Diabetes project in Ukraine provides hope: a translator's experience (01/12/97)

Diabetes project in Ukraine provides hope: a translator's experience

by Maria Lewytzkyj

PACIFICA, Calif. - Veselka (Rainbow) is the name of the camp on Ternopil's outskirts where I spent one week in July with diabetic children, as part of the team representing the Ukrainian Diabetes Project.

My interest in the project began when I met Andrea Skrypka, a neighbor Californian and director/founder of the UDP, at a Ukrainian National Women's League of America gathering. She showed a video of some diabetic children brought from Cherkasy to America last year. I was touched. Andrea listed Ternopil as one of the cities UDP planned as a camp site for the 1996 summer. Coincidentally, I planned on meeting family there at the same time.

Andrea told me that in Ukraine diabetic children are treated as invalids. Anticipating my observation that plenty of Americans with diabetes live normal lives, Andrea explained that education regarding diabetes in Ukraine is lacking. UDP's mission is to change Ukraine's approach to treating diabetes. I immediately volunteered as her translator.

As translator, I met my first challenge at the camp's opening ceremony when Andrea greeted the 92 children plus mothers and grandmothers. Would my Ukrainian be understood? I believed it would. I was there as a messenger, to communicate Andrea's vision - herself a diabetic - to fellow Ukrainians. I was understood and even mentioned in an article and on the radio as well versed in Ukrainian.

The first night, the parents, who have formed the Buratino Society, greeted us with overwhelming thanks at a dinner in our honor, where children and the restaurant's hired talent performed for us. Adorned in Ukrainian costumes and their prettiest outfits, a few children presented us with embroidery and autographed wooden boxes. Within their desperate fights to improve their children's lives, Buratino representatives were grateful for UDP's efforts.

This welcoming set an encouraging mood for the work the UDP and the children would perform during the week. The children learned about living well with diabetes, the importance of regular blood sugar analyses, how to maintain daily logs, and how to test their blood sugar independently - a concept many hesitant parents accepted. Following the last instructional session, we handed each child a year's worth of insulin and supplies.

At Veselka, circling a grassy field, the stage and its benches, 12 barracks housed children and the youngest campers' mothers or grandmothers. Since the age ranged from 4 to 19, we divided the camp into groups to best communicate age-specific issues. With the camp medical director, Liza Levok, and the camp director, Zinovii Dobenyko, we agreed on a class schedule for the youngest children accompanied by their parents, pre-teens and teens. Needless to say, the youngest ones found it a challenge to sit still. One 4-year-old's grandmother caught her breath when I relieved her and ran after her grandson as he exited the classroom for the fifth time.

For three classes a day, two local endocrinology students, Ira and Tanya, and I translated for Andrea and Shama Roderick, both dietitians specializing in diabetes. We were able to combine my understanding of Andrea's fast English with their medical knowledge and intimacy with contemporary Ukrainian. As a result of our collaborative efforts, the translations were precise.

Often the children would get a good laugh when they watched us struggle to find the best way to translate a concept. Imagine pre-teens' reactions to the procedure of using test strips to detect sugar in urine. Lucky for their giggles, the children didn't need to suppress them, since we came to teach blood testing as the most accurate method.

Olia is one girl who stole my heart - a part of which resides with her in her grandparent's home on Lva Tolstoho street. Olia is a fragile 8-year-old girl whose shyness rarely allowed her to honestly share whether she felt her blood sugar level to be low or high. Her pale face sweating, she'd secure herself at her grandmother's side or hold her sister Nadia's hand tighter when I asked her if she felt okay.

Over the few days, we grew attached. When I hugged her, I did so gently, and she'd smile when I approached. Her grandmother, too, often guessed how Olia felt - she'd measure Olia's sweating or sudden weakness as red flags.

Olia and Nadia are generally quiet, she told me. She believed it came from the tragedies they've faced at such young ages. Their mother drowned during the last year, and their father abandoned them. They live with their grandparents, who exist meekly on preposterous pensions. Complicated by diabetes, these facts of Olia's life seem to justify her timidity.

I bonded with her immediately and spent many good times with Olia, providing her with understanding and hope. She and Nadia are going to send me their artwork.

The wealth of colorful personalities and genuineness the children offered surrounded me during a camp whose theme, in Ukraine, is viewed despairingly. The camp proved something very valuable to me and the children, the five core volunteers of the UDP team whose hard work and perseverance made the camp a reality, and the excellent camp staff.

Even though the issue of children living with diabetes is very serious and involves proper education and care, the means of doing so should provide hope and a good time. Thus, the children staged skits, recited poems and held competitions that we judged. The most hysterical competition was between six teenage boys donned in dresses and heels, answering dating riddles and quickly folding pyrohy.

Olia, her friends Yura and Natalka, and the rest of the kids and teens I met revealed they want to make our message a reality: control your diabetes and you can live a full life.

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