First off here are some pictures from a while ago. These pictures are from when I went to a school in another rayon (district) and led some classes about American culture and who I am.
The woman to the left is the English teacher there and the one on the right is a friend who came and did an awesome job of translating! It was a great day and very awesome experience to go there, talk and show some pictures of my hometown. I felt like Mick Jagger from the way the kids were treating me, until I realized that I wasn't, and asking for my autograph on their copybooks.
Anyhow, onto the strangest experience I've had yet in Ukraine. Yesterday I arrived at the train station from the coal mines of the East and proceeded to the bus station. There was a long line and my bus was leaving soon and it is cheaper to catch the bus outside of the station because you do not have to pay tax. So with this sound financial reasoning in my head I went onwards to the bus stop within 50 feet of the bus station. Until...an old woman approached me and haggling me for some change and wouldn't leave no matter how much I told her no. So, being ignorant, I pulled money out of my pocket to get to the change at the bottom of my pocket. She then took the money right out of my hands and started spitting on it, folding it, and blessing me. This involved making a cross over me and tapping me lightly on the crotch...at a busy intersection.
I informed the woman that I needed that money back at which time another woman came up to me and very heavily backhanded me in the crotch. Then she told me I was a bad person and I needed to leave immediately. Being completely confused, physically tender, and tired I actually crossed the street while many Ukrainians looked at me, without emotion of course. I do applaud them for stealing my money and then calling me a bad person as it caused me to actually feel I had done something wrong. The amazing part is that this has happened, in precise order, to another volunteer. I don't even know how many sessions of trial-and-error were necessary to perfect the art.
Easter was a good time which still required waking up at 4 O'Clock in the morning to go to a local church and get the special easter bread paska and other food blessed. Which was followed by going back to sleep before waking up again and going to have lunch with an English teacher and then rushing off to catch a ride with Hailey's counterpart to go to a friend's dacha (summer cottage). Much merriment , food, and spirits were had and it was a great way to blow off steam and focus on the last leg of school before coming home!
All is well and back to a lot of work. I have one project ongoing right now, a project dealing with HIV/AIDS next, and then a library project!
