Saturday, January 06, 2007

Move to site

Hey all! I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I can’t say I really celebrated either this year, so I’m going to have to party twice as much next year.  As of December 22nd, I am now officially a Peace Corps Volunteer again. We had our swearing-in ceremony in Kyiv on the 22nd. All of our coordinators from all corners of the country came the day before for a day of orientations. We all sat together for the ceremony, listening to the director of Peace Corps Ukraine and the U.S. ambassador talk. Some of the host families came as well, including mine! It was hard to say goodbye to them after the ceremony, but not as hard as I thought. I know I will be seeing them again many times over the next two years.
December 23 we moved to our new sites. We almost missed our train though! We left three hours early from our training site, but apparently there had been a big accident on the one main road leading into Kyiv a few hours before, and the traffic was really backed up. We literally had to run to catch the train! And this with 6 big pieces of luggage! (I came with only two bags and a backpack. I swear Peace Corps gave us SO much stuff! 3ft tall heater, fire extinguisher, BOOKS!) Thankfully we had porters at the train station ready and waiting, and they did most of the heavy lifting for us. 
Christmas Day was a normal Monday morning at work here, so off I went to school! There were a lot of things that I needed to work out at my school. (Which classes I’ll be teaching, when they’ll meet, how many hours I’ll have, etc.) I also got to go visit my future house again. Yay! I’m so excited about it. Peace Corps has a list of things that must be provided by either the landlady or the school (rented places usually come furnished anyway – they just want to make sure I have the essentials such as a bed, wardrobe, desk, chair, etc.). My school really is being SO accommodating, and said they’d get everything ready for me.
New Years is the biggest celebration of the year in Ukraine, but I have to admit, I didn’t really catch all of it. My host sister is out of town visiting her grandmother during the school holiday, so it was just me and my host mom. Her boyfriend came over though, and I was so incredibly tired that I fell asleep at 10:30! I groggily woke up when I heard fireworks around 1am, but I completely missed the celebration. Haha, that’s what I get for listening to and trying to talk Russian all the time. It drains you like nothing else!
But anyway, like I said, I’ll just have to make up for it next year. Next year I’ll be able to travel for the holidays, and who knows where I’ll end up. A friend of mine serving in the Peace Corps in Bulgaria now went to Turkey for Christmas! Hmm…ideas….
I begin teaching on Tuesday this coming week. I’ve been working like crazy since I’ve arrived here, going over the books and the national curriculum to see where in the yearly schedule I can fit in all these ideas for lessons and projects. I’ve pretty much got things sorted out, more or less. I’ve planned the first unit for each of my classes already, and have most of my lessons worked out as well. I feel like such a workaholic (thanks for the genes, dad!), but it’s kind of fun too. The ideas that I have for them are simple projects that we take for granted in America (such as partner work, writing letters or journals, acting out skits). But mostly what they do here is read a text, then translate it, and answer questions. It will take some work on my part to convince both the teachers and the students that yes, they can learn language the way I’d like to teach them. I’ve been trying to tell the teachers that I will “trick” the students into learning how to speak English. The students will think they’re having fun, but really they’re learning and speaking English! We’ll see how it goes.
One of the main problems here is that the schools just don’t have access to any good textbooks. Any “native” books (aka ESL books that are actually published in England or America) are incredibly expensive here. I may start a list on amazon.com or something with ESL books that my school would appreciate (hint, hint, hint). Or I may write a grant to set up a resource center! The possibilities are endless….
I hope you all are doing well. Thanks for the emails and letters! P.S. I don’t want to post my address on this blog, but if you would like my new P.O. box address, email me! Mail and packages should not be sent to the Peace Corps office anymore, but rather to my P.O. box. Thanks to all those who have sent things! I can’t tell you how much it means to me!