Week 3: Carpathian Mountains!

I say good day!

This past weekend, we went to the Carpathian Mountains with the Iarosh family! Nataliia is the president of My Family, the organization that links all the families in Ukraine who have adopted many orphans, and Chelsea and I went there with the family as student volunteers. The resort was absolutely beautiful, and I am very glad that we had this opportunity. I knew that we were going to be playing with about 40 children all weekend, considering that this was a fun retreat for various families in the organization, and I was a little skeptical at first. We weren't sure exactly what we were going to do, although we had been told beforehand to think of a couple of fun activities to play with the children. However, it didn't seem like it would be that bad (and as it turns out) it really wasn't! I liked most of the people, and the children were simply amazing!!

On Friday, it was very straightforward, playing with the kids and whatnot. Also, we had introductions and dramatized stories of how the families adopted their children. It all went very well, although we were exhausted by the time night rolled around. Gregory had decided to hold a meeting at 9 PM to plan the activities for the next day. Sadly, he decided to conduct most of this meeting in Ukrainian, so Chelsea and I sat there for an hour and a half without a clue of what was going on. Moreover, it was until this point that he told us that we would be going to teach English to 3 different groups for 3 hours straight, and we would have to come up with activities. We had not been told of this until this meeting, so Chelsea (understandably) was freaking out, considering that we had no plan of action. Also, Gregory seemed somewhat annoyed that we didn't know about this, even though we had no way of knowing ahead of time. In fact, we had purposely thought of activities that didn't involve speaking, since it would have been difficult to explain to the kids. For the rest of the weekend, no one knew what we were doing until the night before, which led to more meetings. The planning was not executed well, but what matters is that we got to interact with a great number of amazing people.

Anyways, we were saved by Chelsea's incredible planning skills and creativity, so the events turned out very well! Even the most difficult group (13 and 14 year olds) enjoyed the activities we did with them, and they had a very good grasp of the English language! Over the rest of the weekend, we hiked the mountains and watched over various fun events for the kids (which included a talent show and a dance party). It was very heartwarming to see all these children having fun! They were so happy to see us, and they learned our names very quickly (not to mention they were incredibly adorable!). Often at the playground, a couple of children would shout my name to get my attention and show me a trick, and they would often pose for pictures. Also, they would often say "hello" and wave to us whenever we saw them. At one point, there was a little girl holding a ball who wanted to play catch with me, but no one else. Whenever she saw me, she would throw the ball nonstop. It was very cute. Also, a lot of people wanted to take pictures with us, the American tourists, which I found to be hilarious.

Overall, this was a very successful weekend, and I hope that next year's volunteers get the opportunity to go there as well! I am very glad that these kids have found loving homes. These children are taken care of very well, and they come from very loving homes. Most of the families there consisted of at least 4 adopted children per household, which is amazing. I would rather not think about how they lived beforehand. What matters is that the retreat went very well and that they had a ton of fun!!!

Well, it is time for me to go, but I'll post again soon!

Until later,

Alex