Hey Everyone!

It’s my second day of PST (Pre-service Training) and I’m pretty excited!

It’s been a hectic few days. After we left JFK we got to Frankfurt at a ridiculous time, like 5 a.m. local time. After sitting around the airport for four hours, we had to check in with our boarding pass then take a bus out to the plane. Odd. Anyway, the flight to Kiev wasn’t bad and frankly, more comfortable than the one to Frankfurt.

When we got off the plane there was definitely a noticeable difference between Ukraine and America, but the people were friendly and helpful. I lost my sleeping bag somewhere between JFK and Kiev and suspect someone in baggage handling in New York swiped it. But the Kiev airport was very helpful in trying to find it, and if it doesn’t show up they’ll probably reimburse me $40. I hope.

So I barely slept on the flight and finally nodded off on the two-hour bus ride to the retreat center outside Kiev. Because of that, I can’t tell you about what the rest of the place looked like. Though from the sky it looks like they have a lot of farms and forests. The retreat center is somewhere out in the woods. It’s made up of a few buildings, built by the Soviets. The buildings are a bit run down, and the bathroom would scare Nuala off in a heartbeat. Still everything works, the beds are super comfy and there’s hot water! I never thought I’d see it again, so that was a pleasant surprise. It’s kind of like upscale camping.

After we got settled in, we had a welcome dinner with traditional Ukrainian bread breaking. It was this big ol loaf that was very pretty, decorated in bread flowers and all. It looked like a cake. Anyway, you tear off a piece and then dip it in salt to eat it. Tasty! They had dinner for us, and i got a little piece of paper to tell the servers I’m vegetarian. Dinner was good, a lot of potatoes for sure but mine was tasty (potatoes with onion and cheese with an egg on the side). I feel like I’ve eaten so much! No wonder everyone gains weight.

I turned in shortly after dinner. My roommate and I took turns in the shower, which is like a raised platform with a drain and a shower head you hold up. We didn’t have a lot of water pressure but it was enough to clean off. I skipped doing my hair and it’s managing alright.

This morning we had meetings about Peace Corps policies and procedures, and then went to language class. For some reason I was stuck in group O with a bunch of girls that took Russian or Slavic languages before. :( It was really stressful to do the lesson since I hadn’t learned the alphabet yet and EVERYTHING we had to say was written out on a piece of paper. I finally came up with a way to do it by writing out the pronunciation in English before she called on me to ask a question. I was also signed up to take a proficiency test, which I didn’t understand since I was pretty clear on all my forms and emails my Russian was very poor. After language was another big group meeting and then lunch. I talked with another girl, Katy, who just completed her first year here as a volunteer with her husband. It was very reassuring to hear her speak at the big group meeting and getting to talk to her at lunch. She answered a bunch of questions that so far PC hasn’t answered and it certainly made me feel better to know that things will be OK.

So, everything in Ukraine is done on military time, at least all the formal paperwork like schedules. And I, in my early morning haze, wrote down that my proficiency test was at 4:30 instead of 14:30. So I missed my test! I knocked a few times on the door but since no one answered I had to hang around. I actually started to doze off in the hallway when another woman came up to the room and got the door open! My tester had been in her office area and hadn’t heard me knocking. Anyway we sat down for the test, which I promptly failed.

She asked me some questions in Russian, like, Where are you from? Where are you from in America? Who is in your family? What do your parents do? etc. I fumbled my way through it before she finally stopped and started explaining how my group was the ones for people with a Russian background. I told her I didn’t have a Russian background and she was very surprised and sorry. I explained that all I’d done for Russian was listen to audio lessons and thought that I had made it clear on all my forms that my Russian was tragic. She said she would speak with the training coordinator and that I’d probably be moved to another group more on my level. After that, I went back to my room and took a nap, sleeping through the coffee break on the schedule. I got up around 5 p.m. because my roommate’s language teacher came by to drop something off for her and woke both of us up. :( He seemed pretty insistent that we go to coffee so I pulled on my boots and headed out. Coffee was just that—coffee. But it did come with delicious marshmallow cookies. On my way to the cafeteria though, the proficiency tester stopped me and said I’d be moved to group G and that I’d be in a metro area with six other groups. So there will be about 30 volunteers in this area!

Let’s see, what else. I bought a bar of soap as I’ve run out of stuff to clean my smellly self with. Welp I’m off to dinner or something so I’ll come back to this later!

OK back now. We just found out our cluster groups. I’ll be going to a city about two hours away from Kiev called Chenov—-something. I don’t remember rightly. But it’s not Chernobel, so don’t worry. Chernihiv! Sorry just figured out what it is. Anyway, it’s a city in Eastern Ukraine about two hours from Kiev. Other volunteer groups will be there too in the region (called an Oblestk). I’ll be there for the next 10 weeks, living in the city with a host family while i finish my pre-service training. My language teacher says that she’ll be taking us to get cell phones soon so I’ll try and get that ball rolling this week.

I’m nervous about meeting my host family tomorrow. :( I hope I like them and vice versa. And that I can figure out Russian! It’s pretty hard. Katy, the volunteer who lives here, said that this would be the only host family we’d live with. After that we’d have our own place! Whoo hoo! She’s been trying to get internet in her place and I think they’re just finally getting it now. But all the apartments have phone lines, so you can use the cell phones as dial up modems. Not the best, but hey, it’s worth it to get an email.

Oh another note, my visa to work here expires December 25, 2011, so I’ll be home sooner than I originally thought. Unless I take some time to travel. But that’s way off. For now, got to focus on just learning Russian!

Whoo just took a shower in Ukraine and washed my hair for the first time. There’s no water pressure (somehow our faucet is spewing out water at the same time as the shower head :( ) so it was a bit tricky but when you really want clean hair you’ll do whatever. Wow is this a long email or what? I’ll have to take  a few pictures of my dorm to show you when I get back or when I get internet.

Anyway, I love you and miss you and will write an email again tomorrow. Please send a note back and let me know what’s going on with you all. Even if it’s really boring and mundane. I need to be regularly updated!