Gots

I've got ....

I have “gots.” 

I’ve got a friend on a bus from Kyiv that’s been in line to cross the Polish border for two days and counting.

I’ve got another, the above-mentioned friend’s boyfriend, assisting in a shelter somewhere in Kyiv, maybe near their home close to the train station, an area that suffered bombardments Saturday night. All of Kyiv is expecting an all-out assault soon. I’m very worried about him.

I’ve got two friends, a mom and her 14-year-old son, in a train somewhere between Dnipro and Poland, a 900 km (560 mile) journey. Her phone battery is dying.

I’ve got another friend and her 20-something-age daughter in a minivan somewhere in Ukraine’s western countryside. There were six of them when they left Kyiv, now there seem to be eleven of them. Locals, they say, have fed them well. They are circumspect with details. Texts might be intercepted, and everyone is cautioned not to talk about routes taken, because the Russians are looking for routes.

I’ve got a former student who lives with her mom in the countryside not far from Crimea, near a city under bombardment. They hear the bombs all night. Yesterday morning she opened the front door and a wild rabbit ran inside and hid under her mom’s bed. They are feeding it carrots. 

I’ve got a student who moved his family to the countryside, then returned to Kyiv, presumably to take part in the defense. I haven’t head from him since.

I’ve got a social-media friend who lives in a resort area. She’s stuck there. She owns a seasonal business, an inflatable water slide. She saved up $5000 to invest in a bigger, better water slide, expanding her business. She purchased it two weeks ago. Her savings depleted and a large investment to guard, she doesn’t want to leave. If some kind of normalcy is not restored by summer, or if her storage unit is hit, she will be ruined. 

I’ve got others too, and I spend my days since I came to Budapest bent over my phone or device, following their progress, sending them helpful information, news, encouragement, sympathy, jokes and money.

When I got together last week in a coffeeshop with two other Americans who’d also recently fled to Budapest, all we talked about was our “gots,” each bending to our phones at the bing of a Viber alert. Viber is the ubiquitous chat/phone service in Ukraine.

Kyiv, Independence Day, 24 August, 2020. This is from the heights of the city looking down on the river Dnipro, the historic old neighborhood of Podil, with Obolon on the horizon. This is the direction the Russians are approaching from. Their objective is the government buildings, which are all behind the camera.

One of these fellow Americans is coincidentally also a New Hampshire native of the same vintage as me. He’s been in Ukraine 20 years. 

He’s got a wife in Kyiv. She didn’t believe there would be an attack. Like most Ukrainians she was certain the military buildup on the border was all a bluff. Then too, she didn’t want their home to be left unprotected. They own their apartment and have put a lot of money into remodeling. This is how people invest in Ukraine, this is their retirement plan. They buy – with cash – an apartment and remodel it. Later, they sell or rent it for retirement income. So, to her, leaving the apartment risked losing everything.

He succumbed to strong advice from friends and family back in the US. He thought he and his wife should leave the country to be on the safe side. She wouldn’t go. So they compromised - he would take a little vacation on his own and be back in a couple of weeks.

For a day or two after the the bombs started falling she still didn’t want to leave. Then she saw people on the street, she said, making Molotov cocktails and taking tires to make barricades. She wanted out. But, how? He has the car in Hungary, the airports are closed and the vokzalna (train station) is a mob scene. Last I heard she was still in their home. sheltering in the basement during the air-raids, complaining they have too much stuff stored down there.

My view of Budapest. Constantly monitoring the news.

I have no idea what Budapest is like, what sights it has, I only know that the supermarket here is unfamiliar. It doesn’t even have plain black tea. Why is Early Grey the only black tea? For nearly three years I’ve embraced learning a different culture, dropping my assumptions, accepting difference and finding infinite patience. Suddenly, I have culture shock, tears trickling down my face in the tea aisle. I want to be home, in my local market, with my friends safe from bombs and terror. 

I hate the evenings. The Russians pick this time to begin bombarding every day. It’s intentional, wearing down the citizens with sleep-deprivation. And each night it is worse, as the Russians inch forward, increasingly targeting public buildings and homes. I’m not sleeping very well, either.

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An update from Kateryna, whose Day 4 diary I posted yesterday. 

We have some good news and some devastating news.

Let's start with good. I know you are worried about the granny. It is not what I thought. She is 92 and her children wanted to take her to their place but she refused.

It is the same as with my mom - she says she wants to die at home. Maybe when (if) I get older, I will understand it better

Also I managed to record a video