9 Apr. 2003

Today we met again with the unemployment center to go over our project and also a timeline. We met with my favorite person there, Svetlana, who is super positive and business like and also I think so beautiful. The women here are just amazing beautiful. I mean, of course not everyone, but so many are really stunning. Some try to “enhance” this beauty with hair color not found in nature or nearly cartoonish makeup (I know, cultural judgment, not observation).

We are going to plan and present a workshop for center employees about using criteria to determine if a business idea and or plan is viable, with an emphasis on small scale market research. Svetlana told us today that she will invite people from other employment centers in the Kyiv oblast to participate. It’s exciting. I hope that this center will apply to get a PC volunteer down the road. I think it would be a great place to work and has lots of potential for development.

Today at the meeting, I was heartened b/c I understood many words. This is partly because I have reached a nice level where the language is gelling for me and also b/c they spoke in Russian and not Ukrainian, as they have in prior meetings. I got a lot, which I verified b/c of the translation. Sometimes I think I understand, then will find out that basically I’ve been making things up based on facial expressions, assumptions, etc. Some assumptions are quite humorous and fantastical and lead to funny situations. Wish I could think of an example right now, but alas.

It is very interesting to me how these languages are sorted out and that so many people speak at least 2 languages in their daily life. Officially, all government documents and meetings are required to be in Ukrainian and it is the official language. However, many people speak Russian as well and most people speak the mixture language, Dvoryak. I am glad to be learning proper Russian, as I think it could have good applications later and would allow me to go nearly anywhere in the former Soviet republic and be able to communicate a bit. On the other hand, I need to know at least niceties and some vocabulary in Ukrainian, as many stores, nearly all food and transport is in Ukrainian.

Luckily, there is some cross over in vocabulary and I have no idea about grammar. I know the Ukrainian alphabet, and it is only 3 or 4 letters different from the Russian alphabet.

Another demarcation for the language is geography. Western Ukraine is more nationalistic and tends to speak Ukrainian. Eastern Ukraine identifies itself as Russian by ethnicity and speaks mainly Russian. These are textbook answers and I’m looking forward to exploring the nuances. Language is endless fascinating to me and this Russian/Ukrainian mixture is no less.

Do take all of this with a grain of salt, as I have been studying this all of one month.

Tonight I went to an aerobics class at a nearby gym. I can’t remember if I wrote about going to this gym before, but I went once and just did weights. The class, which they call, “shaping” (as in English just like that but pronounced w/ their accent) is taught by a super fit woman who emphasizes keeping ones shoulders down and back (great) and also moving at all times to the fast beat of techno with high impact motions (less great). Somehow (!) she knew I wasn’t from ‘round these parts and when I didn’t her instructions, she would come over and physically move me into position. I really liked how she seemed to know most everyone’s names and she helped the less fit people to do slower exercises or with lower impact.

The style of dress was interesting for me, in that I realize I’m so used to the US and everyone having lots of clothes for every occasion. One has outdoors clothes, one has workout or gym clothes, one has fancy clothes. The women had varying degrees of shoes and I must admit to worrying about a couple who were wearing ballet slippers. Worrying b/c I have become so brainwashed that one must have full space-age, polymer cross-training shoes or one certainly can’t work out properly. There also is, um, less emphasis on well-fitted jog bras. ‘Nough said.

It was funny too b/c one woman kept getting phone calls on her mobile, but the teacher did razz her a little bit for talking during class. In the same building as the gym is some sort of martial arts studio. There are photos of the people doing this art and it is really beautiful and they’re super flexible. There are swords involved, but it’s not the Japanese sword art whose name escapes me now. Kendo, that’s it.

As I got ready to go to class, I realized that what I needed to wear to class was the one piece of clothing with an American flag. Could I have been more conspicuous? No matter, no one tried to rip off my shirt and burn it or anything. I just think it’s funny b/c I really would never wear the flag on clothes, just not my style, but I didn’t even consider that when this shirt made it into my allotted 100 lbs. of baggage. I just thought, “good workout shirt,” not “obvious sign that I’m American.”

To be clear: I am a patriot, but I just find wearing the flag on my chest a bit conspicuous. I will never sew a maple leaf to my backpack or anything like that, but nor do I want to be walking around waving the red, white and blue and speaking English loudly. (Americans are, um, renowned for being very loud in public relative to other peoples)

At the end of class, our aerobics queen ordered everyone to hang suspended from a bar for at least 5 seconds. All in all it was very interesting and if I can walk tomorrow w/o a cane, I’ll be very excited. I learned a new word, “rukki” which I thought meant “march,” but afterwards I looked it up in the dictionary and it means “hands.” :-0 It was exciting to understand certain words, though, such as “right,” “left,” and “straight.”

Time for sleep. The upstairs neighbor has decided it’s time to do some construction; I’m still trying to figure out what power tool he’s using. This will be a good test of my earplugs. I love earplugs. They make me a good neighbor and a well-rested girl. Duje noch.