Springtime

This time of year is just awesome in Ukraine for many reasons.... First of all it marks my anniversary in this country. 1 year down!!! Whooooo hooooo!!! (Which is also proving to me how fast time flies)... Second of all the weather is just absolutely amazing. I think I had mentioned to some of you that I went about 3-4 weeks without ever seeing the sunshine? Yeah well now we are going on the 3rd week of nothing but sunshine. The climate here is strange like that - VERY wet, cold, dark cloudy fall/winters and VERY dry, sunny, hot, spring/summers. Cherry blossom trees are in full bloom, all the poppy flowers are out and the tulips are just coming up... Also, in preparation for the Prague Marathon in 2 weeks, I am now running every morning at 8AM. This picture shows the large river about 200 meters from my apartment. There is a small trail that runs along this river and it is sooo peaceful and beautiful in the morning. Every morning I run by farmers, fisherman, baby goats, cows, pigs, and many different types of birds. I really love this time of year in Ukraine. :)

Right now work is pretty busy. I finally have received the grant funds (about $2,500 - which is a lot of money here) for a project that I will conduct over the next few months. It's for running a Business Leadership Club, which actually I have sort of begun last November, but this will be an expansion and major improvement to the club. We were given a room in our organization to hold many of our events and with the funds we will refurbish almost everything. The list of tasks includes: buy a laptop for club use, buy new tables/white board/bookshelves, repair and paint all walls (including a large 20 foot map of the world on one wall), install Internet, and buy a long list of resource materials (books, software, etc.) to help us in teaching new and interesting topics. At this point in time, we are concentrating on purchasing all the materials and preparing for the painting event. My organization has agreed to use their own money and repair the whole ceiling and add new doors to this room.. so this project will be going well into the summer before it is finished.

Besides this grant, myself along with 14 other Peace Corps Volunteers, have decided to hold our own English Camp this summer in August. Even though it is only a week long, there is A LOT of planning that will go into this camp. It is called "The Republic" and here is a brief description:

"A camp that uses a role-playing game based loosely on the ancient Greek city-state of Athens from roughly the 6th-4th centuries BCE. 70 campers will participate in the game as Athenian citizens who make up the Athenian government, the Assembly. The government of the game is also based on the democratic process created in Athens during this time period. The campers will participate in this government by reacting to a series of daily crises that occurred during this period of Greek history in Athens. In their political factions (10 students), campers will have to create and present projects in response to these situations, deliberate them, and vote on them as official legislation. All their actions will have some type of consequence, however, affecting their factions and the city-state as a whole. They will be forced to compromise with different groups’ motivations / objectives / resources in order to achieve their goals. In addition, campers will have the opportunity to learn about the culture of ancient Greece, which is a large part of the foundation of modern civilization."