a lesson in civic protests

Monday night, I received deeper lesson in civic protest. Around midnight my new home was transformed into the temporary student strike headquarters. E and X eight of their law student classmates along with several new white sheets back to the 1-room apartment. For hours the students debated on each word and phrase. Arguing passionately on what exactly to write as they cut up banners for the Wednesday protest. I fell asleep at 4 am – just before the banners were ready – thinking about my own youthful attempts of civil disobedience. I was tired but happy to share – from the plush vinyl chair – in their excitement. Shouldn’t every college experience include the first-hand “Yes We Can” before real world dissolution creeps in and chokes out the light?

The next morning, the 26th, red-eyed but awake, I trekked along as the students from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy as they snaked through the streets of Kiev. At every red light, the swarm of students stopped, not daring to stop traffic, anxious that their march would be stopped by police on a technicality. Adult supporters punctuated encouragement, sounding horns from the safety of their cars. Others waved down from office windows on break. Some passers by watched warily from a distance. The student protesters marched and picked up other universities on their way to Independence Square. From a few hundred squatters on Sunday, by Wednesday night there were a few thousand.

That night, after the rally, most of the students went home to sleep. Our cozy apartment hosted, to my surprise, two new overnight guests who lived on the outskirts of the city and had too far to go back home. E and M simply brought them home and rolled out two foam mattresses over the faded, stained carpet. Their apologetic eyes asked forgiveness for being such bad hosts, after all I had paid for the room. Our family of dissidents (some more willing than others) had grown to five.