Currently I am in Kiev for the fourth straight week. I am not here on medical so this has become ridiculous. I still have a week here and then finally a REST. But here is a little update of what I have been doing while I was not updating my blog.
2 weeks ago I was in Istanbul with a few other PCVs. We had a great time. We stayed in an awesome hostel right in the middle of everything. We were right next to the Aya Sofia, the Blue Masque and the Topkapi Palace which made it easier to knock them all out at once. We were also very close to the metro and only about 45 minutes from the airport. We met a lot of people at the hostel and around Turkey. We even ran into a few other PCVs on their vacations too. We took a boat tour around the Bosphorus (sp?) and took a ferry to the Asian side of Istanbul. I didn't know that Turkey is split and that part of the country is on the Asian continent. We couldn't get a stamp in our passports though.
Shortly after I returned to Kiev from Istanbul Allison arrived in Kiev. She was coming for the week to hang with me in my new world. She arrived after an all night flight and layover in Frankfurt and then I had her rolling her big, heavy suitcase around Kiev to finally get it on a 3 1/2 hour electrichka to Konotop. Needless to say there was nothing to do after we got home but SLEEP!
On Sunday I showed her my town and where all the magic happens. She wanted to try authentic Ukrainian dishes and I took her to the best cafes in my town so she could try some borscht, chicken kiev, varenicky and pelmeni. Monday night I invited the KTop gang over to my house for some "breakfast for dinner". Allison brought some bacon over from the states and we had bacon, pancakes with maple syrup and derruny! A little American/Ukrainian mix.
Wednesday am we are back on the electrichka to Kiev! We walked around and I showed her all that Kiev has to offer in two days! The last night we thought it would be a good idea to stay up all night so she wouldn't miss her 530am flight! Which she had to leave at 330am to get to the airport. Well that might not have been a good idea. Of course we had to have some wine to celebrate her last night in Ukraine. So everything was fine I got her in the cab and she was off! But at 630am she called to let me know that she missed her flight! Oops. 8 hours later she took off on a different flight back to America. What a day! It was so awesome having her here though. I really missed her but the weird things is no matter how much time passes between our hang outs it is as if I just saw her last week. No time seems to pass. That is how I know she is my best friend! Love you for coming to see me.
Immediately after that I spent the weekend in Kiev doing some awesome healthy lifestyles workout videos for the Healthy Lifestyles Working Group. I was in charge of the cardio kickboxing video (obviously). I had no idea I was doing it until the night before but me and my fellow PCV Kevin hooked it up. We made it so much fun. Everyone in the group working really hard on the videos and it was such a great and fun idea.
Then I went back to site for a few days to catch up with my fellow Ukrainians and to conduct my career development session. Which is going really well! In fact, I can do it in English now because I found out that my four participants speak great English! So that makes life a whole lot easier and I feel like I might be able to teach them something. They are really great girls and they are very grateful that I am teaching this stuff to them which is really rewarding.
I had a great meeting recently with an organization in Ukraine called IOM (International Organization of Migration) they deal with counter trafficking. In this meeting I introduced the idea of our career development program because I know this is something that they want to do with their trafficked victims to get them back in the workforce and they were really excited about the potential to join forces. I hope this works out.
In addition to that I am directing a camp for our Healthy Lifestyles Working Group and this is where you might be able to help me. So I am the director of this camp in a city called Konstantinovka in the Donetska Oblast. A fellow PCV works there currently and his counterparts that work at the Konstantinovka Agricultural Technical Institute wanted him to have a camp about healthy lifestyles. We will be conducting the camp in English and we will be teaching the kids about the dangers of smoking, drinking and drugs, stress management, body image, etc. We will also be playing lots of sports to keep the kids active and introduce some American sports to them that they might not have played. The camp is really going to be lots of fun. We are trying to raise money for this camp so if you could help us out so that we can send some kids to this camp please donate using the following link:
We only need to raise $3500! Please help us.
No comments:
Post a Comment