When we arrived in September our host, Kseniya, had a 3 month old baby, Veronica. She was staying in the village house of her grandmother, as it is a healthier area than her flat. Her flat in the city center was being renovated, it is off of a major trolley line and it is very noisy.

Going to the office (an hour commute) on a regular basis was problematic for her. So we went mobile and went to the village house once or twice a week. On other days, when she went to classes at the University, she would stop by our flat for a couple of hours. I don't think we had a full day at the office for the first couple of weeks.

But that was good as the weather was great and who wanted to put in a full day when there were beaches to explore and a new town to learn.

The village was about a 45 minute bus ride from the center of town and got us out to see the southern parts of Odesa. We'd pass through areas where apartments were built for those that worked in the city and they are called "sleeping areas." (We might call them bedroom communities.) The cost of a flat in the sleeping areas (now they can be privately owned) is significantly less than in the center of Odesa.

The village is close to the sea and consists of small plots of land with small houses on them like this one. The land was given to residents, many years ago during communism, to grow food because people didn't make enough money. Growing your own was the only way to get by and many families have a plots like this.

But with the growth of the city this area is becoming threatened as many of the more affluent are buying out the older people and are putting nice homes in. The older people don't have a lot of options as the pension system doesn't pay them enough to live on so they sell off their property and use the money to survive.

This is Alexander, Kseniya's father. He too works for the organization as a director, logistician and driver and this is his mother's place. We would work under the picnic table with our laptops and eat the grapes that are on the vines. They taught us how to make a great tasting juice ("compote") of grapes and apples. "Granny" liked to cook, so we'd also eat well out here.

Alexander is an MD and worked professionally for 20 years before choosing to take a break and devote all his time to this organization.

A project that was wrapping up when we arrived, was the refurbishing of a house at an orphanage summer camp. The organization sponsored 2-2 week long international summer camps where young people from around the world came. They shared each other's cultures, learned about civil society and how to influence public policy and worked on fixing this house.

The camp was about 10 minutes from granny's house. The staff and volunteers were still working on the house, because even though the summer camps had ended, the house wasn't finished. This is Ann painting the window jams.

Here is the inside painting crew made up of local volunteers. This place really needed a lot of work!

All in all the first month on the job was spent just trying to understand the organization, its structure, the laws that govern NGO's and charitable giving and getting to know the people we are working with.

It was not what we had expected but hey what did we expect?

Follow this link to Fact Sheet #1 and you will find out more about the organization.