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Vova Malofienko's Autobiograph
I was born on June 29th, 1984 in Chernihiv, a village in the Ukraine that is 30 miles away from Chernobyl. My mom was working as an accountant and my dad was working in Siberia. My dad
worked in Siberia every other month and always brought me goodies. We were living in an apartment and life was very nice.
In 1986, when I was two years old, the Chernobyl reactor exploded. The Russian government
tried to keep it mainly secret for a month or so but other countries around us suddenly got large increases in diseases and spread the word. At this time anyone who lived within a fifteen mile radius of the
accident was evacuated. My village was not evacuated because we were 30 miles away. People are living there still.
When I was five years old, we went on vacation to the Black Sea . Everyone who left the area had
to have a blood test, but that was a normal thing. Anytime anyone left the area, a blood test was given. My whole family's blood tests were good. When we flew into the Black Sea area, another blood test was given to confirm everything was OK. They said they would send us out the results. After a day of sightseeing we came to the hotel and got a note which had been sent from the hospital telling us to bring me to the clinic immediately. They took more tests which all showed that the white blood cells were not normal. They said that I had the symptoms of leukemia, and that I should be taken to Ukraine to be treated.
When we reached Ukraine, my mom called my grandmother and told her that I had leukemia, and wondered what it was. After my grandmother settled down from hearing such terrible news she explained to my mother what a
deadly disease this is. We went to a hospital but they turned us down because we were from Chernihiv and in a Kiev hospital. Then, they only took patients who were from Kiev. We tried another hospital in Kiev, a
children's hospital and this time we were successful.
I was being treated under poor conditions for a couple of months. Soon a lady named Mrs.
Matkiwski came from the United States and was willing to take 10 children with her to America to show them what it was like. She was sad about the terrible thing that had happened to the chidren and wanted to show them America, a very special place. My mom wanted for me to go but the positions were quickly filled and all they could do is put me on reserve in case one of the children canceled. I waited a two week period, one of the children died and two others were extremely sick and couldn't travel. That gave me the space to go with the other seven kids. All the parents were able to go with us but only until the airport and then we had to separate. It was very sad for me to leave my parents but they thought one month away of having fun would be good for me.
The flight was twelve hours long and we made only one stop which was in Europe. When we reached an airport in New York it was the same except for the different language. The only people I
could actually talk to were the ones in my group from the hospital in Kiev. We took a bus to Nadia Matkiwski's house. When we reached her house we were surprised at the house we saw and were glad to stay in it. There was only one other kid in the group who was 6, my age. We always fooled around since it was summer and we really enjoyed playing in the pool.
Soon came the time that we had to go to a camp in Connecticut. It was called Camp Hole in the Wall. This camp was a camp for sick kids, those with leukemia or other diseases. The camp was a
very fun place and the whole group enjoyed the time we had. We also liked the nice doctor we had, Dr. Schwenn. She was treating all of us and realized that I was sick only for a couple of months and that she thought she could cure me. She arranged for me to stay in America while the other kids were going back, this was another tragedy that I suffered: because of the sickness I lost some of my friends.
My mom then made arrangements to come to the United States to be with me. When she arrived we decided to live in Boston with another Ukrainian family. We enjoyed it very much there, and also the
hospital staff that was trying to cure me was very nice to me. Even though every week I had to get a bone marrow treatment which is when they stick a 6 inch needle into your backbone to insert medicine and withdraw fluids to see how I was doing, I enjoyed going there.
After a while the family wasn't able to pay for us and we had to go back to New Jersey where
Nadia Matkiwski would look after us. Then I started school. Although I was old enough to be in first grade, I began in kindergarten because I needed to know the basic alphabet and other small facts before I could read and write. A half a year later I was learning very quickly and also was bigger than everybody else. But both first grades were full, so they sent me to second grade where I stayed for a year and a half.
Finally my dad arrived in New Jersey. He thought we should have our own apartment so we started to look for one right away. We found one not too far away from the school. We moved in quickly
and have been living there ever since. Many members of my family are still living in Chernihiv. Luckily, no one else has gotten sick. We write to them, and miss them very much. We can't go visit them because if we did, we wouldn't be able to return to the U.S.
Now I am in the fifth grade with Mrs. Smolenski as my teacher and am really enjoying the Millburn Middle School. A couple of weeks ago I received a letter from Mrs. Clinton that invited my family to the White
House. We agreed to go and were there on May 1, 1996. I gave a short speech in front of Mrs. Clinton, the Vice President, and other important people. The White House is very big and everybody who lives there is nice.
by Vova Malofienko
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