Is this the bus that goes between the town and my village?

So here goes,
Getting into the rythm of preparing lessons and learning ukrainian. Just as busy as college. Had an site placement interview in which I pushed for the Carpathian mountains, but don't think I got them. Email remains rare, snail mail would be awesome. I'll write about the pictures next time, after I see what they are. No time now.

And the answer is no, there is a slightly newer bus that we use between the town and our training village.

Disclaimer

I can't figure out how to insert a discaimer because everything is in Ukrainian.  But here it is

 

The Contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Governemtn eof the Peace Corps.

 

 

As for how life has been, things are settling down into a storm of activity.  I somehow ran out of internet time, and once again forgot my camera cord to attach pictures.  I am doing well, completely healthy, and back into running.  On my way to 55/week, and lifting makeshift weights with my 14yr old host brother.  Also I go play indoor soccer whenever I don't have HW.  Well, I must go. 

cow paths, woods and farm fields

I think this Chat sums up a lot of my recent experience

I got a phone finally, and it is free to recieve calls, should anyone be so inclined

country code (38) 06 71 17 6267

have not figure out how to use it as a modem

so internet remains a weekly event at Tarasha

 

5:09 PM 

Brian: hows the world of eastern europe?

 me: about the same as it was in 1990

5:10 PM before the colapse

 Brian : awesome and weird and awesome again

  how has everything been so far?

  living situation? work stuff? fiddling with gypsies at all?

5:11 PM me: well living is sweet

  host family

  on brother 14

  lots of indoor soccer

  and basketball

  back into running

  on cow paths and around fields

  town is really small

  4 other americans doing language training here with me

5:12 PM 4 hr. class/day

  intese

  intense, but really good

  everything is great except food

  which has more fat and greese than I can handle

 Brian : haha

 me: down to about 5 outhouse trips a day

 Brian : lovely

 me: but that's still too many considering rough brown toilet paper

5:13 PM Brian : better than leaves, i suppose

5:14 PM me: well we use newspaper occasionally

  but yeah, things are great

 Brian : reduce reuse recycle

 me: forgot my camera chord again

 Brian : so you can't upload pictures?

5:15 PM me: i only get internet in the nieghboring town, 20 min bus ride down the road

  so i'm here now, but can't post pictures, again

   we've started observing english classes

 Brian : i hope you can remember next time, cause i'd like to see some

 me: and we start teaching next week, little bites, 10 min here

 Brian : do you speak much ukrainian (?) yet?

5:16 PM me: so we have class in ukrainian, and tefl

  I speak enough to get by

  but i am at about a 3 yr. old level in terms of locals

5:17 PM verbs are like spanish and italian

  nouns suck and have many cases depending on how they are used in a sentence

  overall sound is a lot softer than russian

5:18 PM  it has a nice flow and a pretty contour

  most people here mix in russian words

 Brian : i'd like to hear that

 me: it is a bilingual country

  and enlish is mandated by law

 Brian : so you can get around with english well enough

5:19 PM me: you would think so, but the english training is so bad that they can't understand it

  they can recite basic phrases, but they have no idea what they are saying

 Brian : gotcha

 me: some people at university and in cities can speak

  but there is little funding to go abroad

  so it is rare even that english teachers ever here native english

5:20 PM it's like telephone

 Brian : and i cna't imagine there are many americans there

 me: it becomes unrecognizable

 Brian : yeah

  i'm glad to hear things are well

 me: yeah, tons of fun so far

 Brian : i have to get to work

 me: we are celebrities

  Brian: hahaha

My new home

I'm finally settled in, mostly.  I will be doing my first 3 months of training in Kivshovata, a town with 2250 people on the south side of Kyiv Oblast (oblast=province?)

The people here are very nice, they have never seen americans, there are 4 other americans in my town, and we are called a cluster, a system for imersion language training.

we learn ukrainian for 4 hours every day, but some days we also student teach, do cross cultural classes, go on field trips, and try to put our language into use by doing interviews and community projects.  I am in a neghboring town today because mine does not have internet or even phone lines that can go international.  I am still working on figureing out how to set up my phone with the new electricity and find a chord to get dial up internet on my host family's pc

My family is cool, dad, mom, brother (he's cool and 14)

I can't wait to know the language better to find more in common.  Incoming calls as soon as I do set up my phone are absolutely free for me to recieve, and my mailing address is

 

U.S. Peace Corps Ukraine
PCV Jesse Josef Bartels
P.O. Box 298
01030, Kyiv
Ukraine

 

well I am running out of internet time, and must do many other errands before I return to my village.  Pictures are coming soon.