You guys, excuse my language, but what the FUCK is happening?
We got an email on the 13th explaining that the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. I’m watching the U.S. fall apart via my Twitter feed (??) and here — short of another three-week quarantine period from school* — everything is normal?
*Even this is normal. Ukrainians shut down schools for two weeks every flu season for “quarantine.”
We’re no longer allowed to travel outside of Ukraine — including back to the U.S., and now that there’s no school for the next few weeks, I’ve suddenly got a LOT of unstructured free time.
I needed a distraction, so I ended up booking a last-minute cheap platzkart ticket to go visit Rachel at her site in Ternopil.
First of all, this was my first time traveling via platzkart. I usually travel kupe if I need overnight accommodations, but since I didn’t need them this time around, I figured I would book platzkart.
It was very interesting and I’m glad I didn’t book it when I needed to sleep. I’ll leave it at that.
Rachel gave me a quick tour of Ternopil’s city center and we got food at Koza Bar.
I really liked Ternopil! It seemed clean and spacious and very modern. In retrospect, I wish I’d taken more time to tour it, but I thought I’d have a few more days in town to tour it before I had to leave.
Rachel gave me a tour of her campus and her apartment where I stayed the night, and I had a chance to have tea and pastries with one of her university counterparts.
We also stopped by a universal supermarket so I could buy some spices and made a breakfast with a lot of vegetables.
We basically spent the entire time other than that glued to our phones and reading about COVID. We were getting non-stop emails from Peace Corps safety and security, and continuous news alerts. There was group speculation among the greater Peace Corps Volunteers group, and in smaller group chats.
Then, I made the decision after one night to get back to site ASAP, because who knows what’s coming next.
I already know it’s probably not going to be good.
This post was originally published Jan. 27, 2022. Its timestamp has been updated to better reflect the timeline of my Peace Corps service.
