A burst of distrust, of a need to have eyes in the back of my head fell upon me.  On boarding, a large brawney heavy man is sitting in my flight seat.  I sternly say "I believe this seat to be mine" - my first thrust into retaining what is rightfully mine.

- Heidi  

We were received by 2 elderly women and a young man with a sweaty cold hand shake.  We were shown the room; moving up a creaky elevator - dark with a smell of stale produce.  As the elevator door opened, we walked into an entrance area with slate- like linoleum flooring - of which a half of the tiles were missing exposing dirt- ridden cement flooring.

We passed through another door, one with a broken window, into a dark, equally smelly corridor.  At each end of the hallway was a light bulb - causing the center of the hallway to rest in darkness.  While many other bulb sockets were available, none were filled - perhaps a way to conserve electricity and to shield its desperate surroundings.   

We were lead to the end of the hall to a door marked crudely #261. We unlocked the first door, black padded, and as at opened, another door, metal, severely dented, was revealed.

Finally unlocked, the doors opened into the apartment, where had truly seen better days.

- Heidi

We left Kiev - with eyes wide open - by car, taking in everything the eyes could fathom.  In many ways, it seemed as though we had been imprisoned in our own minds, in our own environments.  Things of relative banality took on grander proportions than they should have, simply because we were in Ukraine.

At around 3 to 3:15 PM we saw the women coming to the main road from the fields - loading onto trucks - presumably being taken to their villages.  They all looked around 35 to 70 - wearing the requisite pale head scarf tied behind their neck.

- Heidi