Dear Friends, Family, Supporters, & Congregation members,

Once again I want give my thanks to everyone for your continued support. The letters, postcards, emails and many messages have been a constant uplifting in the last month.

As with any move adjusting takes time and since my last letter I feel that I am pretty well adjusted to what life will hold here in Munkacs, Ukraine. In this letter I will share a bit about the area and begin sharing the details of my work here.

For those who followed my soccer updates from Northern Ireland, I hate to inform you but the Cliftonville Reds (My local team) have started off the season and haven't been doing so well. Which leads me to another part of my life here in Ukraine, yes Munkacs has a soccer team but my heart is tied to the Reds but I have become involved in soccer elsewhere. The Director of the school I teach at coaches a young boys team and I am now assisting him to train his team on Saturdays.

Trans-Carpathia is situated in the far west of Ukraine near the Romanian, Hungarian, Slovakian and Polish boarders. As for its history Trans-Carpathia for 1,000 years was part of whatever form Hungary took. Following the First World War the region was voluntarily given to the newly formed Czechoslovakian Republic. Following the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia it was given autonomy and as the war ensued Hungary came to control most of it again. As the end of the war approached it was back under Czechoslovakian control and was ceded in 1945 to Ukraine under a Czech-Soviet government agreement, which brings us up to the present. As I mentioned before I am living in Munkacs or Munkachevo if Ukrainian, which has near 90,000 people. The Hungarian population is around 10% of the total population, which leaves most of the people here ethnically Ukrainian, which creates its own set of problems for me here. As the best estimate that we can formulate there are around 5,000 Roma who live in Munkacs.

This month is will focus on my work at the Ukrainian State School for Roma. The school is housed in an aging complex of two buildings. The school has 480 students registered to attend it, which means that these students will have registered and at least attended one class throughout the year. Realistically there are about 250-350 students each day. There are 9 grades so to speak. In the younger classes the children are split into either A or B classes, A being the brighter and B the slower class. Children begin school at around 6 or 7 years old and leave sometime after 16 if they stay in long enough. It is interesting to observe the class make-ups because in the younger classes there are far more girls attending but by 6th year it switches to mainly males attending. There are many reasons for this, one being that families will keep their daughters at home to begin doing housework and sometimes the girls get married (15-16 years old). The school is very similar to the "Separate but Equal" schools that were in the South; low funded, deplorable classroom conditions and poor level of teaching/education. This school's goals are for the students graduate from here and then attend a trade school afterwards to learn a skill. The State School right now is in a state of transition. They got a new Director (Principal) two years ago who has made large strides in addressing the schools shortfalls. Currently the building is having renovation work done to it, from structural work to cosmetic. The largest achievement is that we are getting radiators installed in the classrooms so they will now be heated through the Ukrainian winter. These are old used radiators but once they are fully installed it will be large blessing for the students regardless of how old the radiators are or where they came from.

At the Ukrainian State School for Roma I teach English. I teach in two classes and each day they are different which means I get to mostly every class once a week and the few I don't get to I begin with the next week. I teach for the most of the class and then for the last 10-15 minutes we do music. I have begun to teach them children's songs in English as a way to improve their pronunciation and it keeps them interested.

On November 21st Ukraine will have its run-off election for President. Its importance was obviously drowned by the US's election coverage but nonetheless an important one. The run-off is between Prime Minister Yanukovych and Yushchenko who was the previous Prime Minister. Yushchenko is supported by most of the opposition while the government supports Yanukovych. The importance of this election is that dependent on the winner Ukraine will increase ties with Europe or Russia at the expense of the other. The main notion floating around here and internationally is that the government will fix the election much in the same fashion of the election recently in Belarus. Many feel if this happens there is the possibility of an extreme civil discord and heavy protesting/political uprising. Nothing will happen until the election is decided and even if the government's choice wins nothing may happen. If you want more information on this election email me at my below address. Also just to downplay any fears, being in Trans-Carpathia there is very little chance of anything happening so I will be safe.

If you were given this letter by someone else or happened to come across it and would like to be added to my list of people I send this too then feel free to email me at Brenton_NI@yahoo.com If you have any questions or anything please send me an email at the above address. For those who have been waiting I have now updated my photo page on my website http://brenton-ni.blogspot.com/ with photos from Hungary and Ukraine and as always my letters are posted there too. One technical update, when receiving this letter you might have received it from one of three addresses. One being my main one above and the other two being Brenton_tex@yahoo.com and Brenton_ee@yahoo.com, please is possible reply to the main one, I seldom check the other two.

I lastly want to thank everyone again for your prayers and support. If in your prayers you can include Ukraine as a whole as its elections are within a week and also my continued attempts and learning Hungarian.

Peace,
Brenton Thompson
Roma Project YAV