Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Oh my life and days.

I’ve been out of Ukraine for nearly a month. I’ve been traveling the UK for nearly a month. I’ve been with friends and family for nearly a month. Goodness, it has been a glorious month. Stepping off of my Ukrainian International Airways flight and meeting Mom and Erica was ridiculously surreal. Then, having ten days to revisit some of my British Isles Quarter highlights with them was just brilliant. While it felt a bit soon to already go back to cities like Cambridge and Stratford and reminisce my time living and studying there, I secretly loved feeling like the comfortable “been here done that” tour guide. I can’t pretend I didn’t get us lost or confused a few times, but we did just fine for ourselves. We saw loads of plays, visited ancient historical pubs, and soaked up the history that this country is practically drenched in. What adventure could be better? That bit of family and home was just the fix I needed. But it doesn’t stop there…

Dropping Mom and Erica off at the airport I immediately picked up Shelby, fellow SPU student and former part of my SMC staff all those millions of years ago when I was an SMC in the dorms. Having just graduated, she was gifted a plane ticket to anywhere by her parents. Making the best decision of her life, she decided to make her way on over here to the motherland to hang out with me for the three weeks I had left while that troublesome Russian visa was processing. With dwindling finances on my end, a two-man tent purchased by Shelby, and an adventurous spirit between us, we booked a hostel in London for one week but left our other two weeks completely open. We explored London top to bottom spending days in museums, going to the Ballet, wandering new boroughs, seeing local theatre, and frequenting the market. This being my third visit to London on the trip I thought surely I had seen most everything previously, goodness I hadn’t.

Straight off the plane and into Kensington Gardens. Shelbster rocks the idiot grin.

As our week was coming to a close, we looked at the empty two weeks ahead of us and decided it was time to make a few plans here and there. Decision number one: let’s go to Swansea. The major factors in choosing this location really had to do with three things: bus tickets to Swansea were extremely cheap, it was in Wales, and Joanna Newsom sings a song about it. The last one was really the deciding factor for me. So we went, and pitched our tiny tent on a family owned farm that stood on magnificent cliffs overlooking the Ocean. Our immediate conclusion was that we were geniuses, when we chose blindly we chose very well. We may not have gotten the best sleep of our lives on the hard ground without proper sleeping bags, but days spent seeing castles, laying on the Welsh beach, and hiking the cliffs along the ocean surely made up for it. Making friends with old ladies at the bus stop didn’t hurt either. We extended our visit for a bit longer and plotted where our adventures would next take us.

Check out the baby tent.

We extended our visit for a bit longer and plotted where our adventures would next take us. Finding ourselves at a “Y” in the road we had to choose between going North to Scotland or South to Cornwall. Somehow we made the best decision of our lives: going south to Cornwall. Cornwall Cornwall Cornwall…you do beat all.

Oh my life and days, I’ve got no idea where to begin in describing the most fantastic week of our UK adventure.

After a few emails and phone calls with my friend Chris Parker (former intern at Oasis-Bend) it was decided that we would stay with his family in Truro and perhaps do a bit of camping around the area. Staying for just a few days and camping during those few days soon became a ridiculous idea when we realized that this was the most fantastic family and place. A few days turned into a week, and our one friend soon grew into a slew of English mates and a family we wouldn’t mind adopting. We kayaked, boated, hiked, enjoyed cream teas and crumpets, went to pub open-mics, cooked, sat around bon-fires into the wee hours of the morning, danced, and had the most excellent conversation I’ve had in a very very long time. The genuine spirit of this family, the overwhelming hospitality and the amazing wit of this family was like nothing I’ve experienced before. Truly, I do not exaggerate. Shelby and I were in no way ready to leave at the end of the week, but London called. Thoughts of returning or somehow visiting are already milling around in our minds. They will forever be milling around in our minds.


Some of the Parker Clan.

Windy Cornwall Beaches

This is Cornwall.

And so, I am back in London for the fourth time…the penultimate time. Shelby is flying home to Seattle and I am running around the city taking care of last minute things before I begin what I have waited so long for: Russia. I’ve got my visa, I’ve got my itinerary, now I just need to wait for my fellow travelers to arrive and my plane to leave on the 28th. I don’t know a single person in my study group or in the vast Russian country, but I do know that I love this culture and this language and I am ready to spend the next three and a half months learning, living, breathing all things Russian.

Monday, August 2, 2010

The Four Corners of Ukraine

These are stories from Ukraine.
On my first solo trip to Ukraine I got to see some good friends, explore a new side of ukrainian life, work in a few camps and see the four corners of this beautiful country I might just have to call home. These stories aren't what they should be, but hopefully they give a glimpse of my month.

This is Ukraine.

Day Two: Korestan

It is two in the afternoon and I am sitting under the shade of an enormous tree in Babushka Nadia’s garden. The table before me is filled with potatoes, borsht, fresh vegetables slathered in mayonnaise, kielbasa sausage, and raw eggs. I am firmly encouraged to eat it all, and every time my plate starts to look a bit empty I am accused of eating too little. Dedushka Tolik, wearing just a pair of shorts and a straw hat which reads “Vancouver” sits on the steps in front of the house smoking a cigarette. The garden, exploding with vegetation all around us, is largely what has produced this excellent and traditional Ukrainian meal, and the vicious chickens that roam among the potato and tomato plants are surely what produced these raw eggs. Babushka Nadia rambles continually sometimes in Ukrainian, sometimes in Russian and as desperately as I try to understand, I keep turning to Vadim to act as my translator. And, oh yes, I am here with Vadim. My dear dear friend that I have not seen in two years. It was surreal enough just to think about seeing him, to have him pick me up at the airport, but then to spend three days in his hometown meeting his family and friends in the place in which he grew up, truly I feel as if I am living in a dream. I am swiftly shaken out of that dream as I see Vadim cracking a small hole in both ends of the egg and then swiftly sucking out its raw contents. It is very good for your health I am told. Babushka Nadia vigorously nods her head and watches me until I pick up my own egg and hesitantly crack the first small hole. Ignoring thoughts of salmonella poisoning or even just the idea of swallowing a raw egg whole, I swiftly take my own gulp and there, it wasn’t so bad at all! The rest of our afternoon is spent swimming in the beautiful river just 20 meters from their home and meeting the neighbors who have wandered down to do their laundry in the river or simply take a dip themselves. My Russian is improving, my skin is growing darker by the minute, I have been eaten alive my mosquitoes, and on top the of the raw egg, I have also enjoyed my first slice of pig fat and fresh garlic on bread. This is truly an outrageous cultural experience, and I count myself blessed in getting to experience it.

Blinchiki Lunch with Babushka Nadia.

Day 9: Zakarpatia

Under the mountain and stagnant air around me presses down heavy and forgotten. I carefully place each foot on the thin wooden planks that hover delicately above the narrow water filled passageways through which we climb. There is little light and little room in this labyrinth under the Zakarapatia mountains. Voices fill the echoing tunnels, some singing, some shrieking, some conversing in hushed whispers. While it would seem that I have somehow entered into the world of Lord of the Rings, I travel not with a troop of elves, but rather a band of Ukrainian children. Our feet carry us through the catacombs of Ukraine, most likely old tunnels and bunkers left of from one of the many wars Ukraine has endured. I am in the first week of my first camp and already these new kids have captured my heart. They always do.

Camp Zakarpatia: These are my girls

Day 17: Crimea

After two weeks spent in rainy Zakarpatia, a rough 18 hour train ride, and a ferry ride across the Simferopal bay, my heart is simply bursting to be in Andrevka. I have heard much about the Crimea. The Crimea! It is the Ukrainian Mediterranean, heavily influenced not just by its naturally Slavic roots, but by its neighbors across the water: Turkey and Greece. It is the Black Sea, it is the Crimean Mountains, it is vinyards, it is beaches... We drop off our bags at the unfinished, under-construction home of a friend where we are staying, throw on our swimsuits and run down to the beach. We are met by pristine blue water that stretches as far as the eye can see. Tall cliffs loom above the sandy beach. Men selling kebabs, kvas, fruit, pastries and fish roam the beach. A babble of Russian rises of from the sun bathers, swimmers, and beach campers. I am ready to be one of them. For one week I am to live, eat, breath the Crimea. Let this week never end.

The Black Sea

Day 27: Bogodukhiv (Home)

I am looking into the faces of children who have seemed more like dreams and distant memories for a very long time. My hands shake as the nervous idea that they won’t remember me creeps into my head. Still, the idiot grin of overwhelming joy spreads across my face as I realize this is reality. I am seeing my kids. I am seeing my home. And there they are on this hot summer day, lazing about the orphanage courtyard just as I left them. Contemporary rap music blasts from a first floor window and my heart skips a beat when I see that Dima is manning the CD player. And here comes the band of boys, no longer boys but young men: Lova, Eura, Babyshka, Vitya, Max…Grins spread across their faces when they see Vadim: their friend and mentor, and then shock when they realize who I am. I hear my name: Это Джия! It is Gia! Relief and joy. They haven’t forgotten me either.

The younger kids start coming into the courtyard and I can feel the buzz of excitement spread through them just as I felt it when I stepped off the bus here for the first time two years ago.

Stop. There he is. My Iliya.

And I hug him as I have wanted to do for two years and I must fight to keep back the tears. There is just no denying it, he is my favorite.

The trumpet sounds and I know exactly what that means: lunch! I am ushered into the cafeteria as kids splash me with water and as “Bon Appétit” is said over and over again. It is like déjà vu. So much is the same: the process, the words, the place, and yet me kids are different. I look into their faces and see how much they have grown, matured and changed in two years. Taller, stronger, more sure of themselves. I have missed so much.

The idiot grin in action. This is joy.