PICTURES PICTURES PICTURES

Last minute frantic packing before loading the bus in DC to go to the Airport

Our room in Chernihiv

View from our room

Normal bathrooms! 

Traditionally garbed LCF's presenting us with bread and salt before our first meal in Ukraine!

Me and follow volunteer at first meal in Ukraine 

Bread!

Piroshky i think is the name of this sort of bread

The water bottles they gave us got progressively bigger every day lol

The Chapel I live next to

The street home

One of my visuals on how to get home

So far my favorite Ukrainian letter is Miyagiznak because it sounds like a card out of the magic game or something haha. It looks like this /ь/ and doesn’t have a sound but rather its job is to soften the sound of the letter before it.

Today we went on a tour of Kozelets (when I say “we” I mean me and my cluster mates—which means me and the 5 people out of the 49 total that came to Ukraine with me and were sent to Kozelets with me), with our Language and Culture Facilitator (LCF—that’s what it stands for!) We met at the house she’s staying at (which unfortunately for her is a home stay as well but the house is totally pimped and the family is mega rich; they had a jet tub is how I know this). We went over our schedule for the next 11 weeks and pretty much she is going to be working us like mules in language training, teacher training, cultural training, and what have you. Good news is that we do get to go on some field trips to both Kyiv and Oster (a town that is about 15 kilos from us). So, not all work work work, although pretty much.

There is a giant statue of Lenin in the middle of town square and when I asked my LCF why it was still there, why hadn’t the Ukrainian people, now free of Soviet terror, ripped it down yet?

Her reply “if we took it down, what else would be put there?”

Touché.

I also got to experience walking through my neighborhood on my way to meet my LCF and cluster mates (I was led by my host mother of course). The road I live on is pretty much one big mud pile but that’s okay. We were expected to be able to walk ourselves home after our LCF was done with us to which I made note of landmarks such as: the building with the baby on it where I turn right, the giant cathedral where I know I’m still going the right way, the pile of wood before the billboard where I turn left, and the second to last house on the mud hole street with the killer attack dog. Did I mention our killer attack dog? I had to give him (rather throw to him) a piece of bread this morning as I walked by so he wouldn’t try to kill me (he’s on a chain but still very fierce—he knows what his job is in life). My host mother even grabbed me by the arm and pulled me back when she thought that I was getting too close.

We bought cell phones on our little outing as well which was awesome. I got a Nokia something or other that looks like a black berry. It cost me about 400 Hryvnia which is about 50 bucks. It’s a prepaid plan which I put 40 Hryvnia which is like 4 dollars but I can’t remember how much it cost to send text and make calls. I’m sure it wasn’t that much but I know that my host family has the same carrier as me as well as all my cluster mates so it is free amongst us to make calls and send texts to each other. But we all got a dual sim card phone because when we leave our cluster site to go to our real site we were told that the carrier we signed up for might not work and we’d have to get a new carrier. Oh well, still super cheap. Also, if anyone wants to call me from America it is free for me (but not free for you…but if you want my number hit me up!)

Also, since my internet access is in my host brother’s room I suggested to him that I could buy a wireless router so that I don’t have to bother him to use the computer and to that he made one of those faces that says “I’m disapproving of this decision but I don’t really know how to tell you so hopefully you can read my mind”. He told me that since the internet connection isn’t that great already (although I think it’s pretty good) he thought that using my phone as a dial up modem would be better. I took all of this to mean “lady, I don’t really know who you are but no one fucks with my bandwidth”.

I asked him how much it would cost me to use my phone in such a way and we found out that for the first two months I get internet for .01 hryvnia which equals about .001 cent/day then after that I can get it for .50 hryvnia/day which figures out to be about .16 cents/day. Total for one month after those first two months totaling $1.80. Which sounds great but it might actually start eating into my very small Peace Corps stipend haha. I’ll look at my option further when I move out of my host family’s house cuz then I’ll be alone and be able to set up my own internet.

Anyway, now I have internet in my room but it’s not good enough to skype with so I’ll still have to throw him out of his room in order to make skype calls but he said he’s totes okay with that. At any time of the day even, regardless of if he’s sleeping or not which he better hold to because the morning here is the evening where you are. :D

Anyway, so far so good. There are a lot of stray dogs and a lot of crazy driving that includes making donuts around just married couples who are dancing in the middle of a round-a-bout. Apparently it’s for good luck. True story.

Tomorrow there’s a festival thing that I’m going to with my host family so, yay!

-Jamie