Monday, December 20, 2010

Happy Holidays!

Dear Friends and Family,

Happy Holidays!! Since I last wrote you following the Fall Holiday, life has been quite busy here in Velyka Lepetykha and I wanted to pass along some updates on the things I’ve been up to!

To start, my 11th grade girls have finished their Anti-Smoking Campaign and I think it was a hit! The girls printed information about the dangers of smoking and we took to the streets to pass out the information and candies (sweets are a great replacement for smoking!) The girls told the citizens of Velyka Lepetykha to avoid or stop smoking due to the dangers and to share this information with their friends and loved ones. The second portion of the project took place in our school where the girls presented to the 11th grade a power point on the dangers of smoking and passed out the same informational slips of papers to the 5th-11th grades. They had a lot of fun getting to share the information they had learned with fellow classmates and being able to design and implement their own project! I have attached a few pictures of Olena, Inna and Alina and the different parts of their project. I am so proud of their work and I hope that the information helps to deter my students from smoking.

The weekend of Thanksgiving was a special one for me not only due to the holiday, but also because ABCamp organized and ran its very first Weekender Camp. I traveled on Thanksgiving Day to Kharkiv, up in the northeast of Ukraine where my cluster mate Whitney lives, to spend Thanksgiving evening with her. Together we traveled to a city called Kupiyansk located 2 hours further northeast towards Russia. Tiago, a fellow PCV, organized all the secondary schools in his town to send the best English speakers for a 2-day English immersion camp discussing the topic of Human Rights. I partnered with a very bright and bubbly Ukrainian named Elena to teach the Freedom of Speech. Our class included discussion of the right to freedom of speech and the illegality of censorship and we had the kids “express” their speech through hand drawn blog pages. The kids then swapped their blogs and “commented” on the themes and what they hoped the author would add in future “posts.” The kids had a lot of fun with the lesson and many wrote their blogs about how much they liked ABCamp and why. Both days we had team time like a regular ABCamp, and I once again adorned purple to lead the “Purple Parrots.” Our team completed a video scavenger hunt, filming such crazy scenes as monkeys hanging in a tree eating bananas to proposing to a stranger. The kids were so excited as this was nothing like anything they had done before! Each clip had to include a human right being violated and the correction of that violation. The purple team expressed the freedom of speech by trying to order McDonalds at a kiosk and saying it was their right to ask for McDonalds! We had a great time and it was so exciting to work with such enthusiastic and intelligent students! I have attached pictures of our hand written blogs, my purple team and the camp group shot.

Though the camp did take up the whole weekend and most of our free time, we did, however, have a chance to properly celebrate Whitney’s favorite holiday, Thanksgiving. On Saturday night amidst creating lesson plan materials and organizing the following day’s schedule, we were able to make dinner. A neighbor of Tiago’s, Iryna, had been instructed in the span of about 5 minutes how to make Stove Top stuffing and how to properly cook a Thanksgiving turkey. (Though I’ve only done this once before, somehow I was put in charge of this instruction!) Iryna called throughout the day in panic that it would not turn out well but when we arrived home Saturday evening, I was greeted with the most beautiful Thanksgiving turkey I have ever seen in my life – it was delicious beyond belief!! Whitney made mashed potatoes and deviled eggs. Two Ukrainians brought crab salads and I helped my lesson partner Elena, make corn pudding (a traditional dish in Whitney’s family). Tiago’s family had sent 2 cans of jellied cranberry sauce (my all time favorite!) and there was an entire table of desserts brought by the other Ukrainians including crepes filled with caramel and bananas and Samantha’s pumpkin chocolate chip pie/bread. As we dug into the delicious meal Whitney had us go around the room and say what we were thankful for this year. With 7 Ukrainians and 6 Americans come together to celebrate, I was thankful for the opportunity to share our American culture and food with such amazing Ukrainians!! Peace Corps has provided me so many amazing opportunities throughout this year but these moments when you hear the gratitude in the voices of Ukrainians, our friends, you really realize how amazing it is to be here and to be sharing of ourselves and our cultures with these individuals. It was a wonderful evening – and luckily there was plenty of turkey and fixings left for a Trout family traditional turkey sandwich the next day!

When I returned to Velyka Lepetykha following Thanksgiving, there was another “holiday” upon me – World AIDS Day. December 1st is a day to remember all those we have lost in the struggle against HIV/AIDS and to support all those living with the disease still today. My counterpart for my HIV/AIDS project helped me organize a few events to commemorate the day. First we announced that the students wear red and had them stand together in the auditorium for a picture. The students are standing in the shape of the red ribbon of HIV awareness but this is a little difficult to see in the picture below. In the afternoon, we held two showings of the film “A Closer Walk.” The film discusses the problem with HIV all over the world, including Ukraine, and the need for us to come together and help stop HIV/AIDS. My students did a pretty good job of paying attention and watching the film, but I’m hoping the lessons in the winter semester will be more informative and will really spark the interest to make a difference within my students. One exciting note is that the picture of the students wearing red has been accepted by the magazine “The Cure,” which is published once quarterly by the HIV/AIDS Working Group and distributed throughout Peace Corps and a number of Ukrainian partner organizations. I cannot wait to present the magazine to our director!

Lastly, I want to tell you about a very exciting week I recently spent in Kiev – Swearing In! If you can believe it (I can’t) I have now been a sworn in Peace Corps Volunteer for a whole year! On December 16th the most recent set of TEFL volunteers swore in and I was luckily able to attend the conference. I went with my good friend Meaghan and presented the working groups I have been involved in this last year, Environmental Working Group and Safety and Security. It felt quite strange to stand in front of the 90 trainees and know that I was the “expert” in the room! One of the individuals swearing in, Shannon, found out on Monday December 13th that her site is a little town down in the Khersonska Oblast known as Velyka Lepetykha – I have a site mate! Shannon is a graduate of Wellesley and she will be working at VL Secondary School #2 for the next 2 years. I welcomed Shannon the weekend of December 18th with a walk around our town and my host mother made baked duck for our family to eat with Shannon on Sunday. I am so excited to have another PCV here in my town and the timing is wonderful for my HIV/AIDS project as she will head the School #2 involvement in the project! Another new PCV I met was a fellow ’09 graduate of Northwestern, Ashley. I have attached a picture of Ashley standing with Meaghan and me at the swearing in ceremony.

As the Christmas Holiday comes upon us, Velyka Lepetykha has been preparing well with a New Year’s Tree and decorations in the cafeteria, a Saint Nicholas Concert and lots of control work (tests) to finish off the semester. The Saint Nicholas Concert was held on December 17th despite a snowstorm outside. The audience was primarily elementary students but I went to see my 11th and 10th grade students perform. The storyline had Saint Nicholas and his granddaughter kidnapped by father frost. Two children then seek the help of an angel who guides them to speak to the Winter Queen who forces father frost to return Saint Nicholas and his granddaughter in time for Saint Nicholas day (December 19th.) I loved the performance as Inna, of the Anti-Smoking Project, was father frost and one of my best 10th grade students, Jenya, played Saint Nicholas. After the concert I got a picture with the stars of the show, which I have attached below!

I am very much looking forward to the holiday and a chance to take a break from all my work! I will be spending Christmas weekend in Crimea and then heading to Lviv for a few days before I fly with 7 other PCVs to Egypt for a week! We are headed to Sharm El Sheikh (unfortunately where all the recent shark attacks have occurred) and will be there for a week! I will be sure to pass along photos and stories when I return assuming a shark doesn’t eat me!

I would like to wish you all a very wonderful holiday season! Please stay safe and warm!

Love, Megan

P.S. I am attaching a very exciting letter I received this month from Senator Al Franken, which I wanted to share with you all!


Photos include:
Khersonska Oblast PCVs of groups 36, 37 and 38 (not the most recent arrivals)
My host sister, Nadya and her birthday cake
Anti Smoking Campaign with Alina, Olena and Inna
Thanksgiving at Tiago’s site and ABC mini camp
World AIDS Day
Swearing In Conference with Ashley and Meaghan and Kiev New Year’s Tree
Velyka Lepetykha Christmas Concert