Mark Figart

Why I'm going back to Ukraine

2026-01-28T00:00:00-06:00

The worst cappuccino I ever had was in Folkestone, England.

Folkestone is a coastal town where, eighty years earlier, tens of thousands of soldiers walked down the very same street on which I stood on their way down to the Channel. They were headed to war. Leaving a half-finished cappuccino behind, I was headed to catch a ferry, along with a used ambulance and a cough I couldn't shake—not exactly the same stakes, but I'd like to think we shared a certain grim determination.

My 60th birthday arrived at midnight just after crossing the Channel, and my comrades helped celebrate the occasion by singing happy birthday to me at an Esso roadside fuel station just up the coast from Dunkirk. Standing under fluorescent lights, surrounded by a cheerful bunch of Brits, I might have imagined something different—a nice dinner, maybe, or a cake from somewhere other than a gas station—but honestly, it was perfect.

After that the days blurred, driving twelve hours at a stretch trying to keep up with the British crew who have done this run literally dozens of times, the way some people commute to the office.

This is the Esso station where I celebrated my 60th birthday almost a year ago, though when I was there (this image is from Google Maps) it was after midnight, and, of course, dark.

That was last March. I'd come across this opportunity thanks to a fellow Rotarian, JC, who invited me to go along for the ride and to share the drive time with him. It's largely a Rotarian effort, with volunteers from various Rotary Clubs throughout the UK, with a good deal of financial support coming from clubs in and around San Antonio. As with most successful efforts of any size there are a couple of linchpins who organize it, who move the people, who make it all work. In the end, collectively, it's ordinary people being extraordinary, buying used vehicles, patching them up, filling them with supplies, and driving them straight into Ukraine. No bureaucracy, no shipping containers, just keys in hand, delivered to people who need them. On my first trip, the vehicles were generally being used for rescue of the wounded and evacuation of displaced civilians. There are still rescues happening, but more and more these vehicles are being used to sustain the defense mission, to help stop the advance of the invading Russian military forces.

I almost didn't go last year. Not because I was afraid of what might happen in Ukraine—I've always had a bit of the adventurer in me—but because I'd come down with a nasty cough days before my flight and wasn't sure I'd recover in time. I paid the airline $700 at the last minute to delay my departure, spent the next 48 hours lying on my couch wondering if I should just stay home, then decided to go only because I wasn't getting worse as far as I could tell. The cough came with me. Across the Channel, through the checkpoints, past the occasional soldiers stationed at bridges, all the way to Lviv. I'm sure I made an inspiring impression: The American volunteer, hacking into his elbow while trying to look stoic.

A second time

I've been trying to articulate why I want to do it again.

It's not the adventure, though I won't pretend the adventure isn't part of it. Driving across northern Europe in a convoy feels like something—purposeful, kinetic, alive. I'm fortunate to have had my fair share of adventures, and this one ranks right up there among the best. But it's not exactly a vacation.

Part of it is the people. The Ukrainians I met weren't victims waiting to be saved. They were doctors running hospitals, widows helping widows, comedians still telling jokes, printers still running presses. They were kind and thoughtful humans who welcomed me and made time for me. They didn't want or need pity. But they did need vehicles, medical supplies, water purification systems, diapers.

My fellow crew mates were, admittedly, the real highlight of my trip. Hanging out together at a pub in Lviv swapping stories was just one of so many fine memories I collected while traveling with these gents.

Another part of the draw to return is the energy I experienced. At the border crossing back into Poland, after days inside Ukraine, I felt something I didn't expect—a kind of density, a heaviness to the air. Everyone who has crossed that line in the last three years has left something behind. Refugees. Soldiers. Mothers with children pressed to their chests. Aid workers running on caffeine and purpose. Journalists with notepads full of things observed they'll never un-see. And there I was, a dude from Boerne, Texas, who showed up with a used ambulance, a bad cough, and a backpack.

At these checkpoints the noise drops away. You stop talking and just wait. The mood gets serious and there's time to reflect on the despair around you. It's not pleasant, but for someone who has lived such a privileged and sheltered life as I have, it's a major mind expansion. I found that I returned home with a healthier perspective on my own place in society.

And part of it is that being in a country at war felt strangely more coherent than home.

Not that I was dodging missiles. We may have heard a drone or two, and we clearly saw numerous signs of destruction, cemeteries lined with flags marking the graves of fallen soldiers. But the front lines were a hundred miles east of where I dared venture. What I mean is that in Ukraine, people know what they're fighting for. There's clarity, a purpose, a shared understanding that something precious is at stake and worth defending. The enemy is external and it's obvious.

Back home, I'm not sure many of us realize we're also in a fight, or what we're defending if we do realize it. When I read the news—an activity on which I've had to cut back for my own mental health—I feel something between grief and nausea. I don't lecture on politics, as people believe what they believe, and I have no business pretending I'm wiser or better than my neighbor. But let's just say the divide between what we say we value and how we treat each other feels wider than it used to. For me, being in Ukraine, surrounded by people who've had everything upended and yet who are still building, still helping, even still laughing—it made me feel less alone in my discomfort regarding my own homeland.

Will you help me?

In five weeks, I'll fly to London, meet up with the convoy, and do it all again. This time I'm raising $5,000 to help cover the cost of one vehicle—its purchase, repairs, and paperwork. I'll drive it east across Europe, straight into Ukraine, and hand the keys to someone who needs it.

The convoy en route to Lviv

Every dollar goes toward the vehicle and the delivery. 100%. I cover my own travel.

If you've ever wanted to do something direct—something where you can see exactly where your help goes—this could be it. A car becomes a lifeline, an ambulance becomes a hospital on wheels. A Toyota Hilux becomes the transport for supplies to a village that can't be reached any other way.

I don't know if I'll do this every year. I don't know if the war will still be grinding on next March. I hope not. But right now, the need is real, and I've got five weeks to raise the money.

Waiting for the ferry at Dover.

In addition to cars, JC and I brought with us a Ukraine-American friendship flag signed by many of the members of our Rotary Club in San Antonio

On this particular mission, at some point my American buddy, JC, affectionately coined the term "Preston's Eleven" referring to the drivers. That's Preston in the middle, undisputably in charge of his crew.

It wasn't all work. One day we got to play by taking a ride in a vintage Russian Mil Mi-8 helicopter.

Some of the crew hanging out in Lviv.

The ambulance with which I became good friends.

Lviv soldier mural. Murals of this nature are found throughout Ukraine. This one says "I will wait. I will wait both day and night. I will wait forever, for the sake of your return.

Lviv cemetery. The cemeteries in most towns are easily spotted because of these flags. In larger cities like Lviv there are rows and rows of them.

At city hall in Lviv. There's sadness in knowing so much architecture across Ukraine—similar in its grandeur and importance—is being destroyed.

Funeral procession, Lviv. These funerals can occur once or twice a day at the same church. This one involved three fallen soldiers and their families, along with a large crowd of townspeople. A more solemn occasion I've never witnessed.

Mourning families at funeral

Fallen soldier carried by comrades

Handing off two vehicles to a couple soldiers. This was one of the more satisfying moments on the trip. These guys were extremely grateful. (Faces obscured at the request of the soldiers.)

On the road toward Ukraine. While Europeans drive on the right side of the road (thankfully, I say) our British vehicles had right-side steering wheels. A first for me.

Memorial posters in Lviv. Most cities have memorials of some sort, and they tend to be incredibly moving.

What $5,000 buys:

One vehicle, purchased and repaired
Paperwork and registration
Fuel from London to Lviv
Keys handed directly to someone who needs it

What your piece of that could look like:

$50 fills the tank once
$150 covers a border crossing fee
$500 handles a critical repair
$1,000 and you've bought a fourth of the vehicle

Any amount matters. This isn't a charity with overhead and galas. It's a vehicle, a driver, and a destination.

Here's the link to my Rotary Club's Ukraine page, where you'll find a link to donate through Paypal. We're a 501c3, and we get a discount on the transaction fee because of it.

If you can give, please give. If you can't, maybe share this with someone who can. In either case you have my sincere gratitude. If you give, I'll know it, and I'll "take you along" best I can with photos and updates along the way.

If I happen to make it back to the same cafe in Folkestone, I won't order the cappuccino this time. But I will celebrate my birthday again somewhere along the road to Lviv. I hope you'll reach out!

Dash to the Sierra Madre Oriental

2025-10-04T00:00:00-05:00

I realized on Monday, at the end of that final stretch from Laredo northward, soon after having dismounted the bike under cover of my carport, that it was the 29th of September. Precisely one month had passed since the day on which we were originally set to embark on our Mexico motorcycling adventure.

Beautiful Monterrey and the mountains beyond

Chill with Bill

Don and Mark

Don and Mark with motos

For me, this last month will go down in the books as one of the most jarring periods of my life to date; one of those lessons that reveals the truth of how little we are "in control". My own September to Remember. But, though there were sustained lows in the first few weeks following a blitz of unexpected phone calls and a frantic mission to rescue my dad, better days eventually rolled in–with a roar in my ears and with the wind in my face. Just as my physical and emotional limits had been challenged by the sudden call to be a caretaker (of a most intimate variety), well, even that interruption could not preempt our unforgettable adventure on two wheels. A Triumph-ant September finale, as it were. Chant that three times:

A triumphant September finale. A triumphant September finale. A triumphant September finale!

Hangin with Bill at dinner

La Paloma Blanca in Santiago

Scenery

Taking pics along the way

Through the valley

To Don and Bill:

That you guys stayed with me and followed through on your expressed intent to accompany me across the frontera—despite my having pulled the plug once already at such an inconvenient hour, and despite my not having helped you avoid my own fate of losing my permit deposit—that the three of us, after all that, still knocked out a badass four-day, fifteen-hundred-mile ride through foreign lands that welcomed and challenged each of us in one way or another... Well, that's just cool.

Gracias, caballeros. With two finer gentlemen I could not have ridden. For me, a most memorable and healing experience. Proof that good things happen.

May your tank never run empty, Your tires always have tread. Your socks always be numbered, With a voice in your head.

"Car up!"

Los tres amigos

A Case for the Humble Screened-In Porch

2024-02-13T00:00:00-06:00

When I bought my house, the porch was rotting. The floor sagged, and the "cover" (I couldn't call it a roof) was giving up. It was one of those features that showed up in the listing photos from an angle that tried to hide the decay. I didn't think much about it, as I had bigger problems to solve at the time.

But somewhere in those early months of renovation, I started to notice something. I'd step outside with my coffee, stand there for a minute, and then retreat. Too hot. Too buggy. Too much wind kicking up dust from the gravel drive. The land was beautiful—two and a half wooded acres on the southern edge of Texas Hill Country—but I couldn't actually be in it. Not comfortably, or at least not for any length of time.

Demolition of the old porch floor in progress

So I had the porch rebuilt. New floor. Sheet metal across the top. Framed it out for screens, though I wasn't sure yet how serious I was about that part.

The porch I ended up with is not large. Eight feet deep, twenty-four feet wide. Enough room for two oversized leather chairs, a grill, and a couple of auxiliary burners that function as an outdoor kitchen. That's it. No dining table. No elaborate outdoor living setup. Just a narrow threshold between the house and the trees, but "Wow!", it changed everything.

The new porch taking shape

The porch is finished in natural cedar, which does something subtle but important: It extends the feeling of the forest into the space. You're not sitting in a room that looks out at nature. You're sitting in nature, just with a screen between you and the mosquitoes. Shrubs grow right up against the front edge. The trees beyond them filter the light. On a good morning, with the coffee hot and the dogs sprawled at my feet, I'm not observing the land. I'm part of it.

"Thunder rolls overhead while sheets of droplets pepper the rooftop and metal porch covering... Mine is a natural hideaway, my 'cabin in the woods,' I like to call it." — Journal, February 2024

This is the thing about a screened-in porch that's hard to explain until you have one. It solves an ancient human problem. We want to be outside. We evolved outside. But outside has bugs and heat and wind and rain and all the reasons we built walls and roofs in the first place. The porch lets you cheat. You get the birdsong without the mosquitoes. The breeze without the dust. The thunderstorm without getting wet.

I live in a temperate climate, which means almost every month of the year offers at least some window to sit outside comfortably. But "comfortably" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Without the screens, summer evenings are a negotiation with insects. Without the roof, spring means dodging showers. Without the partial shelter from wind, even a mild day can feel like an assault.

The porch removes the negotiation. It says: You can be here. Stay as long as you want.

Usually that's what we do.

My wife Claudia spends as much time on the porch as I do—maybe more. Morning coffee, most days. Evening drinks when the light gets soft. In the more pleasant times of the year the grill might get used a couple times a week, and the staging area for the dogs—on their way in, on their way out—has become so natural that I can't imagine the house without it. The porch isn't precious. It's lived in. The leather chairs show the abuse they take from the sun. The grill has grease stains. This is not a showroom. It's just a room, outside.

Family on the porch

It's where we've made so many memories. Not dramatic ones—no proposals or milestone announcements. Just the accumulating kind. Conversations that went longer than expected. Storms watched from the dry side of the screen. Dinners that started on the grill and never made it to the dining room. The porch has become the place where our life together actually happens, more than any room inside the house. I didn't anticipate that when I framed it out for screens. But it's the thing I'm most grateful for.

"A cozy house with an even cozier porch, a beautiful view on a perfect early fall evening, a chorus of crickets, two sleeping dogs, and the most amazing wife a man could ever hope for." — Journal, October 27, 2025

Engawa

The Japanese have a concept called engawa—the transitional space between inside and outside. It's not quite a porch in the American sense, but it serves a similar function: a threshold where you're neither sealed in nor fully exposed. These spaces matter because they change how you inhabit a home. You're not choosing between climate control and the elements. You're holding both.

I think we've lost this in modern American architecture. Houses are either inside—insulated, air-conditioned, optimized—or they open onto outside, which is often a deck or patio that bakes in summer and sits empty for months. The threshold has disappeared. We go from sealed box to full exposure with nothing in between.

A screened-in porch is a recovery of that in-between. It's architecturally almost nothing—a roof, some screens, a floor—but experientially it's everything. It's where I do my best thinking. It's where the dogs prefer to nap. It's where Claudia and I have had some of our best conversations, because something about being half-outside loosens people up.

Morning ritual

Here's something I didn't anticipate: the porch changed the inside of the house, too. Our main living area looks out over the porch and onto the yard beyond. Our two recliners sit facing outward, looking out through an over-sized sliding glass door, toward those big screened openings. On the days when it's too cold or too wet to sit outside, we still sit where we can watch the trees and the birds and whatever weather is moving through—framed by the porch, softened by it. We keep a string of lights across the porch for gentle illumination at night, so even after dark we're looking out, not at a reflection of ourselves in a window. The porch didn't just add a room. It reoriented the whole house toward the land.

Here's the practical case, if you need one: A screened-in porch costs a fraction of a kitchen remodel or a bathroom addition. Mine was built onto an existing structure that was already falling apart—so the incremental cost of doing it right wasn't much more than the cost of doing it at all. For that modest investment, I added a room we use almost every day, in a way we use almost no other room.

And here's the thing I wish more people understood: You might already have a porch that could become this.

I see them all the time—open porches, covered patios, back decks with roofs—sitting empty because they're not comfortable. Too hot. Too buggy. Too exposed. The furniture fades in the sun and nobody sits in it. These spaces could be transformed. Most existing porches can be retrofitted with screens in some fashion, and the cost is often surprisingly modest. What you get back is not just a porch, but an inhabitable space. A place you'll actually use instead of walking through on your way into the air conditioning.

Who knew the porch could be so enjoyable even when we aren't actually out on it?

The ROI is absurd. Not in resale value—though it probably helps—but in lived value, on those mornings that start a little slower, during the evenings that extend a little later. In the simple, repeatable pleasure of sitting in a leather chair, surrounded by cedar and trees and dogs, feeling like you're outside under the fan even when the heat index says you shouldn't be.

I never want to live without a screened-in porch again.

I've moved a few times. I've compromised on features, because most of us have to on some level. But this one has become non-negotiable—not because it's luxurious, but because it's essential. It's the difference between owning land and actually living on it, between having a beautiful view and being a parcipant in the scene. Or, in simple terms, it just lets a guy be outside more, which is where I prefer to be, especially if I can be comfortable.

If you've got the space—or an unused porch waiting to be rescued—consider the screens. It doesn't have to be big. Eight by twenty-four works fine. What it has to be is there—a threshold, a shelter, a place where you can sit with your coffee and your spouse and your dogs and the trees and the bugs-that-can't-reach-you, and feel, for a few minutes at least, like you're exactly where you're supposed to be.

Waiting for Mom to let us out

The porch can be a great place to work.

A cup of joe and the morning sun

No doubt mornings are my favorite time when the weather is ideal

A rare snow, and so strange how it actually seemed to have snowed on the porch!

A most humble and inviting porch

A snowy porch scene

The deer at play

Nothing beats a good hard rain

When she was new