What to say. And what to say first.

It is a Thursday night in Saint Petersburg and the temperature is hovering somewhere around -6 F (that's -21 C, which sounds a lot more impressive). For the last two weeks I've spent 30 hours or so in coffee shops from Seattle to Brooklyn, Dostoevskaya to Vosstaniya working on my Central European University application. Most of that time and most of those over-priced Americanos were dedicated to that ever frustrating Personal Statement. 500 words in which I'm supposed to convey nothing short of my life story and motivation for study. Where does one even begin with a theme like that? Luckily I'm not asking that question anymore, so I'll tell you where I began - and where I ended up.

A blank page, an over-caffeinated body, and a little Bon Iver. I stared. I typed a sentence. I deleted it. I stared some more. Typed more. Deleted more. The words of Robert M. Pirsig came to mind.

“You're trying to think of what to say and what to say first at the same time, and that's too hard.” -Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Pirsig was spot on, as usual. I knew what I needed to say. I knew what I wanted to say. I just didn't know how to start the whole mess. So, as the hilarious cliché of my generation that I am, I went to Facebook.

Facebook → Giavana → Photos → Albums → Украина. Это Дома.

And there it was. Ukraine. Bogodukhov. My children. They were the beginning. They were my beginning.

Everyone has moments in life which shape them, challenge them, show them something completely new. For some, these moments are many. For some, they are simply experiences. For others, internalizing such moments means a profound life change. But time has the same affect on everyone. We bury them in memory. They become distant. I am no better. I know that my month in Bogodukhov changed me. How else did I end up living in Russia? But what are the details of that moment? How did it feel to step off of that bus six years ago? To be surrounded by a language I couldn't understand. To build relationships with children whose lives were so distant from my own reality. To see something I had never seen before. To know I wasn't helping. To know I couldn't help. To sneak off to the lake for an afternoon swim. To eat borsht everyday, twice a day. To run through fields of sunflowers. To know that I would go home in a matter of days. To know this was their home. To know they didn't have a choice. What was that like? And how did it bring me here – walking down Nevsky Prospekt, consumed with thoughts of Ukraine, consumed with thoughts of my CEU application, consumed with trying to understand myself and my future. My frosty breath swirling around me, cars racing down the streets, people waiting for the bus, clothing shops, children in snowsuits, dog-walkers, couples, tourists, restaurants, fast-food, the metro, Saint Petersburg. 

It all goes back to Ukraine. And it always will. I began to write. This time, I didn't delete.

“Approximately sixty percent of these girls will enter into prostitution.”

I meditated on the words of the orphanage director as I gazed out of the window to a group of children playing football in the fields of Bogodukhov, Ukraine. I counted ten girls. For six of them, prostitution would likely become their only means of survival; a survival with potential psychological, legal, and health risks. I had been teaching English and sexual education to these children for a month, yet I knew there was nothing I could do in one month that would change their situation. While I was looking at these girls through the eyes of a young Western student, I was still a woman living in a world of widespread gender inequality, and their situation resonated deeply with me. In this moment, I felt a thirst to understand the complex dimensions of these gender-related issues in Eastern Europe.

Here's hoping