The true journey begins

Tomorrow morning at 6am, Julie, Ala and I will depart on our two week(+) trip through Central Eastern Europe. The purpose of this trip is to conduct a 10-day workshop in a village on the Serbian/Bulgarian border, as well as another 2-day workshop in Ternopil, Ukraine. Our plan for the journey includes traveling through Poland (of course), Slovakia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine. Though I will see much of these countries from the backseat of a car, I am nonetheless filled with excitement and anticipation for what we will experience during our travels.

The first leg of our trip will take us across the border into Slovakia where we will stop along the way for a swim. I have been assured that there is an ideal swimming spot that we must visit! Then, we will take the scenic route through the mountains (purely for my benefit) and enter Hungary. We will press on through Hungary, just barely bypassing Budapest, and arrive in a small town in Serbia called Subotica where we will spend our first night with some friends of MTO. The next day, we will continue our drive through Serbia with a stop in Belgrade, and we will spend the night in the town of Svrlijg with another friend. On our third day of driving, we will cross the border to Bulgaria and arrive in Vidin, a town which is very close to the village where we will be hosting our first workshops. For the next 7 days or so, we will be conducting workshops in Dunavci - these workshops will explore issues of social responsibility, group decision-making and teamwork by tasking the participants with creating and running their own village. The participants, all educators, will then take their skills back to their schools and teach their students about what they have learned. Most of the people planning to attend the workshops are Serbians and Bulgarians who live in the area and who have been ensconced in an ethnic conflict for some time now. It will be interesting to experience the group dynamics in this situation and to see how successful they are at bridging their differences. (To learn more about the subjects we will be presenting at the workshop, please visit the link to the Village Project on the left side of this page.)

After this workshop, we will move on to Ukraine, by way of Romania. On our first day of driving we will stop in Timisoara and visit with some more folks who have ties to MTO. Then I think we will drive directly to Lvov, Ukraine where we will spend an evening relaxing in a lively, modern city. The next day we will travel to Ternopil where we will conduct workshops on the Public Achievement program model (see link on the left). This program teaches young people to identify common problems in the community and to take the necessary steps to solve them. We may take a third day to do a monitoring visit in another village nearby or we may simply head back to Poland. Ultimately, we expect to arrive back in Nowy Sacz on either June 15 or 16. Whew!

Now that I have had a few days to adjust to the change in time and a different way of living, I am looking forward to this next part of my adventure. I have enjoyed spending time with Julie and Ala over these past few days, even though all we've been doing is preparing to leave! It has been an eye-opening experience for me to see where MTO is, who plays a role in their programs and how the organization functions. I am impressed by their hard work and commitment to helping people.

During these next few weeks, I expect to have limited access to the Internet. I will post as I am able, but please do not be alarmed (mom!) if I don't write as regularly as I have been. I will report back when I can with pictures and stories so, hopefully, you can get a feel for my experience.