In these last three months, I've taken my love of trains to the next level. I've spent 4 nights in train compartments with strangers and in the coming week I'll spend the night on a train 4 more times. I've met some of the most interesting people on overnight trains. I met the wife of a car salesman on her way home to visit her parents in Zap (I've never seen anyone be so excited about the exotic land of Pennsylvania), an older lady who didn't have the kind of personal boundaries I've grown to appreciate, and a guy who taught himself English entirely from google translate. On the last train trip I took a woman shared her food with me (bread with a quarter inch of butter on it topped with sausage and a 'boiled egg' that was mostly raw in the middle). She was so excited to try out my marginal Russian skills that she went through every single one of my flashcards and constructed sentences using only the words I knew. It was a gesture I deeply appreciated.
A long-distance train to Nova Kakhovka. Okay, I don't love everything
about Ukrainian trains...
Where have I been going on all of these trains, you ask? Field visits. One part of my internship here is collecting client stories and talking to HOPE staff about what's going on with the program so I can share what's happening in the field with donors (specifically Kiva lenders). I started out with visits to the local client office in Zap where I met with clients who were stopping by for monthly payments. Sitting behind the guest desk with my laptop out, I frantically typed up whatever I could catch of the client's stories through my translator, Katya. While it was awesome to hear from HOPE clients first-hand (well, second-hand if you count my translator) and all of clients who came in were kind and willing to chat, I can honestly say I didn't collect a single good story from those first visits.
Luckily, Max suggested it would be better for me to meet with clients at their businesses, on their own turf. So he set up a visit to Nikopol to meet with Dima, a loan officer, and follow him around for a day. In Nikopol I had an amazing translator, Serge. As it turns out, he used to work for HOPE himself, so he had a lot of interesting insights to offer. Walking from stand to stand in the marketplace, I quickly doubled the number of clients I had met. It has been several years since Serge stopped working for HOPE, but almost all of the clients still recognized him. They smiled excitedly and wanted to catch up with him as much as they wanted to talk to me.
One woman I spoke with was already retired. She had a pension from the Ukrainian government and, though pensions for the elderly are comically low here, her situation didn't require her to work. She told me she keeps working just because she can--she doesn't want to be idle. That's already pretty unique in Ukrainian culture, but the most interesting thing about her I actually learned afterward from Serge. As we were walking away from her shop, he told me that her son has a high rank in the Ukrainian government and that it would be so easy for her to take advantage of his title to get what she wants, but instead she chooses to work her little shop, paying to rent the space and dealing with the oppressive barriers to entry like every other small business owner in Ukraine.
That is absolutely unheard of.
The government is corrupt and it's obscenely hard to run a business the legal way. Most people will take shortcuts where they can (to put it lightly) and bribe whoever is in a position to offer them some help. It's easy to give up on doing things the right way in an economic situation that seems so hopeless. I was stunned by this woman's choice.
So far I've visited Nikopol, Berdychev, and Nova Kakhovka on field visits and I hope to squeeze one more in before I come home. I love these visits and I hope that I am able to to use them to connect people in Ukraine with HOPE's donors back home. There is one significant challenge I've experienced during these visits, though: talking to people about their faith. Almost everyone here considers themselves Orthodox Christians. Max told me that when you ask a Ukrainian if they believe in God, they'll say 'of course! Who doesn't?' But very often this just means they go to the Orthodox service on Christmas and Easter. I know that some of our clients have been deeply transformed by their relationship with God and I would love to get a better picture of this. So please pray that I will know the right questions to ask and that people will be open to sharing their stories with me!
On a more touristy note, I also got to spend a weekend in Kiev on my way to Berdychev and Ira took it upon herself to give me an awesome guided tour of the city. Below are some pics from one of the most memorable parts of my time here.
Ira in front of St. Andrew's Me beside my hero, The Little Prince
Ira and her roommate, Andre. Andre happens to be a journalist who studied politics in university. We had a great time visiting the political buildings of Kiev with him as a guide!
A typical Ukrainian car
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