Cat Fight!

Wow! As was sitting here working on school and on the blog, I heard this horrible cry of a cat. It just kept going... It sounds like a baby crying. It is aweful! I am pretty sure it is Orest's cat too. And then, all of the sudden there was not one cat, but a bunch! And now I can hear them fighting outside the window! They even knocked some glass over! Hahaha... Random, I know, but it gave me an excuse to procrastinate and blog, hahaha. Although in all fairness, I think maybe I should go to bed. I was waiting for Orest to ask him a few questions about tomorrow, but I get the feeling he will be back still later. Oh well. Tomorrow should be fun!

My Body Hates Me, Haha

You'd think that after so many days my body would be used to the time difference, but for some reason today I was so tired that I fell asleep for a big chunk of the eveningwhile I was "Studying" Hahaha. I had a nightmare and now I am as awake as a farm rooster on a Monday morning!

I saw this picture and I just laughed... This is DEFINITELY what my guardian angel must be thinking, hahahahaha!

Photos

So far I have been unable to find a way to add a photo album to this blog, but here are at least a few preliminary pictures :) It takes for ever to upload them this way, but it'll do for now :D

If you want to see the whole album, go to:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2243418&id=122610538&l=621665bd95

Plans for the weekend and Monday

As I mentioned before, all of this week I have been working on school work and on memorizing some Ukrainian words, as well as the Cyrillic alphabet. The weekend, however, is going to be busy!

Fist of, there’s church of Sunday, of course. But that means that if I am going to go to the Ukrainian Catholic church with Orest’s family, I am going to have to go to the Roman Catholic Church first on Saturday to ask for a dispensation. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier! Regardless, I still think I will be attending a Roman Catholic Mass, and just accompanying the Muriy’s to their Mass once in a while. I am also going to try to meet with the Ukrainian Catholic bishop and with a priest here, since I have a letter for each of them from Myroslaw Tataryn, the dean of St. Jerome’s, asking them if they could provide me with assistance for my project at the orphanage.

Also on Saturday Orest and I are going to go look for a phone and a router for the Internet. And I also have to go to the bank to get money out to pay my host family, as well as Jen, Jess and Orest for their trip to Lviv to pick me up.

Aside from that, I may be hanging out with Jess, but I am not exactly sure what the plan is yet. I will have to call her today to figure that out. Jen is doing something else with a bunch of other students from Saskatchewan who are studying here as well, although not on a service project like us.

On Monday I am finally going to go to the ‘internat’ or orphanage for the first time. Jen and Jess will be going with me as well, so that will be great!! I am really excited and I can’t wait! Please pray for me so that everything goes smoothly and so that I am able to make a good assessment of what needs to be done in my project, without stepping on anybody’s shoes, if you know what I mean.

Now, if you have read everything I have written from the very beginning and you have gotten to this point, you are a super hero!! Either that or you have impressive speed-reading skills! Hahaha. From now on, however, I might not be able to write as much, as often, since I will be a lot busier starting tomorrow. I will still try to do my best to keep you up to date, however, and I hope I can figure out how to load pictures onto this thing!

Thanks for taking the time to read all my ramblings. I hope you find this interesting, and I encourage you to leave me messages. Miss you all, love you all, and I look forward to hearing from you!

Jen and Jess

Jen and Jess are the two other Canadian girls who are here in Ternopil, and with whom I will be working. They came here through the Beyond Boarders program, though, not through Students for Development. Each of them has their own host family, but they live a little bit further than I (though I am not exactly sure where).

They are both awesome girls, although very different from one another. Jen is a very lively girl with a sharp sense of humour and lots of energy. She is lots of fun. Jess, on the other hand, is a very sweet girl with a big smile and a more gentle temper. I think her personality is a bit more like mine. They complement each other and they both seem very committed to this cause. I hope the three of us can make a good team and get lots of good things done in this place. I am sure we will!

School and Assignment Freak Out!!

Aside from working at the orphanage (or ‘internat’), I will be taking 3 courses through Distance Education, two of which are in Philosophy, and one which is a Directed-Readings Religion course.

I had an assignment due on Wednesday for one of my Phil courses (Critical Thinking), but because I had been running around preparing for my trip and working at St. Jerome’s the week before my departure, I had not been able to work on it. So I worked on that all of Tuesday and Wednesday and I got it done just in time! It was such a relief that Orest had internet here for that, and it was such a great feeling to get it done.

However, when I was about to go to bed on Wednesday night, I opened my binder to check the schedule for my other Philosophy course (Great Works of Western Philosophy), only to discover that I had ANOTHER assignment also due on Wednesday!!! Gaaaaahhhhh!!! And by that point it was too late, because even though I am 7 hours ahead, it was already 11:30 pm and since Orest was already asleep I could not send my assignment until the next morning, even if I worked on it all night… and by that time it would already have been one day late. Sigh. So I freaked out, thought to myself, “How am I going to do all of this? This is already late! Should I drop the course? What about my tuition fee? What about the OSAP arrangement I already made? I haven’t even sent the documents to my family for the OSAP… bla bla bla bla….” You get the point. I was so worried I couldn’t fall asleep and I was up till 3:00 am!! Gah…

I had no idea what to do. I seriously considered dropping the course. The next morning, however, when I checked the deadlines for dropping courses and the penalties assigned, I realized it was not worth it. If I dropped it now, it would show on my transcript as “WD” (withdrawn), which doesn’t assign a grade but still looks bad. Also, at this point I could only get 50% of my tuition back. Then I thought to myself, “Well, if I hand it in today I will only get a 10% deduction on this…” So that is what I did! I worked so hard on it and I got it done. It was not the best essay I have ever written, BY FAR, and I am sure my grade is not going to be the best, but in this case I will let it pass and not get bent out of shape.

That freak-out of the night before was ridiculous and I don’t want to get like that again over school. I am here for a much more important purpose, and that is what I am going to focus on. School is important too, and I will work hard at it, but I won’t let it make my life miserable and make me forget why I am here. Besides, I need my sleep if I am going to be able to function!! Hahahaha.

Food

I have been very fortunate when it comes to food because my host family tends to eat a lot of fruits, vegetables and that sort of thing. Almost everything is made from scratch, which makes it all very healthy and yummy. For breakfast I usually have a bowl of oatmeal. For lunch there is usually some form of bread with deli meat, cheese, tomatoes, green onions, etc. For supper we usually have something like a nice vegetable soup, deli meat, and of course, perogies!! I have never had such delicious perogies as these ones! Yum!

There is also always a basket of cookies, a jar of honey, and always, ALWAYS, ‘chai’ or tea. The best part, however, are the many different types of jams! They make them here with the very fruits of the garden! Orest told me that when the time comes for harvesting, I can help them pick the fruits and vegetables and they will teach me how to make this delicious jam :D I just have to be careful and moderate, hahaha, otherwise I would stuff my face with bread and jam! Hahahahahahahaha. But I won’t let that happen :P

We do not drink the water out of the tap, but instead we filter it and/or boil it. Then, it is put into a jar which has a few special stones and a silver spoon in it! It is supposed to clean out any left over impurities. The interesting thing is that the water actually tastes pretty good! Better than bottled water, in fact. To wash dishes we also boil water, which we pour on them when they are soapy.

When BahBah turns the stove on she makes me a little nervous, since she opens the gas knob, lets it run, and then lights a match which she throws into the element, hand and all! There is always what appears to me like a big flash of fire, hahaha, but she seems to know what she is doing and it doesn’t scare her. She also refuses to use the electric kettle, and she always boils her water on the stove, especially if it is for tea.

She is also picky when it comes to doing dishes. And by that I mean, she always wants to do it herself. I think it is a hospitality issue. Yesterday I had something to eat and there was nobody else in the kitchen, so I proceeded to wash my dishes. Then, I saw that there was a pan sitting there with some oil, and since I was already washing my dishes I figured it would be just as easy to wash the pan also. Well, BahBah came in and she seemed visibly distressed. She carefully took the dishes off my soapy hands, and proceeded to continue washing them herself while mumbling in Ukrainian. I got a little worried. I hope she wasn’t offended. Maybe she thought that I thought they didn’t clean the dishes so I would do it myself. Of course that was not it at all! Today I will make sure to tell Orest when he comes back to tell his grandma I’m sorry and that I hope she did not get offended. Yikes! Hahaha. It’s all good though. I’m sure it will be fine.

The Ukrainian People

There are four kinds of people here that brought my attention a lot. The first is the old people. They dress, act and talk in what is obviously the old Eastern European ‘way’. I am not exactly sure how to describe this ‘way’ I am talking about, but if you saw it, you would recognize it. For example, older women tend to dress very conservatively, with dresses in dark colours, wearing dark nylons, flat shoes, and fuzzy sweaters, and covering their short hair with a bandana. BahBah is the typical example of a stereotypical Eastern European old lady.

Then there are the young people. They are sharp and trendy, and the women are ALWAYS dressed in what appears to be designer clothes! Seriously!! They wear as their everyday clothes the kind of stuff I would wear to go to a fancy club or party. It is very interesting. The men are usually a bit more relaxed when it comes to that, but still.

Middle-aged people fall somewhere in between, as it would be expected, with the women more on the trendy side and the men more on the traditional side.

Finally, there are the gypsies. No word of a lie. I guess these are just what we would call ‘poor people’ in Canada, but they have a certain negative stereotype associated with them. People consider them sneaky and sly… even the little ones!! They usually ask you for money, but I have been told not to give it to them and to keep my purse well on sight. I guess that is to be expected.

Aside from that, I noticed something very interesting about the way people relate to one another. Towards someone who looks as foreign as me, people tend to act kind of suspicious. However, between them the social conventions are quite relaxed. I was amazed at the fact that there seems to be a very low amount of rules when it comes to privacy. For instance, when Orest and I went to the hospital, we just walked around and about like nothing, and he knocked on doors that were clearly closed due to the hour (which was past office hours) and had no problem talking to the people there. In some ways there seems to be a lot less ‘red tape’ and strict security, as I mentioned before, when I talked about the airport. Moreover, everyone seems very familiar with each other, and they talk to one another as if they already knew each other. Yet, since this is a small town, everyone might as well actually know each other! Whenever Orest met someone he knew, they shook hands and then kept walking without stopping to talk.

There is a lot more I could say about the people here, but I think it is time to turn to the topic of food!

Ternopil Walk About

During his break between jobs, Orest took me to Ternopil’s downtown two days ago, since he had to run some errands anyway. It is rather surprising, but the town actually somewhat reminds me of the little old rustic towns in Mexico, particularly in the way the streets are, the way the old people walk, and ESPECIALLY in the way people drive! Hahaha! I am going to have to learn how to cross the street all over again. It is an art!

First we stopped at the hospital since Orest needed to pick a sheet up there. Then we went to exchange my Euros for Hryvnia. One Euro is about 10.60 Hryvnia. After that, we went to the bank, where Orest had to withdraw a deposit. Then we went to one of the bars in the town, but only because Orest needed to go to the bathroom and that seems to be the only place in town where there is a free bathroom. Everywhere else they charge you for it!

Then, we stopped at the local Ukrainian Catholic Church. It was very similar, and yet very different from North American Roman Catholic churches, at least the pre-Vatican II churches. The church was surprisingly small on the inside, despite of its tall ceiling and wonderful domes which looked awesome on the outside. The domes were decorated with religious artwork, just as all of the walls. There were pictures and icons everywhere, although I don’t remember seeing any statues.
The area of the narthex is under repairs, so there were wooden structures all the way to the ceiling. However, they did their best to conceal them as much as possible by placing a nice and very large cross made of fabric, which actually looked kind of nice. Because the Tabernacle was hidden far in the Sanctuary behind a series of doors, I had a hard time concentrating on the fact that it was there. Also, the navel of the church was empty, with only a few benches at the front for elderly people to sit during the service. The rest of the congregation stands during the whole Mass, most of which is chanted and which lasts for about 1.5 hours.

After the church we needed to head back since Orest had to go to his other job, but on the way we found his mom, who was walking on her way home, so he was able to stay and leave me with her so that she would not have to walk me all the way home. I walked with Mama Ola, and on the way she tried to communicate with me as best she could. She pointed to buildings and things, saying their name, and I tried to keep up, although I must admit I do not remember most of the word she taught me. I need to write them down to remember them. I am more of a visual learner when it comes to languages.

Once we got home, we sat down to eat… like always! Hehe.

But before I turn to the topic of food, maybe I should say a bit more about the people.

The House Where I Live

Orest’s house is located in a small, narrow street 15 minutes away (walking) from Ternopil’s downtown. It is a very simple, yet homey house equipped with all the basic needs I could think of. The back yard, which is actually from where we usually enter the house, has been turned into an awesome vegetable and fruit garden! Apparently, people here tend to grow their own produce a lot. I have seen quite a few houses with their own little gardens. In the Muriys’ garden there are tomatoes, beets, cabbage, green onions, apples, raspberries, and a bunch of other things, including these awesome little fruit that look like strawberries but are actually the size of peas!! When I fist had them I though to myself “these are the most underdeveloped strawberries I have ever eaten, but I love them anyway!” Hahaha. Later I found out that they never actually grow any bigger, which makes them all the more awesome hahaha.

When you enter the house, to the right, there is a flight of narrow wooden stairs that lead to the second floor, where Orest’s and Kyristina’s room is, as well as the attic where they hang the washed clothes. The computer is in Orest’s room, which means that if I need the Internet I only use it while he is away at school or work, since I don’t want to invade his privacy. The rest of the time I use my own computer to do schoolwork. Orest said that he is going to try to get a router so that I can get Internet connection in my computer, which would be fantastic! He is also going to try to help me buy a cell phone on Saturday.

Sorry, I sidetracked. Hehe. Anyway, to the right of the stairs there is the kitchen, which is small and simple but comfortable. Further down there are a few other bedrooms, one for BahBah, one for Mama Ola, and finally one for me. Actually, my room is really the living room, and I sleep on a pull-out futon that is actually not bad at all. In the room there is a TV and a piano, but I do not use either of them. I also have a whole dresser where I was able to put my clothes, which is great because that way I don’t feel like I am living out of a suitcase for 3 months. In my room there is a large colourful picture with what appear to be merchants, and a large red rug on the floor. On top of the piano there is also a picture of whom I am sure is Orest’s dad. There are also a number of icons and traditional decorative eggs – very typical of Ukraine.

As far as the bathroom facilities go, the bathtub is actually very large and we have a very good amount of hot water. Never had a problem! Also, the toilet is in a separate room than the sink and the bathtub. This may sound like an inconvenience, but when there are so many people living in the same house, it is actually a very good idea! The toilets here are much smaller than in North America, and they function by pushing down a button at the top of the tank. The toilet paper is also different! It has no whole in the middle, so we just set it on the side! I think it is funny how one takes for granted little things like holes in rolls of toilet paper! Hahaha

The electrical plugs are also different, of course, but I came prepared with two sets of adapters and an extra converter, just in case one blows! (Which would be clearly tragic!)

The Muriy’s don’t currently have a car, but it is easy to move around in buses or simply to walk. I have not yet had the chance to hop on a bus, but I am sure that will happen pretty soon!

I think the only thing that drives me a little nuts is that the phone rings often but during the day sometimes BahBah does not hear it and since I can’t understand the language, I can’t pick it up! Technically you could say I could go get BahBah, but she is usually in her room, to which I think I am not supposed to go, or out somewhere. Of course, when Ola, Krystina or Orest are here, they pick it up. The only reason why the phone ringing in the morning bothers me is because I always wonder if it is the professor at the university who is supposed to let me know what’s happening with the lessons. That will come soon enough, but I am eager to learn the language as soon as possible, if not fully, at least enough to be able to communicate a bit.

Next I will tell you about my visit around the town with Orest.

My Wonderful Host Family

I was assigned a lovely host family to live with during my stay in Ternopil. Their last name is Muriy, and they are a great family.

“Mama Ola” is my host mother. She is a voice teacher at the university. She is very kind and warm and she is always making sure I am well taken care of. Her husband passed away a few years ago due to cancer, so she is of course now the head of the household.

Then there is Orest, my host brother. He is 22 years old and speaks perfect English, like I mentioned before. He is really cool and has been kind enough to show me around and translate between his mom, his grandma and I. He has also been great by letting me use his computer which, thank heavens, has Internet! He loves music and even does a bit of DJ’ing. Orest works as a secretary at an office, and he also teaches English to a few students. He might actually end up being my Ukrainian tutor, which would be great! He has a girlfriend named Oxana (I probably misspelled that!), but I have not had the chance to meet her yet. She sounds like a lovely girl though!

Then there is Krystina, my host sister. I am not sure how old she is but I think she is only a few years younger than Orest and I. She is also very nice and her English is not bad, so she has also been really great helping me communicate and learn a bit of Ukrainian vocabulary.

Finally, there is Orest’s grandma… She is the cutest little old lady ever! She speaks to me in Ukrainian ALL the time, even though she knows I can’t understand a word she is saying! Hahahaha. I am supposed to call her “BahBah”, but I am having a hard time with that since all I can think of when I hear “BahBah” is of BahBah Shrimp from the movie Forrest Gump! Hahahaha. Well, BahBah is always offering me “chai” (tea) and things to eat, and making sure I am comfortable (I can tell this only from her body language at this point, haha).

Two funny things have happened with BahBah. First, since I was left alone with her all day the day before yesterday and we could not communicate very well, I went upstairs to the computer and wrote her a few brief paragraphs in English, then translated them to Ukrainian using one of those online automatic translators. I am very much aware of the fact that those translators translate things literally and that can be problematic, but in my case I had no other choice, haha. What took forever was to copy down into paper the translated paragraphs, since my brain is not yet used to the Cyrillic alphabet. However, I could not simply ask BahBah to come upstairs to read the computer, since the stairs are rather narrow and dangerous and I don’t know whether she could climb them. Anyway, in the message simply thanked her for her hospitality and told her I was sorry I could not communicate with her in a better way, but that for the time being I would use the computer as my translator. I also told her that if there was anything I could help her with, that she should let me know. Well, when I gave her the letter, she was so surprised and happy that she stood up and gave me a huge hug!! Hahahahaha! :D

Then, yesterday she looked at me kind of weird because I was wearing a skirt below my knees, and she clearly appeared to think I was going to be cold. So she motioned what I thought meant that I should put on a sweater, so obediently I went to my room to change into pants and bundle up (even though I was not actually going out), but then she came into the room with a fuzzy purple sweater and put it on me! Hahahaha. That was fantastic, hehehe!

When I told Orest about it he was very surprised. Apparently his grandma is not usually very comfortable with girls, especially if they are strangers. He also said that it seems like I brought up BahBah’s mood, since she invited in a friend, which she had not done in a long time. He was actually happy about it, and it made me feel good.

The family also has a cat. I don’t know what its name is, but it is the funniest little fluffy cat ever. She is the size of a 1 year old kitten, but she is actually an adult. She has black-and-rusty fluffy and messy fur, and her tail is huge and very fluffy as well. She makes me think that she is a little gypsy cat, hahaha (in the best sense of the word). I love her!

I think that is all I want to say about the family for now. Next, I will turn to the actual house in my next post.

The Trip to Ukraine

I left for Ukraine on Monday May 25th, only 10 days after I received official confirmation from Students for Development that I had been accepted into the program and was actually going to Ukraine. Everything was so rushed, and since I didn't even have a passport, I had to request that it be processed as an urgent request. Of course, in order to do that I needed to get the plane ticket, and of course, the travel agency had that ready on the morning of the Thursday before I left. And OF COURSE... the passport was not ready until 11:00 am on Monday morning, when my flight was leaving at 4:30 pm!! Wow, hahahaha. It was so rushed, but it all worked fine :D

After saying goobye to my family, my mom drove me to the airport on Monday and saw me off a little bit before my take off. I had to make two separate connections, one in Dusseldorf and the other one in Munich (both in Germany). There was only an hour in between each of my connections, but the system they have set up is pretty good and I had no trouble connecting flights.

However, if I had to use one word to describe my flights to Ukraine, it would be: TURBULANCE!! D: Man... I HATE turbulance!! Hahaha. Especially when it happens on a toy-sized plane like the last one I took from Munich to Lviv, Ukraine! Other than that, however, the flights were actually ok, and time went by pretty fast (only 12 hours of travel).

In the first plane I sat beside a funny old man whose name was Ted. When the plane took off, he giggled and said in excitement, "That is the best part!!!" I couldn't help but laugh as he was enjoying the thrill of the take off while I was sitting on my chair clenching with my nails to the seat, hahahaha. Different strokes for different folks, I guess! :D

When I finally arrived at Lviv, I was dumbfounded by the little security they had. The 'airport' looked just like a small government office building. I didn't even have to walk through a metal detector. All I had to do was fill in a sheet with my info.

When I got out, I was received by Jen and Jess, the two other Canadian girls with whom I will be working, and by Orest, my new host family brother! He is pretty cool and speaks perfect English, so that was a huge plus!! All four of us took a taxi to the train station, and from there we took a train to Ternopil.

The train stationwas pretty cool, and the ride was awesome! The cabins had beds where people just randomly slept. I did too, since I was dead tired! Hahaha.

Oh, it seems that I have to go now, but I will continue this later.

Introduction and a big thanks!

Wow... It is hard to believe that all of this is truly happening, but I am finally in Ukraine! And I say finally because even though I only learned about 2 weeks ago that I was coming to Ukraine, I have been so busy with the preparations for the trip that I hardly had any chance to let it all sink in my head!

So before I begin, I want to thank everyone who has supported me in one way or another in this crazy journey that is about to begin. First of all, I want to thank Dr. Joanne Benham Rennick for even considering me and offering me this amazing opportunity! I am so glad you though of me, even though you knew my summer was all planned out and book solid! Secondly, I want to thank Myroslaw Tataryn and Elyse Redden for all the assistance you gave me in helpingme prepare and get all the requirements ready for this trip. I would not have been able to do this without you! Third, I want to thank mom and dad for being so good about all of this, especially since it all happened so fast and there are certain risks associated with it all!

Next I want to thank Curtis and all of my friends who have encouraged me to go ahead with this adventure. If it wasn't for you, I probably would not have had the courage to do it! I am going to miss all of you, especially those of you that I won't get to see right away when I come back. You know who you are and I send you all my love.

Now, enough mushiness cuz I am going to cry (hahaha), and lets get down to business!!

There is so much to tell and so much that has happened already in this short period of time that itis going to be hard to keep track of everthing, hahaha, but I will try to do my best to share as much as I can with you! What I have decided to do is to set up a different blog post for each random topic that comes to my head. Otherwise, if I try to tell you everything in chronological order I will just keep going on random tangents! Hahaha.

I hope you enjoy my blog, and please, PLEASE feel free to leave me comments and subscribe to the blog! I would LOVE to hear from you!

May God bless you all.

Miri