Digressions from 27 months of Peace Corps in the Borderland.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Summertime!

Hey Friends,

It's Summer! What does that mean for me in Ukraine? NON-STOP CAMPS!
On July 3, I started my summer with a two week stint in Crimea. Crimea is an autonomous republic that is part of Ukraine. It is a peninsula at the bottom of Ukraine that is surrounded by the Black Sea to the East and the Sea of Azov to the West. While I was in Crimea, I stayed at a resort that doubled as a type of small summer camp for children. I rode an 18 hour train ride South into the beautiful Southern city of Simferopol but the actual resort I stayed in was about a 20 minute Marshrutka ride from the small city of Alyshta (2nd most popular tourist spot in Crimea). While I was in Crimea, I took two days trips to Alyshta - it was gorgeous. The small city was located on top of a small mountain and was surrounded by other sky-scraping mountains. If you looked down from the city on a hill, you could see the boardwalk, the large bazaar of local produce, and many locals making their way to rather overcrowded public beaches.

Luckily, my resort was private so I was able to enjoy the Black Sea with out too much commotion. In all my free time, I walked the beach, watched the World Cup with vacationing Russians who were always rooting for the wrong team, and read: John Grisham, On the Road, and The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Don't Judge. They were all very good. Grisham's not really my style- but he's an easy read and very good at story-telling. On the Road made me incredibly homesick, Kerouac's travel-writing scenes of America made me crave some apple pies and student life.

Things I was taken aback by during my stay in Crimea : the Rock Beaches, kingsize Airmattresses replacing beach towels and floatational devices, unexpected hitch-hiking, the great lack of coffee at my resort, and two icecream cones (at a minimum) per day ritual.

Also, I taught 3 hours of English lessons/ day to 12 students from the Lingustics School of Simferopol. They were cute kids, but other than our English lessons - we didn't have much interaction. I did get some awesome drawings from the bunch of them. My favorite is a drawing of how to save the environment. "Don't pour oil in water because we need to save the Jellys!!! (aka Don't dump oil into the ocean so the JellyFISH can live). lol.