this anymore," she says. "i'm already an old woman." a neighbor will drive her to nearby mykolaiv. shrapnel riddled his car and shattered the back window. "i'm not afraid to die," says natalia, "but i'm just not ready. i haven't gone to confession yet." in an adjacent town, yuba shows me the potato cellar she hid in for days. "it's cold here," she says. "there was no electricity for two weeks." as fate would have it, she did well to stay down there. one day a rocket landed in her backyard. tongue-in-cheek, she told us the russians left a gift for her, a gift that keeps on taking. all right. we have to leave this spot because this rocket has not exploded. many of the villages near the front have been largely