Settling In.

I now feel very comfortable here in Oster, it is a very small town where even I am starting to see people I know every time I go walking somewhere. It is a town of only about 7000 people and here, they say, everyone knows everyone else's businesses. They say that everyone in town knew about us long before we got here and even on the second day small children would come up to us and practice their english, which was about the equivalent to our Russian; little to nothing, but it was pretty funny.

Saturday night my PC friend Sean and I spent on the river Desna drinking Champagne made in Kyiv, (quite good I might add,) and beer with a group of Ukrainians talking about movies, authors, and talking about travel, luckily we had a couple of Ukrainians who spoke some english so our conversations could get more abstract than the survival Russian and Ukrainian we have learned so far. You can only spend so much time with basic greeting dialogues, "I work for Peace Corps" and "I love apples." It was a lot of fun.

The next morning the same group brought us to the Orthodox Church in town which is 100-700 years old depending on who you talk to. I am not sure if this church was a Russian Orthodox or Ukrainian Orthodox church since all churches here do not so allegiance to the same head, regardless it was absolutely beautiful. When we entered the church people were prostrating in front of a beautiful alter where the priest went in and out of doors that sectioned his holy area from that of the others.

We were also lucky enough to see a number of babies being christened, and I had never seen ceremonies like this. At first it seemed like that of a Catholic ceremony but after the priest took the child from the mother, brought it from the entrance of the Church onto the alter, touching the child's head on two paintings of saints, enter the holy area through one set of doors and out the other. The child is then given back to the mother and the priest then dipped roses in holy water and cleansed the two, all the while a call and return from the priest on the alter tot he old women chanting in the top of the church ensued.

The day ended with a little fishing trip to the Desna and one little fish that was retuned back to the water.

I am 23.