Day 10 - The official End of Camp

Today is the official end of camp, however all we do with the kids is eat breakfast and then start our good byes. It is a very emotional day for both the team and the kids. We hate sending them back home as much as they hate going home. While the team helps hang out with the children, comforting them as they prepare to go. The interns get to help clean the buildings with the counselors. Not a very glamorous job, but one that has done huge things to bridge the gap between the cultures. Apparently Americans have a repertoire to not want to do the "dirty work" which is interpreted that we are still guests and not here to serve in the same way the Ukrainians do. Cleaning is a start to ousting that stereotype.

The Other part of this is not trying to fix the way the do things. But if it isn't going against your beliefs just join in the culture and do it your way. SO I swept a very dirty 2000+ square foot building with this...(Sorry the picture is a little blurry I took it on timer)

Which means that I spent the better part of two hours like this...

Actually getting under all the beds with this made it even more interesting. I guess to be Ukrainian means to always have a back ache. But I'm happy to learn and help out.

After cleaning we had a meeting to talk about some of the stories of the kids. I'm still working on translating this and putting it into the Hope Center News (one of my new Jobs.) I'll try to figure out how to attach it to this later.

Then I helped run the Hope Center Store; We sell Items with Hope Center's name on them: T-shirts, bandannas, money holders, notebooks, pens, postcards, buttons, stickers. All profits go to help Hope Center. It is a small way to help earn a little money to help support the programs here.

In the evening we where to have Shashlik (like kabobs, but much better).

A nice quiet meal would be nice after along camp, but this is not really allowed in Ukraine. We had to create silly games that we could play to see which team would win. Since Tanya's Day filled with a number of different things she asked me to plan all the games. I got a lot of help from Lori and then Sergey also added some of his own.

This first game consisted of eating a cup of yogurt with no hands.

Then we had to make our team flags:

The Mosquitos vs the CocaCola drinking Elephants.

Then we had to paint with only our mouths a sign of love to our opponents.

Later we had to shave a balloon. Then take turns dressing up in a clown outfit and eating chocolate with a fork and knife.

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Last we had to see how many puff things we could get stuck on our team member chest, that was filled with shaving cream.

Silly games made for a fun evening.