Optimistic IWCK president
While spending a weekend in Odesa, I took a walk with a friend along the seaside and talked about maintaining a positive attitude about life, living in the moment and being open to new experiences. Upon my return, I had a similar talk with Crystal Klimavicz the president of the International Women’s Club in Kyiv (IWCK). We had a short walk along Kyiv’s fresh morning streets, dropped by Kafka coffee house, got comfortable in snug couches, and ordered drinks.
Crystal shared many of the thoughts and attitudes of my friend. However for Crystal these ideas are a set of guidelines she has followed for a long period of time and have had a positive effect on her life as she is brimming with optimism. “You should do as many things in life, and while doing so not think or worry about anything else like time or plans,” she exclaimed, “That is why I like running, when I am running I’m not thinking about anything but the run.” With such an attitude, I could see that Crystal and her husband picked the right place to live as she said, “Ukraine is a country where people do not plan anything in comparison to Western Europe or America, which is a good quality.” She went on to say that it is still necessary to be organized in life and always move toward your goals.
Crystal and her family arrived to Kyiv about two and a half years ago on the New Year’s Day. “We literally stepped off the plane, went to our apartment on Gorkoho, went downtown and people were everywhere, the first impression was great,” she recalled. Before coming to Ukraine they visited Lithuania and Russia, yet Kyiv is their first experience living abroad as ex-pats. And coming from Atlanta, Georgia to Ukraine was really challenging, Crystal acknowledged. First of all because of the cold winter that greeted them that year.
Another difficulty was connected with differences in mentality. “Last summer I brought my son’s nanny home (to the US) with us to help. In America when you make eye contact with somebody or meet someone you always say hello,” and on “the second day she asked me how do I know all these people?” It took me several minutes to understand where the question was coming from, Crystal laughingly recalled.
However in Kyiv a positive discovery awaited Crystal as well. According to Crystal, here she learned that everything; past experience, impressions, assumptions are relative. Another thing she got to know was that “when I have a difficult situation, a positive experience is around the corner, someone has helped me on the street, when the day before no one did,” she shared with a warm expression on her face. “When you think that people are not good or life isn’t good all you have to do is just wait a few minutes and you’ll have another experience,” she concluded.
Crystal took over as a president of IWCK in June of the last year and will step down this coming June, when she shared a secret, the current treasurer of the Avril Bailey club will take over. Crystal’s charity organization activity coincided with her past experience back in America, where she studied speech communication, public relations, marketing, and had a master’s degree in healthcare management. “I learned some diplomatic skills that I didn’t have before, it is challenging to work with a group of women,” Crystal remarked and admitted her passion for challenges. She explained that IWCK conducts three events a year, two of which are fundraising and one is devoted to the introduction of the new president and committee and “is a possibility to say thanks to everybody.”
Crystal noted that she doesn’t know what she’s going to do after the new president takes over, yet the next moment she already claiming to be “jack-of-all-trades” and has so many ideas in her head and so many things she wants to do. According to Crystal, her passion is teaching; now, for example, she gives kickboxing lessons to children in a small gym.
As Crystal shared, one of her dreams is to write a book and has already started to work on it. After a small hesitation she told me that it will be about change, how women learned to accept change, and the realization that all changes are good, even if you don’t realize it and appreciate it at the time. “One of the reasons why I want to write a book and have it published is because of my son, I want him to be proud of me,” Crystal confessed.
