Waoooooo, we're half way there, WAoooOOOO, living on a prayer!

Well folks, I am now officially half way through my training! Hooray! It’s a little exciting and a little terrifying at the same time. This coming Tuesday will be my site placement interview where they will ask me what I am looking for in a site, what I can personally offer for a site, and my needs and wants for a living situation. Of course, after the interview they’re not going to tell us where we’re placed until about a week before we leave but that’s bureaucracy for you. I know they have their reasons why and for the most part they are good reasons (they have to visit each potential site to make sure there is adequate housing for us and that everything is ready to go and if everything does not meet Peace Corps standards then they have to scramble to find a different site for us. Makes sense not to tell us right away just in case they have to change our site at the last minute) but still, I wanna know noooooooooooow. It’s a bit terrifying though because once we do move to our site then we are all on our own. No language teacher, no cluster-mates, no host family (at least, not the one we’ve gotten to know these last couple months).  Just a person called our “counter-part” who may or may not have worked with Peace Corps before as well as a barrage of new people who we are expected to connect with and form a community that we can call our own. Yikes. Good thing I have two years to figure this out haha.  

This last week we had PST (pre-service training) University which marked our half-way point through training and involved a butt-ton of seminars on how to be a successful volunteer/teacher. It was nice to see all the rest of the people from group 46 and equally nice to hear that no one from my group has ET’ed (early termination). We are all still going strong which is encouraging.

I also found out that there is a possibility for me to get placed in a college or university, despite being trained at the secondary level (huge relief). I spoke with some of the higher up administrative people who are in charge of placement, inquiring after why I was not placed with the other PCMI (Peace Corps Masters International) who are also MA TESOL and are being trained to teach university level students. I explained (politely I hope) that I (after going to one of the university level training seminars) got super excited about what they are going to be doing and that I am trained to work with university level students (especially doing teacher training) and if there was a possibility to switch. The response was something along the lines of there were more people with master degrees/in the PCMI program than there were spots at the university level so they picked at random  as to who got placed where in our group. This is fair enough but I still pushed a little to see if I could at least get placed at a pedagogical college (where students go to be trained in teaching) and was given the affirmative that it was possible and that they were “on my side” in this matter. I am so not excited about teaching children for two years straight but if I must I will make the best out of it, no doubt. I was advised to mention in my site placement interview my training and how I would enjoy working with teacher training/university students. Please keep your fingers crossed for me! There is also a possibility to be sent to the TESOL conference in Ukraine and possibly present as well! That would totally make up for not being in Portland this year for the international TESOL conference. 

Nothing really exciting happened at PST other than that. They did show a rather interesting and sobering movie about the Soviet Union. It’s called "From East to West" and I highly recommend it. It’s about this couple who move back to Russia (then the Soviet Union) after WWII from France and their struggle on getting the hell back out once they realize their mistake. It takes place in Ukraine but the dialogue is mostly in French/Russian.

There was also a talk on Ukrainian politics that was equally interesting although I had a difficult time paying attention (nothing to do with the speaker, everything to do with my attention span). Pretty much I learned that the President of Ukraine and Putin are best pals and that virtually everyone in the government here are best pals looking out for each other but really the President has all the power. They should be announcing here soon whether or not the agreement with the EU will be signed (which Putin obviously opposes). Apparently the president doesn’t even speak Ukrainian which is awful/awkward. There was also talk of the political prisoner ( I forget her name) who, because she was thrown in jail for political reasons, the EU is demanding her release before they allow the agreement. Of course though, the government is like “we’ll release her only if she stays out of politics for the rest of her life”. She’s part of the “pro-Ukraine, pro-west” movement which is the opposite of the current government, hence the struggle. She seems to be popular with the public though so if/when they release her she’ll probably have a lot of support in whatever she does.

I don’t have any pictures from the event because nothing was really picture worthy. A lot of people from other clusters went out and drank but me and my cluster-mates stayed in and had our own party in the hotel (because we’re Kozi like that, haha. Get it? Kozi? Because we’re from KOZElets? NVM).

We start teaching again this week, after having two weeks off. I have an interesting topic to go over with my 9^th formers. At least, it’s interesting to me. All about the environment and yes, I am totally roping Portland into my lesson J. However, whether or not the students will be interested/want to participate in what I have planned is another matter altogether. You see, this is my problem. I  plan these (what I think) are awesome lessons and then my students are either lost because they don’t understand (because they don’t study) or because they don’t care because they’re teenagers (most likely a bit of both). Thus my reasons why I want to teach university. At least then I would be able to get more of a reaction from students, if only a little bit more of a reaction.  

Oh! I did make banana bread with my host mom though! 

She tried to make a cake the other day and it failed because she forgot to put in baking soda so I promised her I would make a good one for her haha

Banana cream sauce FTW

-Jamie  

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

Dobre den, Mene zvati Jamie! Yak Vas Zvati?

Today was the big day. Today we all were ushered onto buses and hurried off to meet the families we will be living with for the next 2 months.

First though, this morning I went on a tour of the Soviet era nuke bunker in the basement of our hotel! It was kinda creepy in a weird sort of walk through history sense. There were a series of doors (the first two being curved so as to lessen the impact of a blast) that led to a main room that contained a ping pong table, a dart board, and some incredibly uncomfortable looking prison beds. There was also two toilets and a sink (all still functional) and ventilation shaft-things, air-conditioning that could either be hand cranked or turned on with a switch if there was still power. And of course a wireless radio and information on what to do if there is nuclear fall-out.  Our tour guide told us that bunkers like these are supposed to be inspected and kept up to date in case of any sort of disaster but of course, due to budget cuts, the one in the hotel was in rather poor condition.

you can't see very well but the door is curved. 

Everyone needs a stressed reliever when there's nuclear fall out!

am I right?

Here are the beds. And if you forgot your pillow, never fear!
That's what those extra boards are for :D

You know, it works at least...

The water cooler and the crawl space

The back exit that was filled with water
cuz it rained the other day which doesn't seem like this place
 would protect from radiation if it can't even protect from rain water...
Just saying.

command center

that says "air"

And if the power is out all you need is some man muscle and

you'll have air conditioning cranking out in no time!

After the tour we, once again, got talked at for numerous hours about safety (the safety coordinator is ex-soviet era police. Legit), signed some papers for registration and bank accounts, and went through a host family orientation!

Now, in my previous job I had sat through countless host family orientations for the short term exchange students that came to my university and they were all pretty boring and straight forward. I think my old colleagues could take a tip or two from how our Ukrainian LCF’s (I can’t remember the acronym but basically they are the ones who set up our host families, met them, did the house walk through, and they will also be our language and culture teachers/support link for these next few months).  They put together a 25 minute skit that covered everything we might encounter on our first day/night with our families. It was humorous, informative, and well done. They covered how to enter the house (no shoes!), what to expect at dinner (you won’t serve yourself and you’ll be offered alcohol of all sorts), privacy and personal space (pretty much you won’t have any and expect your stuff to be gone through and organized), bathroom etiquette (might only have half a bucket of water to wash with and then are expected to wipe the area clean when finished. And oh yeah, your host mother may or may not walk in on you w/o knocking to see if you need help washing your back), and clothing (what you choose to wear in the morning will never be acceptable, just leave it to your host family to dress you). The most important thing to remember is that host families do all of these things out of love and the constant need to have you fit in and feel like one of the family/community. They debriefed the skit with us and the most interesting aspect I found was the reason that our host family might go through our things is because they have this idea in their head that Americans are hopelessly unorganized and need all the help we can get. Also, because back in the Soviet suck era, personal space was unheard of due to crummy living conditions and small apartments so thus the non-comprehension of that. Apparently if you’re going to stand in line for something you better stand as physically close to the person in front of you (like boobs pressed against their back close), otherwise someone might mistake the gap you leave as you not actually standing in line and jump right in front of you. Awesome.

I don’t know my host family’s last name but my host mother’s name is Natasha. I also have a host brother who is in high school but I can’t remember his name at all. The father apparently died in a car crash some years ago. They are very nice and their house is a good sized house. I do have my own room and because my family has hosted 7 other Peace Corps volunteers they know exactly what to expect from me and how to treat me. That being said, food was not pushed on me, every time my host mom needed to get something out of my room (because it doubles as storage/ironing room) she asked politely (I learned the word for room very fast because of this. Kimnata). Although my host mom doesn’t speak English we had a pretty good conversation (I learned from her how her husband died, which I thought was pretty good –not her husband dying part but me understanding this situation). Her son does speak a little English and she was always calling for him to come and translate for us. I can’t wait for my language skills to get good enough that I can actually hold a semi-intelligent conversation.

Kozelets (the town I’m staying in) seems rather nice as well. There are 5 of us staying here and tomorrow we are meeting with our LCF to go get cell phones and do some other stuff. I’m going to look into making my internet situation a little better. According to my host brother, the previous volunteer had some sort of device that she plugged into her computer that gave her internet magically? I wish I had internet to look up this magical device but alas…I’ll be able to use my host brother’s computer when I ask. However I feel bad every time I do because it’s in his room and also his room smells like teenage boy. Awkward.

figure something out.

In the meantime, dopobachenya! I’m off to study then sleep!

-Jamie