Arun's Farewell

Today is my last day in Ukraine.
Feels like it was yesterday I landed in Odessa.
I remember all the questions I had when I reached the Continental Hotel late at night last September.

What would work be like?
What about the people I'll work with?
How will it be working with the Ukrainian people?

Then there were some very practical concerns:

How would I search for apartments?
Should I live downtown, as most expats did? Or closer to work?
There were barely any internet listings- not that I could understand it, if I tried.
I took a full month of apartment-hunting accompanied by my coworker Vova (interpretation help) before I finally settled down.

But really, that was just the beginning.

How do I set up internet? Once again, I relied on the Raytheon interpreters to help me locate the Tenet office. Even filling out the form was an obstacle because it was entirely in Russian, and I needed their help for even that simple task.
The TV channels were Russian news stations and Russian reality shows. I had my office-mate Sergei call someone to install the Satellite so I could at least have BBC and CNN (and yeah, a few Hindi programs too.)

In many ways, life here was a struggle and there are a few things I won’t miss. The smelly marshrutka buses (whenever people coughed, I always feared TB.) The stray dogs. The smoking.

But overall, if I was asked if I would do it again? Yes, I would.
I never realized how relaxing it is to walk to work. I would walk through the marketplace and by the time I reached work, I would feel clear-headed and ready to start. Compare that to battling traffic on highways or playing the Monday morning airport shuffle; and I realize how much simpler life was here. It also helps that work starts at 9 am rather than at 8 (that extra hour of sleep is nice.)

Language was a huge barrier.
But people were always willing to help.
We used to live in such a bubble in the US. Most people are busy with their own life and their own stresses- and there are a lot more of them there.

It was great to meet the close-knit expat American community here and we definitely made some new friends. It was so easy to spend time with people- you can just pick up the phone and get a group together for dinner. In the US, we would have to plan a dinner weeks in advance.

I will take a lot of great memories from my time here in Odessa and I learned a lot about the people and culture in this part of the world- all of which I will cherish throughout my career.