The beginning of Ukraine

Saturday, August 4, 2007 2:08 PM

Hi Everyone,

A recent photo of Cari and me

My trip to Ukraine began with the frantic anxiety that comes with moving overseas, albeit a bit more than necessary. In hindsight, moving places for me is never a good idea, and I should have realized all would not go as planned (the year before I had moved from Wisconsin to Florida, losing my car in a spectacular and traumatic road-side break-down somewhere in Tennessee, forcing us to rent a car the rest of the way.) Nevertheless, I woke up the day of my flight anxious yet excited for what was to come. I had stayed over at a friend's house, my flight left from Chicago around 6:00 PM and she lived two hours away. I had come to Illinois to say goodbye to friends and family and, after a couple of farewell parties, I was ready to be on my way. My friend, Cari, had to work the early part of the day but planned to arrive home around 12 so we could have lunch and take a leisurely drive to the airport, arriving a good two hours before my flight left. She was at work when I realized the contents of my hotel sample shampoo bottle had spilled into my cosmetics bag, but by the time she arrived home, I had it all cleaned up. We pulled my two enormous suitcases up the stairs of her basement apartment and out into the car. All was ready and we joked as we prepared for the drive. It was at this point that our smiling faces turned to teary-eyed paniced ones. The keys, we soon realized, were not in her purse. Nor were they in her car or (and believe me we checked) any of her pockets. It so happened that the very item we needed to begin our two hour trip to the airport (and my seven hour flight to Poland where I would then take a 2 hour flight to Kiev), were sitting on the kitchen table, along with the house key. We were, as it turned out, locked out of the house and therefore, refused access to starting our car. Our first thoughts were to try the windows, perhaps one had been left unlocked, however, that was soon deemed unlikely and we sat to go on to plan two.

            Plan 2) Call the landlord and beg him to run over and let us in. This too, failed, as the landlord refused to pick up the phone. Plan 3) Knock on the neighbors' doors and gain access to a phonebook in order to call a locksmith. The woman who answered the door, wearing a  muumuu, daytime soaps playing in the background, was very kind and understanding and lent us the use of her phonebook. Cari called the various numbers of locksmiths in town but received answers from no one. Plan 4) Call the Sheriff's office and see what advice they could have for us, advice that turned out to be call a locksmith. In the meantime Cari had put in a call to her boss, explaining the situation and hoping she would have some better advice for us. In a moment of inspiration, and salvation, she offered the use of her car, so plan 5) became, borrow bosses car to drive to the airport.

            45 minutes after our planned departure, Cari's boss Jessica pulled into the apartment building parking lot and we loaded my suitcases into her car (we had to get them out of Cari's trunk by pulling them through the backseat, not an easy feat). Once inside Jessica's car panic set in one again, the car was a manual, and, although I would be able to get us to the airport, Cari wouldn't be able to get back home. Plan 6) Take Jessica's husband's truck to the airport. So, finally Cari and I were rumbling down the highway in the biggest truck I had ever seen, and Cari had ever driven, on our way to the airport. And we weren't doing too bad on time, I'd arrive an hour ahead of time, instead of the leisurely two I usually like to have.

            Being a little late, Cari decided perhaps our best chance of making up that time was to take a way that could end up being a little faster, a shortcut if you will. This shortcut however, ended up being not nearly as much on the short side as we would have liked. In fact, it turned into a dead end and we had to double back, (a quick note, doing a y-turn in an enormous truck is not as simple as it seems.) What is more, within doubling back we became ensnared in a construction related traffic jam. I had now become a bit nervous, we were losing precious time and I was afraid I would miss my flight altogether. Once through the construction site, however, we flew down the road and finally found ourselves on the entrance ramp to the freeway. From here on in, we foolishly thought to ourselves, it will be smooth sailing, we were a mere 20 minute away and the truck was equipped with an I-pass, enabling us to cruise by tolls. Yet again, our plans were foiled, traffic on the freeway had begun to accumulate and we found ourselves anxiously chewing our fingernails in agonizingly slow-moving traffic again. Plan 7) get a new flight for the following day and spend the night in a hotel, so as not to have to go through the same thing again. Having finally arrived at check-in I tumbled out of the car, suitcases in tow as Cari wished me luck.

            The line was short inside and as I panted up to check-in saying, “I hope I made it,” the guy merely glanced at me and asked for my passport. Ten minutes later, I at least knew my luggage had made it onto my flight, now I just had to get myself through the never-ending line for the security check-point.  At this point, according to my ticket my flight was boarding, however, I was still waiting in line. I asked a guy ushering people into straight lines if he thought I'd make my flight but he simply pointed to my line. I made it through security and ran to my gate and up to the desk to ask if they'd started boarding. The woman simply told me to take a seat, and finally I had a chance to breath.

     As I looked around, I saw that the waiting area was thronged with children and I overheard someone say, "there's 46 of them." A couple of the children were wearing shirts that said 'Children of Chernobyl Camp..'. They were all yelling and laughing in Russian. "Great" I thought, "I hope I'm not sitting next to any of these screaming kids." As it turned out my seat mate was a 6 or 7 year old boy, who, according to a name tag, was named Danil. Danil was seated by the window, and I on the aisle, across from all his friends. Danil spent a lot of time yelling over at his friends, especially to a boy named Vlad. I tried to relax into my seat excited to begin my Harry Potter book but Danil's yelling and constant moving made it hard. As the plane took off, I offered a piece of gum to Danil hoping to bribe him into good behavior. After a while Danil fell asleep and I got into my book. 

                    Soon there after, our meal came and Danil woke up. He asked for a coke from the drink cart and I prayed the flight attendant knew not to serve caffeine to minors after 7 at night. Unfortunately he didn't. I continued reading and tried to ignore Danil as best I could. As the rest of the cabin went to sleep the kids' behavior got rowdier, including pillow fights. I apparently was the only one watching them and spent my time reading and sporadically yelling, "come on you guys, you need to settle down." Finally I put my neck pillow on and tried to sleep. After a while I pulled out my eye mask, and after a little more time I put on my MP3 player. Every sense was blocked. Eventually Danil went to sleep and I dozed a little. After about an hour I woke to Danil throwing his head against my shoulder and encircling my arm with his little hands. I knew he must miss his family, and, with his hand holding on hard to my arm, I fell asleep too. 

               I woke to food being placed in front of me and soon we were descending to the Warsaw airport. After waiting in long lines for passport check, I arrived at my next gate and looked for a guy named Devin. We had exchanged emails, he also was a new teacher for the American English Center, and we had decided to try and meet up since we would both be on the same plane from Warsaw to Kiev. He described himself as having glasses, brown hair and a boyish face. I made eye contact with someone fitting this description but about ten years older than I imagined so I decided to ignore him and continue my book.

        On the next flight I got a whole row to myself. I stretched out and relished the hour and a half flight to Kiev. When I arrived in Kiev, customs went smoothly and my luggage came quickly. I walked through the exit and looked for a sign with my name on it. A tall girl with dyed red hair that was dreaded in the back was holding my sign and we introduced ourselves. She also introduced her friend, another faux redhead, and we waited for Devin. After about 45 minutes of waiting the driver came in and I  went back to the car with him to wait there. He didn't speak any English. A half an hour of waiting in silence was interrupted when the driver pointed to the steering wheel and said something. I just stared at him. He repeated himself and I said, a little hesitantly, "Steering wheel?" He pointed to the clock and said something else, I'm silent, he repeated himself and so I repeated him. He said the word more slowly, I copied, he pointed to the mirror and said something, I repeated, he pointed again and I said "mirror" he repeated me, then he pointed to the clock and I said "clock", he repeated. We sat in silence again. 

      Soon the faux redheads came back with Devin and they crowded into the back seat, along with all of Devin's luggage and I stretched out in the front. I watched the landscape as we drove by. We were in a suburb of Kiev and after dropping the friend faux redhead off, we headed into Kiev. It looked very gray, with tall apartment buildings unadorned and concrete. We dropped Devin off first at Jonathan's, the program's HR director, house and then went on to my apartment. I would be living at Linda's apartment for the month of August. She'd be out of town until the 13th, until which time I could have her bedroom. But after the 13th I would be sleeping on the couch. Her apartment was small but cute, and when I arrived I bathed and relaxed, after telling the redhead that I would prefer not to take a walk around town after a 14 hour flight

My first apartment in Ukraine

.

             At 7:30 I called Jonathan and he said 'we're going to meet everyone at 8 for dinner.' He said he'd meet me in the lobby of my apartment building. We walked down to a busy street with Jon pointing out the school I'd be training at along the way. When we arrived at a pizza place, we meet three other guys. And soon a girl named Carolyn joined our group. We wandered around for a while and then followed the river to a little outside eating area. We waited for about an hour but were finally served some slow-roasted pork and vegetables. It was delicious. We stayed and talked for a while but I was getting tired and Devin was absolutely exhausted so we headed back, and I soon found myself resting peacefully.

            Today, I woke up at 7 and couldn't fall back to sleep so I read for a while and then decided to try to take a nap in which I slept until 4. When I got up, I headed to the supermarket for some food. There was a slight mix-up when the lady asked if I wanted a bag and I just stared blankly at her. She pointed to the bags and I nodded. Apparently you have to pay for them..

      Afterwards I returned to my apartment and just read. I am now at Carolyn's apartment using her internet. I don't have internet at my place yet but hopefully soon. I have a cell phone but can't use it to call long distance but I can receive calls: I think the country code is 380, my house phone number is ... and my cell number is ... Hopefully you can get a hold of me. If not look up online how to call. Remember I am 7-8 hours ahead of you, so if you call at 5 in the afternoon, it will be midnight here. But you can probably call me anytime tonight since I got so much sleep today. I miss everyone and am a little lonely for you all. Love, Jacy