Long Weekend

Though it's Tuesday, it's still the weekend in Ukraine. May Day days and "Provody" interrupt the routine, officially announcing spring and the end of the school year. Provody is the day when families go to the graves of loved ones and picnic there, I just looked up the word in my dictionary and it's translated as "sending-off". Last week there was no school on Monday because it was Holy Monday or the Second Day, this week is May Day, and next week is Victory Day. Combined with all these holidays, many school days this month will be filled with seminars and cleaning. I guess I can safely say that I've made it through a whole school year.

Taking advantage of the free days, I attended two events over the long weekend. The first event was the Special Olympics which I was at last year. This year I got to play a game of soccer with a girls' orphanage, it was quite fun. It was great to see not only youth from state homes but also regional teams of disabled people. I was impressed by their skill.

The second event was a Peace Corps volunteer created half-marathon in Beregova, a city just outside the Hungarian border. The volunteer at this site is truly amazing. With her host organization, she coordinated several races through beautiful vineyard country. I didn't run, being chased by stray dogs is enough of an excuse for me not to train at site. I did make myself slightly useful, helping out on the course and running other errands. I'm not sure how many volunteers came to the event, but I haven't been surrounded by that many Americans since Swearing-In in 2009. Thankfully Beregova was welcoming to us and allowed us to claim the city square as our own for the weekend.

Here are some pictures from the opening ceremony for the race weekend. Note, the even more scantily clad girls in black and white stripes were part of an "Odessa" dance troupe. I'm not quite sure what that means, since they were locals, but I'm glad they represented my region with pizazz. The choir is a group of Roma youth that the Peace Corps volunteer has worked and created a "Roma Rights" camp with.

This dog ran a good portion of the half marathon. He seemed to like guarding the runners and barking at the police cars. I think he is a stray, but he adopted us for the weekend.