A real blog entry!

Okay, so here is an actual blog entry. I know I've been really really bad about updating, but there have been a few obstacles. One- this is the first time in ten days I've been to the internet. And two- my magical plan to write blog entries on my computer and bring them to the internet has failed because a. I don't have the right plug adapter, and b. the internet cafe won't open my word document.

Now that that's all out of the way-- Ukraine is amazing.

I am currently living in a small farming village of 2250 people. I live with a host mom, Liubov, host dad, Andrey, and fourteen year old host sister, Alina. My house is really nice. Hot water (big plus,) indoor toilet (even bigger plus.) My parents are potato farmers and also distill moonshine and sell soft serve ice cream. We have a car, but rarely use it. Yesterday my Dad came home with a flat screen TV- his reward to himself for finishing the potato harvest.

There are four other Peace Corps Trainees in my town- Josef, Garrard, Gretchen, and Tara. We are all 22 and graduates of the class of 2007. We are the first PC volunteers ever to live in the community and the first real life Americans many of our younger students have encountered. Our town has one school, two cafe/bars, three stores, and a "Cultural Palace." The cultural palace hosts different events, including a discoteque on Friday nights. I went last week with my sister and her friend. The other volunteers were also present with host siblings. The music was a solid mix of angry Ukrainian rock we didn't understand, techno, and American hip-hop.

We have language classes four to five hours a day, plus field trips and other projects. Our language skills are coming along. We know a few useful verbs in the past, present, and future- go, eat, drink, sleep, work, walk, run- and a good number of nouns. The hardest part so far has been the different cases and pronouns. I feel like I communicate pretty well with my family, although at times I realize we are talking about two completely different subjects. They know a few English words here and there, but after two and a half weeks in the village I think my Ukrainian skills are almost equal to their English skills.

When we are not in language classes ourselves, we are at the local school. For the past two weeks we have been observing English classes, and I actually taught my first English class yesterday morning. It was a seventh form (grade) class and they are learning about different forms of communication. I taught the lesson on cell phones. Overall it went really well. It was a little too short and the students didn't quite understand what I meant when I said they could start their homework early. This coming week I am teaching three or four lessons in both the third and seventh form.

Apart from language classes, teaching, and the discoteque we don't really have any freetime at all. We have decided to give ourselves Friday nights off, and spent last night watching "Shrek" in Ukrainian. Tomorrow we are taking a class field trip to Kiev to practice city and travel vocabulary and be tourists. I am really looking forward to the trip and have one big plan- to buy peanut butter. Duzje smachno (very delicious!)

Speaking of food- I am doing alright with it. I don't particularly care for the meat (no surprise there based on my eating habits at home) but have plenty of vegetables, fruit, bread, cereal, yogurt, soup, macaroni, and my favorite, potatoes. I drink coffee every morning, Capri Sun at the cafe for lunch, and bottled water the rest of the time. I've tried a few Ukrainian "pivos" (beers), some wine, and one vodka shot with the host parents which I really did not enjoy.

Next week we will have our site interviews. This is our chance to voice any preferences about our location for the next two years. Peace Corps told us that they try to honor one request for each volunteer, such as population of their town, language (Russian or Ukrainian,) Internet, proximity to other volunteers, etc. I honestly have no idea what, if anything, I will request. We will know our permanent site on November 13th.

I bought a cell phone. I honestly don't know exactly how to dial the number from the United States but as far as I know the Ukraine country code is 380, and my number is 677452365. The best times to call me are after 6 pm (11 am East Coast time) Mon-Fri and anytime Saturday or Sunday. I'm not sure if I have voicemail or how to set it up if I do, but I'll work on it!

How's everything going in Lexington, Boston, Phoenix, Virginia, Maryland, DC, etc?

Love and miss you all!