Celebrate!

I have a very exciting announcement to make!

Thanks to my awesome family, friends, and the extremely welcoming congregation of Fairview Brethren In Christ Church, I have officially raised 100% of the support I needed for this internship! It was an incredible blessing to get to come to Ukraine with HOPE in the first place, and now my family can rejoice that the credit card bills will not be looming over our heads! Thank you so much to everyone who donated to help cover the cost of my flight, living expenses, and field visits and thanks to HOPE International for covering my rent for 4 months!

This means a lot to a college kid, really. I'm not as fly as Kevin Bacon, but you can believe I broke out some dance moves over this.

It's my sincere desire that this little bit of extra exposure through me has made some of you curious about HOPE. Working with this extraordinary organization has really changed my life and I will always be a huge fan. If you have fallen in love with HOPE like I have or are interested in learning more, there's a great opportunity coming up in 2 weeks.

I'd like to extend an invitation to all of you to HOPE International's upcoming event, the Celebrating HOPE Annual Dinner. At 6:00 on May 16, HOPE will be serving dinner in the Lancaster Convention Center. The event is only $50 a plate and features extraordinary stories of entrepreneurs around the world, musical performances, and a silent auction. I'd love to see you there-it's a really good time. :)

In preparation for the event, HOPE has started the auction up online. Click here to browse through some beautiful items from all over the world! Hint: the necklace and earring set from Ukraine was purchased by yours truly.

RSVP by May 3rd if you are interested!

"If it's nice, I sell it!"

In my last post I shared a little bit about collecting client stories through field visits. Recently I featured one of these stories in a Mass Journal for Kiva. Kiva is an organization that connects individual lenders with microfinance institutions all over the world. HOPE Ukraine receives significant funding through lenders on Kiva. This Mass Journal was sent to any lender on the Kiva website who has ever donated to HOPE Ukraine and I was given a link so I could share with family and friends! The original journal can be found here.

"Thank you so much for the help you've provided to entrepreneurs in Ukraine through Kiva loans! We truly appreciate your support. The loans you helped fund were administered by our team here at HOPE Ukraine, a Kiva field partner.

HOPE Ukraine works on the ground to reach out to potential clients and make sure that the borrowers who receive loans funded by Kiva are supported and cared for. HOPE Ukraine has been a Kiva partner for over 6 years and was the first in this country.

Ukraine is rich in natural resources like manganese, coal, and graphite. The USSR industrialization of the country in the 1920s brought the construction of many new factories to tap into these resources. Some Ukrainian towns experienced huge population growth as a result, and even after the fall of the USSR, these cities remain important economic hubs. You can still see evidence of Ukraine’s Soviet past all over. Right down the road from one of HOPE Ukraine’s offices in Zaporozhye, there is a street named “40 Years of Soviet Ukraine Street," and statues of military leaders dot the cities.

Since the fall of the USSR in 1991, Ukrainian factories continue to produce substantial amounts of steel, metallurgical metals, and more. But earning a living from factory work has become increasingly difficult. Many factories have shut down, leaving thousands of Ukrainians without jobs. The factories that remain open offer wages well below what is needed to live, and while workers’ unions do exist, they are subject to corruption and do little to help alleviate the problem.

A lot of Ukrainians have flooded the job market looking for self-sufficiently -- people like Lidia (pictured), who was a baker in a factory until it shut down about 12 years ago. When HOPE Ukraine started in 1997, many of our clients used their loans to rent tables at the markets and to help cover the large overhead for purchasing goods in bulk. HOPE’s client database is full of exceptional stories of success and empowerment because of loans like these.

Now, 21 years after Ukraine reestablished itself as an independent nation, the sheer number of people flocking to the markets to find work has made it harder to make a living this way. In response, HOPE’s clients have shown tremendous creativity in adapting to this shift. Talking with HOPE’s clients in a market in a city called Nikopol, several women told me they have been focusing on a new strategy: product differentiation.

Lidia, who has been selling clothes in the markets for 10 years, says that there is a big difference between now and then. Today, with so many other clothing stores in the market (not to mention a rising number of malls), Lidia takes special care to make sure that her store carries something that you can’t get anywhere else: clothes for young people and even costumes.

“I try to buy things for teenagers and things for children from 10 to 15 years old because it’s very difficult to find good clothing for these ages,” Lidia says.

Because of loans from Kiva lenders like you, she is also able to set herself apart by offering higher-quality goods.

“Most of the people here sell things from China even though the quality is bad just because it is cheaper, so that’s why I try to sell Ukrainian clothes because the quality is good and design is nice,” Lidia explains. Getting straight to the point, she told me, “If it’s nice, I sell it.”

As she chatted with me about her different products, I asked whether she enjoyed working at the market. She laughed and said she likes to dress the children that come in. For her, the entrepreneurial growth of diversifying her products is coupled with a sincere joy in pleasing her customers.

There are more banks issuing loans in Ukraine than there used to be. As one of our loan officers, Dima, explains, you can get a loan in 10 minutes, but they have extraordinarily high interest rates and are ridden with hidden fees.

In this environment, HOPE Ukraine remains a trusted non-bank lender. Our clients continue to borrow from us because of our fair and consistent interest rates and personalized service.

Please join us in celebrating the entrepreneurial creativity of our determined clients! Loans from people like you are what makes these incredible stories of determination possible."

I think I can, I think I can...

When Alisa, who works in HR at HOPE, asked me where I would go if I got to pick from any of the 16 countries we work in, I said "Ukraine or Russia." When she asked me why, I told her that I like trains and I was pretty sure trains were a big thing over there. Now that's simplifying it a bit  lot, but it's true that one of my favorite places to be is on a train. I love standing on the platform waiting to board. I love struggling to stay upright while I stand by the door, waiting for my stop. There's just something distinctly peaceful about being on a long distance train, and it's always satisfied my independent streak to be able to hop a train and make my way home to Harrisburg without having to rely on someone with a car. I While I'm known for getting on trains in the wrong direction in Philly, I've miraculously avoided any such mishaps here in Ukraine (no doubt with some help from HOPE staff).

In these last three months, I've taken my love of trains to the next level. I've spent 4 nights in train compartments with strangers and in the coming week I'll spend the night on a train 4 more times. I've met some of the most interesting people on overnight trains. I met the wife of a car salesman on her way home to visit her parents in Zap (I've never seen anyone be so excited about the exotic land of Pennsylvania), an older lady who didn't have the kind of personal boundaries I've grown to appreciate, and a guy who taught himself English entirely from google translate. On the last train trip I took a woman shared her food with me (bread with a quarter inch of butter on it topped with sausage and a 'boiled egg' that was mostly raw in the middle). She was so excited to try out my marginal Russian skills that she went through every single one of my flashcards and constructed sentences using only the words I knew. It was a gesture I deeply appreciated.

            A long-distance train to Nova Kakhovka.          Okay, I don't love everything 
                                                                                              about Ukrainian trains...


Where have I been going on all of these trains, you ask? Field visits. One part of my internship here is collecting client stories and talking to HOPE staff about what's going on with the program so I can share what's happening in the field with donors (specifically Kiva lenders). I started out with visits to the local client office in Zap where I met with clients who were stopping by for monthly payments. Sitting behind the guest desk with my laptop out, I frantically typed up whatever I could catch of the client's stories through my translator, Katya. While it was awesome to hear from HOPE clients first-hand (well, second-hand if you count my translator) and all of clients who came in were kind and willing to chat, I can honestly say I didn't collect a single good story from those first visits.

Luckily, Max suggested it would be better for me to meet with clients at their businesses, on their own turf. So he set up a visit to Nikopol to meet with Dima, a loan officer, and follow him around for a day. In Nikopol I had an amazing translator, Serge. As it turns out, he used to work for HOPE  himself, so he had a lot of interesting insights to offer. Walking from stand to stand in the marketplace, I quickly doubled the number of clients I had met. It has been several years since Serge stopped working for HOPE, but almost all of the clients still recognized him. They smiled excitedly and wanted to catch up with him as much as they wanted to talk to me.

One woman I spoke with was already retired. She had a pension from the Ukrainian government and, though pensions for the elderly are comically low here, her situation didn't require her to work. She told me she keeps working just because she can--she doesn't want to be idle. That's already pretty unique in Ukrainian culture, but the most interesting thing about her I actually learned afterward from Serge. As we were walking away from her shop, he told me that her son has a high rank in the Ukrainian government and that it would be so easy for her to take advantage of his title to get what she wants, but instead she chooses to work her little shop, paying to rent the space and dealing with the oppressive barriers to entry like every other small business owner in Ukraine.

That is absolutely unheard of. 

The government is corrupt and it's obscenely hard to run a business the legal way. Most people will take shortcuts where they can (to put it lightly) and bribe whoever is in a position to offer them some help. It's easy to give up on doing things the right way in an economic situation that seems so hopeless. I was stunned  by this woman's choice.

So far I've visited Nikopol, Berdychev, and Nova Kakhovka on field visits and I hope to squeeze one more in before I come home. I love these visits and I hope that I am able to to use them to connect people in Ukraine with HOPE's donors back home. There is one significant challenge I've experienced during these visits, though: talking to people about their faith. Almost everyone here considers themselves Orthodox Christians. Max told me that when you ask a Ukrainian if they believe in God, they'll say 'of course! Who doesn't?' But very often this just means they go to the Orthodox service on Christmas and Easter. I know that some of our clients have been deeply transformed by their relationship with God and I would love to get a better picture of this. So please pray that I will know the right questions to ask and that people will be open to sharing their stories with me!

On a more touristy note, I also got to spend a weekend in Kiev on my way to Berdychev and Ira took it upon herself to give me an awesome guided tour of the city. Below are some pics from one of the most memorable parts of my time here.

                        Ira in front of St. Andrew's               Me beside my hero, The Little Prince

Ira and her roommate, Andre. Andre happens to be a journalist who studied politics in university. We had a great time visiting the political buildings of Kiev with him as a guide!

A typical Ukrainian car

Not the best tip ever...

A couple weeks ago when I was walking to the bus stop from Steve and Jo's house I saw this guy playing the sax-and he was great. The sidewalk in front of our beloved McDonald's is a popular place for street musicians, apparently. Aside from this Ukrainian Sax Man's smooth tone, I managed to catch another feature of Ukrainian life in this video. If you pay attention to the left corner, you'll notice that the nice young man who goes up to throw a tip in the open sax case also accidentally spills beer all over it. The lesson here: drinking in public = no problem in Ukraine. Today I even saw a father help his young son stick a straw in his juicebox before cracking open his beer. It was (almost) precious.

 

 

С Днем Рождения, otherwise known as "Happy Birthday"

 Over a month ago I turned 23.

I suppose now is as good a time as any to finally tell you about it. 

I didn’t have very high expectations for my birthday away from home—except I knew for sure that I was going to be loading up on Ukrainian chocolate no matter what happened, so it was bound to be at least alright. At home I always have my Dad’s salsa chili to look forward to on my birthday since of course the birthday girl gets to choose her favorite dinner and his chili is unparalleled. At Eastern the Hub never disappointed (for those of you who don’t know, the best friendship between me and Miss Dani Bailey is extreme enough to warrant its own name: the Hub). But here in Ukraine? Surrounded by Russian speaking strangers?

While I didn’t get the world’s best chili, I did manage to be completely blown away by the hospitality of people who had only known me for 2 or 3 weeks. On the morning of my birthday I had the opportunity to go into a smaller town with the Tomorrow Clubs to get a little taste of what TC is all about. The TC leaders, Lena, Oleg, and Ghena, were putting on a puppet theater show for the elementary aged children at the school. To my surprise, the show turned out to be the Christmas story. That’s right folks, Ukrainian Christmas was still going strong on the first of February. The puppet show was fantastic and the kids were having trouble staying seated because they were so excited. Lena and the others would pause the show every once in a while to ask the kids some trivia about the story they were watching and give out some prizes. At the end she called me up to the front and said I needed to help with some snowball related skit. I knew something was up because as it turns out, children are not so good with secrets. I heard Lena say “ne pah ne ma yu” which I know very well (for obvious reasons) means “can’t understand you.” Shortly afterwards small children started giving me sly little glances and smiles. Long story short Lena dumped a box of fake snowballs on me and then 100 Ukrainian children sang happy birthday to me in English AND Russian. They even gave me a gift. 

Oleg (as Shrek) and Ghena sing with the kids

One of the kids inspecting his prize

Shrek (Oleg) and Ghena dance with the children

Not to be outdone, Steve and Jo invited me over for a birthday dinner. Upon my request, we feasted on Jo’s delicious burritos. I just can’t get enough of Jo’s cooking—luckily I end up over there for dinner on a weekly basis. Then the real festivities started when we went to Cosmic Bowling with Bailey (who is part of the Peace Corps) and his girlfriend, Malina. Actually, Cosmic Bowling was the second bowling alley we visited. There were bouncers at the first one and they wouldn't let us in without paying for admission to the adjacent night club. Maybe someday when we've got our clubbing dresses, stilettos, and fur coats we can try that one again, but for my birthday we decided to stick with the tamer option. I don't understand why I love bowling so much as I'm consistently terrible and have shown no signs of improvement, but I had a really great time.

This beautiful piece of work was in the lobby

As if being serenaded by a tiny, adorable choir and bowling my heart out wasn’t enough, Natasha and the women at the HOPE Ukraine office also remembered my birthday. When I got to work on Monday Natasha presented me with my very own office mug. In a freezing cold office where the tea is as important as the internet for productivity, this is no small gesture. I have been happily sipping hot tea from it since. 

To wrap up my birthday weekend I had some delightful Skype calls.

First I got to talk to Alyssa for a long time. She Skyped me from my least favorite study room: the one with the death painting. We had a delightful time chatting and she even pulled the dreadful piece of artwork off the wall in my honor (don't worry, it was promptly replaced). Later our little library group (minus one Benevolent Ben) was reunited when we were joined by Steph Shogren.

Alyssa defacing library property as a gesture of true friendship

Then I got to Skype with my wonderful parents, who also sent me a birthday card all the way in Ukraine. :) I also received cards from my Grandma in British Columbia and the one and only Kayla Zirbel! Mail is always exciting - but even moreso when you're miles and miles from home.

To conclude a fantastic birthday weekend, I watched a movie with my best friend...also over Skype. Dani and I see no reason to stop hanging out just because we're separated by a vast expanse of water. I stayed up until 5AM Ukraine time watching Pitch Perfect and talking to Dani. Totally worth it.

She really knows how to throw a party over the internet

I'll be posting again soon with a little more info about what I've been working on with HOPE and some pictures of my time in Kiev! Until then, I'd appreciate prayer for my Russian studies! My first real lesson is tomorrow (finally) and I'm pretty excited about it.

Sushi and Dutch Blitz

Last week was pretty good for the most part. I enjoyed going into the HOPE office to work. The ladies there bring a different sweet snack in every day. It's just the best thing. Ukrainian desserts are rocking my world right now.

I took a couple more trips into the city and talked to some strangers. I stopped by McDonald's again. Something about how American it is keeps drawing me back. I've had more McDonald's since I've been here than I had all of last year. I've been told that fellow ex-pats refer to it as "the Embassy." It's fitting.

By the end of last week I was starting to get a little restless. I haven't felt very lonely--for the most part I've really enjoyed the exorbitant amount of time by myself. But I'm just not the kind of person who stays in every night. So I opened my window and stuck my head out to see the snow and feel the cold (Dani and Jess are familiar with this practice of mine--but I promise I don't throw food out the window like I did in Doane). Just when I had started saying to myself (yeah, it turns out I talk out loud to myself a lot here), "okay I'm going to need to do something with other human beings really soon" I got a phone call from Steve asking if I wanted to go to a basketball game on Saturday. It was almost eery. But I was so happy. I've never been so excited to go see a basketball game. I'm not really a sports person but for some reason I feel the need to go see some games while I'm here. So I met up with Steve & Jo and two more ex-pats (Bailey and Rachel-who are here with the Peace Corps) to go to this exciting game. We hopped on the marshrutka (after a helpful Ukrainian man stopped us from getting on the wrong one) and went to the stadium. It was pretty dead when we got there...which we soon discovered was because the game was actually an away game, despite the "countdown to home game" on the website. But the evening was saved by Jo's fantastic sushi and some good old fashioned Dutch Blitz.

I've now been living in my apartment for 2 weeks and it's feeling pretty homey. So it's about time you got a tour. 

My little kitchen

My kitchen window

Lots of birds hang by my window.

 

Strangest couch I've ever seen. It's not actually padded...that's what the pillows are for?

I also have a little enclosed balcony - every single soviet style apartment complex has these.

Snowventure

Today marks the second time I’ve tried to go to New Hope Church and failed. Last Sunday I embarked on my journey with the very specific instructions “get on the marshrutka (bus) by your apartment and ride it until it goes down a hill and then up a hill and then walk for 15 minutes.” When these directions didn’t turn out quite right I ended up going to Vova’s church with him. Despite having to sit in the back with a translator at every service, I’ve really enjoyed all of the church events I’ve been to here. There's something unique about the Christian communities in Zap. The service at Vova’s church was particularly interesting because it was held in an old Soviet government building. When Ukraine was still part of the USSR it used to be a building where government officials would hold their meetings. They used to invite Christians there to speak in front of the group with the express purpose of ridiculing and belittling them. Since the fall of the USSR, the meeting rooms have been rented out. It seems like a matter of poetic justice that this is now home to one of the biggest Evangelical churches in Zaporozhye. All of the churches in Zap are held in rented spaces because of a law that Lenin instated against any religious buildings being built within city limits (that is, of course, with the exception of one Orthodox church currently being built-presumably as the result of a substantial bribe to the government to overlook the law). 

This week I got much better directions to New Hope but still ended up walking around in the fresh snow on un-shoveled sidewalks (plowing/shoveling/salting is really not a priority here—although store owners do occasionally throw some dirt down on top of the snow for traction). This escapade lasted a little over an hour. This was the first time I was able to really test my new snow boots and I must confess--the endorsement from the US Ski Team seems legitimate. I think next week I’ll stop trying to get directions on how to get there by myself and just attach myself to Steve & Jo. Overall it’s still been a great morning because my failure landed me in my favorite Coffee Life. I like this particular Coffee Life for three main reasons. 1) It has internet. 2) The soundtrack is all smooth jazz all the time, which reminds me of Derek West. 3) There’s a very nice girl here who speaks English. I’ve only been here while she was working one other time but as soon as I walked in today she recognized me and greeted me with "good morning" instead of "dobraye ootra". Perhaps that's merely a testament to how much I stick out, but it was a sweet gesture nonetheless.

Looks like snow all week. :)

Work with my internship has really picked up since my last post. I’ve been primarily working from my apartment, which is difficult given most of the work I need to do right now is internet based research. So my daily routine has included getting up, spending a couple hours reading through articles I downloaded the day before, then going to Fresh Zone to open a billion tabs in Mozilla and download whatever new articles I find so that I’ll have material to work from home the next day. When this routine gets lonely or boring or unproductive, I’ve been hopping on a bus into the city, getting off at a random stop and walking until I find a coffee shop to work from. I really love the way the public transportation works here. Zap is a little different from most cities because it isn't a grid or a cluster of development--it's just a line. There’s one main road, Lenin Street, and it runs for miles and for the most part anything of interest is on that same street. 

A government building on Lenin Street

On Wednesday I got to start meeting HOPE clients. There are two people who work in the client office (which is in the main part of the city, unlike the HOPE Ukraine administrative office, which is close to my apartment). There’s a loan officer named Ghena who spends most of his time in the field meeting clients at their businesses, and a secretary named Toma who runs the office and handles all of the payments and loan disbursements. With Katya (Max's daughter) translating for me, I interviewed 4 of the clients that came in for their monthly payments. I was surprised by how willing they were to talk to us.  Ghena and Toma had laughed and warned Katya and I that none of the people coming in that day might feel like talking to us. Luckily all four of them were feeling talkative enough to sit with us for a couple minutes.

It was really illuminating to meet with the clients. I spent a lot of my internship last summer feeling like I didn’t quite have a grasp on what HOPE is all about because I was learning everything secondhand in the not so exotic land of Lancaster, Pa. It’s one thing to read personal stories from clients in different countries, it’s another thing entirely to meet these people myself. I guess I'm a little bit of a doubting Thomas in that regard. I’ll be meeting new clients every week here and eventually, when the snow all melts and the roads are a little easier for travelers, I’ll be going with Ghena and Natasha to go see clients at their businesses.

On Thursday I met with Max in the admin office near my apartment and he offered the guest desk for me to work at if I so desired. I stayed there the rest of the day and worked beside Natasha. She speaks little English but she’s still so fun to work with. I expected the office to be cold—I’ve been told that some days it gets tolerably warm but most days it doesn't feel much different inside than it does outside. I wore the thickest sweater I had on top of several other layers but when I sat there shivering all day I still got told that I need to bring more layers. My hands were slightly purple and typing was a challenge, but I still got more done there in the office environment than I’d been getting done at home. Probably the worst part is that the sink water isn’t heated at all. Luckily they at least have an electric kettle. I can’t think of a time when I was more thankful for hot tea and I will admit that after a few hours I was desperate enough to hug the electric kettle for warmth--just a few moments.

The outside of the HOPE Ukraine admin office  

The outside of my apartment complex

On a closing note, I've never felt more American than I did watching President Obama's inauguration speech in the middle of a Ukrainian mall. 

38 Hours and 9 Time Zones Later

Now that I have internet, I can post what I wrote about my traveling experiences last week. 

Last Tuesday I started my journey to Zaporozhye. I got into the car with my family at 11AM. After going through customs at the Philly International Airport, I was on my own. I flew from Philly to New York, then to Moscow, then to Kiev. From Kiev I was picked up and taken to the train where I would try to sleep for the next 10 hours on my way to Zaporozhye. I got to the apartment I was staying in around 1:00 AM on Thursday (8 in the morning on Zap time), bringing my total travel hours to 38.

My parents watching as I go through security at PHL.

The trip was exceedingly long but there were very few complications. Except for a minor mishap with my suitcase lock there were no problems getting through customs at PHL and the security measures in Moscow and Kiev were nothing compared to the TSA.

The cultural shift began before I was even off US soil. Boarding the flight to Moscow it was very obvious that English was no longer the dominant language. Thank goodness those safety manuals have pictures--otherwise I'd never know how to transform my seat into a floatation device.

The flight itself was great. I finally got to watch at least the beginning of The Dark Knight Rises (I think it makes me a terrible person that it took me this long...especially since I didn't even finish it). I think my favorite part of the entire trip was coming down below the cloud level right before landing in Moscow and seeing snow covered trees and houses. Those of you who know I feel about snow will understand how beautiful that was to me.

View from the plane in Moscow

Surprisingly good plane food. Who serves fish in a confined space, though? Really?

As I started toward the next terminal for my flight to Ukraine, an elderly Ukrainian couple attached themselves to me. At first I didn't know what was going on--no matter how many times I pointed to myself and said "English...no Russian," the woman just kept rattling off to me in Russian. Finally one of the workers in the airport told me this couple was also going to Kiev and they wanted to follow me. I thought it was pretty obvious that I had no clue what was going on but they wouldn't take no for an answer, so we went through security together and started running to gate 48. The process was actually pretty straightforward and there were signs everywhere. At first they followed me confidently but when I stopped to read a sign halfway through they must have gotten nervous about placing their confidence in me because for the next 15 minutes they stopped every single person we passed to ask if we were going the right way. Luckily, I didn't lead them astray and the three of us got to the right gate with time to spare. 

I discreetly snapped a photo of my new friend.

As I stepped off of the plane in Kiev I received my first reprimand for not wearing a coat. It was extremely hot on the plane so the freezing breeze was a welcome change, but this idea made no sense to the flight attendant. As I boarded the shuttle in Kiev I was greeted by two Ukrainian men who had also ignored her stern advice about wearing a coat. One of them spoke English, which was a relief. After getting a good laugh about the overly nervous flight attendant he started asking all about whether this was my first time in Ukraine and where I was from and what I was doing here. He told me I came off more as a Canadian than an American (which I can only assume was a compliment). 

Upon entering the terminal, I parted with the friendly Ukrainian men to huddle around a table with the other foreigners who were eagerly filling out immigration cards. After a long wait I was accepted into the country (thank God). I claimed by baggage and was left standing in front of two corridors. One was marked “Red Route” and one “Green Route”--no explanation. I stood there for a while trying to figure out what the signs meant. It was clear that once I chose one I would not be able to come back into the terminal unless I went through customs, so this seemed important. Since I have no qualms about stopping random passersby to ask questions, I stopped an official looking man. He told me one was for people who had things to claim and the other was for everyone else. So finally I decided to take the Green Route.

At the other end of the Green Route I was greeted by Ira (HOPE's translator from the Kiev office) and the famous Vitalic (a lawyer/driver who works for HOPE--his name is almost certainly not spelled this way). They were standing there with a namecard waiting for me, just as every movie about airport meetings has led me to expect. They took me to the HOPE office in Kiev (HOPE Ukraine's headquarters) where I got to meet the country director, Andre. Tea was served immediately, of course. Andre treated me to a terribly exotic dinner of pizza from the local Italian restaurant (not quite what I was expecting) where he tried to tell me everything I'd need to know to get around in Ukraine. I asked Andre for the top ways I might accidentally offend people. He responded with these:

1) Refuse to drink with somebody. Andre says this will come across as extremely rude, but he gave me an easy out. Apparently it's perfectly polite to claim I have stomach ulcers and can't handle the alcohol.

2) Refuse to try food. "When Ukrainians find out you're American all they'll want to do is feed you."

After dinner Ira and Vitalic took me to the train station for my 10 hour ride to Zap. They were a little worried about me so they asked the conductor if they could help me get my stuff onto the train. They dropped me off in my room and Ira explained (in Russian) to the woman who was in my car that I was going to Zap and didn't speak Russian. She kindly showed me what I was supposed to do with everything in the tiny bunkbeds and made sure I was ready when we got to the city. The two Ukrainian men who were also staying in our room didn't really acknowledge me until the very end when they helped me carry my bags, which I was thankful for. After getting off the train I stood outside looking around for Max, my supervisor in Zap. It's a funny feeling trying to figure out which of the strangers on the platform might be the one who's there to collect you.

Max found me pretty quickly and took me straight to Galya's apartment. Galya runs a transition home for girls who have aged out of orphanages and she happened to have an extra bed for the week. I've been here at Galya's for a week now and will be moving into my own apartment in about an hour. She's been very sweet to me and we've had some funny moments since she doesn't speak any English and I don't speak any Russian. Google Translate has been our constant companion.

The stairway to Galya's apartment.

It's been a pretty eventful week and I'm still not quite settled in, but hopefully I'll be moved into my new apartment in just a few hours.

"I don't speak Russian"

After several days of traveling, I have arrived at my final destination! I spent most of yesterday just soaking in the jet lag, but I did manage to type up a blog post. Unfortunately that post is on my laptop which I haven't been able to charge, so this much shorter update will have to suffice.

Everything so far has been great. Max (my supervisor) picked me up from the Zaporozhye train station at 6:30 yesterday morning and dropped me off at his friend Galya's apartment. This is where I will be staying until I can get my own place. Galia was out most of the day yesterday so I was alone for the majority of the afternoon. At one point a Russian speaking man came to the door. I have no idea what he needed but he seemed to understand that I would be of no help to him when I just kept repeating "I don't speak Russian." Hopefully he will return and speak to Galya at some point... Communication was not much better when Galya got home as she also speaks no English. We tried talking for a while and eventually gave up and just laughed. She pulled out her laptop and we typed back and forth in google translator for a bit. Though we haven't had very in depth conversations, she has been very sweet to me, setting me up with a room, making me lunch, and offering me tea on several occasions. I am so happy to be in a tea loving country (Em, you would be so impressed with Galya's tea cabinet). Since then I have at least learned how to say "I don't speak Russian" in Russian. It ends up sounding something like "Ya ne gavaryu pa Rooski."

I am currently waiting for Max to pick me up and show me around the city and hopefully teach me a few more helpful Russian phrases.

I will post more when my computer is up and running! Thank you for your prayer over my travel (and those of you at FABIC, thanks for comforting my mother!)

-Steph