MoldovAnn

I’ve been traveling a lot lately for work, 2-3 days a week for the past month. It’s been interesting, and there’s always some kind of unexpected “adventure” along the way.

Aug. 16-18
We went to Dubrovits and Rokytny for meetings, and I took the opportunity to visit a youth center project we are sponsoring there. It was my first visit to this region, in northwestern Ukraine. These communities are the farthest ones we work with, about 6 hours from Kyiv.

Sept. 5
Spent half a day in Borodyanka raiyon, where my colleague Sergey led a seminar on rural tourism. One enterprising community, Nova Greblya, prepared a sample tour of their village, a kind of practical training. It had some fantastic parts, such as a great little concert by a folk chorus (I made a video, which you can watch on YouTube). Some parts of the tour were a bit on the weird side, like the visit to the grungy looking natural spring, which our guide insisted had amazing medicinal properties. I thought it smelled like rotten eggs and definitely didn’t look like anything I would want to drink, but to each their own!

Sept. 6-8
We went northeast to Slavutych and visited some Youth Centers in Liubech and Zamglai villages to which CRDP has provided funding. Then we had to go to Korosten, northwest of Kyiv. The simplest, most direct route, unfortunately, goes straight across Belarus, which we can’t travel through without visas, thus we had to drive 2 1/2 hours south and 2 1/2 hours back north, in a sort-of “V” around the southern tip of Belarus, making for a very long day of travel. We passed by a military training base in Desnya, which was unexpected and kind of cool. Bypassing it involved another unexpected detour, but we caught a glimpse of a tank cruising through the forest next to the road.

The round-table in Korosten went really well. The local press covered the event, and also an article is on the UNDP/Ukraine website about it.

Sept. 9
The Democrats Abroad/Ukraine organized a river cruise on the Dniper. I went with a friend of mine, Blane, and we had a pretty good time. The weather was supposed to be bad, which probably contributed to the relatively low turnout, but the sun came out for us, and I met some nice people.

Sept. 14-16
We went to Borodyanka and Ovruch raiyons. My colleague Mykola conducted a seminar for local community organization leaders on public relations in Borodyanka, and Yugesh and I visited some project sites in nearby villages. I also squeezed in a quick trip to an 11th century church, which was really cool. The church was locked, but we went over to the convent next door, where we found some ancient (and not so ancient) nuns. At first, they weren’t especially interested in helping us out, and said we would have to wait an hour or so until the church opened for the evening services. I finally decided to play the “visiting American card” and said I was visiting for only a little bit. They were thoroughly impressed, much to my guilty delight, to have an American visiting them and they called a senior nun to open the church for us. She spent a good half-hour with us, telling the long and fascinating history of the church. It was great.

Sept. 21-24
The entire Chornobyl Recovery and Development Programme staff had a 4 day retreat in Gurzuf, Crimea. We managed to get in some fun, as well as work, and we were all amazed and thrilled that the weather was so great and we could swim in the sea at the end of September!

The next month is also looking to be pretty full, with a big conference in Korosten, another training/camp for Youth Center staff, a possible trip to the Carpathian mountains, and a retreat for all UN Volunteers. No grass growing under my feet in the near future!