I officially accepted my invitation to Ukraine last
Friday, January 26 and it has been a whirlwind of
activity since! My list of things to do grew
exponentially in that one day and since then i have
been filling our forms, rewriting my resume, writing
my aspiration statement and shopping for the warmest
cloths i can find. It was probably a bad idea to stop
buying cloths last June. Now I have to play catchup
on office cloths and everything else I have been
putting off.
I found a Group 32 yahoo group with everyone else that
is going with me. It looks like a lot of people were
invited in November and December. I feel really
behind, especially in the language area. Though i did
meet Anton and Nadia last night and they are going to
help me learn some basic Russian. I can already count
to 20!
A little bit about my program. It is called Community
Economic Development and i will be working as an NGO
Facilitator. An NGO, or non governmental organization
is basically a non-for-profit agency not affiliated
with any government or private sector entity, devoted
to managing resources and implementing projects with
the goal of addressing social problems. They can
address anything from youth and women's empowerment to
government corruption or health. I could be working
anywhere in the country (minus Chernobyl, where my
co-workers think i am going. "Yeah, i'm just gonna
climb that tree and fix that crack in the
sarcophagus!") I am kind of hoping for the south, just
for the warmer weather.
My staging is in Pittsburgh on March 25, then off to
Ukraine on the 28th. I am really excited to leave,
but i feel very overwhelmed at the same time. My last
day of work is March 9, so I'll have about 2 weeks to
get everything ready, sell my car pack up my room and
pack my bags.
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