Way-Back-Wednesday #17: Happy Birthday, Kym!

Today's Way-Back-Wednesday post doesn't go too far back because every picture available for today's post only comes from my time in Ukraine!  However, there are definitely some good pictures and stories to tell with the photo montage.

Meet Kym. 

also known as Kira, Ken, Kim, and a slew of other names. My fave: Kymmy Gibbler.

Kym Starno, one of my bestest friends in the PC, was in the training village next to mine.  I will never forget the first time my cluster group met her cluster group.  We had probably been in country a week and a half.  The Kozelets group (Kym's cluster) was coming to our village that day for a lesson.  As we sat in our teacher's apartment with the windows open, we heard a very strange noise slowly getting louder and louder.  Turns out the noise was coming from four incredibly loud and boisterous girls and their lone guy of the group, Matt.

The Kozelets group: Kym, Anne, Mary-Kathryn, Matt, and Maria in the front

I thought I wrote a blog entry about "how sweet the Kozelets group was" but I couldn't find it just now.  If I did in fact write one of those entries, at the time I was probably lying.  The first session that we were all together I didn't say one word the entire hour.  They were so overwhelming and so completely polar opposite my training cluster.  I can remember letting out my breath after they left that day wondering what the next few months would be like.  If someone had told me then that some of the Koz. group members would be some of my sweetest and closest friends, I would have laughed in their face.  But, I'm lucky to call them friends now :)  They are quite the bunch, that's for sure.

Back to Kym's birthday photo montage.  I have more awkward and embarrassing pictures of Kym and myself from ALL over Ukraine and Eastern Europe too.  I think I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.  

First time in the Black Sea together--Odessa, summer 2011

Alien night at Camp Bereg, summer 2011

Kym, Lydia, Theo

Second time in the Black Sea together--Camp Bereg in Sergiivka, summer 2011

PEPFAR (HIV/AIDS) training w/some of our clustermates, September 2011

Kym, Jamie, Lydia, Mark, Maria

Sight-seeing in Kamyanets Podilsky, September 2011

EuroTrip with my work, Dresden, October 2011

Hello Kitty earmuffs.  Eurotrip, October 2011

Squash in Kym's apartment hallway, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving 2011!  There is so much that I love about this picture.  Words can't even explain it...Kym, Lydia, Matt, Mary-Kathryn

doing my "special" make-up on my birthday, December 2011

My New Years work party, December 2011

Olena, Lydia, Kym, Mary-Kathryn

Happy New Years!!! Celebrating in Kiev...2011/2012!

Matt, Kym, Lydia

Words can't describe the relationship I have with Kym.  She is the best travel buddy ever (she brings half the toiletries, and I bring the other half!), she has the most gung-ho attitude where nothing is impossible, and she can literally make me laugh uncontrollably just by being herself.  I feel like I've known her my entire life.  You are a blessing in my life and I hope you've had a happy, happy birthday :) love you Kymmy Gibbler!

Happy New Year, Ukraine Style!

I can't believe that Christmas, my birthday, and New Years have all come and gone in a week. It was a whirlwind of days with so many different celebrations I had trouble keeping my memory cards empty to document things!! That's a good thing though in my books.  I just got home from Kiev today in the late afternoon after staying up late and welcoming in 2012 with about 15 Peace Corps Volunteers...in addition to all of Kiev. 

The New Years tree in Kiev...they don't have Christmas trees in Ukraine.  I believe they call a New Years tree a "yolka."

Kym!

In true Ukrainian style, Kym and I rocked bright tights for NY2012.  I went with teal, while Kym went with purple. 

Cluster/link-cluster love.  Lydia, Kym, Matt, and Mary-Kathryn.  During this photo session, there was not one picture (on my camera at least) where we were all looking at the camera.  Typical Oster/Kozelets group pic.

I took a marshrutka into Kiev early Saturday morning, only to have my ceremonious McDonald's fries upon arrival :)  After some time at the PC office (where I snagged a full bottle of free hair spray in the volunteers room where people can put things they don't want/need anymore), the big group of us headed to our respective hostels/apartment to get ready for the evenings activities.  A late lunch was found in a cafe with a few brews to match.  I had a lovely veggie sandwich with feta spread, tomatoes, onions, and cucumbers.  After hanging out for a while, we decided it was time to get going.

Kym, Matt, Simon, Lydia, and Chris in the front

I went to Kym's hostel with her to curl her hair in prep for the fun evening ahead of us.  Then it was off to the apartment I was staying at with other PCVs where one of them was preparing a lovely feast of eggplant parmesan with spaghetti.  It was to die for and makes my mouth water now thinking about fixing it again soon!

I am almost a full head taller than Kym.  Especially in heels...

I could not have asked for a better or more memorable New Years celebration.  We headed to the center where they had a giant stage set up for performers and a huge fireworks display.  I have video of the fireworks show, which rivaled Disney's nightly fireworks display, and was definitely one for the books.

Matt, Kym, Lydia

Can't believe how quickly 2011 came and went...with 9 months of it spent in Ukraine!  I will hopefully be updating the blog a lot the next week, trying to play catch-up from things that I have yet to blog about that were 3 or 4 months ago...whoops :(  I am in the process of transferring all of my older pics on my laptop to two external hard-drives (to be double backed up! so OCD, I know) at the moment.  I finished A-D tonight, which included over 5000 pics.  Some are from 5 years ago, which make me very excited to have some fresh material to blog about for Way-Back-Wednesday posts.

Here's to the next year of my life in Ukraine.  Happy New Year America and с Новым годом Украина! I have much to be thankful for now and for the past year.  Can't wait to see what the next year holds :)

From the sick bed of Lydia...

I've been in bed since Wednesday evening feeling achy and pretty blah. Sore throat, headaches on and off, no strength.  After my absolutely wonderful trip to Poland, Czech Republic, and Germany, I came back and taught two full days of English clubs on Tuesday and Wednesday.  By the last club on Wednesday evening, I was incredibly weak and wanted to curl up in bed at 6 pm.  I think I went to bed at 9:30 pm and slept for 12 hours that night.  It reminded me of my old studio days; our project would be due on Monday, class was over at 5:30 pm, I was home by 6:00 pm and usually in bed by 7:00 pm (sometimes earlier).  I would then sleep until the next morning around 9 or 10 am (that's around 15 hours of sleep folks).  I can remember the first time Stephanie and Allison (two of my old roomies) witnessed this phenomenon...they thought something was wrong with me!  Nope, just sleep deprived!

I am bummed to be staying in this weekend though because I was supposed to go visit my host family for the first time since training!  What's even better was that my old LCF (Russian teacher) Zhenya is on rotation in Oster (the village I trained in) as well as my TCF (technical teacher) Lyuda.  And, most of the Kozolets group (our link cluster) would be there as well!  But, it just wasn't in the cards.  Instead, I've been in bed watching an embarrassing number of episodes of the Real Housewives of Orange County.  It's a guilty pleasure that makes me feel like I'm back at home in Oklahoma laying in my nice, comfy {big} bed.  

This morning when I woke up and pulled my laptop into bed with me, I opened up facebook to be bombarded with status' about my friends playing and hearing Christmas music back in the states.  As I sat in bed, I began to hear what sounded like caroling music.  At first, I wondered if I was really that sick and my mind was just playing tricks on me.  Then, I just figured my upstairs neighbor was playing their tv a little loud.  When I finally got out of bed, I went to my kitchen to make hot tea and heard the singing very loudly then.  As I looked out my kitchen window, I was quite surprised to see what was before me.  

The caroling that I had been hearing was actually a funeral going on.  I stood in awe as I wondered who had passed away--it was a little old babushka as best as I could tell.  The singing went on for two hours as more and more people placed flowers on their beloved.  This was literally happening in the entrance way to my apartment, and I can only wonder who passed away.  I didn't recognize many of the people at the funeral.  Only two or three other babushkas who sit on the benches and watch as I go to work, always saying something to me in very fast Russian that I can't understand.  Definitely a new experience for me here in Ukraine.  

I hope to take advantage of my time at home this weekend by blogging about some of my traveling experiences.  I am super excited to have my first guest from the states here in Ukraine in just a short time...Mitchell will be making his way over to Eastern Europe come Nov. 20!  Much love, Lyd :)

It's a small world...

I'm home for all of 16 hours on this Sunday before I pack my bags for another trip--this time to Kamianets-Podilskyi which is in the western part of Ukraine.  I left on Friday night at 11:40 pm for Kiev (arriving at 5:40 am on Saturday morning) for an Environmental Working Group meeting which basically occupied most of the day on Saturday.  Had to fit in a run to McDonald's though (duh) and enjoy fries and...get ready for this: a cheeseburger.  I can't believe I ate one either.  It goes against EVERYTHING I am as a human being to eat meat like that.  I honestly don't know when the last time I ate one was (maybe elementary school when Happy Meals had mini-Beanie Babies in them and I had to have every one of them?).

Pause.  As a sidenote to the Beanie Babies story: it cost all of 50 cents more to buy an entire happy meal (with fries and a burger) as opposed to buying just the Beanie Baby itself.  We fed all of our neighbors in the Downs the day that they came out...and our dog, Panda, got to eat fries and hamburgers for what seemed like weeks.  Oh, the craze that was Beanie Babies.  

Anywho, back to McDonald's meat.  Mmm...so, I ate a cheeseburger.  Want to guess what book I'm reading right now also?  The Kind Diet, by Alicia Silverstone.  Want to know what the book is about?  I'm sure I'll have many posts in the future about it, but basically it's her lifestyle change of becoming a vegan and the reasons why our body doesn't actually need meat to survive.  Shocking, I know.  It really is pretty crazy to learn about.  And yes, I ate a cheeseburger after reading about cow farms in America, being fully aware of how the animals are treated and raised on these farms.  I don't think I can become a vegan while I'm in Ukraine (soy products are WAYYYY expensive here and my PC living allowance does not allow for that).  And it's not feasible to say I won't eat meat while I'm here in Ukraine because sometimes you have to eat whatever is placed in front of you.  However, when I cook for myself for the next two years, I want to try to have a more grain-based diet as opposed to one filled with meat (that takes 72 hours to go through our digestive system).  I didn't mean to go off on this tangent, so I'll get back to the title of this blog! :)

Last night (Saturday night) I headed to the Kiev train station around 8:30 pm for my 9:23 pm train.  I found my seat and got my bedding ready when a man came and sat in my compartment with me, letting me know that he had the top bunk above my bottom one.  He was probably in his early 30's and asked if I wanted to go have a smoke break before we left (no, thanks), and it was at that moment that he asked me my name.  I try to avoid talking to people on the trains because I really like to just relax and watch some tv shows on my iphone or read my Kindle.  And sometimes if I know I'll never see a person again, I tell them my name is Anna or something like that.  But, when he asked me my name, Lydia came out before I knew what was going on!  He left to go smoke, came back, and started getting out the shmorgasborg (sp?) of food that he had just bought at the EcoMarket supermarket store.  He had everything from salo (pig fat), to beer, to cucumbers, to cabbage, to tomatoes, to bread, to 2 or 3 different kinds of sausage (mmm), to desserts, and then he pulled out Cognac to top it all off.  Now, for the Americans reading this, this is a totally normal thing to do on a train.  And it is custom that you share the food with your neighbors.  The only thing going through my head at this point was that I was exhausted and wanted to go to sleep and that if he was going to drink Cognac and beer, that I was in for a long night with not much sleep.  I kept reading, waiting for the time when our train would leave, and a few minutes before we were to take off, the other two people in our little "compartment" showed up.  I glanced up from my book and lo and behold I KNEW the person standing there.  Her name is Yana and she is my NEIGHBOR who lives across the hall from me.  I nearly fell out of my seat.  She squealed my name (which is when I was VERY glad I told the man my real name) with delight and we hugged and started talking about our adventures of the day.  She had gone to Kiev for the day with one of her guy friends to go shopping and they had actually been on my train that morning from k-grad.  Such a small, small world.  Yana speaks basically perfect English and I was SO glad to have her company for the rest of the ride home.  We even got to take a taxi back at 4:30 am when our train arrived in k-grad.  If I hadn't been so tired, I would have turned on my laptop and searched for the SOONERS playing Tulsa (since it was only 8:30 pm Central time) but I decided that sleep was more important.

I need to start and finish packing for my train that leaves this evening!  Whoops :)  I will be meeting up with two of my cluster mates (Jamie and Mark--whose birthday is today! Happy birthday Marky Mark!) and 2 of my link-cluster mates (Kym and Maria).  Couldn't be more excited for our reunion at the HIV/AIDS training that we will all be doing.  Happy Sunday :)

Camp Bereg: Beach time

On the third day of Camp Bereg, we finally got to go to the beach :)  we were all incredibly excited (at least the PCVs who were new to camp!--some had been at camp a month) and luckily, Kym (my link cluster-mate from Kozelets!) has a waterproof digital camera.  If I ever live by the water someday, I would definitely invest in one of those...to be able to capture moments in the water is awesome and hysterical at the same time.  She took video of us getting in for the first time and it was SO COLD, but completely worth it.  Your body gets used to it after a while.  This is a compilation of our beach time at Camp Bereg.

It was bound to happen sooner or later..

Well, I missed my train last night. As super embarrassing as it is, it actually couldn't have been at a better time. I wasn't going to a conference or to a meeting where I had to be in that city by a certain time. I was going to Odessa and then further south to Sergiivka where I will be helping out at Camp Bereg. AND, most other cities in Ukraine are sold out of tickets going to Odessa...it's a big hot spot during the summer for vacations. However, with my central location in Kirovograd, a lot of trains come through here on their way south to Odessa. 6 to be exact. I was also pretty lucky because it was a relatively cheap ticket (I think it was 60 or 65 griev...less than $10 USD)...AND, the lady at the ticket counter last night refunded me 25 griev even though my train had already come through.

Here's how the night went down. I thought my train left at 10:25 pm. Nope. It left at 8:25 pm. I misread the ticket (even though I probably checked it about 25 times in the past few days to make sure that it was for the right day and time). The other options for leaving from my city are all after midnight (or even at 2 or 3 in the morning) which is why I chose the "10:25" train. I was planning on leaving my house at 9 pm which would give me PLENTY of time to get there. The city marshrutkas were still running then, but not all of them. So, I ended up taking a marshrutka to the center of town (for 2 griev=25 cents) and then taking a taxi for 20 griev (a little over $3 USD). Oh, and I forgot one little anecdote: it was RAINING. Lovely. I finally got to the train station at 10 pm (after standing in the rain waiting for a marshrutka that would never come). I was ready to crash on my bed on the train. When 10:20 pm rolled around, I stood up and put on my backpack and headed to the doors that lead outside (into the pouring rain). They always announce over the loudspeaker (inveryfastRussianthatisreallyhardtounderstand) the arrival of a train...and it never came. Trains here are notorious for being on time, so I wondered what happened. I eventually asked a lady if she knew about it and she informed me that it was her first time at this train station. Her husband was helpful though and told me that I could go talk to the lady in information.

Upon speaking to her and explaining that I do not speak very good Russian and that I missed my train, she told me to give her my ticket and that was when she refunded me my 25 griev. I kept asking if any of the other trains coming through that night going to Odessa had seats, but she said they were all sold out. I asked when the next train coming through going to Odessa that HAD seats would be and she told me 5:48 am or 8:25 pm. I never remembered seeing a 5:48 am train to Odessa online but I knew the 8:25 would probably have some. I couldn't buy a ticket then though (no cashiers open), so I went home (and found a cheap taxi driver that I will be calling from now on! See, something good happened from this...).

After laughing and talking to a few people about it last night and today, I'm accepting the fact that this was bound to happen sooner or later during my time here. And I really lucked out with when and how it happened. I've been trying to get a picture of my ticket to load, but it won't for some reason, so no pictures today! Sorry folks :)

I went back at 7 am this morning to buy a new ticket...came home...and crashed for 3 more hours of sleep. It was raining and the perfect morning for a little snoozing.

One of the things I'm most excited about going to camp for: my trip to McDonald's by the Odessa train station. I would NEVER eat at McDonald's in the states. Ever. Maybe on a mission trip or choir tour when it was the only place that would house 50-150 rambunctious kids. But even then, I groaned about it because I never wanted to order anything off the menu. Yes, their fries are delicious...but they're HORRIBLE for you. And yes, the McFlurry's are great...but again HORRIBLE for you. I don't care about that stuff now. Because it's like I get to eat a little America, and you can bet that I enjoy every bite of it. Let's just say it's a good thing that Kirovograd doesn't have a McDonald's...because I know i would eat there more than I should. And yes, it is almost weird that k-grad doesn't have a McDonald's because most cities of this size do in Ukraine.

One of my link-cluster mates, Kym (who went on my first Odessa trip), is also going to camp with me tomorrow. Her train get in 3 hours after mine...ha, so I'll be spending 3+ hours sitting in McDonald's basking in free wifi, air-conditioning, and most importantly, feeling a little bit at home :) I can't wait. In the mean time today, I think I will watch a movie or some tv shows...my apartment is clean, my fridge is cleaned out, and I don't know what else to do with the day. I made another batch of zucchini bread (thanks to Catharine's great recipe) to take down to the folks that are already at camp. I'll get to see one of my cluster mates, Jamie, who actually lives in Sergiivka. Good times will be had with Kym and Jamie around--multiple laughing sessions are sure to ensure. But, until then...happy Monday!

Swearing-In: part 2

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.

Jamie and Mark...and Jeff creeping in the background....anxiously awaiting the news!

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... :)

Time to Celebrate!

LPI's (language profficiency interviews) are over and done with! Hooray :) I was the last of our group to do my interview this morning which was fine because it meant I got to do some laundry at my house before that! The past few days have included lots of times for reminiscing (sp? Since I'm on a Russian computer, every word I type is underlined in red so I can't really tell when a word is mispelled!) so I thought I would share some of them.

On a cold Friday in May, a bus filled with other PC trainees stopped in Oster at the aftostantcia (bus station). It was SNOWING...absolutely freezing...and I had about 24980 things to carry. Not really, but it helps the story. I was super jet-lagged still (took me about a week or more to get fully used to this side of the world's time zone difference.) and just wanted to go to sleep (I think we arrived around 5 pm ish?). My host mom and host dad picked me up in a taxi (I'm not sure why, seeing as to how my host family owns a car...maybe because of the snow?). This is what one of the rivers looked like on that day...


Anywho, I sat in the back seat with my host mom and wondered what in the world I was going to say to them that night. I couldn't even ask if they had any kids. We drove for what seemed like a while (in reality, it was less than 3-5 minutes I would guess) and finally stopped. I couldn't see out the windows because they were completely fogged over. We stopped at a big metal gate (guess I should take a picture of that part of my house before I leave!) and started getting my stuff out of the car. My host dad wouldn't let me carry anything, so my host mom quickly shuffled me inside. At that point, two tall, blonde girls came bounding the stairwell and said "hello!" in English. I was ecstatic. I remember eating something that night with my family...don't know what, but it was almost immediate upon arriving. My older host sister, Katya, who speaks English very well, showed me where I would be staying, where I could put my stuff, shower, etc. All that I wanted to do was go to sleep...and if my memory serves me correct, I slept for at least 12 hours that night.

The next morning, all of our host families took us to our teacher's apartment (since we had NO clue where we were going...) for our first Oster cluster group meeting. I remember where everyone sat that day in our classroom. Those became "our seats" for quite some time until we rearranged the room. That mornings meeting was to go over all sorts of cultural integration steps that we might need to know when living with a host family. However, the biggest thing that stuck out to me was that I was dying of thirst. Our teacher, Zhenya, had just made tea. It hadn't occurred to me until that point that I would no longer be able to get water straight from the tap, for two years. Wow.

I guess I never showed y'all what my house on the inside looks like...whoops. I took these pictures a very long time ago, but it just slipped my mind that I never posted them. I think they're on facebook...but I know everyone doesn't use that. So, enjoy!

Part of my living room/dining room. We've eaten at the dining room table for Easter...and that's it. Just like the U.S.!

The other half of the living room!

This is the laundry room where our clothes get hung up to dry! And my suitcases that I don't need are stored in here...

This is the upstairs bathroom! There is a half bath downstairs which is where we brush our teeth.

My bedroom! I believe this used to be my older host sisters room (who is now married and lives in Kiev).



The door into my room is on the left, and the door with the clothes hanging on it leads out to a balcony which is where we hang our clothes to dry in the summer!

In other news, I started watching Glee Season 2 last night. Just watched the Britney episode today. I was a die-hard Glee fan the first season or so, but then I became busy and never got a chance to watch all of the shows I had DVRed. BUT, rest assured, now I can watch them :) There were some pretty epic Sue Sylvester quotes in these two episodes. However, I'm too lazy to look them up online.

Today for lunch, Mark, Cassi, and I hit up the pizzeria here in Oster (one of the two or three restaurants we're aware of...). On my pizza, I had chicken, pineapple, black olives, and tomatoes, which I'm still trying to learn how to eat. It's a texture thing...we'll see if I ever like them.

The last thing I'll leave you with is my SDL :) enjoy it!

Let the countdown begin...

Really, the countdown has already begun. Last week (I think) Cassi made a paper chain out of some of our old posters for class...one for each of the days until we leave Oster. I keep meaning to take a picture of it, but also keep forgetting and it is definitely getting shorter as Monday approaches!

This morning I had to be up at 6 am (don't worry, the sun rises at 4:30 or something like that here in Ukraine during the summer...so I was already semi-awake) to get ready to go say thank you to the city administration in Kozelets. Our bus left at 7:30 am which made us arrive in Kozelets a good 30 minutes early. After many formal thank you's (in Russian and Ukrainian...the Kozelets group is learning Ukrainian...which makes communicating with each other in our new languages INCREDIBLY difficult), we had our FINAL technical session debriefing with Lyuda (tech. teacher). Sad day! But also exciting because it means we're that much closer.

We have our FINAL RUSSIAN LESSON today! If I could make that font any bigger I most definitely would because there have definitely been times in the past 3 months when I thought that day would never come. Half of today's class is going to be spent presenting our SDL's (self-directed learning projects) that we were supposed to have been working on the entire time of pre-service training. Most of us (or maybe all of us?) may or may not have done over half of the work last night or the past few days. Don't worry, our teacher is fully aware of this :) I worked on my SDL every week for the first month...but then we became busy teaching and planning lessons and community projects...and it was basically put on hold for 2 months. However, I am quite excited to show you my SDL...which is a video slideshow with Russian explanations of each picture...with some amazing Russian/Ukrainian (not really sure) pop music. My host sister helped me with the final Russian grammatical errors that I needed correcting last night...and she definitely like it. I will hopefully be able to post it tomorrow.

TOMORROW...is our LPI (Language Profficiency Interview!). In case you haven't figured it out, PC has a bajillion abbreviations that for the first few weeks of being a PCT (peace corps trainee ha) made me want to pull out my hair. However, you get used to them and I find us using them in our everyday life. If my memory serves me right, there was even a packet given to us at one point early on that had all of the abbreviations we would need. It's ridiculously long, take my word for it. Our LPI is from 10-noon tomorrow morning. EEK. For 20-25 minutes, each of us will be tested on our language skills, all verbal. The person giving the test will ask open ended questions that I have to be able to think quickly of an answer in Russian and be able to talk about. I will basically be talking the entire time...which is quite overwhelming to think about. There are different levels that we will be ranked, but the one that they tell us to shoot for is intermediate-mid. We'll see once we get to Kiev what profficiency I am! Wish me luck!

On Friday, our cluster is headed to Chernihiv to hopefully be able to do a few of the touristy things there. There is an old, old church that we want to visit, and equally old caves underneath the church. (Trivia time. What movie is the following quote from? "Who wants to go down the creepy tunnel inside the tomb first!?") Not sure what else will be on the agenda for Friday, but it will definitely be a day of celebrating and spending time together!

Saturday is our host family goodbye picnic. We are going to the Desna and maybe cooking out/having a potluck. Details are still being decided. You can bet that that post will come with pictures :)

Sunday is our last day here in Oster. There are a lot of things that I've meant to take pictures of the whole time I've been here, but I also try not to be the American tourist. For instance, every Saturday and Sunday morning, people line up outside the milk factory that is just up the road from my house. It is fascinating to see how many people will wait there...easily 20-30 each time. Is the milk/butter/whatever else they sell really that good? I also wonder why they get there so early...in my (American) head, if it's a dairy factory, they're not going to run out of products. Maybe when my Russian matures I will be able to ask my host family about this when I come back and visit.

Besides the LPI, the other thing on my mind right now is PACKING. AGAIN. I don't have Mitchell here to help me this time...however, Jamie and I did go buy big babushka bags (McFarlin people think Mexico mesh-y bags that you buy in Nuevo Progresso) at the bazaar on Sunday. We have about 15 pounds of Russian & Ukrainian books that we have to find room for, in addition to a medical kit. I also don't plan on using all of my space saving bags quite to the extreme like I did on the way over here. AND, once we leave Kiev on next Thursday, we will also be given a fire extinguisher, carbon dioxide and smoke detector, and a space heater that will load the bus or train with us when we depart for site! Luckily, our counterpart (the person who will be our contact at site) will be assisting us with all of our luggage. Mine will probably faint when they see how much I have :)

Okay...need to go to my LAST RUSSIAN CLASS!!!! YIPPEEEEEE :) Happy Wednesday!

A post because I can...

It was a good Saturday here in Oster. We had our last session with our link cluster (Kozelets). Today's technical session was on what our workload is supposed to look like when we get to site (10ish days!) and how we have to learn how to say no to doing things once we get there. We each had to do a little mini-presentation of this speech that we've been trying to memorize since week 1. It tells who we are, where we came from, what we studied in college, that we work for PC, what PC is, what we have done during pre-service training (teaching and assisting, etc.). All in all it's probably 25 sentences...which is a lot to memorize in any language...let alone a foreign language! But, we've all got it more or less memorized...which will come in very handy when we meet our counterparts for the first time on June 14 and they more than likely will not speak any English.

This is a little preview of the requirements of PC when we get to site:
-1 hour of class observation every day for the first semester
-3 hours of misc. activities in a school, daily
-2 hours per week assisting an English teacher
-3 different extracurricular activities regularly each week

Seeing those numbers down on paper for the first time today was good. I like having a routine...and I learned this past week how much I depend on a routine to make my life better and easier. Because we had summer camp Monday-Thursday, we had Russian language classes in the afternoon. It was just a jumble of not normal meeting times for me...and I completely forgot about my individual tutoring on Tuesday morning...even though I talked about it the night before. I was even awake plenty early Tuesday morning to get ready and go to tutoring...but it just slipped my mind because things were so out of the norm. I'm trying to adjust to this...but it's definitely hard for Lydia's OCD brain.

As pre-service training is coming to an end and we are all trying to cram as much Russian in our brains as can possibly fit, we also have to finish our SDL (self-directed learning) projects. This was something that we were supposed to have been working on all of pre-service training...but in reality it got put on the back-burner for the past few weeks. Since it is due sometime this week, I decided to work on it some today. I am making a picture slideshow of my time during pre-service training with Russian blurbs on each picture. Now all I needed were a few Russian/Ukrainian tunes to go with the slideshow. Cue music video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC7sE-lhVLg

This song gets blasted ALL around Oster. It is so catchy and upbeat that it was instantly the only song we have really been able to recognize. I've been dying to learn it and put it in the video slideshow...and I was finally successful today! Oora (That's Russian for hooray)! I told my host sister how excited I was about it and she of course died laughing at me. All of the kids here LOVE Lady Gaga and it then occurred to me to show my host sister a few of the music videos from Glee. She liked them and was quite intriqued by the idea of it! Sold :) another person addicted. One of my students actually asked me the other day if I listened to Lady Gaga and I said yes. She then asked me what Judas was...I explained that it's a name. At that point, I had no idea that was Lady Gaga's new song out right now...I am COMPLETELY out of the loop on what songs and movies are coming out. Feel free to let me know if there are new songs or movies that I need to download.

I read a book today on my Kindle (can I just say again how absolutely fantastic that machine is). It's called "Heaven is for Real," can't remember who it's by. I had seen it listed before but hadn't downloaded it...but one of my dear and sweet friends Britney told me it was worth downloading. Definitely a quick and uplifting read. It reminded me of the book 90 Minutes in Heaven...also a good one to download (or actually purchase a real copy of, ha).

I'll end with something I figure people might find interesting. Money. Money here in Ukraine is given to us by PC in a bank account each month. We have to travel to a big city to use an ATM (in Russian, bankomat) to get the money out using a debit card. We have a few ATM's here in Oster but it's not suggested that you use them. We give our host family's a monthly allowance for the meals that we receive in addition to the utilities that we use while living with them. It will be so different when we get to site and are completely in charge of our own bills, our own meals, etc. For pre-service training we receive what's called a "walking around allowance" that is for the purchasing of water and other misc. things we might need (a snack, school supplies, etc.) . I think that we get 15 grievnas a day...which is just over $2.00 USD. I can buy a large bottle of water (1.5 liters) for a little over 5 grievnas...just as something to judge by. If I buy a bag of cookies (enough to last my family for 3-4 days)...that might cost around 8 grievna. Just fyi! For lunches (which we as PCVs are in charge of) we receive 15 grievnas. Some clusters have been able to eat at their school cafeteria each day, other clusters eat on their own, while our cluster decided to pool our money together and get sandwich stuff for the week. We each chip in 50 grievnas every week or so to purchase meat, cheese, bread, chips (I would like to think that I contributed to the fact that everyone in my group now eats chips on their sandwiches like little kids...pretty amazing), cookies, coffee, tea, and sugar that is all communal food until we run out. If we want some yogurt or fruit, we each buy that ourselves (a banana or an apple usually costs around 3 grievnas, aka around 40 cents maybe). We also receive a travel allowance each month (not sure if we still will get that when we go to site). I think it was around 90 grievnas this past month...which is supposed to equate for our trips to Kozelets for technical training sessions, a trip to Kiev or Chernihiv, etc. A few prices to note for bus tickets:

one-way bus ticket to Kiev: around 20 grievnas (less than $3.00)...maybe 2 hours?
one-way bus ticket to Kozelets: around 5 grievnas (less than $1.00)...30 minutes
one-way bus ticket to Chernihiv: around 27 grievnas (less than $4.00)...around 2 hours as well

Chernihiv has a very good inner-city bus transit system. I think it costs around 2 grievnas (maybe a quarter USD?) to take a bus around town, and they are constantly going. Kiev has a metro system which I have only navigated once and was still completely overwhelmed by. It also cost 2 grievnas I think.

The exchange rate for the dollar to the grievna is usually around $1.00 (USD) for $7.95 (UAH-aka, grievna). I have exchanged money here in Oster at one of the banks which was a good cross-cultural thing to check off of my list. I think I've talked enough now so I'll go ahead and submit. Enjoy your weekend! Relax a little :) love love.

Oster Summer Camp continued...

Since I was lazy yesterday and didn't want to upload pics from my camera, here are the pictures from our 4th and final day of Oster Summer Camp at the gymnasia.

Jamie and I teaching his lesson on being active during the summer.

Me with our technical teacher Lyuda

Game time! Make yourself a mummy...

Sack race time...

and leap frog! Mark and Jamie...

The Oster cluster with our TCF (Techinal teacher). L to R: Mark, Brendan, Lyuda, Cassi, Lydia, Jamie

Me with some of the 7th grade girls. So cute :)

The Gymnasia teachers (Lydia, Brendan, and Jamie) with the 7a class. Can you find Cassi and Mark too?

In other news, there are only 3 days of Russian language class left for us. That is mind boggling...and I don't think my brain could handle much more Russian at this point. The Peace Corps really knows how to run these language programs...and 3 months is about the limit that my brain can hold information wise. We had a visit today with a person from the PC Ukraine office telling us about our last week here in Oster and the tests that we have to do, saying goodbye to people, packing up, departure, and then what all will be happening at the swearing-in retreat in Kiev (June 13-16). It all really hit home for the first time that come June 16, I will be completely alone in a city knowing no one...and not speaking the native language. It's not like this was news to me, it simply sunk in that I really need to enjoy these last 10 days with my cluster here in Oster. We have been pretty blessed to have a supportive group of 5 complete strangers that more or less get along everyday and actually enjoy being with each other. I know some people's experiences during pre-service training can be pretty miserable if you don't like your group members (keep in mind you're with these people a minimum of 5 or 6 hours every DAY for THREE months). Enough being sappy now...

Tomorrow is our last cross-cultural session with our link cluster, Kozelets! Weird. They will be coming to Oster. Oh, and to answer a few of the questions my brother always asks about in the comments spot:

1) yes, English shirts are everywhere here. So are belt buckles. I actually had a student come up to me at the kid's protection day in the park on Wednesday and ask me what her shirt said... it made NO sense at all in English.

2) It is advised that PCVs here in Ukraine do not drink the water. It is suggested that you filter it and then boil it (or vice versa...can't remember). My host family drinks filtered water at home, but I have 2 or 3 pitchers of water that my amazing host mom keeps full all the time of my special boiled water. The large bottles of water that you see in the pictures cost around 5.5 grieven which is maybe 75 or 80 cents? However, that adds up rather quickly. They do not recycle the bottles in small cities (like Oster). I have seen recycling bins in Kiev I think. However, bottles get reused for other purposes (other than water). For instance, my host dad made homemade rootbeer the other day (he saw the recipe for it in the newspaper and tore it out...and made it later that day in a GIANT pot. wish I liked root beer to try it...) and had saved up 5 or 6 big water bottles to put it in. People also keep water bottles to store water in for when the water goes off without you knowing it's going to be shut off. That leads me to a third point...

3) It is garden time right now in Ukraine. My neighbor (who is probably in his late 50s or early 60s) gardens all day long. I know that some of my cluster mates host families do the same. My host family has cucumbers in their garden, onion, and I think tomatoes (sidenote: we now have a salad every night that consists of cucumber, tomatoes, green onion, and maybe dill? with salt and vegetable oil. I like the cucumbers...but it's still hard for me to eat the tomatoes...especially when they're dripping in oil.). But, with all of the gardening being done, it means that water is being used around the clock to water these intense gardens. At Jamie and Brendan's houses, from 5 or 6 pm until 11 or 12 at night, they may not have any running water at their houses because everyone is using water to garden. I know that Cassi sometimes has issues with water pressure as well at her house in the evening. So, there's something to chew on.

4) I have switched from drinking tea to coffee now. I usually have one cup in the morning (instant...they don't have coffee makers here) with two small spoons of sugar. And if I'm feeling super beat in the afternoon and we have 3 or 4 hours of language, I might have another cup then. However, our classroom gets the afternoon sun in it and is INCREDIBLY hot during that time of day. My bedroom at home also gets the afternoon sun...and my great host family surprised me by putting up a new piece of fabric that must block light in some way because when I came home today and saw it in my bedroom...my room was at least 10-20 degrees cooler. Amazing :)

5) Gonna go ahead and hit publish post. Happy Friday and happy weekend! Thinking and praying for the JUNERS group as they head to Chicago for 2 weeks. Sad I'm not with y'all!