Odesa-Kyiv-Ivano Frankivsk

Game night with Kherson friends here

Well, here we are a whole week after our arrival in Ivano-Frankivsk. Again, I recommend reading Will's Facebook posts for details. 

To backtrack quickly, though, on November 24--the nine-month anniversary of war in Ukraine and Thanksgiving Day in America--shelling picked up in our part of Kherson. Our pastor offered to send us to Odesa in a van that had brought humanitarian aid, if we could get ready to go very quickly. So, with shells whistling over us (Bogdan says that explosions are no big deal, he’s used to that, but whistling is BAD!) we took turns running out of the root cellar to grab some things from our home to take with us. And then we left. 

That evening we got to Odesa, spent the night at Camp Lela, and then took a train to Kyiv the next day. During our week in Kyiv we applied for passports at the US embassy. That's easier said than done, because we had to pull together documents and do photos and print things when the power was often out, but it all went smoothly. 

Then last Friday we got on a train from Kyiv to Ivano-Frankivsk. One person in our family is thrilled to be here; one rabbit was in deep depression*, and some people feel like her. Others bounce back and forth. We’re working on settling in; we plan to stay here until we can go home to Kherson. 

 

*She is doing better now. I started Googling her symptoms, and really, the internet said she was depressed. There are actually articles online about rabbit mental health. We followed all the suggestions about "cheering up your bunny," and it seems to be working. If only human emotions were so simple!