Language Issue Solved!

This morning I called the Country Desk at the Peace Corps to ask them about the language issue. Over a week ago, I received an e-mail that asked me to fill out some form and indiciate if I had a language preference. Last night I stayed up reading a country guide about all the different oblasts and major cities in those oblasts (oblasts are like states, provinces, or regions). The author did indicate where possible which language was predominantly used (Ukrainian or Russian) and about some of the things to do in that area. I learned what I already knew: Western Ukraine speaks Ukrainian and sounds beautiful, the Crimea speaks Russian and sounds beautiful, too. Kyiv speaks both, and sounds like it would be another good place to be located.

This lead me to form this reasoning: If I pick Ukrainian, it is essentially a win-win situation geographically. Choosing Russian would be more dicey. Granted, my first and main concern is being placed somewhere where I will be comfortable and supported, a mutually beneficial relationship, even if that means being placed somewhere in the industrial Right Bank, with more pollution, Soviet buildings, etc. However, Ukrainian seems (to me) more difficult to learn--especially as I've already learned some basics in Russian, and Russian would be more widely understood across the world.

So I called this morning, because I was hoping that they would decide your language after you arrived and had met with the different universities, institutes, etc, as it seems to make more sense all around. It seems that this is the case, which puts me more at ease. This means that hopefully I will be able to find that mutually rewarding situation...Hopefully. I'm not going to state a preference (honestly, it probably is Russian, because at least I can get through the niceities in Russian, and if I wanted to travel further East it would be helpful) and just hope for the best. Either way, I'll have the opportunity to learn a new language, and that is exciting and something that I want to do.

Back to the abstract...but first, the Golden Girls...