First Impressions

I’ve been in Ukraine in two and a half weeks and it feels like time is messing with my head. In some ways I feel like it’s been a month already and in other I feel like it’s only been a day or two. But when I look back over the past two weeks I see that a lot has happened to me. I haven’t had Internet enough for me to be able to blog enough. But I will try get you up to speed. I arrived on September 6th and found out that two of my bags were lost somewhere between Minneapolis and Kiev, I had made one stop in London so it was possible that one or both of them were left there. When I got my bags it was two days later and they were delivered by the airlines, at 2:30 in the morning. When I got passed customs with my one bag I met a nice guy named Alex whom was sent by the school to pick me up. He called Elena my to be boss and spoke in Russian for a while. While that was going on I ended up tuning out their conversation and looking around me at the area around the airport. Everything looked, sounded, smelt, felt different about this place. It was crazy. After a few moments Alex turned to me and explained that there was a problem with finding me and apartment in town, so they were going to have me stay with couple that was related to some one at the school. So we drove into the city and I could see were a tall soviet looking apartment buildings that seemed to go on forever, everything seemed to look the same, I wondered how anyone could navigate through a city like this. Then we stopped at an apartment building Alex called up the people I would be staying with and the man said he would come down (in Russian). When he came down I shook his hand and the quickly realized that he didn’t speak a word of English. So for my first nine days or so I stayed with this couple in their spare room. They were kind, the woman didn’t speak English either, but she harassed me every day about me not wanting to eat. I wasn’t hungry at all for the first five days; I was too tired all the time from the Jet lag. I ate, but I just didn’t crave food very much. But it was great living with the couple, odd but after the first four days or so I started to like them. I would walk around the apartment with my Russian phrase book and try to talk to them. I know I slaughtered everything I tried to say, but they thought it was funny. The day I left the woman gave me tons of food to take with me to my new apartment, which I loved! Some of the Ukrainian food is amazing, some is weird, but for the most part its amazing. I miss spicy food though.
My first week of teaching was hectic, but fun. My lesson plans were a mess because as soon as I was starting to get them together I got sick and spent a couple days either in class or on the toilet, but after a couple days of that. But my students are fun. I really like teaching. It’s awesome when you know your connecting with them, and you know their learning. I think I have a knack for it; I really like the classroom environment.
My apartment that I moved into a little more than a week ago now is sketchy but it’s mine. I took pictures, have a look. The day I moved in was kind of depressing, when I saw how it looked as if nobody had lived there in years. I spent the whole evening cleaning so it was clean enough for me to feel at home. I don’t have any chairs just a bed in one room and a kitchen in the other. There are some benches next to a makeshift table in the middle of the kitchen, and I have an electric stove and just enough cups, plates, and silverware for one. I will need to buy more so I can have visitors. But like I said it it’s mine so there is a sense of pride I have about the place. The wallpaper, and flooring is amazingly tacky and I think that’s why I love it so much.
The city of Kiev is a beautiful place! It is a huge city that has about three million people in it. And just about everybody lives in apartments, its kind of a soviet thing. So as you could imagine there are apartments everywhere. But as you go towards the center of the city and other places around the city you will find that the city is built into tall hills that give you some nice panoramas over some great architecture and the big blue Dnipro river, which is super huge wide. Also there are a lot of parks, and in these parks it’s vary its so pretty. Even on a sunny day it feels like it just rained in the parks here. It feels kind of fresh, and the tree trunks are an almost black kind of dark, which gives a sort of ambience that really makes you feel like you are somewhere special. The orthodox churches are some of the most beautiful buildings I have seen. And to go inside one of them is awe-inspiring. The other day Julie and I wandered into one right as mass was beginning, there were monks singing in the rafters, their voices echoed thought the whole church. The decorations and murals are so ornate that they make some Catholics look like Quakers. Kiev is the center for orthodoxy, so here is where most of the saints are buried, and here is where all the main churches are, so it’s a vary religious place, but at the same time its vary religious at all.
It’s been an exiting few weeks here so far, and I am only beginning. I came here without a Visa, so my bosses are planning to send me to Moldavia or maybe Poland in a month or so for a couple days so I can get a visa. I would prefer Poland, because the next closest city to Kiev is Warsaw, and that would be soooooooo cool to go there! But anyhow it will be fun. And God is blessing, I am going through the adjustment stages and I really like this place and what it has to offer. And most of all I am loving how much simpler my life has been since I have come here. I am not stressing about a million things at once like I did when I was back home. God has met me here and left me feeling so much more simple. Its good to be simple; Jesus was extremely simple. And I feel like its a lot easier to understand what he was teaching when I feel simple too. Also Gods peace is a simple thing too! Its just realizing that all you need is God, and then taking advantage of his willingness to give you some peace from your insanity.
I hope everyone is well, don’t hesitate to shoot me an e-mail if you have any questions or just want to talk. I do get quite lonely at times, so I am glad to hear from old friends. Thanks for reading.
More pictures to come.