My last weeks in Sevastopol are a quiet affair. My colleague Lydmilla is in the US on a professional development visit w/ the State Department's IVL Program. It's the end of the academic year and Sevastopol's 24 universities and colleges are empty of their youth. The tourists haven't yet arrived in droves, but the weather is perfect and all is green. The Black Sea is a strange body of water regarding temperature - two weeks ago the water was so cold that it was painful (well, for guys at least). But just last week, the water mysteriously became tepid. The sea remembered summer over night.
Ambitious plans were set forth months ago to see all of Crimea before departure. Maybe I would spend my last weeks traveling by bus, electric train and van criss crossing the peninsula: I would see Kerch, Feodosia and make my way back to Bakchasarai and Yevpretoriya one last time. But in the end, I was too exhausted. Frugal with my time, I lavished my last days in Ukraine here at home, in the very best city: Sevastopol.
I've had guests every weekend for the past four weekends. If it hadn't been my last weekend in Sevastopol, I would have turned away any knockers without hesitation to forage amongst the chestnut trees or join the wild dogs for shelter under a parked car. But, it was my last weekend and I wanted to spend it with friends. After a final rendevous at the wide square at Nahimova's landing, all seven of us made our way out to the south coast and hiked out along the sea for one more group barbecue under the cliffs of Balaclava (Ravi's pic right). I marinated chicken all night to roast on skewers over an open charcoal fire: my last shashlik on the beach (Also Ravi's pic).
After a couple of swims, we hopped on a boat and made our way back to Sevastopol to pack my pad where one could find hot showers and the latest episode of SNL on a laptop. In the evening, we walked the town to watch a lively summer evening in one of Europe's prettiest ports: bands played on the waterfront, teenagers skated and rollerbladed, the sun set over the breakwater, a starry night fell and fireworks boomed overhead.
Picture right is me with fellow Peace Corps Crimea volunteers.
The Balaclava-Silver Beach-Sevastopol circuit was a hosting ritual that I had repeated about two dozen times, but I would dearly miss it. Especially if my future is resigned to a cubicle in a pumped-in-air-concrete box in Washington.
As indicative of the lure of the place where I have lived, my retiree sitemates Phil and Carol from Group 31 (who departed in November) are already back - to spend a month here in a rented apartment while their house is being built in Florida. This couple, like me, feel like bonified Sevastopolans. They spent the winter traveling the States visiting family. I recollect what Phil said to me last week when he returned that was hauntingly familiar: "This is the first time since I left in November that I feel like I'm home." My heart already aches.
The thought of departure does slightly dampen my spirits. Nonetheless I have a certain itching that occurs when I know it's time to get moving. Besides, I'm ready for my month-long vacai across Europe. I know I've said it before, but I MEAN IT this time: this is the last time I sleep in stinky eight-bedded hostel dorms, cheap eat at bars, cook in crowded communal kitches, use coin-operated showers and the last time I fill up water bottles in the bathroom sink in the morning. This is the very last time I take a backpack across Europe! Next time, I'll be trailing a wheeled Samsonite.
This is it. Once again, here at the end of the pier; the end of one voyage and the beginning of the next. I find it so easy to change ships after so many ports. I wonder if I will get landsickness like I always seem to get after being on a boat for so long.
What's the next voyage? STOP ASKING ME THAT QUESTION. Or at least wait until I get back on dry, static earth.
Goodbye Ukraine. Goodbye Peace Corps. To quote some curious Vermontans, "This has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way."
THIS BLOG WILL BE CONTINUED AFTER PEACE CORPS. As of June 2, 2009 "Gilpin on the Globe" will no longer be a "Peace Corps" blog but will be continued as a my blog without US government censorship.
