10/1/10
Our week was a good one. We learned more Russian than I thought possible. Everytime our LCF sets out a huge amount of words I think, "There's no way I'm going to be able to remember half of this but, sure enough, by the end of the day I have it memorized and in use with my host family to some basic extent. We have learned a great deal of foods as well as all types of pronouns and verb conjugations. I can actually put sentences together in Russian and understand what it is I am saying. Bogdan and I watch a police drama called Gluhar-3 everynight and, though I still have very little idea about what is going on, I am beginning to hear more and more words that I recognize and sometimes I even get the jokes or whole scenes which is exciting.
Tuesday was the busiest day we've had since we arrived here in Kyinka. We had language class in the morning, then we went to the school to meet with the principal. Ukraine is sometimes a very formal country so we had to properly introduce ourselves -in Russian- to our principal. It went over pretty well and she was very kind and glad that we were there. Afterwards, we went down the street to Kyinka's local administrative building and introduced ourselves formally to the mayor. She was also quite nice and had nothing but nice things to say about our roup being in her town.
After all this we took a bus to Chernigev and met up with several groups from our region at what amounts to the Board of Education for our region. By the way, Ukraine is broken up into different regions called "oblasts" which are very big. Imagine Texas only having 14 counties and you'll have the idea. We live in Chernigev oblast. So, the week before this, our technical teaching trainer, Vica, asked me if I would write a speech about why we as a group joined the Peace Corps. I gathered some intel from our other four group members, including Shannon, and wrote a little two minute speech. When we got to the educational headquarters we were greeted on the front steps by two women dressed in tradional Ukrainian clothing and holding a traditional greeting bread which is served at formal ceremonies. When we went in we were escorted into a conference room with the principals from other participating villages, our LCFs and TCFs, as well as members of the press (newspaper and radio). The superintendant said some words and then our TCF, Vica, said some words and then I had the honor of being the spokesperson the Peace Corps in our region. I thought I was giving the speech for our group only and that other volunteers were asked to speak but, no, I was the only Peace Corps volunteer to speak at this event which was very flattering.
This week has been rough but rewarding. I am constantly surprised at what the mind is able to absorb. Shannon is doing fantastically in language class and she wro
