Well, here we go.
I gave you guys a short post explaining that I was evacuated from Ukraine and my Peace Corps service was closed out due to COVID-19. I wanted to elaborate more on that and talk about the evacuation process, now that I can almost, kind of, collect my thoughts.
This is a long one, folks. I’m going to split it into a few posts for the sake of both brevity and my sanity. Buckle up.
Everything happened so fast that it kind of felt like a dream. Ukraine is traditionally very health-conscious, so once the first case of COVID-19 was reported in Ukraine, schools shut down for a two-week quarantine. Despite that, COVID-19 just didn’t seem like a big deal to the volunteers in Ukraine. Several of my PCV friends and I were stressing about how we were going to be so bored with nothing to do for two weeks, and we all started putting together daily task and routine lists so we could practice our language, study for the FSOT… etc. Just, ways to keep ourselves productive.
I also booked a weekend trip to Ternopil to visit my friend Rachel for the coming weekend. Once I booked my train ticket, all hell broke loose.
Rachel and I didn’t do much in Ternopil at all, because COVID news started coming in hard and fast. We just glued ourselves to our phones, reading the news and speculating with other volunteers. After one night in Ternopil, the email blast went out, telling us to return to our sites and enter “stand fast” mode, which is where we basically just sit by and idly wait for PC to tell us what to do. After spending hours gossiping and speculating with other PCVs in group chats as to whether we were going to consolidate, or evacuate, or what, the email came.
Initially, Peace Corps Ukraine made the call to evacuate before the global evacuation came. The reasoning was that 1. Ukraine was closer to China than many other remote countries, and 2. Ukraine was closing its borders… which meant that we had to get out before we were locked in. Volunteers can’t operate in a country with closed borders for several reasons. Take, for example, a medical emergency. If a PCV gets hurt and the country’s borders are closed, that volunteer can’t seek medical treatment. It’s a major problem.
When we were first told that we’d be evacuating, my cohort, Group 54, was placed on administrative leave. That meant that we’d get a per-diem for up to 60 days in the U.S. and would keep our health insurance. The initial plan was to quarantine us in the U.S. for 30-60 days, and then to have us resume our service.
Well, three days into the evacuation process (more on that later), Peace Corps updated its global website to indicate it was COS-ing all PCVs. Which meant that we were done. Our service was official over and all the paperwork would be done to close us out.
We (Peace Corps Ukraine Volunteers) were told to pack our belongings — a personal item, carry-on and two 50-pound checked bags — for an orderly evacuation. We had to take trains from our site to the capital (Kyiv) and arrive by the next afternoon.
I only had a few hours to book my train, pack my bags, leave my apartment and say goodbye to all my friends in Khmelnytskyi.
Mama Natasha and Vanya came over to help me pack. They brought pizza and cake, and cried with me while I sorted and packed all my belongings.
At the time we were packing, it was assumed that I would just be going back to the States for 30-60 days while quarantine panned out and COVID blew over. I was still operating on that 30-to-60-day paid admin leave mentality, so while I packed a bunch of my stuff (mostly the expensive stuff, nice clothes and sentimental tchotchkes and gifts I collected in Ukraine), a bunch more stuff (household items, clothes, bath products, etc.) went into a large bag for Mama Natasha to store pending my return.
Throughout all of this, I was frantically texting my Ukrainian friends and coworkers to let them know that I was being evacuated due to COVID. Because it was so late and last-minute, many couldn’t say goodbye, but a few did.
My friend Nataliia, who I met through Window on America, came all the way over to my apartment to pray for me and gift me with a large bag of walnuts and a refrigerator magnet.
Mama Natasha helped me book my train ticket, and then left with Vanya. A few hours later, one of my counterparts, Ira, showed up with her husband to help me load my suitcases into her car and to take me to the train station.
There, Mama Natasha, Vanya and my other coworker Tania all greeted me and waited with me for my train to arrive.
Tania and Ira’s husbands both helped me get my massive checked bags into the overhead luggage racks. The train security guards were shouting at them as they snuck on the train without tickets to help me lift my baggage. I was seriously delirious at this point due to the lack of sleep and the dehydration from sobbing for the last several hours, but I remember laughing and sitting down in a section of the train near several other PCVs.
While I was waiting for the train to depart, Vanya stood next to my window. The two of us flashed our phone screens back-and-forth to show each other cat memes and Google Translate messages.
I was absolutely tearing up and laughing the entire time.
Then, when my train pulled away, Vanya ran alongside it for as long as he could, waving and crying. The laughter was gone. It turned to violent sobs at that point.
That… was the last time I saw Khmelnytskyi, and the wonderful people who live there.
Anyway, my next post will elaborate on Kyiv, Kyiv and more Kyiv… where we were shuffled from airport to hotel to hotel to airport for DAYS while negotiating a charter flight.
This post was originally published Feb. 3, 2021. Its timestamp has been updated to better reflect the timing of my Peace Corps service.
