Perpetual Change

My week at Church Camp

So I figure that my constant comments on the relative chronology of my posts is probably unnecessary for those of you that read regularly, and confusing for those of you that don't, so from now on, come as they may, suffice it to say that the date on the post is not accurate.

This last week I was is a small village at what a long time ago was a resort, but now is kind of primitive. I was there for a church camp for youth, and I had gone to help, but ended up just participating. It was very interesting, and very Ukrainian. I had a lot of fun. I also realized that this was the first camp I ever did completely staffed by foreigners. I have worked camps in England and Italy been to countless others, but never completely alone AND completely foreign, though there have been many situations of one or the other.

The people that had invited me to the camp, didn't turn out to be there. In fact I knew no one, except one priest who I had met briefly and was very busy because he was the head of the camp.

I was assigned to a cabin that turned out to have 9 other young gentlemen in it, the oldest being 18, and I wasn't so impressed with the conditions. I felt like a teenager myself again, but everything got worked out and it turned out to be a nice bunch of guys. Though I found out later in the week that they had been drinking while I slept. I think they wanted me to drink with them, but drinking was against the rules. That isn't what stopped them from asking though. I was always asleep because I didn't account for how exhausting working in a foreign language all day would be. Not to mention that the camp was so involved that I would have been tired normally. Oh, and there was only one key for all 10 of us. This was the same situation in many of the cabins, until we discovered that there were only like 2 different keys and used someone elses to open our house instead of waiting for the keyholder to show up.

There were no showers, period. The only running water was in latrine type sinks about 25 feet from the squat toilets. I do have to say that these were the cleanest Soviet Style toilets that I've ever seen (that declined as the week went on though.) This water source was the same water that some people attempted to bath in, water was taken for cooking, and dishes were brought to be washed.

The food was ok. Certainly nothing to write home about (which is what I am doing :-). The only vegetables were occasional cucumber spears, some shaved carrots for flavor in varrying sauces and LOTS of cabbage salad. The real problem was there wasn't enough. Portions were small, and one meal they actually ran out. The kids were always saying they were still hungry. There was a "mailbox" where you could drop notes to be read at the mail calls at meals (we had secret friends, like secret santas) and more than once a poem to a friend ended with a line about "how little soup was in the bowl. Also interesting was that we usually ate breakfast around 11 or 12 (after 2 hours of church services, and they don't believe in sitting in church, there are no pews), then lunch at 4 and dinner around 9.

In between meals though, there were many interesting activities. Some church based, and some definitely not. One night we had relay races complete with jump ropes and potato sacks in the dark, and another afternoon they played this game with paired girls and boys where they dared each other to take clothes off. Of course there is more to that game, but no amount of explaining could justify it.

Another evening we had a confession service. It was a bit different from a Catholic one. By the way, these are Greek Catholics I was with which means, the services are in Ukrainian and Old Slavonic, they follow Orthodox customs and so can marry, but they are acknowledged the Pope in Rome. At the service, everyone ends up shaking everyone's hands and saying "Forgive me Brother/Sister" to which the reply is "God forgives you and I forgive you." They do this while kissing each others shoulders 3 times. There is no exchange of Peace in services so this is the only collective interaction I have seen so far. I couldn't manage the response in Ukrainian so I would say it in English. At the same time people go into another room for confession, and I wanted to so I asked some new friends about the protocol and if they thought I could say my sins in English and off I went. The priest felt differently than my friends (he had come up to the camp for just this event this night and didn't know me) and he said that I could only confess in Ukrainian or he couldn't forgive me. So we settled with him listing off sins (his idea) and I saying Tak or Nee (Yes or no). It was a bit odd.

Another night was Ivana Kuppola, which is the day for John the Baptist. I think it replaced a pagan holiday here. It is on a different day than the Roman Catholic calandar. It is a neat event thought. Girls weave intricate head-wreaths of assorted wild flowers. Nowadays everyone wears them, but before they were only for girls who then threw them into a pond. The boys were standing on the other side and would try to retrieve a particular one. The wreaths are all distinctive because there are so many wild flowers and so many combinations. Nowadays, they also light a candle and put it into the wreath and set it out to float. I got some great pictures.

Everyone wished me a happy saints day, but then we discovered that if I was Ukrainian I would most likely be name Dmitro, because my birthday is on a very big holiday to Saint Dmitro and all the male children born that day have that name. When I told people that I was the 4th John, some debate ensued on which name would have been chosen.

One night, while we were off at the waterfall putting on skits, there were burglaries into all the rooms. There was another group of youth of a bit lesser repute staying there that night. The two crazy things are, 1)although the thing with the keys, they seemed to have pushed a small person through the small, upper window that doesn't lock (even though you can't keep them open because of the breeze thing) and 2) They went through all my stuff but didn't take my cell phone or camera. I am not sure they found the cell phone, it looked like they were in a hurry from the way things were tossed around (they did hit like 6 cabins), and I don't think they recognized my big 35 millimeter that was in the camera case in my backpack.

So everything really went very well, though I was definitely tired when I got home. I made a buch of new friends and I think I am going to go to another Church camp next week.

posted by jjs @ 9:26 AM