summer came and went this year, in fact sept is pretty much over. please dont take my absence of posts as abandonment, take it as me living up my last summer in ukraine!
JUNE
as soon as school ended i packed a bag and headed to lugansk ( far east, read: russia) a good friend of mine lives there and we never get to see each other because we are so far so i took the opportunity to help her with her camp and see the east. even though i technically live in central ukraine it still took about 24 hours (2 buses and 2 trains) to get to her. 
The east is a crazy place. its really quite strange to hear and see all the signs in russian. the language issue is a big deal here and coming from somewhere where most people are pro ukrainian, it gives you a whole new perspective.
after Kristin's camp i headed to kyiv to meet up with 5 lovely ladies to head to Croatia (via budapest)!!!! we trained the whole way. so round trip thats a total of 10 trains and 2 ferries for a total travel time of about.... 70 hours. whoa.
budapest: since most of us had been to budapest before we took advantage of the awesome city and pretty much just ate delicious food: thai food. mexican food. cantaloupe. CHEETOS! amazing.
after 2 nights in budapest we headed to croatia. croatia is beautiful. beautiful nature, beautiful people, beautiful food. beautiful. we saw the capital, zagreb, split, and the island hvar. pretty much croatia consisted of beach time, food time, and sunshine. perfect.
people complain about the trains in ukraine but they actually have beds to sleep on. on our over night train in croatia it was 5 grown ladies, in a 6 person sitting compartment. it was pretty miserable. someone even slept on the floor. i will never say anything negative about ukrainian trains again. not even when its 100+ degrees, no one will open a window, and you are surrounded by drunk smelly people. NEVER.
in split we rented an apartment. it had tv, internet, ac, hot water, and best of all washing machine and dryer! i got to wash my clothes (not by hand!!!) for the first time in 14 months. that could have possibly been the highlight of the trip.....
one of the major successes of the west camp was getting the kids to stand in a straight line while waiting for their food!! patience and lines are not so big here so trust when i say it was a success and worth a picture!
I went to my region center for Ukrainian Independence Day. One of the volunteer's org wanted to celebrate American style. So she had them play kickball and have a hot dog eating contest!! you might not be able to tell from the picture but those hot dogs and buns were HUGE. they were also covered in ketchup and mayo. 
one last trip to the river and that ends out my summer.
JUNE
as soon as school ended i packed a bag and headed to lugansk ( far east, read: russia) a good friend of mine lives there and we never get to see each other because we are so far so i took the opportunity to help her with her camp and see the east. even though i technically live in central ukraine it still took about 24 hours (2 buses and 2 trains) to get to her. 
The east is a crazy place. its really quite strange to hear and see all the signs in russian. the language issue is a big deal here and coming from somewhere where most people are pro ukrainian, it gives you a whole new perspective.
after Kristin's camp i headed to kyiv to meet up with 5 lovely ladies to head to Croatia (via budapest)!!!! we trained the whole way. so round trip thats a total of 10 trains and 2 ferries for a total travel time of about.... 70 hours. whoa.
budapest: since most of us had been to budapest before we took advantage of the awesome city and pretty much just ate delicious food: thai food. mexican food. cantaloupe. CHEETOS! amazing.
after 2 nights in budapest we headed to croatia. croatia is beautiful. beautiful nature, beautiful people, beautiful food. beautiful. we saw the capital, zagreb, split, and the island hvar. pretty much croatia consisted of beach time, food time, and sunshine. perfect.
people complain about the trains in ukraine but they actually have beds to sleep on. on our over night train in croatia it was 5 grown ladies, in a 6 person sitting compartment. it was pretty miserable. someone even slept on the floor. i will never say anything negative about ukrainian trains again. not even when its 100+ degrees, no one will open a window, and you are surrounded by drunk smelly people. NEVER.
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| sangria in a fish bowl! |
the last week in june was the first ( hopefully to be annual) vinnytska oblast camp. we held it in tyvriv at Caitlyn's site and it was a huge success. we had campers from all over our oblast and awesome counselors. we had different themed days and most importantly the kids loved it.
JULY
MARIA!!! my first visitor!!! for 2 weeks in july i got to show off my lovely ukraine. our route: kyiv, lviv, my site, crimea, kyiv. i tried to show her a little bit of everything to get a taste of real ukraine and i think i did it. from homemade borsch, to the black sea, to a ukraine summer camp. it was great and she handled all of the quirks that make ukraine, ukraine quite nicely :)
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| dont say everything you know, but know everything you say. mighty fine soviet wisdom. |
After Maria left I headed to the west for the first of 2 Camp Unitys . This camp is part of the multicultural awareness council here in ukraine ( PCV run). this camp was all about, as im sure you can guess, multiculturalism!! the camp was great. super interesting lessons, awesome guests, and beautiful surroundings!
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| we made pinatassssss! |
one of the major successes of the west camp was getting the kids to stand in a straight line while waiting for their food!! patience and lines are not so big here so trust when i say it was a success and worth a picture!
AUGUST
In the beginning of August i did the second Camp Unity in the east. this camp, as its west counterpart, was a great success. we were lucky enough to have some special guests. Ukraine actually has a good amount of refugees and we invited 2 teenagers to come and be campers at our camp. it was great for the ukrainian campers and i think great for them too. outside of big cities here you dont see much diversity so it was a good opportunity for the kids to meet kids their own age of different backgrounds.
When I got back to site I went straight to a camp my counterpart was working at. a true ukrainian "rest" summer camp. she tried to have as much english there as possible and we played american games and taught them how to much friendship bracelets. spreading the fb loveeeeeeeeee.
one last trip to the river and that ends out my summer.
1 comment:
Nice blog post and thanks again for making the trip out east!
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