New Photo Gallery
June 30, 2009, 11:16 pm by EmmaIf you’ll look above, you’ll notice a new link in between “blog” and “about us.” Check it out!! (You may have already seen the first half of this set of photos from Training, but there are new ones at the end.)
Breathe out
June 7, 2009, 3:41 pm by AlexWe have 1 week of training left! Thank you, God. Last week our group completed a small Community Project and a 3-day summer camp, which were the last major hurdles in our technical training.
The community project involved us organizing and running a sort of “fun and games” corner for kids attending a regional festival on “International Day for the Protection of Children’s Rights”. We played some group games like water balloon volleyball, painted faces, and made friendship bracelets. The kids loved all of it.
The summer camp was just a day camp at school for 20 or so 6th graders. We snuck some lessons on leadership in between lots of fun activities and games. The biggest lesson I learned is that kids love water balloons as much as I do.
Now what we are looking forward to this week is the dreaded LPI or Language Proficiency Interview, where we are supposed to get a rating of “Intermediate Mid” in Russian. Word on the street, though, is that no one flunks out … you may just be required to get extra tutoring and have another interview in 6-months.
Then, as a special treat, I managed to be chosen to give part of a speech - in Russian - at our “Swearing In” ceremony in Kiev next week. Just in case the precious little Russian I have drops into my stomach at the wrong time, I’m going for rote memorization. Here’s hoping at least that can survive in front of a crowd.
Why the password?
, 8:33 pm by AlexFYI, there are a few reasons we put some of our posts behind a password.
First of all, it’s for our personal safety. The communities we live in here adopt us and, for the most part, keep us safe. But we’ll be living in the same — possibly remote – place for so long, that Peace Corps strongly encourages us to not make our location easy to find on the web. That makes us a little safer from random folks who may want to find an American.
Secondly, we want to protect innocent bystanders about whom we would like to say something, but who may not want their names plastered on the web. It’s a simple courtesy for us bloggers who don’t have the guts to tell all and to hell with the consequences.
Finally, we may sometimes ask for passwords so we can speak frankly about things we see or experience without inadvertently offending anyone in our lovely host country. Two of the three main goals of Peace Corps are to promote understanding (and friendship) between peoples, we have to be somewhat sensitive and diplomatic.
That said, I hope the password thing doesn’t annoy anyone. If you lost or never got a password, just email Emma or me and we’ll send one to you.
May Day
May 3, 2009, 7:49 pm by Emma(Obviously written May 1.)
Today is the 1 month anniversary of our arrival in Ukraine! So much has happened in the last 4 1/2 weeks - sometimes it’s hard to believe it’s only been a month! Coincidentally, it’s also a national holiday - the Day of Solidarity of Workers - kind of like Labor Day. Ukrainians celebrate this Worker’s Day by taking a four-day weekend. Our host momwent to a picnic that is, apparently, still going strong at 11pm. Our 25 year old host sister went to the zoo in Kiev, and other town youngsters have been dancing (?), listening (?), hanging out (?) to loud, thumping music most of the evening at the stadium next door.
We spent the day celebrating in language class and two technical sessions! Then, we came home and celebrated by hand-washing a load of shirts and running 2.5 miles at the stadium. We have had a nice evening, relaxing, writing postcards, showering, talking to my sissy, and finally feeling up to journal writing!
So, a month in, and how do I feel? There are many times during a week when I feel frustrated by our schedule and exhausted by the amount of work we have. I really want to do a good job learning Russian, but when all our technical training and teaching is added onto our already busy schedule of language classes and tutoring, there’s not time for more than the basic homework.
None-the-less, I do feel pretty good about the progress I’m making. It helps that our host mom sits with us in the evenings over dinner or tea and talks with us. She speaks slowly and patiently. If I take plenty of time to think it through and remember the vocabulary and grammar rules, I can form somewhat complex sentences in past/present/future tenses, including prepositions and maybe an adverb or adjective thrown in here or there! I struggle the most with vocab, and then with my reading and pronunciation. The Cryllic alphabet takes some time to learn!
We met a few current volunteers from Group 35 (started last Sept.), and they gave me confidence that I will be able to function and get along well-enough when training is over and we’re on our own at site. I know that will be a difficult time, but I’m definitely looking forward to our crazy training to be over! At the same time, I really like our training situation in terms of all the folks we get to spend so much time with. I know it’ll be really different, and hard, when we get to site and it’s just the two of us again!
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