Camp Friendship-Day One

the cafeteria where we ate and did crafts

the playground for the younger kids and the gorgeous flowers

the office building which was also where we slept

younger kids in organized play

these flowers were everywhere around camp...just beautiful

lunch - see description below

benches for gathering and visiting

kids would just come up and hug on us. Don't remember the names of these two

Yanna who loved to have her picture taken

evening worship

Our first day in camp dawned bright and early with a trip to the showers at 6:30 a.m. There are 274 kids in camp and with counselors and interpreters, the total comes to about 400. All of us use the same shower facilities which is a building with about 6 or 8 shower stalls. There is a schedule for the kids so we use it in the early morning. The fact that the sun comes up at 4:00 a.m. makes it rather easy to rise early. The water is heated by coal and doesn't get warm until 6:30 or we might even be in there earlier! Thankfully we have a toilet and sink in our building, but we share it with about 11 other people. It can get pretty stinky but at night I am thankful that it's in the same building. There is a ceremony at the flagpole every morning at 7:30 with announcements and calisthenics. We skipped it this morning to try and figure out where all of our craft supplies were in the extra suitcases that our team hauled with them. Deanna and I had loaded two duffel bags which traveled with us. Our first meal in camp was an oatmeal type of porridge with a fried egg on top. They also drink something that we call coffee/tea and it is just that...coffee and tea mixed together. We don't like it. Every meal also comes with bread and cheese. Butter is served with breakfast and supper but not lunch. I have a feeling I am going to be eating a lot of bread and butter! Deanna's appetite was still a little depressed, but I managed to eat my breakfast. Crafts went well considering we were terribly jetlagged and sleep deprived. We have two interpreters, Tonya and Liza. Tonya is an English teacher in Lugansk and Liza is a 12 year old former camper and this is her first year as an interpreter. We made salvation bracelets with the children and discovered that we would only have the younger groups in the morning and older children in the afternoon. This camp hosts kids from age 5-15 approximately. We have crafts in the cafeteria for about 3 hours each morning. There is no ventilation and the windows don't open. It is pretty warm and humid outside. This should be very interesting. The power went out today delaying lunch until about 2:00. We were starving! We spent the time before lunch sitting outside by a cherry tree waiting to see what kids would come by. They love the sour cherries! We met a little girl named Yanna who loves to have her picture made. There was another little girl named Marina but she said her name was Paige. We don't know the story behind that, but they are cute kids. Lunch today was Borscht. We were told there are three types of Borscht, red, white, and green. We think it's the red borscht. Borscht is cabbage soup and tasted like cabbage soup, but it was really pretty tasty. We spent the afternoon in our room (which has a fan...thank goodness) resting and recuperating from the jet lag. The afternoon crafts time is very relaxed. We only had two boys today named Sasha and Jenya. We hope we have more tomorrow. We basically open up the crafts cabinet and provide them with supplies to be creative. These two really enjoyed making friendship bracelets with beads and embroidery thread. Supper was noodles with some sort of broth with a little bit of meat in it. There were also big, fabulous, sweet rolls. It was pretty good and Deanna finally found her appetite. They make a drink they call compote which is like boiled down juice from fruit. Everything is served warm or hot because they believe if you eat and drink cold things, you will get sick. There is also an underlying flavor of dill in EVERYTHING we have eaten. We have worship at night which begins with music, then a message, and then a break. After break, there is entertainment provided by different cabins. Tonight, Danny's friend Jeff brought the message. Entertainment was fun and after the program, there was Disco! We are exhausted! Thankfully, my roommate Evelyn and I managed to snag leaky blow up mattresses to put on our platforms. We gave our flat mattresses to Deanna and our other roommate, Joanne so they could double up. It's been a long day and time for lights out at 10:30.