The Real Reason We Are Here

In Russian, the word friend has a stronger meaning than it does in English. In the States, we all have tons of friends. It is our close and best friends that resemble something closer to the Russian friend. We hesitate to use the word acquaintance; over time the word has somehow developed a stigma. After being in Ukraine for 2 years, I find I prefer their definition of friend more.

That said, I am not a person who has a huge posse of friends. I have friends; I have many friends, some might say. Although I enjoy large crowds of people, I prefer to make best friends with fewer individual people. With every transition that I’ve had in my 24 years, every change, experience and adventure – I latch on to a few people.

I have one friend from childhood. We got closer during high school, attended university together, and then both have been travelling around the globe since then. For me, our friendship is like a touchstone – talking with him connects my current self to the past, and then brings me full circle again. Every time we speak, I am overwhelmed by a familiarity that only old friends can bring.

I have a few friends from both high schools I attended. From university, I have friends from the different parts of my life there – life in the dorms, working at the cafeteria, Russian classes, misadventures in crappy houses. Each trip abroad developed more friends, imprinting my heart with the adventure and friendship simultaneously. I can’t separate the two; I can’t talk about my trips to Volgograd and Kaliningrad without smiling about the shenanigans I got into with the friends that I made.

My time so far in Peace Corps has been intense, as far as friendships go. We needed friends when we arrive, having just left behind everyone that we knew and cared about. The excitement of a new place and opportunities ahead combined with a silent desperation had us all reaching to each other. Or maybe it was just me, shaking hands with new people while mentally handing them my heart and emotions.

After training and a few months at site, I had a group of friends that I proceeded to spend lots of weekends with, and talk with for hours on the phone. Because I don’t normally have groups of friends it was exciting and moving, and very often made me feel like I was in the cast of Friends. (I have snagged a few other friends along the way: other inhabitants of my oblast including PCVs, Aussies, and Ukrainians, and a person the other side of the country who is not ashamed of being able to spend 3 consecutive hours on the phone.)

This group especially, our Donetsk Oblast group, has played a huge role in how I define my time so far in the Peace Corps. Sure, I have taught loads of kids and done very rewarding work, which I will cherish forever. But, I am a person who needs people, one who needs friends especially – and these people who I have just fallen in love with, who have let me into their lives and we have grown together in the past 2 years – our friendship is a crucial and vital part of my service.

Thus, when Katelyn and Jessica left, I fell apart.

I came to pieces at first because I didn’t know who I would talk to. I didn’t know who I would visit on the weekends, who I would commiserate and laugh with about everything on the planet. Then, as the hole in my heart grew and grew, I cried because I didn’t know what Peace Corps would mean for me without them. I cried because they left and it meant that I would have to leave too, and this adventure of mine in the Peace Corps would have to end and I am so sad when things are over.

It has taken me a few weeks to gather my pieces back together and step back from all the wallowing that I was doing.

The night that Jessica left, Mattison was there with me – with hugs and reassurances and funny stories to cheer me up. After saying goodbye to Katelyn, upon returning to Donetsk, Nathan invited me over to bake cookies, drink wine from bunny-shaped bottles, and talk for hours. I was so caught up in the sadness of the girls leaving that it seems I forgot about everyone else.

So damn, am I lucky. First off, I am lucky to have these friends, both those that left Ukraine and those that are still here. I am especially lucky to have those who comforted me while I sank in a pool of misery wailing about loneliness, essentially ignoring their very existence.

That brings us to the present. I’m not so much sad anymore that Group 37 volunteers have left or are in the process of leaving, although I am still a little bewildered. I have always needed to mourn the changes in my life, but for now I am okay.  I do not regret having made the decision to extend, and I’m sure the positive feelings towards being here that used to pour out of me will return.

Today, I am content. I am where I want to be.  I am surrounded by friends who make me laugh, who are leaving impressions on my heart and taking steps alongside me towards the future.

I leave you with this, one of my favorite Story People by Brian Andreas.

There are things you do because they feel right & they may make no sense & they may make no money & it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other & to eat each other's cooking & say it was good.