CAMPING: Day 2

While I was camping, I turned off every source of electronic equipment I had with me for that week. There was no way to charge the items I had (my Ukrainian cell phone, my iphone, my old ipod, and my kindle) so I simply left them off if I wasn’t using them. I did make sure before I left that they were each charged to their full capacity. Duh. My Ukrainian cell phone didn’t work very well in the area that we were located so I would turn it on once a day to see if I could get a signal.

A typical day of our camping trip consisted of the following: wake up at 8 am, breakfast at 9 am, lunch at 1 or 2 pm, dinner at 8 pm, and then once it got dark (at 10 pm) we had campfire time. Every day different groups of people had meal prep and clean-up…and I usually just helped out whenever they’d let me. I wasn’t “assigned” a group, and as I said before, it was like torture to convince them I wanted to help! On day 2 of my camping extravaganza, I walked to the magazihn that was 3-4 km away in the next village over. On the way back, the boys that I was walking with remembered that they were in charge of dinner that night. The boys contribution in the "kitchen" is to gather fire wood, get the fires going, keep them going, and take the (very heavy) pots on and off of the fire.

The river was not too far down the way from our tents, maybe a 3 minute walk. We went on group swims in between breakfast and lunch and then lunch and dinner. The water could be downright chilly if it wasn’t sunny…cold enough that I didn’t always get in. On Saturday, the second day of our camping trip, I went on an afternoon walk with some of the kids to the magazihn (store) located about 3-4 kilometers away. It was in the next village over, so we got to pass some neat things along the way. I bought some cookies, juice, and a bottle of water at the magazihn and started heading back. That evening after dinner, I was exhausted and just wanted to go to bed…so I told the director that I needed some sleep and skipped out on the campfire time. I crawled into my tent and realized at that point that my lower lip began to feel funny…as did the rest of my body. I was itching all over, but luckily had my med kit with me which had some anti-itch cream in it (my counterpart had instructed me to bring my PC med kit which I definitely would not have even thought about otherwise...I was very happy she reminded me to say the least). My bottom lip was SUPER swollen twenty minutes later and I had no clue what I was allergic to that was making me break out in hives on my thighs and stomach. It was so bizarre. I took some advil and drank some water hoping that it would pass…and stayed awake long enough to make sure my lip was done swelling. I slept like a rock that night and woke up the next morning with a less swollen lip and still no clue what the heck made me break out in hives. Once I got up and moving that day, everything seemed fine and I was back to normal.

one side of my tent

And the other side of my tent! More to come... :)