First week in Ukraine!

Wow is pretty much all I can say. Everything is so crazy right now. Right now I'm in a internet cafe in the closest town to our village, Obuhiv, and I'm surrounded by teenagers playing World of Warcraft and screaming at each other in Ukrainian/Russian. Some things aren't so different from America!

I've finally settled into my house in Hermanivka and gotten into a routine. I live on the outskirts of a village on a small farm in a small house with a small family. The family has a grandmother, a mother and father, and a 6 year old son. I have no running water or internet. At first I wasn't sure if I could deal with having an outhouse and a bucket to shower with, but I've gotten used to it. The family is so nice and welcoming that it makes up for the lack of amenitites. The grandmother cooks my meals and I have quickly learned the word for "EAT!" as I hear it fairly often. I have also learned to only eat when my babusya (grandmother) is in the room as otherwise she will insist that I eat more of it and I can't speak enough Ukrainian to tell her that I've already had some. The family speaks no English and I speak barely any Ukrainian. Things have been challenging, but not too difficult. I made friends with the 6 year old, Sasha, by letting him play Angry Birds on my Ipad. He is now obsessed with the game! He is much like any typical American boy who loves video games and Spongebob. The mother and father work alot, but have been very friendly to me when they have been around. The babusya even taught me to milk the cow!! Not something I saw myself doing a year or even a week ago! On  the farm, there is a cow, chickens, pigs, dogs, and cats.

Everyday, I'll get up around 7am and have breakfast with my babusya. After that, I'll head over to our Ukrainian language teacher's house, Ira (short for Irina. So many Irina's here!). We'll have about 4 hours/day of Ukrainian lessons Monday-Friday. We also have a technical teacher who is in charge of teaching us about teaching English effectively in Ukraine. We'll do classroom visits to observe other teachers as well as make lesson plans and teach ourselves. They keep us really busy! On Saturdays, we meet up with another group (our "link" group) and we have a technical class. The other group is in Obuhiv and they all live near the internet cafe and have running water and are able to go places at night. In our village, there is nowhere to go at night and the only bar is not a safe place to be. There are ups and downs to living in a city/town v. a village. Everybody already knows us in our village!

While a few of us live on farms, one of us actually has his own house. His family set him up in their two story guest house complete with a sauna. He has a sauna and I have an outhouse. Typical. At least I'll have an authentic experience!

We do have free time at night and as there are no street lights in our village or anywhere we can go, most of us have been staying at home with our families as well as watching movies and reading. I've already read about 3 books since coming to the village. I'm going to run out soon! Hopefully I'll be able to get some more if the internet will work in my village. So apparently the school in our village has internet and we are allowed to use it, but as we aren't going to the school often, I don't know exactly when I'll be able to update next. We are going to see if the internet modem you can buy will work in our village and if it does, I will get one. I really hope it does because I don't like not being able to keep in touch with you guys and from whats going on the in the world.

There is mostly schools and government buildings in my town (a hospital, admin building, museum, schools) as well as two cafes, only one of which we were advised to go to and only during the day. For the most part, our host families provide food for us. All I can say is that I've never eaten this many potatoes in my life! One day I had leftover mashed potatoes for breakfast, mashed potatoes for lunch, and then potatoes in my borscht for dinner. Almost everything that I have eaten has been really good though. I did try some Ukrainian salo (pig fat), which is an experience. I actually liked it! It was my host sister's birthday and her husband pulled the salo out as well as a bottle of vodka. A very cultural experience! The people are very big into canning food. I've had lots of called tomatoes and pickles already. Ira is going to teach us how to can food and I'm really excited to start making my own pickles and whatnot so I can have them during the winter!

Ok, well I'm gonna go before I run out of time at the internet cafe. I'll try to update when I can! I'll try to get postcards out when I can, but I'm not sure when. Miss you all!!