The Last Six Months in Photos

So I felt obliged to dump some photos from the last 6 months or so on the blog. More information in the captions. You can also click any image to view a larger version...you know, if you want to see how my pores are doing or whatever. Enjoy!

The students and staff from my little Girls Leading Our World/Teaching Our Boys to Excel seminar I ran in March

Rehearsing a skit. They're pretending to be babushkas

Learning about HIV/AIDS, sexual health, gender issues...

...how social gender roles limit people, stigma and discrimination, and more

Presentations and whatnot

Staff (L-R): Michelle, Irina, Catherine, Patrick (kneeling), Angela, Chris, me, Anand. Chris is from the UK and teaches English at a private school here, Irina is from Pavlograd, the rest are volunteers

Last Bell, or graduation for the 11th grade. They held it indoors this year due to rain

School principal addressing everyone. He is flanked, for some reason, by 7th grade girls in dance uniforms.

Releasing balloons to celebrate...

High-flying balloons

And they finished it with a waltz

From my trip to Russia, in June. Me, Warren, and Dara in front of the Kremlin at Red Square in Moscow

St. Petersburg (all of the following photos from Russia are also St. Petersburg, except the last 2 in Russia, which are back in Moscow. Just go with it)

Spilled Blood Cathedral, or something like that

The Hermitage

Stage set up for Russia Day (June 12)

Gopnik impersonation

A gopnik is basically a Ukrainian lowlife who drinks beer, smokes cheap cigarettes, wears knockoff Adidas track suits, constantly eats sunflower seeds, and squats like this everywhere. Similar to English chavs.

Look, it's the Hermitage again!

Russian fast food...blinchiki, basically crepes. Delicious.

Cathedral of Spilled Blood-or-whatever

Our only day of clear weather while in Russia (while I was there at least)

St. Basil's Cathedral, Moscow

boat tour on the Moskva River in Moscow

park

church

synagogue

Vienna, in July! No photos from Budapest, I was lazy

Austrian parliament

penguin fountain in a Viennese park

statue of Empress Maria Teresa

At Camp Mandarin in Crimea (still July)

no cabins at this camp, just dormitories [read: madhouses]

me with Nastia, my amazing co-counselor at Mandarin

CAMP REPUBLIC! I had spent a good chunk of the year planning it, and the directing responsibilities found their way into my hands as well. Mine, Courtney's, and Blakely's, at least.

some staff talkin' 'bout stuff

our campground in lovely Borova, Kharkivska oblast, Ukraine

dining hall. the food was better than it was last year at a completely different place

This was a sign in the camp auditorium. It says "I LOVE CHILDREN!"

Biggest hit of the week: watermelon polo in the river, with a greased-up watermelon

That's that, this is this

Camp Republic was mainly a chance to learn history and what-have-you through reliving it. We lived as ancient Romans in the Republic. Note the togas.

Courtney and I discussing "game" issues. Throughout the week, the campers (split into factions) wrestled for control of the Senate and Rome through addressing different issues every day.

The American staff with our 2 Ukrainian cooks

the Senate in a special evening ceremony

Mark Antony and Sextus Pompey squaring off, with me (Fate) officiating

the death of Caesar, which opened our week

the drum signaled the convening of the Senate (i.e. GET OVER HERE)

more watermelon polo

our map of the Roman Empire, ca. 44 BC. Different groups had control over certain provinces and legions (chess pieces)

TALLINN. beautiful city

my partners-in-crime in Estonia and Finland--Anand, Catherine, and Kurt

eating reindeer meatballs in Helsinki

Anand enjoying a bowl of elk soup in Tallinn for only 1 euro

modeling my new sweater I bought in Tallinn (it was cold there, and I didn't bring anything warm)

our awesome guide on our free walking tour

elk soup kitchen. we returned numerous times for the cheap and hearty soup. also, it was elk, how awesome is that?

Helsinki harbor

awesome cafe spot on an island park in Helsinki

strolling through Helsinki

the Estonian parliament, which, according to our guide, is a "manly shade of salmon"

island park in Helsinki. Kurt wanted to start a kissing booth, but no one came

rain damage in August. A massive storm broke something on the roof of my apartment and then dumped rain on us for three more days

living room door

living room window. the sunscreens there stick to the glass from the humidity inside my apartment

living room light

bucket in the living room door catching a leak. needed to be emptied every few hours

living room light switch, where I was shocked about four times

kitchen wall

kitchen wall

hallway to the bathroom/dry part of the house

Last First Bell

The ceremony this year...smaller than last year's

My final semester here in Ukraine has started. I still don't have a schedule, so I've been sort of showing up and finding out what classes I'm teaching that day. From what I understand (which isn't too much), my school's been dealing with a bit of a baby boom. There are more students in the 1st-4th grades than there are in the remainder of the school (5th-11th), and there aren't quite enough teachers to cope with it. I suppose they'll have to increase class size or hire more teachers somehow. But at any rate, the year has started well enough. I've made an effort to remind my kids that I only have 2 months left, and they seem to respond well. I especially like the response of the boys of one eleventh-grade class, who opt to play hooky during all the English classes. To be honest, it's fine by me, because most of the ones that skip were usually disruptive during class when they bothered to show up. It leaves an interesting class dynamic though--eight seventeen-year-old girls and me. My lesson plans have to account for a high volume of giggling.
 September is a significant month. The next Peace Corps Ukraine group, 44, arrives next week. I will take the GRE in less than 2 weeks (in Kiev). Our close-of-service conference, the marker of the twilight of our service, immediately follows my taking of the exam. And last, but certainly not least personally, September 30 will be the second anniversary of my arrival in Ukraine. My, my, we've come a long way. Getting ready for my life after Peace Corps takes up a growing amount of my time, both temporal and mental. I'm none too sure as to what the next step will be, but my ideal scenario goes something like: send off grad school applications, leave Ukraine in late November, travel through India with a few other friends for around 4 weeks, fly back home by way of South Korea in December, be home in plenty of time for Christmas, finally get to see all my family (and the newest member, my cousin-once-removed, born last month!) at the shindig Jessica is planning in south Georgia, and then start some sort of job in Washington. I've always felt at some level as if our capital is where I'm meant to be, and that sentiment has grown stronger lately. In the best case, I'd still have 8 months until I'd start graduate work anyway, so I need to fill that time, and best to do that with a meaningful job in a place I want to be. But not that I'd say no to a good job anywhere, to be honest. If Peace Corps has taught me anything, it's to be...FLEXIBLE!

Late Summer Night's Dream

Hello all,
It's been quite a while since I've written on here, so I thought I'd give an answer to the question, "What on earth is Andrew doing nowadays?!?"
A lot, to be honest. Let's start back from May, my last entry.
The weekend after my last entry (May 9), I attended a sort-of graduation ceremony, merged with prom. I can't really describe this. All the 11th grade classes from my school were at the town's cultural center, a former movie theater. I gave a speech to about 300 assembled Ukrainians. In Russian. It went over well, or at least they laughed in all the right places. My school principal proposed a toast later that night--something along the lines of, "When you are governor of your state, Georgia? invite us to your governor's mansion and have a Ukrainian-style holiday there. For us." It was pretty fun.
In late May, I went way out to western Ukraine, to a town called Berehovo. I ran a 10K race there--that's 6.2mi for all you metric-illiterate Americans out there--and placed something like 6th overall, 3rd out of Peace Corps volunteers. Sounds pretty cool, but there were maybe 22 people in the race, so...yeah. Not last at least. It was a fun week, and I finally got to see the Carpathians. This town is basically on the Hungarian border. A week later, my school held its official last bell ceremony, which was anticlimactic--it rained heavily, so they held it inside and restricted attendance. I watched from a balcony.
Around that time, I also got my visa to visit Russia. Russia requires a visa for most Westerners, and it can be a bit of a headache to receive it. But I got it in early June, just in time for a trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg that 2 other volunteers, Dara and Warren, and I had been planning. In June I also ran the same day camp at my school that I did last year, and I was lucky enough to get tickets for a Euro Cup game. Ukraine hosted the once-every-four-years tournament of European soccer, along with Poland, which consumed almost all news in Ukraine for the first half of 2012. It went off relatively smooth. I saw Ukraine's team play France in the city of Donetsk.
At the end of June, I hopped on a series of trains that, altogether, totaled 29 hours [as you may expect, there's a whole book worth of stories in that journey alone...but that's for another day] and took me to Budapest, Hungary. I met up with one of my best friends from college there, Cedric. After Cedric flew back to Ireland to go to work on Monday, I headed to Vienna for a few nights there, then back to Ukraine. Once back in country, I went down to Crimea, finally, to work at a Ukrainian-run camp there. My role there was pretty lax: I ran an English club, open twice daily, for anyone who wanted to come. Usually I would get 2 or 3 girls who would practice their English for 10 minutes or so. Then I would possibly get a handful of boys who wanted to play Frisbee with me. I'd oblige. But that was about it. The camp was on the beach, which was nice--I was never really bored. After that, I attended Peace Corps's Russian "language refresher," a short camp for us to practice our Russian, and then I went to what was, for me at least, the meat of my summer: CAMP REPUBLIC.
I'd been on the planning staff of this camp from the start--it's one I had worked at last year and greatly enjoyed. I don't want to get too much into the details, but it's basically a week-long camp for college students where they simulate historical scenarios--in this case, the fall of the Roman republic (i.e. Caesar, Octavian, Mark Antony, Brutus/Cassius, and all that good stuff). And it's 100% in English. I wasn't exactly the director, but that responsibility got more or less thrust upon me--at least the non-logistical aspects of the at-camp directing. [Some other, much more organized, and all-around wonderful volunteers handled the logistics--and then some--of the camp...Blakely, Jing, and Courtney, to name a few] It was everything I could have hoped for, I guess.
After Camp Republic, I headed home to Pavlograd for the first time in a few months. I had a week or so of relaxation there before I headed on my last trip abroad as a Peace Corps volunteer: Estonia and Finland. But I'd made a mistake booking my flight...long story short, I wound up in Estonia/Finland 2 days behind all my friends, but I did get a lovely 5-hour layover in Riga, Latvia and got to see the town. So not all was lost. Anyway, Helsinki, Finland was beautiful but chilly (in August) and expensive. Tallinn, Estonia was even more beautiful (in my opinion), also chilly, and much cheaper. We spent 3 nights in Tallinn, but 5 in Estonia--we rented a car and went to a national park there and camped for 2 nights. All around fun times. Honestly, Estonia might be my favorite country I've ever visited.
And now I'm back here in Pavlograd. School starts again in 2 weeks, and I officially have my close-of-service date: November 20. My plan is to travel for 2-3 weeks in India and (maybe) Nepal or Korea, then be back in Georgia around mid-December, definitely well before Christmas. Then, life starts again...

ДЕНЬ ПОБЕДЫ

VICTORY DAY

In the former USSR, May 9 is Victory Day, to mark the end of the Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany. The West marks V-E (Victory in Europe) Day on May 7, but Victory Day is different. May 7, 1945 was the date that Germany signed a document of surrender to the Allies; however, only one Soviet official was present, and it was signed in Reims, not Berlin. Stalin declared that the May 7 document was only preliminary, and orchestrated a signing in Berlin between Marshall Zhukov (the commander of the Red Army) and the Nazi high command the next day, May 8. It was carried out late at night, when it was already May 9 in Moscow due to the time difference. Thus, May 9 was born, becoming an official work holiday in the 1960s.
As I've mentioned before, the whole USSR and Ukraine in particular suffered greatly during the war. The whole USSR lost almost eleven millions soldiers and as many as seventeen million civilians. But the overlooked part, in the west at least, is the role the people of the Soviet Union played in defeating Germany--the Red Army engaged and destroyed about 70-80% of German forces in the war. Those numbers put the Western Allies' war effort in perspective.
Like all of Ukraine, Pavlograd was occupied by the Nazis in 1941 and held until the Red Army rolled back through in fall of 1943. Most cities here celebrate their "City Day" on the date the Red Army arrived; ours is in September. Pavlograd also saw a massive uprising against the Germans in February 1943--a resistance group successfully drove out the occupiers for five days. The Germans rolled in reinforcements, however, and the city was again occupied. There are monuments to the resistance leaders (who were all killed in the fighting or executed afterward) throughout the town.
Anyway, schools were closed today for the holiday. Last night, there was a concert in the town square, and there was a parade this morning through the same square. Traffic was closed off on the surrounding streets, and thousands of people turned out for what has to be one of the busiest days for Pavlograd's downtown area. It was also HOT today--around 88 or so Farenheit. Without any more clumsy words, here are the photos I took this morning.

The war monument and eternal flame at Pavlograd's main square

Some of the equipment for the concert. Surprisingly, this was the only prominent Soviet insignia. Last year, a massive hammer and sickle banner hung from a building on the square.

Monument to the Russian Revolution

Concert stage. The Russian on the stage reads "Happy Victory Day! 9th of May"

View of the main street--Karla Marxa St.

Some girls participating the parade; they would give the vintage helmets and cloaks to some boys later

What everyone's role was in the parade, I was none too clear on

Dancing

Soldiers marching with various banners of Soviet divisions

There were about 40 soldiers, led by a man and a woman in traditional Ukrainian clothes--the man as a Cossack. Two Orthodox priests were also part of the procession, and a bunch of older men and women--dignitaries, veterans and the like--followed the soldiers and priests

One soldier drove down Karla Marxa in a bobik (Soviet jeep)

There were some girls in uniforms, they marched out and did a dance number. They never got real close so I wasn't quite sure what was going on. But then again, I never really am.

Laying flowers

Seems like Grandpa Lenin is happy today, no?

April 2

I haven't written on here in a while, so I feel obliged to update. Why has it been so long? I haven't really had a whole lot going on, to be frank. I've stayed busy the last few months with GRE studying, writing material for Camp Republic II (to be held this summer in Ukraine), and a few other smaller projects on the side. Last week was spring break, and I didn't do anything quite as cool as last year. I worked at a mini-camp for Camp Republic in Poltava the first weekend, was in Kiev for one night, where I did 3 things of note--saw Chelsea, helped her pick up a boatload of books for her school's grant, and bought a French press for coffee. Then I spent the rest of the week back in my oblast, mostly staying at home, sleeping late, and watching TV, with one trip to a village to celebrate my friends Caroline and Avital's birthdays. School started again today. I think there's 8 more weeks of school to go until summer. The sun's started rising really early again, around 6 or so. Once the weather warms up for good, I'll have to move my bed back into my living room--my bedroom has a window without any curtains facing due east. Not a problem in winter, when the sun isn't warm and doesn't rise until 8, but quite the issue when the sun is up around 5 and is warm all day. I have a pullout couch in the living room, which has west-facing windows. The pullout couch is only slightly less comfortable than the futon in the bedroom. I really have nothing interesting to say, honestly.
I leave you with photos from sunrise this morning (I woke up early today) and a bonus photo from an old Soviet English textbook at my school.

View from my westward living room window

View from the eastward bedroom window

Morning skies

"I'm going to enjoy watching you die, Mr Anderson"

The above title was written by a mystery student in one of my classrooms this week. I believe it's a quote from The Matrix. The fact that it was written doesn't surprise me. The fact that the grammar and spelling are all correct does surprise me considerably. I thought I would have exhausted the humor of my students' occasional overenthusiastic ineptitude, but I was wrong. Really wrong. The following are just from this week alone.
"In the morning I like hearing the sound of beards in the tree."
"Sheeps cross the sea."
"We acros the ocean by shit."
I don't want to bore you with too many, but there are plenty more. I gave a warm-up this week of distinguishing between homophones--words that sound alike. For Ukrainians, the short i sound is very hard to make, as in birthday, ship, liver, and so on. There's no equivalent sound in Russian or Ukrainian (or many other languages, actually, it's a very English sound). So a lot of Ukrainians pronounce it "ee," hear that sound reinforced by everyone else they're around, and assume they're speaking correctly. As a result, many Ukrainians will tell you proudly that they leave in Ukraine, that you can take a river cruise in Kiev on a sheep, the sounds of beards in the trees is a beautiful sign of spring, and that their beersday (th is also hard) is coming up soon, will you come to the party?
I would be lying if I said I didn't assign this task partly to have a good chuckle at my students' expense, but the accent is something that needs work. It's usually fine because of context (no one reasonable would ever assume you're going to ride a sheep across a body of water), but they should at least be aware that it's pronounced "it," not "eat."
Anyway, I survived winter 2012--the two weeks that it lasted. The temperature plummeted at the start of this month, to subzero (in Farenheit) highs for over a week. It so happened that I submitted an online comment to BBC News about the cold snap in Eastern Europe and was contacted by BBC reporters about twenty times in the following week. My friend Caroline called them "BBC, aka needy girlfriend." But the cold abated, and now it's getting above freezing every day. I even dare to go out without a hat. The season now is not really winter or spring, but распутица (rasputitsa). It's basically the time preceding and following snowfall where everything is muddy and slushy. But spring is coming once again. Or so I hope.
On March 3, I'm putting on a sort of mini-camp for my students at school. I have about nine people--seven volunteers, a Ukrainian teacher, and a British teacher--coming in to help with it, and about 40 students signed up for it. I daresay I'm even excited about it. But what I'm really excited about is my work for Camp Republic II this summer. I'm writing the game that will dominate the camp schedule, and it centers around the political struggle in the Roman Republic following Caesar's assassination. If you know anything about me, you should probably know that Roman history is one of my few true passions in life, and that late Republican history is my favorite part of the whole. If only Caesar (the dog) could be here in July for the camp. He would make a swell mascot.

Arrivals

Ladies and gentlemen, sometimes words fail me. In this case, I'll let my seventh and sixth graders take over. Enjoy.

"I wont to next year many games, many spiking, and many interesting lessons. I like lessons Mr. Sell."
"I wont learn English linguage becaus this fan, and games help me to learn Endlis linguage."
"I don't like writing task, it's bringly. I like when we singing and play boll."
"I want listing the mysic. I dont like writing text. redin the text helps me learn English-"
"Me please in subject with Mr Shell. Mr Shell--is 'food.' We not big write."
"Mr Shell is the best teacher. I like play in hangman, draw turkey, sing songs, dance."
"I realle like play hangman it is fang...Mr. Shell is king-hearted teacher."
"In New Years weak. Det Moros veery good." [Ded Moroz is what Russians, Ukrainians, and other Slavs have instead of Santa Claus]
"Ded Moroz is New Year fantastik herou. He look like curly hair, fat he, tall and wear red fercoult. He put presents at New Year tree."
"Ded Moros is Ukrainian Santa Clau$$."
"I love wikish calles 'Saumon Says.'"
"I wont is Mr Shell is game."
"Hangman is a very popular and enjoys the game end so I want the game was often at lessons"
"I like games that you spend, and dialogues, at leas not out but I like it."

I'm finally back in Pavlograd this week after about 4 solid weeks of being mostly on the road. It started on the 20th of December or so, when I left Pavlograd for Kiev and Vasilkov, where I visited my host family for a night. Then, onto the airport. My flight from Kiev to Frankfurt was inexplicably delayed for an hour leaving Borispol Airport, and I arrived at the Frankfurt airport at 4:30 PM. My connecting flight to Washington-Dulles was on time, scheduled to depart at 4:42. To complicate it further, I arrived at Terminal A, and left from Terminal Z. Uh-oh. I basically sprinted through the airport, hopped on the commuter train, and made it to the security checkpoint at Terminal Z with about 2 minutes to spare. The guards saw our haste (there were a few others trying to make the same flight), and allowed us to cut the line and made only a cursory search. I made it to the gate and was stopped by a German lady in a United Airlines uniform who interrogated me for about 2 minutes about why I was in Ukraine, or if I was smuggling tobacco, or if I had any weapons. I made it through the suspicious officials and finally reached the US-bound flight. About 14 hours later, I was finally back in Georgia, with my parents at the West Paces Steak and Shake, eating a guacamole burger around 1 AM.

My 2 weeks back in the States were great. I saw just about everyone I wanted to see--family, friends--did a lot of things I wanted, and left without much sadness. The only sad moment was my last night, when I tried to get Caesar to come upstairs with me to sleep in my bedroom. He's just too old and his joints are just too creaky for him to be able to climb the stairs. I won't lie, I cried when I realized that he understood what I wanted from him but also knew that he just couldn't do it. He's been my dog since I was eleven and he was a tiny, flea-ridden little puppy. Even though he's getting older and older, I am happy to know that he's content in life, sleeping in his brand new LL Bean bed and enjoying his doggie golden years. I just hope he'll be around to welcome me back home at the end of this year. It's one thing to leave family, who are, after all, human beings and capable not just of understanding why you are leaving and that you will return, but also can talk with you while you are gone. It's another thing to leave your beloved dog that has no idea about any of that.

When I made it back to Ukraine, I celebrated by sleeping at the Kiev airport for six hours until the Peace Corps office opened in the morning and I could sleep there. I spent some time in western Ukraine with Chelsea, then I came back to Kiev for my mid-service medical exams. All healthy. I finally made it back to Pavlograd for good on Sunday. Yesterday, I celebrated my good health by jumping in the frigid Volchya River in Pavlograd as a part of the Russian Orthodox tradition for marking Christ's baptism. Second year in a row. Pictures will come soon, I hope. It's strange that I've been here long enough now to have my own traditions.