So, it’s official. I’m a United States Peace Corps Volunteer!
OK, so you’re probably over here rolling your eyes like, Randi. Bish. WE KNOW YOU’RE IN THE PEACE CORPS. You’ve been posting about Ukraine CONSTANTLY.
OK, OK, OK. BUT — I threw the word “official” in there, did you notice?
Yeah, that’s right. Official.
On Sunday, my wonderful Zhytomyr host family saw me into the back of a cab and to the downtown train station, where I was piled into a bus at an ungodly early hour so that I could go to the Kyiv area for Peace Corps Ukraine’s annual Transition to Service conference.
This is a three-day long conference where (as you can probably guess) volunteers are transitioned from Pre-Service Training to service itself.
At the conference, we go over more safety and technical stuff, learn more about our new host families (every volunteer has two host families: one during pre-service training, and one during service), meet our regional managers, meet our counterparts (!!!) and take a formal oath, where we swear in as official volunteers.
There’s that word “official,” again!
While I had a BLAST learning how to submit Ukrainian language tutoring forms for reimbursement (kidding) The coolest part of the conference was definitely the part where I got to meet my primary counterpart, Oksana!
Oksana is an English teacher at Gymnasium No. 2, the secondary school that I’ll be volunteering at.
Because Peace Corps works to be as sustainable as possible, I’m not in Ukraine to just march up to the front of a classroom and start teaching English to middle schoolers. My priority is actually my counterpart. I’m here to help Oksana with whatever she wants. The two of us will be team-teaching, which means that we’ll both be leading a class. We’ll plan lessons together and instruct at the same time.
Oksana also works kind of like my handler. She’s there to help me translate, to answer my questions, to show me around and basically to make sure I stay alive in Ukraine.
I really hope she’s ready for my level of incompetence, here.
I already adore Oksana. She’s so vibrant, enthusiastic and passionate. We also already have a lot in common. One of our icebreakers was to learn about each other, and we both love traveling, reading and fitness.
After all the technicalities of the Transition to Service conference were out of the way, we were bussed to American House on Oct. 16 for our official swearing-in!
Here’s a livestream.
I, Randi Marie Shaffer, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to. the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation. or purpose of evasion; and that I will will and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me god.
Peace Corps Volunteer oath
I was a little bummed because Oksana and I had to leave in the middle of our swearing in ceremony in order to make it to our train on time.
But, it was still incredible! I’m excited to see all the friends I made during PST at their new sites, and I’m incredibly excited to form new relationships with Oksana, my new host family, my fellow teachers, my future students and pretty much the entire city of Khmelnytskyi, where I’ll be living and working for two full years — until October 2021!
Oh, in case you were wondering — I’m wearing a vshyvanka, a traditional Ukrainian dress shirt. My wonderful Zhytomyr host family gifted me this one for my birthday (which happened during this conference, more on that later) and I absolutely adore it.
Anyway, off to Khmelnytskyi! I feel so lucky to live in Ukraine every day, and now that PST is over, I can’t believe I still have two full years left of this grand adventure.
This post was originally published Nov. 24, 2020. Its timestamp has been updated to better reflect the timeline of my Peace Corps service.
