Midlife Crisis Odyssey

It’s amazing what a couple of weeks will do. The last time we made the five-and-a-half hour trip to the village the countryside was snowbound. Although Ukraine’s snowy farmland is beautiful (from the warmth of the car, at least), poor visibility and icy roads had made the drive anything but relaxing. However, now a week into spring, the sun was shining, and the huge trucks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces sucked the dust from the road verge into swirling, grey-brown…

Read More Read More

We waited at the checkpoint while the police officer, his face obscured by a neck gaiter pulled up over his nose, inspected our passports. There are checkpoints on all the roads which enter and exit the city, where the movement of people, vehicles and cargo are monitored. Glancing from my passport photo to my face and back again, the officer asked what we had in the car and where we were going. My colleague answered that we were heading to…

Read More Read More

We had spent the morning delivering food to several small villages near the frontline in south-eastern Ukraine. There were not many people left in the settlements, just a few older residents going about their lives as the incoming Russian artillery rumbled, boomed and rattled their windows. Returning home through undulating cropping country, we came to the outskirts of one of the larger regional towns. Ukrainian soldiers were reinforcing their trenches and bunkers by the side of the road, preparing for…

Read More Read More

We left the warmth of the village administrative office and walked out into the frigid air. It was a sullen, overcast day in southern Ukraine, and bitterly cold. Outside a generator roared, providing scarce power to light the building, and an opportunity for some of the few remaining locals to recharge their phones. Making our way down the town’s main road, we crunched through the frozen puddles, pulling our jackets tight around us. Leafless trees stood like line drawings against…

Read More Read More

It was a sunny winter’s morning in southern Ukraine as we drove through the city streets. There were six of us in the van – my colleague Alexey, two of his friends and another couple of helpers – bumping over potholed roads and lurching around downed powerlines. We were on our way to pick up a senior citizen who needed to be evacuated by train. A blacked-out city under constant bombardment is no place to be for a 80 (or…

Read More Read More

The taxi app pinged, telling me the driver had arrived. Snow was falling lightly as I stood on the footpath outside my accommodation in Kyiv, looking down the street for the ‘Volkswagen Passat, Black‘. No car matching that description was anywhere to be seen. I left my pile of bags, fuel jerries and protective equipment and ducked around the corner, just in case the Passat was there. It wasn’t, and the app pinged again asking me to come out as…

Read More Read More