It's been a week

Dear Readers,

It has now been a week since I got home, and it has been filled with highs and lows. It of course was wonderful to see my family and friends. Every day at l'Arche during prayer intentions I would say: Ya khochu pomolytycya za moyu cim'yu i moyi druzi v Kanada--I want to pray for my family and friends in Canada. And finally I got see them.

It's also been a little bit tough coming back. One of the first things I have noticed is the difference in food. I had a Tim Horton's breakfast sandwich the other day, and it was just really gross and fake, but I ate it anyway because otherwise I wouldn't have had breakfast. The culture of convenience in which we live where we must have everything right now is really frustrating for me having lived in Ukraine for three months. Our culture of convenience leads to so many problems, one of which is that we substitute garbage like McDonald's, Wendy's, and yes, even Tim Horton's, for real food. And, when it comes to food, this leads to all kinds of health problems. But it also leads to a culture where people get so stressed over the smallest things. Since everything must be the way I want it exactly when I want it, if I don't have what I want when I want I have to get all bent out of shape. It seems to me that this attitude is quite prevalent in North America. For those who are like this, God help you if you go to Ukraine, or to any developing country for that matter. You will be confronted with frequent water issues, internet issues, and all other types of issues. But you just can't get all bent out of shape over them. If you did, you would go crazy.

Another tough thing I have experienced is that many people close to me somewhat turn off whenever I start talking about Ukraine. I have so many things to share, and I am so enthusiastic about my experience, but others, having not experienced the same thing, tend not to share my enthusiasm. I saw a bunch of the other Intercordians from this year on Thursday, and that helped a lot. They said that they experienced the same thing.

But, like I said, my return has been nice. I'm back in the land of my birth and of my upbringing: the true north strong and free. I am able to see my grandmother, who is still recovering from the broken ankle she suffered a couple months ago. I have been able to catch up with many of my friends already, and will continue doing that.

Overall, I am happy to be home. But at the same time I miss Ukraine dearly, and all of the people I met, lived, and worked with. And now I am even more frustrated by the negative Westernisms which are sadly so engrained in our culture.

I have not left Ukraine entirely. I plan to attend a near-by Ukrainian Catholic Church regularly now. I went there off and on before, but now I plan to go there every Sunday and holy day (there are other and more important reasons why I am going there though). Nevertheless, that church will be a constant bridge between Ukraine and myself until I can go to Ukraine again. And I will go back to Ukraine. It's not a matter of if, but when.

Until next time,
Michael

Home!

Dear Readers,

I just want to say that I have gotten home safely. I arrived at around 2:30 yesterday afternoon.

I will write an entry later on today or tomorrow.

Thank you so much for your support over these last several months, both before and during my placement.

Until next time,
Michael

And so it ends

Dear Readers,

These last few days have been some of the busiest of my life. Thursday was my last day with my l'Arche workshop, and everyone was very emotional. Firstly, my workshop is moving to a new location because the rent at the current location is too high. And so the last week at the workshop we were moving all of the stuff to the new location. On Thursday morning, we finished that job. In the afternoon we had a barbeque, and it amounted to a typical l'Arche Ukraine party. It was very much in the spirit of l'Arche, with all of us being together, singing together, eating together, etc.... And it was very Ukrainian due to the food we ate. We had kovbasky (sausages), bread, potatoes, tomatoes, and cucumbers. The party was very nice.

There is a song that the members of l'Arche and Faith and Light sing here in Ukraine. It goes: Ми любим тебе, ми любим тебе, ми любимо. Хай господь бо тебе благословить, благословить (My lyubym tebe, my lyubym tebe, my lyubymo. Khaj hospod' bo tebe blahoslovyt', blahoslovyt'). It means something like: We love you, we love you, we love you. May the Lord bless you. And you can replace 'We love you' with 'We thank you', 'We welcome you', etc... depending on the circumstance, and of course you would change the singular 'you' to the plural 'you' if necessary. Anyway, this song is very special for l'Arche here because we sing it whenever someone visits, whenever someone leaves after visiting, whenever it's your birthday or nameday or anniversary, etc.... On Thursday, when they sang three versions for me, 'We thank you', 'We love you', 'We'll wait for you (to come back)', I broke down into tears, I'll admit it. My three months with them have been so incredible, and they have had an impact on me they will never know about, and probably are unable to understand due to their mental disabilities. But they are a group I can never forget. When I gave my little good-bye speech, I finished it with 'I will remember you always', in Ukrainian. The rest of it I gave in English, with one of the assistants translating.

And so, I said good-bye to them, and they said good-bye to me. Afterward I was able to go for ice-cream with three of the assistants, Khrystyna (the one who translated for me), Ivanka, and Ira (the UKU student). It was nice getting to spend a little bit of time with them that last day. I hadn't been able just to relax like that with any of the assistants to this point. But then that had to come to an end, and I said my 'до побачення'(do pobachennya-until next time) to them as well. So many times before I had said to them 'до завтра' (do zavtra-until tomorrow), but obviously I couldn't this time.

Thursday evening then Kimberley and I headed to the capital: Kyiv (Київ). Our train left Lviv at 9:20pm and it arrived in Kyiv at 7:20am Friday morning. We spent the day wandering around Kyiv. We saw the ancient St. Sophia's Cathedral, the glorious St. Michael's Church which was destroyed by the Soviets and rebuilt after independence, and some other really neat sites.

The next day, Kimberley and I went in different directions in the morning. She went dress shopping, and I went to the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra-a monastery a millenium old. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see much of it. I didn't have time to go into the caves, and none of the churches were open, so I didn't really get to see much. That just means I have to come back some day. But at least I was able to try some fresh kvas--the national non-alcoholic drink of Ukraine. It was very good, and inexpensive. You can buy half a litre for 2 hryvni 50 kopyki.

In the afternoon then, Kimberley and I met with a contact I had in Kyiv. Another one of the Intercordians (Inesa in Equador) is Ukrainian and she has a cousin in Kyiv, so Kimberley and I met with her and a couple of her friends. It was really nice because she was able to show us some places we wouldn't have known about had we not been with a local. She showed us the presidential palace, the national parliament, the botanical garden, and different monuments. After a long day walking about Kyiv, we went for dinner at a real Ukrainian restaurant which was inexpensive and where the staff all speak Ukraine (no Russian!).

As for the Russian language, that was one of the big things I noticed about Kyiv. I knew that Kyiv still is more Russified than Lviv, but I really got to see it this past weekend. In Lviv, the small private ads at the bus stops (you know, the 'If you want English lessons, call this number' type ads) are all in Ukrainian. Almost no Russian. In Kyiv, while most of the billboards and everything official is in Ukrainian, nearly all of those private ads were in Russian. Even when I went to the Lavra, all of the signs were in Russian. This demonstrated that the main language of the people in Kyiv is Russian. This drove me mad because 1) I was in Ukraine, not Russia, and 2) had they been in Ukrainian, I might have understood them, or at least understand what they were about. Even the newspapers were all in Russian, while in Lviv the newspapers are mostly in Ukrainian. Although, I heard a lot more Ukrainian spoken than Russian. Or maybe it was Surzhyk, which is Ukrainian in structure and grammar but loaded with Russian words. Well, enough for language politics now. I don't want to get myself killed.

And so, Saturday evening we left Kyiv and arrived back in Lviv Sunday morning. This is where things started to get really crazy.

Canadian citizens are allowed to stay in Ukraine for 90 days without a visa. But, Intercordia booked both Kimberley and I for over 90 days, in my case 92. It's a long story, but in the end I have to leave Ukraine tonight instead of Friday, the original plan. Tonight at midnight I will catch a train to Krakow, Poland, and from there I will make my way to Vienna. Tomorrow is day 90, and so this morning when I woke up I thought I still had one full day here, but things have changed and now I have to leave tonight. Not because of immigration laws but because of train schedules. So, today my stay in this beautiful country ends. These three months have gone by so fast. It feels like I arrived here just yesterday. Now, it ends. I am very sad to leave everyone and everything here I have come to know and love. However, life must go on.

Tonight will be my going away party, and then probably at around 10:30-10:45 I will leave to go to the train station.

I will try to write while on the road to Vienna. My plan is to stay all day in Krakow, then take a train to either Bratislava or Budapest. I will probably stay one night in either Bratislava or Budapest and then hop on a short bus or train ride to Vienna on Friday, when I will meet the University of Waterloo students who have been in Ternopil the last three months. My flight home from Vienna to Toronto is Saturday.

So, Ukraine, good-bye. See you again some day.

Until next time,
Michael

The First of Many Good-byes

Dear Readers,

As I am sure you know by now, I leave to go back home next Friday, and today we had our first of several good-bye parties. After our workshop, Kimberley and I went to the Emaus Centre at the Ukrainian Catholic University to say good-bye. It was a very nice little get together. All of the Emaus Centre staff were there, as was our language teacher Oresta and some other people. It was a usual Emaus Centre party, like I had experienced several times previous. First, when we arrived. Second to celebrate Roxolana's birthday. Third, to celebrate Anya's (one of the staff) graduation from the Ukrainian equivalent of a masters degree at another one of the universities in Lviv. Fourth, to celebrate Zenia's birthday. And finally today, our good-bye party. Like usual, there was cake, ice-cream, sweets. Ya...they love sweets here in Ukraine. The staff also gave us flowers, a card signed by everyone, and some other little things.

It was really nice getting together with everyone, but also really sad. The fact is that I might not see any one of them again. The staff at the Emaus Centre are all so wonderful, so welcoming, and so friendly, and the centre itself had become a second Ukrainian home for both Kimberley and myself. It was really hard for us to say good-bye.

Tomorrow, we will have to do it all over again, but this time at our workshop. I think this will be even harder. I have spent just about every week day of the last three months at the workshop, and tomorrow I have to say good-bye. I am still not sure what I will say, but I will have to say most of it in Ukrainian because no one at my workshop knows English terribly well.

This weekend though will be very exciting because I will go to Kyiv with Kimberley! My train leaves Thursday evening at 9:22pm and arrives in Kyiv at 7:20am the next morning. Fun, I know. We will stay in Kyiv all Friday and all Saturday and then our train back leaves Saturday night at 11:54pm. It arrives in Lviv at 10:00am the next morning. We will be exhausted, so it shouldn't be too difficult to get some sleep on the train.

Speaking of sleep, I haven't slept well in nearly two weeks. I was sick most of last week, and I even had to take Thursday off. Then I never really had a good night's sleep on the weekend because I was always up and about doing something, like on Sunday I woke up at 6:30am to go to Ternopil after going to bed past night. But, this Sunday into Monday morning I'll be able to sleep for as long as I want in my bed, which will be very, very, nice.

Well, that's all for now. I have only a week and two days left. Cheers.

Until next time,
Michael

Quick Update

Dear Readers,

I haven't had any time to write an entry lately because I haven't had internet in my house. Right now I am in Ternopil visiting the University of Waterloo girls here. I arrived here at noon, and I will leave for Lviv at 9:30pm. I won't get to Lviv until 11:52. I probably will just take a cab from there.

I will right a real entry as soon as I have time.

Until next time,
Michael

Week Ten

Dear Readers,

I think today I will share with you an aspect of Ukrainian culture which until this point hasn't really bothered me that much. But as the temperature rises, this little quirk gets more and more annoying.

You see, in Ukraine, everyone over 25 seems to be deathly afraid of wind blowing in their face. They all fear that they will get sick from it somehow. And for some reason, the belief is that women are more likely to get sick from it.

So what? I will tell you what. Imagine you are in a little bus. Remember those mini shuttle buses that used to go around Square 1 in Mississauga? This little bus can't be much bigger then those shuttle buses. Anyway, it seats 15, including the driver. Now, imagine it is full, and not only is it full, but there are 15 more people standing crammed in there enough to make living in a sardine can seem comfortable. So, there are 30 people in this little bus, some of whom haven't bathed recently. Now, imagine it is, I don't know, the middle of July. And so it is hot! It is warm enough being outside, never mind crammed with 29 other people in this little mini bus. In this little bus, the inside of the windows have all fogged up. Here's the kicker: imagine that none of the windows are open!

This was my ride to the workshop on Friday morning. There was one window at the back open, but a man closed it fearing for his life. I was standing on the other side of the marshrutka, and I opened one of the windows a little bit. Even though it was really warm outside, the wind in my face from the open window felt like a blast of winter, which by the way felt great. And that was when the marshrutka was stopped at a rail crossing! That just tells you how hot it was inside the marshrutka. A few minutes later, a young woman standing beside me tried to close it. She was having a difficult time, which made me happy, so I pretended not to notice. My uncovered arm not pressed up against anything was sweating, so you can only imagine that I was drenched pretty much everywhere else.

I mentioned that everyone over 25 seems to be afraid of wind in their face. I say that because I notice that people my age open the windows. It must have been the images of the flashy American and Western European convertables which converted them. Everyone older than them grew up in a very different world, closed off from everywhere else.

Oh Ukraine, how I will miss Thee.

In other news, this coming Wednesday there will be a group of core-members and assistants from l'Arche in Italy. And so, we will have a big get together with all of the l'Arche workshops in Lviv and the Italian l'Arche members in another city. I don't know where exactly, but it will for sure be a load of fun.

Until next time,
Michael

The Intercordia Difference

Dear Readers,

I will wait until tomorrow or Sunday to write my usual weekly update. Instead I will share my part of my journal entry from yesterday.

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Day Sixty-nine - 16 July 2009

Today I think I found out really the difference between Intercordia and most other volunteer organizations. This morning like on most Thursdays Kimberley and I went to the orphanage. But today was a special day. There was a group of foreigners coming, and so some of the children had prepared a display of traditional Ukrainian folk dancing. Of course, neither Kimberley nor myself knew this was going to happen. Furthermore, this group of foreigners was from Alberta of all places. Some of them even live 500km north of Edmonton! They were a group of teenagers going around to difference places seeing different kinds of folk dancing. Anyway, after the little performance, the group from Alberta opened up their suitcases full of stuff for the children. Although this group wasn't a volunteer organization, their attitude was the same. They of course had the best of intentions, and no one can deny them that, but they were still the ones from the first-world country going to the poor to help them, or do whatever they were doing, and then leaving. Again, I repeat, their intentions were of course good, and they performed a good deed. Still, they didn't really do what was needed. What the children need is love, stability, and family. Not balls and flags and pencils.

In the long run, it doesn't matter if you're a disabled person in Ukraine, a troubled youth in Nicaragua, a child made an orphan by AIDS in Swaziland, or a university student in Canada. We are all human and we all need the same thing: to love and to be loved. Only by loving others and by being loved by others can we be happy. I think the staff at the orphanage realized this truth, or at least part of it, as well. They didn't look overly excited when the children were being given all of those toys. They know what the children need, and it isn't more stuff.

So what is Intercordia about? It is about learning how to love and how to be loved. It is about making a real difference in the lives of others, and allowing others to make a real difference in your life. it is day sixty-nine of my three month placement, and month ten of my involvement in Intercordia, and only now have I finally tapped into what Intercordia really is. And furthermore, this wasn't somethign that I was thinking deeply about, instead it simply dawned upon me amidst rather unusual and unexpected circumstances.

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This was just a thought, a very underdeveloped one at best, but something I think I can build on.

Until next time,
Michael