Perpetual Change

Flat Stanley V – Bringing Environmentalism to Ukraine

For a description of the Flat Stanley Project, see Flat Stanley I

August 7, Monday
We got up VERY early today – 4 am!! We took out the trash, had some breakfast, and met our ride. John, two of his scouts, and I are going to an environmental camp in Zakarpatska region. It is over the mountains so we caught an early train from a neighboring town. It was a sunny and beautiful trip as the train wound through the mountain pass and came occasionally to little towns, but when we got there, it started to rain, YUCK!
We loaded the bus at the environmental center and then drove up higher in the mountains to a very famous valley that is full of narcissus flowers every year in spring. The sun had come out when we got there, and so we unpacked and played name games while the cook prepared lunch. There were people from all over Ukraine and all over the USA. After we ate lunch, and we had set up our tents, we made skits and posters to explain where we were from; it was fun. John and his scouts put on their uniforms, and he pretended to be lost, and they told him about all the famous things in their home town to help remind him. I recognized things from our excursion last week like the salt mine and Ivan Franko’s home. Afterwards we played Frisbee. That evening we all just hung out. We were tired and the tents were nice, new and dry.

August 8, Tuesday
Today the lessons started. We had a morning icebreaker and then a class in Ukrainian on “Leave No Trace” which is a program of ideas that help people to enjoy nature without leaving a big affect on it. Then a class on Chernobyl and other energy sources besides nuclear. Then we went looking for a phone that one girl had lost in the field yesterday; she thought someone had taken it from her bag but we found it in the field. We did a trash pick up at the same time then we played a tag game called octopus before Lauren, another Peace Corps volunteer and the camp director, taught her lesson on “Project Design.” Everyday we will have 2 environmental lessons and 1 on leadership and 1 on project design. Then after camp, each town will do an environmental project back at home.
After all the classes, we went for a walk to see the exact spot of the Narcissus flowers. Ukrainians love to go for walks. The valley was made by glaciers long ago and is the only one that still has Narcissus that isn’t VERY high in the mountains, so it is protected.
We didn’t do much that night besides more Frisbee and had a small fire.

August 9, Wednesday
Yesterday the schedule had been a bit mixed up but today things went smoother.
We had classes on recycling, litter, water, leadership and project design. They were all very interesting as were the games the counselors taught us at breaks. We had a scavenger hunt in the afternoon and everyone did quite well. Then for dinner we just had sweet rice. It was very strange; almost like oatmeal. John said that it has happened before at camp but all the Ukrainians think it is strange too so we didn’t understand. No matter, because later we roasted potatoes, tomatoes, salo and then marshmallows on the fire. Salo is like VERY fatty bacon [editor’s note: it is really more like solid lard – white and smooth like cheese]. It is almost completely white and Ukrainians eat it a lot. They think it is good for them. I know it tastes very good with potatoes. We also sang songs by the fire before going to bed.

August 10, Thursday
John taught a song about bananas in the morning and then his lesson on Natural Resource Management where we watched a short movie about Yosemite, and after lunch he taught a lesson on leadership where we worked on teamwork. We also planned our project for our town today.
Next week at scout camp we will teach people about the current environmental situation in Ukraine. Then we will have a training where we visit the dump and a recycling center in a nearby town and then we will have a poster contest where people design good ideas for ways we can better take care of the environment.
In the evening, the kids wanted to learn baseball and American Football, so we all had fun playing and then after dinner we had a HUGE bonfire and then roasted shashlyk (Ukrainian barbecue shish-kebabs.) It was very tasty; they marinate it all day. John showed us a bunch of pictures of reefs in Florida and talked about the ecology of the ocean while we waited for the shashlyk and people stayed up late since it was the last night and the counselors hadn’t let us before.

August 11, Friday
Yesterday and Monday were the only days where the weather was really nice, but the other days it was grey more than it rained…not today. It rained all night and continued to rain hard in the morning. Luckily we had at least taken pictures yesterday. We had breakfast and took the tents down and it stopped raining long enough to load the bus.
We drove back to town, unloaded everyone and everything, gave the extra food to an orphanage, and set the tents up in the environmental center to dry. Then we went for pizza. It was so good. It is a thin crust and one person can eat a whole pizza if they are hungry. John said it is very similar to Italian pizza. They bake it in a wood burning oven.
Then we walked around the downtown a bit. It was nice, and has a more Western Europe feel to its pedestrian only streets. We took some people to the train station and then went to Lauren’s to shower and relax. We were going to go home but we would get back to our town very late, so Lauren offered us to stay over and take an early (cheaper) train home.
One of Lauren’s and John’s friends came over, Noel. He took us to his house to drop off some stuff and then on a tour to the castle which overlooks the city and the monastery which is on the other side of town in the beginning of the mountains. His house is really cool. He doesn’t live in an apartment like most people here and he has a huge garden with flowers, grapes, apples, berries, pears, and plums that are all very tasty.
By now it was quite late. We met Lauren in a café and had Hungarian goulash (a dark spicy stew with meat, potatoes, and beans) and potato pancakes with sour cream (they call it smetana, сметана, here.

August 12, Sat.
Lauren cooked us eggs and made us peanut butter and jelly for lunch. The bread was very good and John said it had been a long time since he had PB&J. Peanut butter isn’t popular here at all.
We caught our train and had a very nice ride back, through the mountains. Then we did LAUNDRY! By hand! Ugh, what a lot of work. We also checked John’s mailbox and went to a meeting at the community center about the scout camp we would be going to on Monday. We packed everything up that we would need. We went home, had dinner and read till bed.

August 13, Sun.
John got up and made pancakes from scratch; they were good. Then we went to Church and John sang in the choir. He says it’s very tiring. Then we went over to John’s friend’s house for tea again, this time his host mom was there. She had been visiting relatives in the mountains last week. They cut John’s hair close again (like the Cossack) for camp, and John helped her look for some stuff on the Internet.
Most kids here know how to use computers well, particularly games, but many adults don’t, plus often when they search for information it may be in English or another language. There is a lot in Russian though.

August 14, Monday
Late last night we got a text message (many people use them all the time here) that said we would start camp on Wednesday because of the rain. So we didn’t finish packing yesterday. It wasn’t too interesting of a day. We checked email, bought some groceries at the bazaar. A lady in a shop asked John why he hasn’t been around more. John had to prepare the lessons he had used at the camps to send them off to the directors so that they could put them in their manuals. We made split pea soup for dinner, also a popular favorite here, but they usually eat soup at lunch.

Aug 15, Tuesday
We got up this morning, did some errands and it was nasty weather again. John’s friend said it was too hot on the other side of the country. (Ukraine is about as big as Texas) But here it is wet and cold.
We had a scout meeting and they decided to put off scout camp again. If they put it off any longer, I’ll have to leave instead of going. We also had tea with a friend of John. He has a 1-year-old baby, Melasia. She is so cute, and a bit bigger than me. She can walk and jump now. His wife is pregnant, and they have just finished a new apartment. John wanted to see it and borrow some tools for his own remodeling.
His friend’s name is Yury like the Prime Minister that just finished. It is a very common name here. It is the Ukrainian equivalent for George. Here St. Yury is the one who killed the dragon. Yury is 34 and his wife is 21. This is also very common here, for the man to be older, sometimes as much as 15 years. Women usually marry very young, between 18 -21.
Finally we went to the youth center to sign up for a project they are doing and it was someone’s birthday so we had to stay. On your birthday, you are supposed to bake a cake, buy wine (or vodka), lots of sweets and fruit, and set it up at lunch. Everyone drinks tea or coffee and toasts with the alcohol to your health, happiness, success, family, etc. etc. Usually you must do 3 toasts before anyone can leave. John says this happens a lot and he often gets stuck, but the conversation was very interesting today because there was a man there that had just been deported from England!!! He had been working illegally on a travel visa and lived with lots of foreigners near the airport. After the big bomb scare last week, the authorities went around checking and sent lots of people back to their own countries. He was full of stories, and all the Ukrainians were anxious to hear.

posted by jjs @ 8:41 AM