Welcome to Meldave.com

My Trip to Ukraine
by: Melanie

Below is an email I sent to friends and family just before Thanksgiving 2008, regarding my trip to Ukraine.  You'll find a link to the photos in the 2nd paragraph.  Thank you for reading!

Hello everyone!

I hope you are all looking forward to a joyful Thanksgiving. I know I am, having had a stark reminder a few months ago of how blessed I am. As most of you know, in August I traveled to the country of Ukraine with my mom to volunteer at a summer camp for orphans. It was a wonderful, and difficult, journey. Wonderful, because I met the most amazing people, from the children to the teachers. Difficult, because the reality of daily life in Ukraine is staggering. I came home very thankful to not only have been born in America, but to be a member of the circle of family and friends around me. Since my trip to Ukraine I have counted my blessings everyday.

If you'd like to see just a few of the 600+ photos of the trip, I've posted them here: http://picasaweb.google.com/Melanie.Bennett.Oregon/UkraineAugust2008?authkey=FhzxUpd8j7s#.  Each photo has a caption--it's easiest to read the captions if you click on the first photo, and then click through the photos from there, as opposed to watching the slideshow.

And if you're curious how I ended up in Ukraine (sometimes I wonder myself!) here's some background:

Corvallis (the city I grew up in) has a sister city--Uzhhorod--in Ukraine. Uzhhorod is the regional capital of a very rural province on the border with Hungary. The Corvallis Sister City Association (http://sistercities.corvallis.or.us/uzhhorod) supports numerous charitable projects in Uzhhorod. My family's first involvement with the group was in 1997/98 when my sister Denise was in a high school exchange, living with the Maksimuk family in Uzhhorod, and then we hosted their daughter Lina a few months later. After that, we got involved with another of the projects, the orphanage in Uzhhorod. People from Corvallis (or with ties to Corvallis) pay $60 a year to sponsor an orphan. Each September since 2001, a small group of the sponsors has traveled to Ukraine, hand-carrying the sponsorship money for safe keeping. With most of the sponsorship money, they individually take the children shopping for things they need. The rest of the sponsorship money goes to a project for the orphanage--past examples include beds, playground equipment, etc. My Mom has gone on this September trip 4 or 5 times.

Last year, two American women (one of whom currently lives in Germany) decided to start a summer camp for some of the kids from the orphanage to give them some positive experiences. As you can imagine, it's tough living in a post-communist country with a corrupt economy and insufficient systems: education, health, roads, you name the system, it's inadequate. It's especially tough to be an orphan in Ukraine. As problematic as our social welfare programs and our foster care systems are, unfortunately they are head and shoulders above Ukraine. Orphans there have a huge social stigma against them, and it is difficult to shed. That's one reason it's so important to give these children opportunities to feel special.

Last year the first summer camp went so well, that they decided to do it again this year, with a circus theme! The summer camp was in a tiny village in the countryside 2 hours from Uzhhorod. The camp is a private boarding school during the school year, and then they rent it out to different groups during the summer. When my Mom found out she wouldn't be able to go with the usual group in September because of work obligations, she asked about going to the camp instead. Everyone loved that idea, and then somewhere along the line I ended up with an airline ticket also. Since I volunteer at summer camps here, it seemed like a good fit, and I was eager to meet Ivan, the orphan Dave and I sponsor, and see the country and people my Mom has come to love.

The 25 children at the camp came from three different programs that the Sister Cities Association supports, the first being the orphanage. The second program is called "New Family" and it helps kids who don't have parents but live with a family member, usually a grandparent. The third program is Public School #14, or the Roma school. "Roma" is the nice way of saying Gypsy. People of Roma descent face a lot of discrimination and limited economic and social mobility. The school, which would be condemned in the US, sits in the middle of the Roma slum. Many of the orphans at the orphanage are also ethnically Roma, you can tell by their darker skin tone.

As you'll see in the photos, the camp was full of activity and kids. And while it was not an easy experience, it truly was a privilege to get to know the children, and the other staff. Here are a few highlights of the journey:

--Meeting Misha, the little boy I wanted to take home. You'll see several photos of him!
--Getting to know and love the teachers I roomed with, Elizabeth and Natalya, our translator Rita, the camp organizers Zita and Pat, and the amazing circus trainers, Karin, Carola, David and Wilco.
--Learning to spin plates for the circus.
--Meeting Ivan (the boy Dave & I sponsor) and his brother Vasyl (who my sister Denise & her fiance Chris sponsor).
--Finally getting to meet in person Vasyl and Larisa Maksimuk, the family who hosted my sister in Uzhhorod ten years ago.
--Feeling connected to these amazing people half a world away.

Hope you enjoy the photos, and happy Thanksgiving! I am thankful for each of you, and I hope your blessings outweigh any trials you're facing. Until next time....