Another one!

That last post was a little dated. But I had to share that story. What's new today... Well I am offically teaching English classes. 3 a week for now, soon it will be bumped up to 4 then finally 5. Today was my 2nd lesson with 7b (a section of 7th grade) and 10A. We worked on phrases that describe good friends. It's a tough topic to plan for. In the few classes I've taught so far I have found one educational activity that the kids really love. Hot potato! We all know how to play hot potato so I won't bore you, but the kids have to say one of their English phrases or risk getting burned! Very fun. (Feel free to use it if you are ever in front of a class).

What else, what else... Oh yeah, on Saturday we took our first field trip out of Nosivka. We went to the Oblast (State) Capital, Chernigiv. It was the first time we got to see other peace corps volunteers outside of our clusters. And we had a relaxed day of town exploration.

For this week I have a 3rd grade class to plan a lesson for (they're working on days of the week). I got to observe the 3rd graders on friday (observation means sitting in their class, in their seats. I stuck out pretty well.) But they seem like a fun group. Can't wait! On wednesday we have our interviews to assess how our language traning is going, as well as a visit from the trainee director to interview us on where we would like to be placed. So this week is a big one!

Ok, 2 minutes left on my internet time, gotta go!

It's been a long time... Where to begin!

Hey everyone, It's been a long time since my philly post. And a lot has happend. Right now I'm in an internet cafe in my new hometown for the next 3 months, Nosivka. It's a town of about 15,000 2hrs northeast of Kiev. My host fam is pretty great, I have 2 twin host brothers that speak english very well, and a host mom whose been feeding me very well!

I'd like to tell about what I call my first real Peace Corps experience. The other day my brother Sacha asked my if I wanted to visit his grandmothers (Babusa in Ukraine). Of course I agreed and we headed out. But before we got out the door my brother advised my to not wear my nice school shoes. So I changed and we left. 10 minutes later we came to a quaint little farm house of the Babusa. The first thing I saw as I went to the back of the house was a large pile of beets (Buryak) 2,000kg of beets as I was told. After a quick introduction with Sacha's Babusa it became apparent that we were here to move beets! So 15 year old Sacha and I began filling up bucket after bucket with beets and dropping them down a chute into a store cellar. The process did not take as long as I thought it would, maybe an hour. And my young host brother looked up and complemented me many times saying "you are a strong boy". A few lesser chores later and we were done. Our Babusa made a delicous meal of eggs,potatoes, pork and salad (all fresh from her own backyard). Afterwards we headed back to our own home and I started again on my Ukraine homework. The language and technical traning here is intense (understatement) but I'm slowly picking out more and more words from local conversations.

Hoping to write again soon!

Day two, Philly

Well, I got in to Philly yesterday and planned on dropping everything in my hotel room and getting a quick bite to eat before the staging began. Unfortunately, none of the peace corps rooms were ready. So as soon as I entered the hotel I was caught by the phrase "Peace Corps?" a fellow PC volunteer led me to the Penn room (just a place we dumped all our luggage) and then showed me to the long line of registration and I began my trainee experience.

The rest of the day we worked on getting to know everyone in our group, all 86 of us and talking about the things we were most excited about... and what scared us. 6 1/2 hours later we finished and a group of us were finally able to hit the town and get some dinner, it was 13 hours since my last meal.

Right now we're on a break. I don't know what else we will go over today but at lunch my plan is to head down a few blocks to the house my dad lived in.

We leave for JFK airport by bus tomorrow morning and head out to Ukraine! There are a lot of people here and getting to know everybody before we get in country seems impossible, but the people I have met have been great (no one else from New Hampshire though).

That's it for now, I got to get back to the group, I'll write again soon!

Go time!

Today is the day! It's 7:45 am and in a few moments I will be heading out to the Manchester Airport to begin this little journey. Nervous and excited, thats all I can say.

Dreaming of Ukraine

Two days to go!

It seems like the closer I get to the departure date the more dreams I have of something going wrong. Last night I was in a parade of some kind walking (slowly) towards Ukraine. But in the middle of everything I realized I had forgot something very important. I have know idea what it is now all I know is that I better remember to bring it for the real trip.

The first blog before the trip

Hey, this is my first blog ever! No one knows about it yet, but that will change soon. So here is the scoop for anyone who doesn't know yet. I am going to be living in Ukraine for the next 27 months as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

I've decided to post blogs instead of e-mails mostly because this looks easier than adding literally tens of names to a carbon copy e-mail.

Well, I think that should do it for the 1st blog. Let me know what you think!