A trip to Chernihiv! & a few other random things...

It's a nice Sunday morning here in Oster. Thought I'd give you a quick recap of the past few days.

On Wednesday and Thursday, all of the Youth Development clusters (I think there are 7 total...which means around 35 people) headed to Chernihiv for an event called PST University (Pre-Service Training University). At PSTU, it not only gives us a good chance to catch up with people that we may not have seen since we arrived in Ukraine, but it was also filled with classes/lectures that we attended geared towards being a youth developer. The TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) trainees had their own PSTU in Kiev earlier in the week on Monday and Tuesday. They also brought in a few current youth development PCVs and had a question and answer session for us. Overall, a good few days...and we got to explore the city of Chernihiv a little more! Here are a few pictures from our time in Chernihiv...

Jamie, Lydia, Hayley

Cassi & Mark

Richard, Lydia, Maria, Simon

Maria, Matt, Morgan

Jamie, Lydia, Richard

Maria & Matt...2 of my link-clustermates. They really do like each other...I just happened to catch this gem of a pic.

Upon arriving back in Oster on Thursday evening, I went for a run by one of the rivers. It is completely new terrain for me to run on here in Ukraine. Out at the river, there are no paved paths...just paths created by cars that might drive along the river to get to their farm land. I guess I need to take a picture of this, but I never want to carry my camera when I'm running. Anywho, since the weather has been warming up and more and more people are outside now, the river has become quite the hot spot for local youth to hang out. The boys swim in it while for the most part the girls watch on the sides. I definitely attract quite the number of stares when I jog by...and then receive a chorus of "Hello's" from each kid. What makes it even funnier? The boys swim in their underwear...which is obviously just how it's done here.

Friday was a nerve-racking day for us in the Oster cluster. We would be having our site-placement interviews...dun dun dun! It ended up going incredibly well, but the whole idea of not knowing where you're going to live for the next 2 years is kind of a big deal. It also means that we are that much closer to being sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers. The youth development lead specialist came and interviewed us along with a regional managar for one of the oblasts (think states) here in Ukraine. They had our resume that we sent over months ago with all of the work we had done in the States. Most of the questions involved what we did back in the States, what our strengths were, what we enjoyed doing, are you more of a creative person or sports oriented person, etc. Definitely went with the creative person on that one. Who can see Lydia coaching a soccer team? I can't, considering I've never played soccer in my entire life. All in all, we basically have no control over where we are going to be placed, and I'm completely fine with that. I wouldn't know where to tell them if they asked me where I wanted to go. I'll be happy where I'm placed and excited to be living in my own, new community here in a few weeks. Can't think about it any other way!

Well, I need to write a lesson plan now for our kids summer camp that we will be conducting in a week. It's a requirement for youth development trainees that we conduct a 3-5 summer camp in our cities...so we are working with the two schools that we've taught at: the gymnasium (Lydia, Jamie, & Brendan) and school #2 (Mark & Cassi). I guess I've never shown you a picture of the gymnasium where I've been teaching...so here are a couple.

The right side of the front of my school, the Gymnasiaum. There is a field/court in front of this where the students play soccer in between classes.

The front entrance to the school. The mo-peds in front of the school usually belong to some of the kids in our 11th form class (the seniors).

This is the best overall picture I have of a classroom in the gymnasium. Jamie is at the board, Brendan is at the door on the right. This is some of the 11th grade class. Sorry the picture is a little dark...didn't want to use the flash.

Here is the best overall picture of Mark & Cassi's classroom at School #2 (that's simply what the school is called...there's not a School #1 in Oster. Ha, don't know why!). Mark is on the left, the English teacher is next to him, and Cassi is talking to the English teacher.

I hope to get class pictures with the students before we leave Oster. We found out on Friday that we were asked to say a few words a the Last Bell Assembly which is on Friday, May 27. This is apparently a huge deal here in Ukraine...all of the parents come, it is technically the last day of school but they do not do any school work. People speak, songs are sung, people dance I think. Not really sure. What it means for us is saying thank you (in Russian) to the people at the Gymnasium and the community for letting us work here in Oster. Should be interesting!

I've rambled enough and put off doing my lesson plan long enough too. Toodles :) happy Sunday!