I am in what is known as Group 41. All 106 of us that left Washington, D.C. that
day in March of 2011 who arrived the next day in Kiev, Ukraine to begin our 27
months stay. We all arrived together on the same plane and all stood in line
together getting our passports scanned, reviewed, and marked by the control
officers. Even though we were randomly assigned to different officers, each one
of them processed our passports the same- with a rubber stamp and a hand
written date of “14/06/13”. This was their official way of saying, “Welcome to Ukraine. You may come and go as you please until then, but on June 14,
2013, your visa will expire and you will be required to leave the country.”
That was 27 months in the future. I had been on Ukrainian soil for a grand
total of 8 minutes, had a million things on my mind, and leaving wasn’t one of
them.
We got an email from Peace Corps two weeks ago which required me to make a choice by March 4. The options were: extend my Peace Corps service or leave the country by the expiration date on my visa. Just so that I could move forward with a clear conscience, I made a point to have, what turned out to be, a brief conversation with El when we were in Turkey in December about this. In my mind there has never been any serious consideration of an extension. Why would there be? I have always expected that I would leave around the expiration date. Now, there has been no person more supportive of my work and life here in Ukraine than El. So, when we spoke in Turkey and she said “I think it’s time for you to come home” of course, I knew she was right. Not just for her, but for me too. I just knew that it was a conversation, however short, that needed to be had. So, this week I had to do two specific things: 1) deny my intentions to extend and 2) choose a departure date. Now for some (dare I say many) volunteers the choice was a no brainer- with their official email- and I am speculating here, reading something like “HELL NO! I WILL NOT EXTEND!! IN FACT, I WANT TO BE ON THE FIRST POSSIBLE PLANE OUT OF HERE!!!” Yeah, it is safe to say that there are a few volunteers that cannot wait to be anywhere else but here. I, on the other hand, will have oscillating emotions. There will certainly be aspects of my time here that I will be anxious to leave behind just as there are things that I am looking forward to upon returning to New York. But, since my service has been hyper-focused on my community integration, the reality is setting in that once I leave I will probably never see most (if any) of them in person again. That’s not to say that we can’t stay in touch, but me coming back to Razdol’noye or them coming to America just seems so unlikely at this point in time. Nonetheless, I expect the good emotions to temper the sad ones. With all that said, I have requested a country exit date of June 13. Living so far and needing to depart from Kiev, I expect that I will leave Razdol’noye sometime on the 10th or 11th.
We will have a Close of Service conference the first week of April. It will be held in Chernigov and I will make time to see Sasha, Pavil, Vera, and Maxim for the last time (and the first time since Tanya passed away unexpectedly in November). Peace Corps will tell us all of the things we need to do before actually leaving the country like closing our bank account and getting letters from the landlord saying you don’t owe any money. The first date people can leave is May 16 and many have requested it. Me? I will be savoring the last few weeks at site just doing the things I have been doing for the past two years. Buying water and sitting for tea. Walking to the bread truck to get the warm loaves. Seeing if I can’t get an invitation to dinner at someone’s home. And, of course, going to sauna on Sundays.
Today I met my friend Anne at the market in the town of Krasnoperakopsk. Neither of us needed to buy much, but it is always good to catch up with her. We can draw several parallels in our experiences, Anne and I. We both live in similar sized towns. She is the closest volunteer to me at about an hour away. We both work at the library in our respective towns. And both rank our personal relationships over our professional experiences here. We went to our regular café to talk and discussed our projects: past and upcoming. And while I sat there, realizing that it would most likely be the last time we would ever meet in that particular café- it was that exact moment that I consider to be the beginning of the end because it was the first time, of many I am sure, that I paused and said to myself “I will never get to do this in Ukraine again”. Having been to the café less than six times over the past two years, it didn’t get anything more than a casual consideration. As the countdown to June 13 goes on and I eventually part with those who I have become closest to here for the last time, well that could just prove to be the most difficult thing I have had to do in the past 27 months.
We got an email from Peace Corps two weeks ago which required me to make a choice by March 4. The options were: extend my Peace Corps service or leave the country by the expiration date on my visa. Just so that I could move forward with a clear conscience, I made a point to have, what turned out to be, a brief conversation with El when we were in Turkey in December about this. In my mind there has never been any serious consideration of an extension. Why would there be? I have always expected that I would leave around the expiration date. Now, there has been no person more supportive of my work and life here in Ukraine than El. So, when we spoke in Turkey and she said “I think it’s time for you to come home” of course, I knew she was right. Not just for her, but for me too. I just knew that it was a conversation, however short, that needed to be had. So, this week I had to do two specific things: 1) deny my intentions to extend and 2) choose a departure date. Now for some (dare I say many) volunteers the choice was a no brainer- with their official email- and I am speculating here, reading something like “HELL NO! I WILL NOT EXTEND!! IN FACT, I WANT TO BE ON THE FIRST POSSIBLE PLANE OUT OF HERE!!!” Yeah, it is safe to say that there are a few volunteers that cannot wait to be anywhere else but here. I, on the other hand, will have oscillating emotions. There will certainly be aspects of my time here that I will be anxious to leave behind just as there are things that I am looking forward to upon returning to New York. But, since my service has been hyper-focused on my community integration, the reality is setting in that once I leave I will probably never see most (if any) of them in person again. That’s not to say that we can’t stay in touch, but me coming back to Razdol’noye or them coming to America just seems so unlikely at this point in time. Nonetheless, I expect the good emotions to temper the sad ones. With all that said, I have requested a country exit date of June 13. Living so far and needing to depart from Kiev, I expect that I will leave Razdol’noye sometime on the 10th or 11th.
We will have a Close of Service conference the first week of April. It will be held in Chernigov and I will make time to see Sasha, Pavil, Vera, and Maxim for the last time (and the first time since Tanya passed away unexpectedly in November). Peace Corps will tell us all of the things we need to do before actually leaving the country like closing our bank account and getting letters from the landlord saying you don’t owe any money. The first date people can leave is May 16 and many have requested it. Me? I will be savoring the last few weeks at site just doing the things I have been doing for the past two years. Buying water and sitting for tea. Walking to the bread truck to get the warm loaves. Seeing if I can’t get an invitation to dinner at someone’s home. And, of course, going to sauna on Sundays.
Today I met my friend Anne at the market in the town of Krasnoperakopsk. Neither of us needed to buy much, but it is always good to catch up with her. We can draw several parallels in our experiences, Anne and I. We both live in similar sized towns. She is the closest volunteer to me at about an hour away. We both work at the library in our respective towns. And both rank our personal relationships over our professional experiences here. We went to our regular café to talk and discussed our projects: past and upcoming. And while I sat there, realizing that it would most likely be the last time we would ever meet in that particular café- it was that exact moment that I consider to be the beginning of the end because it was the first time, of many I am sure, that I paused and said to myself “I will never get to do this in Ukraine again”. Having been to the café less than six times over the past two years, it didn’t get anything more than a casual consideration. As the countdown to June 13 goes on and I eventually part with those who I have become closest to here for the last time, well that could just prove to be the most difficult thing I have had to do in the past 27 months.
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