Georg von Peuerbach-Gymnasium on the road with „Christkindl aus der Schuhschachtl“
A Christmas-travel-report for pupils  of the Georg von Peuerbach-Gymnasium (and their parents)
who cared about doing something reasonable this Christmas

This is a special Christmas story. Just two weeks before the trip to the Ukrainian “Waldkarpaten” Fabian Hofmann and me had the idea to do something really "meaningful" this Christmas. So we joined the aid-organisation "Landlerhilfe" (more at http://www.landlerhilfe.at), which – already for the 7^th time – has a Christmas-activity called "Christkindl aus der Schuhschachtel". This is how it works: Children - mostly pupils - from Upper-Austria take an old shoebox and put nice and useful presents inside, like clothes, that are not used anymore, unused toys or candies etc. We decided to ask in all the classes of our „Georg von Peuerbach-Gymnasium" and also the parents, so that in one week we collected about 280 packed Christmas-shoe-box-presents.

ALMOST ALL PRESENT-BOXES ARE COLLECTED INFRONT OF THE SCHOOL - READY TO GET ON BORD OF OUR TRANSPORTER AND DEPART TO UKRAINE

I borrowed the ÖH-transporter from the "Österreichischen Hochschülerschaft" and we started our journey to Ukraine, to where we should bring 14 thousand of those boxes together with 43 other transporters from Upper-Austria to poor children and pupils in "Theresiantal" - a region, where nowadays former Austrian woodworker live since the time of Austrian empress Maria Theresa two hundred years ago (for further information look up the webpage of the landlerhilfe).

FULL PACKED TRANSPORTER - NO MORE SPACE FOR A SINGLE PACKAGE.. WE EVEN HAD TO CARRY SOME ON OUR LAP IN THE DRIVERS CABINE - NONE LEFT BEHIND!

Together with the other transporters we went through Hungary and crossed the frontier to Ukraine, after a lot of waiting and freezing at the borders.

DEPARTING OF THE CONVOY  AFTER THE 1st NIGHT - IT WAS HARD TO COORDINATE  A GROUP OF 43 TRANSPORTERS THROUGH THE COMPLEX STREET SYSTEM OF BUDAPEST

In Ukraine the streets where partly amazingly bad, so we could just move forward quite slowly and after a 30 hours drive some backs started to hurt. Totally our delivery van had to manage 2300 kilometres on the streets, so therefore I want to thank especially the “Österreichische Hochschülerschaft” - Miss Windsteiger and Jakob, the head of the ÖH - for the willingness of borrowing the very reliable car absolutely for free to us - and hope that this car will do a lot of more good services.

The driving finally became a torture as we were two people for a lot of hours in the small space of our present-stuffed transporter.. Sometimes one of us was sleeping - the other one driving and singing to the music we listened to shorten the time of our ride a bit. But the surroundings of the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine through which we moved were beautiful.

DRIVING THROUGH THE BEAUTIFUL SURROUNDINGS OF UKRAINIAN CARPARTHIANS - DAY OR NIGHT

When we waited in villages children came to ask for candies and presents and we certainly always had something to give to them.

OUR FIRST PRESENT-GIVING IN THE DECLARING AREA - CHILDREN OF THE VILLAGE BEGGING FOR CANDIES AND BREAKFAST "MÜSLI "- WE ALWAYS HAD SOMETHING PREPARED FOR THEM.

After the drive our energy was quite gone - but we still had to be night guards on the big parking space of our basic-camp in our finally reached village Ust'-Corna "Königsfeld", because the car group was in high risk to be robbed during the night, as it is easily possible to happen in this very poor region. It was an ice-cold night in which we finally met two young men who spent their civil-service year in this village.

FINALLY ARRIVED IN "UST CORNA" WE MET THE TWO STATIONED AUSTRIAN CIVIL-SERVICE MEN  PETER AND EMANUEL WITH THEIR UKRAINIAN GIRLFRIENDS. TOGETHER WE TOOK THE HALFNIGHT-SHIFT. WE HAD TO BLINDSTITCH THE WAITING POLICE IN A CURRUPT WAY  WITH  15 EUROS TO LEAVE US ALONE AND NOT TO STEAL PRESENTS OUT OF THE CAR THEMSELVES.

Together we “survived” half of the freezing-Ukrainian-night and the next morning we had our first visit in the main school of Dubové where we gave away 989 of our Austrian Christmas presents. We were welcome with a lot of enthusiasm – not just by the pupils, but also by teachers.

FIRST STOP OF THE CHRISTKIND-ACTION: THE 1st SCHOOL OF DUBOVE, WHERE 800 PUPILS GET LESSONS

We wanted to organise the pupils between 5 and 18 to come class per class so that it was possible to keep the overview of organising how many presents were given away.

EVERYBODY JUST GOT ONE SHOEBOX - STANDING IN A ROW OF TOW SAYING "DOBRE DAN - GUTEN MORGEN" FIRST

In the past I heard of bad experiences, when a crowd of pupils overran the transporters during the giving-away which led to a catastrophe. Everything went pretty fine – though we were really busy playing Father Christmas, which fitted well, because in Ukraine it was exactly the day for this tradition. The head of school got a big box with pencils and writing material. Some pupils of the school can' t afford neither pencils nor paper to write on. That is also the simple reason why it is sometimes not possible to receive answers from Ukrainian pupils – because some of them cannot even afford paper or pencils nor the postage to send it back to Austria.

ONE BOX WITH PENCILS AND STUFF GOES TO THE HEAD OF THE SCHOOL - HE WAS SO HAPPY ABOUT OR PROJECT. SOME SCHOOLS DIDN T EVEN KNOW THAT THE "CHRISTKIND TRANSPORT" WOULD PASS BY TO THEM. SO THERE WERE LOT OF SURPRISES!

When we left this school we already saw pupils around in the whole region with presents given by us or our colleagues.

CHILDREN IN THE WHOLE SURROUNDINGS OF "THERESIENTAL" WERE WALKING WITH PRESENTS ON THE STREET.

The very early next morning at half past 6 we were ordered to drive to other regions.
Our first station was the cutest one of this trip. We gave presents to children of a whole kindergarten.

That little children got such big present-boxes and it was so cute to watch them try hard to carry them away - their hands were so small and the boxes so big.

After this heart-warming morning we drove across the countryside to an orphanage - a home for disabled and left alone children - where we experienced a depressing and touching atmosphere. For example the toilet was an outside-hole with two wooden boards on it which was looking and smelling horrible. Everybody of the helpers took about 5 presents and went straight into the house to give them to the children - directly and not to the workers who possibly would have kept the presents to themselves. The smell inside that “home” was unbearable so that I felt sick and had to gain all my will power in order not to leave the place immediately.

ON THE PICTURES THE PLACE LOOKS  QUITE NORMAL BECAUSE OF THE COLOURS OF THE ROOMS, BUT THE LIVING CIRCUMSTANCES OF THIS DISABLED CHILDREN WERE DEPRESSING

But when I saw how happy these little humans where about our coming and what we had to give to them...  the recognition of the smell suddenly disappeared and I got emotionally connected with these children. I sat beside some beds and petted them on their little hands and talked like with friends I would just visit for a little chat. Some of them couldn’t’ properly react to my present, but it was wonderful how ALL of them started to smile when they felt somebody was there to give caring attention. It was a very deep emotional experience - never to forget.

ONE COULD THINK OUR TRY WAS A DROP ON A HOT STONE - BUT THE WARM ENLIGHTENED SMILES OF THESE DESPERATELY POOR PEOPLE IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PRESENT I GOT THIS CHRISTMAS. INDEED I ALSO GOT LOTS OF HUGS AND SOME TRIED TO CLIMB ME

The older disabled children had organised a concert for us and we were invited to dance and communicate with them in a wonderfully-free non-verbal way. It was very expressive, after managing to cross the borderlines of our own minds to look inside these persons warm hearts.

DANCING - SINGING - COMMUNICATING BETWEEN AUSTRIAN AND UKRAINIAN HUMANS

Also I gave away my Moldavian lucky-charm to a boy who stared at it all the time.. He just couldn't believe that I gave it to him as a present. I made the experience not just to give "something" - maybe a thing that was not any longer needed - but if you give away an item that also means value to you emotionally. This is the most real present that some can give because you give it in a really deep meaning - to make somebody happy with something that made you happy.

A PRESENT WITH PERSONAL VALUE - SOMETHING THAT REALLY MEANS. AND MY NEW UKRAINIAN FRIEND COULD'T BELIEVE HIS EYES.

I wrote this report because these 5 days meant a lot to me. They were the days that made the most possible sense. For me it is not just meaningful how people celebrate their days of peace with over floating consumption. Most of us have every materialistical thing they need for a safe life. But still we are expected to make presents for Christmas to everybody close to us. I ask you to look around and try to do something really good and reasonable – of course not just in Christmas time.
These days were partly hard to digest and brought some sacrifices. Our car was broken into in the last evening and stuff was stolen, we had at least a 60 hours drive for 2300 kilometres in just 5 days, the last kilometres we had to make it back with the train to Linz, because the car didn't make it anymore after the terrible Ukrainian countryside streets. But all of this is just nothing compared with the 1000s of smiles u get back by the young persons that get one of the shoe-box-presents that you prepared.

I wish a meaningful and fulfilled year of peace to everybody - keep your eyes and hearts open to DO good things in your world to a receiver that might need it. You get back something beautiful - I can tell.

Report: Thomas Haunschmid

 
WAVING GOODBYE FROM UKRAINE TO AUSTRIA WITH A NOT FORGETABLE EXPERIENCE FOR BOUT SIDES..