What a trip! It started with a three hour layover in Dallas in which I had to check out of customs, take a bus to a remote lot and exchange bags in the car, change clothes, check back in, go through security and catch my flight to Kiev. Once I landed in Kiev, I waited and waited and waited and no one showed up. After about an hour and a half I found an internet cafe (which didn't take American money), exchanged some money (at a horrible rate) and got on the internet. I emailed my loved ones and the missionary. about 45 minutes after that, I got back on the 'net and the missionary was online. He thought I was supposed to be in the next day. Anywho, he sent some nice ukrainian people to pick me up and it all worked out fine.
The next three weeks were tough. Ivankiv is the furthest town north before the "no-go" zone from Chernobyl. They actually rinsed off trucks from Chernobyl there before they went further. Crazy huh? The town had a market in the mornings that had a ton of stuff and we only had to walk about a mile to get there. The town is a neat little place and has a nice park and some nice little stores. The camp is in Kolentsi, which is about 6 miles away. Every morning, the missionary would pick us up (sometimes 2 hours late) and all six of us would cram into his Sante Fe and head to the camp. The area is all sand. It's like a nightmarish beach, with no water and mosquitoes which carry off small children. We would work from about 10 until about 5 or 6 or 7. We dug ditches 5 feet deep and 30 feet long, poured cement out of huge trucks, mixed cement, built wooden "roads" out of old wooden planks, and chopped up just about enough wood to keep a house warm for an entire winter in ukraine...just about. The work wasn't too bad, but sometimes it did get old. I don't consider myself the strongest or toughest guy out there, but even I impressed myself with the stamina I maintained. Every day we had grilled whole chicken, bread, tomatoes and cucumbers with either cherries or strawberries. All the food was amazing and we would wash our hands and then use the table as a plate, it was quite unsanitary but when you've been digging ditches in sand, everything tastes good. I LOVED it!
The Christians there were amazing. They all had interesting stories and interesting names: like Big Cola and little Cola. They couldn't speak much English, but we found ways to communicate. The first weekend I was there, we went to a party in the park where we had shashleek (AMAZING) and a feast set for kings, including calamari, potatoes, bread of all types, tomatoes and chicken (shashleek style). We played a game called "blindfolded, dizzy with scissors" in which a kid was blindfolded, spun around and given scissors. In front of this kid would be a fishing line with other lines tied to it hanging down with prizes. The kid had to cut the prize off the line. It had to be one of the most dangerous and amusing children's games I have seen.
After not being able to go to Kiev on Saturday, we skipped a church meeting and went to Kiev one Sunday. The town is amazing. All the guys helped pour cement the day before and so we were really tired (it had been a 6 day work week) but we trudged through and ended the day with a nice dinner at TGI Fridays. I took lots of pictures, but I am still debating if I will put them on facebook. Once Carrie, Steph and Britt get done, there will be more than enough photos of Ukraine online.
