I feel like it's been a really long time since I wrote here, but it's only been a few weeks! SO much has happened between then and now that I can't remember it all. On Monday, the 13th, I went to Kiev for 4 days of official meetings and introductions, but also had dinners with old friends whom I had met in Washington when I first started on this crazy journey back in March. The strangest thing is the feeling that the past 12 weeks of training happened to someone else. I cannot explain this, but as difficult as it was, I am experiencing it from another point of view now. Weird.
Which brings me to the present.
I am living in a good sized city of 70,000 people, in a place called Novomoskovsk, which is eastern Ukraine...but not too far east. The city is just outside an even bigger city with millions of people! We arrived here the morning of the 17th at 7am with no fuss at all. Everything went as scheduled. The Peace Corps are pros, I can tell you. They have to ship 105 people with tons of baggage (at least 3 big bags each plus another humongous bag with a space heater, fire extinguisher, and a new smoke detector). Incredible. SO, we got on our train and in our sleeping compartment. We decided to leave all the bags on the lower berths and sleep in the upper ones. I felt like I was in an old movie! It was very comfortable and I slept okay. It took 8 hours to get here from Kiev but of course it seemed very fast because I slept through most if.
We came immediately to my apartment to drop everything off. A colleague of Katya's (and now mine, of course) had her husband pick us up. The apartment has 2 good sized rooms…very old but serviceable. I am trying to have some more outlets put in because there is only one. There was nothing in the apartment so my school had to buy me some towels and bedding, glasses and cups and silverware and stuff like that. I still need to purchase an iron and other essentials. The PC gives you a resettling allowance but this will not cover everything I need.
I have hot and cold running water…Bonus! There is a DSL line coming into the apartment which means I can soon have internet access…Double bonus!
My counterpart is named Katya and she is wonderful. She is an English teacher and also the assistant director at the Lyceum where I will be teaching. Her father is the director of the local arts school, which I visited the other day. We will be planning some future project there this fall, and I can hardly wait! Katia and I hit it off right away and I hope we become good friends as well as colleagues. The Lyceum is a private school for advanced students. They specialize in mathematics, languages and engineering. I am teaching 8-11th grade, with very small classes. This week I worked everyday. I met the students and did a few fun activities, but no actual lessons. The students were so excited for my coming they wanted to attend classes...in the summer! I can't see this happening in the States. So, my schedule is made up of 9 classes, which will be meeting 2x a week starting in the fall. 18 hours a week doesn't seem like much but there is a lot of planning involved. I am also working on formulating an art club and an English club. It turns out many of my students are musicians and love art!
When I first came to the Lyceum, many of the teachers were in their office and I was welcomed like family. Everyone was so incredibly warm and welcome and really excited that I was here. The director herself came down to meet me and came up and embraced me and told me how happy she was that I was here. As a matter of fact, she has sought me out everyday this week to give me a warm welcome and a hug. I never expected this kind of welcome. Ukrainians are said to be warm and open but only when you know them for a long time…which is pretty much what I have experienced up until today.
The lyceum is small and has (I think) 180 students. I will get to know most of them, I expect. They have a small computer lab...this was such a surprise because they had nothing of the sort in the last little town I was teaching in. I have access to laptops and film projectors too. This school is not so rich but it has a lot more than I expected. I am really pleasantly surprised. It's clean and cool inside and it is wired for internet and I am excited about this too.
The city is really great. It has that small city/big town feel. This is a University town, so it has many little shops and cafes. I am very much reminded of the Brown/RISD section of Providence. There are lots of tree-lined streets but also a good sized shopping district. Our city center has a Russian Mig Jet sculpture. Authentic! Like the tanks in all the little towns I visited while in training, this serves as a reminder of the once powerful might of the Soviet Empire. There are also many statues of Lenin here in Ukraine…my balcony overlooks Lenin Square, which boasts one such statue that stands about 30 feet high!
I live in the city center so everything is in walking distance. School is a 3 minute walk, my counterpart lives perhaps 5 minutes away, and all the shops are all around me. I can hardly believe how lucky I am to have landed in this wonderful place. When you are preparing to go into the Peace Corps, you expect to live in so-so conditions…some down-right primitive. I feel right at home here. The hardest thing I have to do is wash all my laundry by hand, and even that I have gotten used to. I love it here…I have everything I need (except spaghetti sauce) and there is also a pool in my city! (Can you believe this?) I have to take a bus to get there but I don’t care. I am hoping it won't be too expensive.
So, this is my situation at the moment. Living and working in Ukraine is a bit of okay for me now.
Which brings me to the present.
I am living in a good sized city of 70,000 people, in a place called Novomoskovsk, which is eastern Ukraine...but not too far east. The city is just outside an even bigger city with millions of people! We arrived here the morning of the 17th at 7am with no fuss at all. Everything went as scheduled. The Peace Corps are pros, I can tell you. They have to ship 105 people with tons of baggage (at least 3 big bags each plus another humongous bag with a space heater, fire extinguisher, and a new smoke detector). Incredible. SO, we got on our train and in our sleeping compartment. We decided to leave all the bags on the lower berths and sleep in the upper ones. I felt like I was in an old movie! It was very comfortable and I slept okay. It took 8 hours to get here from Kiev but of course it seemed very fast because I slept through most if.
We came immediately to my apartment to drop everything off. A colleague of Katya's (and now mine, of course) had her husband pick us up. The apartment has 2 good sized rooms…very old but serviceable. I am trying to have some more outlets put in because there is only one. There was nothing in the apartment so my school had to buy me some towels and bedding, glasses and cups and silverware and stuff like that. I still need to purchase an iron and other essentials. The PC gives you a resettling allowance but this will not cover everything I need.
I have hot and cold running water…Bonus! There is a DSL line coming into the apartment which means I can soon have internet access…Double bonus!
My counterpart is named Katya and she is wonderful. She is an English teacher and also the assistant director at the Lyceum where I will be teaching. Her father is the director of the local arts school, which I visited the other day. We will be planning some future project there this fall, and I can hardly wait! Katia and I hit it off right away and I hope we become good friends as well as colleagues. The Lyceum is a private school for advanced students. They specialize in mathematics, languages and engineering. I am teaching 8-11th grade, with very small classes. This week I worked everyday. I met the students and did a few fun activities, but no actual lessons. The students were so excited for my coming they wanted to attend classes...in the summer! I can't see this happening in the States. So, my schedule is made up of 9 classes, which will be meeting 2x a week starting in the fall. 18 hours a week doesn't seem like much but there is a lot of planning involved. I am also working on formulating an art club and an English club. It turns out many of my students are musicians and love art!
When I first came to the Lyceum, many of the teachers were in their office and I was welcomed like family. Everyone was so incredibly warm and welcome and really excited that I was here. The director herself came down to meet me and came up and embraced me and told me how happy she was that I was here. As a matter of fact, she has sought me out everyday this week to give me a warm welcome and a hug. I never expected this kind of welcome. Ukrainians are said to be warm and open but only when you know them for a long time…which is pretty much what I have experienced up until today.
The lyceum is small and has (I think) 180 students. I will get to know most of them, I expect. They have a small computer lab...this was such a surprise because they had nothing of the sort in the last little town I was teaching in. I have access to laptops and film projectors too. This school is not so rich but it has a lot more than I expected. I am really pleasantly surprised. It's clean and cool inside and it is wired for internet and I am excited about this too.
The city is really great. It has that small city/big town feel. This is a University town, so it has many little shops and cafes. I am very much reminded of the Brown/RISD section of Providence. There are lots of tree-lined streets but also a good sized shopping district. Our city center has a Russian Mig Jet sculpture. Authentic! Like the tanks in all the little towns I visited while in training, this serves as a reminder of the once powerful might of the Soviet Empire. There are also many statues of Lenin here in Ukraine…my balcony overlooks Lenin Square, which boasts one such statue that stands about 30 feet high!
I live in the city center so everything is in walking distance. School is a 3 minute walk, my counterpart lives perhaps 5 minutes away, and all the shops are all around me. I can hardly believe how lucky I am to have landed in this wonderful place. When you are preparing to go into the Peace Corps, you expect to live in so-so conditions…some down-right primitive. I feel right at home here. The hardest thing I have to do is wash all my laundry by hand, and even that I have gotten used to. I love it here…I have everything I need (except spaghetti sauce) and there is also a pool in my city! (Can you believe this?) I have to take a bus to get there but I don’t care. I am hoping it won't be too expensive.
So, this is my situation at the moment. Living and working in Ukraine is a bit of okay for me now.
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