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.
GUYS I DID IT IT HAPPENED THE STRESSFUL NIGHTMARISH APARTMENT SEARCH IS OVER AND I HAVE AN APARTMENT HERE AT SITE!
Like, I thought apartment searching in Chicago was hard?! Oh no. Oh no no no. Oh Randi. No. It’s a million times harder when A. You can’t speak the language, B. Nobody wants to rent to a foreigner, C. You’re working with a Peace Corps-established budget of literal pennies, D. Your apartment has to meet safety and security standards set by Peace Corps, E. You’re a single woman living in a “traditional” culture, F. Your selection of apartments is… really interesting, G. You’re relying on flaky realtors and sketchy websites, H. You need a pre-furnished apartment because you don’t have furniture because you own two suitcases worth of belongings…
…I could go on. Apartment searching in Chicago was easy peasy compared to trying to find housing in the city of Khmelnytskyi!
But! The traumatic search is over! I have moved to my new lil Ukrainian apartment!
It’s the moooooost woooonderful tiiiimeeeeeee of the year!
NEW YEAR’S.
Also, Christmas.
Christmas in Ukraine is a little… well, strange. During the Soviet era, religion was discouraged. Rather than giving up Christian traditions, Ukrainians played along.
“Christmas? Oh… no. This is my New Year’s Tree.”
(I am not kidding.)
Celebrating New Year’s rather than Christmas kind of stuck around even after the Soviet Union collapsed, and now, New Year’s Eve is the big winter holiday celebrated in Ukraine.
Because most Ukrainians adhere to the Orthodox calendar as well, Christmas is mostly celebrated on January 7 in Ukraine. My host family was an exception. Mama Natasha is a devout Catholic, so I celebrated Christmas on Dec. 24 and 25, while most of my Ukrainian friends and counterparts held off until early January.
However, the dates of actual Christmas are kind of irrelevant here. Christmas-slash-New Year’s is celebrated for weeks at a time.
I just wanted to share a few highlights from my first Christmas-slash-New-Year’s here in Khmelnytskyi.
I’m not gonna lie, I started panicking WAY before I left for Ukraine about how tf I was gonna see the new Star Wars movie.
But, luckily, several of my new fellow PCV friends are also massive nerds, so they did all the dirty work of finding a movie theater in Kyiv that offered an English-language version of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” and booked tickets and an Airbnb and everything.
Here it is! My first big overnight trip in Ukraine!
I recently celebrated Thanksgiving at my site with a group of incredible new Ukrainian friends, who learned about the U.S. holiday from a previous volunteer, and loved the idea of it.
But, if an American holiday is an excuse to travel and see other volunteers in-country? I’m all over it.
Several of my friends and I booked an Airbnb, and spent the Thanksgiving weekend exploring the Ukrainian city of Lviv!
Hopefully, you know that Thanksgiving is a very American holiday. It’s not as universal as Christmas or New Year’s. Thanksgiving Day — as it stands on the calendar, at least — is celebrated solely in America, by Americans.
Until it isn’t.
I’ve mentioned before that Ukrainians love holidays and festivities and will turn just about anything into a celebration if they can. So, when the chance came for some of my new Ukrainian friends to celebrate Thanksgiving, they pounced.
