Watching the groups of young people pass by on the ride home was relaxing. The techno music blaring on the radio added to the ambiance. I had just watched train pull away from the central train station after saying goodbye to Terah. I said out loud, “well the vacation is over,” before realizing that I was once again enveloped by a world with nobody to talk to.
It’s been awhile. This is actually the first time in almost three weeks that I’ve had time to write anything. It’s been a good three weeks, filled with travel and friends. As I sit here in my apartment I keep expecting to hear the footsteps of someone else in my apartment. It’s weird to only hear the hum of the refrigerator again. I turn up the volume on iTunes so the lyrics of U2 fill the silence. “…All that you can’t leave behind…” The loneliest time here is the day after saying goodbye.
Two and a half weeks ago Megan and I boarded a train at the very same train station. We arrived at the train station early, real early - 4am early. I had successfully called and ordered a taxi to take us from my apartment to the train station, completely in Russian and it all worked. It’s great when things work like that, they usually don’t here. We managed to survive the 23 hours in 3rd class and arrived in Ivano-Frankisvk at an equally God-awful time of the morning. We were greeted by our friend Jonathon. Over the next couple of days we had to the opportunity to realize just how different life is for the PCVs of the west. In addition to having a more western town with close access to mountains and nature, Jonathon has an amazing apartment. Hardwood floors, a modern bathroom with a working toilet, and even a washing machine. Not that I’m living in a hut in the African plains, but my Soviet style apartment reminds me where I am on a daily basis. I do get a good laugh each day when I wake up to the hideously wallpapered ceiling. Who wallpapers the ceiling? Ukrainians, apparently.
After a couple days of hanging out in Ivano, eating together and laughing a ton, we hopped on a bus down to the town of Chernitsi near the border with Romania. From there we were whisked into the rolling hills of the Capathians and “American Camp” where we were scheduled to work for the week. After spending a month or so in vast concrete of the industrial east, the rolling hills and green forests were a sight for sore eyes. I could finally breath deeply. I was in Ukrainian heaven! The camp food was… well, camp food, but I didn’t mind it. I spent the days playing sports with kids and counselors… basketball and soccer mainly. I felt healthy for the first time in over a month. We helped the Ukrainian counselors with the English lessons and allowed the kids to hear native English speakers in normal conversation.
After finishing our work at the camp we spent a day in Chernitsi and attended a presentation of US Embassy personnel at the local “Window on America” center. These centers are sponsored by US Embassy and located in most of the olblast centers in the country. There is one in DP but its working hours are few and far between. The presentation was about American culture and played up many of the common stereotypes of America. After the presentation there was a brief Q&A session where we had the opportunity to hear some quite entertaining questions by an odd fellow decked out in dark sunglasses. We were pretty certain he was drunk.
A couple days later I said goodbye to my friends and hopped on a train bound for Kiev. I was excited to meet a friend who had just finished up her Peace Corps service in Azerbaijan. It was strange to think that my friends from Azerbaijan group 3 were finally COSing (Close of Service) and heading home. Terah and two other members of our AZ3 group arrived at Boryspill Airport and we spent the day touring Kiev. Kiev was much prettier than I remembered. The main park is incredibly green and a really enjoyable place to walk. It was fun to hear the stories from Azerbaijan. It was also a good reminder of how nice Ukraine is when compared to Azerbaijan. I once read somewhere that once you leave a place you immediately begin to forgive it. I had forgotten what life in Azerbaijan was like during the two years since I left.
After a couple days in Kiev, Terah and I took a train to DP and she become my first overseas visitor. I now realize that DP is a much nicer place to visit if you have a friend to explore with. I gave her the official Mike tour of DP, showed off all of the casinos, and we had lunch at the Mexican restaurant near the river Dniper. I have to say that the Mexican food was probably the worst example of Mexican food I’ve ever experienced. But, now I know. We also took a day trip to a city further down river. The visit to this particular city had one benefit, I know it’s not worth visiting again. Now I have a whole new category of pollution and blight. I was surprised to be glad to return to DP. This place must be growing on me or something.
Looking back on her visit, I’m quite thankful to have had Terah as a guest. She is an incredibly positive and encouraging person, just what was needed in my life at this point. She forced me to go out and interact with the town, something I had previously been avoiding. I even discovered a few places where I can go when the negative thoughts hit. One of these places is a shopping center I had passed often but never ventured into. This shopping center has a nice food court with a tasty restaurant called Pazata Hata, which translates to something like “house of being full” or something close. This restaurant is a cafeteria style chain restaurant which has a variety of traditional Ukrainian dishes like borsht, vereniki, and okrowshka. Terah’s visit was also encouraging that it reminded me of the finish line, whenever that time may be. She has definitely earned that ticket home after two years in Azerbaijan. Now she is a RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer) and can look back at her time in Azerbaijan with pride knowing that she accomplished something unique and noble.
This is definitely not the experience I was expecting when I initially applied for Peace Corps. The usual advertisements and brochures show dramatic scenes of PCVS serving in exotic places like Africa, where they experience physical hardships such as no electricity or running water. Those hardships are not part of my daily experience here in Ukraine. Instead they are replaced by more subtle difficulties. Subtle things that creep up on you slowly and with stealth, like getting used to the cold concrete blandness and the general feeling of oppression that seventy plus years of communism leaves on a place. You don’t even realize it until you are removed from the landscape and find yourself immensely impressed with a few green hills or with a kind smile from a stranger.
Photos from the trip