Back to the Nest

 During my layover in London on my way back to the States!

The night before Thanksgiving in 2004 I landed back on American soil after twenty-six months living in Ukraine.  My brother and sister and I had conspired to surprise our parents with my arrival.  Peace Corps is a twenty-seven month commitment, but volunteers can leave within thirty days on either side of their official date.  Withholding this little tidbit of information from my parents meant that they thought I was getting home right before Christmas rather than Thanksgiving.

It was a pretty spectacular surprise.  My brother and sister concocted some scheme to both get out of the house in the same car to pick me up at the airport.  They greeted me with flowers and took tons of pictures, mostly because they knew our mom would be upset that she missed my official arrival at the airport (incidentally, she was a little distressed that there was no "Welcome Home Margaret" poster, which had been part of her plan).  Our parents saw us come up the front walk, past the family room window and my mom just thought "Oh they brought a friend with long brown hair home."  Then I walked into the family room and said "Hi."  It took a few seconds for everything to sink in and my mom kept saying "Margaret, what are you doing here?"  Later that night she confessed to peeking into my room while I was asleep to make sure that it wasn't all a dream and I really was home.

The first month or so that I was back was great.  It was a whirlwind of holidays, parties, and nights out to see friends I hadn't seen for two years.  I spent some time acclimating myself to American society as well.  One moment really sticks out from the first week I was back.  I was in the car with my dad when he said he had to stop and get some money.  To my surprise we went into the Safeway.  Since when were banks in grocery stores?  One of the things I missed the most when I was in Ukraine was good cereal, which is still my breakfast food of choice.  So I told my dad I was going to go grab some cereal and I would be right back.  Ten minutes later he started to get worried.  He found me in the cereal aisle, completely immobilized,  holding four boxes of cereal and staring at the endless boxes on the shelves.  In Ukraine, you were never guaranteed to find anything stocked in a store again -- particularly a western product like cereal, particular in a small town or village like I lived in.  I just couldn't make a decision about which box was the most important to me at that moment.  Eventually my dad made a decision for me and coaxed me out of the store.

As my reverse culture shock dissipated, the reality that I was unemployed and living with my parents at the age twenty-four started to hit me.  I was applying to grad schools and knew that I wouldn't be moving until I knew where I was going.  Within a few months I'd decided on New York and was substitute teaching, but I still felt somewhat embarrassed and inferior for not having my life more together.  I would meet guys at bars and they would innocently ask, "So where do you live?" and I would respond in one quick breath:

"withmyparentsinrestonbutIjustgotbackfromthepeacecorpsandI'mmovingtoNewYorkinAugust." 

Come again?  One of the hardest things about coming back from Peace Corps is realizing that while you've been having the adventure of a lifetime, everyone else has been going about life as usual.  Firmly ensconced in careers, relationships, apartments and driving cars they hadn't bought used in high school, most of my contemporaries seemed completely put together . . . which probably wasn't all that true, but it felt as if they'd all gained all this ground while I was gone.  Even now, I still feel the twinge of having "lost" two years of my life from time to time.

So, living with my parents again was a bit of an adjustment from being so absolutely alone for so long.  One of the things I found most annoying was my stuff not remaining right where I left it.  In Ukraine I would frequently dump shoes or my school bag right in the front hall and keep stepping over them until I needed them again (an annoying habit that's resurfaced since I've become roommate-less once again).  At my parents I would put something down and never be able to find it again.  When asking my mom about the whereabouts of the item, she would inevitably, irritatingly, reply with a vague and aloof "It's around," and a wave of the hand to indicate where "around" was.  Harumph.    

Also, after four years of college and two years of living at the ends of the earth, I had become pretty independent and self-sufficient.  My parents, however, still had a kid in high school and had some trouble distinguishing between appropriate parenting for my little brother and what might be best for their freeloading, but grown, adult daughter.  I wasn't so interested in describing my plans down to the last detail, no matter how innocent the activity. 

Having a deadline, or due date, for the end of my stay at the Hotel of Mom and Dad made it bearable.  Sometimes it was pretty fun too.  And you can't beat the rent.  Oh how I miss the rent . . .

 With my family in the front yard of my parents' house for brother's high school graduation toward the end of my time living there.

Rebecca, Mom, Peter, Dad, and me

All good things come to an end

By the end of the summer of 2004, I'd set my official departure date, or Close Of Service, for November 17th.  My friends and I chose the earliest possible date in order to travel to Turkey for a week and still make it home for Thanksgiving.  Before I could do all of these fun, exciting, and somewhat scary things (I hadn't been back to the States at all during my twenty-six month service and was simultaneously terrified and overjoyed at the prospect), I had to say goodbye to my town.

Despite all of my trials and tribulations, I loved Khotyn.  It had a certain small town charm and aesthetic quality that I loved.  I also came to love my students (despite occasionally being driven crazy by them), and my colleagues (even if my explanations as to why I was unmarried were never sufficient), and all the great people around town who made my life easier (the lady at the bank, my bazaarchyk lady, the man at my favorite mahazine).  So I set out to wrap up my affairs with a heavy heart.  I'd stopped teaching a week before I was to leave Khotyn (I also had to spend a few days in Kyiv doing paperwork and final departure things at the Peace Corps office before leaving the country all together) in order to make sure everything was ready to go.  I made something like 400 cookies and muffins for my last days with my students and took pictures with every class.  I made more cookies and muffins for the teachers and gave special American teacher tote bags to some friends who'd really helped me along the way (You know, the ones with apples and "world's best teacher" and such on them.  Ukrainian teachers carry everything in plastic grocery bags).

Last Day with 10-B

Massive amounts of goody-bags

Irina, my coordinator, shows off her new tote-bag.

Speaking of Irina, as it got closer and closer to my departure date, she began treating me like a particularly offensive piece of garbage -- not a friend and colleague who'd basically given up more than two years of her life to help a community in a far-off foreign country.  I mean, I didn't expect a ticker-tape parade, but a little appreciation would have been nice.  Instead Irina announced that she wasn't even going to be around the weekend I was leaving.  Great.  As if leaving wasn't hard enough.

The summer before Irina had gotten it into her head that her only hope of financial independence was to work in the U.S.  She was a 29 year old single mother who made about $60/month in 2004 (teachers had just gotten a raise from $40/month in the run-up to the 2004 elections).  She lived with her mother and her seven year old in a two room house with no running water and a heater she installed herself after digging a ditch to bring in the natural gas line.  Her ex-husband gave her $5 in child-support every month and hadn't seen their daughter in two years.  I was absolutely trying to help her to the best of my ability, but the thing that Ukrainians never seemed to understand is that I had NO IDEA how to get them to the U.S.  I was born here.  I have the pretty, blue, magic passport.  I was the least likely person in the entire country of Ukraine to know anything about immigration since I'd never had to do it.  I'd been checking on the companies Irina had found in order to make sure they weren't scams.  Ukraine has one of the highest rates of human trafficking in the world, and many people are duped by employment scams into lives of sex-slavery.  I certainly didn't want that to happen to anyone I knew, so I tried to check on their legitimacy.  I'm not really sure what Irina was expecting I could do, but when she didn't have a job secured by the time I was about to leave, I think she saw her dreams leaving as well.  And she took it out on me.

Eventually another English teacher offered to help me get to the train with all of my stuff on the day I left since Irina had decided to check into the sanitorium for her "pressure."  This course of action is not all that uncommon for Ukrainians, and we volunteers could never figure out what it was really for, other than a vacation.  The night before I left, Irina called me to go over some last minute details.  One of them, of course, was the issue of my landlady Myroslava.  Irina had called her that day, Friday, to tell that I was leaving the next day, Saturday.  Initially I was like, seriously, you haven't talked to her about this before now?  I mean, we Americans like to plan -- my current lease requires me to give 30 days notice before moving out.  Ah, Ukraine.  How disorganized you are.  Anyway, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because evidently Myroslava was none-to-happy about the apartment.

"Margaret (pronounced Mar-gar-et), Myroslava Vasilivna is very upset with you,"  Irina reported.  "She says that you have made nails in the walls and used her sheets and opened a wardrobe she closed."

"We spoke about those things this summer and I explained to her if she wanted to get some things fixed and give me a receipt I would pay for them.  I cannot do anything about it the night before I leave," I replied, irritated that this was even an issue.

"Well, Margaret, she is very upset.  She says you need to pay rent for using her things."

"Rent?  Rent for using the pans and the laundry basket?  Rent for hanging up my clothes in the wardrobe?  This is ridiculous.  I am not paying for those things.  You'll just have to tell her that won't happen.  I said I would pay to have the nail holes filled in the wall, but rent?  Ridiculous."

"Margaret, you must talk to her.  I do not know what to do."

"Irina, it's very difficult for me to speak Ukrainian on the phone.  I'm not sure I'll be able to convey my message," I said, irritated that Irinia wasn't willing to stand up for me.

"Fine Margaret," she shouted as she hung up the phone on me.  That was the last time I ever spoke with her.  

Meanwhile, crazy landlady who, thankfully, lived an eighteen hour train ride from me took the initiative to give me a call.  Our conversation was not at all productive, although from a linguistic perspective, it was fantastic.  I've always been able to hold my own in oral arguments in English, but in Ukrainian on the phone was quite a coup.  Anyway, I digress . . . Myroslava kept telling me I needed to pay her, so finally I just said I would.  I doubted that she would ask my school for the money after I left, but I didn't want to run the risk.  So I asked Myroslava how much she wanted.  "Oh, I don't know, how much do you think I should get?"  she replied.  I told her I didn't know how much contractors cost in Ukraine.  She asked me again how much I thought I should give, meanwhile I was thinking about $10 (a week's salary, about a week's rent), but unsure so I told her again I don't know.  And she replied, "Oh, about sto doloriv."

"STO DOLARIV!"  I scream.  "STO DOLARIV?  Absolutely not.  You will get nothing from me!  I may be an American, but I am not stupid!"  I shouted as I hung up the phone.

Those of you who don't speak Ukrainian or Russian probably don't understand what I was so worked up about.  She asked for $100!!!  That's two months salary in Ukraine.  NOTHING costs $100.  A train from her city to my village was about $5.  A week's worth of groceries was under $10.  A dinner at a really nice Western-style restaurant in the capital with drinks was about $10.  You could actually take a taxi from my town to the capital, 450 km away for under $100.  Absolutely absurd.

By the next day I'd calmed down about it a little and decided to leave 100 Ukrainian griven (or $20) with the English teacher helping me leave to cover anything, with instructions to give nothing to Myroslava without a receipt and to keep the rest and take herself out to dinner.  I said goodbye to Khotyn while trying not to also say "good riddance."  When I arrived in Kyiv the next day, Oleg, the king of regional managers, stopped me to say that Myroslava had actually called him to complain.  He told her it wasn't his problem and that she'd gotten a much higher rent than she'd deserved from me for more than a year, so she could use that to pay for anything she'd thought had been damaged.  He said to me, "Well, you are out of there and soon you going home.  You need to smile about it!"  Oleg, you're the best :)

             

Um, so, how was it?

This is Peace Corps Week, celebrating the 49th Anniversary of the Executive Order signed by President Kennedy establishing the Peace Corps. In honor of this, I'm actually going to deviate a little from the normal course of things and not focus solely on my crazy housing situation. I'm reaching the point in my narrative when my Peace Corps service is coming to an end, and a point in my service in which I started thinking a lot about what it all meant. Peace Corps as an organization often poses the questions: "What does your Peace Corps service mean to you?" or "How has you Peace Corps service impacted you life?" The question I've most been asked since I returned five years ago is: "Um, so, how was it?" A pretty impossible question to answer, actually. How to explain that you experience your highest highs and your lowest lows during your service? How to explain how unbelievably lonely you can be while feeling love and gratitude from an entire village for your presence? How to explain that there's nothing fun about using an outhouse in the middle of winter, but something gratifying about not being phased by even the nastiest first-world bathroom? In reality joining the Peace Corps is the best decision I've ever made and has changed me fundamentally as a person, but again, how to explain the gratitude I feel for having had the opportunity to have such an amazing experience?

Well, tonight I'm going to try to convey all of that, what it means to me to be a volunteer, how the Peace Corps has impacted my life, and most importantly, how it was. I actually wrote this while I was a volunteer, in the last few months of my service, it started just as a personal reflection and morphed into a grad school essay. I do, in fact, mention my apartment, so I guess I'm not deviating completely from the purpose of my blog.

“Running. Ugh,” I think, as I pull myself out of bed on an August weekday morning. All I want to do is stay under the covers, but my water turns off in two hours and I have to finish my run and take a shower before it does. My rural town in Western Ukraine is on a water schedule. We only have water from 6:00 to 11:00 in the morning and from 6:00 to 11:00 in the evening. I groan and look longingly at the coffee machine as I pull on my t-shirt. “Gotta do it. No gym here.” I try to motivate myself. I pad into the hallway to put on my sneakers, caked with mud from my last run on the unpaved roads. As I lock my door, one of my neighbors stares me up and down and shakes her head. “Crazy Amerikanka.” 

As I head down the street I pass chickens, mean geese that start to chase me because I’ve gotten too close, horses grazing, and goats napping in gullies. There are the old babucyi (grandmothers) who look like they’ve stepped out of another time, wearing galoshes and wool tights no matter the weather, their kerchiefs wrapped around their heads, with wrinkled faces staring out and wondering why that Amerikanka isn’t wearing a hat. I grumble some more as a man yells “Sportsman?” at me and laughs hysterically at his joke. I pass School No. 5, my school, where I’m not just the weird Amerikanka who has strange habits, but where I’m their Amerikanka, oddities and all. I smile. I miss teaching. I miss my students. I miss hearing my fifth formers ask me, every day, in turn, “Miss Overbagh, bingo today?” and having my sixth formers cheer when I give them a word search. I miss the funny way my Ukrainian counterpart says “Oh, that is very interesting,” when she’s not completely convinced about a new teaching technique I’ve used, but that she will without fail introduce in her classes the next week. I wonder if the German teacher has had her baby, or if Susanna, a recent graduate has been accepted into the translation department at the university like she dreams. I laugh to myself, garnering some more strange looks, as I think about all the times I’ve been pulled out of class, or called into school from my apartment to explain to a group of visitors how we received our new computer and internet lab, what the Peace Corps is, and the most pressing concern, how exactly an un-married twenty-four year old girl can live by herself.
 

I start running towards the town proper, my least favorite part of the route. The more people around, the more I’ll get scrutinized. Things look more similar to America here: there are cars and buses, stores, and public buildings, shoppers, and children. But at second glance, everything is old, withered, in disrepair. There are soviet style apartment blocks, tiny stores in the town square, horses pulling carts to and from the bazaar, people in BMWs as well as ancient Ladas, and women who dress like prostitutes to go work at the bank, the post office, the town administration. 

My mind starts to wander as I run out of the town center again. Just me, the badly paved road, and some stray dogs. I think about the Harry Potter book I’m re-reading for the umpteenth time, where the kids are preparing for exams, and I’m jealous. I miss academia. I want to be right there with the characters in the book, studying, writing papers, feeling that rush when you know you’ve aced an exam. As a graduate student I probably won’t be taking classes on potions and the history of magic, but I’m prepared to go back to school to study the more mundane subject of education. 

I run on and turn right, following the paved part of the road towards the town’s revered fortress. When the Ukrainian president came to its one-thousandth birthday celebration, the road was paved in his honor, but only to the fortress. An old thatched roof was also replaced on a house nearby, and a new fence erected. I shake my head at the absurdity of it: a president not permitted to see how poor his people really are. Suddenly, the fortress is in view. Even now, almost two years since I first saw it, it still takes my breath away. The massive fortress walls surrounding the castle overlook the Dnister River, just as when they stood fast before the Turks and the Russians centuries ago. I reflect a bit and then turn around, remembering how lucky I am to live here. I think about the huge tourism project my students and I did, which culminated in them leading English Language tours around the fortress. My students were so enthusiastic, so proud of themselves. They were so surprised to see Americans excited about their little town, having assumed that nothing in Ukraine could top anything in America. They were overjoyed at the ease with which they were able to understand these visitors. They made me proud to be their teacher.

I’m heading back into the town, passing more people, trying to ignore them scoffing at my red face and my sweaty pony-tail. I smile at some kids I don’t know, who say “Hi” to me. I walk around the back of my building, ducking my neighbors’ drying laundry and head up the dark stairwell, thinking about how different my life will be in just a few months time when I’m back in the U.S. It’ll be strange, exciting, and scary all at the same time. But I’m ready. It’s time to head on to new and different things, to start my life as a graduate student and to bring my experiences as a teacher in a developing country back to teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages in urban schools in the U.S. that likely need as much help as my school in Ukraine. 

As I unlock my door, my outlook is completely different from when I left. I’m awake. I’m ready for the next adventure. I open the door and my apartment sounds eerily quiet. What’s missing? The familiar gurgle of my somewhat dysfunctional toilet. The water is off. Early. Ugh. Now I’ll have to boil water for a bucket-bath. Typical Ukraine.

Peace Corps Ukraine

Group 23

2002-2004

Taken at our Close of Service Conference in August 2004

One Full Year of Bliss

Apparently, getting a landlady who lived on the other side of the country was key to my happiness.  For one full year, I lived completely unmolested in my lovely little apartment with both heat AND hot water.  I even had internet and splurged on a cordless phone, relegating the rotary phone made by the Soviets in 1980 (the year I was born) to the closet.  I never even heard from Myroslava, the landlady, with the exception of a vague promise she made to my coordinator to come by sometime during the summer to check on the apartment.

Given my history with crazy Luba, I didn't particularly want Myroslava in the apartment.  Luba had had a problem with the most ridiculous things, like leaving a chair in the middle of the room, that really weren't any of her business, and I just didn't want to deal with all of that again, especially since my service was coming to an end in November.  I was hoping I'd be out of town when she was around, but just in case, I didn't answer any local calls (the ring is different for long distance, indicating people I actually wanted to talk to) when I was home.

She outsmarted me, though.  One afternoon, shortly after a weekend visit from a bunch of volunteers from other villages, there was a knock on my door.  "Маргарет, это вашa сусідka," (Margaret, it's your neighbor, in a mix of Russian and Ukrainian).  I looked through the peephole, and true enough, there was my neighbor, so I opened the door.  It wasn't just my neighbor.  My landlady was hiding around the corner, and she barreled her way to the door, which I unsuccessfully tried to shut before she got there.  I tried to explain that the place was a mess, and I was embarrassed (both true) and that, if she came back in a few hours I would have it clean.  She, literally, pushed her way into the apartment.

Then she started her barrage of complaints.  Why was I using the sheets she left there?  Why was I using the pan she left there?  Because you didn't leave them in spot we decided on in the spring.  The spot where you would leave anything you didn't want me to use.  Why did I move the couch from the bedroom to the living room?  Why was the table in the bedroom?  Why did you rearrange the kitchen?  Why did you put up a shower curtain?  Why did you put pictures on the walls?  Because I live about 6,000 miles away from home and I wanted to make this place mine.  I will fix it all.  Americans have this thing called a security deposit, where you pay your landlord ahead of time to ensure no damage is done.  I will leave the apartment exactly as I found it when I moved it.

After griping a bit more (Why did you put a hammock on the balcony?  Because the one time I tried to read in the park a drunk man asked me to touch his snake, and I'd like to read outside without that bother, thank you very much), she finally left.  I locked the door, on which the locks had been changed, and vowed never to open the door for the neighbors again.

Life is all rainbows and butterflies when your landlady lives an eighteen hour train ride away.

Doing Laundry in the Lap of Luxury

1.  Make sure the water is on.  You will not have enough reserve water to do laundry.  If you are on a water schedule (6:00 AM to 11:00 AM and 6:00 PM to 11:00 PM during the week and 6:00 AM 10 11:00 PM on the weekends), be sure to start and finish your laundry during the designated hours.  If the water turns off while the clothes are soaking, you will just have to leave them there until the water turns back on.

2.  If you do not have a hot water heater, or a kulunka, you will have to boil water to do your laundry.  Fill the largest pot you have and put it on the stove for around 30 minutes.  If you are lucky enough to have hot water, you will only need to light the kulunka or make sure your electric hot water heater is working before proceeding on to step 3.

3.  Take a laundry bucket and place it in the bathtub.  For large loads, you'll want to use a big, plastic laundry tub that takes up half of the bathtub.  For smaller loads, just use a large, metal bowl.

4.  Put detergent in the bottom of your tub of choice.  Add hot water (either from the faucet or the stove).

5.  Add clothes and swish around a bit.

6.  Leave the clothes to soak for at least an hour.

7.  Remove the clothes, rinsing them with clean water as you go.  If you have hot water, you may do this with any temperature water that comes out of your faucet.  If you do not have hot water, be warned -- the rinsing water gets numbingly cold very quickly, but it is not economical to heat up the rinsing water.  It takes too long to heat up too little water.  You may want to take breaks if you can't feel your hands anymore.  Be sure to ring out the excess water.

 

8.  Hang the clothes on the line on the balcony, rain or shine.  For special winter laundering instructions, please see number 10.

9.  Remove the clothes when dry.

 

10.  SPECIAL WINTER INSTRUCTIONS:  If you have an apartment heated by radiators, you will want to use them to your full advantage.  Drape as many wet clothes as you can across the radiators in a single layer.  Hang the remaining clothes outside.  Periodically check on the inside clothes, rotating their positions as some parts dry.  Remove each item when completely dry and replace with outdoor clothes, which will most likely, at this point, be frozen solid.  Continue the rotation until all of your clothes have thawed and dried.

It's a stickup!

 

 They're standing on their own!

Tour of the новий будинок (ukr for new digs)

 Welcome to Dudnichenka Street, my new home.

Come around the corner of the building to enter through the back, as is customary in Soviet-era apartment blocks.

Make yourself at home and head on in the left-side door.  No need for a buzzer system in the village.

Walk up to the third floor.  Be careful while climbing the stairs!  Each step up is a slightly different height.  Fine communist craftsmanship at work.

 

I'll just let you in to apartment 8.

Take your shoes off in the entryway.  It's important to keep the dirt from the unpaved roads out of the apartment.  Don't worry, I've got spare тапочки (slippers) for you so you don't catch a cold from walking around barefooted.

   

First let's head to the living room.  Have a seat on one of the omnipresent Ukrainian couch-beds.  Plan on staying a little longer?  Don't worry, they're great for sleeping too!

The floor's not too bad either!

Check out the snazzy Шафа.  You can store your clothes, assorted knickknacks, and books all in one place!  And if your landlady inexplicably locks them and you have nowhere to hang up your clothes, they are easy to break into using brute force.

 

They also double as a quiet place to make a phone call during a party.

 

I suppose you might want some tea and cookies.  будеш чай?  чай будеш? What a terrible hostess I am.  Lets walk to the kitchen.

Sorry about the mess, but the water isn't on during the day, so I can't always wash my dishes in a timely manner.

  

We also have coffee, blended drinks, and distilled water.

Let's have a seat at the table on the stoolchyks.

Would you like to check your e-mail?  We can do it in the bedroom.  Don't worry, it's only 6 kopecks/minute during the day.  We don't need to wait for evening prices (3 kopecks/minute).  Let's just hope the phone line is working.

This is the office side . . . 

. . . and the sleeping side . . . 

. . . and the entertainment/ironing side.

Oh!  You need to use the restroom?  Too much tea, I suppose.  Right this way.

This is the toilet room.  See that little door to the right?  Open it up and turn the red handle clockwise in order to fill the toilet-tank with water.  What?  It didn't work?  Oh yeah, the water's off until 6:00 PM.  There's a bucket of water for flushing behind the door.

 

Head across the hall to the shower room to wash your hands.  The sink sure looks pretty, but remember you'll have to use water from the bucket below the sink to wash your hands right now since the water's off.  At least when the water's on it's hot!

See you next time!  Hopefully you'll come back after I put the hammock up on the balcony where the clotheslines are on the left.  What a nice, private place to relax!  Thanks for coming!  Goodbye!

Herding Goats and Living in Yurts

 

O.K., so maybe I wasn't really living a nomadic life, but I was moving around a lot, with no fixed address, and living out of my backpack.  There were also a lot of goats wandering around . . . although the only person I ever saw tending them was a drunk old man drinking samahon at 10:00 in the morning.

My first stop on this leg of my journey was the Peace Corps office in Kyiv.  My train, the one that took 10 hours to go 450 km (which is about 260 miles, or the distance between New York City and Washington, DC, which the Bolt Bus does in 4 hours), also got in at 5:30 am.  About the only thing I found that managed to keep me awake until the rest of the world woke up was to go running.  It was pretty amazing, actually, running through the completely deserted streets of the city, down the main drag, Khreshatyk, with almost no one awake and very few cars on the road.  It always calmed me down and focused me, and by the time I got back other volunteers on other overnight trains had arrived and life was beginning to return to the office.  I'd take a quick shower (they had showers installed specifically for the purpose of volunteers using them after getting in on overnight trains), and then run over to MacDonalds as soon as it opened at 8:00 to grab a morning Big Mac (the Ukrainians are not so keen on breakfast food, so even MacDonalds doesn't have a breakfast menu).

Khreshatyk in the winter

 

So, this July morning that I arrived at the office, I went for run, had a hamburger, and then headed to Oleg's office to figure out the rest of my life.  He basically told me to hang tight and wait until they got some more information to see whether it was really in my best interest to pull me from my site.  Meanwhile, I e-mailed a few friends to see if I could stay with them for a while, rather than lurk about in Kyiv making my situation more obvious.  Luckily, my closest volunteer (the friend who hosted my birthday party) offered to let me stay with her, although she wasn't there at the moment, and was leaving within a week.  She was headed to Kyiv in a couple of days for a meeting and then we could head back down together.

Excellent.  Small piece of the plan in place.  Next, Oleg realized that the Country Director would be in my region visiting volunteers around Final Moving Date.  Somehow he finagled a ride to my apartment in the official Peace Corps vehicle, with the Country Director, to make sure I could get in.  This part of the plan, which made me more nervous than hanging out at a friend's place for two weeks, also involved a contingency plan for my apartment not being empty -- we would load all of my stuff into the White Chariot and I would be gone from my site for good.

So then I spent a couple of weeks in Kamianets-Podilsky in my friend's apartment.  She was there for the first week, and then I hung out by myself the second.  On August 21st, 2003, I went to another nearby city, Chernivsti, for dinner with the Country Director and some other volunteers and spent the night with another friend in her village.  The next morning, the White Chariot swung by and we began our trip back to Khotyn to my hopefully vacated apartment.

 

  The Country Director took this picture outside my building because he thought it was funny that I called our ride the White Chariot

In a fully functioning vehicle, the trip took about half the time it normally did.  When we got to the building, I was pretty nervous, and all three of us trooped up the stairs to apartment 8.  When I opened the door it was empty!  It was all mine!  We all looked around a bit, and even the Country Director was impressed with how nice it was.  He snapped this picture of me in my kitchen because he thought the sunflowers were nice and cheery, and worth the wait: