Ukraine!

Hi all. I came to an internet cafe hoping that I would be able to upload some pictures but they have the hard drive locked up so I can't get any of my pictures up.

We are having a great time. The first day was a big culture shock for me. We went to McDonald's and I couldn't even order food. It was so wierd to be in a familiar place but to have it feel so foreign. By the end of the day I found myself becoming silent even to the English speakers because I felt so paralized by not being able to communicate with anyone. Also, Ukraine has a very difficult past with many tradgedies. In World War II the Germans were here with the Russians fighting to get them out and there was much suffering here at that time. I have learned since being here that the Ukrainians for the most part are a very religious people. Under the Soviet Regiem they were not allowed to practice religion and many of their beautiful churches were turned into warehouses and badly damaged. Beyond this the Soviets inflicted a famine on Ukraine forcing them to send all of their wheat to the rest of the Soviet Union. More recently, also under the Soviet regiem, there was Chernoble. We went to the Chernoble museum and learned much about what happened. Three days after the disaster when the news was broken by one of the norweigen countntries, Chernoble was front page news in the New York Time but in Kiev it was only a paragraph on the third page of the newspaper. Kiev is only 40-60 miles from Chernoble. All that said, and going back to culture shock. On my first day here, I saw that no-one smiled on the streets. By the end of the day the people began to seem lifeless, empty. It was a hard thing to see and to understand. Now that I have been here longer I understand the people better and there is a lot of life in them. Our Ukrainian contact said,
"you wonder why people don't smile here, you look into their eyes and you wonder what they know about life." She also said that Ukrainian people don't have love at first sight ... meaning that they will not be your friends immediatly. It takes time for them to trust you. She also said that if you promise something to a Ukrainian you must follow through because they have been let down and lied to so many time. Now that I understand them better I am in love with them. I have loved being here and serving them and being served by them.

Today is the second day that we have been out doing OT work. Today I helped lower a bed for a man with a spinal cord injury so that he could get from his wheelchair to his bed more easily. We also gave him a transfer board and helped him learn how to use it. Before he was not able to get out of bed for most of the day because he did not have someone to help him, but now he will be able to get in and out of bed on his own. It was very rewarding.

Earlier this morning we saw a woman who had a huge abdominal tumor. In the US, she likley would have had it removed but here that was not available to here. There is a lot of corruption here and better health care is available if you will bribe the doctors. We were not able to do much for her because what she really needs is a surgery. We gave her a new reacher and she is now able to access a bit more of her environment. It was not much but it was something. I can be hard when you can't change everything about a system ... but we made a small difference for this woman. Before we left she sang some Ukrainian folk songs for us. It was wonderful ... for us to hear and for her to be able to have that moment to sing!

We went to a nursing home this morning. It is in a beautiful setting overlooking a green area with Chernivtsi in the distance. It was hard to know how to help but I watched a colleague give magnifiers away to some people with low vision so that they would be able to read and that was exciting.

Yesterday we met a man who had dug trentches at Chernoble. He later had an accident and a spinal cord injury. He and his mother were amazing. They had not had the benefit of rehabilitation but they had managed very well!

Many other great things! I will post videos and pictures when I get back.

Much love from Ukraine!