Well hello there from a looooong time in coming! Sue has reminded me that my last blog was when I was in Philly, so I'm fully aware that this is pretty much long overdue. And what an adventure it has been so far!
We arrived in Ukraine somewhere around the 30th of September, had a quick, 3-day orientation and then were sent off to our training sites. For training, we were divided into clusters of 4-5 people each. My cluster consists of two other guys and another girl, and we're all the same age. We live, work and play in a city called Fastiv, which is about an hour and a half (by train, a.k.a. electritchka) south of Kiev, the capitol of Ukraine. There are actually TWO training clusters in Fastiv, though we study language and teach classes in the schools as clusters.
When we first arrived in Fastiv, we were met by our host families. I was SO nervous...I was shaking and ready to cry or run away or a combination of those. I truly will never forget that feeling. But it worked out just fine after I met my host mom, Galina. She's awesome! She's a bit older (62 by last count) and works as an English teacher in one of the schools in Fastiv. Her English is fantastic, and we've actually had some really deep conversations about all sorts of things (once it was a very existential chat about life and its purpose). She has shared a lot of Ukrainian history with me, and the more I learn, the more impressed I am about what the people have gone through and how they interact with their world now. It is a very challenging situation with all the post-communismm and truth being kind of relative since it has the capacity to change, and being able to piece some of these world views together with what I've experienced in the schools has been quite helpful. I hope I will continue to learn more about this fascinating history and the way it has shaped the culture.
Day-to-day life is challenging. My cluster studies Russian for 4 hours a day, a weekly hour of Russian tutoring, a weekly hour of Lesson Plan tutoring and we each teach about 4-5 lessons a week. We have also been working on a collaborative community project, as well as the round of tours of Fastiv, neighboring cities and Kiev, of course! We keep pretty busy, needless to say. I team teach some lessons with the other girl in my cluster, and we've been working with grades 5, 7, 8, 10 and 11. I LOVE these kids! The 7th graders totally rock my world...they are the awesome blend of being able to speak/listen/understand quite a lot of English, and they are so excited about the lessons. They participate wonderfully and I think they are quite interested. We've had very similar experiences with the other grades as well. The school system is pretty different here. It reminds me in a lot of ways of the school in Sydney, so I'm grateful to have had that experience.
Russian is very difficult for me. For the first weeks, I simply could not turn off the instant Spanish translation, either! I've been better about it recently, but I'll still unconsciously say that Spanish word when the Russian is slow in coming. Russian is so very different from English, and Spanish even, that it's really been a challenge to wrap my mind around it. I have no hopes for mastery, but I do hope I will be able to have Russian-speaking friends in my future! One of my absolute favorite things is to go to the bazaar, which is how stores function in Ukraine. It's basically a flea-market-type set up with TONS of stalls selling everything from fish that are still flopping from their recent extraction from the river to furniture to clothes to school supplies. I LOVE wandering up and down the aisles, looking at all these strange new things and trying to chat with the shopkeepers. I've had really positive experiences with them, actually, especially with the help of my handy dictionary! I've had them actaully abandon their stalls and walk me to the place that sells what I'm looking for if they don't carry it...they rock! They're so happy to be helpful...it's really encouraging. It's also a huge element of Ukrainian culture, as they are very hospitible people. They're very welcoming of us, and always busting out something tasty like borsch or blincheky. I love it!
One of my first observations that totally surprised me is how committed the Ukrainian side of the Peace Corps is to the Peace Corps' mission. I am not sure why I didn't expect it, but maybe I'd just never thought about it. The people who are in "charge" of us (language teachers, our technical teacher, the many many faces in headquarters) as so very dedicated to ensuring our safety, assimilation and effectiveness. It is amazing to see how much they believe in what we can do and will do during our two years. I find that the most encouraging part of being here. It has been difficult, and it will continue to be difficult, but I know there is a huge support system behind me in Ukraine and I get emails almost daily from my loving State-side support system. I can't even imagine this journey's end; whom I will have met and whom I will have become!
As for the next few weeks, we will be studying and teaching for the next two weeks, and then the third we will only study. On December 7th, we pack up, kiss our host families goodbye and go to our Swearing In retreat, during which we will find out our permanent sites and meet our counterparts (Ukrainian nationals, usually English teachers in the schools in which we will work). On the 9th, we swear-in and become official volunteers. Then we ship off to our permanent sites and begin the REAL DEAL. I look forward to being able to post my location when I get it!
For a few images of my life here, follow this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2008250&l=7037f&id=142500522
Yay!
