Well, I have successfully completed my first week at my site. It’s funny, because I am seeing updates from friends on both ends of the spectrum when comparing how busy their first week was. Some have been put right to work, like the host organization has been saving projects and now that the volunteer has shown up, a mass of work has been placed in the their laps. Some of my friends have already lectured at seminars in their first week. Whereas, others have had a week with highlights that included mailing a letter and checking Facebook. Luckily, I rank myself squarely in the middle. I have had enough to do where I don’t feel useless, but not too much that I can’t do my non-host organization work. In my first week I was required to do some things like locate the hospital and the ATM machine, and introduce myself to the police. I am happy with my pace. I figure, if the library keeps me so busy with their projects, I won’t have to time to develop my own, which is kind of the point of me being here.
In addition to locating the post office in town, I was also able to rent a PO Box to receive mail. Not that anyone is looking to send me mail, but the mail delivery situation at my apartment is unknown at best. I suspect that there is little or no chance of actually getting mail delivered here if I wanted to. (Have you seen the pictures of my apartment? Imagine what the common areas of the building look like!) If anyone needs it, my address is…
In addition to locating the post office in town, I was also able to rent a PO Box to receive mail. Not that anyone is looking to send me mail, but the mail delivery situation at my apartment is unknown at best. I suspect that there is little or no chance of actually getting mail delivered here if I wanted to. (Have you seen the pictures of my apartment? Imagine what the common areas of the building look like!) If anyone needs it, my address is…
Сим Моррелл Sim Morrell
А/Я № 4 PO Box 4
ОПС Раздольное OPS Razdol’noye
Раздольное Рай Центр Razdol’noye Rayon Center
А Р Крым, УКРАИНА A R Crimea, 96200
Индекс: 96200 UKRAINE
It would be best to print out this part and tape it directly to the envelope or package, that way both countries can read it.
I have made a new friend, though. The library where I work is all women, except one man. The maintenance/water collector/repairman named Oleg. He knows a handful of English words, which is not really enough to communicate with, but he is patient enough with my Russian to actually have a conversation with. He is around my age and he makes sure I am OK. He makes sure I go to lunch on time, showed me a new place to buy some vegetables, and when I told him that I liked cherries, he brought me to a white cherry tree and picked a handful for me, since I wasn’t tall enough. They were quite tasty. The other day he asked if I played chess. I told him I did, but wasn’t very good. He brought his computer over to my desk for one game. I lost, but I will redeem myself. As a rule, Lenara does not socialize with anyone from work, and I might agree with her if I was a supervisor, but, at this point, I need all of the friends I can get and Oleg was the first that stepped up with a handshake extended and a hearty “goot more neng”.
I have made a new friend, though. The library where I work is all women, except one man. The maintenance/water collector/repairman named Oleg. He knows a handful of English words, which is not really enough to communicate with, but he is patient enough with my Russian to actually have a conversation with. He is around my age and he makes sure I am OK. He makes sure I go to lunch on time, showed me a new place to buy some vegetables, and when I told him that I liked cherries, he brought me to a white cherry tree and picked a handful for me, since I wasn’t tall enough. They were quite tasty. The other day he asked if I played chess. I told him I did, but wasn’t very good. He brought his computer over to my desk for one game. I lost, but I will redeem myself. As a rule, Lenara does not socialize with anyone from work, and I might agree with her if I was a supervisor, but, at this point, I need all of the friends I can get and Oleg was the first that stepped up with a handshake extended and a hearty “goot more neng”.
I may have mentioned that this is a long weekend. Basically, what happened was that this coming Tuesday is a holiday, but the government has asked (read: required) that businesses work on Saturday and then take the next three days off. I expect everything will be closed Monday and Tuesday.
I had a couple of plans for the days off, the biggest of which was going to visit my friend Anne. She is also a Community Development (CD) volunteer and she was in my training group. She lives a few towns away which is probably 15 miles. Sadly, the bus schedules were also affected by the holiday, so when I went to buy my tickets for the four legs of the roundtrip, I was sold 2 tickets and could not understand the explanation as to why I was missing two. This was mildly worrysome as I was embarking on a trip that I only had tickets for half of the way there and only half of the way home. I figured though, that this would be the best trial by fire for me. I would be forced to solve my own problems, I would either have a victory if I made it to Anne’s, or the worst thing would be to fail and have to take a taxi home. So, there were plenty of worse places and circumstances that I could have been forced to have this problem in. I took the bus from the Razdolnoye bus station and had my road map with me so I was able to follow along to know when I was getting close to my stop. When I did get close I showed the driver’s helper (money collector) my ticket and asked him to let me know when I should get off. Eventually, we came to a stop sign. After stopping, as the bus started to move forward, the helper motioned to me that this was my place to get off and the driver stopped again! Yep, I was disembarked in the middle of a 4-way intersection (where only 2 ways actually had a stop sign!) As they were hustling me off the bus they were asking me where I was going to and I said Pervemoyevskoe and they pointed to a marshrutka that had stopped 20 yards from this intersection. I ran to the bus and asked if he was going to Pervemoyevskoe, he said yes and that it cost 5 UAH. Well, there was one problem solved as I had just gotten one leg that I did not have a ticket for. I got to Pervemoyevskoe around 9:30am, so the whole trip from my town to hers was about an hour. I spent a nice day with Anne. Comparing notes about our jobs, as she works in the central library in her town too. Telling travel stories and reminiscing about our training. One of her new friends invited us into her garden to pick some fresh fruits and I brought some tomato sauce that I had made. We had a nice lunch and then we walked around her town a little bit before I headed to the bus station for my journey home. This time I had a ticket to the 4-way intersection, but not from the intersection, home. I was dropped at the same intersection, although this driver had the wherewithal to pull to the side of the road after the intersection for a little safer of an exit. Now, I was stumped. There was no bus stop I could see. I went into a small bodega and asked where to get the bus to Razdolnoye, and she pointed to the road right in front of her place although she had no idea when the next bus would be coming. I stood there for about 15min and a bus came. I asked if he was going to Razdolnoye and after some discussions with his money collector, said he would, but only after he ate his dinner. This took a half hour, but he did make good on his offer. I was the only passenger on this 50 passenger bus. I have no idea where he was heading and my negotiation skills for the price of the ride left a little to be desired. I mean, I was kind of over a barrel if the negotiations broke down and he decided I was not worth the aggravation. He asked for 30 UAH and when I half-heartedly balked, he came down to 20 UAH. Still, double the price of the official bus line, but again, I had no idea when the next bus would come. It was now around 6:30 and it was going to start to get dark soon and I would then have to pay significantly more for a taxi. He did take me to town and when the bus turned down my street I asked him to let me off into a mud patch right in front of my building…well, it wasn’t like this was the worst place to exit a bus that I had experienced today! And with that, at about 7:10pm I was home from my day visiting Anne. A good day and with another day off tomorrow I will probably start working on putting together the video footage I have shot so far. I have about 20 hours of video from the last 3 months that I will try to condense into a story of my clusters training. That could be challenging.
I had a couple of plans for the days off, the biggest of which was going to visit my friend Anne. She is also a Community Development (CD) volunteer and she was in my training group. She lives a few towns away which is probably 15 miles. Sadly, the bus schedules were also affected by the holiday, so when I went to buy my tickets for the four legs of the roundtrip, I was sold 2 tickets and could not understand the explanation as to why I was missing two. This was mildly worrysome as I was embarking on a trip that I only had tickets for half of the way there and only half of the way home. I figured though, that this would be the best trial by fire for me. I would be forced to solve my own problems, I would either have a victory if I made it to Anne’s, or the worst thing would be to fail and have to take a taxi home. So, there were plenty of worse places and circumstances that I could have been forced to have this problem in. I took the bus from the Razdolnoye bus station and had my road map with me so I was able to follow along to know when I was getting close to my stop. When I did get close I showed the driver’s helper (money collector) my ticket and asked him to let me know when I should get off. Eventually, we came to a stop sign. After stopping, as the bus started to move forward, the helper motioned to me that this was my place to get off and the driver stopped again! Yep, I was disembarked in the middle of a 4-way intersection (where only 2 ways actually had a stop sign!) As they were hustling me off the bus they were asking me where I was going to and I said Pervemoyevskoe and they pointed to a marshrutka that had stopped 20 yards from this intersection. I ran to the bus and asked if he was going to Pervemoyevskoe, he said yes and that it cost 5 UAH. Well, there was one problem solved as I had just gotten one leg that I did not have a ticket for. I got to Pervemoyevskoe around 9:30am, so the whole trip from my town to hers was about an hour. I spent a nice day with Anne. Comparing notes about our jobs, as she works in the central library in her town too. Telling travel stories and reminiscing about our training. One of her new friends invited us into her garden to pick some fresh fruits and I brought some tomato sauce that I had made. We had a nice lunch and then we walked around her town a little bit before I headed to the bus station for my journey home. This time I had a ticket to the 4-way intersection, but not from the intersection, home. I was dropped at the same intersection, although this driver had the wherewithal to pull to the side of the road after the intersection for a little safer of an exit. Now, I was stumped. There was no bus stop I could see. I went into a small bodega and asked where to get the bus to Razdolnoye, and she pointed to the road right in front of her place although she had no idea when the next bus would be coming. I stood there for about 15min and a bus came. I asked if he was going to Razdolnoye and after some discussions with his money collector, said he would, but only after he ate his dinner. This took a half hour, but he did make good on his offer. I was the only passenger on this 50 passenger bus. I have no idea where he was heading and my negotiation skills for the price of the ride left a little to be desired. I mean, I was kind of over a barrel if the negotiations broke down and he decided I was not worth the aggravation. He asked for 30 UAH and when I half-heartedly balked, he came down to 20 UAH. Still, double the price of the official bus line, but again, I had no idea when the next bus would come. It was now around 6:30 and it was going to start to get dark soon and I would then have to pay significantly more for a taxi. He did take me to town and when the bus turned down my street I asked him to let me off into a mud patch right in front of my building…well, it wasn’t like this was the worst place to exit a bus that I had experienced today! And with that, at about 7:10pm I was home from my day visiting Anne. A good day and with another day off tomorrow I will probably start working on putting together the video footage I have shot so far. I have about 20 hours of video from the last 3 months that I will try to condense into a story of my clusters training. That could be challenging.
Time for another martini. Yeah! MOM
ReplyDeleteNo counting allowed! :-)
ReplyDeleteGood to hear you are settling in, at work, in the town and maybe even in your apartment.