October 22, 2005
Forbidden Fruit
We left Jan and Jacob behind today, their health deteriorated and they needed to stay in and rest in order to recover. I personally think that Jacob just didn't wanna (poopy?) on some Ukrainian highway, but hey, this is only my view! (remember he had diarrhea!).
After two days of information overdose, today we started our actual training.It took a TWO HOUR ride on very bumpy roads, to reach the abandoned village of Zhurga, the name translates to Sorrow in English, how ironic heh!
The road to the village was a well guarded check point with a nervous bunch of border police. As we approached they gathered around the entrance preparing for our arrival. After checking our passports and questioning our driver and guide. We were allowed to enter the zone but on one condition. We were to be "watched" by a guard. His job was to ensure that we only measured and did not take any samples with us, this was the condition even though we explained that we were only there for training purposes. We thought fair enough, we will not take any samples!! Promise we wont... We didn't... Really, I mean it we didn't!! Or did we!
I felt as bad as I did the day we drove by other abandoned villages. But now we were approaching the houses of the "soulless" village, we are going to walk around those houses and hear them whisper their stories to us.
It occupants had been forced to leave just a month after Chernobyl blew up, the occupants never to return.
I didn't even have enough time to start thinking about it, the radiation levels were FIVE times higher than the normal background radiation, which sent the machines screaming again (remember day one!). This time we were all prepared of course and in gear to deal with the situation.
At a certain point the screams of my machine got me kindda worried. Wished I could shut the F*****g thing off!! But I couldnt remember how.
You are standing there knowing there is something out there, you cant see, you cant feel, you cant smell.. But yet you know its very dangerous and would harm you very badly if it gets to you.
William detects my unease and in his usual - unique - way says "its ok hon, we are only here for an hour, you are not gonna grow another ear!!
I wondered what goes through the guards head; we are only here for an hour but he is here for much longer. There we go arriving all geared up for the training, with our masks, protected suits, gloves and detectors, the whole nine yards basically, shouting to each other the minute our machines warned us of a kind of 'hot spot' as if we discovered a hidden treasure. He probably thought we were putting on a show.
To the guard and the people working in such zones, this is their job; they come in the morning and spend all day in an area Rianne and William didn't want to keep us in there for more time than necessary and safe!!
To us, this trip is a proof of how serious Greenpeace is about its staff and activists safety. But what about that guard! I wonder what his uncomfortable looks hide, does he hate us, envy us, or reaching out for us.
I will never know.
What I know is, Chernobyl and the 30km exclusion zone are not the hardest hit areas because of the accident. Areas in Belarus and Russia were effected even more. At least in the Ukraine, there are check points with guards and regulation that the government is following to "manage" the catastrophe. But in Belarus, people are still living in those "death!" villages eating the forbidden apples everyday.
I wanted to tell the guard that I want him to be safe. I want him to leave the area after only one hour. I wanted to tell him that we were training to help him. I wanted to tell him that we were not putting on a show.
We didn't speak the same language but I hope some day our work would speak volumes to him.