Well Hey There, Ukraine!

I'm here everyone! I am officially (as of Thursday 4:00pm Ukraine time) in Kiev, living the life. That's actually a bit of an exaggeration. It's been an overwhelming, exhausting, and slightly terrifying four days. On Thursday we were met at the airport by the foreign coordinators and our head teacher, Alysha. We rolled all of our luggage out to the pitch black airport parking lot (remember that it's only 4:30pm) and had them loaded into a green van driven by a nice man named Sasha. This was our first experience with the Ukrainians' version of "driving." As far as I can tell, the only rules are to go as fast as you can, wherever you want, as long as you don't hit anything. Also, seatbelts seem to be optional because even my host family's car is only equipped with one for the driver.

Fresh off the plane and confused in the dark...also there's luggage

 

The inside of the wall that surrounds our house

 

Nikita and Sophia and the front of my their house

As we were each dropped off at our houses, Kate and I were given a little surprise: we are both staying with the same host family! So in addition to teaching at the same school at the same time, we get to share in the experience of living with the same people! ILP also provided Ukrainian phones for each of us, along with money each month for any of our transportation needs. When we arrived at the house, it was a lot more than we ever imagined. The family we live with hosts girls from ILP year round, so they are used to having foreigners living with them. We have a spacious shared room on the bottom floor of the house and we have our own bathroom, complete with a see-through floor and a shower that squirts water from all sorts of directions. The family also has a ton of pets, including a rabbit, two turtles, a fish, and two chinchillas. The mom and dad are named Tatyana and Alex, and they have two children, Nikita (12) and Sophia (8). They are all very kind and the kids seem to love having us around.


Our great and spacious bedroom...my bed is the one with the glowing screen

The bathroom. Notice the sweet seashell exhibit

This bunny hates Kate

The chinchillas are in there, I promise

Friday we spent most of the day at the school organizing our supplies and receiving additional training. Kate and I teach at the Nyvky school. We both teach the Primary level Monday through Friday from 3pm-6pm along with another girl. Then between the three of us we rotate teaching Pre-K in the mornings from 10am-11am. Friday was mentally and physically exhausting because we were a day behind due to our delayed flight. This stress, combined with our jetlag made for a rough first day.

Me working hardcore on a BYU puzzle

Me smiling so I can get back to hardcore puzzle

Saturday was more of the same, except that after planning and training at the school, we went as a group to this huge mall called Ocean Plaza. We took this crazy little bus called a marshrutka. These things are privately owned buses that are faster than regular public buses. Much faster. You have to stand by the stop and flag them down, and then you better hurry and get on or it will leave with you hanging out the bus. This nearly happened to our group since we were trying to pile nine girls into this tiny bus. Then you just make your way to the front and put your money down and the driver makes change for you while he drives around recklessly. On top of that, you have to let the driver know when you want to get off, something that at the time none of us Americans knew how to say in Russian. (We now know to say, "Nastanovkay." That spelling is definitely wrong, and half the time we don't remember how to pronounce it, so we just hope someone else has to get off at our same stop.)

Somehow we made it to the right stop and then it was onto the metro. We learned how to buy tokens and then how to read the directions for the different stops and metro lines. To get to Ocean Plaza we took M1 and then had to transfer to M2, which took us about 45 minutes to do, all the while standing with our heavy backpacks and trying not to topple over every time the metro started and stopped. We eventually made it, but it wasn't too great of an experience because Kate and I were tired and hungry and not really in a shopping mood. But the mall was very beautiful and impressive, so we'll probably be making our way back there sometime in the future.

Ocean Plaza. It's big and bright and not a friend to the
severely jetlagged

Because of our exhaustion, Kate and I wanted to get home as soon as possible. This meant tackling the metro all by our wee selves. Luckily, the station was right by the Ocean Plaza. We found the right place to be, but as we got onto the metro, tons of people crowded on with us. We were completely squished up against everyone, so much that we couldn't even reach anything to hold onto when the train began moving! It didn't really matter though because we just swayed a little when it started and were held up by everyone packed around us. We transferred metros successfully and were picked up by our host mom at the station. I'd say it was a success. The rest of the evening was painfully spent creating our very first lesson plans and trying not to freak out too much about our impending first days of teaching. Although there is something to be said about how adultish we felt (it's probably not a word, but just go with it,) I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing.

Sunday was church day! We were going to learn how to take the marshrutka to get to church, but Kate and I took too long to get ready so our host mom just drove us. The international branch we attended is on the temple grounds, right next to the Kiev temple. Church was wonderful. I think I dressed warmer than I ever have before, meaning that I wore tights and gloves. Church in Ukraine is exactly the same as church in the US, which I already knew, but it was comforting to have that reaffirmed. The branch basically consists of ILP teachers, so they were happy to have us. Hopefully we will be attending Institute on Thursday nights as well as any other branch activities that happen.

Repping that young sister missionary look

Getting back home was definitely an adventure. Kate and I were supposed to take one marshrutka down to Billa station. We crossed the street via a super sketchy underground tunnel and then waited in the cold for bus number 56. We hurriedly got on, paid, and grabbed onto a pole before the bus began moving. The only problem was, it was really hard to see where we were. I was a little fidgety about missing our stop, so I accidentally made us get off a few stops early. We had no idea where we were, so we called our host dad and then caught another marshrutka for another couple of stops. Then down the underground tunnel and under the street, and we were picked up and whisked away back home.

The rest of the day was pretty laid back. The family took us out (Why yes, we did fit six people in a five person sedan. See what you can do without seatbelts?) and we bought some delicious candy. Expect candy if I give you something from Ukraine. It's simple and delicious. Then we drove around the city a bit and took some pictures by some pretty buildings. Pretty standard stuff. But it was fun and now we're gearing up for the start of school tomorrow! It'll be a long day, but I'm sure it will all be worth it!

All the candy you ever and never want

 

Kate, Sophia, and me with some buildings

 

More buildings