L'viv - Part Eleven - Crossing Over, First Part

I admit, I'm not even sure where to start with this particular post. Guess I'll have to start way back at the beginning. Hang on - here we go!

Ukraine has laws. No one knows all of the laws. There are many laws. Laws on top of laws. Laws that contradict each other. Laws here. Laws there. Laws. Laws. Laws.

I've written before about getting registered and what a pain it is (I left out the anatomy part there :) ). I dread registration because you never know what the official in charge is going to want for proof of who you are, what you do, if you exist, if your mother and father existed, where you live, who likes you, who doesn't like you and so on and so forth. Every three months (if you came into the country before May, which we did) we had to be registered. Every single time we went in it was a different list of papers that they wanted, originals translated into Ukrainian, signed, notarized, paid for, ad naseum. Each one of us has had a different list. Jamie's list for his family was different than my list, Mel's was different from both of those, Melinda's was different than those 3. Get the picture?

What is a person supposed to do? Other than spend hours in line every 3 months getting this red tape worked out so you can spend another 2.5 months in the country before you start it all over again?

Run for the border!

That's what you do! Run for the border.

Cross over. Cross over into another country. Spend some time there - a few minutes, a few days, doesn't matter really. Just step foot out of this country, making sure you get the appropriate stamps in your passport, and then come back.

Suddenly I'm afraid to write about this...maybe someone is reading it who will say - "We've got to put a stop to this! NOW! They need to stand in line and never know what papers they need - FOREVER!" But here goes:

Two days ago we got all the information we needed to cross over the border to Poland. We decided to take the train because you can sit or walk around on it, there are toilets, you can buy food and water from sellers on the trains, and so forth. This is an electric train for day passengers only, just seats - no bunks for sleeping. Plus, it is only a couple hours ride to the border. The bus can be very crowded, possibly have to stand for the whole time, no toilet, etc. So Mel and I caught the train yesterday and took off.

We were told that the train stopped at the border. All we needed to do was walk over, going through the appropriate passport control and customs checkpoints on both sides, spend some time there and then come back.

After two hours, we got to the end of the rail line and got off the train. Hmmm. Not too many people around here...guess we'll follow these guys and see where they are going.

We followed them across a set of train tracks, down a bank, over a muddy path, around a brick wall and onto a dirt street. Hmmm. This does not look too promising. Hmmm. You know, if we get stuck here, we are stuck here overnight - we had better ask someone where the border is.

Now, we had been told that there would be a gazillion people, trucks and cars all waiting to get over the border. Somehow this quiet little village out in the wilds of Ukraine did not have gazillions of people, nor did it have a lot of cars and trucks, nor did we see any high fences, barbed wire, guards or anything else that looked like it might be a border between Ukraine and an EU country.

Mel stopped at a little store and asked if anyone spoke English. No. Did anyone speak Russian. No. The woman seller called to someone else to come in and translate. In Russian, "Where is the border?" In Ukrainian, "Far away! You have to do something and something and something and marshrutka and x number of kilometers and something else."

Oh Kay! A Ha! Oh No! Translation: Apparently there is no border crossing here with Poland, it is far away and we have to take a marshrutka to get there.

We walked back to the train, thinking that we would go in the train station (over there on the other side of the scum covered pond, seen through the trees beside the muddy road) and ask them how to get to the border. It seemed as if the best way to get there would be on the tracks, so we climbed back up the bank and started walking beside the train we had gotten off of a few minutes earlier.

One of the conductresses stopped at a door and called out something. We couldn't hear her very well, but Mel called back, "Where is the border?" She said, "It's not here! It's far away! You have to get back on the train and go back to the next stop and get off there!" (That is a rough translation - I left out all the somethings and x's this time, because it was all in Ukrainian, which is the only language officials of any kind will speak, or so it seems.) Did we want to get on? Mel and I looked at each other and I said, "Yes."

I figured that if we were on the train we would at least know where we were at. On the train. At the last stop on that route. Somewhere not close to the border of Poland. But! That train was going back to L'viv sooner or later!

She introduced us to a babushka who was sitting in that wagon and said (again my translation - you add your own somethings and x's wherever you want), "This babushka knows where you need to go, she will tell you." And you know what? She did!

Actually, I kept looking at that tiny little babushka - old, wrinkled, thin, white hair covered in a scarf, beautiful eyes filled with pain but eyes that sparkled merrily at us as she spoke. And I thought, this is an angel God has sent to help us. She was thrilled to tell us what to do and where to go, using hand motions and Russian that was more Ukrainian really than Russian, and big smiles. Seriously - I've thought about her a lot and if angels really are here on earth among us, she may have been one. I wish I knew her. I really liked her.

We did exactly what she said to do. The train finally took off half an hour later, and we got off at the first stop - about 5 minutes down the tracks. Actually we climbed down off the train (see the train scene in Fiddler on the Roof for an idea of what I mean although we were riding in a real passenger wagon, not a cattle car). Then, after several people had climbed on to it, the train took off.

As the train disappeared off into the distance, we looked in front of us and behind us. We saw lots of grass, lots of trees, a tumbled down building, a cow, a muddy road leading off into the trees and nothing else. What to do, what to do??!! When in doubt, do what other people are doing. So, we followed the 6 or 8 other people who had gotten off the train across the tracks and down the muddy road. Past the cow in the field (I like the smell of cows, and we did smell her), around the mud puddles, past the tumbled down house, through the trees, past the two horses standing in harness in front of a wagon, a wagon which two young men were throwing some sort of green harvested big leaved plants out of into a big stack beside a big stack of pumpkins and other winter squashes, in front of someones house.

Somewhere along the line, the 6 or 8 other people just kind of disappeared. Mel and I neither one know where they went. Isn't that weird? I think so. Well, except for one young man who went across the highway we finally came to, and stood there waiting for a marshrutka.

The old babushka had told us we needed to turn and walk for a ways and then wait for a marshrutka to take us to the border. I think we turned the wrong way. Maybe we were supposed to go east, back toward the center of Ukraine, but instead we turned west toward the border and started walking.

We walked down the hill, past a beautiful big Greek Catholic church, over the little creek, past some houses on both sides of roads. Oodles of chickens and geese clucked and honked at us, a dog barked, a car or two went by. We walked up the hill on the other side, past several houses on either side of the road, past beautiful flower gardens, and more chickens and more geese out scratching in the dirt along side the highway, eating their supper. A couple boys on a bike went by. A couple more cars went by. And we walked. Mel was quite concerned that there was no big truck traffic. In fact, the road was very quiet.

We walked for two hours. Yes, TWO HOURS. Through that little village, through some open country side, up a big hill. UP a BIG HILL and I said, "Enough! I can't go any farther! I need to eat!" The sun was beginning to set, the early stages of sunset where it shine through the tops of the trees right into your eyes. So, we stopped there on the side of the highway, Mel dug out two croissants for each of us from his backpack, one sweet, one filled with meat (tasted like, but did not have the texture of, liverwurst). As we ate our dinner, standing in the grass on the side of the road a couple of big trucks and a bus or two went by. A couple more cars passed and we began seeing Polish plates on the cars.

We had stopped near a gas station. The only photos I took were here, after we finished eating and while we were trying to figure out what to do next. I looked around me and it was so beautiful! I wish I could share it with you. I also wish I had a ton more photos, of the geese and chickens, horses and wagons, village houses in all colors of the rainbow and their gardens. But alas - we were in a hurry (hear hysterical laughing at that) and I didn't take time to take photos.

We looked farther up hill. A big truck passed us and seemed to slow down, like maybe he was getting in line at the border, just over the top of the hill. There was a big sign on our side of the road (we were looking at the back of it) and we thought maybe it was a sign about entering Ukraine, laws and so forth. We had HOPE that the border was just over the top of the hill. Hope springs eternal. We got to that sign and it said something to the effect of "Caution! Speed bumps next 3 kilometers!" Hope died down to our socks. We could see another big building, like a lodge, up at the top of the hill, on the other side of the road. And lo - a man! walking toward us on our side of the highway came over the top of the hill.

We walked toward him, he walked toward us. We stopped him. "Where is the border?" "Sho??" "Corridor? Granitsa?" And he laughed a very sarcastic 'I can't believe I am hearing this question, how stupid are you people?' kind of laugh. "Too far to walk! It's a long way away! You need to get on a marshrutka!" Where, Mel asks. "Go up to that hotel and stand there and a marshrutka will come. Get on it and go to the border." He shook his head in disbelief and walked off. I'm sure he had a great time telling his friends and family about the weird Americans out wandering along the highway, looking for the border with Poland. I've had a good laugh over it - he deserves one, too.

Mel and I looked at each other, and started walking the rest of the way up the hill. We crossed over the road and stood in front of the driveway to the hotel/lodge. Mel pulled out his cell phone and called one of our team members who lives here in L'viv and told him what was going on. And can you believe it? Right then, at that very moment, a marshrutka came over the top of the hill, heading in the direction we needed to go. We had seen one earlier, but did not know what it was until it had already passed us. Two marshrutkas in two hours. Oh my. I stuck out my hand and kind of waved it a bit, the driver hit the breaks, stopped about 10 meters farther down the road and we got on. He charged us a whole 2 griven for the ride.

And we drove at least another 10 kilometers before he stopped at the end of his route - at the border of Poland and Ukraine. We had finally arrived.