And so it ends

Dear Readers,

These last few days have been some of the busiest of my life. Thursday was my last day with my l'Arche workshop, and everyone was very emotional. Firstly, my workshop is moving to a new location because the rent at the current location is too high. And so the last week at the workshop we were moving all of the stuff to the new location. On Thursday morning, we finished that job. In the afternoon we had a barbeque, and it amounted to a typical l'Arche Ukraine party. It was very much in the spirit of l'Arche, with all of us being together, singing together, eating together, etc.... And it was very Ukrainian due to the food we ate. We had kovbasky (sausages), bread, potatoes, tomatoes, and cucumbers. The party was very nice.

There is a song that the members of l'Arche and Faith and Light sing here in Ukraine. It goes: Ми любим тебе, ми любим тебе, ми любимо. Хай господь бо тебе благословить, благословить (My lyubym tebe, my lyubym tebe, my lyubymo. Khaj hospod' bo tebe blahoslovyt', blahoslovyt'). It means something like: We love you, we love you, we love you. May the Lord bless you. And you can replace 'We love you' with 'We thank you', 'We welcome you', etc... depending on the circumstance, and of course you would change the singular 'you' to the plural 'you' if necessary. Anyway, this song is very special for l'Arche here because we sing it whenever someone visits, whenever someone leaves after visiting, whenever it's your birthday or nameday or anniversary, etc.... On Thursday, when they sang three versions for me, 'We thank you', 'We love you', 'We'll wait for you (to come back)', I broke down into tears, I'll admit it. My three months with them have been so incredible, and they have had an impact on me they will never know about, and probably are unable to understand due to their mental disabilities. But they are a group I can never forget. When I gave my little good-bye speech, I finished it with 'I will remember you always', in Ukrainian. The rest of it I gave in English, with one of the assistants translating.

And so, I said good-bye to them, and they said good-bye to me. Afterward I was able to go for ice-cream with three of the assistants, Khrystyna (the one who translated for me), Ivanka, and Ira (the UKU student). It was nice getting to spend a little bit of time with them that last day. I hadn't been able just to relax like that with any of the assistants to this point. But then that had to come to an end, and I said my 'до побачення'(do pobachennya-until next time) to them as well. So many times before I had said to them 'до завтра' (do zavtra-until tomorrow), but obviously I couldn't this time.

Thursday evening then Kimberley and I headed to the capital: Kyiv (Київ). Our train left Lviv at 9:20pm and it arrived in Kyiv at 7:20am Friday morning. We spent the day wandering around Kyiv. We saw the ancient St. Sophia's Cathedral, the glorious St. Michael's Church which was destroyed by the Soviets and rebuilt after independence, and some other really neat sites.

The next day, Kimberley and I went in different directions in the morning. She went dress shopping, and I went to the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra-a monastery a millenium old. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see much of it. I didn't have time to go into the caves, and none of the churches were open, so I didn't really get to see much. That just means I have to come back some day. But at least I was able to try some fresh kvas--the national non-alcoholic drink of Ukraine. It was very good, and inexpensive. You can buy half a litre for 2 hryvni 50 kopyki.

In the afternoon then, Kimberley and I met with a contact I had in Kyiv. Another one of the Intercordians (Inesa in Equador) is Ukrainian and she has a cousin in Kyiv, so Kimberley and I met with her and a couple of her friends. It was really nice because she was able to show us some places we wouldn't have known about had we not been with a local. She showed us the presidential palace, the national parliament, the botanical garden, and different monuments. After a long day walking about Kyiv, we went for dinner at a real Ukrainian restaurant which was inexpensive and where the staff all speak Ukraine (no Russian!).

As for the Russian language, that was one of the big things I noticed about Kyiv. I knew that Kyiv still is more Russified than Lviv, but I really got to see it this past weekend. In Lviv, the small private ads at the bus stops (you know, the 'If you want English lessons, call this number' type ads) are all in Ukrainian. Almost no Russian. In Kyiv, while most of the billboards and everything official is in Ukrainian, nearly all of those private ads were in Russian. Even when I went to the Lavra, all of the signs were in Russian. This demonstrated that the main language of the people in Kyiv is Russian. This drove me mad because 1) I was in Ukraine, not Russia, and 2) had they been in Ukrainian, I might have understood them, or at least understand what they were about. Even the newspapers were all in Russian, while in Lviv the newspapers are mostly in Ukrainian. Although, I heard a lot more Ukrainian spoken than Russian. Or maybe it was Surzhyk, which is Ukrainian in structure and grammar but loaded with Russian words. Well, enough for language politics now. I don't want to get myself killed.

And so, Saturday evening we left Kyiv and arrived back in Lviv Sunday morning. This is where things started to get really crazy.

Canadian citizens are allowed to stay in Ukraine for 90 days without a visa. But, Intercordia booked both Kimberley and I for over 90 days, in my case 92. It's a long story, but in the end I have to leave Ukraine tonight instead of Friday, the original plan. Tonight at midnight I will catch a train to Krakow, Poland, and from there I will make my way to Vienna. Tomorrow is day 90, and so this morning when I woke up I thought I still had one full day here, but things have changed and now I have to leave tonight. Not because of immigration laws but because of train schedules. So, today my stay in this beautiful country ends. These three months have gone by so fast. It feels like I arrived here just yesterday. Now, it ends. I am very sad to leave everyone and everything here I have come to know and love. However, life must go on.

Tonight will be my going away party, and then probably at around 10:30-10:45 I will leave to go to the train station.

I will try to write while on the road to Vienna. My plan is to stay all day in Krakow, then take a train to either Bratislava or Budapest. I will probably stay one night in either Bratislava or Budapest and then hop on a short bus or train ride to Vienna on Friday, when I will meet the University of Waterloo students who have been in Ternopil the last three months. My flight home from Vienna to Toronto is Saturday.

So, Ukraine, good-bye. See you again some day.

Until next time,
Michael