a carnival of peace

Ok, so the latest from life. I'm still in Nosivka, though today I'm in Kiev visiting the peace corps office and then heading off with my cluster to see the rest of the city, or at least whatever we can see in a couple hours. Mostly, I'm excited to have a weekend off. we had a VERY long week. I taught two classes and tried my best to keep it together with fifth graders who were generally rambunxious and rowdy. I'm happy to have had the time with them, and I really do love the school I'm at. I'm going to try and take some pictures and such. i always promise these things but never seem to get them on a jump drive to transfer them onto anything, but I'm really going to try. It's hard to encapsulate my days into any kind of cohesive thought. But I'm happy to have close friends to laugh with and a family who is kind enough to let me live with them. I worked all week either learning Ukrainian or lesson planning (type a personality comeback) and we welcomed a new volunteer to our cluster who was supposed to go to Turkmenistan, but the assignment was cancelled. I am experimenting every day with using more and more ukrainian with my family and hope that by the end of this training I may be able to extract some valuable information about their lives and not just how to make crepes. . . we're working on this.

ok, love and stuff to all. I know this is a throw away type of post, but it's one to say I'm doing fine. Busy, but good. I am excited for the time when I can share more.

WElcome to Ukraine

Ok, so it would be hard to put the last few weeks into any kind of perspective or cohesive blog entry, but I think that I will have regular access to internet now that I've figured it out at my house. I asked Nastya my host sister to show me how it's done and as soon as I talk to Mom about it I think I'll be able to get on at least once a week. Ok, so I arrived in Kiev a couple weeks ago. Everything went smoothly except for some awkward moments on the plane with this crazy guy I was sitting next to.



I don't know how to put Ukraine into words. I live in a town called Nosivka, which is typically, post-soviet (we still have a lenin statue) but at the same time it's charming. And desipte the fact that I have regular and heated encounters with livestock, everything is going ok. I have a cell phone and will publish the number soon so everyone can see it and/or have it. Everything is going well, and after waiting about a week and a half (i was living only with my 12 year old host sister) I met my host parents. They're wonderful and I'm glad to have people looking over me. Last nite, I got to meet Grandma and Grandpa, who are probably my favourite people to date.

The good news is, my cluster, for the most part, is great. We have five people, and maybe one coming from Turkmenistan (long story) and the best news, Linnea, my friend from before actually is in my cluster. I live next to a guy named Joe who is hysterical as well.

Well, I'll try and be better about all this but that's it for now. LOVE to you all!