Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Peace Corps, Making Friendship Bracelets, Indian Food Night and International Women's Day

Sorry for the delay in updating my blog, the past couple weeks have been a little hectic! I wrapped up the International Writing Olympics by selecting winners from each form (8th-11th) and typing up their entries to submit to our Oblast coordinator for judging. Kharkiv Oblast will then send its winning submissions along to the National level in Kyiv. The water was also out in my apartment for a full week... Going to the well to draw buckets of water when it is icy and like -20 degrees outside really makes you appreciate having running water inside your apartment! It turned out that the pipes in my building froze over and the water returned when it finally warmed up a bit to -5 degrees.

Image designed by Danny Zawacki, courtesy of the PC Ukraine creative team.

On March 1st, Peace Corps celebrated its 50th anniversary! The United States Peace Corps was founded by President John F. Kennedy on March 1st, 1961 and this year also marks the 20th anniversary of the Peace Corps in Ukraine. My school's alumni magazine published an article about the Peace Corps, including alums who are RPCVs and I was highlighted as a current PCV! You can check out the article online here.

An excerpt from the GT Alumni magazine article, courtesy of Kimberly Link-Wills.

Last week in English club, we made some friendship bracelets! My 5th-7th graders have been bugging me about how to make the bracelets for a few weeks since I wear a bracelet made by my sister Celina on my left wrist. I finally bought the embroidery string and taught the students how to make the chevron-style bracelet, using 4 different colors. I drew a picture of how to tie the knots onto the strings to help the students visualize and supplement the instructions in English.

Some of my students making friendship bracelets in English Club.

Separating the strands of embroidery thread, keeping them in the right order to make the chevron pattern.

A closeup of the chevron pattern friendship bracelet, scotch taped onto a desk for easier braiding.

Last weekend, I traveled to my friend Jillian's site to enjoy some tasty home-cooked Indian food! She lives about 3 hours from Kharkiv, in a small town about the size of mine. Her town has some cool statues in the center, along with a small church.

Maybe George and the Dragon?

A statue of an angel.

The church and a small tank.

Jillian received a box of spices and assorted other ingredients to make Indian food, so she invited the Kharkiv Oblast PCV's over to share the feast. We each made our own naan (Jillian made the dough from scratch), also had a few different curry dishes, some chicken and rice :)

Step 1: flatten the dough.

Step 2: Erika and Jacob demonstrating how to put the dough on the pan and fry it in oil.

Step 3: Whitney flipping the dough over as it begins to turn golden brown.

Step 4: add some assorted spices to your naan.

Step 5: enjoy your naan with the rest of your meal!

We also celebrated International Women's Day on March 8th. In Ukraine, we can say "Поздравляю всех девушек и женщин с праздником Международный женский!" in Russian - which translates to I congratulate all girls and women with the International Women's Day holiday! Last Friday, many of the students were dressed up in the "official" black and white business professional school uniforms and the 11th formers greeted all women at the front door of the school with a song and chant of congratulations!

The 11th formers with their little spring headbands :)

With Jenia and Marina, two of my 10th formers.

I am so excited for spring to be here! The days are getting longer and the sun doesn't set until after 5pm now. And the snow is finally beginning to melt in my town... which means that I need to bust out my trusty Yak Trax since the streets have turned from packed down snow into slick solid ice. 

English Week Part 2: More Valentines, International Writing Olympics, Puzzles, and "Beyond the Orange Curtain"

This is my 100th post on my blog! So much has changed from my first "Hello World" post, I can't believe it has been more than a year since I started the Peace Corps application process.

The second half of my school's English Week has been really busy! We celebrated Valentine's Day at my school by displaying many more handmade valentines and doing some special activities in our classes. I printed and photocopied a Valentines-themed word search for my 5th form class and a crossword puzzle for my 10th form class. We also had a small competition in the auditorium between the 8th and 9th form classes. Each class selected a male and female representative, and they competed in pairs to answer questions, act out charades, and even dance a slow dance at the end.

One of the 11th form girls hand-sewed this pillow for me! It is super cute and about the size of a steering wheel!

Several of my 5th formers working on the Valentines Day word search worksheet.

I also had 11 students participate in the International Writing Olympics at my school this week! This writing competition was apparently the first of its kind to be held at my school, so I'm glad that at least a handful of my students were able to participate. The IWO is a creative writing essay contest for students ranging from 6th form to University level, coordinated by Peace Corps Volunteers across Ukraine and in the surrounding Eastern European countries. Like English Olympiads, students were each given 3 questions (based on their form) and they select one question to answer in their essay. The students had 60 minutes to write essays based on different prompts, corresponding to their grade level. The essays will be judged by myself and several of my school's English teachers based on a rubric which awards more points to creativity of ideas than perfection of writing mechanics. We will select one winner per form (only 8th-11th forms participated) and send our school's winning essays to compete at the Kharkivs'ka Oblast level. Here are a few sample prompts from the 2010 International Writing Olympics (I don't want to give away any of this year's prompts in case any PCVs haven't had their school-level competitions yet):

• What would you do if you could become invisible? (8th form)
• Why is the grass green? (9th form)
• If people had to hold hands to talk, how would the world be different? (10th form)
• What would the world be like if all cell phones disappeared tomorrow? (11th form)

In English club this week, my 5th-7th formers worked on some American puzzles that I brought from home. One puzzle is a map of the lower 48 United States and the other puzzle is a picture of the $100 bill with Benjamin Franklin on it.

The kids are working hard on matching up all the pieces!

Ta-da! Here is the finished $100 bill puzzle :)

Georgia Tech is ranked 24th in the Peace Corps Top University and College Rankings (for medium sized colleges & universities), which is really exciting! I'm featured for being a current Peace Corps Volunteer in this week's edition of Georgia Tech's campus newspaper, The Technique. You can check out the text version of the article online here or download the full pdf version of this week's newspaper (the article can be found on page 11 and 12).

Several of my 5th formers and I with our "Invitations to a Birthday Party" class writing activity.

Larisa Alexandrovna, a Ukrainian English teacher, and I with some of our 8th form students.

My friend Tiago Forte (a PCV in the same town as my good friend Alison, about an hour from my town) just published a book called "Beyond the Orange Curtain" about his experiences in South America. It is the story of his adventures working and traveling in South America - from the slums of Rio de Janeiro to the Caribbean Coast of Colombia - and what those experiences taught him about life, love, and the Orange Curtain: the bubble that surrounds Orange County and makes life there so different from anywhere else. In the spirit of the Peace Corps, 100% of the proceeds from the sale of this book (after production and shipping costs) will go to fund ABC Camp, a youth summer camp in Ukraine that teaches leadership, creativity, and civic skills. I have also applied to work as a camp counselor at ABC Camp this summer, with the hopes that I can influence some young Ukrainians to become leaders in their schools and communities. With each purchase of the book for $19.95, $12 will be donated to fund the camp. You may also donate to the camp apart from purchasing this book by clicking here.

And last but not least... it has gotten so cold this week that they canceled school yesterday and today (Thursday and Friday). We have had some beautiful sunny days and bright full moon nights this week but they have been very chilly. Apparently it is a school policy to cancel school if it is colder than -25 degrees C outside! I planned a little trivia quiz game on holidays, sports, movies, geography, and music from English speaking-countries for my 8th, 9th and 10th formers and we didn't get to have it because school was canceled. So hopefully it will be the last cold frost of the winter and we can start school again next Monday!