As you know, three Mondays ago we had our concert/recital/party at the internat. Jen and Jessica came up with the idea since the girls seemed to really like what Sarah and the girls put together last year. We had been kind of stressed about it for a while, but in the end, with the 'emergency', it ended up being a lot more relaxed, and in the end, so much more beautiful!! We had only a few guests, namely Orest, Kristina, one of the girl's mom, and David and David, two friends of ours from Jen's Calvary Chapel Church, which is composed mostly of African people. I had met 'the Davids' and the whole crew a while ago at the church picnic, which, even though took place in the middle of a downpour, was still lots of fun, especially watching all our new friends play volleyball in the pouring rain! :P So anyway (sorry, I went off on a tangent), the concert began with Bogdan playing the accordion while Luba sang. Amazingly, all the girls in the little auditorium (almost every single one of them was there) joined in song! It sounded soooooo beautiful! I was THRILLED!! It literally send shivers down my spine and the hairs on my arms stood up immediately as I head the voices of all of those girls sing their traditional songs in unison. I loved seeing that they were having so much fun!! After that, four of the younger girls, Rosa, Zureana, Nastia and Olanka, sang a song, also accompanied by Bogdan's accordion. Following, Ira sang us a couple of songs, and again, all the girls joined in and sung with her... Awesome! Jen and I took a few videos, although we have not uploaded them yet... They will come soon though!!
After all the songs were sung, the time came for a group of girls (the ones between 14 and 17) to present the dance that Sarah and Valeria had taught the girls. They danced it to the music of “Coco Jambo” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSVAUGeGnE4). It was so much fun! After that, we presented the dance that we put together this summer. We had been working on the choreography for quite some time. I got it started and the rest of the girls carried on with it and made it awesome! :P We danced it to the song “Saturday Night”, in honour of Jen who loves it lol! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI6KTW0Z-4Y) I do not yet have the videos since Jen still has them, but later on I recorded us doing it again, just for fun, and I will upload them soon! I danced with the girls just for moral support, hahaha! Our dance concluded with all of us pulling all of the girls who were sitting down to the middle to dance with us. In the middle of the dancing chaos, we started to deliver all the munchies, cookies, and the like, that we had gotten for the girls. It was great!
Once everybody settled down a bit, I brought Orest to the stage with me and I got all the girls to sit down. I made a small presentation (with Orest translating), in which I told the girls that I had a little gift for them. I thanked Jen and Jessica in front of them for having helped me put the bags together. If it had not been for them, I would have never been able to get them ready in time! So thanks again, girls! (Quick side note: For the last two weeks I had been going to the bazaar on several occasions to buy all sorts of items and preparing these bags, filling them with all kinds of hygiene supplies, necessary items such as socks and underwear –I had seen the state of such items before and was horrified– and other fun items like make up, a necklace, stickers, bubbles, etc. The whole point was to treat the girls and let them have something that they could call their own.) The delivery of the bags was very orderly at first, but by the end it got a bit chaotic, hahaha! However, all the girls got their own bag and it was sweet! They all scurried away to open their presents and so the party ended up rather abruptly but happily! Hahaha!
After the concert, I was so exhausted and I decided to go back home with Orest and Krystina. Besides, I wanted the girls to enjoy their presents as well as to give some space to Jen and Jessica, since they were staying behind and they had only two more days left at the internat. I felt such satisfaction to have been able to make the girls happy with a little gift, even if it was something very small! They have touched my heart so much, and I just wanted to leave them something that would remind them of me after I left.
After the concert, I focused mainly on preparing for my exams, which were the following Saturday.
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Tuesday was an interesting day. It was one of those days when reality hits you with a bat on the face when you least saw it coming. As I mentioned before, I had felt very happy to have been able to make a gift to the girls that they could call their own. Each bag had a tag with the name of each girl, and many of the items in the bag were things for personal individual care, such as a deodorant (a desperately needed item at this internat), hand cream, make up, underwear and socks. However, when I came to the internat the next morning, I did not see a single of the seventy bags that had filled the halls with colour the day before. Strange.
I figured they were probably put away in a safe place and didn’t think about it much. However, as I started to mingle with the girls, I came across one of them who really could have used a good dose of that deodorant I gave her (remember, these girls only get to bathe once a week!). So, I asked her where her deodorant was, and she was very shy about it. After much pulling and tugging, I finally got her to come with me to get her deodorant… she said she needed a key. I figured she meant the key to her classroom where her stuff was probably put away, so we went to get the caregiver who had a set of keys. I motioned her and in broken Ukrainian let her know that I was looking for the girl’s deodorant. The caregiver, who was sitting beside a few others, looked kind of reluctant and looked at the other women in the room, but finally, after much insistence from my part, got up and took me to the classroom. Once there, she pulled up a chair, climbed on it, and open a very hard to reach locked cabinet… Once she opened it, I saw a few of the bags, empty and stashed away in a pile, and a set of containers…
What they had done is they took all of the items from all of the bags, and put them in collective containers. I was not impressed. The point was that each girl would have her own personal items, but that did not fly. They had put everything in a collective pile, where everything belongs to everyone. I guess that is fine, if it makes things easier for them. But here’s the thing… All I could think in my head was “traces of communism”. There is hardly any sense of individual property in this place, and when I realized this, I felt so silly and so ignorant. I inadvertently had come in trying to impose my own Western mode of thinking onto a place that simply has not yet fully come out of a Soviet Communist worldview. When that realization hit me, I was suddenly very upset. I had spent SOOOOO much time putting these bags together for the girls, choosing many of the items specifically for particular girls, and they got to enjoy them only for a few brief moments before the bags were dismantled and all the items taken way from the girls. At that moment I wished so badly I had stayed the day before. :(
Sure, the girls still have ‘access’ to the items, but for them to get anything, even a bar of soap (which is another non-existent item in the girls’ bathrooms), they have to go get the teacher, to open a locked room, to climb on a chair, to open a locked cabinet, and hand them the item they want. For them, it is just not worth the hassle, as it was evident by this girl’s heavy reluctance to get her deodorant. The staff just don’t care! Sigh! :S The care giver tried to explain that many of the girls could not make proper use of the stuff because of their disabilities or their age, but that is something I already knew. I tried to explain that the point was for the older, more responsible girls, to help their younger sisters learn how to use the items, but there was no use…
And so, with a lot of frustration and with unsettling resignation, I took a deep breath and said to myself “It’s just the way it is, and there is nothing you can do, so just settle for knowing that at least they have the items semi-available.” Later I talked with Irena and asked her to make sure the girls had access to their stuff. She said they would. How much of that is actually going to happen, I cannot know.
In the end, the caregiver gave this particular girl one deodorant. I showed her how to use it, at which point the caregiver seemed a little embarrassed and tried to laugh it off. We assigned the deodorant to a spot that was more accessible for the girls. Because of course, that single deodorant is going to be the community deodorant for the whole class… when there are other 69 deodorant bars sitting around in a locked-up box… Great. Perfectly sanitary! :S (*head slightly fuming*) Oh well, like I said before, there is nothing I can do.
On a happier note, on Tuesday I did see a few of the girls wearing the hair clips, necklaces and nail polish I had given them, so that made me happy :) Some of them now wear their hair clips every day :P
So that was the bags… Next I will tell you about the rest of the week, which included the last day for Jen and Jessica at the internat, a final get-together with Orest, Jen and Jessica at my place, seeing the girls off to their train on their way to Lviv, and finally, the craziness of writing my two exams on Saturday after all of that! Until then, miss you all, love you all. God bless!
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