Today, I met and moved in with my host family. Here is a break down of what happened since I left home.
Staging - I had a red eye flight from Hawaii to Washington DC. Total flight time was approx. 11 hours. Arrived in the morning, and met up with about 5 other volunteers at the airport. They were all arriving around the same time as I was. Its pretty easy to spot volunteers because we have like two large suitcases that looks like we're going to living abroad for about 27 months. We headed to the hotel were staging was taking place, and there were many other volunteers arriving also with large bags.
Staging started around 11:30am, we did the usual intros abd breifing about our service. There is a total of 83 people that are in Group 39 going to Ukraine. All TEFL volunteers. It was nice, refreshing, reassuring to know that everyone was feeling the same way as I did about joining the Peace Corps. We had a long staging day, which ended around 5pm. Katie, a girl whom I met up with at the airport, was my roommate at the hotel, so that was cool. We gathered up a group and went to dinner.
Some of our group wasn't able to depart to Ukraine with the bulk of the group, due to logistical reasons. We were lucky enough to stay in DC/America for one more weekend. This is were we did a lot of walking and touring of the nation's capitol, monuments, Smithsonians. Being that I have never been to DC, t'was great to go sight seeing. There's something in the air in DC that makes me feel very patriotic.
Arriving in Ukraine - On Monday, Sept. 20, a group of those left over, headed to Ukraine. Thus began the overnight flight to Kyiv, Ukraine. We arrived in Kyiv at 4:00pm Sept 21. (It's a 6 hour difference from DC to Kyiv, 12 hour difference from Hawaii to Kyiv.) We had a overnight retreat in Desna, Chernihiv Oblast, where we got to meet the training staff in Ukraine. We also found out who was in our cluster groups, and what language we'll be learning. It was also the first place I experienced Ukrainian food. It was a interesting experience! But I know nothing about Ukraine, and the Ukrainian culture that my whole time here is going to be quite an interesting experience. I think the whole novelty of being here has not worn off yet. I keep telling myself that I am going to be here for 27 months, so I better get used to the air, the food, the water, the douche (bathtubs), the tualets (toilets), and the language.
In our cluster, there is Me, Jackie, Nick, Danny, and Gina. I think we got a good group going that will be fun to work with. We're also learning Russian, which is very difficult with the Cyrillic characters, as well as pronunciation. The syntax will be a whole different story. I also met my host family. Menia Mama, Svitlana, live in a modest home, with her husband and two daughters. They are around my age, which makes relating sort of easier, except for the fact that they don't speak English, and I don't speak Russian. Daa's and Nieyt's (Yes and No's) are basically what I can say along with gesturing. One of my host sisters can speak some English, which she does very well. So she's like our translator. We've got a couple conversations going. Again, it's been a very interestin experience. I can't wait till I can get a conversation going on for myself. Tomorrow will be my first language training, so I'll try to soak up the language. HERE GOES NOTHING people!!!!!!!
