a little disappointing.  The guys ended up catching 5 little fish that they took back to feed to cats!  At least the cats had a good dinner!