Ukraine Part 1

Hello everyone,
Here is my first update for my volunteer trip to Ukraine and British Columbia. Already, almost a month has passed since my departure. I am volunteering for the organisation Canada World Youth. The program consists of 3 months in a foreign country and three months in Canada. I am part of a team of 18 participants, 9 from each country. The Ukrainian participants are all students at Ostroh Academy, a university located in a neighbouring city. I am living and volunteering in the city of Netishyn in western Ukraine. It is about halfway between Kiev and the Polish border. There are 35 000 inhabitants, but the city is relatively small in terms of area, because practically everyone lives in apartment buildings. I am living in a fourth-floor apartment with my counterpart and host family. My counterpart is the person with whom I live and prepare educational activity days for the duration of the program. His name is Sasha (short for Olexander), and he is two years younger than me and studies economics. My host family consists of a woman named Tamara and her husband Jenya. Tamara is a cook, but she is not working now, so she is devoting her time to housework and cooking for us. Jenya works as a mechanic at the nuclear power plant just out of town. Built in the 1980s, it is one of four such generating stations in the country. It includes two reactors and two more under construction. Tamara and Jenya have two daughters. Both live in Rivne, a city less than 100 km south. Katya, the youngest, is 16 and is going to college for business management. Olena is 20, and works as a waitress. We usually see them when they come home for weekends. The apartment consists of 3 bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and bathroom. Sasha and I share a room. For my volunteer work placement, I am volunteering at one of the schools in Netishyn. I am partnered with another Ukrainian volunteer, Nadia. She is studying to be an English teacher. So far we have not been able to do any teaching, unfortunately, because the teachers don't need our help as assistants during their lessons. However, we should be able to teach lessons ourselves. We have just been waiting for Nadia to receive approval for such teaching to count as her practicum. Just today, we have received persmission from the principal, and hopefully, tomorrow we will start figuring out which classes we can teach and create a schedule. We would be teaching English. This exemplifies most of the participants' common experience of volunteering thus far. We've found that volunteering is much less popular in Ukraine than it is in Canada, so there does not exist a "volunteer culture" so to say in Ukraine. People prefer to focus on their own jobs, and it is believed that people ought to be paid for services they do, so it is hard to be motivated to volunteer or understand why others would do it. Anyway, in the past two weeks (since the work placements began), Nadia and I have not been entirely idle. We helped organise a skit about the European Union for a celebration of the EU and its relationship with Ukraine. That event took place last Thursday. Classes from multiple schools took part. We worked with a fifth-grade class from our school. Each student represented a country and said something about that country. For a separate number, I got up on stage and told the children about my own experience of Europe in the form of travel (Nadia translating). I enjoyed this. I spoke in Italian and French too when talking about Italy, France, and Belgium to exemply Europe's linguistic diversity. We go to our work placement three days a week: Monday to Wednesday. Thursdays are spent attending "educational activity days," when one counterpart pair presents a certain topic dealing with health (the theme of our specific program). Last Thursday, we had our first EAD. The pair who presented did so on sexual assault. Sasha and I will present on the last CAD, in the first week on December. Ours will be on diseases. Fridays are spent doing "community activity days," when we all together go out and do something for the community. The ones we have planned include a town clean-up day and a fundraiser talent show. Some will be occuring regularly, such as an English-speaking club. I am on the planning committees for the clean-up and the English club. Last Friday, for the first CAD, we helped a literacy organisation of Ukraine by creating and distributing leaflets about a program to collect second-hand books and donate them to libraries in rural areas. This Friday we will go to a nearby village and visit elderly residents. Weekends we generally have as spare time. During the Ukrainian phase, I will be able to go with my counterpart to his home town up to two times, although we have not done so yet. We are also planning to go as a group to the city of Lviv on October 16 and 17. It will be a good cultural experience, since Netishyn is not the best example for Ukrainian culture as the city is quite young and was only built up to accomodate the workers at the power plant, their families, and all the services those people need. Tomorrow is my birthday, so I am planning to play basketball and perhaps pool in the afternoon after work, and have a gathering of all team mates and some other people I have met at a local bar/restaurant. I will turn 22. I am the second oldest on my team. Ages range from 19 to 22. My Canadian team mates come from all across the country: 1 from Manitoba, 3 from Ontario, 2 from Quebec, 1 from New Brunswick, and 1 from Newfoundland. All the Ukrainian team mates are from western Ukraine, so Ukrainian is their first language. I have learnt that Russian is widely spoken in eastern Ukraine, including the capital, Kiev. And even most people who speak Ukrainian as their first language also speak Russian fluently. Let me go back now to the beginning of my trip. I left Edmonton and flew to Toronto on September 7. There I met my Canadain team mates and for three days we were at a training camp near Hamilton. There we talked about intercultural situations and were briefed on the program components. On September 10 we flew out. We arrived on the 11th. That evening we rode a bus for 5 hours to the second training camp, in a village less than 100 km north of Netishyn. There we met our Ukrainian team mates, learnt more about our specific program, and were assigned our counterparts and host families. On the 14th we finally arrived in Netishyn. Sasha and I met our host family, and we settled in. At the first supper, I was fed a ton of food and I drank three shots of brandy. (It's tradition to drink three shots when meeting.) On the topic of alcohol, I must say that it is a "semi-dry" program, due to the irresponsability of past participants. We are allowed to drink alcohol only at home when offered by our family or out on birthdays (but only a maximum of two drinks). It is unfortunate, but it isn't bothering me much. Our first few days in Netishyn were spent exploring the community (through a scavenger hunt), making an excursion to Ostroh to meet the rector of the university (Canada World Youth's partner organisation for this program), touring the power plant and city museum, and doing some more training. The work placements began on September 20, although the school had no work for Nadia and I, so we started on the 21st. Since we participants are at our work placements only two to four hours max each day (the latter for Nadia and I), we have had a lot of spare time. Since the weather was very nice during the first two weeks in town, we (my team mates and I) were doing a lot of activities outside, like playing soccer, basketball, and volleyball. I still have to take it easy, because of my arthritis, but I have been faring well. I have been able to play soccer (as goalie) a few times, and play basketball too. We have also gone out to play pool. I learned Russian-style pool. It is more difficult as the hole openings are only a few milimeters wider than the balls. We also meet often at pizzerias and bars. Last Friday we went to the local night club for the first time. I have been meeting other Ukrainians besides my team mates: past participants who know current participants, and other friends of my Ukrainian team mates, including Sasha's. The day we went to Ostroh to meet the rector, Sasha was able to show me his dormitory and introduce me to his friends there. They have also come to Netishyn a few times. I have also been reading and learning Ukrainian. I am currently reading Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope. I cannot complain about the food. My host mother makes it all at home. I have had perogies, cabbage rolls, salo (pork fat), borsh, other soups, pancakes, and salads. I have been making sure to do my exercises regularly. Since the local pool/gym is under renovation, this has been more difficult, but I speed walk for cardio, do pullups, dips, and stuff at an outdoor set of bars, and do core exercises on the living room floor. My host family has a computer, but no internet unfortunately. So for accessing email, I have been either borrowing team mates' computers at their homes or at bars where there is wireless internet, the library computer lab (where I am now), or the internet cafe. I realise now how long this message is and thank you for your patience. I will keep sending updates every month. They will probably be shorter in the future, since I had to spend much time explaining my program in this message. I have attached four pictures. The fourth is a photo of a lake beside the Ukrainian training camp. I took it the morning before we traveled to Netishyn. The third is me in front of the school where I volunteer. The second is my counterpart, Sasha, with our apartment building in the background. The first is the nuclear power plant as I can see it from where I live. I have tried to mention briefly everything that has gone on, and if I missed something you were wondering about, just ask away. I was originally going to write this all in French too, but given the length of this message, I must neglect doing so. I hope you all are as well as possible.
Michael