When I start getting comments that I haven’t updated in a while and it doesn’t feel like it was that long ago, I realize how time has flied, even if most of the time I don’t feel like I have accomplished all that much.

A big part of the reason for my rather tardy update is I have been at least a little bit busy, traveling to Kyiv last weekend to work on the Ukrainian Peace Corps newsletter that is sent to every volunteer in the country and other people in the country, not exactly sure all where it goes. There are three of us editors that met, although I didn’t write anything. It isn’t exactly as exciting as it sounds since we are little more than spell-checkers and page-designers, but it was a chance to do something different and feel as if I really do have at least a few skills in this country. The other big part of that was the meeting just happened to be convened on Thanksgiving. There was a flurry of SMSs between volunteers with the congratulations, but it definitely didn’t feel the same in this country, except all the staff at the Peace Corps office had the day off. We had our own little celebration by going out to TGI Friday’s and later that evening I went out with one of the other editors and we actually caught an American football game. The beers were ridiculously expensive, but watching Joey Harrington win a game on Thanksgiving was fun. We finished up by early that next afternoon and I took off for the weekend to visit my host family and get out of Kyiv, It is nice to visit, but I can’t stay there for very long because it is so prohibitively expensive on my budget. Plus it is much more fun to hang out with my host family.

While there I ended up in the church in town during a tour of the town I gave to the current LCF (Language and Cross-cultural Facilitator), who is teaching the new trainees in the town Ukrainian. I had seen the church plenty of times from the outside and I had just given her a pretty extensive tour of town. Inside felt Orthodox and I lit the first candles of my life in a church. While I tend to be hesitant of many of the traditions these follow, I found it to be a fulfilling experience. Understanding the traditions behind it and being able to worship in my own way while observing some of the Eastern traditions was good. These experiences will definitely influence my faith when I do return to the states. How and in what ways is hard to tell now, but I will be more aware of traditions and appreciate them. In some ways I wonder if America has tried to break away from some of these types of European traditions, it forgot the meaning behind them that can be so powerful. Not that I am going to endorse all the different parts, I am not all that comfortable with the amount of icons, but simple acts of lighting candles and the openness of the church that anyone can walk in during the day was appreciated. But in that same train of thought I will be looking forward to being able to have some of those deeper theological, religious and social discussions that I enjoyed back in the states, that is not a common occurrence for me here.

But my traveling brought me back to my site Monday morning, the overnight trains are a blessing and a curse, and we got to work trying to get the newspaper issue here ready to print. Things haven’t worked quite as smoothly and have reinforced my opinion that volunteers don’t always have good and bad days, but rather good and bad hours. How’s that for the ability to really screw with your head? Today was a combination of the two as I have been behind on the production, mainly because I’m allowing the students to do as much work as possible and that means things get done slower. At least it will be a lesson at the same time. At the English club I missed last week I was told when I arrived this week they missed me, but the same day I found out that the library containing all the files for the needed for the newspaper were locked away for the day. So is life here.