Volunteers Comments
Students Discover 'Rainbow' In Ukraine
ST. LEO - Paul Peterson and Stephanie Danikas laughed as they looked at pictures from Ukraine, where they recently spent several weeks teaching English at Ukrainian Catholic University. There was a shot of Peterson with a lightning bolt shaved into his hair. Another showed their students in a seemingly upside-down photo, and there were several pictures of people and places in the village where they stayed.
"It had a church, a cemetery and a little old hovel where they sold beer. And there was an old lady who made moonshine," said Peterson, who majors in international studies at Saint Leo University.
Peterson, who turned 21 during the six weeks he spent in Ukraine, sampled the moonshine, which he said was "very strong." But he and Danikas spent most of their time teaching English at Ukrainian Catholic University, located in the historical city of L'viv, close to the Polish border on Ukraine's far western edge.
The Saint Leo students stayed and taught at a place called Camp Vselka, which roughly translates to "Camp Rainbow," in a small, nearby village. They were joined in the rural setting by eight tutors from the United States and one from England.
They divided their students into groups of 10, based on their fluency. Two teachers worked with each group.
After dinner most days, Danikas tutored students individually, while Peterson taught film history and theory, ballroom dancing or ballet.
"It was sunrise to sunset," said Danikas, who spent about four weeks in Ukraine. "The days were full. I was happy if I had time to wash my hair and do laundry or maybe listen to music."
When they arrived in late June, some students spoke English fairly well. Others required more work.
"Some of them could say, 'My name is' or, 'This is cow,'" Peterson said.
Mostly, they worked on grammar, and the students made progress after a few days, Danikas said.
The trip wasn't all work, though. The tutors and their students visited the Tustan State Historic and Cultural Reserve, the site of a massive fortress built in the ninth century.
The Ukrainian trip wasn't the first time Peterson and Danikas had traveled abroad.
Last year for spring break, they went with other Saint Leo students and the Rev. Michael Cooper, a Jesuit priest from the school, to the Dominican Republic. They picked crops and helped in other ways, but it was mostly a vacation.
The Ukraine trip was tougher. The students lost power for several days and had to bathe in the Striy River. But both said they would happily return.
Cooper said the purpose of service trips is not to evangelize but for students to learn about other cultures and to help people.
Peterson and Danikas, who paid their own way to Ukraine - though friends donated frequent flier miles toward their airfare - are the kind of students that the school likes to send abroad, Cooper said.
"They are world citizens and have a breadth of outlook about them," Cooper said.
"I think the trip simply confirms and gives them a deeper, richer sense of who they are and what they really are about," he said.
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