Kiev Airport

When you enter a country, when do you first feel that you have arrived? Some people get that excited feeling when the plane lands but I don’t. When the plane lands in the Kiev airport, we unbuckle our seat belts and slowly stand up. I open up the over head compartment in which my backpack is laying in. Snatching it, I remind my grandma to get her purse as well. Getting out of the plane, my grandparents and I walk in a line: my grandpa, my grandma, and I. We walk down the steps and circle up on the pavement. Buses drive over and we get on. I still don’t feel like I am Ukraine even though I am in Ukraine. 

We ride around the airport on the bus and then the bus drops us off at a white building. I step off the bus first and just stand there for a minute. “I’m almost here, almost here,” I keep repeating in my head. My grandparents get off a couple people after me and we begin to walk up the ramp. The clear sliding doors open in front of me. I step in and feel like I am home, in Ukraine. When the sliding doors open in front of me, I feel as if it is Ukraine that is allowing me to enter the country. I tear up and begin to cry from joy. Both my grandparents kiss me on the cheek. I always get emotional when I step in because I truly feel like I have arrived. Everyone is speaking in russian. Everyone looks russian. It is an amazing moment that I wait a whole year to experience. It is only one second long but when I step in I know that I arrived. 

There are fourteen lines to the left of me and i stand up on my toes to see which ones the shortest. There are nine lines for non ukrainian citizens to enter through and five for ukrainian citizens to enter through. I am younger than eighteen therefore I am allowed to enter with the ukrainian citizens since I entered the country with my grandparents. Walls, floors, and ceilings are all white and it feels clean. I hear babies crying from right and left due to the heat surrounding everyone. Its our turn to register in and I get even more excited. The man looks at my grandpa and then down at his passport and then does the same thing to my grandma. He stamps my grandparents passports and then he looks down at my passport and back up at me. He asks me where I will be living and I recite my grandparents address: Малиновский двадцать семь, двенадцать квартир. He stamps my passport and tells me to have a good time. He motions his door to the exit of the room and we have. 

We walk into the area where we have to get our luggage. When I was little it used to be my favorite part. I loved watching all the luggage spin around in circles on  the conveyer belt and I looked at it as a game when I had to find our luggage. We got our two suitcases and four duffle bags quickly. We walk right by and they do not ask to check our bags. Ahead of me are two sliding doors again and it is always my favorite part to walk out first being bold and strong. On the left and on the right are people right when the doors open, and I keep my head high. People are holding flowers, others are cheering but I just look ahead, take steady steps, and keep smiling.  

Word Count: 617

Baby Chickens

I wake up at 6:30 and take a deep breath. It is the first Sunday that I am in Ukraine but it feels like I have been here for a month already. I stretch and get out of bed and open the window to feel how hot it is outside. Looking at the thermometer, I realize that it is very hot because it is forty degrees Celsius, perfect weather to get baby chickens. 

My grandpa and I are about to step out the door but my grandma stops us to ask if we have our hats to protect our heads from the sun. We get our hats and go out the door. I have a thrill of energy going through my body while we walk to the bus stop. I ask my grandpa how many chicks we will get and he says seven because it has to be an odd number. He explains that it has to be an odd number because we don't want the chicks pairing up and isolating from the group. If they isolate themselves and another chick then if the other chick dies, the living chick wi be heartbroken and dies as well. When we get to the bus stop I remember that our bus to the bazaar is bus number sixteen which is the most common bus. After about three buses go by, our bus comes full of people and we don't know if there is enough room for us. The bus driver gets out of the bus and yells at the people to move into the middle of the bus. Getting on the bus, I can smell the nasty sweat and the heat surrounds me. I blow up air from my mouth to the rest of my face to get air circulating around my face. I am very squished and so is my grandpa but we are used to it since Sundays are when the animal bazaar is open so a lot of people go. 

When we get out of the bus, I do a quick stretch with my arms and wait for my grandpa to get off the bus. I give him my hand when he steps off the last step and I smiles.  We cross the wide street to get to the bazaar. Outside the gates people are selling fruits, vegetables, and car parts. Boxes are filled with:  peppers, apricots, cherries, tomatoes, and cucumbers. We have our own garden so we don't need any of it. We walk into the gate and on the left hand side are long rows full of meet. It is fresh meet, the animals were killed that morning and then cut up. I find it disgusting because they even lay out the heads of the pigs and cows that were killed. But on the right hand side, I see clothes and car parts. We don't need any of this either so we walk out of the gates but on the other side to get to the animals. I get over excited because these are chicks are going to be mine and mine only. I usually share them with my sister but she did not come this year so I have the chicks all to myself. People sit on little home made benches and welcome in customers. Many people have chicks, ducks and geese in boxes, but people also have piglets in their trunks, and puppies in baby cribs. 

We walk over to my neighbor from the farm because she has a lot of chicks. She has three boxes full of them and they are only three days old. They are adorable. I am scared that I will squish them since they are so small. The first one I spot is brown with a black strip down its back. The lady reaches down to pick up the chick and they all run to the opposite corner of the box. I pick out seven but then my grandpa finds three that he likes. I told him that we should just get ten but he says that it has to an odd number so we picked out one more and made it 11. She put them all into a little box and closed the top so that they won’t jump out. Little holes were made in the box so that they can breathe. They peep so loud but they are so cute. I can hear their little feet slide around the box because it is slippery for them. I hold the box in my hands and walk to the bus stop with my grandpa.

       The bus comes right away and we sit down quickly. I put the box in between my knees and everyone is looking at me because they are peeping. I feel proud holding the chicks because all the attention was on me. The lady next to me asked me what was in the box and I told her that they were chicks. We get off the bus and walk to the apartment. We have to keep the chicks at the apartment for the first two weeks because it will be cold for them outside, in the barn at the farm. We walk into the room and my grandma asks to see the chicks. My grandpa and I look at each other because we told my grandma originally that we were only going to get seven chicks. I place the box on the floor and open it and then laugh. My grandmas face was shocked and then she laughed and smiled. She told me that she knew that I would end up getting more chicks because I love animals. I got a bigger box for the chicks and put a towel in it for the chicks to live on. I put a dish of water and food in for the chicks. 
Word Count: 977