When needs must…

I try so hard to be organised - but somehow it never quite goes according to plan. Unexpected clothing shop to the rescue!

We were in the middle of a volunteer road trip, somewhere in Ukraine's eastern Kharkiv region, when I realised that I had left behind a small bag, containing some rather essential items like a comb, and all my spare underwear. We had planned to be away for four days, so this was far from an ideal situation at all. And we were not in an area where you might expect to find many shops. I could visualise the bag, sitting in the hallway of the apartment in Kyiv, where it was quite frankly of no use whatsoever. Each time we stopped at a petrol station for coffee or diesel, I scanned the shelves - there was nothing remotely close to what I needed. Then, just as the evening was turning into night, the guys pulled into the carpark of a decent sized supermarket. There wasn't enough electricity to keep all the lights on, but it looked surprisingly well stocked. While the others started filling a trolley with some bread and salad vegetables for dinner, a helpful checkout lady directed me towards some stairs at the back, where she promised me there was a clothing shop. 

Lovely accommodation, terrifying door lock

You never quite know where you might be staying on these volunteer trips. Usually it is some kind of sofa, but I have stayed in all sorts of places from a small rented flat with a terrifying triple lock device which I was convinced I would never be able to open, to a basement underneath a bombed out house, where a cat frightened the life out of me by suddenly jumping on me in the pitch darkness at about three o clock in the morning, and then running straight up the wall next to the couch to a narrow vent which clearly doubled as a cat flap. But it is always hugely welcome to have somewhere to sleep, especially when people who already cope with impossible challenges go to so much trouble to make it as comfortable as possible. The kindness of complete strangers is incredible. 

Back in the supermarket, I located the stairway, shrouded in darkness, and ventured up towards the clothing shop, which really didn't look open at all. The layout was confusing at best, and I summoned the finest talents of Google Translate to ask if they sold any underwear. The lady at the till waved at a small rack towards the back of the room. Peering through the gloom, I could see that they had several pairs of what you might call Big Pants, and that was it. With no other options, I grabbed a couple of pairs, and went to the till, to discover that they only took cash, which I had left in the car. I had to go back down to the supermarket to find one of the guys, and ask if I could 'borrow a hundred hryvnias... to buy a comb'. Back upstairs, the lady at the till was suddenly nowhere to be found. Eventually she emerged from a mystery store room, and I trotted up to the cash register with the Big Pants, only to set off the alarm with the security tags. The till lady shot me a withering glare, but there was nothing to be done about it except to apologise profusely as I handed over the cash, doing my best to stuff the Big Pants inside my pocket, and make a hasty exit back to the car.

I never did manage to find a comb.

Thank goodness for coffee!