The Slovakia mission trip was "born" out of the Romania mission trip, something the University puts together every semester. I signed up for the Romania trip because a) I wanted to do something worthwhile during my ten day, b) it was cheaper and, c) I liked the air of mystery it had about it.
However, a lot more people than usual signed up to do it this year, so the director, Dr. Healy, found some more places in Romania to send people, and then also two places in Slovakia.
The entire process, Dr. Healy kept asking people for their preferences (though no guarantees) and I kept telling her "I don't care where you put me."
Honestly, I was worried that if I tried going to a particular place or go with a particular group, I would have expectations and if those were frustrated, I would spend my mission trip being a big ol' baby.
God really worked things out well though - I was in one of the two groups that went to Slovakia, and I was not in the group that got sent to the parish that was apparently veryyyyy charismatic, while we had a small, quiet Byzantine Mass on Sunday in Kosice.
In the most reverent way possible, God really is swell.
Anywho, most people left to begin travelling on Thursday, right after classes, but the Slovakian teams didn't leave till early Saturday morning. Basically, that gave me a lot of time to 'kill' and honestly, I don't remember how I wasted it, except that I am now seriously regretting that I didn't get more work done on my philosophy paper that is due THIS THURSDAY. (I'm not panicking - do you see me panicking?! Nope, NOT panicking.
At.
ALL.)
I hardly got any sleep the night/morning before we left, because of talking with Sister Maria, but I was able to get a lot of sleep on the trains.
It was kind of funny, because I woke up in a bit of a daze, and was basically following the other group around the Kartuase and then the train station, and at one point, one of the girls in my group started asking people if they had their passports. I was sitting on the bus bench and was so out of it, and when she asked me, I just smiled, shrugged and said "I think I have it, but I'm not sure." Then the girl, Allison, and a couple other girls freaked out a bit on me, telling me I should check, and since I was too tired to argue, I checked, and sure enough, I had it.
Basically, that describes how I've traveled in Europe - followed other people around and been a little too unstressed about those little things like passports.
The next situation that describes how I interacted with my team most of the week: we were waiting at the bus stop, and after sitting there for a while, I spoke up and said that I was pretty sure we needed to be down at the further bus stop. Allison, in a not unkindly manner, replied rather assertively that we were supposed to be at the one we were waiting at. I didn't argue, because I knew it would be pointless (plus I was too tired), and hey, if we were at the wrong stop, then at least we'd be missing something together!
Fortunately, Dr. Newton was on an early morning jog, saw us waiting, and told us we needed to be at the stop further down.
However, for the rest of the travel, I remained pretty clueless and just followed everyone around and smiled at everyone freaking out about making it on time (we did perfectly fine). It didn't take very long for some of the team to realize this and stop asking me questions about where we were, because my answers were always the same - "Hmmm....I don't know..."
I hope I was at least useful in being stress-relief in the very fact I was so unconcerned about everything, because otherwise, I was very useless and slept most of the time.
When we finally got to Kosice, my half of the group (Allison, Savannah, and Morgan) went with a Byzantine deacon, Father Lukas, to a place called the Dorka.
The Dorka is kind of like an orphanage, but not really. The way I view it is a place for people who are struggling to get back on their feet to get some help. Most of the people have self-inflicted problems and are still working on getting their act back together, but there were some people that were there because of others. One of the residents, an older lady they call Babka, was taking care of her granddaughters - Gabbitka and Nikolka, born of two different fathers.
Anyways, when we got to the Dorka, it was night, so one of the social workers, Barbara (pronounced bar-BORE-a) showed us our rooms and gave us our schedules.
Morgan slept with the two other Byzantine seminarians in the basement, next to the kitchen. We girls were given two separate rooms, right next to each other, but we decided to all sleep in the same room because it was large enough, plus, the other room was usually used for physiologists, so we just felt more comfortable in the second room.
Our schedule consisted of a work "activity" that began at 8:45 and went until noon, then a two hour lunch break, followed by random activities with the kids until 6, then a one hour supper break, a skit and "Rosary" with the kids, then free time.
Our work activities varied from day to day.
The first day, we cleaned out a pretty messy garden room, but with five people working on it, finished with an hour to spare.
The second day, they needed one person to help them with the kids in the morning, so Savannah did that while Morgan, Allison and I cleaned out a really grody cleaning supply closet. We spent most of the time bagging detergent, which was a rather nice, mindless task. I can't give a good estimate of how much we bagged, but the fact that it took us two and a half hours should give you an idea.
The tons of bags of detergent were mostly donations from store owners, given because the bags were unsaleable because gypsies had slashed holes in them, taken some detergent, and left the rest.
So Europe has this thing with gypsies - Romanian "tribal" people that basically won't settle down and get jobs, have bunches of children to collect welfare, and steal a lot of things and basically act as a pain in the arse for most Europeans.
We had to bag all the detergent because the Dorka, instead of giving out the detergent free, sold the detergent to its "clients"(residents) in smaller bags for a minuscule fee.
The third day was my least favorite activity - they gave us two dark and musty closets to clean and organize. The first one wasn't too bad - Allison and Morgan took care of that one, which left Savannah and I to the second, larger, darker, most grody closet.
Yum.
The closet was packed full of boxes and bags stuffed with children's clothing, and it was our task to go through the clothing, toss out the really nasty articles, then fold and organize the rest. This clothing would later be distributed to the clients as necessary.
Anyways, this job took us the longest because there were so. many. boxes. And man, some of those boxes were NASTY. We ended up tossing two large bags of clothing.
We only finished this job on time because Allison and Morgan finished their closet an hour early and came over to help us.
We didn't have an activity for Thursday - we actually spent the entire day in the kitchen, making a Thanksgiving dinner for the kids.
On Friday, I awoke and discovered - you guessed it! - that I was sick! Again! Yay!
Our task that morning was to paint the walls of one of the apartments with this super thin paint that dried within minutes. Savannah got really excited at first, because she had been talking the entire week before about how she spent the summer on paint crew for Franciscan (i.e., painted a lot of the dorms, Heights, etc) and knew everything there was to know about painting.
No one liked that job (except for me, but I ended up leaving after an hour because I was feverish and so tired), but Savannah REALLY hated it. She was so flustered, because what Barbara wanted us to do basically went against everything Savannah knew to be right as a painted.
For one, the paint was incredibly thin. Second, we only painted two of the walls in one of the rooms, which freaked her out because normally, even when you're painting with the same white paint, the shades will be different between the newly painted walls and the old walls. Thirdly, we didn't "cut" the room, where you use a small paintbrush to basically outline the walls, so that you don't have to worry about getting paint where it's not supposed to be when you use the roller. Fourth, paint was kind of getting everywhere, but she didn't realize that it could be rather easily cleaned off if not let to dry for more than an hour or so.
Anyways, I could understand Savannah's frustrations, but Barbara kept reassuring us and telling us this was the way Slovakian's painted, and Savannah would keep talking about wrong everything was when Barbara left. For me, if the Slovakian's wanted it painted a certain way that I was unaccustomed to, I would tell them my worries, and if they reassured me that this was the way they always did it, I would just complete the task and then leave them to the product they desired, whether it fit my expectations or not.
But like I said, I was sick and I didn't have enough energy or patience to try to calm Savannah down, so I just worked silently until I got so tired and achey that I left.
I'm still a little sick today, and this post is already ridiculously long (what else could you expect after a ten day hiatus?), so I will continue it later with more details on the kids, Lukas and the staff, Igor the pathological liar, Thanksgiving dinner, and my team.
However, a lot more people than usual signed up to do it this year, so the director, Dr. Healy, found some more places in Romania to send people, and then also two places in Slovakia.
The entire process, Dr. Healy kept asking people for their preferences (though no guarantees) and I kept telling her "I don't care where you put me."
Honestly, I was worried that if I tried going to a particular place or go with a particular group, I would have expectations and if those were frustrated, I would spend my mission trip being a big ol' baby.
God really worked things out well though - I was in one of the two groups that went to Slovakia, and I was not in the group that got sent to the parish that was apparently veryyyyy charismatic, while we had a small, quiet Byzantine Mass on Sunday in Kosice.
In the most reverent way possible, God really is swell.
Anywho, most people left to begin travelling on Thursday, right after classes, but the Slovakian teams didn't leave till early Saturday morning. Basically, that gave me a lot of time to 'kill' and honestly, I don't remember how I wasted it, except that I am now seriously regretting that I didn't get more work done on my philosophy paper that is due THIS THURSDAY. (I'm not panicking - do you see me panicking?! Nope, NOT panicking.
At.
ALL.)
I hardly got any sleep the night/morning before we left, because of talking with Sister Maria, but I was able to get a lot of sleep on the trains.
It was kind of funny, because I woke up in a bit of a daze, and was basically following the other group around the Kartuase and then the train station, and at one point, one of the girls in my group started asking people if they had their passports. I was sitting on the bus bench and was so out of it, and when she asked me, I just smiled, shrugged and said "I think I have it, but I'm not sure." Then the girl, Allison, and a couple other girls freaked out a bit on me, telling me I should check, and since I was too tired to argue, I checked, and sure enough, I had it.
Basically, that describes how I've traveled in Europe - followed other people around and been a little too unstressed about those little things like passports.
The next situation that describes how I interacted with my team most of the week: we were waiting at the bus stop, and after sitting there for a while, I spoke up and said that I was pretty sure we needed to be down at the further bus stop. Allison, in a not unkindly manner, replied rather assertively that we were supposed to be at the one we were waiting at. I didn't argue, because I knew it would be pointless (plus I was too tired), and hey, if we were at the wrong stop, then at least we'd be missing something together!
Fortunately, Dr. Newton was on an early morning jog, saw us waiting, and told us we needed to be at the stop further down.
However, for the rest of the travel, I remained pretty clueless and just followed everyone around and smiled at everyone freaking out about making it on time (we did perfectly fine). It didn't take very long for some of the team to realize this and stop asking me questions about where we were, because my answers were always the same - "Hmmm....I don't know..."
I hope I was at least useful in being stress-relief in the very fact I was so unconcerned about everything, because otherwise, I was very useless and slept most of the time.
When we finally got to Kosice, my half of the group (Allison, Savannah, and Morgan) went with a Byzantine deacon, Father Lukas, to a place called the Dorka.
The Dorka is kind of like an orphanage, but not really. The way I view it is a place for people who are struggling to get back on their feet to get some help. Most of the people have self-inflicted problems and are still working on getting their act back together, but there were some people that were there because of others. One of the residents, an older lady they call Babka, was taking care of her granddaughters - Gabbitka and Nikolka, born of two different fathers.
Anyways, when we got to the Dorka, it was night, so one of the social workers, Barbara (pronounced bar-BORE-a) showed us our rooms and gave us our schedules.
Morgan slept with the two other Byzantine seminarians in the basement, next to the kitchen. We girls were given two separate rooms, right next to each other, but we decided to all sleep in the same room because it was large enough, plus, the other room was usually used for physiologists, so we just felt more comfortable in the second room.
Our schedule consisted of a work "activity" that began at 8:45 and went until noon, then a two hour lunch break, followed by random activities with the kids until 6, then a one hour supper break, a skit and "Rosary" with the kids, then free time.
Our work activities varied from day to day.
The first day, we cleaned out a pretty messy garden room, but with five people working on it, finished with an hour to spare.
The second day, they needed one person to help them with the kids in the morning, so Savannah did that while Morgan, Allison and I cleaned out a really grody cleaning supply closet. We spent most of the time bagging detergent, which was a rather nice, mindless task. I can't give a good estimate of how much we bagged, but the fact that it took us two and a half hours should give you an idea.
The tons of bags of detergent were mostly donations from store owners, given because the bags were unsaleable because gypsies had slashed holes in them, taken some detergent, and left the rest.
So Europe has this thing with gypsies - Romanian "tribal" people that basically won't settle down and get jobs, have bunches of children to collect welfare, and steal a lot of things and basically act as a pain in the arse for most Europeans.
We had to bag all the detergent because the Dorka, instead of giving out the detergent free, sold the detergent to its "clients"(residents) in smaller bags for a minuscule fee.
The third day was my least favorite activity - they gave us two dark and musty closets to clean and organize. The first one wasn't too bad - Allison and Morgan took care of that one, which left Savannah and I to the second, larger, darker, most grody closet.
Yum.
The closet was packed full of boxes and bags stuffed with children's clothing, and it was our task to go through the clothing, toss out the really nasty articles, then fold and organize the rest. This clothing would later be distributed to the clients as necessary.
Anyways, this job took us the longest because there were so. many. boxes. And man, some of those boxes were NASTY. We ended up tossing two large bags of clothing.
We only finished this job on time because Allison and Morgan finished their closet an hour early and came over to help us.
We didn't have an activity for Thursday - we actually spent the entire day in the kitchen, making a Thanksgiving dinner for the kids.
On Friday, I awoke and discovered - you guessed it! - that I was sick! Again! Yay!
Our task that morning was to paint the walls of one of the apartments with this super thin paint that dried within minutes. Savannah got really excited at first, because she had been talking the entire week before about how she spent the summer on paint crew for Franciscan (i.e., painted a lot of the dorms, Heights, etc) and knew everything there was to know about painting.
No one liked that job (except for me, but I ended up leaving after an hour because I was feverish and so tired), but Savannah REALLY hated it. She was so flustered, because what Barbara wanted us to do basically went against everything Savannah knew to be right as a painted.
For one, the paint was incredibly thin. Second, we only painted two of the walls in one of the rooms, which freaked her out because normally, even when you're painting with the same white paint, the shades will be different between the newly painted walls and the old walls. Thirdly, we didn't "cut" the room, where you use a small paintbrush to basically outline the walls, so that you don't have to worry about getting paint where it's not supposed to be when you use the roller. Fourth, paint was kind of getting everywhere, but she didn't realize that it could be rather easily cleaned off if not let to dry for more than an hour or so.
Anyways, I could understand Savannah's frustrations, but Barbara kept reassuring us and telling us this was the way Slovakian's painted, and Savannah would keep talking about wrong everything was when Barbara left. For me, if the Slovakian's wanted it painted a certain way that I was unaccustomed to, I would tell them my worries, and if they reassured me that this was the way they always did it, I would just complete the task and then leave them to the product they desired, whether it fit my expectations or not.
But like I said, I was sick and I didn't have enough energy or patience to try to calm Savannah down, so I just worked silently until I got so tired and achey that I left.
I'm still a little sick today, and this post is already ridiculously long (what else could you expect after a ten day hiatus?), so I will continue it later with more details on the kids, Lukas and the staff, Igor the pathological liar, Thanksgiving dinner, and my team.
