My Digs

Here's a look at my apartment, which I moved into in April after four months at the Dyakov residence. It isn't much, but as far as volunteer apartments go I think I did pretty well.


This is my kitchen. I try to spend as little time here as possible. If I'm in the kitchen, I'm probably not having a good time. The sink is small and clogs easily, making dishwashing a miserable exercise. There's a large electric water boiler (not pictured) in there which supplies me with hot water. Just plug it in, and in a mere two hours, voila! hot water! So I don't shower very regularly. Thankfully four years of college prepared me for this. I have four burners, two electric and two gas, but no oven. The village has no centralized gas, so I get large tanks delivered to meet my cooking needs. Most families here heat with coal, but I am fortunate enough to have electric heating. It's noisy, but it works. The refrigerator is new and spacious. The crown jewel of my kitchen is my washing machine, the second best feature of my apartment. Washing machines are rare in Ukraine. Almost everyone has a dryer though--it's called "the porch."

Here's the shower. No matter how much I clean it, this room always looks like the scene of a murder. Really, showering doesn't happen often at chez Ben.

Most would call this room the "living room" but I prefer to call it "the lounge" since what I do in here, though technically "living," is best described as "loungin'." I try to lounge a good two hours every day, minimum. My preferred times for loungin' are immediately following school (3-4 p.m.) and after dinner (8-9 p.m.). The lounge doubles as a dining room when it's mealtime, and as a guestroom if I ever convince anyone to visit me. The lounge houses the best feature of my apartment: a big ol' flat screen television with a satellite hook-up. I get about twenty Russian and Ukrainian channels as well as CNN International, BBC World, and VH1 International--all in English. It's sweet and helps compensate for the fact that I live in the middle of nowhere.



This is the bedroom/study. I sleep/work in here. It's a nice little room with a desk and bookcase. My bed isn't terribly comfortable, but it is long enough for me; staff from school made a makeshift extension by sewing a pillow to a box and putting it at the foot of my bed. I wish I was kidding, but no, I am a freak.










These are the dogs that live outside my building. I feed them scraps on occasion, they walk me part of the way to school. We have an understanding. Besides my students, these dogs are the only residents of Velyka Lepetykha with whom I speak English.