little victories

Make no bones about it – serving in the Peace Corps can be frustrating.

There are big frustrations. There are countless little setbacks.

But.
But.

Then there are the victories. The moments in which what you’re doing, why you’re doing it is so resoundingly clear that it bestows upon you a heady sense of wonder and marvelous sense of grounded purpose. (We can probably assume it’s evidence of eudaimonic well-being.)

The breakdown:
I’ve been in Ukraine since September 2010. 8 months down, 19 to go.
Last Thursday I taught my final four class of my first semester at site. Well, that was the plan. But the day was so beautiful, and everyone (teachers included) wanted nothing more than to run outside and play soccer/volleyball in the field across the road from our school. So we did just that, and it was marvelous.

Note: Over the semester I worked with thirteen groups of students, ranging from second form through to tenth form. We just finished calculating the final numbers for an official form, and determined that I have worked with 238 students, and conducted over 40 English clubs (sub-divided into three weekly groups based mostly on ability/age).

That’s a lot of Vlads, Sashas, Ihors, Natashas, Ksusias and Yulias, let me tell you. Thankfully, I finally have a handle on most  of my students names. Occasionally I’ll still slip and call a student by the wrong name, but they seem to be amused rather than insulted by my naming faux-pas.

Last week my counterpart (a local liaison who facilitates my work with my school, in this case, a fellow English teacher) enthusiastically assured me that she has already seen significant progress in the language abilities of many of my students – which she chalks up to their love of me and some inherent talent for teaching. I’m not as convinced of my teaching super-powers as she is, but even I’ve noticed that with the majority of my classes there’s been improvement, particularity in the area of communication (namely, they are losing their fear of trying to communicate in a foreign language – conquering this fear is, in this humble PCVs opinion, absolutely essential.) Score one for the zany American English teacher!

Friday morning, at the official closing ceremony, students are called upon to honor and thank their teachers (usually by giving them flowers). Much to my surprise I was nearly mobbed by smiling Ukrainian children and walked home through the park laden with more flowers than a prima ballerina.

Last Thursday I biked out into the woods, and along a field bright with yellow flowers. On my way back into town I wound through fields divided into small family-owned plots, waving, calling out to people and unable to stop smiling. The temperature was perfect, the sky was a bowl of blue, and I felt absolutely at home in my (not-so) new town.

And now…

It’s summer time. And everything is (might) fine.