Packing List

*Recently amended. See note about rain boots!

This time last year I was packing up my apartment, spending all the money I’d saved up buying dress clothes, winter boots (hard to find in August!) and all kinds of miscellaneous stuff that I was pretty sure I’d need in Ukraine, and oscillating back and forth between moments of pure panic and bizarre calm. At the end of August I moved out of my apartment, said good-bye to all my Louisville friends and spent a week with my brother at home in eastern Kentucky before I trekked up north to spend the last three weeks of my life in the United States with my mom and dad. It doesn’t seem that long ago and I can’t believe that in just two months I will have been in Ukraine for a year. This has undoubtedly been the fastest year of my life. 

Now it’s time for a new group of Peace Corps Ukraine TEFL trainees to go through the same process…the panic, the shopping, the packing, the good-byes…and in an effort to help them prepare in the same way volunteers before me helped me prepare for my trip to Ukraine, I’ve put together a packing list that I hope will be helpful.

So, Group 39/40, feast your eyes on my list and don’t hesitate to e-mail me (Laura.Ruth.Ward@gmail.com) if you have questions or concerns while you prepare for your departure! You’re going to love it here and we’re excited to meet you! 

Here’s what I packed (or wish I’d packed) as far as clothing is concerned: 

• Nice warm, winter coat (I’ve been really happy with this one)
• Cute fall/spring jacket
• Rain jacket
• One pair of long underwear (Patagonia Capilene)
• One pair of black heels, black flats, brown flats, summer sandals (Chaco’s, flip flops, cute sandals)
• Two pairs of black dress pants
• Three black skirts (one casual, two dressy)
• Three pairs of jeans (bring good jeans! Quality jeans are hard to find here in Ukraine, especially if you’re not super tiny. I’m a size 10-12 and I’ve had trouble finding jeans that fit***)
• Four sweaters
• Two button-down short-sleeved dress shirts
• Three plain fitted t-shirts (from The Gap)
• Two plain tank tops
• Four or five cute dress shirts
• Black and white cami undershirts
• Three cardigans
• Long-sleeved t-shirt
• Hoodie
• A few dresses (a short-sleeved black dress and a summer black dress) and a suit (absolutely not an essential. I never wear this at work…I only wore it at Swearing-In, where you could easily get away with just packing a nice dress)
• Running clothes (one pair of winter tights, one really warm winter pull-over, two sports bras, two pairs of shorts, two summer shirts, socks, one pair of running shoes)
• A lot of underwear (I wish I’d packed more) and five quality bras (you won’t regret it)
• A swimsuit
• A few pairs of tights (you can easily buy plenty of these here)
• A few pairs of SmartWool socks (wish I’d brought a few more….mine wore out pretty quickly)
• Two pairs of pajama pants
• Pajama shorts
• Five or six t-shirts

Here’s what I packed as far as other miscellaneous stuff is concerned: 

• New laptop (definitely a worthwhile purchase…almost brought my ancient, dying laptop but sprung for a new one…you won’t regret having a reliable computer here)
• External hard-drive (mine is 500 gigs. Space-wise, it’s great, but in terms of actual size it’s huge and it’s annoying to lug around. Spend the extra money and get one of the small 500G ones…try for portable!)
• Surge protector strip and adapter plug: this guy (third one down) and this guy. So worth having!)
• I-Pod
• Camera 

Here’s what I didn’t pack (or wish I hadn’t packed) and why: 

• Rain boots. Dear God I wish I’d packed rain boots. I know that sounds ridiculous, but they would have come in so handy during my first fall/training. It rained for what felt like days on end (I think it rained almost every day in November!) and my feet were soaked and cold almost every day. You can buy rubber rain boots here in bigger cities, but they’re expensive and hard to find…if you can find them at Target/Wal-Mart/Meijer before you go, get a pair! I had my brothers send me a pair for my Christmas/birthday present and they came in so handy during the spring. It rains a lot here during fall and spring and since there aren’t always a lot of sidewalks, it’s so much easier to stomp through the puddles in rain boots than to dance around them in your cute flats/heels.
• A lot of spring/summer clothes. I did pack a few fitted t-shirts and tank tops and a few skirts, but I didn’t pack much else. I decided that I’d just use the space in my suitcases for autumn and winter clothes and have my mom send me a package with a few of my favorite summer items and buy anything else I needed here in Ukraine. I’m really glad I did this…summer clothes are cheap to buy and since they’re light, sending a few of them wasn’t too expensive for my mom.
• I packed big, huge winter boots and I really wish I hadn’t. They were bulky, they stand out, they’re not comfortable, and I think I’ve only worn them twice. You can buy relatively cheap fur-lined leather boots here (almost every female volunteer I know has ended up buying boots here) and you’ll be more comfortable and more likely to blend in. Unless you have a favorite pair of winter boots from back home that you know you’ll wear all the time, spare yourself the stress of finding a new pair and just buy them when you get here.
• Sleeping bag. I lucked out and found one in the Peace Corps office…but you could also easily buy one here and it wouldn’t be any more expensive than something you’d buy in the States. Although they come in handy, you definitely won’t really need one for the first couple months (during training), so you unless you already have one you’re attached to, just save the 60 or so bucks and wait and see if you want one once you get here. You will probably spend a lot of time sleeping at other volunteers’ houses, and they might not always have beds, but somehow it always works out and you won’t get stuck sleeping on a cold hard floor with no blanket. 
• Warm gloves. I just forgot. Oops! No big deal, though…I bought a pair of fur-lined leather ones at the bazaar once it started getting really cold.

A few other words of advice: 

• Cell phones. You’ll get one once you’re here. If you want to try to get your current cell phone unlocked, you might as well try…but cell phones here are cheap and you’ll be able to get one with the Cyrillic alphabet on it, which might come in handy for texting Ukrainians.
• You really can get almost everything you want here…sometimes it’s really expensive or hard to find (I’m thinking about a bottle of Tabasco Sauce I saw in a supermarket in Donetsk for 230 UAH…), but you can find pretty much everything here. Bring special spices that you love, but remember that people can always send you things you’re really missing from home…so if you’re freaking out about packing, just take a deep breath and remember that if you forget something essential, someone you love will send it to you sooner or later and that even if you do pack it, if it’s something like spices or hair products, you’ll run out sooner or later so you’ll have to do without it eventually one way or the other!

*** A note: Just a day ago I found a pair of brand-new Express jeans and a pair of low-top Chuck Taylor’s at a Secondhand Store in my oblast capital. I paid $15 for both. So…it is possible to get jeans here!