Camp HEAL, and summer ending

Hello again! Well, I’m done with camp and traveling, and summer is winding down. Since school ended I haven’t spent more than two weeks at a time at home in my apartment, and now I have about two weeks until school begins again. And somewhere around October 1^st (my one-year mark), time is really supposed to start flying . . .

Hopefully I’ll get back into the swing of lesson-planning by then – a few weeks ago, I was so out of steam that I decided to show my big city English club an episode of “MASH” instead of actually planning something. I made chocolate chip cookies for them, just in case there were any hard feelings . . . but they seemed to like the show a lot! One problem with showing movies and TV shows to non-native speakers is the number of idioms – but with MASH, we had medical jargon and various made-up phrases on top of everything. It’s one thing to explain the phrase “10 bucks a head” for throwing a party, but when Hawkeye says things like “Let’s cut the gristle and get right to the bone,” it’s more difficult . . .

The day after my club, I met three students and got on a train to go to an HIV/AIDS education camp – Camp HEAL (Human trafficking, Education, AIDS, Leadership). 16 hours later, we arrived in Donetsk oblast in the east of the country, where many of the campers from central and western Ukraine had never been. I had only taught one of my three girls before – one of them went to the technical school, and another is my coordinator’s daughter who spent the year in Mississippi – but they still trusted me to guide them through an unfamiliar oblast. When we arrived at the sanitarium, I discovered that I knew one of the other counselors – Gayle! We apparently reacted the same way when we saw each other’s names on the list: “----’s here?!” Gayle was my cousin’s roommate in college, so even though this was the first time we’d met up since she arrived, as a part of Group 32, we had plenty of gossip to share.

Once we got the kids settled, we took them out to the gazebo and introduced ourselves. Their first impression of me was as the crazy counselor trying to explain a game called “Trainwreck” (people know this game by different names . . . it’s the one where you stand in a circle, and one person in the middle yells something like “Everyone who has a sister,” or “Everyone wearing blue,” and those people run around to find new places in the circle. If you can’t think of anything, or just want mass chaos, you yell “Trainwreck!” and everyone runs). I was a group leader for Group II, and we named ourselves “Team Awesome,” and adopted the slogan “Nothing is impossible.” This took a ridiculously long time to decide on. We also had to abandon two separate attempts at “The Human Knot” . . . but despite this, Team Awesome was wonderful, and did a great job . . .

The first full day was devoted to lessons on Healthy Living, Peer Pressure and Self Esteem, and then several games that involved figuring out how to get each team-member through a space in a web of robes, or a hula hoop, one by one (thankfully I didn’t have to try to fit through the rope web, but I was hoisted up and sent through the hoop). This was in keeping with the pattern we developed of: serious topic – silly game – serious movie – capture the flag, etc. It worked very well! I was impressed at how students kept their cool and behaved maturely during the classes on difficult subjects, which would become increasingly important as the week went on. We ended the day with tie-dying, which I think was my first attempt in about ten years (ay), and which the kids really enjoyed. That night, I celebrated not having disco duty by sitting in the Volunteer “office” and doing dramatic readings from the “Cosmo Girl” and “Seventeen” magazines I found there. (The disco was sponsored by the sanitarium every night – blasting techno music and strobe lights, fairly typical.) I soon had a little audience of Volunteers gathered around me, as I told of the girl whose parents convinced her to get a nose job, and of the tattoo that went horribly, horribly wrong (as most tattoos obtained on some guy’s back porch tend to, I would imagine). So, story-time became a fun theme for my week, and a nice break for us . . .

The next day, one of the Volunteers had an unexpected errand, so I took over his lesson on Human Trafficking. First, the kids watched a movie created by MTV and narrated by Angelina Jolie (she is just everywhere) about various women from Eastern Europe who had thought they were going to work in legit jobs in Western Europe, but had been trafficked and sold into the sex industry, etc. I’ve since watched the movie in English (we used the Ukrainian dubbing), and it’s very good, way to go MTV (there’s another with Gavin Rossdale). So, the kids in my lesson learned the various precautions to take before going abroad: never give away your documents, sign a contract in a foreign language, etc., and what hotline to call with questions about potential jobs. I used the example of if I were to go to China without speaking Chinese or understanding the Chinese documents I was signing . . . overall, it went well. The next day was when we started teaching about HIV/AIDS, and I taught one of the “Transmission and Prevention” lessons; which, yes, involved putting condoms onto cucumbers. We all survived, and I don’t think the kids were too scarred, though they were very surprised when I started passing out the cucumbers and the reality of the next task began to dawn on them.

That afternoon, we watched “A Closer Walk” – a movie narrated by Will Smith and Glenn Close about AIDS; specifically the epidemics in India, Ukraine and parts of Africa. It’s a very good movie, though obviously very intense. It was my first time seeing it, although I had heard a lot about it, and I recommend it to anyone who can get their hands on it. It focuses on the spread of HIV in drug-users in Ukraine, though since the movie was made, the infection statistics here have shifted to about 50% drug-users, and 50% other.

The next day, we watched a movie called “Svetlana’s Life,” which was really effective in that it was short, in Russian, and focused on Ukraine. It’s a silent movie, which alternates photos and narration of a Ukrainian girl’s life with information on the history of AIDS and how it reached Ukraine. The lively background music cuts off at the point when Svetlana learns she’s been infected, but as she discovers support groups and becomes an activist, it gets louder again.

That night we had a campfire with s’mores!! That was very exciting, and the kids enjoyed trying marshmellows, which, tragically, have yet to be introduced to this country. We led the campers in singing “Lean On Me,” and it was all very cute. The last day we got together to plan projects for our communities this fall, which is what I will be spending most of this next week trying to lay the groundwork for, before two of my girls head off to study English at university (future interpreters!). We decided to try to do four seminars, one per school in Bratslav: two on human trafficking and two on HIV/AIDS. I’m really grateful for this camp – because it forced me to think about and plan a project that I otherwise might have been too intimidated to try. It also gives me the support of three students who know a lot more about our community than I do, so overall it’s a really great way to go about a community project. That said, it is still intimidating – in the shilling I’ve done for the seminars thus far, I’ve felt like a carpetbagger politician asking for votes from people who don’t know me that well. But we’ll see!

The last night we did an activity – first just the counselors, and then in our groups – where you toss a ball of yarn from person to person giving compliments, and as each person wraps the yarn around their wrist you make a big web – has anyone ever heard of that game? Anyway, it was very cute, nice to do with us Volunteers and then with our campers. You’re supposed to keep the yarn tied on your wrist until it falls off. Overall, I think the camp went really well, and it was a great way to end the summer. It was good to meet the Group 29ers before they leave this fall (!), especially the amazing organizers, and fun to get to know the new wave, Group 32. I feel like we in Group 31 are sophomores . . . but soon to be juniors! Strange.

In closing, thanks to Archer and Mom and Dad for the mail and package! And to Liz M. for the CD! Hope you’re all doing well . . . . keep in touch!

Love, Virginia

Refresher, etc.

Hi everyone! How are you? Things have been fairly low-key here, but I’ll give a short update . . . with pictures!

Two weeks ago, this time, I went to the city for my English club there. I was on my own to think up a topic that week, but I remembered that jazz music had been suggested a few times. I don’t know all that much about jazz, but with my new internet, I was able to look it up on Wikipedia to do my research! I had had no idea how many different variants of jazz there were . . . and some music I had considered to be something else, like “big band,” turned out to be jazz, or at least had been considered jazz at one point. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot of division in the music community over what jazz is, so it was a lot for a novice like me to take in. [Fun fact/example of division: in the 50s, jazz began to change from dance/swing music to a less commercial form, which Louis Armstrong dismissed as “Chinese music.” Ok, maybe not such a fun fact.] I played them music from different periods, as well as some of the precursors to jazz, like ragtime. My speakers aren’t very loud, but it was a small group, so everyone could more or less hear. I even allowed myself to play Christmas music (in July!), so they could hear the swing version of The Nutcracker that I have, as well as Art Carney reading “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” to jazz accompaniment . . . when you have as many Christmas CDs as I do, you end up with some weird stuff . . .

A few days later, I left with fellow Volunteer Brittany to go west for our Ukrainian language refresher. PCVs can sign up for a refresher in either Ukrainian or Russian twice a year (you can sign up for one even if you were trained in the other, just to try it out, or if, like me, you live in an area where both are used interchangeably). Ours was in a sanitarium near Rivne, and about sixty of us came. It was fun to see the people from my group whom I hadn’t seen since December, and to meet people from other groups for the first time. Brittany and I got there after traveling all night, but luckily we had time to sleep before the activities began. We were divided into different groups, and everyone got handkerchiefs in their group colors – my group was red, and our leader (a former LCF, or language teacher for training groups) taught us how to tie them around our necks like the Pioneers did (aka Communist boy scouts), having had much experience as a child. We had to pick a team name, motto, song, etc. (all in Ukrainian . . . this may seem obvious, and I guess it was, but it was still something of an adjustment for those of us who teach English and tend to restrict our use of Ukrainian to grocery shopping, etc. But then, that was the whole point). We decided to be “Chervona Ruta” meaning “Red Ruta,”; ruta being a kind of flower here. There is a folk song about the chervona ruta, and how if a girl picks that flower in the woods/mountains/somewhere at night, she can bewitch whatever guy she wants to like her, so we made that our song (the song is actually a guy telling his girlfriend that she doesn’t need to use the ruta on him, aww).

The refresher was sort of like the gatherings we had during training, but more interesting – or maybe we’re just more relaxed now that we’re not frantically worrying about where we’ll live for the next two years. We had language and grammar classes, which were much needed for me, and very very useful: I’ve mentioned before how prepositions are generally optional in this language, and how in order to convey any meaning you have to know which of the seven cases to put your words in, and then how to make the adjectives and pronouns, etc., agree with that case. Otherwise you end up saying “bread good, fire bad,” which I imagine is how I sound most of the time. We learned about how to put the adjectives and pronouns into the right cases near the end of training, and I’m afraid it didn’t take, so it was very good to go over it again. Most of the grammar sessions, we spent exclaiming over rules we had completely forgotten, like how if it’s Sunday and the person to your left is wearing blue, you use instrumental case. [Ok, want a real example? If you say you see someone or something, you use accusative case . . . unless you see a man. Then it’s genitive. Seriously – for every normally accusative verb, when dealing with a “masculine, animate” direct object.] We didn’t get too stressed out though, and our teachers were very supportive . . .

The rest of each day we had more fun activities, like hobby clubs or competitions between groups. It was like camp! The first day I beaded a bracelet, and then spent the rest of the hobby periods in the gazebo with the knitters, or, as one of us called the group, “stitch’n’bitch.” I had a great time sitting there knitting a scarf and talking endlessly about things that would have bored a decent percent of the population, like how many stitches per row and how to block. We had several beginners, including one boy, who tolerated us long enough to make what he decided was a “wrist-warmer.” We had several competitions during the week, between the groups, but what stood out for me was the “limbo.” I can’t remember having ever limboed before, but apparently I’m good at it! I was in the last five, when it got too low and four of us fell – but it was fun!

I went to other classes, about Ukrainian idioms, and folk songs, and about HIV/AIDS in Ukraine. It was all very interesting, and very good practice speaking. The last day I got to go swimming in the lake (the sanitarium is right by a lake, in the middle of pine trees, very pretty), which was fun. We had a bonfire, and someone even brought marshmellows from America for us to roast, and a group of us ended the celebration by singing all the songs we could think of that we all knew, ranging from the national anthem to “Don’t Stop Believing” to Johnny Cash . . . including a very long rendition of the “Tally Me Bananas” song (whatever that’s officially called), with various people improvising lines to rhyme with “six foot, seven foot, eight foot punch!” We weren’t so much singing as shouting at the tops of our lungs, very fun.

Brittany’s and my trip back to Vinnytsia was shorter than we expected, thankfully – we got back in time to grab some mcmeals at McDonald’s. The rest of the week has been fairly quiet, I’ve been doing laundry and getting ready for my next camp, for which I leave on Sunday.

Thank you to Catherine B. for an exciting postcard from Peru! . . .

. . . and that’s about it. I hope you’re all doing well, happy August, take care and keep in touch!!

Love, Virginia