Week one: Done

Dyslexia, projectile vomit and heartache are what I will remember most clearly from my first week.

Maybe my countdown until homesickness began when I left for Romania or maybe it just hit me early but I had a rough start either way.

As many of you know, I need to take some language classes before I begin my placement at the orphanage. These language classes take place at Pergigogical University, which is locate in Ternopil, Ukraine. May 10, 2011 was my fist day of school there and has left a permanent mark in my memory. Here, I was expecting the standard summer workshop: get to know the basics during the day and then do some cultural stuff and get to know my family and environment at night. Although the routine is somewhat like that, the classes were far more intense than expected and the alternate alphabet was very difficult for me to handle.

Even on my first day, I didn’t feel as excited to be in Ukraine as the people around me seemed. That feeling was exaggerated by the motion sickness of the crowded, sweaty 45 minute bus ride to school, low blood sugar from less food than I was used to, and the feelings of dyslexia I felt when trying to read the Ukranian alphabet.

 For those of you who don’t know, the Ukranian alphabet is made up of some symbols that look and sound like ours, some that look but don’t sound similar, some that are backwards compared to ours and some without any resemblance. I distinctly remember feeling motion sickness from trying to straighten out and understand the letters with their corresponding sounds. Even in English, I am a slow reader and already I mix up letter like p/d/b and numbers like 4/7, 6/9, or 2/5. You an imagine my frustrations when trying to learn Ukranian!

Our classes are followed by lunch and then a cultural activity. Since we’re in Ukraine, I was excited to make Ukranian easter eggs. . .  that is until I learned it was the beaded variety.

I’d like to call this activity and initiation, but let’s call it a character builder. Unbeknowist to me, I – the one with the smallest attention span of the group I’m pretty sure – managed to choose the smallest beads and largest egg. Whatever we didn’t finish in class was homework so I, two weeks later, continued to work on my egg. I am now finally finished just before the course is done. After visiting many markets, festivals and exhibits, I have come to realize that detail isn’t only a part of the Easter egg. Rather, the small, repetitive style artwork is common in many crafts throughout Ukraine. I felt like I should finish the egg as a right of passage but have come to terms with the fact that this type of art is not for me. I much prefer creating the beauty of the perfect play (in a hockey game especially) or of running shoes worn done to the sole. I live on fresh air and activity.

Maybe it was the dancing alphabet, maybe the hundreds of tiny, multicolored beads or the stuffed, sweaty bus. Whatever the reason, I was not feeling well when I retourned to my host family at the end of Day 1. They tried to tell me to eat dinner but I couldn’t handle any green borscht. I managed to get a banana down but it came back up with the rest of my stomache contents soon after. It was less than half an hour after I got home that I was projectile vomiting all over the floor and my host family called Denise to translate for them. That was a messy night that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. The food was out of my stomache but I continued to vomit and have horrible, horrible stomache pains. I just wanted it to stop – I just wanted to go home – and I couldn’t hold back the tears or groans.

After a long night, I got up and made it to school, homework unfinished. I realize that it’s just as likely I got sick from lack of food culture shock or travelling as food poisoning but I still never look at this food with quite as open a mind.

For me, physical illness tends to go hand in hand with emotional distress. I took part in some really cool activities this week – a lot of sightseeing and a celebration with Ukranian music – but couldn’t shake the sick feeling. My first experience of normalness came at a Christain Rock concert in the park, when I played catch with a little boy while waiting for the music to start. Children are everywhere and I am at home with them because they don’t try to small-talk or put on any shields – they are their real selves and just like to play. I am also looking forward to Internat for that reason. I know there will not be your average children but am sure they will show their own special selves.  Besides those precious moments at the concert, it took me until Friday to start to feel okay.

What’s so special about Friday? On Friday, I found a grocery store and went skating. The diet here consists of mostly just a lot of carbs and I was under the impression that it wasn’t acceptable to women to exercise much. Wanting to have as representative an experience as possible, I tried my best to stick to my family’s died to borscht and bread and was in the process of figuring out how to exercise discretely. Solutions came on Friday when I went to the mall to go skating!

Can you believe it? Skating in Ukraine in May? The mall a few blocks from my house has an indoor skating rink and I was ecstatic for the opportunity to check it out. As quickly as my hopes raised, they were dashed when I rented skate so dull that I couldn’t actually skate or stop and was told that the owners wouldn’t sharpen them. However, I decided that this was something worth fighting for so I politely pleaded my case in English and charades. I ended up with skates at least sharp enough to make the corners.

When it comes to that experience, I really felt the power of sport.  Sport brings very different people together for a united goal or interest, with the only language necessary being that of the game. It also makes foreigners like myself feel at home and at ease, and there are few places in the world where I am as at ease as I am on the ice.

Skating was a nice break but I still felt awful – my whole body was weak from loss of fluids, travelling and emotional exhaustion. This led me to go for a run on Saturday because if I didn’t, I knew mu motivation would dwindle.

I threw in my earphones and I ran. I really only knew the park nearby and wasn’t in the mood for getting lost so I did laps around it listening to Mumford and Sons. It wasn’t long before tears were rolling down my face but I let it happen because crying would only add to the cardio. Before I knew it, I was bawling while running to songs like “White Blank Page,” and “Little Lion Man.” I let it all out and stopped caring about what people thought – I already stood out for being a woman exercising so I might as well do what I want. (Go big or go home . . . and I wasn’t going home.)

Anyway, I cried hard and I ran. And then I ran, far. I felt kind of like a hamster running in a cage, trapped somewhere I didn’t want to be. I wasn’t running away or anywhere really, I was just running. Then came “Heart of a Champion” on my playlist. This was one of Kristen’s pregame songs and reminded me that, in order for me to actually grown, I needed to push myself. Personally, I feel the need to experience sacrifice and pain to know that I can appreciate the good that can come of it. Everywhere, people are making sacrifices and experiencing challenges beyond their belief. I think of how my brother Ryan moved away to play hockey when he was 16, how my friend Chantal has spend a good potion of her life battling cancer, and how my grandma had to say goodbye to her true love. These are very strong people and I would like to believe that I am cut from the same cloth. So, with the heart of a champion, I found my strength, sprinted to the end of the song, and walked home with a new outlook.