It’s a bizarre sensation to have someone sign a document and suddenly feel unbound/unburdened/unencumbered/free. While I do not mean to suggest that during my Peace Corps Service I ever felt like my job was the antonym to any of these things, the absence of it most certainly is all of these adjectives. It has been [...]
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I am, for the most part, a goodbye avoider. If I’m sure I’ll see you again, even if it won’t be for a long time, I am comfortable saying goodbye. But the goodbyes that are forever, I avoid like the plague. My last hours at school and at home in Klevan were a kind of [...]
The few remaining weeks have flown by and I am sitting in my entirely packed up room. Last night I was feeling a bit like I did 27 months ago, the night before I left home. Overwhelmed. Unsure of how I was going to carry my stuff. And thinking about good byes. I finished packing [...]
Liver remains my most detested meal in this country, but there is a close second. Kholodets. It jiggles and wiggles and slides as it is passed around the table until it comes to rest in front of me, tremors still oscillating to its edges. Chucks of chicken lay suspended in the cold, gelatinous formation. I [...]
There is an old lady who lives in a house on my way to school. She is tiny and hunched and has a face like the oldest, gnarliest apple you have ever seen. Sometime during my first year in Klevan, she yelled at me from her yard. I have no recollection what she called me [...]
I was gone for over a week during fall break. After a long bus ride, getting off on the highway, and slogging across the damp, cold fields to my house, I was filled with relief as I pushed open the squeaky gate of our yard and was greeted by the dog with much dancing and [...]
This was the slogan on one of the posters created by some 9th graders for our HIV/AIDS awareness poster contest, part of my final major project, a healthy lifestyles week focused on raising HIV/AIDS awareness in our school and surrounding area. The project included training teachers and students from surrounding schools about HIV/AIDS and attitudes [...]
This past week, the volunteers from Group 35 (all of the volunteers that I arrived with 2 years ago) gathered in a picturesque town called Slavske in the Carpathians. Despite a lot of things to do both at school and with wrapping up secondary projects, I had been looking forward to a few days of [...]
One more thanks to all those who donated to our English Resource Center Project. We purchased all of the books and additional resources during the month of September and have been using them. The textbooks have been much better to work with than our old ones and are much more appropriate for the level of [...]
I just ate the best apple that I have ever eaten in my entire life. No exaggeration. The perfect crisp, crunch, sweetness, tartness, size, and color. The apples in Ukraine, specifically in our backyard, are ripe and delicious and we are enjoying the bounty. Other things are ripe too. I have now participated in a [...]
I got on the overnight train to Kyiv at 10 pm hoping for what I hope for every time I get on an overnight train in Ukraine. I hoped that the other people in my area were already asleep, that they weren’t a bunch of men already into their first of several bottles of vodka [...]
As I was hanging my laundry on the line this morning, I heard the unmistakable grunting of a pig coming from one of the sheds in the back. I walked over to the shed, went in, and looked into the pen. I found myself staring down at a piglet, snuffing up the gate hoping for [...]
As our time in Ukraine has dwindled down to a mere 3 months, an amount of time that now seems like a joke compared to the original 27, I have had a number of conversations with friends about going home. I think we all finally feel like it is safe to talk about the things [...]
During August, I finally ventured south to the land of “sand” and sun in Ukraine, Crimea. Through the summer, I told various PCVs about my plans to head down to Crimea, many of them offered to come with me, told me they also had plans to be down there during that time and suggested meeting [...]
With the help of a couple of friends, I made Asian food (as best as it can be made with the products available in Ukraine) for my birthday. We made sushi, several salads, friend rice, stir fry, and sweet and sour chicken. For dessert, we had less Asian a raspberry pie and chocolate cupcakes. While [...]
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT! Klevan will be getting new English language books and resources!
A quick word from camp, more to come…at some point. Thank you to everyone for your support for my current project (getting Klevan some books.) We only have $188.30 more to raise to reach our goal, close the fundraising component of the project, and get to work. It is important that the funds are raised [...]
As most of you know, I am getting closer and closer to finishing my Peace Corps service as an English teacher in a village in Western Ukraine. It is hard to believe that I have been in Ukraine for over a year and a half. The spring flew by full of school and Workshops in [...]
Summer is officially here and I have already finished my first stint at a summer camp. Two of my friends in the northern part of my oblast live about 30 minutes from each other and decided to do a joint English language camp together. They chose interested students from the 7th and 8th forms at [...]
My mother has a few lines of advice that she tends to repeat to my sister and I. So growing up and being merciless daughters, we have come to recite these lines as a litany anytime my mother begins to give us “advice.” These tried and true include words of wisdom while making lemonade that [...]
For some reason the “Last Bell” celebration on the final day of school this year was somewhat anti-climactic. Perhaps it was less exciting than last year since I knew how the ceremony was going to go and the speeches and children’s songs and poems are basically the same or maybe because this has been a [...]
The latter part of my spring at school, in addition to teaching, has been devoted to getting our multi-media journalism club off the ground. This has been a slow process to put it gently. Between waiting for a long time for the radio system installation, my business working on other projects, and a general inertia [...]
4/18/2010 Oh, those golden arches
I find myself sitting in McDonalds once again. I have frequented McDonald’s more times since coming to Ukraine than I did in my entire life in America. And I am not alone. It seems to be the rule for most volunteers that they find themselves under the golden arches in Ukraine [...]
There is very little in my host mother’s cooking that I have not gotten used to, at this point I have come to enjoy almost everything she cooks. Except for liver. Before coming to Ukraine, I think I had managed to avoid liver for the majority of my life. I always knew I was not [...]
Going into Peace Corps, you really have no idea what you are going to be doing. As a TEFL Volunteer, I knew that I was going to be teaching English, but what that meant and what else I would be doing with my time was a complete mystery. On the marshrutka home from my oblast [...]
-Ukraine has one of the most severe HIV/AIDS epidemics in Europe, contributing to nearly 21% of the newly reported HIV diagnoses in Europe and Eurasia in 2006.
-1.63% of the adult population was estimated to be HIV positive in 2007.
-The number of registered HIV cases in 2007 reached 17,687
-UNAIDS estimated that at the end of 2007, [...]
There are days when I walk home from school wondering how to better inspire my students to work harder, reach farther, dream bigger. Leading up to the elections, I had several discussions with my students about the Ukrainian government, the Presidential candidates, and the electoral system in Ukraine. The immediate reaction from my students, and [...]
The WELL program has been funded and we will be able to conduct the workshops this spring as we hoped. A HUGE THANK YOU to all who helped us reach our monetary goal!
Life is busy these days, more to come soon.
As all of you know, I have been working as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching English in a village in Western Ukraine for over a year. For those of you who I have not spoken with recently, life in Ukraine is going well. It’s pretty cold and snowy right now, but work at school and [...]
Though I had joked to friends while in America that I would have to return to my village by trekking through feet of snow across the fields to my house, I sort of thought that I would be spared that reality. I was not. On Eastern Orthodox Christmas Eve, I found myself trudging through about [...]
A few days ago marked my one-year anniversary in Klevan. When I arrived at site, I did as I always do when I have to do something new that will take an adjustment. I told myself that someday my life here would seem normal. I would be comfortable in this house with this family. I [...]
I went to the post office to mail a few things today and quickly remembered why I hate going to the post office. In a small town in Ukraine, the post office is for mail and just about everything else. You can buy toilet paper, dish-washing soap, candy, children’s toys, and a smattering of other [...]
I didn’t realize that communities, cities, countries still underwent quarantines until I arrived in Ukraine last winter and started hearing whispers about quarantines that often happen in late February and March in schools if a large number of students become sick. While students (and teachers) in Klevan fell ill last winter, it was not enough [...]
One of my most vivid memories of 4th grade besides my best friend moving away and loving my teacher’s class reading challenges was the afternoon my teacher bought me a candy bar from the restricted vending machines. While getting a candy bar from a teacher in the middle of the day in front of all [...]
As I believe is the fact in most countries, the teachers in Ukraine work very hard for very little monetary compensation, compensation that may come a couple of month late. Students in Ukraine cannot actually fail out of school, there is no expulsion or suspension system, and for many students a failing grade of a [...]
The One Year mark feels like it requires some kind of overall assessment of my life, work, and general experiences since I arrived in Ukraine. But how do I assess? Several of my volunteer friends and I have been talking about this recently as we have all been getting excited about going home at different [...]
September is potato-harvesting time in Ukraine. I missed some of the first harvesting expeditions, but I was home this afternoon when after lunch everyone headed outside to dig up some spuds. I was finishing washing up the dishes and said that I would be coming out to help in a few minutes. I was somewhat [...]
I found myself very lucky again during September, to have another friend make the trek to Ukraine for me. As I was waiting in the Peace Corps office on Saturday morning before Margot’s flight arrived, a few people asked me why I was around. I told them that I was meeting a friend. Several of [...]
The First of September, or the Day of Knowledge, is the first day of school and a holiday in Ukraine (quite unlike the holiday celebrated on the 31st of May teachers are all quick to remind me.) The school day consisted of a ceremony very similar to the last day of school. Speeches, flowers, boys [...]
My Ukrainian summer was wonderful and it is highly unlikely that I will do it any kind of justice in the following entry. Time has passed. The hilarious anecdotes have mostly fled my brain amidst the rest of the grey matter slowly seeping out of my head while I’m here. And so, I have only [...]
I spent Fourth of July with other volunteers at a Ukrainian language camp that was held at a very nicely remodeled sanitarium a convenient 20 minutes from my village. Peace Corps conducts language refreshers twice a year for both Ukrainian and Russian speakers, one in the summer and one in the winter. The summer refresher [...]
At the end of June, I headed East with two other friends/volunteers to spend a week and a half in the mines of Lugansk. Just kidding, we didn’t actually work in the coal mines, but jokes concerning them were certainly made. Another volunteer organized an English Camp at her school in a town called Antratsit, [...]
When you have no expectations, how can you ever be prepared?
I guess it’s not fair to say that I had no expectations for the summer camp held at my school for the first two weeks of June. Everyone who has ever been to a summer camp, heard stories from their friends who went to summer [...]
I just came back inside after a brief stint weeding in the yard. I arrived home this evening, had some dinner, and pleaded to my host mother to let me help in the yard. Despite the golden morning spent planting potatoes, I have still not been able to convince my host family that I can [...]
In my previous life, I mostly avoided singing in public mostly for the sake of others. The cutting of my lullaby song to baby Jesus in the Christmas play in 5th grade, though well justified, left in me a permanent fear of singing in public and a belief that I should refrain from doing so [...]
Preparations for the Easter holiday (Paska) that is celebrated by the Orthodox in Ukraine for three days (Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday) began several weeks ago. Once the weather turned spring-like, people began cleaning their homes and their yards, planting their seeds, and looking forward to Easter. The schedule at school has been even nuttier than [...]
In one weekend I have managed to do a couple of things that I believe rachet up my Ukrainianess a couple of notches. This weekend in Ukraine, we celebrated the First of May and Labor Day so we got both Friday and Monday off from school. Thank you Ukraine and your love of all thing [...]
This week is “spring break” for Klevan School No. 2. I write spring break with a bit of incredulity because it has been snowing on and off all week. I woke up to sun streaming in my window this morning, however, so maybe when Ukrainians tell me that spring will eventually come to this country, [...]
Tuesday Mar 10 continued:
So we schnuggled for a while, until Natasha informed us that it was time to come eat (we had chatted earlier about supper as we were eating first dinners, cheese, bread, praline butter, and Natasha had informed us that we would not be eating burritos but the pot of potatos that Alla [...]
I am posting these following three entries from Kiev. Today, October 18, is the magic date on which PC trainees can begin to travel from their training sites, excluding their neighboring link sites.
10-17-08
Health Day
Today the village school had Health Day. If the weather is nice, the children (this includes all forms 2-11) head to [...]
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