The Long Awaited Update Part 1: Skhidnytsya

Dear Readers,

For the first time in nearly two weeks, I have the opportunity to sit down and write a real post! I have a lot to cover, so here we go.

First, my trip to the town of Skhidnytsya (Східниця) with my workshop was incredible. And don't worry, I too had a terrible time trying to pronounce it at first. I was there from 25 June - 28 June with members of my workshop "Busy Bees" (Бджілки-Bdzhilky) and from the "Nazareth" (Назарет-Nazaret) workshop. Nazareth is actually Kimberley's workshop, but she didn't go this time. Anyway, we had a great time. We left Lviv at 10:00am on Thursday 25 June and we arrived in Skhidnytsya at around 12:30. After unpacking our stuff, it was time for lunch in the diner. We stayed in a nice little resort-like place, so we got to sleep in nice beds, we had hot showers, and good meals. I was told we were going camping...this wasn't really camping.

After lunch we picked wild blueberries. Here, they are called 'chorvynytsya', which comes from the world 'chornyj', which means 'black'. I have never picked wild blueberries before. It was a lot of fun. After doing this for a little while, we continued on walking to a small waterfall. It is a neat little waterfall, and the water is good enough to drink. Who needs bottled water when you can drink fresh water from a river??

On a side note, Skhidnytsya is famous for its water. There is something about it I am told so that it is very good for your health. When Brezhnev was leader of the USSR, he wouldn't drink water unless it was from Skhidnytsya, in the then Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. So, he had it flown in by helicopter every six hours, as it must be fresh in order for it to have these special qualities.

After seeing the waterfall, we went back to our little resort-like area and relaxed and had supper in the diner. I don't remember what I ate, but it was good. Everything they served there was very good! But afterward, the fun began. We made a camp fire, roasted sausages, sang songs, and even danced a little bit.

To be honest, I cannot remember what we did on Friday 27 June. I know I have a lot written down in my journal, but I don't have it with me at the moment. Anyway, I remember that at night time we had a really good thunderstorm and rain fall, so we danced under the porch of one of the houses. We all must have been dancing for two hours before we had tea and went to bed. L'Arche here finds any excuse to dance. It's a lot of fun.

Saturday was very similar. Although I was able to nap in the middle of the day because I was exhausted. Again at night time we had a wicket thunderstorm, but this time we didn't dance so much. We instead played board games inside and then looked at all of the photos from the past two days, as we were going to leave the next morning. We must have had around 500 photos, and 15 videos. It was really amazing seeing them all and looking back over the great time we had together over those past two days. I can't help but think how much I will miss everyone here once I go back to Canada.

Sunday 28 June afternoon we came home. After three hours on our l'Arche owned bus and a 30 minutes on a steaming hot marshrutka, I finally got home! I was completely exhausted! It was about 5:40pm, just in time for me to change my shirt and rush off to Liturgy at 6:00. I wasn't able to get to church in the morning (it's a 15 minute walk to the local church). On Friday one of the l'Arche assistants went to the church in Skhidnytsya to ask when Sunday liturgy is. She was told 10:00am, so we got there for 10:00am on Sunday. But, at that point communion was just starting, which meant the liturgy must have began at 9:00am. So, I decided that I should go in the evening in Lviv. So I did.

When I got home, the internet wasn't working. On Saturday evening there was a wicket thunderstorm, and apparently it blew some important piece of equipment so hundreds of households are without internet, including mine. We may not get internet for a while, so I guess I will have to visit UKU more.

Now I will write the second part of 'The Long Awaited Update.'

Until next time,
Michael