Musings of an Ukraine Traveler

Group 24 is broken into clusters of 7-8 students assigned to a community within 2 hours ride of Kyiv. 4 students of the cluster are assigned to one of the two language facilitators (LCF). Each LCF rents an apartment in the community where the group comes every day to learn the language--in our case Russian. The entire cluster gets together for medical training or events like meeting the mayor. Our part of the cluster is in environmental education but the other 4 are business facilitators.

One of the first things Helen does is introduce to the local internet cafe.

Producti--a grocery store. Here we buy food for our lunches.

Our language instruction consists of grammar of course, but mostly of practical everyday use of language like how to buy food, how to cook it, what is available. We also learn skills like how to use the various modes of transportation, how to keep safe, how to light gas stoves and kalunkas (water heaters).

Cross cultural training is important too. We learn about expectations in our host families, expectations and rules of etiquette in Ukraine. These include talking softly, wearing hats in the winter, taking off our shoes inside and when to, or not to, put toilet paper in the toilet. (Plumbing here in Ukraine, like in many parts of the world, cannot handle paper.)

What Happened?

The second half of our cluster, standing in front of Lenin's statue in the Bila Tserka square right before our meeting with the Mayor.

I know I cut off the head, but this was too good a picture not to put in.

Left to right: Sandy Girard, Mike Evangelist, Micah Evans and Amy Swift. In front, their LCF, Vadim. This half of our cluster are in the business sector and they are learning Russian too.

We and the host families helped Amy celebrate her 31th at the Hegmann restaurant and disco.

Work and Play

Our training is a good balance of study and play. We try to celebrate special occasions like birthdays together and we even invited other clusters to Bila Tserke for a weekend of sight seeing and a night at the disco. We learned a lot about trains and checking into hotels in organizing this. I should say Sandy learned a lot.

Getting off the "electrichka" for a night in the big city are Kelly Oswalt, Miranda Kurnez, Susan Wagge and Vladimir. No you are not seeing double. That is Vadim's twin.

Our local telephone expert, Karen (center), clues in our new group members Amitabh Sheth and Helen Raffle.

Hey our LCFs Vadim and Helen know how to let off stress---"those dancin' fools."

On the left, Sandy, Lady in charge, relaxes with Karen and guest Maggie.

*Karen can't resist the kittens for sale in the central bazaar.*	*Jason looks a little unsure about Amit's skills as a "wigmaster" (hairdresser). Our sub, Mila gets ready to take a picture.*
We're pretty happy as we have just finished our teacher workshop at the Ecological Center. The director, Valentina, (second from right) has been a big support to us during our training.	No more language classes here in Bila Tserke. Our language proficiency test is tomorrow, May 22, so we are relaxing in beautiful, old Alexandriski Park. Soon we say good bye to each other and head for our respective sites in Ukraine.