Places to Go, People to Meet

It's Monday evening and I have all my clothes laid out for London and Morocco! I am so excited to see new places...here is my itinerary:

Thursday, March 19: after lessons, I will catch a Marshutka (shuttle bus) to Kirovograd. I am planning to have dinner with other volunteers in my oblast at a traditional Ukrainian restaurant.

Friday, March 20: I'll catch a bus from Kirovograd to Kyiv at 7am and I should arrive in Kyiv before 2pm. I'll swap some books at the Peace Corps office and meet up with Molly and Grace.
We'll head to the airport about 4pm to catch our 6:30pm flight to London. It's only about a two hour flight, so we'll quickly find our hotel and find some good food (I'm hoping for Thai!).

Saturday, March 21: Spend the day in London

Sunday, March 22: We'll catch our flight to Marrakech, Morocco. We'll arrive in Marrakech fairly early, so it will be nice to have the day to explore.

Monday, March 23: Molly, Grace, and I will be picked up at 8:30am for hiking in the High Atlas Mountains. This will be a day trip for Molly and Grace, but I will spend the night in the mountains (at the company's cabin in the mountains).

Tuesday, March 24: At 9am, I will explore the High Atlas Mountains on a mountain bike (with a guide). Should be a fun day...and this company even provides all my meals. Hopefully, I'll capture lots of great pictures...we'll see.

Wednesday, March 25-Thursday, March 26: Days of RELAXATION! We will head to Essaouira, a popular tourist city that sits on the Atlantic Ocean. We will be staying at a hotel right on the ocean...and it even has a pool - Whoo Hoo!

We'll make our way back to Marrakech on Thursday and catch our flight back to London on Friday, March 27. Spend one night in London and then back home to Ukraine!

But before I start blogging about my travels outside of Ukraine, I wanted to introduce you to some people I have met along the way (so far).

Here's a picture of Lacey and I at the swearing-in conference (December 9). Lacey is actually from Yakima and we talk fairly often on the phone.



Jessica is my official dancing partner...here we are on the dance floor at a club in Kirovograd. (I made this picture black and white because our faces were sweaty from dancing...ooops!)

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY, March 8: I think it should be widely celebrated in the U.S...

Here's a flower my 5th form gave me for this holiday (I also received way more chocolate than I need, an angel figurine, a glowing flower ...ooohhhh, I can hear you saying it..., and roses).

We only have two male teachers at our school, but here they are presenting a toast to the women! Yuri (the physical education teacher) is on the left and Sasha (foreign literature teacher and my Russian language tutor) is on the right.

The students also hosted a concert for the teachers! Ania and Dasha, the two girls singing, are in my 7th grade class. Max and Roma, the two boys standing in the back, MC's of the concert and best friends, are in my 9th grade class. Max took the third place prize in the oblast English Olympiads. These boys have a great sense of humor and make me laugh every lesson with their wit. Love their sense of humor!

Here is Sasha (Alexander is his real name) playing the guitar at the Women's Day concert. He is a student in my 8th grade class. He's also a great dancer!

Oh, Max and Roma again...(probably thinking about what kind of trouble they can cause). There is also a girl from the primary school singing (I don't know her).

Here I am with some of my 9th form students before the concert. I am standing next to Nastia (the student who took the first place prize in the English Olympiads and is going to nationals on Saturday) and Diana is to the left, both of them are competitive dancers.

Olena, my counterpart, is being funny with some students and Sasha's guitar before our school concert...

Here are some pictures of the community concert, held at the Palace of Culture...

One of my 8th form students, Dasha, is very active with the karate team in town. Here she is taking on a few guys (of course she takes them out because it's Women's Day)...

Marina, one of my 10th grade students, was the host of the community-wide concert for Women's Day. She is also involved in the Comedy Club in Novoukrainka and they took first prize in the oblast competition, so she has been preparing to go to nationals with her team.

I don't know any of these boys, but they were just too cute (so small, singing in their suits)...

Some more dancing at the community concert. Sasha, my ex-landlord's daughter, is dancing on the left.

I now have a family that has adopted me. They live on my street and invite me over every weekend. The husband (Volva, pictured below) likes to show me music on his cell phone, the wife (Oksana, picture coming soon) enjoys trying to domesticate me by teaching me how to cook traditional Ukrainian dishes, and the two sons (Bogdan and Dima) try to beat me at cards...but, usually they are not successful (insert evil laugh here). Volva was proud to show me this huge turkey, so I had to get a picture.

These are some pictures I took at the end of January during my counterpart's 50th birthday party. Here is Olena with the director of our school.

Many people presented Olena with presents, songs, artwork, and flowers.

Here are the English teachers reading a poem to Olena. Tania is the woman in the middle with the striped shirt, she is my Ukrainian language tutor. Then, directly to the right is Aloyna (she won first place in the Oblast English Teacher's competition and just returned from nationals this week. I think she's happy that it is finally over because it requires so much preparation and time away from home.). Then, Olena, in the white shirt is next...I don't see her very often because she has a light teaching load to spend time with her young daughter. Directly to the left of Tania is Olya, who is a wonderful woman and has invited me to her home many times (and fed me, which is an added bonus!). The last woman is Natasha, who mostly teachers German.

Well, there you have it...an introduction to the people in my world! This was a long blog entry, so if you made it this far, I'm impressed! Take care.

With love,

Nat

My Version of a "Novoukrainka Virtual Tour"

Since moving to Novoukrainka, I have constantly been trying to make a mind map of the town layout. Each day, I discover something new about town (today, it was the hair salon). Here's a little walking tour of Lenina Street and the places I frequently visit (beginning the farthest away from my house):

Here is the bus stop in front of the market. Last weekend, I was thankful to buy lightbulbs to replace the burned out ones (made it difficult to read). I was looking at nail polish and the stand keeper offered me to test the colors on her nails, so I had to buy some new nail polish from her - after testing it, of course!

Here's a picture of one of the churches in our town (we only have two). I need to go to a service to check it out, but I haven't yet.

Just behind the church is our stadium! We have a large track with a football field and then there is also a caged-in soccer field...reminds me of indoor! I'm so excited to use this as the weather starts to warm up.

Right across the street from the church is the sports club, where I attend aerobics twice a week. In our aerobics classes, we run through a choreographed dance routine, lift weights, and have a belly-dancing class...interesting, I know...

A couple blocks down is the music school. I went to Sasha's piano concert yesterday (it was my first time actually in this building).

Our administration building...

Here's the large sidewalk in front of the music school and administration building. Love this walkway because it's never muddy!

The Palace of Culture, which is where many community events are held. I went to a concert here today in honor of "Women's Day" (an extremely popular holiday on March 8). In fact, many of my lessons were cancelled today because students were having parties. Tomorrow, we will have a school party and we will have Monday off for this holiday. Whoo-hoo! Lots of celebrations for women, sounds like a marvelous idea to me!

My lovely post office, where, I must admit, has the most gracious and helpful postal workers I've ever encountered...believe it or not!

Here is my school! Gymnasium #7!

Right next door to the school is the Internet store, with the blue sign (where they know me personally because...hmmmm, I'm always buying Internet!). The green sign is the local pharmacy...haven't had to use that, thankfully.

Here's my ATM machine (yeah, I put it on my blog)...

Right across the street from the ATM is the courthouse...not planning to ever be in there.

Right next door to the courthouse is the unemployment office. This office is one block from my house and each morning there is usually a line out front. (It's closed in this picture.)

Ok, we just walked past my house...

Then, here is the primary school. Love the colorful playground...

Here's the end of Lenina Street. Neighborhoods and a river...

Some friends of mine live right on the river. They have promised that we will take their boat out in the summer (they showed me their boat and it's a blow-up raft)...looking forward to the adventures...

I've seen some pictures of Novoukrainka in the spring and it looks absolutely beautiful. I will put some more pictures up as the seasons change, but here is good 'ol winter for you!

Cheers,

Natalie