Please donate to this project.

This weekend I attended a meeting for a camp I will be participating in this summer called ABCamp. ABCamp is unique in that it encourages active citizenship through lessons on the arts, country studies, debate, and project planning.



Here is a description provided by Peace Corps:

ABCamp is a ten-day summer camp designed by two Ukrainian women and staffed with a mixture of Ukrainians and Peace Corps volunteers. Our purpose is to empower Ukrainian youth by holding daily lessons on debate, civic leadership, cross-cultural awareness, and project planning and implementation. Through these lessons, campers will improve their critical thinking and decision-making skills and develop an understanding that they are capable of making changes in their society. Campers will have the opportunity to improve their English skills as all lessons and activities will be conducted in English. Campers will also complete a social project in the city where the camp will be held in small groups, giving them the experience and knowledge needed to create projects on their own after the camp’s completion.

The school being used for the camp will provide rent and electricity and campers will also pay a fee that will cover their meals throughout the camp. The funds requested with this grant will cover materials for lessons and projects, and will also provide two campers with a scholarship who would otherwise not be able to attend camp.

This will be the second year of ABCamp. This camp has done much for the youth it involves, based on the accomplishments of last year’s campers. Past campers were involved in projects ranging from fundraisers for orphanages to holding day camps of their own to share the information they learned at ABC. We hope by continuing this camp, projects like these will continue to grow across Ukraine.



If you have the time, please donate to camp expenses HERE.

Unintended Compliment of the Day

Since arriving to site, when I open my mouth and speak one of the first questions is; "Are you from Poland?" I take that as a compliment, figuring my language isn't that bad. Occasionally, there's been a few times when I've been asked if I'm Moldovan.

The last two weeks I've been traveling a little bit more. On these excursions, I've been asked if I'm Russian. I guess that means my grammatical mistakes aren't as common as I think.

Today, granted it was a 2nd grade girl, I was asked if I was born in this village or another one. It made my day.

I've got an awesome boss.

The director of my school invited me to her son's wedding this past weekend. I was really happy that she did so because attending a Ukrainian wedding is on my mental bucket list of things I must do while I'm here.

I want all the world to know that I absolutely love and adore my director. She is a major source of encouragement and inspiration for me. Despite not being able to communicate with her in English, I consider her a great friend and someone I can always go to for support. She tutors me in Russian a few times a week too. Together we're blazing through the standard classics in Russian literature and having some, or more likely the only, really intellectually stimulating conversations I've had since coming to site that are face to face. And by conversations, I mean I nod my head a lot and ask questions in hope that she'll explain in detail. I'm really good at asking questions; discussing and explaining in Russian is another detail although I do find myself when I'm upset or mad explaining why I'm frustrated with the world in Russian, to myself.

When I asked my director if she made all this, she said "yes" in a tone that suggested it wasn't a big deal. Mind you, typical Ukrainian kitchens are no bigger than those in loft apartments. Ukrainian women are truly miracle workers when it comes to producing massive amounts of food. This room is the school cafeteria.

Doing their rounds, honoring the dead at the veterans' memorial.

The wedding itself was short and simple. The groom (whom I'm on a nodding basis with on the street) and the bride got married at the municipal court. The court is a pleasant small room commonly used for this purpose. I remember reading in my Soviet history class about how back in the day these courts were basically wedding factories. Today, I believe it is still common to get married here or to have a ceremony in the church. The ceremony took all of about 15 minutes and was a unique mixture of technical language and tradition, including vows (Do you take him as your husband? Da), the parents presenting bread, thanking the parents, a first dance, seeing who steps on a cloth first (whoever does is seen as the head of a family), and champagne. Afterwords, the couple headed outside the building where they were showered with candy and coins for good luck and happiness.

After this, there was about an hour period where we went around town taking photos. Wedding photos in Ukraine contain the standard shots, but there's some surprises too. One of my favorite things to do when I was in Ukraine two years ago in the summer was to sit in a park and watch the bridal parties come by. It's common in former Soviet countries to take pictures next to statues and important monuments, in part to honor the dead.

A little after 1 PM the party started. I didn't know what I was in for. If there is one thing I can say to characterize the difference between American and Ukrainian festivities, it is this: Americans present things on the surface and leave their audience wanting more, Ukrainians on the other hand do whatever it is to death. I left the party at 9 PM and it wasn't near completion.

It is typical for a celebration to have "3 tables", meaning you sit down to eat three times. I've started to understand the general gist of the order of food. I tend to get excited when the голубци (cabbage rolls) appear because I know that the end is in sight. During these feasts, toasts are performed. A lot of toasts. When not at the table, we danced and took part in games. By games, I mean those types of things that I dread at bridal showers. I was surprised that the wedding had a sort of MC, who kept the party going and forced us into these games. I did have a lot of fun, especially because the relatives of the groom took really good care of me. I did feel like a fool though. Dancing to Russian pop classics is hard. I couldn't really get into it. Next time, I'll Youtube Moldovan and Ukrainian dances.

View from my Window

Newest Housemates

Send me your Junk Mail!

I kind of have an odd request. One English textbook at school has an article about American Girl. I'd like to use the catalog as a visual in the class BUT writing the company for a copy to be specially sent abroad is well, weird. If you have a copy please send it to me!

This goes for other catalogs/magazines/coupons too. I'd absolutely love if you (loving family/friend) would rip out pictures of things that clearly represent products/emotions/verbs/traditions... that can be used as visuals. I dream of having a library of images that our school can use for many years to come. Students love guessing what are in pictures and I incorporate them into games and so on.

Possible themes include:

arts and crafts, hobbies, sports gear, computers and electronics, beauty, gardening, pets, kitchen, home/decor, office supplies, travel, clothing...


My Address: (there is a rumor that if you use both the Latin and Cyrillic the mail comes quicker)

Sara Wenger
Krasni Okny Gymnasium
Komarova 21
Krasni Okny
Odeska Oblast
Ukraine 67900

Сара Венгер
вул. Комарова 21, Гімназія
Красні Окни Одеська обл. 67900
Україна

The English Surgeon

I recall someone referring to The English Surgeon right before I came to Ukraine. Today I read an article about the story behind the documentary. Hopefully I'll get to see it soon.


Cracking Heads Part I
Cracking Heads Part II
Cracking Heads Part III

Kafka's Castle is Collapsing

I haven't made it through this article completely yet because there are a lot of layers to it. The article begins by describing Ikea's fiasco in trying to set up shop in Russia. I'm more intrigued by the reactions it has been getting.

Paska

I made it through my first Ukrainian Easter. Highlights included:

• watching my host family prepare Sunday's brunch (I would have helped but they've got it down to a science and I'm not in the equation)
• thinking that I'm surrounded by giant cupcakes
  
• making it through half of the church service (it's 5+ hours and a lot of people for a small space)
• taking a solo hike Sunday afternoon
• leftovers

Rockin' the Paska

Sasha Rudensky

I came across this photographer's website courtesy of Boooooom! It's all a little too familiar.

Sasha Rudensky

Waste Management

I need help finding a place to begin.

With Earth Day coming up soon, I'd really like to do a trash cleanup in my community with my students. However, this proposal carries countless obstacles.

My town doesn't have a waste management service. People are responsible for disposing of their own trash, burning it or adding it to mountains of waste all over the countryside.

If I were to have a "trash cleanup", what would we be doing other than moving trash from one place to another? Burning it is an open welcome to carcinogens. Craft projects would be fun, but I don't think the parents of the youth I deal with would be too crazy about birdhouses made from plastic bottles. When I asked a relative about the problem she said that the community does have a dump, but there hasn't been a service for years because the government can't finance the trucks.



What is my place in addressing this problem? It's massive, requires manpower, and is political. And yet, I don't think I can consciously ignore it. If you know of anyone or have any suggestions for what can be done and how to organize around this please let me know. I don't even know how to concisely define the problem. I've tried searching waste management, Ukraine + trash, recycling programs... but can't quite grasp a proper case study.

OMG

So I'm reading Taras Bulba by Gogol in Russian and for some reason the imagery of the Cossacks made me think of Christopher Lowell. I don't understand the connection, maybe it's divine intervention. I haven't thought about Christopher for a long time. For those of you who don't know, he is an interior designer/decorator that had an hour-long daytime show on Discovery in the late 90s. I loved this man. I could watch him for hours during summer vacation while eating ramen. His design sense is unparalleled when it comes to middle America. I wish I could properly describe the brilliance of his old shows, the thought alone is making me turn red in the face.

Anyways, since about 2004 I've been kicking myself for never recording any of his shows. Besides puppies, I can't think of anything else I'd rather waste time watching in a sedated stupor. From time to time, I search online to see if a collection has been marketed or something. Occasionally I'll come across is 7 layer design (so intense!) and some VHS tapes, but not the series.

I just looked at his official website and it looks like Discovery might have released a DVD collection of his classics! I'm not going to beg for this. I'm quietly going to wait until I'm stateside to take part in. In the meantime, I'll see if there's any hidden gems in his blog.