GLOBETROTTERS WRITING CHALLENGE

Finding Myself — Literally — In a Ukrainian Village

The photo at the end of a journey

Village church in Western Ukraine. Author photo.

Friends told me I was on a journey to ‘find myself’. That’s true in a metaphorical sense, but I never dreamed I’d find myself literally.

We often hear about an old photograph leading to a journey. This time the journey led to a photograph.

My feet slide and twist over the bleached rocky surface of the track. Rivulets of sweat glue strands of hair to my face as I struggle to stay upright with a loaded backpack. A car bumps over the stony ruts, the driver’s eyes fixed ahead. The dome of the church, gleaming in the far distance, is the only landmark I recognise in this Western Ukrainian village.

I’d imagined this so many times over the past year, although it was very vague: get off the bus here, walk into the village, take this turn and then look for the house.

Main road into the village. Author photo.

In 2018, a year earlier, I’d enlisted a Ukrainian tour guide who dabbled in genealogy to help me find long-lost…