So You want to Join the Peace Corps

I'm unable to download this video at the moment, but you can watch it HERE. I love the rather realistic portrayal of volunteer life and wish that during the screening process this video could be used to ward off the weak.

Interesting Article

A friend sent me The Best American Travel Writing 2010 that I've been reading for the past week. During a break at school, I read the article "Ponzi State" by George Packer. You can find a copy of it HERE.

The article, which is about two years old, reports about Florida's addiction to growth and how the economic downturn strained the state.

Checklists

Every day in my moleskin I keep a checklist. I'm one of those people that has to write it down and cross it off in order to get it done. I haven't yet checked off updating my blog this week.
There's little to share at the moment. When I'm preparing materials or doing other tasks I listen to podcasts, which has caused friends and family to note that when talking to me I always reference something I've listened to. The past two weeks a lot of news, political, and cultural podcasts that I've listened to mention Amy Chua's new controversial book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. In the book, Chua describes her take onchildrearing that only expects perfect outcomes. I'm thankful that I wasn't raised by a tiger mother though I agree with the author's stance that Americans in general don't expect more from their children.

In listening to excerpts from the book, I couldn't help but wonder how someone in my village would react to this parenting style. Sure, for large parts of the population there are similar expectations for children as Chua's, but not necessarily where I am. When listening to parents and teachers talk about the challenges they face, I think that the main hope of the people that I interact with is that their children will survive. In some ways, yes, this means making it to adulthood without serious health issues. I'm not trying to portray people as desperate, some expect great things from their children. Avoiding suffering is more relevant. For me, this results in more day to day living and less effort put towards future outcomes or dare say, success.

One thing I often discuss with a friend of mine is the suffocating weight of fate on people's lives. Determined fate. I grew up with the notion that I hold the power to decide who I want to be with a little luck and a lot of hard work. Here, often the response is that things are the way they're going to be, they're destined to be the way they are. It doesn't help that professions that take a lot of intellect, skill, and training such as that

of a doctor or engineer make pathetic salaries in Ukraine today. In a way, it feels as though taking the present, no matter how devastating, is better than taking a risk in part because that might change one's destined fate.

Last fall, there was a discussion about how poverty increases the prevalence of religion, the United States being a great exception. Living here I can definitely relate to this argument. Here's a table that I found at The Big Picture.

I've been informed that next week the season of holiday feasts will conclude with Christianing Day, which I recall quite well from last year as I had a millisecond freakout as the local priest blessed my room, giving my laptop a healthy spray of holy water. It's hard to believe that there isn't another holiday between now and Women's Day given the recent slew of two to three massive banquets per week since I've gotten back to site. I'm amazed by the diligence the Ukrainian women I know put towards preparing insane amounts of food. Of course there was New Years, which I spent in Kyiv partially to avoid being force fed. After this came Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. There were a few saint days thrown into the mix, followed by Old New Years, which is the Orthodox New Year. On the eve of Old New Years, children and other groups go around caroling, receiving sweets and money. Below is a picture of my landlady's granddaughters' class who stopped by. On Old New Years Day, boys go around "seeding" girls, throwing kernels of grain and wishing them a good year. I have to mention that I was surprised to overhear, four times, older people ask if we used to have Old New Years off and how terrible it is that there is still school and what not on this day. Of course the answer is no, Old New Years was not a state holiday because it comes out of the Orthodox faith and I'm quite sure that the Soviet Union was atheist. There's a total disconnect with this generation, who went from the blessing of normal Brezhnev stagnation to the chaos that proceeded it.

Before school started up this week, I went on a walk everyday. Here are two pictures from my typical route. Hopefully I can continue to be outside a little everyday. An unfortunate negative of the temperature rising above freezing in the past few days is the softening of the earth. I can't even leave my house without getting a nice thick coating of mud on my shoes. I mention this because personal presentation is very important and the obstacles of achieving cleanliness never cease to surprise me.

Other things I'd like to share include that I'm still baffled by the kindness of my host family. Without them, I'd probably be a hermit with a lot of potato chip bags hidden somewhere. When I got back from vacation, on my desk there was a beautiful arrangement of gifts from them. I've been trying to sneak in more playtime with the grandson, who turned six, partially because his latest passion is a combination of space, legos, and city engineering. I'm glad I have someone to share my love of city planning with, debating various combinations of bridges and "electric stations" as we build with blocks or snow.

In between classes this week I've been reading The Harvest of Sorrow, it's an older book (1984) about Soviet collectivization, particularly in Ukraine and the famine that it caused. As I've mentioned previously, I've had the privilege of listening to stories of the famine and have taken part in memorials. Reading about it in English, I still fail to comprehend the scale of this tragedy and how people survived in this territory at all during the first half of the twentieth century. Along with that, it's kind of infuriating to see the steady presence of Soviet idolization that occurs today, especially towards Stalin. A new statue of him was built in one of the hardest hit areas of the famine last year and there's talks of adding one in Odessa. The book is also useful to me in that it does a great job in explaining the peasant psych. I think a lot of the characteristics of the peasant are still visible today in the rural community, such as who they interact with and how they see the government. I also found it interesting that the book mentions a system of 3 plot farming, whereby peasants only farmed a third of their land at a time, making it grossly inefficient. During the harvest last year, I often caught myself wondering what century I was in as laborers would go back and forth using scythes. Many fields look uncultivated. When talking to a Ukrainian friend about this, she expressed the fear farmers have about foreigners taking over their land and this is one reason why combining farms and forming coops will never procede (without force). I'm doing a poor job here of explaining this. Basically, the same things that were happening a hundred years ago, seventy years ago, are still happening today.

I read that astrology signs are changing ever so slightly. Most people here that I interact with are really into their signs. Once this news hits Ukrainian press it's going to be interesting.

I'm a frequent reader of Women's Health magazine. I admit that I truly enjoy it. Except for one thing. It's torture as someone who lives in a village, to read about nutrition. It's absolutely absurd for me to comprehend to what level a certain group of Americans are concerned about diet and exercise given my current environment. Turkey pitas? Calcium enriched orange juice? Packaged foods that have additional fiber, cancer fighting properties...

Lastly, I skimmed this interesting article about Russian documentary films. I hope to see some of the films mentioned someday. Like American television, Ukrainian television has gone the prime time reality route. I wonder if anyone has ever written an in depth study of New Years specials here. They are truly otherworldly.

time with the people I love most

The week around Christmas I was fortunate enough to meet up with my mother, father, brother, and sister-in-law in Barcelona for a gluttonous time of conversation, amazing food, and culture. Being with them helped me rearrange the blinders I've been seeing myself in. I've got a lot of questions I need to answer about what I want my service to be and how I want to look back on this time. Here's some photos from the week:

Free Time

It's time to start posting again. Eventually I'll write something of substance but for now I'll entertain with pictures taken over the past few weeks.

During training in Peace Corps I learned to cross-stitch, which is by no means difficult. The problem with it is that it is addictive and I often find myself in situations where I wish I had my needle. Embroidering appears to not be a social activity. I've ignored that by taking my projects to school during my slow hours, getting a few lines in on a train ride or while waiting for a bus. At first, I typically get stares. Doing anything other than staring or pl

aying on a cellphone is odd in the game of waiting. I've even gotten yelled at for reading while waiting (apparently it's bad for the eyes).

The top project is a field of poppies. Poppies are a common symbol in Ukrainian folklore. The project below is a rushnyk, or hand towel, a traditional towel used especially for ceremonies like weddings. This rushnyk, not quite standard because I altered it as I saw fit, contains many common symbols in relation to family life and health.

This never gets old.