Family Visit

From February 8-20 we had guests. My mom, dad, younger brother and sister made the trip to see a glimpse of our life here. For all but mom, it started out with a first commercial airline experience; and that was probably only the beginning of a long list of “firsts” for each of them. The most significant “firsts,” in my opinion, would mainly involve transportation and food. They took their first overnight train rides as well as many trips on packed trolley buses and marshrutkas (fixed-route minibuses). They grudgingly ate their first salo (cured pig fat, which is on the third plate behind the napkins in the photo) and caviar along with more enthusiastically trying a wide variety of traditional Ukrainian cuisines. Laura and I were very impressed with their willingness to try new things.

In total we spent approximately five days in Donetsk, five in Kiev, and four in Yaremche (Western Ukraine). It was a good contrast between industrial Eastern Ukraine, modern Kiev, and the rugged Carpathians. We traveled a lot; that meant everyone had to sleep on the train four nights and, by the end, it seemed like old hat to all of them.

We introduced them to many of the important people in our lives - from our language teacher, Marina, to our DCU friends Nikolai and Yana to our Good Shepherd friends Vladimir and Valentina to our other friends Dima and Valera. We tried to show them some “tourist” sites along with the places where we go regularly, so they can now envision the places we talk about in our conversations and e-mails a little better.

We supported the local economy by buying a lot of souvenirs, including the traditional Ukrainian “stacking family” dolls, soccer jerseys and, Laura’s favorite, wooden bracelets. It is always interesting to see what more “common” grocery store items people take home as souvenirs. This time it was Zhivchik (apple-echinacea flavored soda) and an assortment of interestingly-flavored teas and chocolate bars. I couldn’t convince Jayne that the fish-net stockings that Ukrainian young women wear would make good gifts for her 8^th grade friends (I thought that would make some fun waves at Mt. Lake Christian school), but I guess that’s probably OK.

It was difficult to say our “good byes” at the airport, but we will be seeing them all again relatively soon… they left one day more than six months before our scheduled departure. Now we have to make the shift back from ragamuffin tour guides to semi-qualified service workers.

Dave