I’ve been back in Kosmach for a month now after my six week visit home, and what a great trip it was!

Breakfasts, lunches and dinners, and just hanging out with dear friends and family. My granddaughter’s college graduation. A long weekend with my grandson. Several speaking engagements. A small party arranged by neighbors. A quick trip out of state to visit a gravely ill friend. Some aspects were bittersweet, but it was all grand.

I spent a good chunk of the six weeks trying to find a new place to stay for my sweet dog (with a behavioral problem or two) during my coming third year in Ukraine. With scarcely any time to spare, we did fortunately find a situation for him that’s working out quite nicely.

The travel to Maine from Kosmach is nearly epic. It begins with a three hour trip by bus, largely over bad roads, to the train station in Ivano-Frankivsk. While the last bus of the day will get to Ivano about 8:00 in the evening, I am always reluctant to take the last bus because sometimes there isn’t a last bus. So I arrive in Ivano at 6:00 for a train that will not leave until midnight, and providing plenty of time to have supper and a couple beers with other Peace Corps Volunteers who are living in this is sweet little city.

Onboard the overnight train, I share a compartment with three others and on this particular trip, one is a Ukrainian-American, one is a Ukrainian who speaks decent English, and the third is a man who ignores us completely. It’s always a treat for me to have compartment mates who speak English and these two were even familiar with the Peace Corps. We talk quietly for an hour or two before settling down on our berths.

We arrive in Kyiv about 9:00 in the morning and my new young friends take charge of my heavy duffle bag, walk me up one long flight of stairs and then down another to the shuttle train that will take me to the airport. My flight doesn’t leave until 2:00 in the afternoon, and I’ll be at the airport by 10, but I’ll also avoid a truckload of anxiety by arriving early.

The first leg of the three-flight trip is only about two and a half hours long and we land in the Amsterdam airport with a two hour window to make my second flight. Both of these are on KLM and I am impressed with the service. The flight to New York City takes seven and a half hours but trans-Atlantic time is confusing to me because of the seven hour time zone change. We arrive at JFK at 8:00 at night, having flown right over Waterville an hour and a half before. The last leg of the trip, to Portland, doesn’t leave until after 10:00 and finally arrives a couple minutes after midnight.

A good friend picks me up and I spend the night with her in Portland. Needless to say, we don’t stay up late talking. After spending the day in Portland taking care of things like renewing my driver’s license and trying to reestablish phone service, I have supper with my daughter and a couple other family members, and then am driven to Topsham where another friend is to pick me up and drive me to Farmington.

In my only travel glitch, my ride has forgotten he was to pick me up. I spend a pleasant hour or so sitting at the bar in a chain restaurant, chatting with other patrons and the young bartender, and in due time, to my delight, my friend’s wife appears to drive me on the very last leg. We arrive in Farmington after 11:30.

So all told, the journey started on Saturday afternoon at 3:00 and ended on Monday, not long before midnight. Plus (or minus) seven hours for the time change. I get confused. Especially when sleep deprived.

But now, having made this trip in reverse, I am back in Kosmach where I spent a full day recuperating, tending my little vegetable garden, unpacking and doing laundry. I brought some small gifts for the family and the mom, Paraska, was particularly impressed with the Maine maple syrup. During the first week, every single day I was confused about what day it actually was. Recuperating took longer than I thought.

While I was away, a Kosmach neighbor has welcomed a new grandchild into her family, some shrubbery was planted in front of the house where I’m living, and the spring calf was slaughtered. My host family’s adult daughter and her husband left at the end of the school year for summer jobs in Poland. Potato bugs have taken over the world.

There was a major washout on one of the two roads into Kosmach and for several days, travel was curtailed. A first time ever flush toilet has been installed in the village office building but it’s not yet functional as there is a problem with the waterline. There is pea stone spread under the new playground equipment in front of the library. My first day back in the office was interrupted by an afternoon-long lunch and program in honor of the area librarians.

My own focus is once again on a grant to support environmental education for the children in the community with a goal of reducing improperly disposed plastic waste.

When I returned, the family was in the midst of harvesting hay, almost entirely by hand, although Paraska’s son, the young Doctor Yuri, now has a gas-powered weed whacker/brush saw which sped up the cutting. I was able to help with the tedding and raking but could only provide moral support when Paraska and her 80 year old mother-in-law carried the hay to the barn on two poles and threw it into the loft by the forkful. All this on a one acre field that surrounds the grandmother’s house. It’s quiet work that allows for the sounds of birds and the river, and time to watch the clouds. Old ways have a lot of charm.

This column does not reflect the opinions of the US government or the Peace Corps but are entirely my own observations and experiences.–

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