Unspoken

March 30, 2011 – Unspoken       

It’s been almost a week since I came to the small village of Kolychivka.  It’s a small village. There are maybe 1400 people or so, which is not that many, considering I have about half that amount of friends on Facebook.  Imagine all your friends from Facebook in a village.  There are 3 markets, when I say market I mean a house with some grocery’s, toiletries, and other things for purchase like Vodka.  It would be similar to a Sari-Sari store in the Philippines.  There is a cemetery across the street, a school about ½ a mile away from my house, a soccer field, a church, a post office, and a library that is only open sometimes.  For being such a small village we are able to know where everything is within thirty minutes of just walking around.  Luckily we are only a 15 minute bus ride away from Chirnihiv, a major city in Ukraine.  Unfortunately we’ve only been there twice since training and can only go if needed at this time, but going into the city is like a breath of fresh air.  There’s a McDonalds (of course) stores, restaurants, internet cafes, and people walking around.  So for right now our choices of things to do in the village is very limited due to the lack of things to do around here.

My day usually starts around 7, and as I rise from my slumber breakfast is already prepared for me.  I usually have eggs, bread, some cheese, meat, cereal or oatmeal, campote (cherry juice), and some chai (tea).  Typically I eat by myself in the morning.  My mama Katay is usually already gone to work, my Tato Sasha (dad) is at work, and my brat (brother) is in his room.  So breakfast is quick so I can get ready for my day.  My language cultural facilitator’s house is only a 2 minute walk from my house, which is close considering some of the other volunteers have to walk 10-15 minutes away.  Language class is typically 4 hours a day which includes, vocabulary, grammar, conjugates, dialogue, presentations, which I don’t even know any of these things in English let alone in Ukrainian, but slowly it is starting to make sense.  Some of the other volunteers are a little overwhelmed with the language but I feel it is okay right now.  Maybe in a week I will say something different.  We eat lunch at the school and pay 5 hyrvnee (7.89 hyrvnee is 1 US dollar.)  So we eat pretty well at the school.  And as we walk to the school we see all the locals.  Usually we see the older women or the babusya (grandma).  We greet them with ‘Dobre den (good day)’ and they smile back and respond with ‘Dobre Den.’  And the children at the school especially the younger kids smile at us and giggle and try to say their best English and say ‘Hello’ and then run away.  We smile say ‘Dobre Den’ and continue to walk.  The village is used to having Peace Corps Volunteers.  We are the 4^th group of volunteers that they’ve had and I am the 3^rd volunteer that my host family has housed.  And they seem as excited as if we were the first volunteers. 

Our days usually end anytime between 3-5.  Sometimes we have some other sort of training or a visit to the administration, but typically I would be home around 5.  In the states that would be the same time I would come home after work.  The difference is I would usually do something after work.  I would maybe workout at the gym, get a drink at the local pub, eat dinner with a friend, or go home and watch sports.  Having a schedule during the day has kept me busy and has made time fly but coming home has been the toughest to adjust to.  There is no gym in town and usually around 5 it is still cold.  There are no bars and even if there was a bar we wouldn’t be going in there because we wouldn’t want the parents to think we are drunkards teaching their kids.  There are no restaurants in town to go to and they don’t show any American sports on TV (so I didn’t realize that SDSU lost, that baseball started, or anything else sports related.) I haven’t found ESPN in Ukraine.  Needless to say I do have to figure out what I can do to make my evenings go by quicker.

When I get home in the evening Sasha and Katay might just be getting home or they are not home yet.  I put my things down, change my clothes, sit in bed and just think of what I need to do next.  I should be studying the language or reading a book but I typically take a nap.  And recently I’ve been loving my naps (I will explain in the next blog).  I’ll wake up from my slumber and dinner is ready.  They feed me like a king here.  I have a salad (the dressing is usually just mayonnaise), borsch (soup – also a national dish), some sort of meat and card (rice, pasta), some campote, and chai.  And to dad if you are reading this, they do not serve a shot of Vodka at every meal.  I’ve had a shot of Vodka because Sasha said that Sunday is a holiday and that we should take a shot.  So after dinner is typically family time.  They watch TV like us or just sit around and talk.  It’s still difficult for us to communicate because of language barriers but we are still able to.  I’m slowly able to join in conversation and answer their questions but typically I’ll smile nod my head and say ‘Tak’ (yes in English).  As you all can probably imagine me sitting there with this big grin on my face nodding my head at everything they say.  They can be asking me anything and I nod my head saying ‘Tak’.  They try to get me to do things and finally one of the days I went into the other room and my brother had a table set up with a net in the middle of it and said ‘Table Tennis.’

It’s not as you and I would imagine a table tennis table should be.  It’s not that big and it’s a small dining table with a net that you can attach to the edge of the table.  I of course say yes and we play.  We don’t keep score but we just hit the ball back and forth.  We don’t say much but just laugh and say ‘Dobre’ (good) every time there is a good shot.  We play for about an hour and a half not really talking just hitting the ball back and forth, but this allows me to spend time with him and makes me feel more comfortable and at ease with him.  I say I have to study and go to bed.  But I tell him ‘Zovtra’ (tomorrow) and raise the paddle and he says yes.  We play after dinner now and still don’t speak much but I know that we are slowly building up that comfort level of speaking to each other.  His English is at the same level as my Ukrainian so maybe we are both not comfortable of making mistakes in front of each other.   At least now we have the unspoken connection of table tennis to help us communicate for the time being.