So we're actually going to flash back a little and explain the swearing-in retreat. On Monday, June 13, 2011, we left our training city of Oster and headed to Kiev for a 4 day retreat with all 103 other PCTs waiting to get sworn in. All of us in the Oster cluster had to get to the bus station with ALL of our luggage by 8:30 that sad Monday morning. I won't tell you how many bags I ended up having...partly because I can't remember, but partly because it's embarrassing :) My host mom was working so I said goodbye to her the night before, but my host dad and sister took me to the bus station :)
Andrei, Christy, and me!
The Oster bus station...this is where we met every time we left our lovely little training city to travel to Kozelets or Kiev or Chernigov.
Mark and his family
Jamie and his fam
Didn't catch a picture of Cassi and her family because they had a flat tire on the way to the bus station!
This is all of us and our families about to leave :( definitely a sad day. Can't wait to go back and visit!
After arriving in Kiev and getting settled into dorm rooms (I roomed with Hayley and completely forgot to take a single picture of our room), we had to meet in one of the conference rooms to find out where we would be living for the next two years. This was a moment that we had been waiting for FOREVER. Definitely before we came to Ukraine.
The concert hall where all of our meetings were held during the swearing-in retreat.
The Kozelets gang...MK, Kymmy (Gibbler), Matt, Maria, and Anne
Jeff, Ed, and Tondraya
And then...they started doing the announcements. Ukraine is split up into 24 oblasts (think states) that are then divided into 10 regions. They announce your site placement by region, so at the beginning you really have no clue where you're going except to one of two or three oblasts that that region includes. This is what it looked like on the powerpoint slideshow:
Each region has a Regional Manager, a full-time PC employee. The RM is who I would contact with immediate questions about work, counterparts, travel, etc. My RM is named Tanya, as seen in the picture below. Each RM gets to announce the people going to that region and THEN the names are put up on the powerpoint...
Region 7 includes the Odessa and Kirovogradskaya oblasts, so upon immediate reaction I just knew I would be going to a room with all of the people listed on the slide. It was in those meeting rooms that we would find out about our actual sites and what organization we would be working with. After all 10 regions were announced and everybody was dismissed, we headed to our new conference rooms to meet with our regions. However, first, we had to stop at the country map posted outside of the large room...look at the next pic why!
It was complete and utter chaos. They definitely need a bigger map because all 103 people were trying to crowd around and see where we were going...
There's my name!
That was day 1 of the Swearing-In Retreat...get ready for day 2 and 3 and 4 soon!
P.S. It has STILL been raining on and off today in k-grad. I vacuumed my apartment, will mop later tonight, and have been watching Friends due to this weather. I've also been reading..but in the past week or so I think I've read 2 or 3 books. Guess I need to start keeping track of them!
P.P.S. I skyped for the first time since leaving in March! Got to skype with my parents for about an hour and a half yesterday...and maybe 20-30 minutes with my brother. Oh, the wonders of technology... :)
1 comment:
I'm surprised after the powerpoint they went with the low tech, "everybody push and shove around the map" method of telling you exactly where you're going. Maybe they're still working out the details on that one!
Skype was great!
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