Recalling December

I think I will also recap December using Facebook posts. Some people hate the Timeline feature, I however find it super useful.

December 1: Dear TEFL 41ers: Please take the post-PST survey I e-mailed out.I really want 100% participation! It is anonymous, so be as honest as you want :)
     So back in June at our Swearing-In Conference, I was elected the Group 41 Training Advisory Group representative for TEFL. This basically means that I have a hand in designing and helping to improve Pre-Service Training (PST), In-Service Trainings (IST), Language Refreshers, and PST University by working with the PC Ukraine staff. One of the responsibilities of a TAG rep is to put out a survey 6 months after swearing-in for those they represent. The purpose is to assess the quality of training they received and how it relates to their experiences now. 
December 2: I have spent the last five hours talking to the guy that came to tell me something about the gas line in my apartment. It was a nice opportunity to practice my Russian (which is so not up to par) and meet a cute local.
     It also included a good amount of using my dictionary and Google Translate!
December 3: And today I shall bake my first ever pie!
     It was Dutch Apple all from scratch and it was sooooo good!
December 7: Today my counterpart asked me if the guy I talked to for a few hours last week has come by yet. When I said no, she asked me to give her the thing I was given regarding my apartment's gas to look for his name in it. She found it and said "We'll Google it and find him." Lilly is on a mission!
     Googling people is not just for Americans.
December 8: I just realized how awesome it is to not be plagued by holiday music. Thank freaking goodness.
In other news: Will be watching Vampire Diaries with 10th form tomorrow. Yay for practicing listening skills.
December 10: Laundry day. Ew. Why do I put it off so much?!
     Seriously though. I hated doing laundry in the states with the aide of a washing machine and dryer, so doing it all by hand after putting it off as long as possible makes it a huge task that I dread. It isn't made better by the fact that it is freezing cold outside which causes my clothes to freeze. I typically would choose a few things I wanted to dry quickly and use my space heater to do so (DANGER!), and hang the other stuff in my bathroom or kitchen. That is a whole other ordeal since the wet clothes make my bathroom smell funny. Oh laundry...
December 15: Well, since it had been raining everyday since doing my laundry on Saturday, it is finally time to dry my socks and undies on my PC heater. Pancake.
     See?! Pain in the butt! Also, the use of the word "pancake" is being used as "darn" because in Russian the word they use is блин ("bleen") for "darn" which translates to English as "pancake!"

It is like this in Ukraine, too.

December 17: I finally figured out a way to feel like I am actually doing something at school: Grading tests, copybooks, and HW :) It may not be teaching, but I least I make a method to my madness rather than choosing arbitrary grades for students.
     Grading is a funny thing in Ukraine. There tends to not be a rubric for things and even things graded on a point scale seem to be flexible depending on how much the student begs the teacher. This kind of drives me nuts since I think that students need to be held accountable and be given grades they actually earned rather than grades they/teachers/parents think they should have earned. I am working on getting the English teachers at my school on board with this, but it is a slow going battle. I have made a little leeway though and get happy to be able to dock students for cheating, which a huge problem here.
December 21: In my search to find annoying effing sounds to put on my iPod (so that my counterpart and I can drive them as nuts as they drive us), I discovered the "Mosquito" sound. The 8th formers will hate us and it will be glorious.
     Basically 8th form is the worst grade in the school in terms of noise, motivation, and manners. They are always loud in class and are nearly impossible to get quiet, let alone teach. I simply made it my mission to try to annoy them as much as they can annoy the teachers.
December 26: My bed is gradually breaking...
     I sleep on a couch that pulls out into a bed. Somewhere in its lifetime, a hole appeared in the plywood that lays underneath the cushions. Over time, it gradually got larger and larger. In this time, I began sleeping in a slight dip to a small hole, to a mini crater. Thankfully it has been fixed.
December 31: It's NYE? Oh.. I guess I will commence with my Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon.
     In Ukraine, NYE is celebrated like Americans celebrate Christmas combined with how we celebrate New Year's. I didn't do anything and even fell asleep before midnight only to be woken up by midnight fireworks outside of my window.

Catching Up on November

Let's continue to play catch-up, shall we? This post will be in the style of Facebook posts from the month with some side comments thrown in for some additional flavor.

November 1: Watching Grease and remembering how much my brother Matt loved it when we were kids. No wonder I know all of the words to the songs!

My oblast mates at our 527 Project. The shirts say "Ask me,
What is #527?"

November 2: 527 project tomorrow!
     527 is a hotline people in Ukraine can call to find out if out of country job opportunities are valid rather than an attempt at getting people into human trafficking and also connects victims to programs and services to help them. My oblast got together at an internaut (kind of like an orphanage) to give a presentation and then go out with the students and promote the 527 number in the town of Voznesensk. You can learn more about the 527 project here on CNN's iReport.
November 4: Finally got my new toilet tank installed! Goodbye running toilet water :)
November 9: In Kyiv for at least the next three days due to my lungs staging a revolution against me :/
      I was having a pretty tough time breathing, but we sent back home that night with a steroid inhaler and PeakFlow meter since I wasn't as bad as I could have been.
November 15: I just don't think my body can win lately. Lungs hating me, followed by a cold, followed by my currently swollen eyelid. Health, please come back to me!
      I proceeded to be sick rather often over the course of the next few months. Damn weather!
November 20: My counterpart has gotten me addicted to grapefruit. 
November 21: My counterpart is out sick for the week. This means I get to teach more than 4 classes alone this week and do more than just read the text and do the warm up in the other 14!
       Scariest week ever.
November 23: I really enjoy having a teachers' English Lesson. They actually try!
      For a good while I did a weekly English Lesson for interested teachers. I had 2 regulars and then 2 that would sometimes come. I hope to have this going again next school year.
November 25: So not only is this the first Black Friday I haven't worked retail in 7 years, it is also the first that I haven't worked PERIOD. Yep, I got to school today to discover that English classes had been cancelled!

Thanksgiving Dinner!

November 26: My Thanksgiving! Fresh turkey, green bean casserole (with homemade french fried onions), stuffing, and mashed potatoes! There was also apple pie, banana caramel pie, and cheesecake involved :)
     Quite a few PCVs from my oblast (and a few others) had Thanksgiving together on the Saturday following the actual holiday. One girl, Anne, was given the mission of finding us a turkey for the holiday since they aren't super easy to come by. She came through and found a huge one! I was pretty in charge of cooking the turkey (which was a challenge with a small oven and huge bird with no pan big enough for it!), green bean casserole (all from scratch, even the french fried onions!), and mashed potatoes. It was delicious!
November 29: I really love onions and garlic. I find that perfectly acceptable, especially since I just ate a full onion and two cloves of garlic with my meat and garlic varenyky.

Fall Break: Budapest!

Living in Eastern Europe is pretty awesome for many reasons. I think one of my favorite reasons, however, is how cheap travelling between countries can be. I have mentioned before that coming to Ukraine was my first time leaving the US. Surprisingly for many people, I have never experienced culture shock since being here.

Many schools in Ukraine have a Fall Break in the school year in addition to Winter and Spring Breaks. Basically Ukrainians believe in "having a rest."  I was invited by a couple of PCVs that I had gotten to know better at Camp Bereg to go with them to Budapest for Fall Break. Let's just say it was pretty awesome.

Ferris wheel in Vinnytsia

The day we left for the border started very early for me. You see, we all planned to meet in Vinnytsia and then take a train together from there. Getting to Vinnytsia isn't exactly easy for me to do from where I live. I took a train in that direction, got off of it in a village in Vinnystska Oblast at 4ish in the AM, hopped on a bus that would go through my friend Elyse's village (to pick her up) on the way Vinnytsia. Upon arriving there, we headed to McDonald's since it was open that early to wait for the rest of our party. Our train didn't leave until night time and we were lucky enough to be in town when a bunch of other PCVs would be there for a meeting, so while they had their meeting, Elyse showed us around her oblast center which included seeing the biggest fountain in Europe, the Roshen factory, a love park, and a closed amusement park. After the meeting was over, we met up with the others and went out for pizza after their meeting was over.

Eventually, the four of us ventured to the train station and traveled on an overnight train from Vinnytsia to a town called Chop which is located on the border of Ukraine and Hungary. From there, we took the border train to the village on the other side, a cute little place by the name of Zahony. Unfortunately for us, we had forgotten to exchange money in Ukraine and had to set off  into the village in search of a bank to make an exchange so we could buy our tickets to Budapest. After going the wrong direction, we finally found what seemed to be the square of the town as well as a few banks to choose from. The thing that sucked was none of them offered currency exchange for UAH! This was also an adventure since none of us spoke Hungarian, and no one we found could speak much English, let alone Ukrainian or Russian. We did luck out in finding a rather nice bank teller who exchanged our UAH with her own money at a good rate. We headed back for the train station where we bought our tickets using the Hungarian phrase book I had made for my Kindle!

Our ticket to Hungary!

The ride was 5.5 hours long, and most of that trip was spent playing Durak and Hearts. Thank goodness we enjoyed playing cards so much! We got into Budapest in the evening, headed to the metro and found our hostel after a small amount confusion. The guy working the desk at the hostel recommended a restaurant for us to eat at at a discount. We headed there and each of us ordered something different and sampled one another's food. It was all delicious! We also made sure to get our free beers and a bottle of some really tasty wine. After dinner we headed back to the hostel and called a night.

We learned the story of the
 "Little Princess"

The following morning we left the hostel on a mission to find the meeting point for a free walking tour we had found online. On the walk there we continuously hoped that the tour wouldn't be cancelled due to the weather being a bit on the cold and rainy side. Luckily for us, we found the tour and we were so glad we did! The tour lasted a few hours and covered a good amount of the Pest side with an excursion to Buda via one of the many bridges that connects the two parts of town.  We saw a few statues and monuments, churches and government buildings, learned a bit about Hungarian history, and were given a small lesson in Hungarian to use at bars. The tour guide also told the group about how there would be a free concert that night which automatically gave us something to do in the evening! On our walk back to the hostel, we found ourselves amused a T-Mobile pay phone with a pink phone and then we decided to stop in to H&M since we had passed it on the way to meeting our tour. I finally bought a hat and some tights, which was for the best since I had neither and it was rather cold! Both of which saved my butt this winter, by the way. Post H&M, we walked along the shops on our way back the hostel where we planned on relaxing before trying to find Thai food before heading out for the night.

Finding the Thai food was little difficult, but worth it since it was pretty yummy and something none of us had had in awhile. After dinner we walked back to the club and learned we had missed the first band, who were Hungarian, and they were setting up for the band from Romania. While waiting for the set to start, Davi and I went to get some Hungarian firewater for the four of us while Kristen and Elyse found a place for us to sit. It turned out we weren't the only ones from the tour who had come out for the show and we wound up talking to the others for awhile before enjoying the show. The band was called Grimus and I enjoyed them so much I was able to convince Davi to go in on a CD with me (it is actually one of my favorites to listen to). After the show we went out to one of the many ruin-pubs with some of the people we met at the show. It turned out that a couple of them were staying in the same hostel we were, so post bar we walked back together, but not before picking up late night snacks at a 24 market up the street.

Thai. Yum!

After sleeping in a bit, we walked to the largest bath houses in Budapest (which was by no means a short walk!) On the walk there we stopped into Subway where we enjoyed our taste of America before continuing onto the Baths. We made sure to experience as much as we could while we were there. We sat in pools of varied degrees, saunas of varied degrees, and attempted to sit in a steam room only to discover it was impossible to breathe in there. I think our coolest success was managing to sit in a 100 degree Celsius sauna for a full 5 minutes followed by rubbing ourselves down with ice. It was awesome sitting in there and watching tough looking guys walk in, make a "holy crap it is hot in here" face, and walk back out. We left there just as the sun was going down and began our venture back to the hostel by foot. I eventually had to give up that plan because my feet just weren't having it, so we took the metro back to the center, found the biggest Synagogue in Europe, got some food, and readied our things back at the hostel so we'd be ready to go in the morning to catch our train back to Zahony.

Heel clicking in Hero's Square.

Once we were back in Chop, Davi decided to try and trade in her Hungarian forint for UAH at a local bank, but after the man working there tried giving her an unfair price, she just decided to keep it for the time being. When we boarded our train back to Kyiv, we discovered we were the only ones in our car (for the time being). We took advantage of this by being as silly as possible in an empty train car.

Here is some info about our trip:
Hostel: Maverick Hostel
Walking Tour: Free Budapest Walking Tours
Hungarian Trains: Timetables!
Ruin Pubs: Locations and Information 
Bathhouse: Szechenyi Bath and Spa

Here are some more pictures from the trip:

Davi playing with the pink phone!

Post walking tour

View from the Buda side.

One of the bridges over the Danube.

Rubbing his belly so we would have a good meal.

Love locks at the park.

Flowers left on the wall at the House of Terror

Romanian band Grimus

Rock!

I may or may not be the worst blogger in the world.

Oh man. Can we say "neglect"? Because that is what I have done with this blog. This blog that should have been documenting my amazing Peace Corps experience in Ukraine. Perhaps I will dedicate this weekend to trying to catch up. It will be a challenge and involve a good amount of time perusing my Facebook Timeline and  Tumblr page for highlights from the past 8 months (holy cow, I have slacked off), but hey, at least everything will be in one place, right? Let's catch up with that cliff hanger I left off with last time around, shall we?

A Day in Nikolaev
Obviously it is kind of difficult to remember the details of something that happened so far back, but I am pretty positive that this particular day involved hanging out with Anne, another PCV in my oblast. On our agenda was eat, explore our oblast center, and head to the zoo there. We walked around Sovietskaya, the main shopping street in Nikolaev where one can find the only McDonald's in the oblast, many stops for ice cream, locals selling handicrafts, pony and toy car rides, and shops, of course. We went into a bookstore here and found a map of the city and Anne asked about finding The Brothers Grimm book in Ukrainian (no such luck on that front). I remember being a bit confused that the street was being call "Sovietskaya" when that was not what the street signs were reading. I later found out that that is what the street was called in the Soviet Era, but people still use this name. Apparently it is pretty common in the predominantly Russian speaking areas for people to do this. It is so ingrained in Nikolaev that even shop advertisements say they are located on Советская. Fun facts!

Anyway...

We started at the monkeys.

So before heading out to Nikolaev, I searched the internet for what there was to see and do there. In my research I learned it has the best zoo in Ukraine. Now, zoos in general make me wary since the animals tend to look sad. I did some research and found out that this zoo is a full member of EAZA, so it eased my mind. Anne and I made our way to the zoo, bought tickets and went to see the animals! Let's just say that as cute as the animals were, they looked so sad and I will not be recommending people go to the zoo here. I am sure that it is miles above so many other zoos out there in Ukraine (and other parts of the world), but it could have been better. Plus, what kind of zoo has no giraffes!?

The Comets performing in Rock Band!

Camp Bereg: Part II
Seeing as how I was back at site with nothing to do in August, I took up another volunteer's call for volunteers at Camp Bereg after people had pulled out of doing it. I enjoyed it the last time around and had fun meeting other PCVs and interacting with Ukrainian students.  My second time around was a blast. Since I was there from the beginning an AISEC volunteer from Brazil that I had made friends with before and I were a assigned a group of campers for evening activities and they were amazing. Every night at camp involved competitions and the top team got to spend the night on the beach and have shashlik by a campfire. I was pretty excited that my team did a great job since it also meant that I would be camping on the beach as well :)

While there, I also celebrated Ivana Kupala, I even made a head wreath and inhaled some bon fire smoke! It was awesome to watch the performances and see how creative the girls got with creating their wreaths.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to finish out my time at camp. Due to a family emergency, I left camp while everyone was at the beach for the morning.

Emergency Leave: Kiev
Getting to Kiev from camp was an interesting experience. I managed to catch the bus back to Odessa at a reasonable time and made it in time for the next bus to Nikolaev. While on the bus from Odessa, I called Josh, my semi-sitemate, to see if he could call the family we had become close with from his village to see if they could give me a ride to the train station. See, I didn't have my passport on me to be able to go straight to the train station, so I had to go home to Ochakov first. By the time I would have gotten home, I would have had VERY little time to make it back to the Nikolaev by bus in time for my train. Luckily "The Fam," as we call them, said they'd take me to the train station. We made it to the train station just in the nick of time to grab my ticket from the PCV who was nice enough to buy it for me that day and run to the train. The dad of "The Fam" walked me onto the train and got me settled and then handed me a huge bag of food. Oh Ukrainian hospitality!

I got into Kiev early the next morning and hung around the office until the staff got in and found out that my flight would be leaving early the following morning, so I had a day to kill. While in the office I met some volunteers who were getting ready to head to their COS conference, one of which was someone I has started talking to before coming to Ukraine, Alia. Alia heard me talking about the excitement I had about my future kitten, Yablahka, and about the cats I had had back home and she talked about her cats, Reba and Dottie, who she was planning on taking back to the states with her. Cat Lady bonding is always awesome.

At the museum.

After suffering a nice amount of boredom and not knowing the status of my dad's health back home, I took up the offer to go to Pirogovo Open-Air Museum. The funny thing about being a PCV is meeting other PCVs you have never met before and then heading out with them for the day. Just like that! The museum was pretty awesome and had a ton of old houses, windmills, and churches showing the various types of buildings from throughout Ukraine.

I made it back to the Peace Corps office around 6PM and then headed to the apartment of one of the Americans who works for PC Ukraine. Since she was also on her way to the states early the next morning, she offered her place for me to stay instead of a hotel. It was pretty awesome. I took a nice hot bath in a huge tub, ate enchiladas while watching American TV, and had a ginger ale! It is the little things in life that can put a smile on my face. The next morning we were picked up by the PC Driver and went to the airport.

Emergency Leave: America
I flew into Las Vegas after nearly not being allowed onto my plane in Paris, then being held over in Salt Lake City for far longer than I wanted to be. I was picked up by my friends Michelle and Bree. Their first reaction to seeing me was "Holy crap you're tan!" followed by "Geez you've lost weight!" My first American meal was the same as my last: Chipotle. It was glorious and was preceded by a failed attempt at eating pizza at Little Caesar's in the Luxor.

Yum!

The plan was for the girls to pick me up, then to stay the night with Michelle and then to head off for Arizona the following morning since the last thing I wanted to do was spend 2.5 hours in a car after flying half way across the world. My friends Candyce and Jacqi picked Michelle and I up in a rented car the next morning. We stopped at Starbucks on the way where I truly had a hard time deciding between a Coconut Mocha Frappuccino and Iced Green Tea. I chose not to decide by getting both in tall sizes. This made my friends more than amused.

As a part of the plan, we decided to take advantage of being so close to Kingman by going there to eat at Cracker Barrel since Nevada isn't privy to its awesomnimity. It was delicious and I left some Ukrainian money as a part of the tip. After our tasty lunch, we went off to Meadview where they dropped me off at my dad and stepmom's house where I got the same reaction to my appearance.

I spent the week with my dad and went to the doctor's appointments he had and found out more about what was going on with his health. It was crazy seeing him so thin and weak, but luckily he is much better now!

My sister flew into Las Vegas a week after I got there and I went out to pick her up. We stayed the night in Las Vegas with Candyce and Jacqi after eating In and Out, going to play Bingo with them and my friend Conrad, as well as a middle of the night meal at IHOP following $1 roulette in Downtown Vegas. Busy night. We headed back to Arizona the following afternoon and spent the rest of the week in Arizona before we both flew out the next weekend.

By the time I got back into Ukraine, I had missed the First Bell ceremony at school, which bummed me out, but I soon jumped in to school at site!

They love each other!

New Roommates
So in August I got a Facebook message from Alia, the PCV I had met in the lounge in Kiev. Here message went something like this:


The reason I'm writing you is that I'm reconsidering taking my cats home. The main reason is that I'm leaving in 3 months and I don't even know what state I'm going to live in, and I can't bring the cats to my mom's house when I arrive home, because she already has three cats. Also, the flight home with the cats will most likely include a 20-hour layover in Warsaw, which would be really stressful for them.


I hadn't even considered leaving my babies in Ukraine until I met you yesterday; you're the only one I've met thus far who seems to love cats as much as I do and who I feel I could trust 100% leaving them with.


I remember you'd mentioned wanting a cat. My cats (there are 2 of them) are named Reba and Dottie. Dottie is grey and really mellow, and Reba is orange and white and she's a little more energetic. Both are extremely good about using the litter box - I've never had a problem with that. Dottie has been spayed; Reba hasn't yet. You can look in my album "wall photos" for pictures of them. They really love each other so I don't think I should split them up.


Now there is no way I could pass up helping out another cat lover! So I took them in on October 15th and have been giving them love ever since! They are both way sweet and each of them has an original way of snuggling with me.

So I am kind of a blogging slacker.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Last Week of Training

Stray kitten and mom that I have fallen in love with.

June 6: "I am a study machine!" I was a flash card making maniac last weekend and then spent the nights leading up to my LPI studying the crap out them. The cards consisted of mostly phrases and I barely used any of them during the actual interview. Grr..


June 8:  "I have my language proficiency interview tomorrow.  Let’s just say that I am not too stoked despite my LCF (Language and Cultural Facilitator) telling me that my Russian is some of the best she has heard from most trainees (which I am not quite sure I totally believe her). I am stressing myself out over this interview and I am not quite sure why. I know that no matter how I do on it, I will still have a site to go to and will still be able to swear in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer next Thursday.

Maybe it is my slightly perfectionist nature when it comes to work that makes me want to do really well on it. Even if the past 3 months are only considering training, I have approached it in a similar fashion to how I approached my last job: be the best and be an example (I know, this is rather egotistical, but it is a part of my nature). And to be honest, I know that I can rock it when it comes to quite a few aspects of Russian grammar considering I have only been studying it since the end of March, but I get WAY nervous to speak when someone tries having a conversation with me. Words I know fall out of my head and I wind up looking like I can’t communicate. This is a downside when the point of this particular interview is communication." 

Deruny!

June 9: "LPI complete. Let's hope I didn't suck so bad!";"Tacos and deruny? Delicious!"  So I was pretty nervous for my LPI, but I pretty much gave up on studying since I had mastered my flashcard phrases the night before. I was the second person in my group to have the interview and it went okay. When asked how it went, my response to my LCF was "Well, I didn't cry out of frustration." Which, let's be honest, it something that has happened with me on occasion in the presence of my LCF. Plus I made the interviewer laugh when asking questions as a part of my scenario. My final question was basically "Well, they may not understand what I am saying, so will you be my translator?" and after she said okay, I replied with the Russian version of "Wow" followed by thank you. I find out how I scored tomorrow, though I am no longer stressing it (much). 

After the LPIs, we decided to make tacos and deruny (potato pancakes) with our LCF, Vika, and share with TCF Julia and Vika's younger sister. It was Vika and her sister's first taco experience and they were fans :) That day, I learned that salsa and sour cream on deruny is AMAZING. Also, we made so much deruny, that I have been eating it for the past few days for breakfast. It also compliments yogurt nicely! While Joe, Kip, and Rachael headed of to the river for some swim time, I stayed behind to hang out with Julia, Vika, and Katherine while Julia and Vika took movies from my hard drives. I had planned on meeting up with the others for some swim time, but forgot that I told Katherine that I would go look at shoes with her. Unfortunately, we couldn't find shoes that suited us :(  I met up with Julia and Vika later in the evening to get some ice cream and we hung out at the ice cream shop for a couple of hours talking. It was a great end-of-official-training kind of day.

Me with my link cluster and TCF on a boat!

June 10: "Kyiv today!"; "I am determined to get Julia's iPod working again!"  So there is an English teaching resource center in Kyiv that is run, in part, by the US Embassy. A tour was set up for both Obukhov groups and our links for 11A on Friday. We wound up leaving Obukhov at 9 and arrived about 9:45. After taking the metro to our stop, we had about 45 minutes until we needed to be at the University for our tour. A few of us went to a rather pricey coffee house (for PC allowances). Instead of coffee, I opted for what was pretty much pureed fruit in a glass. It was rather intense and quite delicious after I mixed the three fruits together and added fruit. After the coffee house, we headed to our destination. Overall, the meeting was a little boring, but I was glad I went, nonetheless. I now know what they have, what they offer, and most important, where this place is! After the resource center, we headed to lunch and then Katherine and I (the only 2 that went to Kyiv from our cluster) went with our link, Julia, and our link's LCF on a boat ride on the Dnieper River. Oh, and for the record, I totally got Julia's iPod working again! It only took a couple of hours to figure out, but at least now she doesn't have a useless iPod on her hands.

I am going to miss these kittens. Look at him lounge!

June 11: " Laundry and packing. I should have thought this laundry thing through a little better since I have no clothes to go outside in..." My original plan for Saturday was to go to the river for a bit with the other Obukhov cluster, but alas that didn't happen. You see, on Friday I thought I would come home after Kyiv and do my laundry. No such luck. My host mom had just finished hanging her laundry up to dry when I got home which meant I had to wait until Saturday. I took advantage of being able to sleep in without really meaning to. The sun usually wakes me up pretty early, so I don't really feel the need to set my alarm on the weekend if I don't need to wake up for something in particular. Color me surprised that I didn't wake up until 10! I started laundry as soon as I woke up (1 of 3 loads) and therefore found myself unable to go when someone called me telling me it was time :(  Since I wouldn't be swimming, I took advantage of the day at home and did some organizing and packing.

June 12: "I am quite stoked that by this time tomorrow I will know where I will call home for the next two years and more about it!"  Today I learned that I need to improve on my reading skills. Yesterday I received a text from a cluster mate about meeting at 3PM for ice cream with Julia and Vika for a goodbye shindig. I had already told him that I probably wouldn't make it since I had no clothes to wear since all of my laundry was drying so he pretty much knew I wouldn't make it, so I didn't worry about replying back to him. Cue today when I get out of the shower and see 5 missed phone calls! I called back and was asked where I was to which I replied "huh?" The message said we were meeting TODAY, I just missed the word "tomorrow" in his text. BOTH times that I read it. Insert face palm here. I used the hairdryer quickly and threw on some clothes and headed out. After pizza (because it changed from ice cream to pizza), I went to the store where I ran into my friend Marina. I am supposed to go out with her for a bit later, so I hope she calls me sooner rather than later! As it stands now, I am pretty much repacked aside from the few things I need to throw into my backpack. Tomorrow it is off to Kyiv and on Thursday off to my new Ukrainian home!


Oh and I wrote post on my slight jitters on the Snapshots blog. You can read that here.

One Week Left

A quick recap of happenings from last week:

"On the street" 

May 30: "PST has finally caught up with me. очень устала." "I find it annoying that I can understand what people are saying others in Russian more often than I can understand what is being said to me! Get on the ball, brain!" 

My cluster had our first day of summer camp on Monday. This particular camp was with the 8th from students at the гимназия (Gymnasium). The Gymnasium is one of the types of specialized schools found in Ukraine. You could kind of compare it to a charter school. Students must take a test in order to go there and, in the case of this school, have higher English levels than the regular public schools. This is, in part, because they have longer and more English classes in a week. Anyway, back to the camp.... The theme for the day was Nutrition/Healthy Choices. There were 36 students, so we split them into two separate classes for their first lesson "Nutrition and Eating Healthy," which was taught by the boys. After that class the students were split into 3 groups for their next lessons. I was in charge of the units on Smoking, Alcohol, and Drugs so I had the pleasure of writing 3 lessons and Power Points. Katherine, Rachael, and I each taught one and the students rotated through each. The lessons each had a nifty activity, but unfortunately for Rachael, she came out of the whole thing smelling a bit like an ashtray. It was a good first day of camp overall and the students seemed to learn some new things. After camp, we grabbed some lunch at the supermarket and then followed it up with 3 hours of Russian. No wonder I was tired! As for the being annoyed at not understanding people when they speak to me, here is the story: My host mom had left while I was resting and I heard her say "на улица." About an hour later, her friend came by and I answered the door and told her that Nadia wasn't home. She said things to me that I didn't quite understand and I utilized my good ol' "я не понимаю"(I don't understand) phrase at which point she looked at me slightly annoyed and amused. I told her that I thought Nadia was "на улица," so she pulled out her phone to call her. Here is where it gets annoying: I could understand most of her conversation with another person after not knowing a word she had JUST said to me! Oi vey. By the way, this whole ordeal made me understand why my Ukrainian friend asks me if I want to go on the street with her. It is because even though "на улица" translates as "on the street", it can also mean "outside." Good to know!

Cluster with the 8th form from Gymnasium

June 1: "Today I got a glimpse of what Justin Bieber's daily life much be like: swarmed by teenage girls wanting my signature and a picture. One camp down, one to go!"
So on May 31, we taught the students about HIV/AIDS. The day was split up into "Myths and Realities," taught by Rachael and myself, "Facts and Figures," taught by Joe and Kip, and then we split the group into girls and boys and we taught our respective sexes on "Prevention" which was pretty much a crash course on sex ed. For the "Myths and Realities" lesson, we did an activity to show how HIV can become an epidemic and the whole class pretty much winds up "HIV." It is a pretty important thing to teach the kids here in Ukraine since Ukraine has the most cases of HIV in Europe and it is spreading here faster than anywhere else in the world. The ages it is being contracted by most? 15-24 year olds via drug use and sex. Scary numbers.

The one frustrating thing was that we were not allowed to do condom demonstrations, or even show a video of one! Instead, we verbally gave step by step instructions. I was not prepared to help much on this lesson, so during the flow of it, I was asked to read the slide which talked about the act of sex, ejaculation, and withdrawal. I was mildly embarrassed saying these things to a room of 13 year old girls.

Day 3 Schedule of Events

Wednesday was the last day of camp. I didn't have to teach at all that day, so I observed and acted as quiz giver for the relay race we had. The students were split into groups of 3 and participated in a relay race, scavenger hunt, and yoga. After camp we gave out certificates to say thank you to the students for participating and then presented the two teachers that had been partner teachers to Joe and Katherine with boxes of candy. They then surprised us by given us Ukrainian poems and a packet with a hardcover notebook, highlighters, markers, post-its, and a pen. After the thank yous, students wanted photos with us all. After a group photo, I went to the other classroom we had been using to finish cleaning up so we could get out of there sooner. As I was heading back to the room where my stuff was, I was "swarmed" by some female students who had been bummed that they couldn't find me to get their certificates signed by me or photos with me (but they had gotten everyone else since they stayed in the room.) So I stood in the hall and signed certificates and had photos taken of me with students.

After camp, we had an office visit with one of the TEFL lead specialists to talk about the last week of PST and the Swearing-On conference as well as to just check in with us. This day exhausted all of us (the others more so than me, I am sure). Our TCF let us leave about 45 minutes early if we promised to work on our presentations at home. We promised.

School #1

June 2: "Yet another phone call from a Ukrainian who had found out about my living here. That being said, is anyone aware of any student exchange programs in the states for international students? I am looking for ones that take 14 year olds!"
This was the start of our second summer camp. Same lessons, only with eighteen 10th formers. Many of these students don't have the same grasp of English as the Gymnasium students, so it made me glad that my TCF had translated my Power Points for me :) It was different talking to 16 and 17 year olds about the dangers of smoking, alcohol, and drugs when it is common for teens to drink and 25% of kids 13-15 smoke regularly! So here is to hoping it impacted some of them a little bit. It was definitely a different camp experience from the first one we had earlier in the week. And, as you can see above, I had another phone call from someone I have not met. I am looking for student exchange programs to tell them about.

June 3: "Heart melting moment of the day: Kittens frolicking and playing together outside on my walk home! I want to to steal one and hide it in my room."

Another HIV Prevention day. Another 3 hours of Russian. Also, the kitten were sticking adorable.

Running the Relay Race!

June 4: "Last day of Summer Camp #2. The next few days will feel so much less stressful!"
Our last day of camps! I could tell that it was harder to teach students on this particular day. One lesson had translations, the other didn't. Even with the one with translations, students didn't quite get everything since additional information was being spoken in English and since they didn't quite seem to feel like focusing. Once we finished the classroom activities, we went outside for the active stuff! Since

things had run a bit over in the classroom and we only had 16 students, we omitted the yoga session for the day. The activities were fun to watch, but unfortunately a student got hurt. One part of the relay race was to climb over a piece of jungle gym equipment. Once he made it to the top and started climbing down the other side, he lost his footing and slipped! On the way down he smacked the side of his face on one of the bars and then I think he hit his chin on a rock. Why do I think this? Because in addition to the red mark on his face, he gashed the underside of his chin open rather deeply and nicely. This guy was such a trooper though. Right after it happened he got up and ran the last of the race, winning it for his team. He said he was okay and we got him cleaned up and bandaged, so I hope all is well.

Gifts from School #1 students

After the outside activities, we headed back indoors to give out the certificates, which the students seemed rather excited about. We gave Olga, the partner teacher, a box of candy to thank her. The students then presented us each with small Ukrainian flags and a book about the town that they had bought and signed for us and they also gave Julia, our TCF, a box of candy. We again played the picture game with the students. This many pictures in a week has sucked because I generally hate having my picture taken! Oh well. While we were doing the picture thing, one of the students came up to me (she is in the picture to the right, standing next to me) and gave me an amazing drawing she had done. I can't imagine the time it must have taken her to do. It is kind of cool that she liked me enough as a teacher/person to do something so nice. After all of the students had left, one stayed behind (the girl in the green in the picture to the right) to give us gifts that she had brought. She gave me a floral Ukrainian headband, a decorated wooden egg, a magnet, and a little statue of a man in traditional Ukrainian clothes. It is some pretty awesome stuff that I cannot wait to display once I get to site. I really want to frame the drawing I was given!

Me and students

To celebrate the end of camps, we invited Julia to pizza with us (even though us girls, including Julia, had eaten pizza the day before as well!). It was rather tasty and a nice end to the week. It was also pretty awesome that the pizza place has a wall air conditioning unit :)

As it stands now, I need to continue to work on memorizing my speech about who I am, what Peace Corps is, what I have done while here, and about our summer camp AND finish my self directed learning project which involves typing in Russian. All of this for tomorrow.
To end things, here is a revised schedule of what is going on this week:
Monday: 8-8:40- Debrief on Community Project, 8:50-10:50- Russian, 12-1:30- Admin. tests, 2:40-3:40- Tutoring
Tuesday: 9-9:30- Visit to School #1 to thank principal, 10-10:30- Visit to City Administration to thank Vice Mayor, 11-1-Russian
Wednesday: 8-9:30- Tech & Cross Cultural Session, 10-12- Russian, 2-3 Tutoring

Thursday: 10:40-11- LPI!
Friday: Trip to English Teaching Resource Center in Kyiv