I missed the first two days of digging pit toilets/compost pits and mowing grass and generally preparing a campsite in the wilderness for 50 people. The camp was situated about 4km outside of Kosiv ontop of a ridge maybe 400 feet above the valley floor. The first days of camp were pretty successful, but then the discipline started to slip, and there was a weekness in leadership which left many students feeling unfulfilled. It was supposed to be an english only camp, but no one enforced this. The morning excersises also stopped after the first few days. However, there were many awesome things that happened.
On the third day we hiked up PipIvan, the 4th highest mountain in Ukraine. While only slightly over 7000ft, the hike was really beautiful, winding through sparkling medows and dark enchanted forests (I will upload pictures, but this internet cafe does not allow uploading of any kind) for about 11km. This was a long hike for our youngest campers (14yr olds) and I ended up on rear guard trying to keep them moving. All went well to the top, we had a nice lunch at the old Polish observatory, and then gathered one bag of trash each to bring back down the mountain. I could not believe how much trash was up there. It would have filled two dumptrucks at least, and I felt that our 50 bag subtraction barely made a dent. The way down our rear guard 14yr old girls got dehydrated most likely because they weren't drinking for fear of having to pee somewhere without cover (above treeline). They also were sunburned and generally tired. The 5 hours down the mountain was a test of patience, which I passed, thanks in a large part to Jim and Curtis, who joked, sang and walked every slow step down the mountain.
Jim and I also had some wicked boot skiing on a patch of north facing snow. It was a great patch of hard icy snow maybe 50m long that got steeper and steeper as it went down and ended in a boulder field. Curtis has videos which will appear on youtube?...
The bus ride home was fun because we sang almost the whole way. The number of traditional songs that Ukrainians know is one of the coolest things about their culture, and something that Americans can not compete with.
Teaching ecology lessons at the camp went ok, but I have nothing to brag about. It could have gone better, that's for sure.
Another highlight was the Ivana Kupala celebration. This literally means the bath of Ivan, and was an old pagan celebration involving young maidens, big fires, dancing and drinking given a saint's name and incorporated into the church calendar. We hiked down to the river, cooked shashlik (shishkabob) while the girls all made flower wreaths and the boys wore white traditional dress shirts. After eating, the wreaths were placed on the water with a candel floating in the center and sent downstream. The boys all waited downstream to try to catch a wreath, this being symbolic of...Unfortuantely, the wreaths all got stuck in an eddy, and it was left to one forward thinking Jason to plunge into the water and pile all the wreaths onto his head. Then there was jumping over the fire in pairs. If your hands held together, than you would be set together for life, but if not... So is it bad that I jumped over with students? Overall a really fun night.
Camp ended up being a really good learning experience for how to make camp better in the future. Only two of us American will still be in Ukraine when it is time for the same camp next year. Hopefully we can make it more survival oriented and less gourme cooking for 50 people over a campfire. Each group of 2 americans and 6 ukrainians had to cook four meals each. This involved a long treck into town, carrying tons of stuff back up the mountain, and a lot of potatoe peeling. In the future, if the camp is called survival camp, the food needs to be plain and boring, much less work and maybe only one resuply trip into town. Just a thought.
