A Fond Farewell to Summer

Dear Friends and Family,

Happy fall!! I am now finally back at site and have successfully begun my first full school year! It has been a little difficult to get back into the swing of things following 3 months of traveling, working summer camps and free floating around the country without any work responsibilities! This was an incredible summer starting with my travels, which I wrote about in previous blogs, but then got even better as I was able to fulfill one of my dreams of working as a summer camp counselor. In the months of July and August I worked two camps – ABCamp and MASCOT, both of which were great successes and a lot of fun. I wanted to take a moment to tell you about each of these and share some pictures from my camp experiences.

ABCamp (also known as American Borsch Camp) took place from July 27th – August 6th. As a two-week camp, the counselors had a lot of time with the campers and relationships were well bonded and everyone had a great time. The camp’s purpose was to teach leadership skills and project planning/civic engagement to the future leaders of Ukraine. The camp took place in a school in downtown Kharkiv, the capital of the former Ukrainian Republic of the USSR. The 80 campers ranged in ages from 13-20 and all had intermediate to advanced levels of English, making discussions in class very interesting! I taught alongside a Ukrainian university student, Anya, one of the Project Planning classes as well as co-lead with a Ukrainian Graduate Student, Valera, Team Super Duper Purple People. As this didn’t seem like enough involvement I also helped write and edit the “Daily Dish” newspaper, which Adrianne Klein, a fellow PCV, and I published 5 times throughout the camp. Campers attended three classes each day along with an elective class, team time and challenge followed by a social event at the end of the day. Aside from Project Planning, the campers attended Sharing Cultures, which included lessons on India, Albania, Cuba and China and another class either of Theatre or Music. Electives in the afternoon varied over different sports, languages and activities. Adrianne and I taught newspaper/photography as an elective in which we gathered our articles for upcoming editions of the “Daily Dish.” Team time was a lot of fun in the afternoon as Valera and I energized the Purple Team while playing games and getting to know one another better. Challenges following team time ranged in levels of difficulty and we did such challenges as crossing the river, Sherpa’s Walk, water balloon find, team cheers and others. Though the Purple Team did not take first place, we received an award for “Most Enthusiastic Team” which we felt was a great accomplishment! I loved being a part of this camp as it allowed me to work alongside some amazing Ukrainian youth doing some incredible things all in the name of volunteerism. Our director, Anya, is younger than I am and has organized and implemented more projects than I could ever have imagined completing at this point in my life! Her devotion to developing the minds of the Ukrainian youth is so inspiring and I was so grateful for the chance to work alongside her. Another fun aspect of working this camp was that Kharkiv is my cluster mate Whitney’s site and so a few of us PCVs were able to stay at her apartment. Evenings were filled with salad making and lots of PCV talking and gossip! A nice break each evening from the energy draining days of camp! I have already signed up to work ABCamp 2011 and I am looking forward to seeing my Purple Team campers once more!

Before heading to MASCOT camp in southern Ukraine, I used my free few days to visit Kelsey, my cluster mate in the Kirovograd Oblast located in the center of Ukraine. The days were filled with a lot of sleeping to catch up from ABC, delicious foods (Kelsey’s mom had sent her BBQ sauce!!!) and playing with Kelsey’s cat, Noski (meaning socks in Russian). The stay was a nice break from camp chaos before I headed down to Mykolayiv for MASCOT.

MASCOT Camp, the acronym’s meaning is currently under argument, took place from August 15th – 22nd and also involved about 80 campers ranging in ages of 13-23. Camp took place at the Black Sea University in Mykolayiv where our director, Alya, had studied. As this camp was only one week rather than two, there was less time to do about the same number of activities as ABCamp! At this camp I co-taught alongside a Ukrainian counterpart, Dima, the Visual Arts class which touched on topics of painting, photography, short film and body art. I also co-lead alongside a Ukrainian staffer, Kolya, Team Magenta Amazing Generation (MAG for short). As the camp was shorter, we combined a number of aspects of ABCamp and the teams implemented civic projects together rather than having a separate project planning class. Team Magenta decided to raise money by singing and dancing on the main street of Sovietskaya one evening. The hard earned money then bought gloves and bags, which were used the following day to clean the park alongside the university. We were successful in collecting 34 bags of trash and a tire from the park – a favorite place for students to come and relax between classes. Team Magenta felt that the project was a great success!

Other classes throughout the week included Diversity and Civics in which project planning was discussed alongside the implementation of team projects. Campers had the chance to participate in challenges in the afternoons and the Sherpa’s Walk, Egg Drop and Team Cheer challenges were enjoyed by all throughout the week. Team Magenta was successful in most of the challenges and we took first overall in the MASCOT Team Challenge! A very exciting win!

One of the most fun aspects of both camps was the dress up days. Themes were decided before camp and during the camp they were announced one day prior. This short notice made preparing difficult and increased/encouraged creativity. During ABCamp we had theme days of Team Color, Inside Out, Hippie, Halloween, Soviet Union, and Sharing Cultures. MASCOT had days of Team Color, Mismatch, My Hero, Twins, Team Theme and Hippie. Camper’s creativity was at a max with these theme days as few resources were turned into great costumes! I have placed a few pictures below with some of the fun themes as well as my costumes on these days!

Both camps were a lot of fun and I have also signed up to work MASCOT once more. As I took with me three girls now 11th formers at my school in Velyka Lepetykha, we are planning to implement a civics project here in our community over the next few months! And I hope to take even more students in the coming year!

My last week of summer was not spent hastily either as I spent the week in Crimea where I had traveled to back in May. I spent one day in Bakhchisaray seeing the Khan’s Palace and Tatar Caves once more with a fellow PCV then traveled by myself the next day to see Cevastopol, the location of the Russian Black Sea Fleet – a very touchy subject for Ukrainians in the Russia-Ukraine relations debate. Following these two days I was joined in Crimea by my cluster mate Kelsey and her mom, Cathy for a few days of tourism and relaxation. We traveled to Yalta, the location of the famous Yalta Conference of 1945 attended by Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill to determine the next steps following the end of WWII. Our next day was spent hiking on one of the famous plateau mountains surrounding the Yalta beach area. Lastly we stopped in Sudak located in the southeast of Crimea where there is a Genoese Fortress and the most beautiful beach in Crimea, Novi Svit. The beach allowed for some great sunbathing and relaxation! I finally returned from Crimea to site on August 29th!

My plans for the new school year include an HIV/AIDS project for which I am writing a grant right now and then the project I will implement with the 11th form girls. Though my schedule is all over the place I am assigned to teach 6th-10th form this year and I have already begun my bandura lessons again! Upcoming travels hopefully include a trip to Moldova for fall break and a trip to Egypt in December, both of which I am very excited for!

I want to wish you all the best of luck with the upcoming fall season! I will be sure to keep you posted on the results of my grants and projects and all the adventures that await me in this new school year!

Love, Megan


ABCamp, MASCOT, Crimea Pictures:

City 3: Budapest, Hungary

The following day I had to get up to catch the 5:30am train to Budapest where I was meeting my Peace Corps friends Whitney and Meaghan as well as Susie – my Hungarian friend you may recall from when I visited 2.5 years ago while I was living in Spain! The train passed through the beautiful countryside of both the Czech Republic, Slovakia and then the north of Hungary. I was able to only catch a glimpse of Bratislava and I wished I had taken an extra day to visit that city as well. Susie greeted me at the train station – she is still studying Architecture in Budapest and has another year to go. She looks just the same and was such a wonderful hostess once again! The major difference of this trip from the last was the clothing! In January 2008 I was freezing! 4 pairs of socks plus wool-lined boots did not even begin to cover the cold – this time around, it was about battling the heat! Next time I go to Budapest it will definitely be in the fall!

Meaghan and Whitney arrived shortly after on their train from Ukraine. From travel exhaustion we did not do any touring the first day but topped the evening off with a trip to the cinema. In Ukraine, films are only in Ukrainian and are never in their original language. Both Whitney and myself have learned Russian, making this a pretty unenjoyable form of entertainment. So, when we found that many cinemas in Budapest play movies in English – we jumped on the chance to get our fix of American culture through the horribly teen angst film, Twilight. The movie ticket cost a whopping $4.50 – I think I might move here!

Our first full day was spent enjoying the sites of Pest. We began with St. Stephen’s Basilica – the church in which rests the mummified hand of St. Stephen, one of the apostles. We had to pay 200 forint ($0.85) to light up the box to see the hand! Our tour continued to Hero’s Square where statues to commemorate the Magyars who founded Hungary stand. We also stopped at the National Opera House as well as the Great Synagogue, the largest synagogue in all of Europe and the second largest in the world. The best part of the day for me; however, was the tour of the Parliament. Stefan and I had made it our goal to get into the Parliament for a tour 2.5 years ago and dramatically failed every attempt we made, thus making it my #1 goal for this trip to see the inside. Luckily, we succeeded! As Hungary used to be a bicameral government, the Parliament was built with two identical wings. Today, Hungary’s government is unicameral thus leaving one wing open and available for tours. Our tour included the large entrance hallway complete with very precious red granite stone columns followed by a view of the St. Stephen’s crown, the official crown of the ruling government of Hungary, and lastly, entrance into the auditorium, which used to hold the House of Lords. The Parliament when it was completed, consumed more energy in a single day than the entire city of Budapest. Today it is more energy efficient (and half the building isn’t used continuously) so this is no longer the case. The building was quite stunning inside – below are pictures.

Our second day was used to explore Buda, primarily the castle district of Budapest. Castle Hill holds many interesting buildings including Matthias Church (which was no longer under scaffolding!), the Fisherman’s Bastion from which you can see the best views of Budapest, and lastly the Royal Palace. Meaghan and Whitney had a wonderful time snapping pictures around the district – as we had done a little slide show of my trip to Hungary 2.5 years ago the night before, I remembered how many of these places I have already photographed and thus held off a bit this time! Susie gave us a tour of her university, which brought Meaghan and I to break out in “Go U Northwestern” to Whitney’s disgust – haha. We ended the night with another trip to the cinema – it was just so good the first time around! This time we saw “Robin Hood” – the pre-story to Robin Hood’s legendary life acted out by Russell Crowe and Kate Blanchett – it was ok, but once again all in English and only $4.50! Love it! We drove up to the Citadel where Susie had taken me before for the amazing night view of Budapest. It was breathtaking!

The next few days of our time in Hungary were spent lakeside. If you look at a map of Hungary – one thing that sticks out is this long skinny lake called Lake Balaton, which takes up a major portion of the western side of the country. Susie’s family owns a traditional Hungary summerhouse in the town of Balatonfured near the lake and we were treated to 4^th of July weekend there! Lake Balaton is actually quite shallow and most accesses to the lake are wading depth for many many feet out. Also, the lake is not a beachy one and most access points have nicely mowed lawns on which you sunbathe before hopping in the water. We brought out books and Ipods and laid out by the water for some very needed rest and relaxation time only interrupted for ice cream breaks – of which there was one each day. In the evening we went into the town and walked along the boardwalk lined with souvenir shops, restaurants and bars and covered in Hungarians on vacation – it felt very spring break like with the outdoor bars and ice cream parlors.

On the 4^th of July, Meaghan, Whitney and I treated Susie, her mom Marina and her twin sister Dory to a traditional American Independence Day meal – hamburgers, potato salad, watermelon and then Marina threw in a Greek Salad (which I liked best!) I made the burgers – dad are you proud!?, Whitney took over the potato salad and Meaghan set the table. We had a wonderful feast and were so thankful for our luck to be there at a lake home enjoying the company together for our holiday weekend!

We drove back to Budapest on the 6^th to do some laundry, spend our last few forint on brownie mix which we made that night to watch the Uruguay vs. Germany World Cup game, and to pack up. Sadly – on the 7^th we had to head back into Ukraine. I was very sad to see my traveling adventures come to a close. Whitney and I headed to the Chernigiv Oblast north of Kiev for a Russian Language Refresher Camp where I have been this last week and Meaghan is now prepping for another camp she will be working this coming week.

I am so thankful for the amazing experiences I have had these last few weeks. Following this month of travel, I have now been to 25 countries in the world – a fact that makes me realize just how fortunate I have been. For now, I am remaining in country looking forward to my two upcoming Summer Camps – ABCamp and Mascot and I look forward to telling you about those towards the end of August.

Once again I hope that you are all having a wonderful July and I would like to wish you an excellent rest of your summer!

Best, Megan

If you want to compare pictures from Winter ’08 in Budapest – please feel free to check out the blog post on:

http://meganinspain0708.blogspot.com/2008/01/italy-austria-and-hungary.html