| | so the grant is done. it's been a pretty busy 3 weeks.
we had victory day on may 9th. it was the first picnic of the year. sheryl and i didn't go to the big ceremony in town since we were working on our grant. but we went to bbq later with everyone else. it was a good day. i thought we were going to be rained out, but we were lucky and the rain drizzled and then passed us by.
sandy came over a couple of days ago randomly just to hangout. the three of us cooked dinner and had salad (real salad, not that mayo-crap salad). =) since sandy has told us that we can get lettuce at the bazaar in vinny, sheryl and i have been making pilgrimages there almost twice a month! haha....anyways we shared a bowl of salad, a huge pan of pasta, and 2 bottles of cabernet (although one of the bottles was not so great...hehe). having a girl's night is great! she went back to vinny the next day to go to work.
sheryl and i are pretty much done with our spa grant. i was so anti-grant writing when i first came here. i dunno why. it really has been one of the most fulfilling things that i have done here. i'm really glad that we wrote it, planned it out, etc. now we just have to submit and cross our fingers for approval. it was reviewed by two people and sandy is our coach. we haven't heard about any huge problems with it....so i hope that the committee will approve us. we'll know in a couple of weeks. =)
once it's approved it'll be a whole lotta work. the grant encompasses about 5 training sessions which will have to be repeated. in totally sheryl and i will probably run about 15-20 trainings. then there is the readying of the resource center space.
it's going to be a busy summer. implementing the grant, teaching summer camp, plus stephanie will be here!
okay...i'll be gone again for 3-4 weeks. i'll be at home...=) kinda weird to be going home. i can feel my peace corps service ending already and i still have 6 months.
truckload of pictures:::
here we are in the park in bar on may 9th (vicotry day). from L to R: vita, olechka, and my host dad. vita is one my kids at school. she's also olechka's best friend. that's champagne in my host dad's hand and vodka on the table. victory day reminds me of july 4th at home. the community really wakes up and comes together to celebrate. it's fun!
sheryl and i in the park.
host mom and host dad in the forest during on victory day picnic. i have no idea what my host dad is doing. =)
someone set up a swing set in the forest. so we took turns. here is my host mom, olechka, and andrei (who is trying to be a hooligan!). he really wants to push olechka high on the swing set to freak her out, and my host mom is trying to bat him away.
sheryl and i took an excursion into a neighboring village a couple of weeks ago with sandy, eric, chris, and patrick (the usual suspects). it was a green tourism excursion...so we paid for it. it was an interesting experience to say the least. the lady running it needs to learn A LOT before she can really branch out her company to include other foreigners. the jaunt into the village included watching a lady make bread, riding in a horse-drawn carriage (which was rather frightening. think less like jane austen and more like the ancient greeks!), a visit to some artist dude (where one of the locals pointed out in ukrainian that we weren't buying anything...these people got to figure out not to make snide comments when their guests can actually UNDERSTAND what they are saying!), a a huge dinner feast which in traditional ukrainian style lasted about 5 hours! anyways...it was an event that's for sure.
here's sandy and eric at the bread-making lady's place. she had a huge stone oven and literally made about 30 loaves of bread while we were there.
we were famished when we go to the lunch location (and totally parched as well). we sat down at the table before everyone else did...haha....but we only had something to drink, even though we really wanted to pick the food off of the plates! from L to R: patrick, sandy, chris, sheryl.
here is the right side of the table. the guy next to chris is a swiss guy who green tourism asked to come and consult them on how to better their business. he was really interesting and super smart. the guy learned how to speak russian when he was 59 years old.
here is the left side of the table. eric is next to sandy, and the lady next to eric is a secretary at the belgian embassy. she's on her second term and she's been living in kiev for the past 8 years! kiev is great, but i dunno if i could live in ukraine for that long!
sandy and i in a field of dandelion flowers. it was funny because after dinner and before the sweets came out they asked us to go and "look at the flowers". i was thinking, oh maybe there is a garden around the back of the house or something. but nope...they led us to this field of dandelions (which i might add that we had already walked through earlier). um...do the ukrainians know that these flowers aren't flowers...they are weeds! =)
there was an accordian player there. he is a music teacher in bar. he's quite talented, can pick up music by ear. patrick decided he wanted to try out his accordian. so the guy let him. i think the ukrainians really thought that patrick knew how to play the accordian. after they gave it to him and he sat down, it became apparent that he had never played the accordian before in his life. haha...
okay...for all you animal lovers....hehe....here is a picture of goat...who very badly needs to be milked. i dunno why they didn't milk the poor goat...but it looks sad.
bye! enjoy the start of summer! =)
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| | Posted 5/25/2006 11:10 AM - 37 Views - 2 eProps - 1 Comment
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