06/27

September 8th marked 6 months since arriving to Ukraine, or “in-country” to use PC lingo.

In many ways, I feel like I just arrived. I think often “I just started, I have so much more time,” to begin projects in my community. At my school, my novelty hasn’t worn off. It was still cold when we arrived, but now we’ve made it through our first summer without A/C. And by the numbers, 22% seems like a big portion to be done with.

But sometimes, I feel like I’ve been here forever. When I think about the things that just seem normal to me, or when I manage to get by on my limited Ukrainian. When I think about the friends I’ve made, it doesn’t seem real I’ve only known them for six months. In a few days, my group won’t be the ‘babies’ anymore – and somehow we’re supposed to give them advice.When I remember that I’ll be 25 when I come home, and have two more birthdays, Christmases, Easters, etc. But six months seems the longest when I think about the last time I saw my family and friends and when I think about the next time I will see them.

So…what has changed in six months?

• I go by Sasha now. Sasha is the nickname for Alexandra here and I love it! This will please all of you that have insisted my name is too long over the years!
• I have caved to European pressure and now drink carbonated water.
• I frequently use phrases that are exactly correct English, but are the closest translation to what Ukrainians say, for example, “to have a rest.”
• Life is much more laid back, so I need to “have a rest” often.
• I speak in a mess of ‘Ukrain-glish.’
• I have said many times tea is just leaf water. Now I drink a few cups a day.
• I like onions now.
• I crave borsch.
• Stranger danger is no longer a concept in my life. (these stories coming soon)
• Sitting on the corner of a table, having wet hair, and putting an empty bottle on the table are all major stressors in my life.
• I can usually tell the difference between when people are speaking Russian and Ukrainian.
• I have realized that there are many, many things about the English language that are very confusing. A lifelong mumbler, I now speak very clearly and slowly…until I get around other Americans and it becomes a jumbled mess.

I’m sure there are other things, but what’s most different, is at some point, Ukraine started to feel like home. I know that’s corny – deal with it.

summer sixteen

Summer 2016: A Reflection

 

 

June

On June 1st, all of the newly sworn-in Peace Corps volunteers departed Kyiv for their two year sites all over Ukraine. My site is Sokyriany (Сокиряни) in the Chernivet’ska oblast, located in southwest Ukraine, right on the border of Moldova. (Seriously, I can walk there.)

Right when I arrived, my school was in the midst of their English language camp. Schools were required as part of the “Year of English” to have a camp for their students at the end of the year. Honestly, I was pretty overwhelmed from the combination of a new town and meeting all the new students, but it was a really great experience. I worked primarily with the 5th and 11th forms.

For three weeks, the 5th form focused on cities. They learned about places around a city, such as a library or church, transportation, and directions. This culminated with the students creating their own mini city in the school. We used this to role play asking for directions and getting around town. The students were very creative and I was very impressed by them. They also had a lot of questions for me, including, but not limited to: are you married? how old are you? do you like coconuts? do you know how to sweep? do you have a dog?

Later in June, I went to a team-teaching seminar in Kyiv with my counterpart, Luda. Our counterparts are the ones we deal with primarily for life at site. They help us with everything from registering in our city to all work related tasks. For TEFL volunteers, they are also who we team-teach with. The seminar was interesting, but honestly the best part was getting a chance to relax and catch up with other volunteers whom I hadn’t seen since arriving to site. After spending 10-12 hours a day with the same five people every day for three months, it was weird to not have them around.

July

For the first month, we were not allowed to leave our new sites in order to help with adjustment and integration into our new communities. But after that, we were free to travel within the country on the weekends or for any work related travel.

In the beginning of July, I got the chance to work at my first overnight camp. This was a big deal because my mom never let me go to camp when I was little. The camp was called
Camp Big Bang , and was always a Peace Corps run camp until the evacuation of volunteers in 2014. This year it was brought back. It is an English language camp for the 2nd-11th forms. The kids were split into teams named after the planets, and competed for points at a variety of different stations. I ran Arts & Crafts along with another volunteer, Erin. Resources were limited, but we did some really fun activities like learning the ‘cups’ song from Pitch Perfect, making cootie catchers, writing haikus, and making banners to cheer on their teams for sports. Not only did I have a lot of fun, but I learned a lot about all that goes into planning and running a camp.

August

I knew August was going to be a crazy month, both from what I already had planned to all that I needed to prepare before school started.

Before all my professional craziness started, some other volunteers and I had a shashlik, which is basically a bbq, in Vinnytsia, a town about 3 hours from me.

The next day, I went to Chernivtsi to help another volunteer, Nicole, with a seminar. Nicole works at the teacher training institute in Chernivtsi. This seminar discussed how to create lesson plans based on students’ needs and learning styles. It lasted five days,, and I think that we learned as much as we were teaching! It was a really cool opportunity to meet with some of the teachers from my oblast and see what their wants, needs, and challenges are. If you were wondering, Ukrainian teachers have many of the same issues as American schools – like how to prepare students for standardized tests. We recieved a lot of positive feedback, and I am eager to incorporate these techniques in my own school and pass along the knowledge to teachers.

From there, I traveled to Ivano-Frankivsk to meet up with Laura and Dray. Fellow PCVs Rob and Thomas live in the city, so they were nice enough to show us around. It was really nice to relax after an action-packed week and see even more of the country.

After this, I went back to Sokyriany for only one day before heading to our In-Service Training (IST). I again went with my counterpart, Luda, to a city called Irpin outside of Kyiv. During the IST, we had many chances to hear about what the other TEFL volunteers had been doing at their sites over the summer. I got a lot of new ideas which I am eager to try out for myself. A highlight was seeing two of my teachers from PST, Natasha and Inna. We spent so much time together in PST, but now we rarely get to see each other. I’m eternally grateful to all the PC staff, who are incredibly supportive and our biggest cheerleaders. Aside from teaching us how to be teachers and speak Ukrainian, they acted as our fearless leaders in all cultural situations – from how to figure out the right size tights, what to wear to school, and warning us against whistling inside. (You’ll whistle all your money away) Victoria, Natasha, and Inna were really my first Ukrainian friends, and it’s a bond I think I’ll cherish forever. Wow that was sappy. Anyway, I was just really happy to see them okay!!

After our IST, Katie and I decided to stay in Kyiv for the weekend for one last hurrah of summer. Basically that entailed eating a lot of food. It was really the first time we had been in Kyiv without a schedule or any obligations, so it was nice to finally spend a relaxing weekend in the city. We took a Korean cooking class, where naturally we were cutting and doing everything wrong so the chef intervened. It was delicious though!

We also went to a cat cafe. Well, what we thought was a cat cafe.
There were cats, obviously, but also a turtle, a chinchilla, and  A RACCOON. I think my first moment of true culture shock was that everyone acted like this was totally normal and that it wasn’t a gross dumpster dweller. Also, it scratched me and drew blood so I probably have some sort of rare raccoon related disease now. If PC medical office is reading this, I’m totally kidding.

Which brings us to now! School officially started September 1st, although I did have one last summer send off this past weekend at the Respublica music festival. Now it’s time to buckle down and get into the school year and start working on some projects I’ve been planning. More about the first days of school…when I get around to it.