On vacation
Trip Start
Sep 30, 2005
1
21
29
Trip End
Dec 22, 2007
Budapest, Hungary
Sunday, August 13, 2006
The last month has been super busy for me. First, I worked at a five day camp in the capital of my region. Then I hung out at my site for a week, and now I just got back from Budapest! It's awesome, but first thing's first... let me somewhat describe this camp to you, as well as I can remember.
There were 120 Ukrainian students from 15 to 21 years old and about 20 international students from Moldova (small country just south of Ukraine), Armenia, Russia, Albania, and the USA. There were also around 20 Peace Corps Volunteers and 20 or so Ukrainian counselors working there. We volunteers/counselors slept in the dormitories of the institute where the camp was held, and the Ukrainian students either stayed with family members in the town, host families, or also in the dorms.
This camp was INTENSE. We were planned every minute from 8 am until 11pm! I taught four classes: "Creative solutions and critical thinking" (about getting students to think out of the box) and "Interpreting Culture through art" (about developing a sense of asthetic and using it to understand a culture).
It was difficult to teach the creative solutions class, because the students seemed a little resistant to it at first, but they got more into it as time went on. The interpreting culture class was more fun, but the title is pretty misleading. We didn't talk about lots of different cultures, we talked about appreciating different types of art, including music, visual, written, etc. The final project for that class was something like a fashion show- students had to design their own artistic fashion in groups that was supposed to be expressing an emotion (of their choice). They got really into designing it and came up with some really creative stuff.
The last day of the camp there was a 'cultural extravaganza' where all the students presented their final projects. I wouldn't say the fashion show went off without a hitch, but it went okay and it was entertaining and most of the students prepared a lot for it. There were also performances by the music and drama classes, and it drew quite a crowd since it was held in this big amphitheater in the city's central park.
This was the first time this particular camp has been held, so it needs a lot of adjustments, but I think it is definitely worth working with and expanding. It was great to see the Ukrainian kids interacting so positively with the international kids, because they don't have much opportunity to do that.
It took me a full week to unwind from this camp, and then it was on to Hungary. I went with three other female volunteers, and we took a series of trains from our sites to Budapest. Crossing the border from Ukraine into Hungary is like going to another world. Hungary was also communist for a time, but was never a part of the Soviet block as Ukraine was. The language is different, the culture is very different, the architecture is different. Hungary also has more equal distribution of its wealth than Ukraine, so in general its citizens have a higher standard of living (i.e., hot water all the time, well paved roads, etc.). But some things were similar, too. The landscape looks similar, with lots of agriculture and storks nesting on the tops of poles.
Budapest itself was like a dream. We happened to be going there when this big week long music festival was happening on an island in the city, so there were all kinds of young people from all over the world roaming the streets. This gave the whole place a kind of bohemian, woodstocky feel.
I can't really describe in words how beautiful Budapest is, it's like a fairy tale. So, you will have to wait to see my pictures, which I should be able to put up in a few weeks when I go to Kyiv. Stay tuned!
