travel logged

08Nov11

It is not very often that I have a chance to travel with someone. As a child, we would mostly take roadtrips to Houston, once a trip to the Davis Mountains (my favorite part to Texas), once a trip to places, where unbeknown to us, blue code laws were in still in effect – so much for the one day trip on a Sunday, once a trip to places to ride wild donkeys, faint, and break a window (none of this in succession), and finally, a trip for me to actually get a chance to see snow before heading off to college. However, for the last nine years, I only need one hand and a half to count the amount of times I’ve traveled with someone.

For some reason, my narrative of solo-traveling is changing. Enter October 21. I met with a UN volunteer from Japan in Kyiv, who happened to have been a part of Japan’s version to Peace Corps. It was awesome to share experiences and ideas, and to know this experience, this life is not an anomaly of being able to work at a very grassroots-based, community level. We bonded over the reality that the last 6 months of the 2 years, are the busiest, most amazing part. After that meeting, I had a few hours so I  bought new pants, which were desperately needed as the pants I was wearing were threadbare and faded past the idea that they were actually jeans. The final part of the day included heading to the airport, sitting with another PCV, people watching, and finally, seeing two chanced upon friends walking out of security. The friends? Over a year ago, I sat next to a woman on the plane, and on the 21st she arrived to Ukraine with her nephew to visit me, see the projects that’s she’s contributed so much to, and to get to see a side of the world that it would be very difficult to travel by yourself without prior knowledge. Once at the train station, we had an hour to eat, and relax before heading to my site on an excruciatingly hot 11-hr train ride to be in time for the next day’s MASCOT Fall Session.

I’m pretty sure the rapid extent of their first week here, culminated in quite a bit of exhaustion. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that what I find so normal, is actually different for people just being introduced to life here. Within the two weeks they were here, there were 2 seminars, 9 lessons, 2 trips, and a million photos. Because they were here, I decided it would be a good excuse to take a small vacation. I’d realized the last time I took a ‘vacation’ – where I didn’t do any work at all, or intentionally created a space to not think about projects at all, was my COS conference in February. For the fall vacation, I decided we should go to Yalta, partly because I’d never spent any time there, and partly because it’s fairly nearby. The coolest attractions? Balakclava and Nikitsky Botanical Garden.

Balaklava is the museum in the hidden submarine port, and is nicely deceiving. Most of the time, you’re walking through empty tunnels, speckled with missiles or 2 feet-thick sealing doors, looking at insanely clear water, but then there’s rooms galore with different types of memorabilia. Honestly, one of the things that’s most humbling in living here, is that as Americans, we learn about history; however for the most part, world history feels detached – the offhand learning of “this happened there – not here” – but to live here in Ukraine, holds that experienced reminder of “this happened here because of there.” I don’t think my friends who came were expecting to find WWII tanks in every city, or that in every establishment, there’s monuments upon monuments memorializing WWII, Afghanistan, etc.

The Nikitsky Botanical Gardens were something it would be possible to spend the entire day walking around. The moment I spotted prickly pear cactus, something inside went, “FAMILY” “HOME!” In total, there were 5 of us hanging in Yalta for the weekend. It was a fun crew and myriad of people. We all did a bit of souvenir shopping (I’m trying to be more proactive in this so it doesn’t stress me in the bud come May). There, I found my ultra-kitschy post-pc mug that I almost passed up in the refusal to admit in 6 months I’ll be gone from here.

After Yalta, it was a small trip to Voznesensk to show them the Mosaic, and life in a smaller town, which was great, and one of the main points to being here as the woman I met on the plane, donated some really nice tile to be used on the mosaic. Have no fear! The yellow grout will fade and age with beauty. It was really great to be back there for a moment. As much I love my space, place and life here, there’s still a part that misses my community there.

Next, on their trip, enter preparation for the Writing Beyond Reality creative writing seminar series. Check it out here. Basically, this project is creating a different branch and ideas to what I’m doing here. I planned into this last year, thinking I would continue to work on civic leadership through creativity, but the actuality has turned more into developing creative thinking skills through other outlets. One of my favorite parts to this project is that it means doing a project with other pcvs who’ve become family.  But the actual favorite part to WBR, is that we’re looking at creative writing from a perspective that breaks the discourse of creative writing as impractical. Next month’s seminar is our last seminar to the project and I’m interested to see what it develops. Next month, we’re focusing on and practicing publishing…whoa! The top five publishing venues we’re looking at? Book Arts, Sound Art, Zines, Performance, Online Publishing.

Finally, shortly after the seminar ended, we all got on trains and headed to Kyiv as it was time for the friends to go back to America. I got to share a compartment ride back with one of my best, most visionary pcv friends, which was cool, as it’s hardly ever just the two of us hanging out. Usually, there are other dynamics going on. In discussing future collaborative projects, she asked me when my COS date is, and maybe it was out of exhaustion, or coming down out of the excitement to the last few days’ WBR seminar, but that question nearly had me cry in the realization that it’s now a necessary question and  May feels so imminent. In one way, I want nothing more than continue working and doing what I’m doing now.  In another way, I’m excited to see my American family and friends again – ready to learn and do something a bit different.

Upon arrival to Kyiv, we stowed away our luggage, walked around before everything opened up on Sunday, looked at more tanks, bought souvenirs, and then hung out in an apartment with an amazing slippery floor, had some orange fanta floats, and then it was time to send them to the airport…the last part to the life of the last two plus weeks? A solo bus trip back to here. Within the duration of the trip, I started and finished a novel. No I didn’t read it exceptionally fast – it just took that long to get here.

Now, it’s onto the dual life, stepping fully into projects, possibilities and life here. Most importantly, we need to raise $911 for the project to build the use of technology in the classroom. Please donate whatever you can as soon as possible. It’s an amazing project. for more information, see the previous post and donate here!

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