Where's All That Video Footage?

Who can believe it’s been 2 years already since my training? Some of the readers of this blog have been with me from day one. Listening to me recount my observations and all of the firsts I was experiencing. The stories about living in Tanya’s house. Living in Ukraine. And about life in general. The first three months were both a whirlwind and an example of living in slow motion compared to the life, I at least, left behind. Our training started March 21 in Washington, DC and ended on June 16, 2011 in Kiev. I knew it would be a new life for me and one that I might want to remember. From that first morning in DC I grabbed my video camera and started asking people who I had never met before questions about their hopes and fears. We all had the same jitters and doubts, but this footage is my proof that everyone was feeling the same way I did. Well, I kept the camera rolling throughout training, hoping one day to look back and possibly rewatch the first meeting I had with people who would become lifelong friends (you actually see the first moment I met both Sara and Amy). As I boarded the train to my site on June 17, 2011 the camera had 27 hours of footage on it.

My first couple of weeks at site were a little slow, to say the least. School was out for the summer and my working credentials had not been approved by the regional governmental administration which prevented me from entering- let alone meeting with ANY governmental department (like Departments of Education, Justice, Youth Services, or Social Services etc.). I had little better to do, so I started compiling the video footage. It didn’t take too long and I felt that I had a finished video that I thought would serve as a record of my training. But, as I looked at it I realized there was so much footage of my cluster (the other 4 in my training group) that I thought they might be interested to see it too. Patrick was the first of the group to see it, but it took until March 2012 for Sara, Noelia, Amy and I to be in the same room together to show it to them. I got some great feedback from the gang and had a few people ask for a copy. Unfortunately, all of the footage was shot in High Definition (you’d never know it from the looks of the video though) and the file was prohibitively huge (13gb). I would show it to anyone who wanted to see it, but it wouldn’t fit on any flash drive. I had it on my computer and there it stayed.

Fast forward to the Close of Service conference I attended two weeks ago and people start to ask, “what ever happened to all of the video you shot in DC?” or “we heard about your video and want to see it”. I agreed to show it one of the evenings and was shocked at how many people wanted to see it. For me it was a great way to mark the end of my service with everyone reflecting on their own experiences- what seems like a lifetime ago. I thought it would be boring to those who I wasn’t particularly close to and had limited or no footage of (remember some people trained hours away from me and I just never saw them), but again, I got some really nice feedback from people who weren’t even in it. I guess everyone saw something they could relate to in their own experience. Several asked for a copy. I had to keep explaining that the file size was too large, but that I would make an effort to get it online somehow for anyone who wanted to see it again. Well, this week with the help of my wonderfully talented wife, Eleonora, I was able to get the thing posted on Youtube.

I promise I will not be offended if you are reading this and not interested in this video. But, if you are interested here is the link: http://youtu.be/INanH8h5O5M