Preface to the second email I sent from Ukraine:

               When I arrived in Ukraine the school was not ready for me. Apparently the guy who had hired me thought I would be coming a month later than I actually did. I had to wait for the next batch of American teachers to arrive before I could have my own apartment and start teaching. They arrived a month after me. I spent the first month in Ukraine staying at another teacher’s apartment while she was on vacation. She had been living in Ukraine for over ten years and had remodeled an apartment to make it more comfortable. I could sleep in her bed until she came back and then I would be relegated to the couch. However, she was a very nice lady, and stayed with the director of our school until the new teachers arrived, letting me have her apartment to myself. It was a great place to stay, but I was incredibly bored. After a week of training, there was nothing for me to do. All the other teachers had classes, but I spent my days at the apartment afraid to venture out. It is interesting how palpable that fear was. I knew no one would understand me and was scared that people finding out I didn’t belong. I spent my days inside the apartment, only going out to get groceries. I was lonely and bored. I have never been more aware of world events than during that month, thanks to Aljezzera, which I watched constantly, it being the only English TV channel I had. I also read a lot. I didn’t have internet at my apartment, so those were my only two activities. It was a bit of a miserable start. Soon, however, my loneliness and boredom outweighed my fears of venturing out of the apartment. I was forced out of my comfort zone. To this day, whenever I travel, I spend the first couple of days in a frightened stupor, scared to leave the house. They’ll find me out, I think, buried beneath blankets, afraid to move. However, I’m never allowed to stay in that state for very long. It’s an excellent lesson in conquering your fears and pushing yourself.


Wednesday, August 8, 2007 3:00 PM

Hi all,
So, I still don't have internet in my apartment and am right now at a friend's house using hers. It's a
little frustrating but everything in Ukraine is slow, I'm used to the American way of getting things done
 instantly. Waiting is the word of the year. But It’s nice to have a little bit slower pace of life.

My apartment is gorgeous, (I should have written that the inside of my apartment was gorgeous. As you can see from the following pictures, the rest of it was a bit sketchy), although I don't get to stay there forever. Right now I'm by myself living at another teacher's house while she is on vacation. She will be coming back next week and I hear that she likes to cook, which works very well for me. The apartment has a Jacuzzi bathtub, which is pretty sweet, and cable, but really that just consists of Aljazeera in English, which I watch.

The hall outside my apartment.
My door is on the left.

My apartment building.
My apartment is on the left, on the 8th floor.

The front door of my apartment building.

The two keys I needed to get into my front door.

Underneath my apartment building.

 One for the doorknob lock and one for a lock higher up on the door.

                                                                                                                                         



The view is amazing also. I can see a beautiful gold towered cathedral and an enormous statue from across the river. They say the statue is bigger than the statue of liberty (it also is of a woman) but I haven't been there to check it out yet.




'Mother Motherland', the statue

 I could see from my apartment-203 feet tall.


I've been into the city only once, we went to a famous street, which I will be working on once I'm done with the training. We walked down the street and into Independence Square, where millions of people rallied during the Orange Revolution in 2004. There were some cool statues and the views were magnificent. We also did some shopping and then had dinner with a bunch of teachers. But since then we've just been training, so I haven't had time for any more site-seeing. My trainer says that she will take me to a nice second hand store, so I'm excited about that.


So far its been pretty warm here, not as bad as Florida but still sweaty and humid. The
worst is there is no air conditioning and Ukrainians don't believe in opening windows, they are afraid it
 would create a draft and make everybody sick. However, I'm not one for suffocating, so I open the windows in the classroom.

Right now my diet is pretty pathetic, mainly consisting of bread, cheese, cereal and pasta.
I did have some beets the other day. I've been cooking my own food which is really not a good idea, my
 standard of cooking just doesn't work for me. But my laziness usually wins over my want for good taste.

This weekend we are going to do some more site-seeing and maybe head to the beach. Carolyn (the only other american girl here) and I are hoping for some more girl teachers, some more teachers will be arriving in a couple of weeks. The American guys are gaga over the Ukrainian women. They also like to drink, a lot, and the director of my school who is 38 is right there with them. It is kinda annoying because whatever we do turns into a big drinking fest and Carolin and I are always the only American girls, the Ukrainian girls are always being flirted with by the American boys so we tend to get bored. But it has been very interesting so far. I miss everyone and hope everyone is doing

well. Love, Jacy

Here are some of the sights we saw on our sight-seeing tour:

A church in Kiev

The Chimera building, a governmental building