Another Holiday!!

These weekend was another holiday.  They have a tradition of going to the graves of loved ones and eating food and leaving candy and bread at the gravesight.  The cemetary was way different then any American one that I have seen. Each person has a small fenced in area, some have little benches or tables inside of the fenced area.  The tombstones also had a picture of what the person looked like.  So we went to the cemetary for a few hours and then came back here and ate a lot of food!  Katie, Vanessa, and Alicia joined my family for the festivites.   

Another long week ahead of me, teaching my second class tomorrow.  Plenty of Russian practice ahead of me tonight.  Wednesday I am going to Kiev with my group and Katya, our language instructor.  I can't wait to see the city, plus after this we are allowed to travel there alone, which will serve as a nice meeting place with our scattered peace corps volunteers.  Thursday we assist the english teachers in the schools and Friday and Saturday more training!  Hope all is well with everyone at home, love hearing from you all.  Have a great day!

My Peace Corps Group in Fastiv with Mayor

All is well

All remains well here in Fastiv Ukraine.  Last Sunday was Easter, easily a day I will never forget.  Worth giving you the time stamps on this one

12am-1am followed the cubs and bulls online

1am-2 am Sleep

2 am- 4am Walked to Church where our bread was blessed with water, along with thousands of others, (around 25,000 people go to the church to have food blessed between midnight and 7am)

4 am- 6 am- Eat recently blessed food and take traditonal 3 shots of Vodka, which apparently turns into 5 if american is present

6am-12pm sleep

12 pm- 5 pm Picnic in the Forest along River with traditional easter food and Ukrainian Vodka

5 pm- 10 pm More food and drink with my family, Katie, and 6 of their friends

10 pm- midnight- classic rock music and sleep

Was a new way for me to do Easter, but I have every intention of returning here next year for it.  Taught my first classes this week- 6th and 7th graders on the dangers of smoking.  Continue to learn Russian and job training.  Sunday there is another holiday where we go and visit the graves of deased family members. Teach again next week and will hopefully visit Kiev.  Thats all I got for now, all is well.  Love hearing from all of you.  Tiffany got engaged yesterday which is super exciting!  Hopefully Tom and her do not mind getting married in Ukraine.  

All is well here still, I have it so lucky, my host family is great and I have a great support here in the city with the family, my fellow peace corps people, and our trainers.  Its super busy but so far really good.  I want to the Orthodox church this morning which was very interesting to see..  The church is 300 years old, built of all wood with no nails.  This week was pretty busy with the Russian training and the technical training.  Everyweek we have about 20 hours of Russian lessons and another 15 hours of technical training.  I am really enjoying it.  Okay my 8 year old sister is not allowing me to type anymore so I just wanted to let all know that I am doing well. Love to hear from you

Went to babushka's house last night for dinner, it was such good food.  Not a bad meal yet!  Today Bogden, Vanessa, and I are going to walk around Fastiv and map the city.  Should be pretty exciting.  Russian is slowly coming along, I am trying not to use Bogden's awesome English as too much of a crutch but for the mean time its making it easy!  Mentality all of this is a little tiring, plus with missing my friends and family, and especially liz its a little wearing, but I am living with a wonderful family and have great support via Peace Corps staff.  Hope everything is well in the states.  Orlando Pace and Cutler to the bears.  Cubs opening day on Tuesday!  MSU vs.  UNC in the National Championship game, hopefully the big ten can get some revenge, even though I have ill feelings towards MSU (sorry dan).  Well please all keep in contact.  Enjoy your Sunday

Scratch the one cents a minute thing.  Not that cheap ha.  Stick to emails or posts on here. Email is bobschlehuber@gmail.com

Hello All,

I made it safely to Ukraine.  I arrived yesterday to my 3 month home of Fastiv.  My host family is amazing.  I am living with a mom, a dad, their 15 year old son, and 8 year old daughter.  The food has been great and the apartment is very nice.  I will be learning Russian while I am here, which is scary but exciting at the same time. . All incoming calls are free, feel free to call me. Anyways, I am safe, excited, motivated, nervous, tired, and everything else inbetween.  Hope all is well with everyone!