F.A.Q.

I leave TODAY for my staging and thought I'd do a post for an easy guide with the most common questions I've gotten about my service.

What are you doing?

My official title is a Secondary Education English Teacher, which I have learned through a little bit of research (asking previous volunteers/google) could be anything from 5th- 12th grade (10 – 18-year-olds).

Are there other volunteers/who is going?

Last I heard there were about 100 other volunteers heading to Ukraine at the same time as me. Not all of us will be doing the same job, I know some are going to be teaching English at University level but other than that I don’t know too much about the other volunteers, but I am excited to meet them all!!

When do you leave?

I leave for staging Today!!! (September 19th). This is in D.C. and will be where I’ll get to meet up with all the volunteers, get my passport and visa, and go over some details! Tomorrow (on September 20th) I'll fly to Kiev (with a short layover in Frankfurt). From there we will have about a 2 hour drive to where I’ll start pre-service training (PST). I will be staying with a host family in Kiev until mid-December when I’ll be sent to my official site (location TBD) for the next two years!!

Where are you going?

So it’s not much of a surprise that many people do not know where Ukraine is because up until the early 90’s the area including Ukraine, Russia, Poland, and 15 other modern day countries were part of the USSR. Russia, Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova and the Black Sea surround Ukraine.

Chernihiv, where my training will be is in the northern central area of Ukraine, about a two hour drive from Kiev which is the capital of Ukraine

Aren’t you scared?

Of course it is scary leaving home with the only certain date that I will return not being in the foreseeable future. BUT I am very excited by the idea of being immersed in a new culture! I understand that it is going to be one of my biggest challenges in life thus far. It will be difficult living without the luxuries I am accustomed to. Things like electricity, running water, unlimited entertainment on the Internet, and the most important people being a short drive/phone call away but these are things many of us take for granted. Learning to live without luxuries is important to me because I find it more important to serve and help others than to be comfortable in my own life.

Why would you do this?

I love to travel, I love meeting new people, I love experiencing new culture, I love helping others, I love challenges – honestly it seems like it will be a perfect fit for me! This is the best time in my life for me to easily be able to drop everything to give back and serve others. Since this is the most common question I have gotten I wrote a more detailed answer – check it out here!

What language will you speak?

Ukrainian is the national language of Ukraine, and what I will focus on attempting to learn before I leave and likely the language I will focus on during PST – there is a chance I will focus on Russian. Ukrainians use the 33 letter Cyrillic alphabet, which I know nothing about, but am I excited to learn!

"The world is not changing if you don’t shoulder the burden of responsibility" – Al Weiwei

-M

#peacecorps #what #who #where #when #why #language #emotion