After the adventures of this past weekend it is time to go back to work. Jud is back!! That makes me very relieved. Jud is another volunteer who has been in Konotop for a year now. I met him in the beginning of training and now I am volunteering in the same city. He was away for two weeks when I first got here and now he has returned. We met last night and he helped me gain some new perspective on my new life in Konotop. We discussed some ideas for our community and I think we can do great things together.
So yesterday I spent the morning at the zoo with the kids from the disabled center. We had a great time. It is a small zoo. It only had a deer, a goat, 2 ducks, many hamsters, a few birds and two turtles but the kids loved it. There were only 5 children that went with us. It is summer now and there aren't many children around. They go away in the summer or someone is home with them every day. The children are really great. This one little girl who I believe is 6 speaks very good English. I asked her name in Russian and she responded to me in English as if she were American it was fantastic. She was the only one and it blew me away.
Today I have gone to the Jewish Center in my town to see what they do and what the center is all about. There is so much history there it was a wonderful experience. Gregory is an excellent tour guide and he knows English very well. He brought along his grandson to translate as well. The center seems like a very well oiled machine but it is fun hanging out with the older ladies and the older men. They have lots of stories and they love to talk about them.
This afternoon visited the center for pensioners. They put on an event for the holiday here today. Ivan Kupala is the name of the holilday.
"Ivan Kupala Day is one of the great and enigmatic holidays signifing a celebration in honour of the "God of the Sun" (or "Dazhbog"). It is belived that during this time of summer solstice, the sun is strongest, before turning to the winter. They say that the Sun is a personification of light, celebrating its victory over dark forces, so as it rises it's "playing", "leaping" and feeling joyful. All Nature is also joyful because of this, becoming special and charmed. The name of the holiday is bound to the name of "Kupajla", who is the "Divinity of Fertility",of the harvest, welfare and medicinal healing herbs and plants. Traditional ceremonies are timed so as to celebrate in honour of youth, beauty, love and purification."
It was a lot of singing and dancing but it was fun. I couldn't understand a word of it and it lasted two hours but I got into it.
That's all for today.
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