The Year In Review 2012

I have just returned from one of the three best weeks of my past two years. I spent the past 8 days with El visiting Istanbul and the end of the trip…a/k/a me returning to my life in Razdol’noye, was spent on a 16 hour train. I started thinking back to all of the different things that happened this year. Some were good times, some weren’t. Some were funny, some weren’t. Whatever they were it’s what made this year what it was- part of a life changing experience. Here is my attempt to remember some of the highlights, and lowlights of a Peace Corps Volunteer living in a small town in northern Crimea.

December 31, 2011

I rang in the New Year with my friends Stas and Nadia who invited me to their home. This was the beginning of the long, and wonderful night. We ate a feast, the three of us, at their apartment and I was so full. Then, to my surprise, they said “come on, we are now going to our friend’s apartment for their New Year’s feast!!” Not long after midnight, I was too full and sleepy to continue.

January 22, 2012

Here I am introducing the kids at the orphanage to the joys of peanut butter and Ritz-like crackers. They all wanted seconds. 

February 18

We got plenty of freezing temperatures. We got plenty of wind. We didn’t get much fluffy snow. On one of our only snowfall days Lenara ran onto the balcony of our office and wanted some pictures with the snow before running inside because it was too cold.

February 18

After work…or more correctly, during work, Oleg and I went to sauna to celebrate the first major snowfall. They sauna, run outside and roll in the snow, and repeat. Finishing the session with some vodka. Me, Pavel Sergyovich, and Oleg.

February 19

Vika is one of my favorite young ladies at the orphanage. She shows up every time and helps me wrangle the troublemakers. Here we were taking pictures outside in the snow.

February 23        

Celebrating Men's Day (formerly Day of the Soviet Army) with the guys from sauna. Eating salo (nearly raw pig fat with raw onion) and drinking vodka of course. (as if we needed another excuse to drink vodka) (L-R) Ruslan, Farik, Oleg, Marlin, and Sergey.

March 7

Kids attending the Women’s Day concert at the House of Culture. Third from left is Alyssa, a shy girl who lives in my building, but she always smiles and says “hello” in her best English.

March 7

Lenara and Marina waiting for the Women’s Day concert at the House of Culture.

March 13

Ira and I giving our presentation on the importance of conserving clean water to a class of 7th graders. Here I am demonstrating that if you start with a liter of water, 976ml represents the undrinkable water in the oceans, 19ml represents drinkable water that is not accessible because it is frozen at the poles, and that the remaining water (5ml) represents all of the accessible drinking water on earth…but, only if it is not polluted!

March 17

This is some of the group of volunteers who rented an apartment to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in Sevastopol. NOTE: if anyone ever asks you to rent an apartment to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in Sevastopol, tell them you wish you could, but think that you are busy that day!! These are great people, but I cannot keep up with the party habits of people half my age. (L-R) me, Kym, Noelia, Adam, Erin, Courtney, Anne, Amy, Sara, Cynthia, Andrea, and Simon.

March 24

My first night in a hostel…ever. This was at the Magic Bus in Kiev. I have since stayed at 3 others, but this one isn’t too bad.

March 24

Taking a walking tour of Kiev. This is the House of Chimaeras. They say this is the building “with the monsters outside”, while the building across the street, the President’s office, “has monsters inside.”

March 25   

Erin, Chris,and I arriving by train to start our first trip to Odessa.

March 26

A night out in Odessa with Peace Corps Volunteers (R-L) Erin, Chris, me, and Natalie.

April 7

One of several dinner parties. This one was spaghetti and meatballs. Tomatoes were still very expensive, so Ilona got some from her father’s greenhouse. A good time was had by all. (L-R) Grisha, Ilona, Sergey, Vika, Lenara, Erin.

April 15

Sitting down to Easter celebration feast with host family in Chernigov. Always lots of food and everything tastes great.

April 16

Back to Kiev for my first concert in more than 1 year. Judas Priest at the Palace of Sports.

April 26

Day of Remembrance for the victims and heroes of the Chernobyl disaster. This is the Chernobyl monument in Razdol'noye.

April 30

I visited Peace Corps Volunteer, Katherine Griffin in her city of Kherson. Only about a five hour bus ride. We took a day trip to visit another volunteer in Hola Pristan, where this photo was taken.

May 5

Lenara, Erin, and I went to the Crimean Tatar festival near the city of Bakhchysarai. The colors on the traditional dress are really wonderful and ALL Ukrainians like to have their pictures taken.

May 6

Our new friend Vasya (Ira’s then boyfriend, now husband) cooking up a shashlik (barbeque) dinner at her family’s dacha (summer garden house)

May 8

Conducting the actual water testing component of our clean water project. The water here was remarkably decent, though these tests were conducted all over Ukraine and other areas did not do as well.

May 8

A busy day, May 8 was, water testing in the morning, then in the afternoon Lenara conducted her first interview with a veteran of the Afghanistan War for our historical archive while I worked the audio and video equipment to document it.

May 8

Me, Vladimir Ivanovich, and Lenara after the interview. He was a great help and always stops to say “hi” when I see him around town.

May 9

This is about half of the staff of the library where I work on the Day of Victory in WWII. We are waiting for the town procession to pass the library where we would join to the center and then everyone walks to the war monument. At first I was standing with them and looking for someone to take the photo, but they thought it would be better for me to get off of the steps and just take the picture. Typical.

May 9

My friend Ervin and I with some guys after the procession from the town center to the war monument.

May 12

Saying goodbye to our Peace Corps friend Vicki, who was completing her service. She was my peer advisor and a really cool lady. (R-L) PCV’s Cynthia, Paige, and Vicki. The others are Ukrainians who came to wish Vicki well.

May 19

El’s second trip to Ukraine was at the same time as Erin’s mom's (Tracy) second trip. The four of us met Lenara in Bakhchysarai to go to the Khan’s Palace and eat Crimean Tatar food. It was a great day. Here we are overlooking the city below from the front yard of our hotel. (L-R) Erin, Lenara, Tracy, me, El.

May 26

El and I in Odessa. Many cities have bridges where couples attach locks and throw away the keys to signify their union. However, the locks contribute to the deterioration of the bridge, so the government has started cutting them off. An enterprising company decided to erect this giant heart near the bridge- complete with advertisement, but it is a place that they don’t cut the locks off, so many couples have started putting their locks here…including El and I…although for some reason she kept the key. I told it was so her and her next husband can go remove ours and replace it with their own!

June 11

When I mentioned I wanted to buy a bike, my friend Oleg took me to the guy in town who builds/repairs/sells used bikes. I bought this beauty for about $75. I used it all summer and in the fall sold it to my friend Anne who needed it more than I did for $75.

June 12

Lenara and I on our first and only bike ride together to the beach at Portevoye, 8km each way. I would make the trip many times over the summer, she would not because it made her too tired, it made her legs hurt, it was hot, it made her sweat > smell like sweat. Whatever.

June 16

Lenara and I celebrating my one year anniversary living in Razdol’noye with pizza and non-alcoholic beer on a day trip to Evpatoria.

June 29

A planned 5 day vacation to L’viv with Erin turns into a 5 day vacation to L’viv by myself when she was put on medical hold in Kiev and had to cancel. I had a great time and fell in love with this city. I was there during the finals of the Euro 2012. L’viv was one of the host cities and the whole country had Euro 2012 fever. I had no interest in the soccer competition and avoided the host cities while matches were being played. When I was in L’viv they had finished their hosting duties but people could still visit the Fan Zones and watch the games live on big screen TV’s. I could hear all of the crowd roaring from my hostel room.

June 30

Wandering by myself in L’viv which is known for three things, coffee, chocolate, and lions. There are thousands of lions around the city. They are everywhere. I didn’t realize how many there were when I started taking pictures of all that I saw, but then I just started taking the most interesting ones.

July 9

Two of my sauna friends, Valentine Lvovich (L) and Oleg (R). Valentine drives us to sauna every week and Oleg is just about my best male friend in town. He has been an amazing help to me on every level. One of the people I will truly miss when I leave.

July 20

Language refresher in Kiev. My review: “More language. Less camp.” That is just about the happiest I looked the entire week.

July 29

My friend Olga and I after having just picked up garbage off the beach for 2 hours. Hands down THE most eco-conscious person I have met in this country which is very refreshing, and she is cool to hang out with. She had just gotten back from a month and a half in India and I loved hearing her stories.

August 2

One of my dinner parties. I had invited everyone from work and everyone from English Club. Of everyone from work, one showed. Of everyone from English Club, all but one showed. I start to get the picture regarding “support for your local volunteer”. The English Club had a good time. (L-R) Valery, Nikita, me, Sasha, Paul, Erin.

August 2

Lenara acting goofy with Valery and Nikita at the dinner party.

August 4

Nadia, the ONLY person from work who ever came to help me clean up garbage on the beach. She helped 5 of the 6 times I did it. We rode our bikes, we taught each other vocabulary, we cleaned up the beach for an hour. I appreciated her help. We worked well together. The other people at work made fun of her for helping me work on such a “worthless project”. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s all about changing one mind at a time.

August 8

Lenara, it turns out is a pretty good ping pong player and showed off some of her skills at a training we both attended in Kiev.

September 15

Like a kid on Christmas Eve, I have never seen anyone more excited for anything than Lenara was to get her picture with lion cubs when we went to the safari park near Simferopol.

September 15

Mom’s visit included a day at the safari park. (L-R) mom, me, Erin, Stas, and Lenara. Stas did a great job arranging for us to get a driver with a van to take us for the day.

September 16

Sitting down to an authentic home-cooked Ukrainian meal at Lenara’s house. Her mom and sister did most of the cooking and everything was wonderful. (R-L) mom, Erin, Lenara's sister Lelya, brother Rustem, mom (hidden), and Lenara serving borsch.

September 20

Mom and I at the Swallow’s Nest near Yalta, Crimea. 

September 25

After dropping my mom off at the airport in Simferopol, I headed to the train station to head up to Chernigov for cooking day with my “other” mom, Tanya. We spent the day together cooking one of my favorite Ukrainian dinners, golubsy (stuffed cabbage leaves - although we also put stuffed peppers in the pot too). I had no way of know this was the last time I would cook with her.

October 22

On my favorite mode of transportation, the train, I slipped and pinched a nerve in my neck. When it did not heal, or show any signs of healing, I had to go to Kiev to be put on medical hold. That’s when I got this ridiculous neck brace and had to wear it for a few weeks. They said it would take 6-8 weeks to heal, and sure enough, 6-8 weeks later, I had regained all of the sensations in my arms and fingers. I am 100% now.

October 31

I spent Halloween night in the city of Dnipropetrovsk with my friend Patrick and we went to see the Scorpions play one of their last shows ever (or so they say). It wasn’t the greatest concert ever, but I knew I would probably never get the chance to see them, or any other band, play in Dnipropetrovsk again.

November 3

This was Erin’s last dinner party. (L-R) Nyezy, Vika, Zhenya (with his kids Danyl and Alina), Lenara, and Sergey.  She made pizzas and we all had a nice evening…until I got the call mid-party that my host mom Tanya had passed away.

November 3

Remembering my host mom Tanya who was one of the most important figures in my life the last 2 years. This photo was taken during training when I was living in her house. She was a sweet lady who treated people well.

December 24

El and I met in Istanbul, Turkey for a vacation. On our second day standing in front of the Blue Mosque. It really is quite beautiful.

December 25

El and I visited the Basilica Cistern in Istanbul on this day. 

December 27

And one night, we took a cooking class where we helped cook the dinner for all of the restaurant’s customers that night. Here’s me mincing the herbs with a big, rocking knife. 

December 31, 2012

The beginning of a very long New Year’s Eve with my new friends Igor and Alyona who were kind enough to invite me to their home to participate in a Ukrainian celebration. Lots of food, lots of vodka, lots of laughs, and the wonderful feeling of community integration. Here's to 2013.