Volunteering

Today’s session of the Gabfest speaking club (at Window on America center Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine) had an American guest – our friend Peace Corp volunteer Mr. Andrew.
Due to the arrival of several new persons the ESC session started with the introductions. After that all the participants were given the opportunity to communicate in English. The Ukrainian club members again asked questions about the Peace Corp. activities and motivation of the USA volunteers. Mr. Andrew asked questions about traditions of volunteering and charity in Ukraine. At first the Ukrainians were puzzled – they did not consider themselves engaged into charity. But the Club’s moderator reminded them about little acts they do since school childhood, but do not realize it is charity. At school many of us donated to such organizations as Red Cross, DOSAAF (Soviet society of support for Army and Navy), Fire-fighting Support Organization, etc. In everyday life of Ukrainians there is a tradition to donate money to friends and colleagues in case of sudden illness or death in the family, not to mention religious donations and volunteering. Once these examples were mentioned the majority of the group confirmed that they do it on a regular basis. But volunteering traditions are in the stage of emerging in the modern society and PCVs set a good example.
The second part of the session was dedicated to the topic “November Ethnic celebrations in the USA”. We touched upon Hindu celebration Divali, Muslim holiday Muharram, and Jewish Hanukkah. But the most curious conversation was about Native Americans’ celebration – Pow -Wow .We have introduced this ethnic event to the group, examined the portraits of Pow -Wow participants in ethnic dress. But the funniest activity was to create an Indian name for the Club members taking into consideration their personality. Mr. Andrew was the judge and selected as winners the following names:
Song of the River - for Nadia who likes to sing and to swim Morning Ray- for Ludmilla who is an early riser and likes nature Beautiful Rose – for Ludmilla who is an elegant lady.
The public vote created one more category of created names- the funny ones- where the following names became winners:
Friendly Giraffe – for Sergey who is tall and good-natured Smile of a dead Chicken- for Vlada who is an optimist, but catches cold often Herring’s Smile – for Anna who loves pickled herring and all water activities.
The session was funny and educational.
Number of participants – 29.