Dropping Carrots

The gunshot partway through was not planned. Francisco and Miguel in the house in Ecuador sometimes shoot down a bird to eat.

Verse 1

I met a 2 year old
Who pretended his carrots could fly
He would make a big sound KABOOM!
When he dropped them
Down down down
Down down down

I thought it was cute at first when the son of the family hosting me in Kyiv flew his carrots around saying “phwooosh phwooosh!” until he dropped them and started making explosion noises.

Verse 2

His mother looked at me
She said he learned to do that before he learned to speak
And that night
I found out why

Later that night the dad of the family Dmytro Krasnienkov woke me up saying there was an ongoing air raid.

Chorus

The bombs rained
As we prayed
And wondered if this is our time

The world watched
The clouds turn to fire
But you remained and chose to fight

In this verse I was thinking of Serhii Korol who stayed to continue to fight to continue his construction business and was in process of rebuilding his whole neighborhood. Many Ukrainians are part of the fight, whether in combat as a soldier or by staying and rebuilding the economy and oftentimes donating to the war effort. Serhii helped drive me around and locate medical supplies. At one point we saw a diving kamikaze drone get shot down over our heads.

Then the drones came
But you stayed
And decided to pay the price

For this I was thinking of Rev Miller who returned to Ukraine even though he knew as a young male he might not be permitted to leave. He organized a tech conference even during the ongoing bombings and continued building his start-up and raised millions in crypto for widowed mothers. He helped me find a way to pay for the medical supplies in local currency.

And you screamed
Out to the east
We are still here we are still alive

In this verse I was thinking of Viktoriia Honcharuk and how she joined the video call with me even while recovering from concussion from a roof that had collapsed on top of her during an explosion while on the job as a combat medic. With the line “screamed out to the east we are still here we are still alive” I didn’t want a “help us” sort of screaming, I hoped I communicated a bit of the “f**k you, come and get us” attitude that I found inspiring as I made the delivery and met her and the journalist Mary McAuliffe and the American volunteer Nick Duckworth.

Bridge

As we huddled shoulder to shoulder
On the tiles of the bathroom floor
The walls shook
Oh the walls shook
And I felt you tremble by my side

Together with Dmytro’s wife and son we were all squished together shoulder to shoulder in the bathroom. At one point something hit close enough that door of the bathroom shook. I could hear and feel their reactions as their son “little Dimi.”

My full blog posts about my time in Ukraine are found here