Where to begin? I went to bed last night at 2 am and woke up at 6:45 am. I had to be at the bus stop downtown at 8:50 am and I didn’t want it to turn into a fiasco like the last time I got on a bus with a lot of luggage. I headed out at 8:30 am after taking out my trash, turning off my hot water heater, etc. {Sidenote: my new hiking backpack is absolutely amazing and didn’t hurt my back today at all. It had a ton of clothes, my tennis shoes and chacos, full size bottles of shampoo, conditioner, body wash, etc., and it distributed the weight amazing!} Every bus that leaves from my apartment heads to the center, so there are options every minute or so. However, I had to choose wisely which bus looked least full, and definitely not choose one that had a lot of people standing in the aisles. I found one that had 2 other people standing in the aisles, and all the seats full. During the 5 minute ride to the center, at least 5 or 6 more people got on which was INCREDIBLY awkward when I’m wearing my backpack and have a small rolling duffel with me as well. The bus driver actually spoke to me when I got on (they don’t usually do this) and said something about me being a tourist. Awesome. But, I made it…got off the bus and was greeted with Olena, my counterpart, who would be seeing me off for my 3 week camp. However, I first ran to the post office and purchased a few envelopes to send postcards to the US.. and left Olena with my stuff (my back was wet with sweat by this point because the marshrutka had NO air flow whatsoever and my backpack was on the entire ride). We got to the area where at least 75-100 kids were gathering with parents EVERYWHERE. And that’s where we waited…for an hour. The buses finally left at 10 am and I had a front row seat to see out the window which was quite lovely. I google mapped an image for y'all to see where I was going..Kirovograd to Novoarkhanhel's'k which is still in the Kirovogradskaya oblast.
I would say 75% of the ride had sunflower or cornfields on either side of me. Here is a video that I took on the ride there...and yes, Jeremy, the bus was that bumpy! :) I'm totally used to it by now.
The sunflowers were in perfect bloom and all facing the sun. The Ukrainian flag is actually modeled after Ukraine's golden wheat fields against the blue sky...but I think the sunflower fields are much more interesting! {Side story: everyone in Ukraine eats unsalted sunflower seeds as a snack. People sit in front of the tv and eat them (cracking the shells and all), or they sit outside on a bench eating them, we ate them on my camping trip, etc.}. Doesn't the next picture look similar to the Ukrainian flag found here?
This camp costs 135 grieven a day for kids (almost $17). I don’t think any of the sponsors pay (maybe it’s included in the kids cost?). However, they were not happy when we showed up with three sponsors for only 20 kids from the center. Whoops. Camps in Ukraine are having to be very careful about medical issues after some different instances arrived at camps in Crimea. So, I got a medical release from PC that basically said if I needed treatment of any kind while I was here at camp, I was to travel back to k-grad for it. One of the other sponsors has to go to the hospital here in Novoarhangelsk tomorrow to get some things signed off. All of that being said, the camp was not wanting us to check in with three people…at least that’s the gist that I got. The other two sponsors had to deal with all of this without my help (luckily, one of them is an English teacher at a school in k-grad). They told me to wait and watch our stuff…so I did! I took that opportunity to start reading Harry Potter 6…and ended up well past page 200 when they came back only to say that nothing was settled. We had lunch in between all of that, and eventually headed to the beach on the river so that the kids could play. However, first, we got the room for myself and the other 2 counselors!
The food was pretty good today as far as camp good goes! I had kasha and potato soup for lunch and mashed potatoes with a piece of chicken for dinner. I am eager to see what will happen tomorrow with our meeting with the director. Wish me luck!
And that is where I ended the post. The following day at camp was fun and filled with many calls to PC and my counterpart who were all trying to make it so that I could stay at camp. I will go ahead and post this, but expect more blog posts soon since I am now at home!
1 comment:
That's a noisy bus... I had no idea sunflowers were such a huge deal there. I just bought some (salted) in-the-shell sunflower seeds recently, for the first time in years.
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