This year's "Zymovy Tabir" at our gorgeous oselia at Baraboo Wisconsin, was probably the most fun I've ever had! It was my first year and I was a little hesitant about going, but I'm glad I went. There was hardly any snow, but we still managed to have a great time.

During our stay at oselia, we live at the "brown house". Every day, a different rij had to provide everyone with food. My rij, Kutia, was up first on making dinner and somehow we managed to cook one-hundred hot dogs. Throughout our stay, we enjoyed a variety of foods.

We had a vohnyk, a small fire, the first night. We stood around and sang carols and classic Ukrainian Folk songs. We had performances by BIHOK, Druh Andriy, who sang the Oscar Mayer Bologna song and Druh Yuriy, who performed some Ukrainian rapping for us.

One day, we were woken up early, taken downstairs, and told that we had two minutes to eat cereal with water. Some komanda members had a band with the nazi symbol around their arms. We were still confused as we changed and were taken outside. Some campers attempted to escape. To our relief, other komanda members were the UPA and came to rescue us. This was all a new type of “terenova hra” introduced to us by Druh Adrian to show us a small example of what some Ukrainians went through during wartime. This led to a hutirka where Druh Andriy gave us some facts about UPA.

One of the main things we did was go day and night skiing and snowboarding at Cascade Mountain. I’ve never gone skiing before but actually found out that it’s easier than I thought.

We also went ice skating and caroling. We went swimming in one of the hotels we caroled at. Back at oselia, we played “Terenova Hra”, or Capture the Flag, and Football. Everything we did was a lot of fun.

We also had a lot of fun at the brown house. We spent time in our rooms or in our cozy living room where we would play cards or just chat with friends. We were also allowed to take walks around oselia as long as we didn’t go too far.

To sum it up, “Zymovy Tabir” was a lot of fun. Even the drives were fun! I spent time with friends I don't see very often and tried some new things. I’ll be returning next year!

written by Olia Serhijchuk

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