Thursday 21 September 2006

A few days after my adventure with ants and lightening came to an end, I left the Crimea and travelled by bus to a small provincial city in the Ukraine called Berdyansk.

There I took part in a two week project aimed at educating young people about gender issues. I was one of a number of volunteers, from the UK, USA, Northern Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland and Italy.

We stayed in a camp together next to the Sea of Azov and visited a number of local universities and schools and prepared workshops and led discussions about gender issues in the Ukraine and elsewhere.

I found myself doing things that I thought I would never do, like facilitating presentations, and speaking to classes full of Ukrainian students.

It was a very nice, very good experience and one that I enjoyed immensely.

It is hard for me to believe that only five days have passed since I left Berdyansk. I find myself missing the other volunteers much more than I thought I would, even the people I didn't speak to often.

Volunteers who take part in international work camps are - most of the time - interesting and good natured people, with ambitions which stretch beyond planning their next holiday lying on a beach in Spain.

The project in Berdyansk was no exception.

I met some of the finest people I have met on a work camp. Laura, Miriam, Fiona, Sybil, Celine, Wyatt, Davide, Karen... shy people, ready to take a risk and try something new, each venturing into the unknown with only a backpack and no idea of what to expect.

The time I spent with these people, and the camp leaders, Olga and Anna, and many of the students we met can be summed up in a single word: Lovely.

How nice it was to avoid the back stabbing and nastiness. How strange that the person I communicated with the most was an English girl. My problems with the fairer sex in my home country are well documented in my emails, but Laura, a young English lass, was simply a lovely, sweet and kind person. A rare find.

I miss her and all of the volunteers a great deal, especially first thing in the morning, when I wake up and realise that now I am alone.

My time in Berdyansk has given me another gift box of memories to add to my collection for me to take out and cherish in years to come.

Notes of Andrew Murray Hall