Today was the last day of my first “tour” as a volunteer at the Ocalenie Foundation safe space for children in the Ukrainian Refugee Humanitarian Aid Center in Przemyśl, Poland; it was also the first day that we played musical chairs with the kids! Most days there are so many kids at so many different age levels all needing attention, we volunteers don’t really have much bandwidth to organize games with formal rules (even such simple rules as for musical chairs). But today, the chemistry was good. We had a small group of kids, maybe less than a dozen, ranging in age from an infant of eight months up to a couple of girls who were about ten years old. Most of the kids played very nicely together and there was only one mischievious boy who needed to be watched closely to make sure he didn’t ride one of the bicycles out the door and down the corridor.
Giving credit where credit is due, it was the two ten-year old girls who suggested playing musical chairs. These girls had lots of ideas and liked to organize people. They were busy for much of the day explaining to us volunteers how to play various other sport games too, in addition to musical chairs. All in all, it was a pretty fun day for volunteers and kids alike, and a very pleasant last impression of this month-long experience at the Humanitarian Aid Center.