There's No Place Like Home

I had hoped, when I envisioned this blog, that I would post updates daily, as I returned to my hotel room each night.

I had seemingly few events scheduled to attend and had somehow envisioned lots of downtime to write. Instead, each day stretched out in front of me, filled with compelling stories that I could not do justice to in the brief moments I had to write.

Stories that explain why, a girl with no indoor plumbing in a muddy shanty town, is one of the lucky ones. Lucky being a term I use loosely.

We come home armed with far more answers than we left with and a renewed appreciation for our group's mission.

Linda and I wandered through strange landscapes without the benefit of knowing the language and in the process, acquired a sort of faith that things would happen as they should. We were treated well by the people of Ukraine and Belarus who made sure we ate well, were met by a friendly face at every train and bus station, helped us haul around our copious bags of luggage, and that we met with those who would help us understand the needs and challenges of being a child in the Chernobyl Region.

If I ever had any doubts of the value of our program, they are now erased.

So, i will continue to blog long after we arrive home, in hopes of doing justice to the stories of the children and people we have met.

I had hoped to rely on a film crew for this purpose, but will instead, attempt to relay this information with our own voices and images.

See you soon Sonoma County!

Ruth

Dickens Revisted

I can't say we weren't happy to see the village of Schors in the bus's rearview

mirror. I won't be recommending it as a vacation destination anytime soon. I wanted to find it cute, I wanted it to be quaint but it is a dying town full of abandoned plants, buildings and run down houses. The biggest cash crop? Orphans perhaps.

We arrived in Schors Friday night. We had brought a suitcase full of small toys, gum, pen, pencils, art supplies and GFA's group had brought glow stick bracelets and balloons. The children piled into an empty gymnasium type room to see us. They were thin, pale and anemic. They had peered out the windows as we arrived. They crowded around our suitcase hopeful for something, anything. After all the goodies were handed out, we spent a great deal of time playing with them by batting around the balloons with our hands or heads. They would not let us stop.

Linda and I stayed at the one hotel in town, owned by the railroad company and we were the only guests. It was less than clean and lacked hot water but was otherwise suitable. We had to hit the local supermarket for a roll of toilet paper. Yes, a roll, it was sold by the roll. I think I miss paper products!

I will write more about our weekend later, but for now, let me post some pictures.

The Center of Kiev

Spent our first full day in Kiev. We did a bit of planning for CCP and I worked on my Press Democrat update. I need to finish before I go to bed as I may not have Internet access to submit it in Schors.

Tomorrow we will visit Schors Village and see Marina, Illiya, Katya, Irina and Veronika! We hope to tour the orphanage, the baking school and visit Illiya's home. We will be there until Sunday.

Tanya Kazrya

We visited Tanya last week in Belarus but were unable to blog about it then. I am trying to write a small essay for the

Press Democrat about our visit.

We were relieved to find her happy and well. She is going to college and getting good grades. She is happy to be home with her family but she misses the program and her host family, the Zapatas.

Here she is with her new kitten and her little cousins.

Can't sleep so just going to post some pictures...

The sign with the red slash through it means a village by that name once stood there. There were 80 such villages and most of them were bulldozed under. Many of them dating form the 12th century. Film crew in Chernobyl

Revisiting Prypiat

We were invited to dinner tonight at the home of our Ukrainian interpreter Liza. Her husband, Yuri, lived in Prypiat as a child and was 12 years old at the time of the accident. His father worked at Chernobyl until 1994. He showed us pictures he had taken of his home, school and the places they used to go before the accident. His parents were also at the dinner so Linda and I had an opportunity to ask them what it was like to live there at the time of the nuclear accident. It was a beautiful city to live in before the accident, good jobs and lots of young families. Here is a picture of Lize and her family.

Orphanage at Boyarka

Visited Zhenya today at Boyarka Orphanage, which is located about an hour outside of Minsk. There are 30 children living there right now. It is an excellent orphanage and Gallina, the director is of the highest caliber. The children sang and danced for us. Some had been to the United States last summer for health respite and they thanked us. Others, approached Linda and I privately and asked us to find homes for them, both forever homes and for respite. Three of the teenaged boys in particular were quite sweet, Dennis, Misha and Sasha. I was also quite taken with three Sri Lanka siblings, all girls. There Ukrainian mother has died and their father cannot take care of them, no one else in the family wants them because they are considered half breeds here. They are beautiful children and take care of one another. They also have a younger brother who is three. They need to be adopted together. Carole from Global Alliance had glow sticks and gum for them and we had a lot of fun handing it out. The older boys walked Linda and I to a local bank to exchange money.

Last Friday we took the night train to Minsk to see our interpreter Maryia and all our children from the Belarusian program. Needless to say, we were very excited, and could not wait to see everyone, including the parents of the children that we have been hosting for years. The mother of Elena Whorton's Belarusian son, Zhenya, made arrangements for us to have lunch at an old, reconstructed Belarusian castle. When we arrived, the parents and children were all waiting for us in the middle of town, and we couldn't believe we were seeing everyone together! They were all dressed in their Sunday best and gave us a very, very warm welcome. We hugged, kissed and cried for a bit before before walking to the restaurant for a brief tour of the castle and lunch.

After our tour, we sat down to a traditional lunch of Russian salad, soup, and meat casserole for adults, and chicken, french fries, and an ice cream Sunday's for the kids. The lunch was the perfect opportunity for us to talk to the parents and let them know what was going on with the program, and a great reunion for all the kids past and present. We asked the parents to please talk to us about the program and what they think is important for us to know.

They were interested in what happened to Tanya Kazyra and the Zapata family, so we talked to them about the outcome, and the measures we have taken to make sure that doesn't happen again. More importantly, they wanted to let us know how much the program means to their families, and how much it has improved the kids health. Rita Panamarova's mother told us that Rita's glands are swollen throughout the year, but when she comes to the States, the swelling goes down, and it helps reduce the number of colds she gets throughout the winter. This year, because she did not come, the swelling never went down, and she has been very sick already this fall. Confirmation that what we are doing not only has an impact, but is very important! The families, could not say enough about how much they loved their host families, and how hopeful they are that the program will open up again. They would like to start a writing campaign to help reinstate the program, so Ruth and I are going to send them a sample letter and the information on who to send it to make it happen.

The lunch was great, and I wish all the host families could have been their to meet their Belarusian families. Maryia did a great job of interpreting, and conveying how much we love the kids and how much we appreciate the families sharing these wonderful children with us.

The families of the children are all very loving, however, after visiting Mozyr, it was readily apparent that what we do DOES matter and it DOES make a difference. It was very rewarding to hear and see the results of our program.

Linda

Today we went to the Dead Zone

Haven't had Internet access to blog so we will have to get caught up. We spent today in the Dead Zone. What an amazing experience. We went all the way to Pripiat, the company town that had a population of about 50,000 before the nuclear accident at Chernobyl. The radiation levels there varied but if we stayed on the cement it was about 30 millirems on the geiger counter and in the building we were in it was around 60 millirems. In some places, like the old amusement park it was around 100 millirems but we measured a puddle of water at about 800 millirems. For comparison, a normal radiationlevel is around 15. Today, in at the base of the old reactor, we measure about 500 from the road but a little further up the road, radiation rose to 900 millirems. In the days immediately following the nuclear reactor radiation readings were 15,000 times a normal level and no one had been warned or evacuated.

There are still farms and dairies immediately outside the closed zone and we were looking at them as we put on our required masks and shoe covers. One can only imagine what the radiation levels are here in the milk. There are supposed to be controls but they are frequently abused.

The men who put out the reactor fire and cleaned up the nuclear site were called liquidators. There were over 500,000 of them, men between the ages of 20-30, members of the former Soviet Union's version of the national guard, their reserves. Twenty percent of them were dead in the first 10 years. The first responders died within weeks. Had they not succeeded at their job, a second explosion would have occured that would have wiped out all of Europe. The reactor continues to leak and the new steel sarcophagus is 10 years behind schedule. The radiation continues to leak into the ground water, into the Pripiat river and flows toward the Black Sea.

The half life of the Plutonium still remaining (literally tons of it) is 24,000 years. The new steel structure that will cover the sarcophagus is being paid for by the International community as the countries surrounding the plant cannot afford to rebuild it. The original cleanup cost the former Soviet Union 18 billion dollars. They have never recovered from it.

It is fairly quiet near the plant and surround Pripiat. Very few birds, wild animals or even bugs are in the area. We did see a large wild boar. However, hamsters that have been fed the grass growing near the power plant have horrible mutations and this is also reflected in the human populations in Ukraine and Belarus. 70 percent of the radiation clouds went over Belarus due to the way the winds blew and 30 percent went over Ukraine before moving on to the rest of Europe. Cancers, stomach, heart and thyroid problems remain extremely high throughout both countries and other parts of Europe.

One of the 80 abandoned villages was covered with clay and say in an experiment meant to see if they could re-inhabit the area, it failed. Radiation readings we got today were still well over a few hundred millirems and this was not far off the road as it is too dangerous to walk too far into the area. Over 200,000 people were relocated in Ukraine alone. Radiation remains above normal in many regions that are inhabited.

The former Soviet Union had plans for 12 reactors at Chernobyl but only five had been completed when the accident occurred.

There are still hundreds of workers traveling in and out of the power plant with somewhat limited hours, as they need time off to rid themselves of radiation. We were not sure what all the people there were doing but we saw them being bused in and out and we did hear the power plant humming in one location which is confusing as the reactors are all supposed to be moth balled. We also saw smoke rising from a smokestack near the reactor.

We saw no other tourists today in that region and had to go through a few check points as we left, to make sure both ourselves and the vehicle we traveled in did not have elevated levels of radiation. We passed! A doctor in Belarus advised that Linda and I drink red wine after our trip today so we are sharing a lovely tempranillo as we are eager to comply! Cheers!

Now that we have Internet access we will try to catch up on our travels through Belarus where we had limited data and computer access.

Dasvidanya!

Ruth and Linda