The following is written by Darrell Groman, O.D.:
"Köszönöm szépen végett szémüvég" nevezett anyuka. ( Mama said, "Thank you very much for the eyeglasses.") This was repeated 3,000 times or so in Hungarian, Ukrainian, or Russian for eight days in the border cities of Munkács and Berégszász, Ukraine. The Carpathian mountains, Transcarpathian Ukraine.Ruthenia. The soil has remained in the same spot , only the borders and governments have changed often during the last 75 years. In succession: Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, The Ukrainian Socialist Republik of Soviet Socialist Republiks, and now since December 1991, a free and independent country of U'kránya.
Hammers and sickles were still evident, some were intact and a few were smashed. On each city square, only the four-foot solitary granite pedestal remained: Lenin's name and his statue had been removed. Much has happened since the people voted fro independence only eighteen months before our visit. The nurse has Freedom for $4 a month...her salary. The water main on the street was fixed two years ago; however, nobody has had the initiative to fill up the five-foot hole and level it off. There are piles of stone in the middle of the street. We simply drive around the piles and up on the sidewalk. We stayed in private homes. My host mother is a Radiologist. She makes $7 a month. She said her tanned skin is not from sunbathing, but it's just that her x-ray equipment is over 30 years old and leaks. The locals do not eat meat because it is too expensive. Our hosts served us meat. Water arrives in the faucet from the municipal water supply three times a day for two hours: 5 to 7, 1 to 3pm, and 5 to 7pm. Buckets hold water for the times in between. I was usually the last one to leave the clinic, returning home at 7:15pm. I learned that the Europeans easily recognize Americans because they smell the nicest. After a few days, the strangers whom I met on the street wouldn't necessarily know that I was an American. The Gypsy kids stuck their hands into my left pocket where I kept my Ukrainian kynohs (koupons) and Hungarian forints; over the eight days I gently removed their hands four or five times. People sit outdoors on benches in front of their homes, people walk, people ride their bikes. The women have an art to it, somehow their dresses do not get tangled up in the spokes.
"Please give extra care to this old babushka, for she is a Survivor of the Siege at Leningrad." The people pushed and shoved, hoping to be seen by the VOSH/Ohio team. I thought that the glass door/wall dividing them from us was going to shatter, so I told somebody. Within a short time, two local policemen came to maintain peace and order. We saw 2800 or so patients "formally" in the clinics. Another 200 or so eyeglasses were passed out through the open window at the dispensary to the people outside. They knew that they had no change to be seen in the VOSH clinic. Many already had prescriptions from local practitioners. I was told by more than one person that if they can get glasses, they wait for two years to get them. The people had unusual refractive conditions: high myopias and high cylinders. Sometimes the people in the Ukraine wore glasses, but it was rare to see bifocals or spectacles with cylinder (astigmatic correction). It was difficult to convince the people in the Ukraine that bifocals were better than two pair of eyeglasses.
Our hosts were the Reformed Church of Transcarpathia and the recently-formed Christian Medical Doctor's Association. I learned that our host Bishop Gulácsy had served 7 1/2 years in the gulags of Siberia for his Christian beliefs and activities. We went to the Reformed Church on Sunday morning in Berégszász. To hear the congregation sing out during the church service, having been repressed for 48 years, gave me goosebumps. I cannot imagine what life as a Christian was like in the Soviet Union! This reminded me that I have no right complaining about anything at home.