Photo Series #21: Ukraine Canada Corps exchange, and other travels

In 2005 I accepted a position on a Canada Corps E-Governance pilot project in Ostroh, Ukraine, where the foreign phase of my NetCorps exchange the previous year was orginally supposed to take place. (A little thing called the Orange Revolution derailed this. That, and it seemed like we were losing group members every other weekend anyway.)

Of course, it would have been perfectly safe to have gone to Ukraine - as one political science professor at Ostroh Academy put it, the Orange Revolution wasn't really a revolution, since the critical decisions happened within estabilished instiutions such as the Supreme Court of Ukraine. But we erred on the side of caution and ended up having the time of our lives in neighbouring Poland, which was possible because our program was the last and final Canada World Youth program to include Polish participants (and we unexpectedly became the last and final Canada World Youth program in Poland).

Having missed out on Ukraine, I was eager to go on this program to see what I missed. Quite a lot, actually. Ukraine neighbours Poland but there the similarites end. We also had the opportunity to travel independently, and I had some of my most memorable experiences travelling on my own, experiences that would have been impossible within the structures of the previous program. Our program was not without its challenges, but I'm proud to say that most of the participants are on speaking terms with each other to this day!

I also had the chance to take the long way home, via Poland, Ontario, and New York City.

Click on the images below to see the associated pictures. (I humbly suggest multiple sittings.)
 

2005 Ukraine Canada Corps Exchange (and other travels)
Canada
Ottawa (for pre-departure training)
Ukraine
Kyiv I	Ostroh - Summer	Ostroh Academy
Netishyn (neigbouring city)	Parties - Summer	Kyiv II (w/ Ukrainian Independence Day)
Home (w/ my host family)	Mezhyrich (neighbouring village)	Lviv I (part 1)
Lviv I (part 2)	Ivano-Frankivsk	Carpathians / Yaremche
Lviv II	In Transit	Odesa (part 1)
Odesa (part 2)	Ostroh - Autumn	Extreme Makeover: Will Edition*
Ternopil	Parties - Autumn	Canadian Night I
Ostroh - Winter	Official Farewell	Canadian Night II
Parties - Winter	Christmas	Rivne
Poland
Warsaw	Milki	Pluznica
Wabrzezno	New Year's 2006	Torun
Ukraine
Return	Kyiv III
Greenland
Greenland
Canada
In Transit	London	Toronto I
United States of America
New York City	Buffalo
Canada
Toronto II	24th Birthday (at home, finally)	Montreal (for de-briefing)

I'm definitely using Flickr from now on. This was for the birds!
* - Extreme Makover: Will Edition photos by Lee Reaney

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