Life in Ukraine

So here I am in Magazynka, I've been at my site for almost three weeks.

What can I tell you about it?

First I can talk about my school.

It's a beautiful school, with kids that have been waiting for me to arrive for 6 months.

You got it, 6 months. It's some pressure for sure. It's embarassing to me in a lot of ways because I don't feel that I'm very interesting, and I like to feel like I am somehow earning attention from others. But that just isn't how it is here. Most of the kids here have never even seen an American.

I just finished attending/participating in their 2 week sports summer camp. The kids were great, but I'm still unclear about what I'll be doing during the school year, as are most volunteers at this point I believe.

I've always been less of a leader and more of a commentator/follower when it comes to big decisions and taking action. That's the biggest challenge of Peace Corps for me, is asserting myself and making important decisons, even when I can't predict all the outcomes. Peace Corps is teaching me that I can't always be in control of everything that happens. And that I have to just step up and try things that I don't have full confidence in. It's very humbling and difficult, but it's an important part of my growth as an individual.

I acquired a guitar last weekend and am working on learning to play guitar and sing.

Sheer boredom has pushed my abilities remarkably, and I am quite impressed with my progress. My current project is to learn all the words and melody to "Hotel California." This is no easy task. First I had to drop it down five full steps, because I'd need a serious operation to be able to sing it in the same key as it is when the Eagles play it.

------

My host mom just walked in and gave me a speech about the terrible prices of potatoes this year. I have to agree with her. A buyer just offered her 60kopeks a kilo for potatoes.

I'll translate it into dollars and pounds for ya.

60 kop = ~.12c

2.2 kilo = 1 lb

so we're looking at around 5c a pound for potatoes.

Potatoes are easy, but this is a fairly small farm, I think they probably have around 250 pounds to sell.

$15 isn't a lot of money anywhere, even in Ukraine.