Last Post from Nizhyn

Hello All...

Two days from now at this time I will be en route to the "resort" (in name only) where I will be officially sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer and a day or three later it's on to Crimea! It's bittersweet in that i have really enjoyed my time training here in Nizhyn. I could not have asked for a nicer, more supportive host family and was blessed with two outstanding teachers. Most of all i will miss the friends I have made in the other volunteers studying with me. We have spent nearly every waking hour of each day together since we arrived in ukraine and it will be strange to be apart from them...I can only hope to be as fortunate in making friends in my new crimean home. Time will tell...

I know a few of you have asked about the orphanage where my community project took place last week so i will give a quick overview of the place and what they do there. There are approximately 30 "youths" living there, most of whom were taken away from their parents due to poor living conditions or inadequate care. Most of the children are probably aged 12 and under but there are a few as old as 17. The facility itself is extremely nice, very clean and situated on a huge plot of land with a beautiful forest. The children all seem to be very happy there and are lucky to be somewhere that they are given the love and attention they deserve; still, it is sad to see a young child without a parent. As for the project...we brought students with us from local schools and formed 5 different teams so that the students and children from the orphanage could mix togther and get to know each other. We held all sorts of races (wheelbarrow, 3 legged, etc), had face painting, friendship bracelet stations and other field day type activities...the day ended with a candy filled pinata and water balloon fight. Good times indeed!

It took nearly 3 months to happen but I finally feel like i've had a pretty adeventurous few days. I spent most of Thursday and friday with my friend Emily in Kiev blindly searching for some computer store that had a charger she needed for her laptop. We tried unsuccessfully to find it on thursday but managed to navigate the subway system on our own and get all over the city. The friendliness of Ukrainians puts Americans to shame. Every person we asked (in russian of course) for help went out of their way to walk us where we needed to be or to another person who was able to help. Even though most of the day saw us walking around frustrated in a torrential downpour i still felt it was a success just based on our gaining confidence in talking with people and taking Ukrainian mass transit. On a slight downer I got pick pocketed (never felt it or saw the person) but fortunately for me they only got copies of meaningless peace corps documents! Must have been an unpleasant surprise for thief...

Friday was a far more successful day. We took a 7am train to kiev and our langauage teacher (and friend) Lena managed to get ahold of the computer store and get better dierections for us. Lucky for us she did because they were extremely complicated complete with an access code to the downstairs door and other details two novice russian speakers never would have been able to understand. Again we triumphed over the kiev metro system, made our way to the store, bought the charger and made it back to the train station with 45 minutes to spare....only to find out that all of the trains were sold out until 6pm. Turned out to be a blessing in disguise though...we walked around kiev all day talking and laughing....watched all of the people in town for tonights Paul Mccartney concert (which I wont be going to unfortunately)...ate a great meal at an outdoor cafe...did some more people watching in a beautiful park and made it back home before dark. My confidence in being able to make my way around this country has grown enormously and i had two of my best days in ukraine in the process. success.

Last but not least...i had my final exam of sorts this week for my language studies. I was required to have a 30 minute interview only in russian and will be graded based on what level of russian proficiency I achieve. Needless to say i was somewhat panicked, but once the interview began my language skills took over and had no problems. No one here would mistake me for a native speaker but i feel now that i have made a ton of progress in just 3 months and will be just fine when i get to my permanent home. They hand out the results of the exam on monday but i have no doubt that i scored at or above the predetermined level for trainees. I will pass on the info as soon as i can.

Ok...got to run. I really don't know when I will have internet access next. from what i have heard my new village is very close to a large city and i anticipate i will get there sometime next weekend to check in--no promises though. Also, thank you so much for the calls and emails this week...please know that i really appreciated it. Stay tuned...