My trip to the Ukraine, which expanded my brain

Now time to catch you up on the week of Oct. 27th. Monday was relatively boring, and Tuesday I got to register for my classes for interim and spring semester at 8 am our time (which was 2 am at home). I got all the classes I wanted, and later found out that my old roomie, Solita, is going to be in the same interim as me! How cool is that?! We didn’t even really plan it. Later that day I had my poli-sci mid-term. It went relatively well, for being the first poli-sci exam I had ever taken.

I’ll fast forward to Thursday now and tell you about my class trip to the Ukraine. We went as a group with our prof and his wife with the same tour guides that took us to Romania, so…we got to ride in the awesome VW vans again! This time one of the guides drove some students and the rest of us took a train to a city in Hungary closer to the Ukraine border to meet up with the other guides. We all managed to get there; some more stressed than others, and then boarded our vans to see some sights. This time the other guide, David, had returned from Canada to accompany us, so a student didn’t have to drive. We then set off to see a church where the famous Transylvanian prince Rakotzi was buried. (That may be the incorrect spelling; Hungarian names are so difficult for me to spell!). Then we drove through the Tokaj wine region to get to the restaurant where we were having lunch. Lunch was started with a warm fruit soup that was not particularly my favorite, and we found out later that is should have technically been served cold, which would have maybe made it a little better. We had other things for lunch too, but none as strange as the fruit soup. After eating, we went back to the wine region for wine tasting. We had to go under the ground into a special wine storage place that used to belong to a Transylvanian prince. Mold was located all over the walls and was used in the special processing of the wine. We got to try 3 different types of wine, a dry white, a semi-sweet rose, and a sweet red. In my opinion the dry white was the best, but everyone had differing opinions on their favorite. We then went next door to a museum on a Christian college and also visited its library. It was a decent museum, but nothing too exciting.

Then it was off to the place where we were staying for the night to check in and drop off our stuff. I stayed in a very large room with 8 other girls that was so cold! We tried to turn the heater up before we left again so the room would warm up, but came back to find that it hadn’t. Then it was off to the restaurant again for dinner. After dinner we came back and watched some homemade movies on the Ukraine that were made by the company our tour guides worked for. They were very informative and also a bit of a preview to what we would be seeing the next day, which was helpful. Then, because we were all so tired, we went to bed that night at 9pm! Because the room was so cold, many of us slept in sweatshirts and I even slept in my gloves.

The next day (Halloween) we awoke, packed everything up, and headed for the Ukraine border. (I got another stamp in my passport!) Our first stop was to visit a gypsy church congregation, one that we had seen in the videos from the night before. We got to see some a church service and then walked around the gypsy compound. This tour of gypsy village was so indescribable. It was a bind blowing experience! There were just dirt and mud roads through the village with houses upon houses in very bad decay; some didn’t even have much of a roof. There was junk and trash everywhere that was meant to be burned for warmth. There were many random dogs and a few cats roaming around the village and every now and again you might see a horse, but that was rare. There were random water pumps around where the people could get clean water, but many of them were broken because the kids would just hang on them, or they were just left running, so big mud pits surrounded the pumps.

There were tons of kids that came out to walk around with us, many held our hands and tried to talk with us. We did the best we could with what little Hungarian we knew, usually we just asked what their ages and names were. Many of these gypsy kids looked similar in their physical appearance, dark skin, dark eyes, dark hair, but there were some slight variations. These kids were very friendly, but the poor things didn’t have very much clothing. Many were walking around with out shoes, and there was tons of broken glass and sharp metal objects in the roads. Some of the toddlers didn’t have pants on, and many of the children had dyed red hair. This was super strange to all of us, but one of our guides, Robbie, told us that it is their way to feel a part of the modern world, a way for them to look like the celebrities.

As we walked through the village, we got some friendly smiles and some disapproving glares. Some adults came up and begged us for money, but we were told not to give them anything, or we would get swarmed. We were also told not to take pictures by our guide David, because it only makes the gypsies feel that much more awkward. I mean they already had some tourist group traipsing through their village, then for us to go and take pictures would just be too much of an invasion of their privacy. After we walked through their village a bit we were told to go back to the church area and many students began playing with the children. Here we took some pictures of the kids, and had some fun with them. It was truly unbelievable the conditions that these people were living in and an experience that I will never forget.

After our visit, we headed to our lodging to drop off our things. We stayed in a newly constructed retirement home that was not yet open for permanent residents. It was such a nice place! There were only 2 people to a room and we had actual beds. The place was heated and best of all, our room had a door! This is something I thoroughly enjoyed, because like I have said previously, my room in Budapest lacks a door. We ate dinner here and got to visit the local grocery store, which was fun. I got to see lots of the Ukrainian alphabet, which is similar to Russian because it uses lots of weird symbols. (I forget the correct term for which this writing is called.) After dinner we watched more homemade movies and saw the old town square of the town we were staying in. Then it was off to bed.

The next day, after breakfast, we headed off to a cemetery to see the locals celebrating All Saint’s Day. We saw some graves of military personnel and regular people. There were so many fresh-cut flowers and candles being put out in various patterns and designs by the living for their lost loved ones. Many of the sites were being swept and various plants were being pruned to make the graves look better. We saw various types of headstones; some had pictures, some just words. It was cool to see, but I felt pretty awkward being there because we had no real purpose in being there. It felt like we were disrespecting the traditions of the locals, by parading through the cemetery of their lost loved ones, but luckily we didn’t stay there long, so I didn’t have to feel too uncomfortable.

We drove back to the square where we went the night before and saw it in the daylight and visited a crappy market that just sold everyday and pre-packaged goods. Nothing too exciting again, but afterwards we went to have lunch with the pastor from the gypsy church, his wife, and some girls our age from another church community. The pastor is not a gypsy, but preaches to the gypsy community along with another Ukrainian one. They were so nice to us all, and served us goulash soup for lunch. Goulash is a dish that I have come to really enjoy while on this semester. They also shared some of their homemade palinka, which I tried only a sip of. Oh m gosh was it strong! It was flavorless, but tasted like acetone and burned from the minute it touched your lips. My sip made my lips, gums, tongue, and throat burn for a few minutes after sipping it. It was crazy strong; the strongest I have ever had! But, it was pretty funny just watching people take sips of it to see their reactions. Haha. After our meal we headed to a Ukrainian children’s hospital to visit some abandoned children, most of which were gypsies. This was another moment I will never forget. There were maybe 7 babies there ranging from about 6months old to 3 years old. The 3 year old, a girl, we learned was brought in recently after having been badly beaten by her father. She was so small and did not seem developmentally to be a 3 year old, yet she was so smiley. The others also had various problems, developmentally and superficially, like cross eyes, skin conditions, etc. It was so sad to see that these little babies were unwanted and we learned that they would most likely have to remain in the hospital for some time until the government declared them to be orphans. Then they would get sent to an orphanage to live and maybe get a chance to be adopted. It was interesting to see the students interact with the babies, and I even saw our professor hold one. I was resistant at first to hold one, but eventually did and formed a tie with a baby boy that had the name Bogart. I liked to think of him as Humphrey, for Humphrey Bogart. He was an older baby, with some obvious developmental problems. He had crossed eyes, jerky body movements, and an uneven breathing pattern that was very raspy sounding. He was so cute though! We played peak-a-boo and other games until I had to leave him. It was sad to know that he would probably have a life full of governmental institutions and no real parents to love and care for him.

After our touching baby experience, we returned to the retirement center for dinner and a group game followed by a showing of the famous Hungarian cult classic movie, the Witness. It was a great film about the ridiculousness of communism portrayed through the events of a common man’s life. I would definitely recommend seeing it, if you can find it anywhere.

Sunday was our last day of travel, so we got ready and departed the retirement home to go to a traditional Ukrainian church service. We didn’t stay for the whole thing, as they were serving communion, so instead we drove to another gypsy village near by to see a church which bears a bell that was funded by a previous Calvin group that came to Hungary. While there we were greeted by more gypsy children, which were more diverse in appearance than the last group we saw. Some of the children had dark skin and hair with light eyes; others had light skin, hair, and eyes. It was surprising to see. After a sufficient time of playing, we departed and headed off to see a castle on a hill and then paid a visit to an elderly woman that makes embroideries and rugs from old pieces of clothing. She was maybe in her early to mid 80s and had many options of rugs and embroideries for us to buy. Unfortunately, I was one of the last to get in to buy anything, so a lot of stuff was already picked over, but I did end up with a nice embroidery. We then left to head back to Hungary and some of us had to again take the train back to Budapest; I was one of these people. There was some confusion on train schedules so we ended up having to take the slow train back, which took 6 hours, but we eventually made it back.

It was great getting to visit the Ukraine. I saw so many things and learned so much more about the gypsies. I guess I had a general idea of their living conditions, but never imagined them to be a poor as they actually were. It was nice to get to visit with an organization that was actually doing something about the gypsy’s living conditions, but we learned that there is so much more that needs to be done. They are lacking so much in political and social recognition. I had a truly eye opening trip.