My last weekend in Kozelets

Tomorrow will be my last weekend here in Kozelets (read: my last weekend with my host family and my clustermates/TCF and LCF). An end to a beginning really.

(also, I want to add. Never talk yourself into a political conversation with people with whom you are attempting to keep a good report with. Also (and probably most importantly), never talk yourself into a political conversation when you are not able to formulate sentences more sophisticated than "I like cakes, what do you like?". It's dangerous and frustrating and i'm still not sure how I got into it but I think I swiftly and sufficiently (although anything other than elegantly) got myself out of it. Now if only my host mom would stop trying to drag me back in).

Here's what's happened in picture format. First of all snow:

I'm going to miss this view

Lots of snow. And i'm not amused. Sure, I like snow when I can play in it and have fun. But when I must walk for an hour in it to get to work. Nee dobre my friends, nee dobre. 

On a related note, I heard that it snowed in Portland. The world must be ending over there. It is rather relaxing to know that when it snows here, people are not going to go into apocalypse mode and buy out all the grocery stores and then proceed to crash their cars everywhere because they don't know what else to do. Although there were a couple car crashes here but we'll let them slide (haha, punny). 

Also, Thanksgiving happened!

It was super duper successful. I mean, I had my misgivings about being able to pull it off with all of our host families and finding ingredients. At best I expected it to be me and my clustermates eating mystery dishes that we almost cooked because we 1) didn't know exactly what ingredients we were using because we simply went off instinct and packaging and 2) I didn't believe that our host families would let us all cook in their kitchens because of some strange ritual rites one must pass before entering into a Ukrainian host mama's kitchen.

However, everything was fantastic and all the host families showed up! We even got to hold it in our LCF's house (which is huge) because the land lady loves us! Really, it was one of the best Thanksgivings I've had due to the fact that we were all truly very thankful to our host community for taking us in and helping our hopeless selves as we floundered. We were also very thankful for each other for being such an amazing group of people that refused to let any one of the group fail. Truly, an amazing Thanksgiving with amazing people that I will miss dearly.  

Kristie made some apple pie

Jake made stuffing that actually tasted like stuffing!

Also made cranberry sauce

It was supposed to say "Kozis" with a heart. At least you can sort of see the heart

Kristie finally let us taste "old bay" and it's rather good. I doubted her. 

Pumpkin pie

That Katie made, by herself, from a real pumpkin that she was told was "a pumpkin for pigs" but we don't really know what that was supposed to mean.

Part of the host family gang

Everyone is paying the puppy and the cats way too much attention

Such a "harnee" group we are

There was singing as well preformed by everyone. I had a video of it but I somehow erased it like a dummy. 

(I also found out that I am definitely lactose intolerant. I've been in denial for many years but it is definitely true and it sucks). 

Also, jam sessions. Jam sessions with pasta. Very important. I'm a little sad but also a little relieved that we didn't discover that we all liked to play guitar and sing because 1) we would have done it a lot sooner and more frequently and 2) we would have done it more frequently which would have resulted in less productivity.

Musician faces a go go

Whitney's artist face

Pasta! With the Ostair group and our wonderful TFC in the background

This is us preforming the song we wrote about Kozelets and our time here. It's to the the tune of "we are going to be friend's" by The White Strips. 

It's a pretty great song

And finally our last session with our LCF

That's the landlady, Lida, on the right

The best group of people to be stuck in a foreign country with <3 br="">That plate, by the way, was given to us by the bookstore ladies because we gave them
a present for always helping us when we went into their store to buy things and copy
things and ask general questions. Really, we went in there so much that one of them
knew Whitney by name. The plate says "Ukraine" on it and we all signed it.

And now what you've all been anticipating (i'm sure). Here is where i'm going to be living out the rest of the 2 years of service:

Bohuslav, Ukraine. Located in Kyiv Oblast. It is about 2 hours away from Kyiv (the capitol) and about 3 hours away from Kozelets. I am very far away from my clustermates which hurts a lot especially because I am also rather far separated from the other volunteers in my region. But no matter, I will make friends i'm sure. The last time this site had a volunteer was 5 years ago and Peace Corps used to use this place as a training community like Kozelets so they are no strangers to gangly, bambling, Americans in their town. The town itself is around 16,000 people which is a nice size. It is close to a city called "Bila Tserkva" (or "white church"). Things are gonna be good. 

I will be teaching at a pedagogical college for the humanities (which means i'll be teaching 15+ year old students--see what talking to the right people does for ya? Haha!). My tentative teaching schedule looks like i'll be teaching all the first years. I will live on my own (for the first time!!!), in an apartment that is located on campus (they call it the teacher's living quarters--actually they threw around the word "dormitory" and "apartment" in the same sentence so I don't really know what my expectations are). The college has internet and therefore it shouldn't be difficult for me to get internet in my apartment. I am super stoked to have my own place and meet my colleagues! Squee!! 

Sunday we depart for Kyiv where we will meet our "counter part" who will become the person we will rely on to help us out when we need it. Then we will swear in at the US embassy and become official Peace Corps volunteers, whoop whoop!

-Jamie