Be Strong

Day 6 – Friday, 18 December

A weak light broke through the frost-covered window of our compartment, causing me to roll and face the wall and beg for a few hours in a soft bed with a fluffy pillow. Sleep on a train is only marginally more possible than sleep on a plane; at least on the train, you have the ability to lie flat, albeit on a hard, narrow bunk with sheets the texture of tea-towels dried on a clothesline. Again, I strongly recommend the use of pharmaceutical assistance!

We finally shook off the cobwebs a little before 10; our train was scheduled to arrive at the unpronounceable town of our destination at around noon. We believed the plan was to arrive, pile into a car, and drive to our final destination, arriving around 2:00 or so. Ahhhh, we were so naive. In short order, our translator popped back into the compartment, and it became apparent that the plan had changed. Despite my expectation that traveling south would mean warmer, more pleasant weather, there had been a huge snowstorm in the south, closing roads all over the place. Our driver was unable to meet us in the unpronounceable town; we were stranded.

Our translator parked us in a quiet corner of the train station’s unheated waiting room and went to work. She finally returned with a new plan and a message from her boss: “Be strong.” Turns out, there was a local train to our town that left at 3:00 and if all goes well, will arrive at 7:00 PM. Yes, this meant a 3-hour wait in an unheated train station when it was approximately 9 degrees outside and still snowing. And yes, this meant another 4-hour train ride, in a train equipped with bench seats and minimal heat. And yes, this meant that we would finally arrive in town a full 12 hours after we expected to. But we are strong, and in the end, it is what it is. Trains were running, cars were not. It was the best option available, so we took it.

Food options were extremely limited in the train station; seems that either dried or smoked fish is the food of choice for Ukrainian travelers. While we are very adventurous, our translator wisely decided that we were already close to our limit, and chose a small bruschetta with ham, tomato, and parsley to sustain us. We were also very thankful for the large sack of miscellaneous junk food I had packed back in Kyiv, and we devoured almost all of it while we waited. Be Strong.

At about 2:50, they called our train, and many people filed outside onto the snowy platform. The train, however, was not present, not did it choose to arrive for another 20 very, very cold minutes. There was no way for the station to know the exact arrival time, though, so all the passengers were required to…Be Strong.

While we waited, we watched another train approach the platform, but stop short. A crew of railway workers ran up to the front of the train with shovels and manually dug out a drift so the train could pass. Be Strong.

Finally, our train swept up to the platform, and we raced to board. My secret hope was that Train #2 would be as cozy warm as Train #1. Not to be. Train 2 resembled a subway car, only a bit wider, with bench seats facing each other and an aisle down the middle. And despite the heating vents running down each side of the car, it was almost as cold as outside. Be Strong.

We rushed to stow our immense collection of luggage on the overhead racks before anyone else could take the space, and settled into a set of seats as the train began to move.

As I mentioned, Train #2 was a local train. As such, it stopped many times, and people boarded and disembarked frequently. The combination of the many people and the weak heat radiating from the sides of the car brought the temperature to tolerable, provided you kept sweater, coat, scarf, and gloves on for the duration of the ride. But we were strong, and right on time at 7:00, we finally arrived. We hauled our assortment of baggage off the train a final time, and dragged to the waiting taxi.

The first step in the local adoption process is to obtain permission from the local Inspector to visit the orphanage and meet with the child you plan to adopt. Since we arrived so late, the Inspector’s office was closed. But God and good relationships were smiling on us…our translator had called ahead to the Inspector’s office earlier in the day and shared our tale of travel woe. The Inspector remembered us from Masha’s adoption, and she graciously agreed to meet with us after-hours to keep our process moving along. This was a GREAT exception to the normal way things are done, for which we are very thankful!

After this meeting (and collecting the associated documents), it was much too late to visit the orphanage. We were very tired after over 24 hours of travel for the second time in six days, so the taxi delivered us to our apartment, and we quickly settled in to the place we’ll call home for the next couple of weeks.

Starvation outranked exhaustion, though, so before calling it a night, we strolled across the street to a restaurant and had a wonderful meal with our translator. I had a terrific Ukrainian Borsch and veal with a mushroom-cream sauce, Mark had a sausage and vegetable soup and a pork chop and potato salad. We left feeling full and happy, and crashed quickly when we got back home.