Perpetual Change

Ukraine revisited: study of a bag

I am currently traveling in Ukraine and having a wonderful time seeing old friends and students that are now grown and professional.  It has been a great experience.

I flew from Italy to Bratislava and was welcomed at Zuzana and Tomash Tomajko's wonderful village home, where I got to meet their son, and then headed on by train to Ukraine, where I was picked up by Jura Yatskiv and got to spend several very nice days with him and his family.  They were such most gracious and giving hosts.  I visited the director at the school where I taught, had dinner with my host family and friends, and met with the librarian who involved me in my first project.  I missed English club though, which I later learned is still running.

Then I got to spend several days with the boys in Bortnyky and their fantastic caretakers.  We celebrated my birthday and I got to see all the new improvements in structure and behavior.  Next, I took a bus to Lviv, and train to Ternopl, where I had lunch with Olya and Oksana and dinner with Oles, former students and scouts that I worked with, before taking the night train to Kyiv, where I saw Yura in the hospital before taking a train to Myronivka to meet my Ukrainian 'niece and nephew'.  The Symonenko family has been taking excellent care or me here, and I hope to see Bohdan in Kyiv before I fly out on Monday.

Sorry if that seems like a lot of far away names and places, but these people are all very special to me, and I wanted to say thank you here.  You all welcomed me into your homes and families and my life has been much richer for it. Thank you for taking me into your lives and welcoming me back time and again.

For those others reading at home, I realized as I waited for immigration and customs officers at the Slovakian/Ukrainian border - one that I have crossed many times, once by bicycle- on the last day that I was allowed to be in EU territory, that I had a very interesting collection of things in my bag.  A collection that luckily no officer took much interest in.

Besides, clothes and toiletries, there was:

The book Master and Margarita - in English (Highly recommend, look for another post soon on this famous piece of Russian Literature)
Slovak homemade plum brandy in a wedding bottle
3 children's books about animals- two in Italian with WWF trading cards, one in English about South Africa
4 blocks of Italian Parmesan cheese
4 Swiss orange and dark chocolate bars
2 packet of Italian crackers (parmesan and tomato; and rosemary and oats flavors)
Granola bars from France, Italy, and Austria, some of which I had picked up in Greece
Slovak apples from the garden
Mexican cookies
US granola (thanks to my wonderful girlfriend, Bekkah, from New Leaf)
a Backroads water bottle
a French packet of dry soup
2 International English newspapers (the International Herald Tribune - Mon and Tues, so I might be able to do the crosswords)
assorted European train, bus, subway and plane ticket stubs
5 sim cards
4 currencies
and my passport

posted by jjs @ 5:49 AM