weekend update

It was a good weekend, but I am exhausted! Saturday, we traveled to the village where our link is for a cross-cultural and tech session. We toured a museum of Ukrainian history, which was really neat. The village where we were had a festival that day, so I had the chance to hear a lot of folk music. (I have to admit, though, that my favorite was the very small girl with the very big voice belting out a rock version of "Little Red Riding Hood".)

Sunday, we went to Kyiv, which is an absolutely beautiful city. I loaded up on books from the Peace Corps office lending library. :) I also had letters from Mom (letter 2, by the way...I don't know what happened to #1) and Tina, which made me pretty happy.

This weekend, Kate and Marisa, a couple of current Volunteers who went through training here last year came to act as mentors for us. Kate lived with my family last year, so she stayed with us. Both of them gave us a lot of info about surviving training, being a volunteer, and everything else. Marisa is a Christian, and it was really nice to get a chance to talk with her about the Peace Corps, how it's affected her faith, and how she's been able to worship (she currently attends a Baptist church in her town, where she sings in the choir!).

The students have fall break this week, so I'm not teaching, but both the secondary school and the gymnasium requested that we come and do an extra-curricular activity with the kids, so we went to the gymnasium today, told the kids about ourselves, and played Uno and dominoes. It went over really well.

The downside of everything that's going on is that I'm really tired and not feeling well. Some of it's stuff I deal with on a fairly regular basis (cramps, backache, etc.), but I've also had stomach pains and nausea. With Kate and Marisa being here, we've tended to be a bit more social outside of class, which is good for my social and emotional health but taking a toll on me physically. So your prayers there would be much appreciated.

Also, my grandmother apparently broke her hip this past weekend, so please pray for her as well.