So, um, yeah. The party started Friday night, went to 4:00 AM Saturday morning with some banya and shashlik and drinking and guitar playing and clubbing in between (with me taking two hours in the afternoon to go teach at the library).
Sadly, my camera barely came out, and seeing the pics, they barely get in the scope of the thing, which is what happens when 11 PCVs and a Ukranian get together in Zhytomyr.
The pics are here:
I got up on three hours of sleep, packed (and in a stupor brought only one shirt for four days) and went to Kyiv for a TOT (Training of Teachers) for American Councils.
Because it was American Councils and not Peace Corps (although a lot of us were Peace Corps Volunteers) it was quite posh (for Ukraine). I had hot water, decent food, and a MATRESS! Oh, it was beautiful. This thing was much bigger than I realized, with people from Moldova, Russia, Belarus and Georgia (the country) there. Because of the wide range of languages spoken, I now know how to say "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?" in 14 langauges. Seriously. I'll type them up for a future blog.
As you can tell from the pictures, we learned and practiced teaching every scrap of material that has to be taught to students who will be departing Ukraine this summer for America as exchange students (although the exchange only goes one way). We got up at 7:30 AM every day to do this, and then spent every night hanging out and drinking (me: Fanta; no Pepsi was available) until the wee hours of the morning. So I feel like the party hasn't stopped since Friday. I so need to crash, but the majority of us are going clubbing tonight and I still have a grant proposal due on Friday...