Happy fall from Velyka Lepetykha! It has been over a month since my last post from Croatia and I have been very busy here in Ukraine!
Following my return to Ukraine I traveled out west to a new oblast for me, the Volynska Oblast. This oblast is located in the far northwest corner of Ukraine and hosts the most popular lake resort destination in Ukraine – a town called Svityaz. Last summer, a number of my Peace Corps friends traveled to this lake and spent a week lying by the water and cooking missed American dishes so I joined in the fun this year! It certainly made the transition back from Croatia much easier to be spending my time next to a lake after all my time near the sea! We made fajitas, fried rice, curry and a number of other spicy dishes we don’t usually get here in Ukraine! It was a delicious week!
When August 23rd rolled around, those from my group, Group 37, traveled back to the Lvivska Oblast to a town called Slavske. Slavske is a very popular ski resort in the winter but is rented out in the summer as a relaxation spot. Peace Corps rents out an entire hotel resort for the Close of Service conferences. It was the first time my whole group had been gathered together since our swearing in back in December 2009! It was crazy to see everyone again and due to the large size of our group – there were people I was still meeting! Our group arrived in Ukraine with just over 100 individuals. Then a chunk was added from PC Turkmenistan making us 112. At the COS conference we had 98 – which is a great end result! Some have gone home throughout these 2 years due to medical, grad school and Ukraine simply not working out for them, but to have so many make it the whole 2 years was wonderful! We even have 17 extending their service for between 3-12 months! The conference spent time talking about how to close out our service, how to say goodbye to Ukraine and how to prepare ourselves for our lives back in the states. Knowing that 3 months from then I would be leaving Ukraine really hit me hard – this has been my home for 2 years now and it is strange to think that soon it will be an experience of my past. It was great seeing my friends again. Of the Boguslav and Mironivka Clusters with whom I trained, we had all 5 of us from Boguslav make it to the Close of Service conference and 3 from Mironivka! I’ve attached a picture of our training cluster below! It was a great week spent together talking about our experience at site and our excitements to leave Ukraine and start our careers, grad schools and life back in the states.
Below is the link to our Group 37 slideshow. I submitted a lot of pictures and many were used in this presentation! The music has sadly been deleted but please check it out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avsotRko_4A&feature=related
I got back to Velyka Lepetykha just in time for the 1st bell ceremony and start of my final semester in Ukraine. The 1st bell ceremony was just as I described it last year. The senior class (11th grade) line up on the school lawn, dressed in their Ukrainian school uniforms and receive flowers from the 1st grade entering into the school. Two 11th grade boys finish the ceremony by carrying two of the 1st grade girls on their shoulders while the girls ring the “1st” bell of the school year. It is such a cute tradition and I was excited to see one of my favorite 11th grade students, Sasha, receive the honor of one of these coveted rolls.
This semester I have a lot that I both need to finish as well as start and complete!! My sewing machine project has hit the ground running. Last spring I purchased 6 sewing machines and a lot of fabric with the grant I had been awarded. This fall, the young women of the 6th-9th grades have begun to receive sewing lessons in their Home Economics classes from Sveta, my project counterpart. I was able to visit the 8th grade class and watched the young women learn the art of preparing and cutting the fabric for sewing, threading the sewing machine and start to sew hems on sheets. The girls were super intimidated at first by the machines and pushed other classmates forward to go first but after a few girls took turns they were all fighting over who would be able to go next! It was a blast to see them push the foot pedal for the first time and have the machine take off sewing! The project plans to teach the young women how to sew not only sheets but also clothing items such as pants, shirts and jackets as their skills advance. These items will be donated to the children’s ward of the district hospital as well as to young single mothers through the Social Services Center. Sveta is so excited to use these machines and pass along the knowledge of sewing to the young women and I loved watching them experience their first sewing class! I’m excited to see how their skills progress over the new couple of months!
Outside of the classroom, one fun adventure I had this September was a trip to Kiev for the Kiev Marathon. In its 2nd year Kiev organized a marathon and 10 K (in May there is a half marathon too). The Healthy Lifestyles Working Group of PC Ukraine promoted the run and we had a wonderful turn out of Americans this year! Over 20 individuals ran the 10K and 9 ran the full marathon. Even better, we had also over 20 PCVs standing near the start/finish cheering the whole time! Ukrainians are not a culture of “woo – hoo ers” like Americans are. We screamed and cheered, clapped and organized high 5 rows as runners passed by. What was incredible was seeing the energy boost runners received after passing our line of screams and cheers. We were so loud and supportive that many Ukrainian TV crews came by and filmed us throughout the day! Our PCVs did an excellent job and made us all so proud! I was the unofficial mom of the weekend for 5 of the marathon runners by organizing our apartment, putting them to bed and getting them up for the run and taking care of the after party dinner reservations – it was great to be able to do my part to make their running weekend as stress free as possible! The weather was beautiful on marathon day and I got a lot of sun standing and cheering! Please check out the pictures of the runners below!
Also if anyone is interested in seeing the route or more on the Marathon check out the website below (there is an English version of the site!)
http://kyivmarathon.org/
Back at site I’ve had a busy week. On September 21st Vera invited me to the neighboring town to see her perform with her choir. It was town day for the neighboring village and their concert included choirs from all over the oblast singing traditional folklore songs of Ukraine. Vera’s choir did a great job as well as the Velyka Lepetykha House of Culture choir! I road the bus with these women as they sang songs and cheered, excited for the concert! It felt a bit like being on the “A League of Their Own” bus with the women heading to the next baseball game! The women were so excited to have their own personal photographer too! On Saturday there was a folklore concert competition in Velyka Lepetykha along with Ukrainian traditional food tasting presentation and I attended with Shannon and took lots of pictures for the same women again! Shannon and I were overfed by these women with Ukrainian treats such as potato vareneky, sweet bread and garlic toast but we passed on the homemade vodka shots!
One final exciting experience I would like to share in this blog was the outcome of my two boys’ environmental project. While at Camp IKNOW, Jenya and Oleg had to come up with a project they could implement back at home. Though the project’s original idea was a bit over the top including presenting movies in the park to raise funds, the final version was more manageable and quite successful! On Thursday, September 22nd, Jenya and Oleg gathered their fellow 11th grade classmates into the auditorium and presented on the importance of keeping Velyka Lepetykha clean and beautiful. They presented on composting, recycling and environmental facts such as a plastic bottle takes over 1 million years to decompose! Following the presentation, in partnership with the local Center for Youth and Sport, Oleg and Jenya organized a clean up from our school to the river collecting glass and plastic bottles and other garbage items along the way. I was so proud of their efforts and have written an article to place in the local newspaper in the coming week! Below are pictures of Jenya and Oleg completing their presentation and clean up!
I now have less than 2 months in Ukraine and the work continues on! I am looking forward to finishing my projects and getting ready to get back to the states!
I would like to wish you all a wonderful fall season! I will check in once more before I leave Ukraine!
Love,
Megan
Pictures Include:
Close of Service Conference at Slavske (6)
Lviv following CoS Conferene (2)
1st Bell Ceremony (6)
Sewing Machine Project (5)
Kiev Marathon (5)
Town Day Concert (5)
Jenya and Oleg’s Clean Up Project (3)
Velyka Lepetykha Folklore Concert (5)
No comments:
Post a Comment