I guess everybody knows that new experiences are extremely important for any personality, especially for a teenager. In fact, I couldn’t even imagine how bright, cognitive and satisfying this trip would be for me when I simply wanted to have some rest from school and my usual lifestyle. It’s difficult to describe everything I saw, felt and heard, everything I gained and learnt, everything I discovered in myself and other people but I’ll try.
Well, I have to say that it was quite wise starting our activities right in the train to Lviv, because we had a chance to get to know each other and to start communicating. As we arrived in Lviv early in the morning we had the whole day for our excursions. Of course it was a little bit tiring but we managed to see almost everything in this beautiful city. That evening we caught our train to Chernivzi, saw some sights there and set off to Cheremosh –– our recreation center near the city of Vigniza. On our way there we were singing different songs, chatting and having fun.
I’d like to say that I was amazed to see how beautiful everything looked in the Western Ukraine. This was just like I’ve always imagined winter –– lots of white fluffy snow covering evergreen trees, snow-capped mountains, small houses with icicles hanging from the roof and snowflakes coming from the sky.
In Cheremosh we lived in the houses for about 14 people, in rooms for 2-4 people. We were divided into three teams –– Hot Hearts, Santa & Company and Crazy Penguins –– these are the names we chose ourselves. The first thing we had to do was to draw the team emblem and to create a motto. Every day we had a Team Challenge, something like competition between the teams, and each team got some points for that. Despite this we had a personal competition: we got Magics for any kind of our achievements.
On our second day in Cheremosh we went high up to the mountains to ski and sledge there. It was so exciting! We kept enjoying the spectacular beauty of the Carpathians and had so much fun going downhill, falling into white fluffy snowdrifts, playing snowballs and so on.
It’s interesting that every day we celebrated New Year and Christmas according to the traditions of different countries and nations. It gave us the opportunity not only to have great fun but also to learn something new about other cultures. For instance the first day in our camp was the day of Japan. We were told some curious facts about their way of celebrating, made Origami Bird by our hands, got acquainted with some Hoku poems trying to join different lines together, made a dragon from ourselves in teams and drank green tea. Then on Christmas Eve we had the day of Slavic traditions, and the most exciting thing in all this was that we went to sing Christmas carols in the local village. For me it was like a fairy-tale: it was snowing, the small houses were in Christmas lights and people went out and smiled as they heard us singing. They gave us sweets, money and even took pictures with us. And we wished them a Merry Christmas and made their spirits high.
By the way every day we had classes during which we discussed the traditions of New Year celebrations, learnt and sang some songs and made something with our hands. For example once we had to make a flag of our team, and then it was hidden, we were given some hints and we had to find it. I guess it’s something I won’t be able to forget, as we were running through the territory of the camp, laughing, shouting and looking for our flag. Then we had the day of Muslim traditions and learnt how they celebrate New Year in Latin America. We made different things from dough and painted them. And of course we kept skiing and sledging, had a disco every evening and were making more and more friends. I want to add that we also had some unusual experience as a man from Australia, Anthony, went with us. Along with helping us to improve our English he taught us how to build a snow cave. We did it and I must admit that it’s really warm inside.
On our last day in Cheremosh we had the final concert where the teams showed traditional Scottish dances and some other small performances. The last disco was just great. I have no words to describe the feeling we all had.
Unfortunately the next day we had to leave Cheremosh. We spent one day in Kyiv having some excursions there and had a nice walk along Kreshatic in the evening. In the morning we were already in Kharkiv. Nobody except us can imagine how difficult it was for us to say good-bye. When we got off the train we sang the last song, thanked each other for everything, burst up the petard and lit some Bengal lights.
Now my purpose is not to lose everything I got there: my friends, this nice feeling of belonging somewhere and the new potential I found in myself. Believe me it was really a MAGIC camp, and this is something that cannot be changed and taken away from me!
