My field!

Hi Everyone!
I just got back from my permanent site! It is south
of Odesa (in the south of the
country) about 2.5 hours. My village is basically a field! I have one
small store, a post office, a school and a small Palace of Culture.
There are about 1500 people that live there...and there may be more farm
animals than people. I am a 15 minute walk to the Black Sea which is
absolutely beautiful, and no one is there bc it is such a small town.
I got really lucky with my host family again. I have a mom, Ena, dad,
Deema, sister Nastia and brother Vannya. Ena speaks a little English.
They are all really nice and patient with me. The house is big and on
the way to the outhouse (a really nice one actually) are the new kittens, puppies, rabbits, pigs, chickens,
turkeys....yeah. Lots of animals. And they have huge garden where they
grow all of there food - which is all amazing! They even make their own
wine.
Outside the front gate is the main "road" or field as i like to call it.
The one store is owned by my host dad but i am giong to have to go to a
bigger town for neccessities. I am only required to live with my host
family for one month but i hope to stay through the winter. I don't
know what i am going to do in the winter here! There is really nothing.
I got to my town from Kyiv after a 12 hour train ride and 2 hour car
ride. The next day i went to the school where i will be working and
gave a speech to the entire school. My coordinator is the English
teacher and i spent much of the time trying to explain to her that i
would not be teaching English! Her English skills are pretty rough and
everyone in town speaks Sergic- a random mix of Russian and Ukrainian.
I didn't understand anything! After observing a few classes i met
with an NGO. This was pointless bc i didn't have a translator. I think
they just want me to write grants. we'll see.
On Saturday i went to a teachers sports competition at the sea and
played volleyball with my future co-workers. I really wish i could
understand them!
Overall, I think i will really like my site. The languge is going to be
tough, the winters may kill me, and i may never find a place to live on
my own bc it is so small, but the people are awesome and welcoming (i
will be fat when i return and ammune to vodka). I will know how to farm
and kill a chicken. And they plan on marrying me off to village man. The kind of mayor for our area said i have a nice figure!
Oh, and they dressed me up in Traditional Ukrainian clothing which
included 3 inch bright red boots. I have a picture. It's awesome.

I am currently at my training town finishing up my last few weeks of training. Next week our group will be running a 3 day summer camp and a community project mural. All in addition to hours of Russian language training. Things are going really fast now. In less than a month i will be sworn in as a real Peace Corps Volunteer.

Thanks to everyone for the letters. I got 5 of them last week - apparently the embassy goes through them before we get them. I will have a new address in a few weeks but you can keep sending stuff to the address i have listed. They will send anything i receive to my site. Oh, and small padded envelopes are welcome in case you want to send me something small :) I have no Internet at my permanent site but I hope to check it there at least once a week if I can find somewhere close enough. Please write me letters!

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