Let me make up for my absence with an update! I'll break it down into bite-size morsels for you infused with Tumblr and Facebook posts for additional taste.
Site Placement & Swearing In
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| Site Presentation! |
On June 13th myself and 102 other soon to be PCVs sat in a large room at a university in Kyiv in anticipation of learning where we would be living and working for the next two years. A map of Ukraine was presented via projection and each Regional Manager announced who would be joining them in that part of the country. Let me say this: It is a very long process when your name hasn't been called for 8 of the 10 regions. At long last, my name was announced as a part of Region 9, not that this told me much about where I would be. From what I have gathered, it is pretty common for people to be in the same region as the people in the cluster with the occasional exceptions of 1 or 2 people. Not the case with my cluster! The five of us were distributed into 4 different regions across southern and eastern Ukraine.
After this presentation, we met up with our RMs and new region-mates to find out more information on our sites and some administrative stuff. Most of us learned exactly where we would be going by checking out a map outside of the room where we learned about our regions. It was a map of Ukraine with our names and site placements placed on colorful paper. Imagine my surprise when I checked out the map and saw my name hanging out by the Black Sea! During the information session, we received packets that contained all of the contact information for our sites as well as where we would be working and with who we would be working as well as more information about our sites. From my packet, I learn I will be in a village school and that my village has less than 5000 people. From my RM I learn that the name of my town translates to "black sea," that I will be living alone, and that I won't be living in my site village. Hmm... An upside to this is that it put me much closer to another new PCV and by much closer, I mean about 7km away kind of closer.
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| Semi-site mate Josh, his counterpart, my director, me (ick!) |
When it was time to meet counterparts, I was kind of bummed that mine wouldn't be there because she was taking university exams. Instead, my school's director came in her place to gather information and take me home. It was nice trying to get to know her, but communication was hard since I only spoke minimal Russian and she spoke no English. Luckily my temporary RM (my actual one is on maternity leave) said she would translate for me if I had questions.
I finally swore in as an official PCV on June 16th. It was nifty and I almost cried, so I did my best to not have big goodbyes with people (well, any goodbyes really.) After swearing in, we had to rush back via the Metro to get our stuff out of the dorms we had been staying in and out to the buses that would take us to the train station.
First Weeks at Site
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| View from second floor of school |
What are the benefits of traveling with your school director? She can have the school's school bus come and pick you up from the train station after a 10 hour train ride. In addition to being welcomed by the school bus driver, I finally was able to meet my counterpart, Lilly! First we dropped off Josh and his counterpart at his new home and then I was taken to my new apartment where I discovered that I can see the sea from my windows! Once we arrived, we basically dropped off my stuff, had a cup of tea, talked a little bit, and then my counterpart, director, and I all headed out to my site to see the school and meet some teachers! The village is so pretty and the school is large, especially for such a small village. I also noticed that much of the school staff is on the younger side of the age spectrum, including the school director (late 30s) and my counterpart (early 20s)! After spending some time at the school, I headed home for some decompression and unpacking time.
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| The beach in my town :) |
The next day I went with Josh and a family from his village who had invited us to the beach. We now refer to them as "The Fam" and they are so amazing. After we had gone to the beach, they invited us over for lunch and sent each of us home with a bag of cherries and a bag of mulberries from their garden. The following day was filled with my counterpart and I shopping for some house things that were still needed as well as food that didn't need refrigerating. Oh yeah, I didn't have a fridge for my first week, so I spent a lot of time eating fruit or going to Josh's and cooking in his kitchen.
Camp Bereg
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| View of Black Sea from fortress |
I went to a camp south of Odessa for two weeks in July with Josh. It was a fun experience, but it was hardly anything to write home about compared to when I went the second time. I did, however, go to a fortress with the kids and it was rather awesome. I also made two new friends from Brazil who were a part of the AISEC program and got to know some other PCVs. The thing I learned from the PCVs? Games! Mafia, Durak, Big Twos, and Pinochle. This is a big deal for me since I love board and card games, so now I have some new ones in my repertoire. Oh, I also got psyched (a word I taught students, btw) that a fellow PCV at camp had the BBC documentary "The Adventure of English" on his hard drive. I love that one!
Beach Weekend
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| Dinner time with some homemade wine! |
Josh lives in a huge house attached to his host family's huge house . This house includes two bedrooms (one of which has 3 beds in it for company), a large bathroom, a pool table, and a pretty nice kitchen. We decided to have a beach weekend and invited a couple of people down for the weekend. We spent the days at the beach and the night at home making dinner and talking and drinking with Josh's host family and their guests. It was a nice break from doing mostly nothing. During this weekend, I met my future kitten! I have named her Яблоко (ya-blah-ka) which translates to Apple. I am pretty stoked on her coming to live with me! Picture will be posted :)
To be continued with:
-A Day in Mykolayiv
-Camp Bereg Part 2
-Emergency Leave: Kyiv Edition
-Emergency Leave: America Edition
