Arrival and Training. We started out at staging in Chicago
They call it staging and we got to go to Chicago to do ours	Kevin getting that last e-mail out before loading the bus					Ed and the Pooping Chicken meet at staging before they embark on their new adventure
Virginia was watching the bus get loaded and I decided that she looked so good I needed a photo.					From the country desk at DC Cynthia and Neil got to lead our staging.
That’s Virginia pushing the baggage in the line at the airport.
				We have arrived. Tired, but ready to, wait a minute, what does that man with the gun want us to do? Custom forms, where does my name go? What do you mean by this here? Help.
				Well it was confusing but not that bad. We did have help. We came in with a plane load of Mormon Missionaries who had had intensive language training and I was relieved to notice that the forms were just as hard for them as for us.
Probably should not have this one but no one said anything and it is not too clear so I feel safe				First buildings I saw after the airport.
Fellow volunteer Kaleb and I guard the luggage in front of Prolocok. This is the sanatorium that we get to do all of our gathering in. About 20 miles outside of Kiev and on the river.				You saw the room in Chicago; this is the room at Prolisok. We have two beds like this and a private bathroom which I did not take a photo of.
				Finished with Prolosok and our getting acquainted segment of training, we headed out to our first host families. As we drove up in the bus we found people waiting for us. This is not our group or town but my photos were lost in the greeting (I was too busy to take them) so these will have to do to give you the idea.
Downstairs we were greeted by members of the staff dressed in traditional costume and welcoming us with bread and salt. Check out the video on the “Extra’s Page”
This is our town and our house. Below you will see Virginia with our new host sister, Tamara, close up and in front of the house.
Just after we got there we were introduced to our first Ukrainian holiday, International Women’s Day. This is a special day for women as the men get to buy them chocolates and flowers as well as cook and clean. We were told that we would be expected to act just like the Ukrainian men. I cooked dinner much to their amazement as most Ukrainian men just set out some sardines and potatoes for dinner. I on the other hand tried to poison them when I set out a raw vegetable salad containing regular white mushrooms. It seems that raw mushrooms are just coming back in style after the Chernobyl event and my host family was not ready for that. They boil their handpicked mushrooms for hours and store them in brine before they eat them because mushrooms are able to store large amounts of radiation The rest of the meal went well as I cooked Chicken Filets and a rice Pilaf. It was one of the few meals in Ukraine that did not include soup		This is the lane we walked up from the house to get to class. It is a very steep road even when it has no snow on it. You will see this road again so memorize the features.
		My blushing bride using the dictionary to aid her in her need to speak with our hosts.
		This is our host family. Nicholai and Tamara. The are just a little older then us so we think of them as brother and sister instead of host parents.
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		. Nicholai is a retired Railroad man and Tamara is the assistant Principal of one of the local schools. I cook for International Women’s Day!
			From organized businesses to little old ladies selling the fruits of their labors, the bazaar is the local hot spot.
Open Tuesday through Sunday from 6:30 to 1:00 if they did not have it, we did not need it.		The local Bazaar was our stomping ground and we had fun learning the ins and outs of the shopping experience
Just a few more shots on this page and they will all be from class. Center above is Ira, our Technical Trainer. What that means is she was responsible for showing us what would work in Ukraine and what would not. She was our liaison with the town and found us our internships. She translated for us when we needed it and just generally worked very hard for us. To make matters worse, we were paired with a second cluster that was two hours away by public transportation so she had to travel hours each day. .
Our link’s teacher. Looks like the man from U.N.C.L. E. to me		This is our teacher. She spent 4-6 hours a day beating Russian into our head and we did learn. Sometimes it did not seem to work out as we wanted and often we felt that we did not know anything, but we did learn.
One of those medical days as we got together with our link and one other group for lessons on self defense and whatever.		This is lunch at the bus station on the way back to our town from one of our cultural meetings held with our link cluster.
This is our cluster and most of our host families, taken at our get aquainted Tea.		This is our Technical instructor. She did not teach us technology, but she taught us the technical aspects of integrating with our host country
Our visit to the town authorities. This is the Deputy mayor		Some of the members of our Link
This is a picnic we had with our rotation teacher on her last day. She joined us for two weeks as the trainers moved around to give us a chance to work with different voices and styles.