It’s been a little while since I was able to sit in front of the computer here and pound out a little of what has been going on around here. A big part of the delay has been because I’ve been doing a little bit of running around, getting sick and even a little freaking out, but I’m all better now, except that I won’t be settling down much quite yet. A couple of things I want to touch on below. God is great and new airline regulations suck.

First about those airline regulations, there was another volunteer who went back to visit her boyfriend who was a PCV, but just returned home to Oregon. She asked me if there was anything I wanted from home. As I thought about it, the best thing I could come up with was a good bottle of Pinot Noir. For those of you who don’t know, Oregon has some of the best around and I cannot get a decent bottle of wine in this country. Yet, while she was there, those psychos in London tried to smuggle liquid explosives onto planes bound for the U.S. and as a result I guess you can’t take any liquids onto planes any longer. So no wine, it was a bummer. It is funny the sort of things that you can end up missing, in retrospect I might have asked for some coffee, it is real hard to get a good cup of coffee here too, but I am finding places where I may be able to get some good beans. But good wine, that’s a tough one. So basic decision, these new airline regulations suck.

As for the part about how God is great, don’t know if I should say that and risk having the wrath of Peace Corps and the American government come down on me, but oh well. I have been in the process of working on a grant to help plant trees in my town and there has been a need to move quickly on it, causing me a bit of panic and stress. Ends up that this guy who is a former volunteer and still lives in Ukraine I thought was going to just help me, will do the actual writing. Gives me a lot of relief and the ability to assist in every way possible running down information and leads while not stress about needing to word the document in addition to the other things that I have been busy with. He was out here to visit my site, which involved having the mayor drive us around almost the entire day and have a generally good time, but made for a long day since I made two trips to Lviv that day and ended up going to Lviv the next day as well.

The reason for the second trip because a girl who I had met at a summer camp where she was teaching English, she’s from Virginia but has family history in Ukraine, wanted to see my site and get a chance to help out with an English club. I had my first meeting of younger classes yesterday (sixth to eighth grade) so it was a good opportunity for her to come check it out. While she speaks Ukrainian much better than I do, helps to have it in the blood I guess and to speak it at home, I am able to move around the country a lot easier since I do it more frequently. So I made a trip into Lviv to pick her up and then turn around pretty quick to make it back in time for the club at four.

As for the club it went well, had more students show up for it than I did for the older class, which isn’t too surprising but am aware of more who will want to come but were out of town at the sea or in the country. One thing I found interesting is the interest parents have in ensuring their children would be able to come to the club if they were not there. Guess that just speaks to the culture here where things can be exclusive and doors can close quickly? Not sure but it was not an isolated occurrence.

As for looking ahead, I have a full week ahead planned and will not be slowing down yet, maybe in the foreseeable future. Quick rundown of my week, in case you care. Monday to Tuesday will be in an adjoining town interviewing an NGO about some of their practices to see if I can use some of their ideas. Wednesday will have the Country Director visiting along with me having another English club almost right afterwards. That will just be followed up with Independence Day here on the 24th where I will giving a speech to the town, in Ukrainian. Not sure how that will go yet, guaranteed to be interesting! Well that’s more than enough for everyone to read, hope life is good wherever you read this and hope to hear from you soon!

A link to a report by the Brooking Commission of suggestions for Peace Corps, actually can agree with a lot of it. Don't often do that with Brookings
http://www.brookings.edu/comm/policybriefs/pb127.htm