Ukraine

This past weekend I was in Ukraine with everyone else and I think it was my favorite class trip so far! Transylvania was a lot of fun but we were still getting to know each other and Poland was a more serious trip.  In Ukraine we were really close and enjoyed ourselves a lot and got to invest more in the places we went.  We stayed at a high school run by the Reformed Church there.  They have hotel like rooms at the school just for visitors! There's a Calvin grad teaching at the school for a year so it was really nice to see her and I'm sure it was nice for her to see some familiar faces.  We took a train into Sárospatak on Friday and looked at the Reformed school there, which is very old with a lot of history, and the castle in the area.  We also had lunch and dinner there.  That night we went to a wine tasting in an area renowned for their wine.  We tried four different kinds, all very good, but the last one was the best.  It was a really special wine that requires a lot of work and is crazy sweet.  King Louise tried it once and called it the king of wines and the wine for kings.  I don't know what kind of wine kings like, but I would have to agree with the general idea of how good it is.

First Reformed School

Wine Celler

Really good wine!!

We arrived at the school that night rather late and were all really ready to be in warm beds, sleeping.  It was pretty cold again, just like Poland, but we were more prepared this time.  The next morning we headed off to visit a Gypsy community that one of our guides has been working with to improve the living condition.  As we walked through, the kids started following us and we reached the end of the street where their playground was and spent 2o minutes just playing with them.  It was so much fun!!  It's awesome that you don't need to speak the same language as someone to play with them, it's universal.

Playing!!

That afternoon we visited another high school by the Reformed church and spent time telling each other about our schools.  Most of the people we visited are ethnic Hungarians and continually living with that tension.  In the past some odd years, Ukraine has had their nationality changed 5 times, which is crazy.  We also did a workshop with the students at the school we were staying at, which was a lot of fun, even though they were kind of shy.  We had dinner there and then watched a documentary about the Gypsy communities in the area.

The next day we visited an orphanage built by a Dutch man, I can't remember his name.  During the Communist Regime orphanages in Ukraine were really horrible.  They were really dirty with awful living conditions which led to underdevelopment in the kids.  This happened in Romania as well and when the Iron Curtain fell the orphanages in Romania got a lot of press and a lot of relief was sent there.  Unfortunately, the orphanages in Ukraine were revealed later and didn't get as much press or relief.  But there have been a group of Dutch people that have been working with Ukraine and one group decided to try to improve the orphanage situation.  They tried sending materials but that wasn't working because the materials wouldn't make it to the kids because the workers at the orphanages would keep the stuff for themselves or sell them.  So they decided instead to built an orphanage to show how they should be properly run.  And this place seems to be very well run!  They grow veggies and have a bunch of animals and keep bees and bake bread...it's pretty sweet.  It's not self sustaining, but that's because it's really tough for places like this to become self sustaining in Ukraine.  But it seems like a really great place.   They only take girls and are at their full capacity right now.  They also take girls with disabilities who's parents can't take proper care of them.  It's was interesting being there because orphanages often have a really depressing connotation and it feels like we're supposed to be really sad, but this place is not a place to be sad about.  The girls have definitely been through a lot but they are in a great place now.  And they have a sweet playground!!!  They have a trampoline dug into the ground (very smart, less broken arms), and a zip line, and a small merry-go-round!!  We only got to play on it for like, 5 minutes:(

The Orphanage

After tearing ourselves away from the awesome playground, we ate lunch, which was really awesome  (as most food is on these trips).  Then we went to a church service in another Gypsy community.  We got too see a few baptisms and they asked us to sing something so we sang My Friends May You Grow in Grace.  Then we saw another high school really quickly and headed to the train station that would take us back home.  The train ride was 4 hours and I was sitting beside my friend Kaile and we were soo hyper!!  It was a lot of fun!!

Gypsy Church

So it was a pretty awesome trip.  Now I'm working on getting ready for mid-terms, figuring out my classes for next semester, doing some of the many things I want to do here etc. Time here is starting to go really fast!!  And all us Calvin students are throwing a Halloween party this Sunday cause we're going to be in Croatia next weekend.  We're inviting all our friends from here and it's going to be really sweet!!  I'm going shopping with some friends tomorrow and I'm hoping I can find something that will work for a costume.