take a breath just to let it out again

So my mom has been asking me for weeks to post up a summer summary so here it is:

End of May: I finished school and enjoyed my first last bell ceremony. I was interviewed by a local news station, which in all honesty I thought was a video being made by our school to commemorate the end of the school year. Then later in the evening, I received texts from a Ukrainian saying that I had been on tv. ugh, well, at least no one other than the people who already know me in town would recognize me, one of the many benefits of being in a large city. After school ended, my friend Aida from Lac du Bois came to visit. She had been studying in Morocco for the semester and was touring around Europe before she headed back to the states. It was great to be able to travel and experience Ukraine with her. The country takes on a whole new vibe when you're able to travel with someone from the states who isn't here on Peace Corps Service. We traveled to some small towns around Lviv and, of course, spent some time in Lviv itself. After that, we headed to visit The Kyivska Oblast volunteer, Meaghan Joyce. We spent time in her town of Kovalivka which is nicknamed DreamLand. The local politician has rebuilt everything, this small village has some of the nicest roads I have seen in the last 10 months. Paved, no divits, it's pretty amazing. We got to dress like babas and go into the church and Meaghan was a great hostess ! We headed to Kyiv the next day to meet up with Linnea and see the city one day before we all parted ways. We walked all around the city, partly in thanks to my bad reading of metro stops. BUT we finally saw a good portion of teh city and the Chernobyl museum. At the Chernobyl museum, was a group of students from West Point, apparently learning about post-soviet Ukraine. After that, Linnea and I went on the pub crawl with the hostel and had a great time. The next day we split up, Linnea and Aida heading to the airport and I took a nite bus to Novodnistrovsk, the site of my cluster mate Joe.

JUNE: So, that brings us to June. Thanks to the pub crawl the nite before I really hadn't slept. SO, I took a nite bus to Joe's site and got there at about 5 in the morning. Joe, who had taken that same bus before had been waiting for me at the bus stop for an hour and a half because his bus had gotten in earlier. I slept off the rest of the travel while Joe helped proctor exams and then Joe took me on a tour of his wonderful town. I even got to take the nice hike down to the Soviet hydroelectric power station! BONUS! See pictures on facebook for the awesomeness that is said power station. Joe made a traditional Ukrainian dinner of Holobtsi, stuffed cabbage rolls. The next day, Joe gave me the grand tour of town, and we also got to hang out at his counterpart's house and had ice cream. Joe's town was super cute. Then, Joe and I headed to Chernivtsi with some of his students to take part in an English language drama camp. We met up with the students and took buses to a town in the Carpathian mountains called Vizhnytsia. There were about 40 students, I think, at the camp and Joe and I were there to help with English language, as teh students were writing their scripts in English. THe camp was great we were in the mountains and near the river. Joe and I really didn't have too much to do while we were there so we got to enjoy the free time of relaxing in the mountains, not a bad deal. One day, the whole camp took a hike up a mountain and had a cook out lunch. The weather was hot, but I had so much fun hiking up and picnicing with everyone there. Joe and I led some games and the whole week I played frisbee and catch with a lot of the kids. This was hysterical mostly because the kids thought that because I could catch a frisbee with one hand that I was an athlete, this however is probably teh furthest thing from the truth. Nevertheless, the kids were great, the plays were great and I had a pretty awesome time. I got home from the trip to camp and immediately started working again at my own site. The month of June basically consisted of me working two hours of playground duty per day and then starting my adult English classes. My adult English classes have been great, they allow me to work with students who want to learn english with no discipline problems etc. Plus the adults in my group are really funny and motivated. It's been a treat and has encouraged me to continue teaching for the year, something I was pretty down on at the end of the school year. Doing playground duty was generally hysterical. The camp was only for 1st through 3rd graders so I was working with all the tiny kids. I will say there is nothing better than walking into a room filled with tiny 1st graders and getting mobbed in hugs because they are happy to see you. The students at the school are so loving and just want to be told they're doing a good job. Somedays, I could've done without the playground duty, but seeing my favourite student a first grader or I guess soon to be second grader named Roma never gets old!

JULY: So after June passed with camp and work, July did the same. Joe came to visit the first week of July in tandem with the Fourth of July barbecue I held to welcome the new volunteers to the oblast. We have one new volunteer in the city of Lviv named Blythe who I think is wonderful! And two others in teh oblast who I've met and are also great! The barbecue was a lot of fun and I got to meet tons of new people, cook and enjoy the wonders of American independence. My security guard told me that all of America had come to my party, I told him while 30 is a lot of people, there were a few more Americans back at home still celebrating. After the barbecue, a group of us all left for Ukrainian language Refresher. I spent a week practicing Ukrainian, enjoying being with my friends and generally loving a week off of school. I came back to Lviv and started working again. But this time, only adult English classes. Since then, I've said goodbye to my friend Linda who finished her peace corps service and headed back to Seattle. I was really sorry to see her go eventhough I know she's happy to be back. Linda was a source of sanity for me and having her leave feels like my service will change somehow. I've also enjoyed some down time at my site just being able to read and do what I would like. I got pretty sick after language refresher and was out of commission for about a week. But now i'm back to healthy status and feeling ready for my upcoming month of freedom ! August will be open for me, no commitments and so I'm going to see my host family in mid-August. It's been a long time, but I'll be really happy to spend a weekend with them.

I suppose that's all. I miss home always and am starting to think about what life's going to be like when I get back. It's not that I countdown the days til my service is over, but with new groups coming and old groups leaving about every 3/6 months it seems like life is always changing and people are moving quickly on. Our next group arrives in country at the end of September and then the next group will be leaving in November/December; and of course the new group will be coming to site in December. It's hard to think that everything is moving so fast, but I suppose that's how time goes the older you get.

love and hugs to all!