One day when I was walking from my teacher's apartment to the internet cafe, I was quite sure everyone I passed was staring at my green shoes and navy knee socks. In a couple places where the sidewalk goes up a hill, it turns into stairs - the steeper the hill, the narrower the steps. Coming out of the cafe, I looked for a bus named belyakova that I can flag down. It's not long before one comes along. I walked home from the bus stop with the sun in my eyes. So I looked instead at my feet, and was careful to avoid the potholes, animal droppings and litter that plague the sandy road. At the corner house there is a yard full of chickens always scratching in the dirt. I passed a small boy swinging in a tree and think about how there is always at least one boy hanging in that tree. There is a man with white hair wearing a brown suit, and riding a squeaky bicycle, sitting straightly on its seat. The little dog named Yulia no longer barks at me when I lean against the gate and reach around to unlatch it. The big dog, Jessica runs to greet me.
On another day, I found myself sitting in the back of a taxi in the morning, because there was no bus for us to take. I was wedged between two other people with a small child from the Internat on my lap. The man beside me was wearing stripey jeans, and I was wondering how the driver could see anything out the dirty windshield with the sun glaring on it the way that it was. The road from Melitopol to Priazovye is flat and straight, with the exception of one bend at a certain place. It is not free of the potholes that infest all Ukrainian roads though.
Another morning. It's early and not quite all light yet. I sit on a bus waiting for it to leave the station and take us to Priazovye. I watch women busily unloading a van and setting up their kiosk of shoes - mostly pointy-toed stilletos - in the semi-darkness. The bus drivers hover around the front of the busses sipping coffee from little plastic cups. Everyone is wearing either a leather jacket, or a short denim one.
I am amazed at how many people can cram into the aisle of one bus. And how they can move past and around each other when one needs to get off the bus.