UK

During our time in England there was this a bit strange feeling when all the names and images from the books read in childhood turned into real places. Liverpool, Nottingham, Thames... Meeting familiar names at every corner made some uncertain memories come to me just by themselves.

As we arrived in UK in Liverpool Airport Howard Grace and David Curtis met us there and drove straight to Sheffield, which take 2,5 hours. And to pick us up from the airport they made this 2,5 hours trip twice!

It was great to see all the old friends at the very first evening: Howard Grace, David and Judith Curtis, John and Anne Carlisle, Krish Raval Violetta and Altaf.

Action for Life 3 small reunion:)

Next day we visited an office of Learn to Lead program, where Krish, Altaf and Violetta shared with us their experience. In Crimea we have a project, called Young Leaders Club that seems similar to me. So I became very curious to know how does L2L train young people and how we can learn from its more than 10 years experience.

In the evening we had an opportunity to meet people from IofC in Sheffield. We all gathered in a cozy house of David and Judith where the meeting was very much family-like.

It was raining all the time, while we were in Sheffield, maybe just to let us experience the classical English weather, just as from the books of Dickens:)

In Nottingham where we stopped on our way to London we visited a school and had one-hour presentation/discussion with the students, after which we went to the house of Richard Hawthorne for a nice meal.

Skit we played in the school helped to think afterwards together about our life experience, hopes and dreams, hurts and fears.

Next day in Greencoat Place, which is IofC centre in London, there was a big gathering with a lot of people invited specially for this event. The topic of the day was “Where do we go from here?” Looking at a nice invitation leaflet I even got a bit nervous. It all seems so serious, what are we going to contribute to the day? We don’t have time to prepare for the event – will we have what to say, will we find the right words?

It turned out to be not so scary:) That was a nice day with a possibility to meet old friends and to get to know new, to talk to people and to listen to them.

On Sunday we had some time just for sightseeing and we went down the Thames to Greenwich Village. That was a beautiful trip where I finally felt that I’m in London – the city with it’s own spirit and history. Was funny how all the texts about “London is a capital of Great Britain”, that I was learning by heart in school in English classes, came back to me by recognizing all the famous places!:)

In Greenwich

Across the world's divides:)

Being in London, I for the first time in my life saw so clearly how much are mixed up all the nations and cultures in the world. Made me think about my own identity and what is MINE place on the planet.

Lena