Here I will post the links for the videos I have made as I upload them. Please keep checking back, as it takes a really long time to upload them and it might take me a couple of days :)
Also, I have added more photo albums on the MY UKRAINE FACEBOOK ALBUMS tab on the right hand side of my blog, just under the "About Me" section. You don't need to be subscribed to Facebook to see them :) Enjoy!
The Room of the Malenkas (or the "Malenkies", as I call them)
Girls singing "There is Joy Like a River in My Soul", with Gayla
Rocking to "Ne Ma, Ne Ma" and Warm Welcome :)
Our choreographed dance to "Saturday Night"
Last Year's Dance :)
Little Ladies Singing at the Recital
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=651824891757
Luba Singing at the Recital
Funny Ladies Dancing to No Music :P
These are also available on the side panel, just above the panel with my photo albums for future reference :) I hope you enjoyed them! LOL!! Love you all, Miss you all, God bless!
Friday, August 21, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Home Alone
Well, technically I am neither home, nor am I totally lone, but you get the point.
The last two weeks have been very busy! So busy I don't even know where to begin. Well, perhaps I can start by mentioning how, after Jen and Jessica left, I just ended up studying like crazy for my exams, which were supposed to be on the next day. My exams went pretty well, actually, and I am just hoping that they make it safely to Canada. We had them scanned, just in case, but Gayla, who is my proctor, was not able to send the electronic copies because the files ended up being too large to send over email, even though they were on PDF format... So here I am, crossing my fingers that they make it safely to Canada...
That week I went to the internat by myself for the first time, and it went pretty well, surprisingly. We have spent a lot of time outside playing, as well as dancing, colouring, and just plain being silly! The other day the girls let me ride a bike with them! I had not done that in YEARS!! It was so exciting! Hehehe :P On another day we decided to practice our little choreography that we prepared for the concert, and one of the girls taped it for me (I shall upload it soon, maybe even within this message). Later I taught the girls to salsa! Hahahaha! It was a lot of fun. We also videotaped that, but I am too embarrassed to show you lol.
I have also spent a lot of time with the Malenkas (the little girls). I was so delighted to see little Olia laugh, which is something that I had not seen before! I took a video about the room of the malenkas, and I will also post that soon!
On another day, I sat with some of the girls to do a small drawing workshop. They tend to like it when I draw them pictures of animals, so I decided to teach them how to do it. I would draw each part, one by one, like a circle, and then a a line, and so forth, and have them repeat it after me, until we all ended up with a picture of an animal. Here, once again, I could become more acutely aware of their disabilities, which often I end up forgetting all about! It is hard to believe, but to me, these little orphans have become like normal girls, and I am so used to being around them and feel so comfortable with them, that I don't even notice their disabilities or deformities anymore. For example, a lot of them are cross-eyed, and that used to really throw me off, but now I don't even notice it. Anyhow, the drawing workshop went really well and it was a lot of fun!
And so, that is how I have spent the last few days. In addition to that, however, I have been finalizing some of the charity set ups at the churches. I was frustrated because I had not been able to talk to the other two parish priests I had in mind, mainly because of how busy I had been with school, and then because Orest went away on vacation and I didn't have a translator anymore :S Krystinca was going to do me the favour of coming with me, but then she got really sick, and so I had to wait around another full week. I do not remember if I mentioned this before, but the first church made a collection already, and we got a total of 500 hryvnia, plus another person just donated another 100 to add to that. It is not a HUGE amount of money, but it is a pretty good start!! I am just waiting for Irena to get some free time so we can go to get the necessary medications and vitamins for which the money was raised.
Another thing I did this past week was that I went with Irena to the bazaar and I just bought a TON of school supplies for the girls. They used to get funding for that sort of stuff, but now they do not, and so the girls had nothing to start the school year with. Generally, Irena asks her students (I presume she teaches at an elementary school) to bring school supplies for the girls, but even with that there was simply not enough to fulfill the needs of the girls. And so, I bought new copy books, calligraphy books, ABC books, pens, play-dough, and other items of that sort, according to what Irena told me was needed. She came with me, of course, and Orest did as well, which made it infinitely easier. In addition to the things she asked for, I bought a bunch of other books that contain very interesting information about all kinds of topics, from animals, to the human body, to cultures around the world, to volcanoes and other geographical phenomena, to the stars, etc. I used to have books like that when I was a kid, and they were some of my most precious possessions. I used to spend HOURS reading them. Irena told me that most girls cannot read at that level (by far!), but that she would ensure to read them to the girls and to show them the pictures, as well as to have the older girls read to the younger ones.
In addition to all the school supplies, I also bought a great number of toys for the younger girls, all of which were the kind of toys that help develop the motor, visual and logic skills of children. Among the things I bought were puzzles, mosaics, building blocks and cubes as well as and giant legos, as well as other toys that I am not sure how to describe but are meant to develop hand-eye coordination. You know what I mean, these are toys like the kind that Playschool makes, which are very colourful and serve as stepping stones for further development. The girls have very few toys, and the ones they do have are mostly stuffed animals that are stashed away in high, hard-to-reach shelves, and which obviously do not help them at all. The room of the Malenkas is completely empty, and so I hope that these new toys help. So long as the staff even let them play with them!! (*fuming again*) Sigh...
I guess the last thing I can add is that this week I was finally able to talk to the priest at my church about the charity. Unfortunately his parish is in a lot of debt because they have just built their church, and so he does not think that they will be able to allocate much money at all to the internat. However, he was very kind to say that he will do what he can, and he asked me to get him in contact with Irena so that in the future, when thy are more financially able to, the parish can do more to support the girls. What he did do was to take a copy of the letter that the dean of my school, Myroslaw Tataryn, sent me to hand in to the priests as a template, in order to have them modify it, sign it, and send it with me to Canada to appeal to the Ukrainian Catholic community there to help us out. These girls need so much help, and I am glad to be able to do something for them like this.
I am running out of time and with Orest being so busy it is hard to set up appointments with the priests, but I am still hoping to talk to one more priest and try my luck there before I leave. There is more I want to say, but I think I will leave it at that for this post and start a new one in a few minutes. I also have to post all of those pictures and videos, so it will be a while! Until then, love you all, miss you all. God bless!
The last two weeks have been very busy! So busy I don't even know where to begin. Well, perhaps I can start by mentioning how, after Jen and Jessica left, I just ended up studying like crazy for my exams, which were supposed to be on the next day. My exams went pretty well, actually, and I am just hoping that they make it safely to Canada. We had them scanned, just in case, but Gayla, who is my proctor, was not able to send the electronic copies because the files ended up being too large to send over email, even though they were on PDF format... So here I am, crossing my fingers that they make it safely to Canada...
That week I went to the internat by myself for the first time, and it went pretty well, surprisingly. We have spent a lot of time outside playing, as well as dancing, colouring, and just plain being silly! The other day the girls let me ride a bike with them! I had not done that in YEARS!! It was so exciting! Hehehe :P On another day we decided to practice our little choreography that we prepared for the concert, and one of the girls taped it for me (I shall upload it soon, maybe even within this message). Later I taught the girls to salsa! Hahahaha! It was a lot of fun. We also videotaped that, but I am too embarrassed to show you lol.
I have also spent a lot of time with the Malenkas (the little girls). I was so delighted to see little Olia laugh, which is something that I had not seen before! I took a video about the room of the malenkas, and I will also post that soon!
On another day, I sat with some of the girls to do a small drawing workshop. They tend to like it when I draw them pictures of animals, so I decided to teach them how to do it. I would draw each part, one by one, like a circle, and then a a line, and so forth, and have them repeat it after me, until we all ended up with a picture of an animal. Here, once again, I could become more acutely aware of their disabilities, which often I end up forgetting all about! It is hard to believe, but to me, these little orphans have become like normal girls, and I am so used to being around them and feel so comfortable with them, that I don't even notice their disabilities or deformities anymore. For example, a lot of them are cross-eyed, and that used to really throw me off, but now I don't even notice it. Anyhow, the drawing workshop went really well and it was a lot of fun!
And so, that is how I have spent the last few days. In addition to that, however, I have been finalizing some of the charity set ups at the churches. I was frustrated because I had not been able to talk to the other two parish priests I had in mind, mainly because of how busy I had been with school, and then because Orest went away on vacation and I didn't have a translator anymore :S Krystinca was going to do me the favour of coming with me, but then she got really sick, and so I had to wait around another full week. I do not remember if I mentioned this before, but the first church made a collection already, and we got a total of 500 hryvnia, plus another person just donated another 100 to add to that. It is not a HUGE amount of money, but it is a pretty good start!! I am just waiting for Irena to get some free time so we can go to get the necessary medications and vitamins for which the money was raised.
Another thing I did this past week was that I went with Irena to the bazaar and I just bought a TON of school supplies for the girls. They used to get funding for that sort of stuff, but now they do not, and so the girls had nothing to start the school year with. Generally, Irena asks her students (I presume she teaches at an elementary school) to bring school supplies for the girls, but even with that there was simply not enough to fulfill the needs of the girls. And so, I bought new copy books, calligraphy books, ABC books, pens, play-dough, and other items of that sort, according to what Irena told me was needed. She came with me, of course, and Orest did as well, which made it infinitely easier. In addition to the things she asked for, I bought a bunch of other books that contain very interesting information about all kinds of topics, from animals, to the human body, to cultures around the world, to volcanoes and other geographical phenomena, to the stars, etc. I used to have books like that when I was a kid, and they were some of my most precious possessions. I used to spend HOURS reading them. Irena told me that most girls cannot read at that level (by far!), but that she would ensure to read them to the girls and to show them the pictures, as well as to have the older girls read to the younger ones.
In addition to all the school supplies, I also bought a great number of toys for the younger girls, all of which were the kind of toys that help develop the motor, visual and logic skills of children. Among the things I bought were puzzles, mosaics, building blocks and cubes as well as and giant legos, as well as other toys that I am not sure how to describe but are meant to develop hand-eye coordination. You know what I mean, these are toys like the kind that Playschool makes, which are very colourful and serve as stepping stones for further development. The girls have very few toys, and the ones they do have are mostly stuffed animals that are stashed away in high, hard-to-reach shelves, and which obviously do not help them at all. The room of the Malenkas is completely empty, and so I hope that these new toys help. So long as the staff even let them play with them!! (*fuming again*) Sigh...
I guess the last thing I can add is that this week I was finally able to talk to the priest at my church about the charity. Unfortunately his parish is in a lot of debt because they have just built their church, and so he does not think that they will be able to allocate much money at all to the internat. However, he was very kind to say that he will do what he can, and he asked me to get him in contact with Irena so that in the future, when thy are more financially able to, the parish can do more to support the girls. What he did do was to take a copy of the letter that the dean of my school, Myroslaw Tataryn, sent me to hand in to the priests as a template, in order to have them modify it, sign it, and send it with me to Canada to appeal to the Ukrainian Catholic community there to help us out. These girls need so much help, and I am glad to be able to do something for them like this.
I am running out of time and with Orest being so busy it is hard to set up appointments with the priests, but I am still hoping to talk to one more priest and try my luck there before I leave. There is more I want to say, but I think I will leave it at that for this post and start a new one in a few minutes. I also have to post all of those pictures and videos, so it will be a while! Until then, love you all, miss you all. God bless!
Paca, Jen and Jess! I will miss you! :(
Oh! I forgot to mention before that the weekend prior to the concert, Jen, Jessica and I went out for pizza with "the Davids" at this awesome place called Kastan. It was delicious and we had a great time! The Davids are hilarious, and I was really glad to know that they would be around so that once Jen and Jessica left, I would not so lonely :)
So anyway, continuing my story from what happened that Tuesday after the concert... Jen brought some pretty crafts with feathers and all kinds of stickers for the girls to play with. It was fun. Then, Wednesday came, and it was time to say goodbye... :(
The day actually went pretty much as normal, and Jen and Jessica handed out glowing-bracelets, which were a total hit! After spending a lot of time with the Malenkas (the little girls), all the girls got called to eat their lunch. At that point, with all of the girls gather together, Jen and Jessica took the opportunity to say their goodbyes.
Lots of tears were shed by all of us, and Jessica was hoping it would end there... but it certainly didn't. A great number of the older girls came and walked with us all the way to the gate, only prolonging the goodbyes. That made it hard for Jessica. However, something great happened! Hanna, one of the older girls who had been given heck to Jessica all summer long, and on whom Jessica had work a lot to gain her trust and friendship, unexpectedly came along and even gave Jessica a hug goodbye! (after some prying by Orest, hehehe) It was such a beautiful moment, and I was so mad I did not get my camera out on time to take a picture! What is more is that Hanna, along with a bunch of the other girls, walked us all all the way to the bus stop, where we waited for a few more minutes until the bus came. It was all very emotional, but I tried to be as cheery as I could and not think about the fact that the girls were leaving. I did not like the thought that I would be alone for almost another whole month once they left... I would miss them so much! :S
So, after all that emotional charge, the necessary thing to do was to get ice cream. And so that is what we did! We went to a place called Gelato Maffia, and LET ME TELL YOU!! It was SMACHNO!! (DELICIOUS!!) I got myself a giant croissant filled with three scoops of gelato: chocolate, vanilla and strawberry: Napolitano Extraordinaire!
We talked for a while, and after that we headed to my place, where we talked for a long time, listed to some of Orest's weird music (lol) and just passed the time together one last time before their departure. I must say that I was in a really weird mood. I was really mellow. Perhaps it was my lack of sleep after taking so long to prepare those bags as well as studying for my exams. Perhaps it was just emotional exhaustion and the feeling of uncertainty that ensued from knowing that Jen and Jessica were leaving... Most likely it was both. It was nice to hang out together like that!
We had done something similar, but without Orest, a couple of times before. Once at my place, and once at Jessica's place, and both times were awesome! I had so much fun with them on the few occasions we hung out after the internat (mostly due to the fact that I always had to run to do homework), and I knew I was going to miss them.
So Thursday came, and Jen and Jessica did not come to the internat, in order to pack their bags and prepare for their next day's early departure. I did go to the internat myself, but thankfully I did not go by myself, as Krystina wanted to come with me. That was nice. I didn't feel the shock of going by myself right away. That day I taught some of he girls how to make frogs, planes and boats out of paper, you know, like origami. Doing that activity let me see the degree of mental disability of some of these girls at a level I had not yet seen before, mainly because many of these girls look perfectly normal, and without the language to show me their level of verbal skills, it is hard to tell sometimes whether some of these girls have disabilities at all. Doing origami was clearly very challenging for many of the girls. Their motor and coordination skills are not very well developed, and a few of them had trouble even just folding the paper in half! However, with patience and care, Krystina and I helped each of the girls do all of the folds of a semi complicated piece of origami, until ALL of them ended up with a nice little jumping frog! :D I was so surprised at their patience with themselves, despite the obvious difficulty of the task. I gently pushed them to get it done, not doing any of the folds for them, and just letting them help each other out, WITHOUT having the more able girls do all the work for the less-abled ones. It was quite a goal to accomplish, but in the end, it was awesome because they all got a lot of joy and delight from seeing they had been able to do it by themselves! :) It gave me great satisfaction!
The next day, I accompanied Jen and Jessica to the train station, and after a few hugs and a couple of tears between us and their respective families, we saw them off to Lviv. And that was it. I was alone.
I walked back with Orest and we stopped at a store to buy some CDs for him and a new set of headphones for me, as mine gave out their last breath two weeks before.
And so it began... four more weeks in Ukraine without Jen and Jessica.
Jen and Jessica, if you are reading this, please know that I miss you both so much and that I hope you are having a great time back at home. I will be home soon, and we will have to get together to catch up and share stories again :) Thanks for all your support and your friendship :)
That's it for that. I will continue to tell you what happened in the almost two weeks that have gone by since Jen and Jessica left, and I will soon post a few videos and tons of pictures. Until then, Love you all, miss you all. God bless!
So anyway, continuing my story from what happened that Tuesday after the concert... Jen brought some pretty crafts with feathers and all kinds of stickers for the girls to play with. It was fun. Then, Wednesday came, and it was time to say goodbye... :(
The day actually went pretty much as normal, and Jen and Jessica handed out glowing-bracelets, which were a total hit! After spending a lot of time with the Malenkas (the little girls), all the girls got called to eat their lunch. At that point, with all of the girls gather together, Jen and Jessica took the opportunity to say their goodbyes.
Lots of tears were shed by all of us, and Jessica was hoping it would end there... but it certainly didn't. A great number of the older girls came and walked with us all the way to the gate, only prolonging the goodbyes. That made it hard for Jessica. However, something great happened! Hanna, one of the older girls who had been given heck to Jessica all summer long, and on whom Jessica had work a lot to gain her trust and friendship, unexpectedly came along and even gave Jessica a hug goodbye! (after some prying by Orest, hehehe) It was such a beautiful moment, and I was so mad I did not get my camera out on time to take a picture! What is more is that Hanna, along with a bunch of the other girls, walked us all all the way to the bus stop, where we waited for a few more minutes until the bus came. It was all very emotional, but I tried to be as cheery as I could and not think about the fact that the girls were leaving. I did not like the thought that I would be alone for almost another whole month once they left... I would miss them so much! :S
So, after all that emotional charge, the necessary thing to do was to get ice cream. And so that is what we did! We went to a place called Gelato Maffia, and LET ME TELL YOU!! It was SMACHNO!! (DELICIOUS!!) I got myself a giant croissant filled with three scoops of gelato: chocolate, vanilla and strawberry: Napolitano Extraordinaire!
We talked for a while, and after that we headed to my place, where we talked for a long time, listed to some of Orest's weird music (lol) and just passed the time together one last time before their departure. I must say that I was in a really weird mood. I was really mellow. Perhaps it was my lack of sleep after taking so long to prepare those bags as well as studying for my exams. Perhaps it was just emotional exhaustion and the feeling of uncertainty that ensued from knowing that Jen and Jessica were leaving... Most likely it was both. It was nice to hang out together like that!
We had done something similar, but without Orest, a couple of times before. Once at my place, and once at Jessica's place, and both times were awesome! I had so much fun with them on the few occasions we hung out after the internat (mostly due to the fact that I always had to run to do homework), and I knew I was going to miss them.
So Thursday came, and Jen and Jessica did not come to the internat, in order to pack their bags and prepare for their next day's early departure. I did go to the internat myself, but thankfully I did not go by myself, as Krystina wanted to come with me. That was nice. I didn't feel the shock of going by myself right away. That day I taught some of he girls how to make frogs, planes and boats out of paper, you know, like origami. Doing that activity let me see the degree of mental disability of some of these girls at a level I had not yet seen before, mainly because many of these girls look perfectly normal, and without the language to show me their level of verbal skills, it is hard to tell sometimes whether some of these girls have disabilities at all. Doing origami was clearly very challenging for many of the girls. Their motor and coordination skills are not very well developed, and a few of them had trouble even just folding the paper in half! However, with patience and care, Krystina and I helped each of the girls do all of the folds of a semi complicated piece of origami, until ALL of them ended up with a nice little jumping frog! :D I was so surprised at their patience with themselves, despite the obvious difficulty of the task. I gently pushed them to get it done, not doing any of the folds for them, and just letting them help each other out, WITHOUT having the more able girls do all the work for the less-abled ones. It was quite a goal to accomplish, but in the end, it was awesome because they all got a lot of joy and delight from seeing they had been able to do it by themselves! :) It gave me great satisfaction!
The next day, I accompanied Jen and Jessica to the train station, and after a few hugs and a couple of tears between us and their respective families, we saw them off to Lviv. And that was it. I was alone.
I walked back with Orest and we stopped at a store to buy some CDs for him and a new set of headphones for me, as mine gave out their last breath two weeks before.
And so it began... four more weeks in Ukraine without Jen and Jessica.
Jen and Jessica, if you are reading this, please know that I miss you both so much and that I hope you are having a great time back at home. I will be home soon, and we will have to get together to catch up and share stories again :) Thanks for all your support and your friendship :)
That's it for that. I will continue to tell you what happened in the almost two weeks that have gone by since Jen and Jessica left, and I will soon post a few videos and tons of pictures. Until then, Love you all, miss you all. God bless!
Concert and Gift Bags! A wonderful day!
Ok, FINALLY, here’s the story of what happened with the little ‘concert/recital’ that Jen, Jessica and I organized, as well as with the bags I was putting together for the girls :)
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.
_______
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!
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.
_______
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!
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
IM STILL ALIVE!
Hey guys! I am so sorry I have been MIA for, what...? 3 weeks now?? OH MY! I have been busy beyond description and haven't given myself the time to blog! I will do a proper entry by the end of the week. I just wanted to reassure you all that I am alive and well and that everything is going GREAT over here! So much to tell you all! I really need to get going now, but stay posted because I will have a lot posted by Friday, I promise! I am just trying to get some essays done for my one course before my prof shoots me lol! (JK. Dr. Frick is awesome and I feel bad that I feel like I have really exploited his patience and generosity... I want to make him proud with my work, so that is why I am focusing on that now :P)
I hope you are all well. Miss you all, love you all. God bless!
I hope you are all well. Miss you all, love you all. God bless!
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