8 Sept – 11 Sept, 2015
Our orientation training was crammed into three and a half very VERY full days. As one of the other volunteers said, it was like trying to drink from a firehose. Whatever got in, got in…and the rest landed all around us.
Holy cow was it intense! Every minute was packed with information about culture and politics and the historical context of Ukraine…language training and medical clearances and safety & security (headed by a former KGB agent, whom you absolutely know would die trying to protect you, if necessary). Our medical training focused mostly on warnings about the number of stray dogs with rabies, being hit by a car, alcohol abuse, and the dangers of eating wild mushrooms. It was summed up in four short, cautionary statements:
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Hmmmm…..seems fair enough.
And there was paperwork galore, and having to set up a bank account here and work visas, etc. We were utterly exhausted and wanting more all in the same breath. I think we averaged 4 hours of sleep at most each night and the time flew so quickly there. In addition, the head of Youth Development Programs for the Peace Corp had somehow finagled a meeting with for myself and him with someone of importance in the Ministry of Education – focusing of course on Special Education. He is the most amazing guy and I feel like I’ve known him for ages.
Thank goodness my luggage arrived in the nick of time! I peeled off my four day old travel clothes, donned a business dress and heels and off we went. Me being…well, me…I boldly invited this woman to visit our center in Ternopil and also suggested we begin a pilot project to highlight all the good things already in place, share best practices, collect data, show evidence of continuing need and (naturally) develop a report for the Ministry of Education showing that more money is needed for services. Formalities done, we dashed back to the Peace Corp Headquarters so that I could continue with my training (grant writing, program monitoring & evaluation, and how to write government reports for Congress). And as tired as we were, we went out in the evenings to explore Kiev, since we won’t likely be back there anytime soon. It’s part of the restricted zone here at the moment. Here are a few important things I learned from our explorations: it is culturally polite to accept a shot of vodka…but you have to say ‘no’ to any more if you plan to study a foreign language the next day. Also, you should never, ever, ever eat sausage in a place where you can’t read the ingredients and they serve horsemeat on the menu. ‘Nuff said. (Clearly the “don’t eat sh*t” rule hadn’t sunk in yet).
Friday came far too quickly and we were formally sworn in as Peace Corp Volunteers, taking the same oath as the President of the United States. Typically there are 80 or 100 volunteers doing this at once, but since the evacuation last year, they have been bringing people back very slowly and so our tiny group of three benefited from the attention of all that staff that normally more spread out to share the love. (Note: If you aren’t clear about what actually happened during the Annexation of Crimea by Russia, you can read about it here).
But our celebrations were short lived as one by one we departed by train to our assigned posts. First was Hayley, who is going to teach English in a secondary (high) school in Mohiliv-Podilsky which is near the border of Moldova; then Laura left (on an overnight Pullman train) to go teach English at a university in Chernivtsi, further southwest, and closer to Hungary. I left early the next morning for my post in Ternopil – a five hour train ride from Kiev (and the nearest of the three of us).
I slept the entire ride there.
