Week 4: So much for my Peace Corps diet…

Hello all from Ukraine. Life is just marvelous (as my pops would say) here. I’m writing to you at 7:30am when I could have slept in because you know I wake when the sun rises or more importantly when the chickens decide it’s time for me to get up. So it’s officially 4 weeks since I arrived to Ukraine, tomorrow it will be exactly a month. Some parts have gone so slow while overall it has gone almost too fast. I have 4 more weeks of training before the swearing in week. Dec. 14th is when I leave my familiar little village and head back to Kiev for a few days of ceremonies and counterpart training.

The 14th is the magical yet possible tragic day that all trainees find out there site placement. It can be magical for the fact you could end up in your dream oblast (state like region) with your cluster mates or you could possibly be headed to a more remote area by yourself. The training coordinator told us the day is usually filled with tears regardless the scenario. I’m sure I’ll be all motion anyways.

The 15th is when we meet our counterpart this is the person that we will work with for the next two years during our service. They often are our co-teacher or co-facilitator. In the end , this person will probably more greatly improve my life than I will theirs but hopefully we can achieve a lot of positive at their home school/ community while having a relationship to the community where they are seen as the one who was in charge and brought the positive impact. From hearing stories, people often become incredible close with this friend and sometimes so close they end up getting married. Just heard of PCV who is getting married sometime in the next week or maybe he is one of the recent RPVCs. Anywho, I am really looking forward to meeting my new Ukrainian best friend/boyfriend, haha (just kidding mom don’t worry).

The 16th there is different training for our counterpart. We also will participate in some grant writing sessions if we are interested. It is not one of our assignments but HIV/AIDS prevention is encouraged secondary project that I already am interested in getting involved with.

The 17th is the magical day when I will be sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer and will no longer be referred to as a trainee. I’m really excited for this day but it will also be bitter sweet because these 4 days will be the last real time my cluster mates and I will be together. But I still have a month with them so I’m going to live it up.

Week 4 brought presents for me. I received three letters: Kimberly Sluis (former boss/gracious non-landlord landlord, Robin Gadient (former resident but friend, haha), and Father Schmidt. These put my total count at 6 letters for 4 weeks and that number puts me in the lead of my cluster mates (Cindy 5, Laura, Allison, & Jon 0). So keep those letters coming. I sent a lot but they were sent from my small post office which I don’t believe were air mail so you guys could possibly receive the 2nd letters/postcards before the first ones. Anywho, keep sending them if you send me a letter I promise to send a return one. If you haven’t received mail yet it’s on it its way.

One question: why is it that everyone tells me to be safe at the end of their letters, you think I’m crazy enough to do something dumb. Ok, yesterday I did walk where Allison said I shouldn’t attempt and almost fell in a huge puddle and cow poop. When I got home, my host family thought it was hilarious the amount of mud/poop that was on my shoe but still come on you guys you gotta trust me. Heck, I was selected to be a crossing guard in 5th grade. Long story short, I behave myself here and you all have nothing to worry about.

This morning I’m going to take about an hour walk around my village hopefully taking some good photos. Our technical training with the other cluster doesn’t start until 10am and they have to travel here this week so I’m going to take advantage of the later start. Week 5 is going to be a big week our first LCF comes back for our remaining 4 weeks which means a Mock Language Proficiency Interview. This involves sitting in the kitchen and having as in depth conversation you can have in Ukrainian. Let’s hope for good weather because that is my newest topic I can sort of cover. On Tuesday, we also have our Sight Placement Interview which is a huge deal. This is what partially determines where you will get placed. You express your interests and contributions not your preferences so they are able to get an idea of you and place you at sight that you would be able to contribute the best. I’m not really sure what I want to shoot for, but I can say I have really enjoyed the village life here in my community.

Anywho, keep your fingers crossed that the interview goes well regardless what I’m shooting for. I miss you all. This time last year I would have been anxiously finishing up the fall term looking forward to going to Ghana, five years ago I would have been playing in the Olympia Thanksgiving bball tourney front toothless but they can judge me all I want because my team won. Hope you all area well. Much love, friends.