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Kaitlin Kavalinas

Joey's final day in Ukraine

Written by Joey Raso

I can’t believe that it has already arrived....it’s time for my departure from the country I have grown to love so much. 5 months is not a long time, it certainly feels like yesterday that I arrived in the land of interesting architecture, minibusses, ladas, wheat and too many things soviet. I said my goodbyes yesterday to the Lutsk group, my time with them was unforgettable and I managed to spend most of the day with Ivanna and Marta, two people who have become so dear to me over my 5 months here. I did my best to hold back the tears when getting on to the train...but sometimes emotions get the best of me.

At the moment I am sitting in a cafe in central Kyiv where 200 m from me people are protesting the unlawful detainment of opposition leader Yulia Timushenko. I spent some time with individuals there; they have set up tents and are doing their best to project their voices to the powers that be. The crowd certainly is home to people who 20 years ago stood in the same place fighting to an independent Ukraine, and today that are fighting to uphold the laws and democratic gains they have made since then. It is sad to see that only 50m from them an "opposition camp" has been set up, with far fewer individuals and what looks like a more expensive sound system and flags held by no one. The ruling party is trying to drown out the voices of freedom, but if I know Ukraine as well as I think I do...the people will not be silent. Slava Ukraiini!

Back from Zigenhein! YMCA Tensing Festival

Hello :)

We have safedly returned from the European YMCA tensing festival in Zigenhein, Germany. It was a great week filled with tensing, singing and new friendships. The YMCA volyn group was joined by other Ukrainian YMCA tensing groups as well as over 2000 other tensingers from Europe (even one group from Brazil). I was happy to be the only representative from Canada at the event and everyone kept asking why the YMCA in Calgary doesn't have a tensing group!!! I was able to meet the head of YMCA europe as well as the international representative. I was in a good place and I was very fortunate to meet Peter, who informed me that he worked out at EauClaire Y when he visited Canada, he only had good things to say and he was very interested to hear about the partnership between Canada and Ukraine. I did a lot to spread the word about international partnerships and I made friends with as many groups and leaders as possible. We are currently working on improving the relationship between the YMCAs of Ukraine and Norway. I did my best to represent Canada and the YMCA, everyone was glad to have a Canadian at the festival and they were all proud to hear about the long relationship we share with Ukraine, hopefully this will influence them on connection with an international partner and supporting the development of YMCAs across the world.

As for the festival, well, I danced and participated when our group performed, I think I did well :) I have some photos that I will post shortly. Zigenhein was an interesting village and everything seemed so clean and efficient. It was nice to be in Germany, but its even better being back in Ukraine. The food at the festival was ok, they had a good vegetarian option and did their best to meet dietary needs. There were soooo many people from all over europe at the festival and it was hard remembering names and cities where the participants were from. I made good connections with YMCA groups in Russia and Belorus as well as meeting groups from other regions in Ukraine :) It was a great experience.

My time in Ukraine is almost coming to an end :( I have 23 days left here and its going to be hard to leave. participating in the festival allowed me to realize for the first time since I have been in Ukraine that this partnership is also about me. It is also about my relationships that I have been building with people here and the friendships that I hope will last for a very long time. Being with the group for one week, sleeping in gymnasiums and riding together on a packed and stuffy bus across Europe helped me to realize that I am part of the YMCA Volyn team not only as a volunteer working everyday with youth in the city, but also as a friend :)

Here is a photo of me and some of the kids I was running a camp with at School #8. This school is quite different for Ukraine because it is a mixed abilities and disabilities school, something which is not so common in Ukraine but slowly growing. We ran various activities and educational programs with the kids at this school and I had a lot of help from Roma and Olya (YMCA Lutsk volunteers) without them it would not have been possible. :)

Day Camps at the Teenager's House

Hello everyone, this is just a quick update about the camp I attended last week. The social services agency for Lutsk put on a camp for at-risk youth at one of my location sites. I was really thrilled to be part of the camp and it gave me the opportunity to meet more kids from the area I already know so much about. The "teenager's house" acts as a drop-in centre which is run by the social services department in Lutsk. It has been my primary location since I started running Kids in Motion earlier this summer. I took part in the day camp there and introduced them to games I learned in Calgary at Chief Hector and they taught me a lot about patience and the hard work necessary to work with at-risk youth in a foreign country. Although I have worked with at-risk youth before in an international context, each time is very unique and I am glad I got to experience what working with some of Lutsk's most underprivileged children is like at a more intimate level. Although the camp is over, I will return to the teenager's house tomorrow and continue with the programming I have been doing there all summer. I hope that the new kids I met over the last 2 weeks will return and continue the have fun.

Activities

Camp in Ukraine is just like camp in Canada in many ways. Here are some of the activities:

We got our hair done in elaborate french braids!

We played frisbee (Joey at the beach)

I showed them the "beaver tails game"

Here is one of the kids with a peace tattoo on his forehead for peace day.

The boys and I acted out a fairytale and the Hlopets and Divchatas (boys and girls) had to guess which fairytale it was.

Youngest camper, watch out she's tough!

Photos from camp

Canada Day Games

Photo Op with Flags!

It rained a lot

We still had fun!

Camp and tour of Zdolbuniv

Awesome time in Zdolbuniv. We met up with Oksana and Victor Melnik at the train station with 5 other scouts. We headed to the YMCA office to make preparations for camp and meet the other children and leaders. I had no idea they were having a camp, I thought we were just going to visit their site! We took the bus out and walked with the bags, tents and food through farmers fields. The camping site was great with a volleyball net from two trees and good cover from the sun (it was about 35 degrees).

The children accepted us instantly and we did avtivites with a career councilor for 30 minutes and then scouting guidelines, volleyball, cooking over the fire ichiban soup with sandwiches and of course tea! We fetched water from a farmers well and during our volleyball game 3 cows, and 2 goats were hearded straight through by women 2 elderly ladies straight out of the middle ages! The volleyball game was briefly postpones for use to cover the cow patties on the "court" with dirt! This didn't throw any of the children off and they wondered why I was taking a photo.

Last night we stayed with a lovely family. Three generations in one house. Grandmother and two daughters, one spoke english and had survived a winter while volunteering in Saskachewan. They each had a daughter, one 14 and one 2 years old who told Kaitlin in English to "eat porridge"! We discovered that the one daughters musician husband is from Austria, while my boyfriend Gernot is from Salzburg. She makes homeade soaps and gave us one to take home with a cd of her husbands traditional music.

Today we met Dasha and Vikusha who we know from the camp at Svityas. They gave us an amazing tour of Zdolbuniv and Revney. We went for tasty pizza, saw a wedding, checked out the shopping scene (as Dasha is a very fashionable girl), and many beautiful buildings and parks. Tonight we meet Natalia in Kiev for a brief visit and head to the airport to catch our 5AM flight. No rest for the wicked! Looking forward to sleeping in our own beds. See you all soon!

Dubno

We have had two quick nights in Dubno with a lovely host: Ludmyla (the previous Ukraine YMCA president). She is taking very good care of us and ensuring we get a taste of some traditional Ukrainian food!

We had many guides; Victor and Mikhael who brought us to their scouts cottage, and Ola who brought us to an old castle! We also met a young priest and his family and climbed the bell tower with his daughter to see a great view of the entire city!

The basement of the church has deep Soviet history; many Ukrainian patriots were killed here for demonstrating Ukrainian pride during the Soviet times here in Dubno. Ludmyla showed us some videos about sports day and Ten Sing performences.
Tomorrow morning we are off to Rivne to visit programs and visit Zdolbuniv. We are hoping to meet Viktor Melnyk tomorrow! We only have two full days left in Ukraine and we are trying to soak up as much as we can!

Kaitlin and Lindsay!

Hello from Lviv

Hello everyone!
We are waking up in Lviv this morning and accomplished a lot of sight seeing yesterday! We met Lesia and Oxanna yesterday and they were so kind and spent the day with us showing us the best parts of the city and talking about the YMCA here! We won't be seeing any programs in Lviv, most children are away for the summer and they are doing maintence on the toilet in the YMCA building.

(Kaitlin and Oxanna)

We also met a volunteer Peter who is involved in the music and dancing side of the YMCA. He plays in rock bands and is currently involved in a 500 person flash mob which will be performing in Kiev in september! He has asked Kaitlin to stay and dance and train with them all summer and be apart of the performance in September!

(Art Museum in heart of L'viv)

This morning we are meeting up with Yulia who will show us around a bit more and discuss the YMCA in greater detail. This afternoon we are taking the train to Dubno to see some programs there, hopefully they are running! The hostel here is lovely and we were fortunate to have a seven person room all to ourselves because it is mid week. One of the workers here told us we were the first canadians to stay here, so she was very excited! We have 4 days left here and are coming up with some great ideas for our presentation when we get back! See you soon!

(On top of hill overlooking L'viv)

Kaitlin and Lindsay!

Camp is over - an update from Lindsay

I received this update from Lindsay via email. Dan

Kaitlin and I are back from camp! We spent the last 10 days at Lake Svityaz with 36 kids (and no WiFi). The bus ride out to camp was the first opportunity to get to know the kids, although it was challenging with the language barrier (can anyone make of the word hot dog in the picture?).

We got to stay in a new building that has been completed since Dan and Analu were there 2 years ago. It was very peaceful as not many people, other than the Y, were at Svityaz due to the rain.

At camp the counselors had many amazing ice breakers that we’ll be sure to use in Canada at staff training and children’s camps.

The days had different themes such as Pirate Day (where Joey was the lead pirate as Jack Sparrow), Water Day (a national holiday), pyjama day, and reverse day (some of the older teenagers became counselors that day).

One of the highlights of camp was the talent show on the last evening. Groups and individuals all had a chance to perform skits, songs, jokes, poems, traditional dancing, and TenSing (modern dancing and singing).

We did an introductory game with some Canadian culture and flag freeze tag (with Canadian flags that they got to keep). Marta also had us lead English camp songs!

The counselors and children did very well with the rain, setting up a big tarp for eating under and heading off to the disco during the day for games and dancing. It rained for 7 days straight and suddenly we had great weather the last 3 days (35 degrees on the last day)!

Finally we had an opportunity to swim and Kaitlin taught lessons to groups of 7-8 campers. This was a big hit just like in Canada, the only difference being that she had a translator and was teaching in open water! She started with getting them to blow bubbles, as many of the kids were new to swimming, and worked up to front crawl.

I had the opportunity to teach 4 different fitness segments. This was well received by the older campers who wanted to work off Paulina’s excellent cooking, and the younger ones who love to move. One of the teens later told Ivanna that she hopes to be a fitness instructor one day! I played a lot of sports with the kids when we had free time, such as Frisbee and soccer. Sport is a great way to build relationships. One morning I even brought out the TRX to show the older teenage girls. Many of them are interested in being more active. I hope the YMCA in Ukraine can start a female floorball team!

Joey has been an excellent host while we’ve been in Ukraine and invaluable at camp. We were able to talk to a lot more kids with him around. He helped us with travel preparation and educated us on personal safety in Ukraine. We got to see a program he started at school and play reverse checkers and table tennis with the kids.

Today we are off to Lviv and then Zdolbuniv. I’m looking forward to some teenagers from camp who will be showing us around their home town! We hope to write more posts in our last 5 days now that we have internet again. Papa (bye-bye)!

A Video from the Ukrainian Floorball Championship

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTYOC4dTGok

This video was taken after our second match over the weekend, my interview skills are clearly terrible and I wish I could have said more. It doesn't make much sense at some points but it is a cool video :) I was exhausted at this point in the tournament, I'm glad I didn't fall down. Playing with the YMCA Lutsk floorball team has been amazing.