October 31, 2002
Dear All,
It has been again three weeks since I e-mailed you the last installment of “My adventures in Ukraine”. The time has come to write the next chapter. Enjoy.
My attempts to organize people to go together outside of Kyiv have finally proved not be futile. It is amazing how difficult it is to get a group of people to do the same thing at the same time. Even if this groups has only 10 people. The idea was to enjoy the Indian summer and journey to the 18th century park called Sofievka famous for its collection of plants.
To go to Uman’ (the town where the park is located) we needed at least 4 people, minimal number to get an official tour guide. Since the only common language among the interns is English, we needed a tour in English. Due to the triple cost of the English tour, some of the people opted out of the trip. Other s had ‘better’ things to do. Additional scouting added to our company my supervisor and her boyfriend; thus bringing the total number of participants to 9. Getting up at 5.30 on Saturday morning to catch a three-hour bus ride was worth it. The trip was great. The weather was warm, leaves yellow, shashlik (fried marinated pork) tasty. We had fun.
The next day looked nothing like the bright cheerful day we had at Uman’. We, meaning all CIDA volunteers, were up, again, at 7 a.m. on Sunday morning to provide our services to the Canadian embassy organizing the Terry Fox charity run to collect money for cancer research. So, poor little me dressed up in yellow tee-shirt on top of the black jacket spend good 5 hours frying hamburgers, making them, serving them and then cleaning the mess. All these activities were executed under the rain, which alternated between pouring and drizzling. We were cold, wet, but definitely not hungry. McDonalds had donated 650 hamburgers for the event. Due to rain there were about 200 runners. Everyone had a chance to eat as many hamburgers as he/she was capable of consuming. The situation was not any different with respect to pizza and beer.
The story of my participation in the run received unexpected conclusion two weeks later when picture featuring me and two other people was published in Kiev’s newspaper. I have to say, I did not look my best while frying hamburgers under the rain! Unfortunately, this picture did not go unnoticed in my office, where I am still being teased for that silly hat and yellow tee-shirt. And Paul, the editor of that section of the paper and last year’s intern, misspelled my last name! At least, in my case he misspelled only one letter. The girl in the middle of the picture has nothing to do with the name written underneath.
My work represents a mixture of very interesting activities and mundane tasks. Among the first category was a two-day “Marketing in Agriculture” training. It totally changed my perspective on what agriculture marketing is. I did not realize how much more could be hidden under the word ‘marketing’. There is a lot more than advertisement and packaging to it.
The upcoming seminars on grain market and cooperatives are taking up a lot of time. It looks like all the research I’ve done on grain marketing was not useless after all. My paper is going into the seminar materials, and I might have to do a presentation as well, in front of 200 or so people. As long as I don’t have to speak Ukrainian I am fine. My attempts to speak Ukrainian in the office were met with roars or laughter. I am not doing a stand-up comedy show in front of 200 people. My gender seminar seems to be pushed into unidentified future, which is kind of a pity, since I already got used to the idea of doing it. But there is plenty of other work to do.
Unlike my work, my social life was pleasantly quiet, which does not mean I was getting home early. Even the 12 people group breaks down into smaller subgroups that tend to spend time together. Thus, I have been spending a great deal of time in a small, 4-people (me and 3 other interns), subgroup of those whom I can call my friends.
With that smaller group I got to visit an Indian restaurant. I have to admit that I missed Indian food. I did not expect good Indian food in the middle of Kiev. After consuming mutton biriani with, especially ordered out of the menu, paneer makhanwala I changed my opinion. Indian food does exist in Ukraine, and it is good. On the less positive note, it was the most expensive meal I had in Kiev so far. 14 US dollars for a meal might not sound too much, but my normal meal does not go above 3 dollars, so Indian food is out of my menu for now.
The rest of the outings were devoted to introducing one of new interns to our favorite Kiev hangouts and having food at my place as well as other people’s places. My house is becoming a place to eat on Sundays, and it has regular visitors.
The heating has not improved, and I went to discuss that issue with house maintenance worker. From him I found out two important things: first of all, it is my fault! I am responsible for insulating my windows. Since I did not do that, I have no right to ask why the heating is so poor. (I have spend the next evening sticking insulation material into the window frame. It did get a bit warmer, but not much.) Secondly, there is a special high-tech device installed in our building that regulates the temperature of heating water according to the temperature outside. I tried to find out what algorithm is used by that high-tech device cause it seems to be an equation sign. The temperature in my apartment is way too similar to the outside environment. My sense of humor was not appreciated.
That’s all for today. With work taking up bigger share of my time I don’t have that many events to write about. I am thinking about coming for the graduation. I booked the tickets to London, but I still don’t know if I would come.
Take care,
Lidia
©Lidia Bhaskar, 2003