Ukraine is my home

Ukraine is my home - Pasha

One thing that didn't make it into this video: I asked Pasha if he was scared when the air raid sirens went off. He said that at first, it was scary, but you get used to it. Every time he heard the sirens, there was this thought of, "This could be the time I am hit by a missile." But you know that the statistics are really small and the country is really big. So you move on with your day.

I completely relate to this from my time in Ukraine.

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The power of a hug

Three weeks ago at church, Masha sat next to me. Masha is ten, has Downs Syndrome and is a fantastic hugger. She just loves hugging. So I try to always stop and hug her back. During the service, she came in and sat between me and her dad, for a while she loved on her dad and then she leaned her head on my shoulder, so I leaned my head over onto hers, and she looked up at me with this big smile. She reached around and gave me a shoulder hug, and then patted my head, and then rubbed my back for a few minutes. I didn’t move the entire time because it just felt so good. It was just simple, innocent affection, and it sent tingles up my spine. If you don’t know what I’m talking about you need more hugs and back scratches. Human contact is so important. That’s why I try and hug the kids when we go up to the orphanage. These are just a few stories of some of the hugs I’ve given and gotten this past month, and why hugs are so imp...

How Ukrainians act during missile strikes

I have been in Ukraine during many air raid alerts and have been close enough to hear and feel a number of explosions (primarily Russian missile being shot out of the sky), but, strangely, I haven’t actually been around Ukrainians throughout the duration of an air raid until this past week. I had gone to a small warehouse store where I buy nails for my framing gun. In the middle of placing my order, everyone’s phones started dinging. Kyiv was under an air raid alert. The young man who was helping me just kept working on his computer, but his colleague immediately stood up, looking at her phone and started wondering out loud if we should go to a shelter or if we should stay put. Within a few seconds another worker came in from outside, and a lady came down the stairs. They were all on their phones. “Ballistic missiles.” said the man “… heading towards the Kyiv area.” Said the woman who had just come d...

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain: Why shopping is a pain in Ukraine.

I used to like shopping. I thought it was fun. I love closure, and so nothing was more satisfying than crossing items off a list. I enjoyed the experience of checking out new stuff, looking for bargains, and of course everyone knows that buying stuff feels good. That was then. This is now. Shopping here is a pain. Let me explain (hey, I’m a poet and I don’t even realize it)! First, we don’t have a car. That means we are at the mercy of public transportation, and so we have to keep that in mind when choosing what store to go to. Is it close to a bus or metro stop? Do we have to transfer metro lines? When we lived in the city center, we were really close to two metro lines. We like this store called MegaMarket, and it was only a few stops away on the metro. So, we would grab our backpacks, walk a block to the metro, go down a ridiculously long escalator, then hop on a metro and ride a couple stops down. Then we would walk a few blocks and there it was..…Megamarket! Second re...

The Voices of Ukrainians

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