This is the hardest post I’ve had to write.
I’m still numb. Shocked. Confused. I’ve written and rewritten this post and I can’t seem to find the right words to say. None of this feels real.
But, my Peace Corps service is apparently over, 20 months early. Every single volunteer worldwide has been evacuated from their country of service and given COS status.
You guys, excuse my language, but what the FUCK is happening?
We got an email on the 13th explaining that the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. I’m watching the U.S. fall apart via my Twitter feed (??) and here — short of another three-week quarantine period from school* — everything is normal?
*Even this is normal. Ukrainians shut down schools for two weeks every flu season for “quarantine.”
We’re no longer allowed to travel outside of Ukraine — including back to the U.S., and now that there’s no school for the next few weeks, I’ve suddenly got a LOT of unstructured free time.
I needed a distraction, so I ended up booking a last-minute cheap platzkart ticket to go visit Rachel at her site in Ternopil.
I’m so excited!
I’m finally well enough into my Peace Corps service that I can start implementing side projects and clubs.
Back in mid-November, one of the wonderful girls that routinely attended my Window on America speaking club, Marina, approached me about re-starting a local chapter of “I Am That Girl,” which is a spin-off of a book written by Alexis Jones, focused on helping women find their passion and purpose.
A former volunteer at my site had started a local IATG chapter during her service, but sadly, it fizzled out once she ended her service and returned to the U.S.
Marina approached me and Crystal, the other female volunteer in Khmelnytskyi, and asked if we’d have any interest in restarting the club.
The answer was a very obvious “of course!”
Hey future Peace Corps Volunteerss! If you’ve somehow stumbled upon this post thanks to the miracle of Google and SEO, this post is for you!
Today we’re talking about adult English clubs – including some Peace Corps English club ideas.
Even if you’re not an English teacher, odds are that — at some point — you will be roped into hosting and organizing various English conversation clubs for the members of your community.
OK let me just preface this by saying that I’m writing this on an empty stomach, and it physically pains me.
During my first few months here in Ukraine, I gained somewhere between 25 and 30 pounds. No joke. Ukrainians take their food seriously. I’ve mentioned it before, but if you’re not familiar with Ukrainian history, there’s a backstory. In the first half of the 1900’s, Joseph Stalin forced Ukraine into a manmade famine called the Holodomor. Millions of people died, and it changed Ukraine’s outlook on food as a whole. Because of the Holodomor, Ukraine prioritizes food like nobody’s business. This country has a super interesting cultural relationship to food that I find absolutely fascinating.
One of the things I am most often asked is “what does a typical day look like for you?”
While one of the joys of Peace Corps is that no two days are ever the same — your service is what you make of it and most volunteers have a lot of unstructured free time — my days during the school year have a sense of routine now.
Ah, what is Peace Corps without several dozen conferences… all of which can be referred to via a series of acronyms?
I recently traveled back to Irpin to attend a Project Design and Management (PDM) conference with my wonderful counterpart Tania!
It’s a…. NOTHER TRAINING!
I spent late last week and this past weekend in Kyiv for warden safety training.
I’m my oblast’s safety warden, which means I’m responsible for conducting routine safety checks and approving housing requests for all the PCVs in my oblast.
It means that — should the situation with Russia escalate and we’re asked to evacuate the country — I’m responsible for coordinating transportation, consolidation and evacuation for all the PCVs in the Khmelnytska oblast.
It happened back in 2014, so it could happen again.
I wanted to take a second to give a shoutout to some pretty dang amazing Ukrainian nationals today!
If you haven’t noticed, I tend to use the word “counterparts” a lot.
Peace Corps really tries its best to promote sustainability, and it does that in Ukraine by co-teaching.
I mean, think about it. If I waltzed into a Ukrainian high school and started teaching English on my own, I’d be putting a Ukrainian out of a job. Not exactly fair, right?
So, Peace Corps assigns what are called “counterparts.” They’re the Ukrainian nationals that every volunteer works closely with in order to do their job well, and to do it as sustainably as possible.
What’s Peace Corps without the training?
This past week — and my next few weeks/ weekends — have been and will be full of Peace Corps training. This past week was In-Service Training (IST), next week I have a safety training and then shortly after that, I’ll have Project Design and Management.
It’s a lot, but it’s to be expected. IST is kind of a new-ish concept, apparently. Our Pre-Service Training used to be longer, but Peace Corps recently decided to cut it short and then add a new In-Service Training session a little bit into our service.
That way, we could do some training with our counterparts after we’d gotten a little bit acclimated to our sites and all.
So, all the education volunteers (and our counterparts!) recently traveled to Konche Zaspa for a few days of training, starting on Monday.
