The nice thing about getting to my permanent site in Chervona Sloboda on May 31st is that school is out for the summer, and I can just relax and get to know my new town, maybe explore Cherkasy or go to the beach.
Except that I’m the type of person that, if I spend too much time just relaxing or exploring, I start to feel as if I’m wasting my life away. Having been unemployed too recently, the memory of ‘wasting my life away’ is far too fresh – so I’ve been finding ways to keep myself busy.
Never Stop Learning
The first thing I’ve been using to occupy my time is continuing my language learning. I’ve been practicing my Ukrainian using some of the resources we were given (300 Ukrainian Verbs, a booklet of Ukrainian grammar) and by talking with my host family, but I’ve also been struggling my way through Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – in Ukrainian. Harry Potter is probably my favorite book series from my childhood and early adulthood. I have read all the books in English and Spanish (multiple times) and I know the story quite well. So, it shouldn’t be too hard to read through it in Ukrainian, right?
Wrong.
Harry Potter in Ukrainian is incredibly tough, and I don’t let myself slack on the language learning aspect – even if I can figure out the meaning of a word from context, I force myself to look it up and write the actual meaning of the word, both in the book and copied into a notebook. It makes for extremely slow reading, but I’ve come across a few really bizarre translations that make it pretty amusing. AND I just finished the second chapter today, so I’ll give myself a pat on the back.
I have also been doing the Russian Duolingo course. If you don’t know already, Duolingo is a really nifty (free!) app for smartphones that’s great for language learning. Peace Corps is in a partnership with Duolingo to develop all sorts of new languages for the app, and the Ukrainian course was created almost entirely by PC Ukraine staff and PCVs who were evacuated when the violence broke out two years ago. The Russian course is not as great, but still useful: in Kyiv last week (more on this later), we bumped into a man from Austria who spoke to us in Russian, and I actually understood almost everything he said! To give my new language an extra nudge, though, I’ll start Russian tutoring on Monday.
Community Connections
Language learning keeps me in the house, though, and I knew as soon as I got to Chervona Sloboda that I would need to find a reason to leave the house most days of the week, and going shopping every day would get expensive. So I did what most TEFL PCVs do – I started an English club.
English clubs are a common way for PCVs to serve their communities, and Peace Corps actually has a ton of resources for us to use to make sure they are interesting, engaging, and effective. I just looked through some of the resources today and could have kicked myself for not looking them over earlier, since my first English clubs were held this week.
I have four clubs – one for 7th and 8th grade, one for 9th and 10th grade, and two for adults. The adult clubs have sort of naturally divided themselves into two groups – one more advanced and one very beginner. My beginner club was actually really rough – since everyone in Ukraine studies English and all the classes I had taught thus far had a workable level of English, I was expecting them to also be able to function in basic English. I ended up having to change everything I planned and create new materials on the fly because, in fact, they knew practically no English at all. The great thing is – now I know! Next week will be much better now that I have a better idea of everyone’s level of English, and now that I have found all Peace Corps’ wonderful resources. I just hope everyone comes back!
Мандрувати
That heading (mandruvaty) means “to wander.” I like that word, and I think a lot of PCVs are prone to мандрувати at some point or another. It’s also a good way to kill time when school is out for summer, and the abundance of Peace Corps trainings and summer camps definitely make it easy.
Last week about 20 TEFL volunteers and our counterparts got to spend a few days in Kyiv at a seminar on team teaching. Team teaching sounds like a pretty boring topic for a seminar, especially since we talked a lot about it during our pre-service training (PST), but it ended up being a really great seminar, and I was so glad I had the opportunity to go.
The thing about PST is that volunteers have to go through it – but counterparts don’t. That means that the burden of explaining how to team teach and do lesson plans together falls largely on the volunteers – which is fine, since our job is to train and educate our partners. However, it can definitely create some workplace tensions when some young, uppity American volunteer shows up and starts telling everyone how to do their job.
It was incredibly helpful to go to a team teaching seminar with our counterparts that went over best practices in team teaching; conflict resolution; scheduling and lesson planning; grading; and all sorts of other issues that arise when you go from one teacher to two. Now, when I explain that I need to have a sit down meeting with each teacher once a week to plan all the lessons for the next week, I have someone else to back me up – my counterpart received the same training I did and heard that it’s a good way to ensure lessons go smoothly and are less stressful for everyone involved.
The other “wandering” I’ll be doing is heading to a summer camp in Kirovograd Oblast next week. I’m not completely sure yet what I’ll be doing, but I’m sure I’ll write about it afterwards!
And now, to find a way to spend the rest of my Friday afternoon…
Dreaming in Ukrainian 
I am enjoying reading and following your adventures in Ukraine. Best wishes to you, enjoy every moment.
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