Ukraine Part 2

Hello again friends, family, and heroes,
Another month has passed here in Netishyn, Ukraine. My birthday was October 5, and it went well. I played basketball in the afternoon, and in the evening I went out for supper at a pizzeria. The whole team of volunteers as well as some friends of my roommate came. After we went to the bar next door and ate cake and talked more there. On the 7th, a boss from Canada World Youth’s Montreal office came to Netishyn to check up on the project, so that night the team met along with several youth and a few adults from the community interested in helping out with the sector project (promoting a healthy lifestyle). The Friday of that week, the team went to the seniors’ centre in a village beside Netishyn to pick apples and visit the seniors. That night we gathered at a bar to watch a soccer game between Canada and Ukraine in Kiev. It was very exciting as Canada was up 2-0 at half-time, and although Ukraine came back, the game ended in a tie. The next day, the 9th, was the birthday of my teammate Olia. We celebrated under a gazebo on the edge of a pond in Netishyn. There we dined, danced, and rented paddle boats. I enjoyed it. In the evening we went to the discotheque. On the Sunday, we all met for a Thanksgiving meal that some of the teammates and supervisors cooked. It was a first for the Ukrainians. At work, Nadia and I have finally started teaching English although only for one week so far (the third of October), because the following weeks, it was a combination of my work partner being ill, school vacation, and our mid-project retreat to the Carpathian Mountains. Anyway, the classes we taught went well, and we expect to recommence teaching next week. We taught the three fourth-grade classes. For the community activity day (CAD) on the 15th, we picked up garbage along a river beside Netishyn. Later that day, we met for our first Ukrainian dance lesson. It turned out to be more vigourous than I had expected, but still very enjoyable. We are now having a dance lesson every Friday, although I missed the second one when I went to my roommate’s home town, and there was no lesson last Friday since we were at the retreat. On Saturday the 16th the team traveled to the city of Lviv for the day. It was great. We took a guided tour in the morning, and explored further in smaller groups. My favourite moment was going to a famous bar called Kryivka. It is a historic Ukrainian nationalist hang-out place, and you have to be Ukrainian (real or at least at heart) in order to enter. I also climbed the tower at the city hall, and there had a great view of the city. When we got back to Netishyn at midnight, Sasha, Katia (my host sister) and I watched an important boxing match, and I was happy when Vitali Klychko (the pride of Ukraine) successfully defended his heavyweight title. The following week, our English-speaking club finally got going. On Monday we invite kids from grades 5 to 7 and on Wednesday it’s grades 8 to 11. We are doing that every week. I helped with the planning of yesterday’s meeting for example. On the weekend of the 22nd to 24th, Sasha and I went to his home town of Poninka and stayed with his parents there. It was cool to experience another Ukrainian family. His parents live in a rural area, and they have chickens, turkeys, 3 pigs, a cow, and 2 pet dogs. Sasha showed me his former school, I met two of his sisters, we walked in the woods by his house, and went for a bike ride. In the woods, we stopped at some mass graves from the Second World War. They were victims of the Holocaust, mostly Jews, Sasha told me. It was a moving experience for me, and the closest I had ever been to an event I had learned so much about but had not yet been so close to. Unlike Netishyn, there is a Catholic church in Poninka, so on Sunday I profited by going to mass there. Last week was the team’s mid-project retreat in the Carpathian Mountains. We had sessions about all aspects of our project, including work placements, CADs, counterpart pairs, host families. It was an opportunity to evaluate everything and give each other feedback. We did that for three days. We celebrated the birthday of Kayla, one the team participants, on one of the nights. On Friday, after the discussions were over, we made excursions to the cities of Uzhhorot and Mukachivo. There we visited castles and a historical Ukrainian village. We got back to Netishyn Saturday morning. Nadia and I returned to work yesterday, and we are creating a poster exhibiting and comparing Canada and Ukraine to hang in our school. Apart from that, I’ve been helping at the English-speaking club, going to planning meetings, and just exercising. Today, my host mother taught me how to make perogies, one of my new goals after the mid-project retreat. I look forward to making them for my family in Canada later. That was the month that was.

Pictures: 1. the Carpathian mountains, 2. A mass grave of WW2 Holocaust victims, 3. Me at the bar Kryivka in Lviv, 4. Me in front of the town hall of Poninka, 5. Me making perogies (veraniki), 6. my work partner Nadia.