A quick note that I decided against appearing on the TV show, b/c it seemed somehow just weird (duh, i know). I began to be afraid that it somehow would not be a good thing for a Peace Corps Volunteer to do, especially if the woman who is being proposed to doesn't want this. I sort of regret missing a potential adventure, but that just means I'll need to create my own adventure this weekend! :-)

New photos of our new flat are up on the site!

Happy May Day weekend,
wlu
xoxo

Hello world.

It’s a beautiful spring Thursday in Kyiv, before the first of three holiday weekends this May. Now that I’ve told my family, close friends and Peace Corps, I am happy to announce that Christopher, who moved to Ukraine last July to be with me, and I are engaged. We hope to marry this July in Colorado.

Christopher is teaching English at two private schools to adults and editing a daily e-newspaper. I’m so proud of the way he’s adapted and thrived here and that he would leave behind a good life in Colorado for the vagaries and uncertainty of life and work in Ukraine of all places, speaks to his great intelligence and spirit for adventure. Obviously, I’m a big fan.

If I can be indulged a moment, I’ll tell the story of the proposal. Under subterfuge, Christopher took me to Mariinsky Park, where we run some mornings, to a spot overlooking the Dnipro and Podil neighborhood, a pretty neighborhood that wasn’t bombed during WWII and therefore has older buildings intact. When we arrived to that spot, he bent down on one knee and produced a velvet box w/ a beautiful, emerald-cut, 2 carat garnet set in white gold ring. I said ok to his question.

Thanks for allowing me a mushy moment in this very public place. We’re in the process of getting his security clearance for Peace Corps to allow the marriage and otherwise enjoying our lives here as always.

One more story, a quirkier one. I have been asked to appear on a reality TV show called “Everything for You.” The premise of this show is for guys (occasionally girls) to set up an elaborate ruse by which to propose in a very public way to their beloved. Sometimes girls say no and it’s just awful to watch, but isn’t all reality TV? It’s a train wreck we can’t seem to turn away from.

The show’s representative, Lena, claims to have been recommended me by someone at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This is the government agency where all foreigners living here are required to be registered. I’m leaving Saturday to take a train to a Western Ukraine city to film the first installment and I will “play” a foreigner in need of a translator at a castle. The girl will be there because her friends are in on the gig. I hope to get a tape to show people at home.

I’ll write full details about the trip and the scenario after it airs, as I’d hate to somehow ruin the surprise before hand. I hope she wants to be proposed to!

Over and out,
wlu
xoxo
Hello world.

It’s a beautiful spring Thursday in Kyiv, before the first of three holiday weekends this May. Now that I’ve told my family, close friends and Peace Corps, I am happy to announce that Christopher, who moved to Ukraine last July to be with me, and I are engaged. We hope to marry this July in Colorado.

Christopher is teaching English at two private schools to adults and editing a daily e-newspaper. I’m so proud of the way he’s adapted and thrived here and that he would leave behind a good life in Colorado for the vagaries and uncertainty of life and work in Ukraine of all places, speaks to his great intelligence and spirit for adventure. Obviously, I’m a big fan.

If I can be indulged a moment, I’ll tell the story of the proposal. Under subterfuge, Christopher took me to Mariinsky Park, where we run some mornings, to a spot overlooking the Dnipro and Podil neighborhood, a pretty neighborhood that wasn’t bombed during WWII and therefore has older buildings intact. When we arrived to that spot, he bent down on one knee and produced a velvet box w/ a beautiful, emerald-cut, 2 carat garnet set in white gold ring. I said ok to his question.

Thanks for allowing me a mushy moment in this very public place. We’re in the process of getting his security clearance for Peace Corps to allow the marriage and otherwise enjoying our lives here as always.

One more story, a quirkier one. I have been asked to appear on a reality TV show called “Everything for You.” The premise of this show is for guys (occasionally girls) to set up an elaborate ruse by which to propose in a very public way to their beloved. Sometimes girls say no and it’s just awful to watch, but isn’t all reality TV? It’s a train wreck we can’t seem to turn away from.

The show’s representative, Lena, claims to have been recommended me by someone at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This is the government agency where all foreigners living here are required to be registered. I’m leaving Saturday to take a train to a Western Ukraine city to film the first installment and I will “play” a foreigner in need of a translator at a castle. The girl will be there because her friends are in on the gig. I hope to get a tape to show people at home.

I’ll write full details about the trip and the scenario after it airs, as I’d hate to somehow ruin the surprise before hand. I hope she wants to be proposed to!

Over and out,
wlu
xoxo

Some days, I have a story to tell without much preamble or background.

Many days I walk during lunch along Kreshiatik Street, which is a wide boulevard and the main downtown thoroughfare. There are many stores along it and the only way to cross the street is via underground passageways, where people sell food, clothes, souvenirs.

Right before Maidan Nezoleznoshti (Independence Square), in front of the central Posht (Post Office), there are a group of young men who have an interesting entreprenuerial activity. They wield cameras and notepads, and approach people to take their picture, which they promise to mail later when it is developed. Almost everyday they approach me, "Deivushka, deivushka (girl - it's an acceptable form of address in Russian), let us take your picture." Sometimes I tell them I do not understand, which they then switch into pidgeon English, sometimes I just keep walking. I can gauge sometimes how I look that day by their interest, because I perceive them to be more likely to approach me when I'm lookin' good. :-)

In any case, it's a small business enterprise, if dubious, and it's better than the people who have monkeys, ponies or owls that one can take a photo with. Some friends and I decided that we ought to set up a business on such thoroughfares to charge people to take photos with a real, live American! We get stared at so much that we might as well make it pay.

That's it. It's a warm, spring day and I'm working on a press release, a newsletter, a website. This weekend is Orthodox Easter as well as "Catholic" Easter. Christopher and I will go to one of the churches to see the early morning service and enjoy the three day weekend.

Tonight as I slowly walked up the escalator at Arsenalna metro at 20:30, returning home from tutoring and working, I realized that I wasn’t exhausted as I so often am by this time of night. I tried to remember the last time I thought to myself, I’m sooo tired, and felt it deep in my body and spirit and couldn’t remember!

I thought back through the winter, back to the previous spring when we’d just arrived and how tired I was during training, then a slight reprieve during the summer. I feel as if a fog has lifted. The weather has been warmer and the sun shines longer each day. I think maybe that in addition to having reached another level of acceptance and acculturation, just having the winter waning helps me. I have exercised through out the winter and tried to get the prescribed hour of natural light each day, but I think I may have been affected nonetheless by the season. And everyone says this was a mild winter!

Today as I walked outside in the 50F air, in the sunlight at 18:00, I remembered back to training in Brovary and how it seemed that every day I looked up another foot, literally looking up from watching the ground for the ubiquitous holes and mud puddles. How each time I looked up more, I saw something new, something I could read and understand, or a smiling child or even just a patch of blue sky. I remembered how much hope and comfort those small sights gave me. I thought of this because today in the light and warmth I felt myself looking up again.

I thought about how I’ve been wearing a brimmed hat all winter, a wonderful black velvet hat that Christopher’s Mom, Donna, sent me. It is a stylish and warm hat and keeps snow off my face. Now that the weather has freed me from that hat, and I’m no longer concentrating on the ice, I begin to see new things again. Today I noticed for the first time that the building where I meet my Russian tutor has a wonderful Soviet mural depicting people dancing, doing “labor” and sports. I saw new flowers in the underground passages where people set up tables selling goods. The babushkas have new produce. Even though the growing season hasn’t really started yet, there’s a hint of verdant things to come. It’s joyous, it’s the beginning of spring.

Sure, we may not yet be done with winter, but spring has shown itself and the end is in sight. We have made it! My first Ukrainian winter is writing its finale. Oh, thoughts of the market to come – berry season, the smell of strawberries hitting my nose as soon as I near the bazaar, then later watermelon. But I get ahead of myself. Today is just right. It’s this blessing I receive and I’m grateful.

love,
wendylu

Here’s my day – I hope I it is interesting for you.

7:00 mobile phone alarm goes off, reset for 20 min. later. Think about my strange dream that involved the plane I was flying on being hit by a missile. Hawk was in it, which was nice.
7:20 get up, shuffle around
7:45 Christopher and I make it out the door to the cold, snowy morning, walk 4 blocks to the track at the Design and Technology University. Run for about 20 min. and decide we get extra points b/c of wind chill factor. Bird Man is there and it seems like he spends less time than usual in his speedos, pouring water over himself.

Return home, do stretches, pilates, drink coffee, shower, etc. Make it to the bus stop by 9:45, run to catch a trolley bus, then get off at Arsenalna metro stop, run to catch a marshrutka. Make it to IOM (http://www.iom.int) by 10:10, miraculously.

Since I’ve only been working there a little while, the guards at the door don’t know me yet, so I explain again that I work there. Upon arriving at the third floor (no lift), where I work, I see male co-workers running around with flowers – Monday is perhaps the second biggest holiday (first is New Years), “International” Woman’s Day (mainly celebrated in CIS). Since Monday is a national holiday and therefore a day off, the men are doing their duty on Friday. I’ve no sooner set down and said “hi” to my coworker Lisa-Jo, than Sergey, an attorney, presents me with three beautiful tulips. Flowers are presented in odd numbers on happy occasions, even numbers for funerals. Women’s day is observed by giving all women and girls in your life flowers, presents and chocolates. We also had an email from the “IOM Men” wishing us a happy woman’s day.

I worked from 10:00 until 14:00 at IOM, finishing up a proposal for ad agencies to bid on a big counter-trafficking information campaign on buses, trams, billboards as well as TV and radio PSA’s (public service announcements). Lisa-Jo, who is from South Africa, had a DVD that her brother produced from Christmas home movies and after watching that, I went to the bathroom for a cry, because I felt so homesick afterwards, even though it was someone else’s family in Africa.

After leaving IOM, I walked down Chreshiatik, the main street in Kyiv. IOM is located at one end of Chreshiatik, at Independence Square (Maidan Nezoleznoshti), and I walk to nearly the other end, to get to my other job, my original organization, CEUME. Not 15 seconds at my desk, and there’s Volodiya, our tech guy, who presents me with a cream colored rose and makes a short speech, wishing me love and happiness and success. Did I mention that one has to kiss the flower giver? Luckily Volodiya is nice, doesn’t smoke and isn’t lecherous.

I work for a couple of hours, testing our new website (nothing’s working, what is that programmer doing??), then find resources for the business English training that I’m teaching this evening on writing resumes and doing interviews. At 16:30 we have a staff meeting and after about 30 minutes of people reporting on work and upcoming events, our directors tell us that we’ll continue the meeting in the café downstairs. We go down to the restaurant which is in the next building and which has a black, pot-bellied pig as a mascot. It sleeps in the restaurant. This café is in a style very much in vogue in Kyiv, which I call “Early Village Fantasy.” It’s a kitschy rendition of what a “village” home would look like if a gay designer came in, cleaned up the 40 years of grime normally associated with rural life and put in little chachkies everywhere. There is more china on the wall than 5 families could use, lots of drawings of cows and robust women, gingham and lace adorn every edge. The salad bar is designed like a well – well, I could go on but I will spare you, gentle reader.

Anyway, Pavlito (of “vaginal American” fame) has a clipboard w/ a some writing scribbled on it and a big bucket of flowers waiting by our long table. The whole staff sits down, we’re brought a really nice Georgian red (I’m wishing at this point that I didn’t have to teach and could have more than sips). There’s a nice spread on the table of salads, meats, bread. After we have wine, Pavlo begins calling the ladies up one by one, and presenting us with a flower, and a brief poem about why each one is like her flower. They gave me carnations dyed red white and blue. I’ll let you figure that one out.

Then we ate and drank, and every so often a man would make a toast to the ladies. These toasts are lovely and ornate and I understand barely half, especially when in Ukrainian and not Russian. There was a funny discussion in Russian about the two words for “hot” – one is for things and one is for people. My coworker, Sveta, says that sometimes men can be “hot” using the word for things and it has the same meaning as in English. I say that sometimes men can also be delicious and by my colleague’s reactions, I think this might be dirtier than it is in English. Pavlito asks me if I understood the conversation if I knew what I’d said. I’ll have to ask my tutor is that was a faux paus. Apparently it was funny, because it was repeated several times around our table. Eventually I steal away to finish my prep work for the class and to go to the school.

I arrive at the school, greeted my other friend, Sveta, who runs and owns the English school. We make copies, I meet a teacher there who studied in Charlotte, NC for high school. The class goes well, they’re lively and we have a fun discussion, then I had them split into pairs to practice interviewing. They knew more than I thought they would about resumes and interviewing and it was interesting to hear about their experiences.

Afterwards, at 21:00, Sveta and I chatted for a while, and she gave me an enormous box of chocolates as a thank you for teaching the class. I told her she doesn’t have to give me chocolates every time I teach a class, but she just blinked enigmatically. I really must make hanging out w/ her a priority, because she is so cool. She’s someone I would like anywhere in the world, if that makes sense.

Now 22:30, I’m home, eating popcorn (thank you, Julie and Frieda!) and Christopher is reading his “graphic novel.” I’m so happy to be home and wearing my slippers and sipping a beer. I’m also so happy to have had the fortune to land in this country, to have found the work and people that I have. I’m not trying to pretty it up, I get tired and sometimes negative about this place, and I will mention without comment that the government shut down the Radio Free Europe station, sometimes I wish for the ease of America, but I always come back to being grateful. I guess when I stop that, if it happens, it’s time to book passage home.

love,
wlu

A quick check in on this frosty Monday. Lately the weather has been gray, snowy each day. The trees are pretty and covered in ice and children look healthy with red cheeks and brightly colored hats. It is slowly getting lighter a little longer each day, but still it is difficult for me to get up at 7am when it is pretty much pitch black.

Today I ran at my local track and some of the "Soviet calistenics" folks were there, including a guy Christopher and I dubbed "the Bird Man" due to his penchant for standing in the middle of the soccer field surrounded by pidgeons, wearing only his speedo and holding a 6 liter jug of water.

Anyway, there he was today, wearing only his speedos and a smile! Barefoot!! I laughed out loud - crazy Slavs! His birds, however, are smarter and are lately to be found huddled over warm manhole covers.

I promise to write about my holiday travels soon! In the meantime, keep warm and don't forget to vote in your primaries, then get ready for Nov. 2! And, read www.michaelmoore.com for an eloquent essay that explains why I'll be voting for Wes Clark on that date. Remember, Regime Change Begins at Home!

xo,
wlu

A quick note to let any of you still holding on and reading my occasional postings that I have several exciting episodes coming up! I have to tell you about Thanksgiving in Prague (super duper!), Christmas in Krakow (amazing!), New Year's in the Carpathians (spectacular!) and a few other ditties. Right now, I'm in a language refresher conference with Peace Corps and am getting in touch with my inner language geek. I heart studying this darned language.

Hope you all are enjoying the New Year and Happy Year of the Monkey in advance! Wish you all could come to my Chinese New Year party on Fri. - see www.evite.com and search using my email for details if you're curious!

xo,
wlu

A Cross Cultural Moment

Today when talking to Sasha, the CEUME’s director, in his office, I noticed a color brochure with the picture of a dean of a university here in Kyiv, one of CEUME’s partner institutions. It was an advertisement for his 60th birthday, which was also today. It was in Ukrainian, but I think it was detailing his accomplishments, etc. I asked Sasha about it, wondering why the brochure was made and if the 60th birthday has some special significance here. Sasha explained that 60 is the age that people can retire and get pensions, but that this gentleman would continue working. There was to be a big party at the university that he would go to. This dean has worked with CEUME since it’s beginning and has been a major proponent of business education reform in Ukraine, so he is a close colleague for us.

Later in the afternoon, Sasha and a couple of coworkers returned from the party, and they began talking about going shopping and getting a bunch of food. Shortly afterwards, I went into the office kitchen to investigate what was going on. We sometimes have small parties on Friday afternoons, with wine and cognac, and cheese, cold cuts, pickles, olives, bread, and a sweet. Svita, my coworker, informed me that we would be having a “table” to celebrate the dean’s birthday. Surprised, I asked if he would be there. No, she replied, but we’ll toast him in his absence.

Soon, I was being called from my computer: “Wendy, come here. It’s time to drink vodka.” (That’s a joke because we never drink vodka, being predominantly women)

A lovely spread was on our conference room table, nice cheeses, ham, pickles, pickled tomatoes, olives, bread, mushrooms and a cake, with wine and cognac to drink. It is customary when drinking with people to give toasts, so Olga first, then Sasha, then Svita, gave long and inspirational toasts to the dean, extolling his virtues and wishing him a long life.

For me, this illustrates so many characteristics that I love here: ceremony, using any excuse to celebrate, recognizing individuals publicly, love of long toasts.

So where to begin again? I’m trying to write more frequently, b/c the more time that passes, the harder it is to describe all that has happened.

Winter has begun and we’ve all begun steeling ourselves for the long gray. I run in the mornings, in a beautiful park near my apartment. It borders the Vohovna Rada, or national senate as well as one of President Kuchma’s residences. It also overlooks the Dniper and there are two vistas that I pause at each time I pass them. There is an older man who rides his bike each day in the park, followed in loping strides by his huge German Shepherd. One day, after our first and only snow, he was walking and I asked him where his bike was. It was a ploy to meet his dog and it worked. Now when he pedals by me, he calls out “Good morning” to me, alternating between Russian and English.

I feel a sense of accomplishment whenever I make a connection with people here. It’s partially just because this is a big city and probably some cultural components, but in any case, even though it’s a small thing, I’m grateful for my biker and his dog. That and the tailor, the nut lady on the street near work, the money changer, the people who will indulge my need to converse with them. Oh, and let’s not forget the nut and spice guy at my bazaar and the very nice lady who waxes me. Fine, they’re all people with whom I do business with, but it’s a start. I do have nice relations w/ coworkers and occasionally bring in something baked to share or try to bring back a small present from trips out of town for them, as they do.

In the middle of November, my organization had its fifth annual national conference in the eastern city of Kharkiv. It was my first trip to the large city, which is very Russified and still has a huge Lenin statue in the middle of its square, which is Europe’s largest. The conference’s theme was increasing connections between business and business education and we had over 200 participants.

My role was smaller in this conference than in the Summer Institute in July and this conference was more people, but only three days. As usual, I was a little surprised at how nice things were, things such as food, both quality and quantity.

Getting to Kharkiv was interesting. Our flight was cancelled, so the group of us, CEUME staff as well as 4 faculty from Poland and 1 dean of the Northwestern Kellogg School of Business, jumped in taxis to see if we could catch the overnight train. No luck. So we jumped back in taxis and hightailed it over to Arizona’s, a TexMex restaurant. After a lovely dinner (this restaurant is out of my PC budget, so it was especially nice to indulge in margaritas and nachos, as well as the ubiquitous fajitas), we jumped in a rented marshrutka, or large van, complete with driver. At one a.m., after stopping for more fortification (champagne, juice, fruit, tissues and gum), we were driven overnight to Kharkiv, arriving just in time to wash up and begin opening to conference. Yawn.

What else about the conference? Some of the speakers were interesting and because we had simultaneous interpretation, I was able to follow the discussion and speakers. We had full group sessions, the break out groups on subtopics of the main theme, then a couple of plenary sessions with the full group. In one of them, we had representatives from Phillip Morris Ukraine, who donates a lot of money to non-profits in Ukraine, Microsoft Ukraine, as well as a Ukrainian brewery and bank speak about what they do to foster connections between business and biz ed. Interestingly, the Microsoft representative went through the entire Microsoft product line before talking about the training and education opportunities that Microsoft offers. The Phillip Morris rep admitted that cigarettes are damaging to health, something one would never hear in the US from a company PR person! I’m a pretty literal person and expected people to talk about the subject at hand, so was a little surprised that people didn’t really. I found out afterward that the subject had been confused to be social responsibility of business, which was one of the small group subjects.

One the first night, we had a big forshet, or buffet, at a beautiful old building by a no-longer used race track. There were the usual long tables of huge amounts of food, as well as champagne, wine and beer flowing. Our forshets are unusual in Ukraine because we have standing buffets, where as it is more traditional to have people sitting at tables laden with food. The benefits to the standing are socializing and networking, which are skills still being developed here.

It was nice because many people had been at the Summer Institute and remembered me from the simulation game. It was fun to see these people and made me feel rewarded that they wanted to talk and to hear about what they had been doing since the summer. A couple told me they’d used the business simulation game in their classes, which of course thrilled me. That night I felt as if I was doing something that was contributing, or at least part of something important. Those little moments carry a lot of weight in less clearly defined times.

I am kicking myself that I didn’t bring my camera to the conference, but I will do so in the future and take copious pictures.

I just wanted to tell y'all that it is SNOWING LIKE CRAZY!!! I just was discussing this with my coworkers and they reminded me of the impending five months of winter. On one hand, it's really beautiful out, on the other, it's 4:45pm, nearly dark and SNOWING!!! It's just 27 Oct.!!!! I need a drink. Oh, wait, that's a big sign of winter depression. I need a vital carrot juice. With 100 grams of horilka (vodka). :-)

Today's observations...

I have been running in a beautiful, nearby park in the mornings lately. As I walk there, I pass all of the street cleaners, many women in colorful head scarves, sweeping leaves off the sidewalk with their homemade brooms, made out of tied together twigs. The leaves are falling so quickly now and I try to remember to look up a lot, knowing that the trees will soon be starker.

I also pass by many people walking to work, dressed in dark coats and hats, some with children, most with the ubiquitous "packet" or heavy plastic shopping bag that is the carryall of choice.

The park has a very ornate palace of sorts, which is one of the president's many residences throughout the city and country, and a great view of the Dnipr and east of the city. I love to pause a moment there, looking at the mist or seeing what the sky is doing where it meets the earth.

There are many people out walking their dogs and today one woman's female rottweiler took an interest in me as I ran by. I'm never been remotely afraid of dogs, but they speak a different language here and so I'm more cautious with them. Dogs tend to stay close to their owners and are more circumspect of humans. I have observed some people kicking or hitting dogs and have heard stories about this as well, so it may contribute to this.

The dog's person reassured me, saying that while some of the breed bite, her dog didn't. After letting the furry friend smell me, I started to run again and she leapt up, wanting to play. It was nice and shockingly didn't get me all verklempt about my Hawkstar, so far away.

The other observation: I'm riding the marshrutka to work, a short drive fortunately. Looking out the window, getting teary about some personal nonsense, when I spy a billboard advertising a vacuum cleaner, with the word "sucker" spelled out in Cyrillic. It's all so ridiculous here sometimes and those moments of levity and humor help tremendously.

I've perhaps finally acknowledged that I might not catch up from Aug. on the blog and that this should not prevent me from beginning to write regularly again. I miss writing here, but somehow have felt that I shouldn't until caught up....

NEWS FLASH! Photos are up. Check 'em out!

Today is our first snow and it's so beautiful. Big, dry flakes that are actually starting to stick. Today I ran before it began to snow. I've begun to run in a lovely, nearby park and am so grateful that there are still leaves on the trees. It's been a sort of gradual process to fall, though the temperatures have been getting low - near freezing - and today, the white stuff!

I'm feeling a little melancholy today and hope that this won't be a refrain this winter. I'm a little scared of winter, the unrelenting gray, the frozen tundra, the frozen toes, the wind, the paucity of fresh foods. But, the snow is beautiful, there are banyas (steambaths) to visit, I can run the stairs in my building... It will be fine, but right now the thought of the unknown is a bit scary.

Work is going well. I'm trying to model some time management behavior - it drives me crazy how so many projects that I work on or see are driven by panic management. Planning is sparse and the other PCV's and I are working on infrastructure.

So much is topsy turvy, through the looking glass in the development world as I see it. As always, I will speak in generalizations to avoid trouble. There's a decent amount of money being given out by the US (via USAID and the State Dept. on a gov't level and by private foundations like the Soros Found.), by the EU and then by various European Governments, among other sources. Some organizations get large grants to run specific projects, to run their operations or to divvy up to other, smaller orgs.

Sometimes the following occurs: misappropriation of funds, outright stealing, creation of power bases and fiefdoms, autocratic rulers, etc. I don't think any of this is going on at my org, but sometimes I am surprised at the lack of infrastructure in the org, considering our level of funding.

I am trying to observe, but I am probably judging. I wonder often about how money is being spent, how programs are implemented.

Anyway, as I was running today and thinking about how happy I am that my skin is really clear now, it struck me: am I just here to enjoy a nice apt., dinner parties w/ expat, PCV friends? Isn't it time to get my hands dirty, so to speak? My org allows me the sometimes stifling luxury to operate in pretty comfortable circumstances, but really, I'm here to work and sometimes be uncomfortable. Not the old, tired, "I'm not suffering" line, but just that I would like to find some work in another org that is a little more grassroots and tied to something I feel strongly about.

I am so boring today - I'll write back when I have something to describe again.

I'm still catching up, but will post tidbits as the mood strikes...

25 Sept. 2003
Today I’ve had a discussion w/ my office mate, Pavlo, who I nicknamed “Pavlito” from the Spanish, and who speaks excellent English. Ever since I called him a “dork” and he looked it up online and got very offended (hey – I didn’t know it meant “dick”), he asks me language questions. Today has been on the subject of political correctness and how to call people with different characteristics. Some excerpts:

Pavlito: “I read that there is special feministic vocabulary to describe men and women, like ‘Vaginal Americans.’”
Me, choking on the tea I just sipped: “I’m sorry, did you just say ‘vaginal Americans?’”
Pavlito: “Yes, and men are called ‘penile Americans.’”
Me, trying to be adult and not snicker b/c he just said “penile:” “Pavlo, that is crazy. A few people may say that, but it definitely isn’t in common usage.”
Pavlito, who never believes me after the dork debacle: “But maybe in your village they don’t say this, maybe they say this in other cities.”
Me, getting indignant because he always believes random internet sources over a REAL, LIVE Vaginal American: “Pavlo, nobody says that. I’ve never heard anyone say that, ever. Really.”

Then we had a discussion about overweight people, who he heard should be called “alternative appearance.” I told him that fat and overweight were ok, w/ the latter being the polite variant.

Then on to developmentally disabled, who we no longer call “retards.” In Russian/Ukrainian, they say, “invalids” for physically disabled people, so many Ukrainians say “invalid” in English.

He also asked me why so many people in America are overweight. I told him that’s an excellent question, but I speculate that processed food, lots of it and little exercise contribute. Ukrainians tend to be quite lean, along the French model, despite some of the diet being rather heavy. Take salo, for example, the straight pork fat that is beloved. Or all the sour cream. Mmmmm, sour cream.

I digress. Language is always very interesting to me, as is Pavlito’s impressions of Americans and what I gather he’s learning from me. I realize that I’ve taught him “shut up” (for when he’s teasing me about being a spy, which grows wearying), but nothing too bad otherwise. It’s sobering to realize that I really am a representative of Americans, and even in Kyiv may be the first American anyone has closely worked with. I try not to take it too seriously, but it is something I try to remember when I’m having a bad day.

Where to begin today? I recently read a book written by a fellow PCV from Group 24, Christina O’Keefe’s Finding Francis. (Order it online at www.amazon.com - it’s a worthwhile read) It’s a sort of memoir and it made me think a lot about writing, about what I’ve been doing in this space. It felt uncomfortable to acknowledge that this blog, hell this whole experience, is a lot more about me than anything else.

But, I also realize that this is a common human condition – we are inherently selfish and I’m comfortable fessing up to it. I also take a more Ayn Rand-esque view of the word “selfish” in relation to people. Being selfish has a bad rap, but I believe it’s hardwired in us and serves survival purposes.

Further, I decided when I chose to come here to that I would do the kind of work I wanted to, because I know I’ll be most effective doing what I want. That means that I don’t do development work that I don’t like. At the same time, I also need to be challenged and need to actively cultivate that in my life and not seek the easier, more comfortable paths.

Finally, this is MY blog, MY life and everyone is welcome to write their blog as they see fit and live their life as they wish. I’m not sure who or what I’m being defensive against, but it’s been on my mind and now it’s out.

Back to the reports. I’m walking up the steps from the passage under a major street, buy flowers from a babushka, bargaining her down from 3 to 2 hryven, then enter the metro. There’s a crumpled, gray babushka sitting and begging right before the escalator down to the train. I realize that I move the flowers to the hand away from her, as if to hide them, and feel shame for my health, my youth, that I can buy trifles like flowers.

There’s the young girl on the other metro stairs, trained to repeat, “Thank you, please help me,” for hours to the passersby. On the next underpass stairs, a mother slumped over, cradling her child, not even bothering to say anything, a plastic cup in front of her.

Then on the street, all of the fashion, the Russian and Ukrainian floating past me, me catching mainly connector words as opposed to full sentences. The young women wearing tight, satiny pants, the supremely pointed shoes that are the rage this summer carrying their light bodies. The men wearing black and gray, toting their murses. (man purse)

On the marshrutka, I try to give my money to the driver, who has turned off the engine and is reading a paper. He ignores me, so I try humor to get his attention to take my one hryven. When he does notice, he says shortly that the conductor will take my money and I take a seat, thinking unmentionable thoughts about culture, manners, generalizing 55 million people in my moment of bad humor.

Last week, I took my first vacation! Christopher, my boyfriend, has arrived from Colorado and after a couple of weeks here in Kyiv, we set off to western Ukraine.

We went to Lviv, Ivano Frankivsk and a village in the Carpathians, Yaremche. We stayed with fellow PCV, Chris, in Lviv and got to enjoy the party she threw for Tina O’Keefe’s book release. Tina read from Finding Francis and we all enjoyed Chris’ gazpacho and great mix of people. It was really cool to have not just PCV’s and Americans there, but also Ukrainian coworkers and new friends.

Lviv is a supremely beautiful city, the center all cobblestones, old buildings, churches, neo-classical architecture, coffee houses, breweries. Christopher and I counted 3 dogs that were trained to carry baskets through the streets. One was a beggar’s dog and had a sign asking for donations, but the other two seemed to be civilians. Curious.

After Lviv, we took a 4 hour marshrutka through rolling countryside to Ivano Frankivsk. Why are the haystacks cylindrically shaped, supported by poles, ranging in shape from “soft serve ice cream” to “Christmas tree” shapes? We saw horse drawn carts carrying people, livestock, produce. At one town, little beggar boys boarded the marshrutka to sing a song, then beg for alms. One had what looked like a congenital birth defect and had flipper-like hands with one or two digits on each misshapen hand. He stood in front of a row of people, clapping his arms together and repeating, “Please help me, please help me,” until someone gave him some kopecks and he joined his cohorts on the street.

We were supposed to meet up with a PCV friend in Ivano Frankivsk (IF), but I hadn’t written down the name of the hostel where we were supposed to stay and meet. IF turned out to be a larger town than I’d expected and the taxi drivers didn’t know the hostel. They kept trying to send us to an expensive hotel, but I finally convinced them we wanted cheap. They told me one to go to and gave walking directions.

I’m not great with directions in my native language and am much worse in Russian/Ukrainian. We walked for some time, Christopher silent and brooding, me hungry and worried. I asked a woman on the street and she indicated that she’d walk us there.

We backtracked about a kilometer (oops) and then I noticed the HUGE billboard advertising the hotel. The women kept walking us to the hotel despite the signs, past train tracks, past garbage heaps, past a big soviet-style apartment building, past burning garbage heaps, to the hotel. It was really nice of her to go out of her way to walk us and we thanked her as she quickly walked away in the dusk.

The hotel had a utilitarian feel, but seemed clean and I tried to sort out the pricing structure. It was the first time I’d been confronted by the old tiered pricing. A room for non-Ukrainians cost just over 3 times as much as for Ukrainians! We asked to see a room and while it was very clean, but the toilet was on another floor and the whole hotel had no hot water.

I’m glad that Christopher intervened and vetoed that place, because we ended up staying at a really nice, Western style hotel that cost $1 more than that place, and had a lovely private bath and hot showers. Even the obnoxious Canadian gymnast convention that had shrieking girls drinking too much downstairs couldn’t dampen our enthusiasm for the place.

The next day we tried all day to phone Scott without success. I even phoned PC HQ in Kyiv to get his office address, but when we went to find it, the building that should have been that number was being demolished. Disheartened, I perked up when Christopher bought me an ice cream on the street and we decided to cut our losses and head to Yaremche that evening.

We went to a kiosk I’d seen advertising tourist info. I asked there for said info and she gave me a piece of paper and told me to phone the number on it. I did so from a pay phone, asking the info center what they knew about accommodations in Yaremche. The woman on the other end asked me where I was, which seemed a strange way to answer my questions. She offered to come down and give me the information in person and sure enough, five minutes later, she showed up by the kiosk with information in hand.

The language question is even more interesting in Western Ukraine to me, where they really speak Ukrainian. Here in Kyiv I think I hear so little pure Ukrainian, or perhaps when I do I’m catching the parts that sound enough like Russian that I don’t notice. But in Lviv and IF and later Yaremche, there were many times when the accent and vocabulary were distinctly different. I felt happy for these people to have a separate language from Russian. Nonetheless, when I was dealing with people, they easily switched from Ukrainian to Russian when we spoke. Or sometimes I would speak Russian and they Ukrainian and we’d make do that way. I think of this tangent because after this tourist info woman spoke Ukrainian to my Russian, she made sure to say “Dasvidanya” which is distinctly Russian.

After getting tourist info, we went to the train station to purchase our tickets. It was only my second time buying train tickets and the whole process is still very intimidating to me. I had my Ukrainian phrasebook ready and steeled myself for the waiting, the curious looks at our backpacks, the outright staring sure to occur the moment I open my mouth.

Christopher was having a bit of culture shock. The pushing, staring, whispering and pointing and such were getting to him, and he was reacting angrily. Granted, maybe no one understood what he was saying, but I felt a little uncomfortable, despite also understanding how uncomfortable it can be to be singled out.

By contrast with his newness and adjustments, it was interesting to note how much I have grown accustomed to such things. While I probably will never enjoy being jostled and I’m definitely never going to enjoy being cut in front of in line anywhere, I’m somewhat accustomed to crowded public transport and being a “star.” In fact, there’s even a syndrome for expats or PCV’s when they return to the US and are no longer “stars.” Even if they didn’t enjoy the attention that being different brought them, suddenly they are very ordinary and there’s a vacuum where all the attention to their every move used to be.

The train station still makes me nervous because one waits for a long time, then has a short amount of time with a generally taciturn railway employee and there’s always people trying to push in and ask questions, especially when they hear the slowness of my speech. Plus I have to be really careful to make sure I understand what they’re saying because changing a rail ticket would suck.

In any case, the railway employee was actually sort of friendly, but told me that I couldn’t buy tickets that day for the coming Saturday. I tried to ask several ways, but each time she told me I couldn’t. She said I would have to buy them the next day.

I got out of line, then decided to verify that I understood correctly. The second time around, she explained using large hand gestures and creative dance interpretation that one can only buy tickets 3 days before the train leaves. Despite having a database on her computer, she was unable to tell me whether there were actually tickets available for the train we wanted.

This turn of events meant that we needed to stay in IF one more night, then buy tickets the following morning. Christopher also reacted rather strongly to this ridiculous rule, which also contrasted nicely to me how passive I’m getting when people tell me things such as this. We realized later that we could have tried bribing her, but I really don’t want to contribute too much to that culture. A chocolate bar of thanks here and there, sure, but outright bribes are icky.

We trooped back to the expensive expat palace, braving the Canadian gymnasts one more night.

More to follow…

14 August

I'm still catching the blog up to present, but today was such a beautiful day that I wanted to write while it's fresh.

I took the metro from work to the language school where I'm taking a weekly Russian group lesson. Today as I rode up the metro escalator, I noticed that almost everyone was carrying bouquets of dried flowers and also that many arrangements contained poppy flower pods, the part where people make heroin from.

Inspired since I was going to class, I asked the woman riding next to me in Russian if today was a holiday and if so, what kind was it. Strangely, I wasn't annoyed when she replied in English, as I usually am in the language tug' o war. She told me that today is a religious holiday when people bring these flowers to the church to be blessed. She didn't explain why and I didn't think to ask, but she did say that the next week was a day to bring apples to the church to be blessed and that the apples would be best after this day.

I suppose that these holidays are pagan rituals absorbed by the orthodox church, celebrating an end of summer and a bountiful harvest. I'll try to get more info on these holidays.

As we said goodbye at the top of the escalator and I entered the bright summer afternoon, I was overwhelmed by the sight of lines of women selling dried flowers and by the scent, as many of the flowers were herbs gone to seed and flower. There was basil, oregano, mint, wheat, poppy pods, marigolds, zinnia, among hundreds of others. For nearly ten minutes, I walked down the street by these vendors, and compared the different selections and colors and smells.

There are times when this country is so beautiful that I ache from the sight and this afternoon was such a time. The metro stop is also right by one of the botanical gardens and to get to the language school, I walk on a path through it. The whole walk to class was highly pleasurable.

It's just that life here becomes routine, so much so that I begin to forget at times that I've ever lived anywhere else or that the whole world isn't like this. I'm not explaining this well; but sometimes when something so striking as today's flower fantasia happens, I'm jolted out of a mundane acceptance of this life and realize that I'm living in Ukraine! I'm far from home! Excitement and adventure in the world! Woo Hoo!

Right, it's late and time for bed. Goodnight, all.

20 July 2003

It has been a very, very long time since I've written here and much has happened. I'm currently working in Sudak on the Crimean Peninsula at our annual summer conference. It's a crazy thing, this conference, a beast that opens its jaws at 7am and sometimes doesn't spit its victims out until early the next morning. I'm tired and a little discouraged, frankly speaking, but know that much of this may be due to sleep deprivation, which I don't deal well with. I'm here from 13 - 30 July.

In any case, whining aside, here are some events or observations since I last wrote.

Early in my time in Kyiv, I went to an old indoor produce market that is in central Kyiv, Bessarabska. It's more expensive, but it has many imported items and I went to see if they had ginger, which they did. While I was walking around, I smelled something familiar and before I even knew what it was, I felt a great welling up of emotion and suddenly was nearly in tears. The culprit was a ripe peach. I realized that this is the time of year that Mom and I always go to South Carolina to visit Great Aunts Eva and Theo and Sadie and Viola. We invariably buy lots of peaches and the smell permeates the car as we return to North Carolina. I bought the damn peach and ate it, crying and grateful that sunglasses partially hid my nostalgia.
Work has been going well, and in preparation for this conference, we all began working a lot and long hours. In my judgment, there was less planning that one might think for a major two part conference. I think it creates much more work and certainly more stress. That part I don't enjoy.

However, much has been interesting. I like working with such smart and energetic people and have begun to feel more a part of the two offices I work in.

Back to the end of June, on my birthday weekend, we had a organizational meeting in Odessa, to have all the PCV's and CEUME staff discuss organizational development and begin discussing such things as how to maintain CEUME as a self-sustaining NGO after the USAID funding ends in 3 years.

After the meeting, I stayed on in Odessa w/ fellow PCV, Louis, also a former North Carolinian, and we explored bits of the city and the 7 square kilometer market that is on the outskirts of town. Odessa is an old port city built by, variously, the French, the Greeks and to a lesser degree, the Ottomans, and of course, the Russians. It has a similar "elegant decay" (quoting Louis) as New Orleans does and to me, a more relaxed feeling than Kyiv.

I flew back to Kyiv on my birthday, which happens to be Constitution Day in Ukraine, and was surprised how happy I felt to be back, how it felt like home. I'm growing fond of the city.

Here in Ukraine, the tradition on one's birthday is rather different than in the US. Perhaps the biggest difference is that one is supposed to provide the party for oneself. The birthday girl/boy should bring some kind of champagne, vodka or wine (or all of the above if you're a big shot), cake and sweets, at a minimum. Though it felt strange to me, as if I was bragging or making a big deal of my own birthday, I dutifully went to the store, bought a garishly frosted cake, a bottle of champagne and a box of chocolates and brought them to work the next day.

The complication is that, as I've mentioned, I work in two offices. I decided that I needed to bond more with one office than the other, and there happened to be a meeting, so I carted the stuff over and planned to invite everyone to the kitchen after our meeting.

However, everyone started leaving the office right after the meeting and the time didn't seem right, so I didn't say anything and left the party stuff.

The next day, one of the interns in the other office was going to have a party for his graduation from colleges, so I told him I'd donate the cake and champagne and mentally decided to forgo this birthday year.

I went to the other office and got the party supplies and we had a fun graduation party. I thought that was that.

The next day, a comrade at work tells me that the other office women were a bit worried that the cake and champagne were there but then gone. They wondered if I was mad (why I'm unsure) or basically what went amiss. I tried to explain my side of the silliness, but could see that there was a disconnect. I realized that despite the time lapse, I'd have to throw a party anyway.

By this time, a week later, raspberries were in season, so I made a raspberry pie w/ cookie and almond crust. It was tasty but sort of ugly, but by now I had to go forward.

I brought in pie w/ ice cream and some fruit, but no champagne and invited everyone back to the kitchen. I told them that the previous cake hadn't been good enough, so I'd removed it and made something else. They laughed.

There were many jokes only slightly at my expense regarding the looks of the pie, but they ate both of them, the damn skinny wenches. They found a bottle of champagne in the fridge and we had some toasts and in the end I was glad that we did it.

A couple of days later, I arrived at work at the other office rather early for me, at 9:30am or so. I was fresh from working out and looking for a cup of coffee. My Ukrainian director, Sasha, starts calling me to come to the conference room. I walk in to everyone seated around the large, oval table, and on the table sat a bottle of cognac and a big, lime green-frosted cake, in addition to chocolates and cherries.

I sighed and laughed and said, "Oh, Ukraina," (Oh, Ukraine) to which everyone laughed. What I meant by this is that it is so endearing and at the same time exhausting to celebrate as they do. The first few impromptu cake and cognac/champagne/vodka mini-parties in the middle of the day were a novelty, but this early morning variety was new and sometimes one isn't in the mood to throw down cake and a bevy in the middle of a workday, let alone the beginning of it.

However, there's nothing to be done and why should one resist? I sat down and we talked a little bit in Russian about how birthdays are different here versus the US. The cake and cognac were there because one of the faculty members that we work with was in town from Donetsk and brought cake for Sasha's birthday that had been in the middle of June.

Sasha had Pavlo bring me a rose and one of his toasts was that we were passing the birthday "baton" from him to me, until the next birthday, which was to follow the next week, Sveta's. Sveta is a delightful coworker, and I particularly appreciate her because she is very positive and will speak Russian with me, even though her English is amazing.

We finished the cake, ate chocolates, drank the bottle of cognac, to be followed by a bottle of vodka that I was able to avoid. At about 11am, I went to my desk to begin my day, and to begin to rehydrate.

I'm catching up to present, so more episode to follow… Thanks to those of you who are reading this. Sometimes I'm surprised that anyone wants to read all of this - my ramblings. If this were about life in the US, I suppose it wouldn't be all that.

17 June
Today I went to a huge children’s store to buy a sort of gag gift for Amy and Charlie and their new-ish baby, Benjamin. I won’t reveal the gag gift til later, as I’m just mailing it now. The store had recognizable things like Fisher Price and Leggo toys, Crayola (I smelled the crayons and got stared at suspiciously), and less familiar things, like an entire wall of very realistic-looking guns.

I’ve been making myself walk around my neighborhood after work before dark, to familiarize myself and also not spend hours and hours alone in my apartment, obsessively reading. Tonight my destination was the produce market and then after dinner, the baby store.

I have been a bit obsessive lately about grocery shopping, as in I like to go everyday. The interactions at the market are very satisfying – friendly, I get to practice Russian, it’s food and they give out samples! The huge supermarket right by my house is also a source of hours of entertainment. I smell shampoos, try to read ingredient labels, look at all the new and strange products, as well as feel triumph when I find a familiar one, such as Balsamic vinegar. I still haven’t brought myself to buy the US-priced olive oil, but I know I will eventually break down. The sunflower oil is locally produced and quite nice. There are several varieties, ranging from dark and flavourful (but BAD BAD BAD for baking – brownie disaster) to light and without a distinct taste (on the contrary, quite good for baking – decent brownies).

I could talk about food for days, so I’ll move on.

Last week, while doing laundry, I hit my head on a light fixture and it turns out got a small concussion. I realized this when I saw that part of my eye was extremely bloodshot, so I called the PCMO (medical officer). I had sort of forgotten that I’d hit my head, which may have been part of the concussion thing. Anyway, I ended up staying the night at Expat Palace and doing laundry in the machine there. Oh, luxury! The eye cleared up in a few days, but the running joke among some of the PCV’s here is to ask me how many states there are in the Union, from when they were supposed to be on head injury watch for me.

It is also sweet cherry season, to be followed later by sour cherry season. I am almost sick of strawberries and am trying to switch to trying to eat cherries everyday til I’m sick of them, too. Then it will be another fruit’s turn at the market. However, the glut of berries gives me the ability to make berry intensive things like strawberry granita, sort of like gelato and really, really good w/ a little vodka as a slushy cocktail. Mmmm.

Today I also met my local militsia (police). Per PC procedures, my Regional Manager, Irina, and I went to the militsia office just one block from my building and asked to speak to the highest up person we could to introduce me. We got a pretty high up guy judging by his office and suit. He actually was really nice, but I kept having some weird visions of Russian Dragnet, which interfered greatly with my ability to take the proceedings seriously. Like so many things in my experience here, this meeting was one more stop on the surreal highway. Sometimes I am a little overwhelmed or maybe just impressed by the simple facts: I am riding in a Landrover with diplomatic plates, speeding around Kyiv to our next militsia meeting.

Anyway, back to this reality, Officer Friday asked us if we wanted to meet the officer in charge on the blocks where I live, so we went over to a satellite office that just happened to be open for two hours when we were there. Both officers couldn’t seem to believe that we didn’t want anything from our visits, but just to have them know I was here and meet me. They were nice and surprisingly friendly. I’m glad that I already know when to not smile here, as these were meetings to sit and look tough and confident at.

Sometimes I am somewhere that I can see a view over this city and over the grey Soviet apartment blocks, the gilded church domes and the ugly modern brick apartment blocks, a huge blue sky spans and my heart breaks to try to know this place and learn it all. I wish that I could embrace it all and it would become like home to me, but I know it is take time and it will always be other or maybe not or maybe only sometimes.

Time for bed. No more strawberry slushy vodka treats or more slather like the proceeding may follow. Good night.

14 – 16 June

I could smell the strawberries before I could see the bazaar. It was early Sat. morning, the first time that I went to the market before the afternoon. I was surprised that many stalls weren’t yet open at 7:30am. It is strawberry season and when something is in season, the market is flooded.
My vegetable and fruit bazaar is a long tent that covers the many tables of produce. There is a money exchange, a bread seller, a nice young man from Uzbekistan (do I sound like I’m 80?) selling dried fruits and nuts who likes to speak English with me, and then probably 100 or more tables of produce. Outside the tent are more people and sometimes their prices are better, perhaps because they don’t pay a fee to be in the tent. There are always many babushkas (grandmothers) selling flowers, the odd hen, herbs, whatever they could grow or raise somewhere, and as I walk by, they call out, “Deidushka (young woman), come see my (insert product here).”

In addition to the produce bazaar, there is a semi-permanent bazaar that has stalls selling dairy products, crackers and cookies, household cleaners and soaps, etc. There is the best cheese there and every time I go back, I see more sauces, cans of olives, new cookies or crackers.

I bought 2 kilograms of strawberries at the bazaar – a little more than 4 lbs. for about $3. I bought that and also a box of chocolates to bring to Ira and Helena’s house, for on Sat. I was going back to Brovary for the first time since moving to Kyiv. We’ve talked a couple of times on the phone, and Ira invited me for lunch for her birthday. She’d said something about coming in the morning then staying til the evening, but I reminded her how I get tired and that I’d come for the day or so.

When I got home, I realized I’d bought not entirely ripe strawberries and decided to leave those at home to ripen and buy riper ones at the market near Brovary. I packed up my plastic bag and headed out to my first home in Ukraine.

At Lisova market, I found cheaper and riper strawberries and again bought 2 kilos. I was really excited on the familiar marshrutka ride to visit with Ira and Helena. Arriving in Brovary, I bought a pretty bouquet of white lilies, and thus properly armed with chocolate, strawberries and flowers, I walked up to their flat.

I realize in retrospect that going to visit them is the first time since I’ve been here that someone’s really, really happy to see me. Don’t cry for me, Argentina. I don’t mean that I’m not making friends, but everyone is new and they just haven’t realized yet the depth of their feelings for me. In time they will, but in the meantime, having Ira and Helena hug and kiss me and generally be super excited to see me was so wonderful.

Helena has gotten a new job in the same department w/ a pay raise and Ira is finishing up her semester as a student and her classes as a teacher have already finished. I found out that on the last day of classes, it is traditional for students to give the teacher a flower. Ira was surprised that she received almost exclusively red roses. They both were very curious about my job, apartment and Helena in particular if I was eating properly.

It turned out that I had completely misunderstood Ira’s invitation, besides the fact that it was Ira’s birthday and that I should come before lunchtime on Sat. They had invited me for the weekend and were planning that I’d stay til Sunday afternoon. I had already arranged w/ Mom for her to phone Sat. night, so couldn’t stay. I felt bad, even though I was sort of glad to not have to stay. One full day is really enough. Always leave them wanting more is my motto.

We had a lovely lunch with: Vica (Ira’s friend), Petr Sr. and Katerina, (great aunt and uncle, but called grandmother and grandfather), Petr Jr. (Petr and Katerina’s grandson who is my age), his girlfriend, Yulia.

Petr Sr. is quite the flirt and told me during lunch that he thinks I’m pretty, but he’d like it if I was bigger. He indicted his chest at this comment, so I think he may have been alluding to something, but maybe I’m misreading cultural symbolism. Kidding, of course, I suppose if he wasn’t cute and old (75) and speaking Russian/Ukrainian, I would label him a pig. He somehow gets immunity from how I usually judge men who tell me I should have bigger boobs. He also kept adding “To our American friends!” to the end of every toast, even when someone else made it. He actually was very entertaining and good natured about the girls giggling at him. (me included, of course)

There were the usual toasts and eating fest and Ira’s favorite sweet, sweet red wine, some kind of rose desert stuff. Helena made golubsi, or cabbage rolls (YUM! Pass the smetana [sour cream]), chicken fillet, young (new) potatoes with dill, parsley and mayo, the crab, corn and onion salad that is Ira’s favorite, as well as cheese blini, cucumbers and then a cake that Helena made, plus the chocolates that I’d brought. A Ukrainian table is always well-laden for guests, and it might be traditional to worry if there’s enough unless the table is utterly choked with food, as Helena did. There of course were copious leftovers.

I was a little nervous about going into a no-English zone after a couple of weeks of no studying and almost exclusive English speaking. It was fine, however, and even Katarina, who has been a strong critic about my Russian, instead of commenting on how poorly I speak and reminding me how much better my friend Carrie speaks, said that I was speaking better than before. Go figure. I think I felt so comfortable w/ everyone that this helped a lot. When I feel scared, nervous or insecure, even things that I know cold come out wrong.

After that lovely day, I headed back to Kyiv and a bad phone connection w/ Mom, but at least I got to hear her voice. This is probably the longest we’ve ever gone without talking and yet it seemed so normal to talk to her. I even managed to stave off tears til after we hung up! I was so proud. Actually, it was a day of conversations with both parents, b/c Dad had phoned me at 2am Sat. morning, having gotten a wee confused about the time difference. It was also nice to hear his voice, despite my tiredness.

I think one isn’t properly living abroad until someone has phoned at an inappropriate hour.

Sat. night I went over to fellow PCV Susan’s “Expat Palace,” a four room renovated flat with kalunka (hot water heater) and cable TV that her organization is putting her up in until they find her a suitable apartment. Brian and Lani were in from out of town and I ended up sleeping over to avoid an expensive taxi ride home. We all made breakfast in the morning and talked and talked and talked. It was lovely. I’ll attach photos shortly of all of us cooking, then talking, then brushing our teeth.

Sunday night I was supposed to talk to Dad while he was visiting with Nanny and Sam was with him, but he couldn’t get through. Sundays are difficult days to phone here.

Monday was an Orthodox Catholic holiday, Holy Trinity, and all weekend in the markets people were selling 3 foot long grassy reeds that were to be put in homes. I need to go to a service here sometime. The churches are really beautiful, round domes and gold covered. The icons are especially beautiful.

I went into work for a half day despite the holiday, as I have a deadline. I’m quite enjoying work and am learning a ton. I am finding that even though I had trepidations about whether I’d find Business Management Education interesting or not, it seems that how it relates to this developing educational and economic systems is utterly fascinating. I may yet be a development junkie.

The organization has two offices and one is directly across from the Presidential Administration and an old building called “the House of Monsters” for all the stone sculptures of bizarre creatures on it. The secret police have an office right next to ours, and their office isn’t labeled (duh, SECRET police) but there is a sign for shoe repair. I thought it was a cover and was telling one of my coworkers about seeing a man go in with shoes in a bag, but she told me it also is a real shoe repair. It’s still a great cover.

I will get to go to a retreat for our organization in Odesa the last weekend of June, ahem, my birthday!! I am very, really excited to explore beyond Kyiv Oblast. Odesa is supposed to be a beautiful, vibrant city and I’m staying 2 days beyond our retreat at a fellow PCV’s apt.

2 – 8 June
The first week I was going to work, Carrie, fellow PCV, stayed with me. She's probably the person I’ve gotten to know best and it was fun to have her to ruminate over the events at work and process it all. She is also a development junkie, but unlike me, has been studying it in earnest for some time now and is a delight to talk about all the complexities, contradictions, abuses, trends, meanings, etc., of development work and being an American.

We cooked, hung out, listened to music, read, and generally enjoyed time in a free space, that is my apartment and not home stay.

On Sat. 7 June, Carrie and I went to a festival organized by the other NGO that my organization’s Ukrainian director runs. It was held at an open air museum that consists of houses and villages constructed to replicate traditional housing from different Ukrainian regions. It is a beautiful area away from the city, all green, rolling hills, horses and wooden homes with thatch roofs. I want to go back to picnic sometime soon.

We spent more time wandering around the grounds and eating shashlik (shishkabobs) so I can’t report authoritatively on the festival, but there were tons of people in Ukrainian traditional dress and craftspeople selling their wares. Lots of beautiful but expensive embroidered fabric and clothes.

To get to the festival, I had been told a marshrutka to take, but this info turned out to be wrong. No one on the street knew anything, so we started stopping other marshrutkas and asking them. We weren’t sure how this would be received, but to our utter gratitude, not only were the marshrutka drivers perfectly happy to stop their vans and try to figure out where we should go, the passengers got into the act.

Then we got on the bus they directed us to, asking the driver and his ticket taker how to get from their route to the museum. They not only didn’t ask us to pay, but the ticket taker walked us to the next transport, an electriska (electric trolley bus) to make sure we would get to the right one. I was surprised at this care, for sometimes people seem hard and unmoved, particularly in this big city.

I am sitting in my new Kyiv apartment. All windows are open to the balcon and the white, cottony bits that are dispelled by a tree are floating inn droves thru the air and forming small, puffy piles in the corners of the balcon. I am home.

The month of May has nearly passed and I never sat down to write here. After Orthodox Easter, came the first of May or Labor Day. This holiday is no longer the huge event that it once was under Soviet times, but it means that after Easter, people are off for nearly a week. Then on the 9th of May is Victory Day, referring to WWII, what in Russian translates to the “Great Patriotic War.” There were many Saints days as well and generally May is a relaxing time of year here, unless one is in Peace Corps training.

Personally, I was busy with Russian class, our internship and also participating in the holidays with Ira and Helena. We survived a minor disturbance, where Ira was offended that I didn’t ask if she could come along when I was invited to someone’s dacha. She wanted to go b/c she was interested in the family’s son.

In late April, early May, over a period of about 47 hours, spring struck and suddenly where all had been gray and concrete, barren trees studded with crow’s nest, there was an urgent green. Yards previously festooned with the entrances to the cellars where people store the produce they grow on dachas were carpeted in new grasses, weeds and flowers. The trees immediately had leaves. The suddenness was infectious and as Colorado has no discernable spring, it reminded me a bit of growing up in North Carolina, except for the sudden onslaught of this spring.

It has been unseasonably warm so far and by that I basically mean hot. People are complaining, but it is at least comforting to me to know that it is not normal here for the weather to switch gears from driving, biting cold wind and rain of early spring to a balmy summer heat. The temperature switch was oddly exhausting and I found myself napping when possible between coming home and homework and dinner.

On May Day, I went with Ira to the 20th birthday party of a friend of hers, Marina. Marina is an English teacher and speaks almost flawless English and I think I’ve almost convinced her that I really want to speak Russian with her, despite her superiority in English.

The 20th birthday is a very important one in Ukraine. There’s some significance about even numbers that I don’t entirely grasp, but the 30th and 40th birthdays are also important.

When I got home the day before May Day, Ira was home with her friend, Valentin, who is also a teacher at Ira’s school. We all went shopping for Marina’s gift at every shop along the main thoroughfare in Brovary. Ira had decided that champagne glasses were an appropriate gift and we were to split the cost. After looking in every shop, most of which had almost the same goods for prices that barely varied by a few kopecks, we decided on a set of champagne glasses that I will only describe as being blessed with a great deal of gold ornamentation, as are many goods and clothes here.

On the day of the party, I had to leave a meeting w/ fellow volunteers early to get home for the party and this caused no small amount of discord, set to a backdrop of a good dose of inter-group tension. Nonetheless, Ira, Valentin and I arrived at a party hall about on time for Marina’s birthday, carrying our gift, a fancy bouquet of flowers and Ira’s stereo.

A tradition here for birthdays is to say a set of phrases to the birthday girl or boy and they count how many are said: “I wish you: luck, love, a wealthy husband, a long life, etc.” I tried a new variant on Marina, wishing her the ability to find a good job and was promptly scolded back into the accepted format.

After greeting her family, we went into the room where a long table was set up and nearly choked with dishes of food: meat, salads, vegetables, pickles, more salads, bread. There were probably over 100 dishes of food on a table set up to seat about 20 or 30. There were bottles of vodka, wine and mineral water every 6 chairs or so. I have found that this is the traditional Ukrainian table setup for a party and it is so impressive to come in to such abundance, I imagine the intended effect.

Soon Marina and two of her friends joined us in the dining room. These two dayavushkey (young women) were also English teachers and eager to speak English. They sometimes were funny because they would correct each other’s grammar or pronunciation or choice of words. They also are fond of the phrase, “If I am not mistaken.” They have slight British accents and use British words like “trousers” or “flat.” I tried valiantly to practice Russian, but they were a tough sell. Luckily, there were people there that couldn’t speak English and Ira who knows I want to practice (and even may get grumpy sometimes if people won’t speak Russian with me) was sweet to speak with me sans translation.

A background drama that led up to this party: Marina met the other PCT (Peace Corps Trainees) at the party that Ira and I had. She got Tom, Larry, Larry’s host brother Andrei and Ira and I together at a café to formally invite us to her party the week before. On Marina’s birthday, Tom couldn’t make it b/c he got sick and was in Kyiv and Larry decided that he should work on the workshop and not go to the party, especially because his host brother also couldn’t come.

I don’t know what is normal for here in terms of parties and accepting or declining invitations. There was no way that anyone of us could have said no to Marina’s invitation, but it was no small scandal when neither Tom, Larry nor Andrei came. I had to explain numerous times that I didn’t know Tom or Larry before in America and that I couldn’t explain their behavior. Andrei was especially reviled because they expressed that his behavior was unacceptable for a Ukrainian.

There had been a previous scandal when Larry and Andrei blew off Ira and Marina when they’d made plans to see “Mr. Bean 2” in Kyiv. Thank God for all the homework I had that prevented me from going. I hate Mr. Bean and seeing that film dubbed into Russian with slightly annoying teenagers who won’t speak Russian with me would make me VERY GROUCHY.

Anyway, the stage was already set for more misunderstanding and I do think that Marina was genuinely (and understandably) hurt that these three didn’t show up nor phone to cancel. I find Ira and also Marina to be sensitive to insult and almost looking for it sometimes. I remind myself a lot that Ira is only 20 and as she is moody, I have to work to not take her mood personally. It is probably my comeuppance, as I’m moody and now I see what it is like to live on the other side of the mood. (good pun, if I do say so!)

Back to the party, after a short amount of time, we sat down to begin our feast. I sat with the teenagers, as I keep referring to these young people who not only work full time as teachers, but who also are full time university students, and often work at home, helping to cook and clean or take care of younger siblings.

Then the toasts began. First Marina’s mother gave a toast that brought tears to my eyes, not so much because I understood all of it, but because I felt a bit homesick. We lifted our glasses and then dug into the food. I had a couple of new dishes: 1. Shuba (fur coat) which is a salad with many layers of vegetables such as beet (I’m lucky to so love beets!), shredded potatoes, carrots, intermixed w/ a salted fish that’s not dried and in this version, a lot of what I found out later is excellent caviar. I hadn’t had caviar before and quite liked it. 2. Holodnaya (cold salad) which is uncolored, unflavored jello made from pork, salted w/ bits of pork floating in it. I tried a bit, but didn’t go back. However, I nearly ate an entire bowl of shuba by myself and when I found out the next day how much the caviar costs that was in it, I was more than a little embarrassed. In my defense, there were several bowls of shuba that were untouched when I left, so no one lacked for it.

We had several rounds of toasts, eating all the while. Then it was time for a break. We walked outside a bit, enjoying the now warm weather. We hung out in the room with a stereo and listened to Russian pop, my new fav music. Then it was time to repeat the toasting, drinking, eating part. I was surprised how comfortable I felt, or maybe how welcomed I felt. It is a big deal that people would invite me, basically a stranger, to a family celebration.

After the third round of toasting, drinking and eating, we took another break and I got to speak a bit with Marina’s mother, who was very sweet and kindly spoke slowly in Russian for me. It is a little difficult for me to speak b/c sometimes a small crowd will gather to listen to the Americanka speak and I get a tad nervous with all the attention. Marina was also hovering, making sure that I didn’t need translation. Of course I don’t understand everything, but when it is just conversation, it is more important for me to listen and reply and don’t need to accurately know all facts. At least that is my philosophy.

I also have realized in this time that I had gotten to be rather a language Nazi. I was very frustrated for a time when Ira was translating a lot, especially when I was super slow the first few weeks. She’d translate before I could think and I would despair that I’d never learn. We worked it out and now when she feels the need to translate, she’ll do it to easier Russian, which is very kind of her.

Again, back to the party, we had cake, coffee and more toasts, then I needed to leave as the hour was growing late and I had already negotiated with Ira that I could leave by myself. It is difficult to do anything without the group, although as I am here longer, I find that Ira and Helena seem slightly less worried that I’ll harm myself going alone somewhere. I have even been allowed to go to Kyiv by myself! I joke; it is endearing and also can be greatly frustrating. It also has been a lesson in how important it is to understand the “collective” mentality and one that I’ve made many mistakes in dealing with.

I was walked to the marshrutka stop by all the teenagers and instructed by Marina’s mother to phone her cell phone when I got home, as she warned me that many people had been drinking all day since it was a holiday. I think Marina worries about her minutes, b/c when I phoned, I only got out “privet” and Marina replied, “horasho, horasho” and hung up. I guess my accent gave me away again! :-D (a note: I found out that the first 4 seconds of cellular airtime are free, so people try to speak quickly and hang up by the 4 sec. mark)

The rest of the month was a blur of PC conferences, meetings upon meetings for our internship, studying, trying to do one new thing everyday, instead of class, internet café, trip to Spar (local posh grocery store).

On the 17 May, we gave our workshop at the Unemployment Center. I had volunteered to do the ice breaker and deal with logistics. I did so for 3 reasons:
1. To see how I liked this aspect of event planning
2. To get more interaction with the Unemployment Center staff and
3. To work on my own, to circumvent a particularly strong personality in our group, who was apt to either be very domineering about how everything should be done or very frustrated when people didn’t want to take initiative. It mainly worked.

Our workshop went well – we had 13 participants and the workshop was a brief overview of how to write a Business Plan and with a main emphasis on doing market research. We tried to use interactive exercises and had them break out into work groups a couple of times. My ice breaker was a simple one: I gave everyone nos. and asked them to find the people w/ the same number, thereby forming the groups they’d work in later, then once in group, introduce themselves and find 3 facts they all had in common, besides perhaps working together or living in the same town.

Watching the groups work was interesting as it seemed like there emerged a leader of each group and that what I think of as normal for working in a group, i.e. that everyone who wishes to may speak and their opinion or idea will be heard and noted, wasn’t entirely the case. Our LCF’s, Yulia and Ira, participated and later told us about their experiences. Yulia, for example, was told to pretend she liked sports for the ice breaker when she protested that she didn’t. I thought that there was a premium on finding a “correct” answer versus what I might call critical thinking, but perhaps I’m so expecting to find this here that I’m inventing.

Again my disclaimer that these are only my observations and in no way an attempt to write anything authoritative about “The Ukrainian People” or “Ukrainian Culture.”

A few days after the workshop, we all had our Language Proficiency Interview (LPI), which was an aural exam of our language ability after 2.5 months of intensive Russian. I reviewed and practiced conversing, with a special emphasis on toning down my natural inclination to try to explain concepts greatly beyond my language ability, the result of which is often a look of consternation on the face of my listener.

I tried hard to remind myself that this test was supremely subjective to allay my nervousness – I wanted to do well as a momento of the work I’d done studying and speaking and listening and more studying. But I also tried hard to remember that the fact that I can speak, understand and read to the amount that I can is a huge success, regardless of any test.

In any case, the first question the tester asked was what my name is, which I misunderstood to be a question about where I was living or how I was living, so I answered, what, here in Brovary or in Kyiv? We had a good laugh about that, then went on to converse for about 20 minutes or so.

After the LPI, we basically were done, except for one training by the medical office titled “Safety Day” in which we watched a video about sexual assault and then practiced some easy self defense moves.

I spent the last week packing, dealing with logistics, studying a bit, etc. We had a farewell dinner the penultimate night with Larry’s, Dan’s and my host families at Dan’s flat. I had initially been opposed to this, because I felt that our host families weren’t close, Dan, Larry and I had never gotten particularly close and so why did we need to bother our host families with this pretense?

However, it turned out to be a very pleasant affair and was frankly nice to have some ceremony of saying goodbye. I find that Ukrainians are very fond of certificates, particularly when these certificates are stamped. Yulia gave each host family a stamped certificate of appreciation from Peace Corps and then I gave a impromptu thank you speech in Russian and then tried not to cry. Yulia, always that master of subtlety and perception, patted my knee under the table when she noticed me trying to compose myself.

The next night was the real final night and I spent the day finishing up packing, cooking a meal for Ira and Helena and moving my luggage to Yulia’s for it to be transferred by Peace Corps vehicles later.

For our farewell dinner, I made a reduction sauce of pomegranate and cherry juice, w/ a little lemon juice, then cooked chicken and potatoes in this sauce. There were homemade rolls from focacia dough, a salad with “young” cabbage (the cabbage grown this spring and not allowed to get as big as it could - as opposed to all this “old” cabbage we’ve been eating since I arrived?), carrots, the great ubiquitous cucumber and some hothouse tomatoes. There were brownies with walnuts for desert and we toasted the meal with Ukrainian champagne, which I must admit is OK despite its sweetness.

We had a lovely, low key dinner and then agreeing that we were over-full, took a gulyat (stroll) around the neighborhood in the cool evening air.

In the morning, I hugged Ira when she left for school and Helena waited with me until the marshrutka we hired as a group arrived, kissing me three times as goodbye, then I fought back tears as I rode away from that massive concrete building that had sheltered me since arriving that rainy and cold night.

Back to Kyiv, back to the Piggy and for the first time since we arrived on March 6th in Ukraine, the whole of PC Ukraine Group 24 was back together. We had our close of training conference, replete with much information, feedback sessions and late night carousing in front of the Piggy.

We also found out the result of the LPI, on which I did quite well. There was only one category higher than the one I scored into and only one person achieved that classification. And, if you, gentle reader, will allow me to brag one moment more, there were 7 of us out of our group of 78, who scored into this category that I did. We’ll retake the test at the end of service, to gauge progress and also can optionally do it in six month increments to keep track of progress in the meantime.

On 27th May, we went by bus from the Piggy to the “Teacher’s House,” a beautiful, historic building where we were to swear in as PC Volunteers, no longer Trainees. The first president of independent Ukraine was there, Leonid Kravchuk, as was the US Ambassador, Carlos Pascual, who administered the Oath of Peace Corps Service. Three of our group gave the same speech, one in Ukrainian, one in Russian and one in English. There was a good brass band that played inspirational music, heavy on the Sousa, and about three sub-ministers from various ministries gave speeches that were blessedly short. I hadn’t expected to enjoy the ceremony, but again it was lovely to have an event to celebrate our transition from training to service.

Also present were our host families. We each could invite two members. Shockingly, it was the first time that this had been done and I hope it continues. It was a nice way to be able to publicly commemorate them and also for them to better understand what Peace Corps aims to do in Ukraine. Ira, being a political science student at university, was almost beside herself at having heard Leonid Kravchuk and Carlos Pascual speak. Mr. Pascual is leaving this post soon and it will be interesting to see what the new ambassador will do or not do.

After the ceremony, we had a brief reception with champagne, fruit, cookies and chocolates and milled around, trying not to faint from the heat. Ira and I caught up and though I found myself so strongly wishing that Christopher, my Mom and my Dad could be there, I was really happy that at least one person who was interested was there.

The next day, we all went to PC HQ, where we had more interviews and meetings, dealt with logistics and then all of us CEUME people met with the organization’s American director.

At about 3pm, Bogdana, my coordinator and guardian angel from CEUME, showed up with a taxi to whisk me and my baggage to the new apartment. Since I knew the address, I’d snuck over to the building on Sunday and had walked up to the 6th floor and stared at the door I thought was mine, as well as checked out the neighborhood a bit and the metro stop.

I am still dealing with feeling privileged and spoiled for not only being in Kyiv, but also now for having a flat that is quite close to downtown. I am somewhat getting over this. I didn’t expect or ask for any of this and all I can do is work hard, try to help however I can, be grateful and enjoy.

So, the flat is really nice. It’s a large one room, which means that there is one room other than the kitchen. This room serves as both living room and bedroom and is approximately 25 long X 15 wide of my size 7.5 feet. The kitchen is also relatively large and there is a balcon (the ubiquitous balcony that nearly all apartments have, usually enclosed in glass and useful as storage, small garden, area for drying clothes, etc.) that spans the entire width of the apartment, as the living room/bedroom and kitchen are side by side in the layout. The balcon is 26 X 5 of my feet. The only windows in the apartment are on the balcon side, which faces north west. There is good light in the afternoons and as there is no building close enough to block it, there is something of a view, if only of the tall tree that are around. It’s really quite lovely.

The kitchen only needs a few things in terms of cooking accoutrements and the bathroom has been redone and is REALLY nice. We have hot water and this is the first American-style shower I’ve had since arriving.

Many rental apartments are very different from in the US as the apt. owner is likely to leave many personal effects there, such as clothes, books, knickknacks, many dishes, etc. This apt. has almost none of these and to my UTTER shock, there is no rug hanging on the wall. There is a divan (couch pulled out into a bed) in one corner of the room as my bed and another divan as a couch, as well as a chair. There is the obligatory wall o’shkof, a big wooden and darkly stained piece of furniture that is a long series of shelves and a sort of armoir that serves as closet. This, too, incredibly, is sans landlord possessions. There is an old color TV that I haven’t yet figured out how to turn on, but will ask for instructions.

The kitchen holds the common linoleum table and the stools that are topped by embroidered seat covers. The cabinets have sweet periwinkle flowers painted on them and there are many cabinets and dishes. The refrigerator is charmingly vocal but clean and working.

The hallway entrance is pretty large and there is another shkof there for coats and shoes.

The piece d’resistence is of course the telephone. Hurrah!

I’m very lucky and so grateful to have landed in this lovely home.

Tomorrow I will go to work and today as soon as I can make myself get out of this sanctuary, will go explore the neighborhood, try to find a reasonable grocery store and also the way to the Dnipro river, which is quite close by.

Tune in soon for the latest installment, which I promise won’t be so long in coming as this latest one.

Easter Bunny, bawk, bawk

Sunday 27 April is Orthodox Easter. On Saturday, Helena got up at 6am to begin cooking. She is an excellent cook and in particular, an amazing baker. She made 6 or so loaves of bread, 3 of which were intricately decorated w/ small pieces of dough. I photographed them, so they will eventually be up on my website.

When I got back from Russian class on Sat., I watched how they decorated egg. Helena brought from outside some small leaves, I think just weeds, but ones w/ pretty leaves. She wet the leaves and placed them on the egg surface, then wrapped a piece of cut up panty hose around, tying this with string to secure it. She’d had about 8 onions worth of onion skin boiling for some time, and this had created a natural yellow-orange dye. She boiled the eggs in this mixture for 7 minutes and then unwrapped them. I also photographed these, and they were so pretty and natural looking. They sort of reminded me of a Martha Stewart project, but really I think that woman has tainted the notion all crafts and rustic arts for my generation. Uck. It’s like she has taken the notion of making something pretty by hand at home and patented it and co-opted the idea for her own profit. Don’t even get me started.

Sunday morning at 4am, we got up, and at 4:45am, walked down to the church. It was cold. It was dark. I am quite the morning person, so my language skills were really at their best at that early hour. Not. As we walked, we were soon in a large crowd of people, all carrying baskets w/ embroidered fabric covering them. The baskets were filled with kolbasa, meat, the decorated bread (either homemade or store bought, as some people are moving away from traditional arts), decorated eggs and candles.

I could hear the bells ringing as we approached and soon we were walking among a huge throng in the rising light. We met a friend of Ira’s along the way and all walked together.

At the church, which is partly under construction as so many are here (churches were prohibited during Soviet times, so they’re still being built and enlarged some 10 years after independence), we stood in a curving line of people, all with baskets in front of them on the ground, waiting for the priest to come and bless us and our baskets of food. We unfortunately stood under the bell tower and those bells that sounded so pretty half a km. away were less melodic just above head.

After some time, a beared and bespectacled priest came around. He carried a small, handmade broom that is ubiquitous here. His helper carried a bucket of water and the priest liberally splashed water on people and baskets alike, saying all the while, “Kristos Vas Kres - Jesus has risen.” I only got a little water sprayed on me, as I was cowering behind Ira like the unbaptized person I am, but many people were quite drenched. Hey, it was cold and I’m not an Orthodox Catholic, so little holy water was wasted on me.

We got home around 7am and Helena, who apparently enjoys cooking for this holiday, but not getting up early to get wet for it, was waiting. She spread out all the food she’d spent the day before preparing and that we’d had blessed: pork roast, roasted chicken, the fancy breads (some rolled w/ raisins, some rolled w/ poppy seed and raisin), a very typical Ukrainian salad (krab, canned corn, rice, onion and mayo) and also the ubiquitious kolbasa and cheese. We opened a bottle of the sweet dessert wine that Ira so loves and toasted: “Kristos Vas Kres - Jesus has risen” and then the reply, “Vaistas Vas Kras - it is true he has risen.” It is tradition to say this 3 times.

We then played a game I don’t understand entirely, but which involves trying to break another person’s egg shell. I think I won, but maybe they were being polite.

Then we slept til about 1pm and then got up and ate again. I like this holiday, except for those damn bells.

20 -24 April
On Sunday, we finished our conference and by lunchtime were whisked away to do our site visit. Site visit is the time when we visit the organization where we’ll work for 3 days. There are 5 other people in my group that will work with CEUME’s regional offices (Lviv, Donestk, Kharkiv, Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk), so all of the PCT’s and our counterparts went to the central CEUME office in Kyiv via taxi. I was a little tired and dehydrated from going out the prior night to a very cool club called “44” that is sort of a jazz club and had a good mixture of Americans, Europeans and Ukrainians. Being there was the first time I’ve felt “off-duty” or somehow relaxed in a way I used to think was normal.

Anyway, I’m in the taxi w/ Nancy (fellow PCT going to Lviv), her coordinator, and Bogdana is sitting up front. I am dizzy, we are driving fast through the city and suddenly we’re downtown, right across from the “Sports Palace” where major sporting events are held, like the recent Ukraine/Spain football match. Kyiv is a pretty city with many fancy old and new buildings, which how I am able to describe the architecture. It is so big city and I was feeling so country mouse. Or maybe tired mouse.

I wasn’t entirely in my body and we were just about to meet our director and then I was going to go to my apartment for the next few days. It was just so much and I wished that I’d invested in sleep the evening before and not socializing. Socializing is important also I’m just too old anymore to get away properly on little sleep.

We enter the building and go up to the office. It’s modern and western style and we all sit down in a sunny, large conference room. We meet Oleksander, Sasha, who is the director of the organization. He introduces himself and talks about the organization, then asks the PCT’s to go around and talk about our experience and what we hope to bring to the organization. I’m a little panicked at this impromptu public speaking event, but decide to talk about the web development, of course, and about my new interest in event planning. Everyone goes around and does their spiel and it’s very interesting to learn about what my fellow PCT’s have done.

We then walk a couple of blocks to a very nice restaurant, Pervek, that serves traditional Ukrainian food. The wait staff wears costumes that I might associate w/ some sort of Bovarian festival and cleavage abounds, at least among the female staff. I ate salo for the first time! This is perhaps the national food of Ukraine, or at least tied w/ borscht. Salo is basically pork fat, but it’s really so much more. I ate some that was liberally mixed with garlic and I was shocked how great it is. I made the faux pas of mentioning how much I liked the “garlic butter.” I knew about salo, but I thought it was different or looked different. (For a full treatise on salo, read the FAQ sheet I have on this site, under PC Ukraine, of course.)

Anyway, it was more “stranger in a strange land” time - we ate at this most posh restaurant and I’m trying to make conversation with all these new people and trying to not appear as overwhelmed by all this niceness. I think maybe one day I will finally accept that things will be so different than I expected, but I haven’t yet.

I actually had a conversation about this with another PCT that will work in Kyiv. We admitted to being sort of disappointed that we aren’t suffering in this experience. I mean, I knew that I’d be in a city and I knew that by virtue of being in Europe, albeit Eastern Europe, that things would be relatively nice, at least compared to doing work in rural Mongolia, for example. But I still expected to work somewhere that might not have a computer, that was really grassroots, where people wouldn’t speak English better than me.

I want to be clear that I’m not complaining. CEUME is doing important work and it is a tremendous opportunity for me to work with there. I think I will learn a great deal and that I will be able to find areas to work that will be satisfying and that I might feel like I’m helping somehow. I’m just prattling on about how this experience is difficult for me, and how the difficulties are so unexpected.

One thing that is interesting in keeping this journal is the public nature of it. Some friends have written how they think it’s either interesting or brave of me to be so relatively frank here and write about feelings, etc. I also think that it is interesting b/c I’m realizing that I need to be careful about who and what I write. I have tried to only write about my experiences on purpose, as other’s stories are theirs to tell. It will be interesting to see if I ever get in trouble w/ this public space and my words.

Back to our original subject, after lunch, Bogdana showed me to where I’d stay for the duration of the site visit. I know that this concept must be tiring to read already, but yes, I was a little surprised that the apartment was a large, renovated, Western-style flat, complete with modern washing machine. My favorite part of the apartment is the fancy paint job, with sparkles mixed in. At night I kept feeling like I was dizzy and seeing stars as the glitter would sparkle in the light.

I spent the next couple of days at CEUME. Sasha kindly took time to orient me, I met many people who work there and got to go to a very interesting press conference and tour at a hospital for children victims of Chernobyl. Apparently there are many cases of children of cleanup workers and of people who remained in the area getting quite ill, and there were many young children at this hospital.

In terms of my actual job, I am unsure exactly what I’ll be doing, but it seems that in addition to some website work that they need help with, I could be working on event planning, conducting seminars for staff and/or the public about IT issues and/or doing whatever they need.

At the apartment, I watched “Emma” dubbed in Russian. I hate dubbing, but at least it was good practice for language. I also got to eat Chinese food and I was shocked how delicious it taste!!! I guess I have missed eating non-Ukrainian food a little bit, although I really have no complaints about it.

On Thursday, after talking to my PC Regional Coordinator about the site visit, I returned to Brovary. I had bought a chocolate Easter bunny at a cute bakery in Kyiv and thus armed, knocked on Ira and Helena’s door. It felt so good to come “home” and see them! We had a great dinner and I felt so happy that someone knows me and was happy to see me. Slowly things become more familiar and slowly I feel more settled. Of course this process takes time, but the meantime while it is taking its time can be rather lonely.

Thursday 17 April through 20 April, I was in Kyiv at the beloved PiG for our mid-training conference. Dan, Larry and I made our way, all by ourselves, to Kyiv. So you are duly impressed, this involved taking the now-familiar marshrutka to the Losina metro stop, a transfer through byzantine hallways at the Chreschiatik station to another metro line, exiting the metro to then walking underground on one of the many pathways that allow one to cross streets w/o walking in traffic. We then completed our journey with a final marshrutka, where I got to say the phrase I’ve been practicing for some time, “Hastonivite, pozjalista - stop here, please.”

An aside: I heavily employ mnemonic devices to learn language. For example, I remember “hastonovite” because it reminds me of “hasta la vista, baby.” I remember “newdeli - week” because it reminds me of “new dehli.” I remember “pamogat - to help” b/c it reminds me of pomegranate. Sometimes I wonder if these are too complicated, but they amuse me and seem to help.

Anyway, it was surprisingly good to see everyone, or at least the 40 or so of us who are in the “Business” group. There was much gossip and comparing of home stay experiences. Rumors of possession of particularly unsavory porno and some other such nonsense predominated the first couple of days, but some gossip that was confirmed to be true was equally juicy. I hereby retract any previous statements that our group 24 is boring and not living up to PC standards of hedonism.

For the three days we were there, we had seminars and interviews each day from 9am to 5pm. On Friday night, we had a grand dinner where we met our Coordinators, who are our counterparts from the organizations that we’ll work with. Most had traveled from far away, but mine, Bogdana, of course just came from Kyiv.

Bogdana is probably around my age and speaks English better than I do. She is the coordinator for trainings for CEUME and I hope to work with her, traveling around the country organizing and running such events. We talked a lot about traveling and also about how she had lived in DC for a year. She’s urbane and very used to working with Americans, so again I see that my experience will be so different than I expected.

A quick note to follow up that the party was interesting - a funny mixture of young Ukrainians, young to middle aged PCT's and great pizza. Who knew that shredded, sauteed carrots, onion and mayo would be so good on pizza? Ira was disapointed that we wouldn't dance much, despite my providing an example. Ah, well, now she's learned a valuable cultural lesson that Americans don't dance. (apologies to those Americans that do, of course)

11 Apr. 2003

“But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?”
- Albert Camus

OK fine, I got this quote off a cereal box. A generic brand cereal box. Nonetheless, it accurately sums up the joy that I am feeling for having pursued my dreams. The payoff is huge, when one is lucky, from following the voice that says crazy things like, “We need to leave this rich life in CO and go to Ukraine, learn Russian, leave all friends, family, dog and a strong love behind, ok? Whattaya say?”

We are preparing the house to host a party tonight. I made chocolate chip cookies (I will later devote an entire journal entry to the wonders of Ukrainian and Russian chocolate), Helena is making a pizza, Ukrainian style (she’s sautéing carrots and onions right now, and I’m suspicious about the package of ketchup on the table) and Ira has been rearranging the furniture and cleaning. We invited a nearly equal number of Americans to Ukrainians and most of the Ukrainians that are coming speak some English. I think I may enjoy preparing for the party as much or more than the party, but that’s ok, too.

I feel so comfortable with Ira and Helena and especially so when we are all crammed in the kitchen, discussing food, weather, whatever questions they think up for me about the US and Helena is often very curious about Costa Rica. I also ask tons of questions for them and have become more adept at refusing more food. I am very lucky that providence saw fit to match us together.

I also could devote a journal entry to the common thread of women in their kitchens. As much as I enjoy cooking, I also enjoy the time in the kitchen with friends or family. (MOM!! Stephanie!! Jules, Free!! McGill!!) I love how quickly I felt home in the kitchen, even before I had 5 words of Russian down. I love how Helena has a system of doing things in her kitchen, which of course reminds me of my Mom in her kitchen (although Mom has more complex systems set up in her kitchen!) and reminds me of Dona Christina in her kitchen in Puntarenas (Costa Rica) and reminds me of countless women I know and have known in their kitchens and also of a few select men, of which right now I can only think of Charlie of Chez Wicker. I think that for me, part of what I cherish the most from traveling and living abroad is finding human commonalities that transcend culture and borders. I’m not prettying anything up here, there are certainly differences and big ones between peoples, but I like to remember the similarities, too.

10 April 2003

Today my Russian class walked to the train station to do some “on the ground recon.” I realized as we walked around, dodging small lakes of muddy water, that I’ve been so coddled and protected since I arrived and have slowly begun to do more for myself. It’s such a different experience that what I was in Costa Rica, when I did everything for myself from the get go. That was hard, I’ll admit. I realize that literally, I’ve been barely looking up very much, partly because of ice, but also b/c it’s like there’s only so much I can deal with at a time. Everyday I look up a little more and see something new – a store here, the vast horizon of high-rise apartment buildings, huge fields of mud destined to be soccer fields in the summer. I realize this is just the tip of an iceberg that I hope I can explore.

The other funny thing is that every time I learn a new word or grammar structure in Russian, I hear it, then immediately think, wow, what a coincidence that people are saying that today, right when I learned it! Of course, I realize that they’ve probably been saying this all along and I just didn’t understand before. Our language training is imminently practical and I think I’ll be able to navigate after training. People have been complimentary about my learning, which is encouraging.

9 Apr. 2003

Today we met again with the unemployment center to go over our project and also a timeline. We met with my favorite person there, Svetlana, who is super positive and business like and also I think so beautiful. The women here are just amazing beautiful. I mean, of course not everyone, but so many are really stunning. Some try to “enhance” this beauty with hair color not found in nature or nearly cartoonish makeup (I know, cultural judgment, not observation).

We are going to plan and present a workshop for center employees about using criteria to determine if a business idea and or plan is viable, with an emphasis on small scale market research. Svetlana told us today that she will invite people from other employment centers in the Kyiv oblast to participate. It’s exciting. I hope that this center will apply to get a PC volunteer down the road. I think it would be a great place to work and has lots of potential for development.

Today at the meeting, I was heartened b/c I understood many words. This is partly because I have reached a nice level where the language is gelling for me and also b/c they spoke in Russian and not Ukrainian, as they have in prior meetings. I got a lot, which I verified b/c of the translation. Sometimes I think I understand, then will find out that basically I’ve been making things up based on facial expressions, assumptions, etc. Some assumptions are quite humorous and fantastical and lead to funny situations. Wish I could think of an example right now, but alas.

It is very interesting to me how these languages are sorted out and that so many people speak at least 2 languages in their daily life. Officially, all government documents and meetings are required to be in Ukrainian and it is the official language. However, many people speak Russian as well and most people speak the mixture language, Dvoryak. I am glad to be learning proper Russian, as I think it could have good applications later and would allow me to go nearly anywhere in the former Soviet republic and be able to communicate a bit. On the other hand, I need to know at least niceties and some vocabulary in Ukrainian, as many stores, nearly all food and transport is in Ukrainian.

Luckily, there is some cross over in vocabulary and I have no idea about grammar. I know the Ukrainian alphabet, and it is only 3 or 4 letters different from the Russian alphabet.

Another demarcation for the language is geography. Western Ukraine is more nationalistic and tends to speak Ukrainian. Eastern Ukraine identifies itself as Russian by ethnicity and speaks mainly Russian. These are textbook answers and I’m looking forward to exploring the nuances. Language is endless fascinating to me and this Russian/Ukrainian mixture is no less.

Do take all of this with a grain of salt, as I have been studying this all of one month.

Tonight I went to an aerobics class at a nearby gym. I can’t remember if I wrote about going to this gym before, but I went once and just did weights. The class, which they call, “shaping” (as in English just like that but pronounced w/ their accent) is taught by a super fit woman who emphasizes keeping ones shoulders down and back (great) and also moving at all times to the fast beat of techno with high impact motions (less great). Somehow (!) she knew I wasn’t from ‘round these parts and when I didn’t her instructions, she would come over and physically move me into position. I really liked how she seemed to know most everyone’s names and she helped the less fit people to do slower exercises or with lower impact.

The style of dress was interesting for me, in that I realize I’m so used to the US and everyone having lots of clothes for every occasion. One has outdoors clothes, one has workout or gym clothes, one has fancy clothes. The women had varying degrees of shoes and I must admit to worrying about a couple who were wearing ballet slippers. Worrying b/c I have become so brainwashed that one must have full space-age, polymer cross-training shoes or one certainly can’t work out properly. There also is, um, less emphasis on well-fitted jog bras. ‘Nough said.

It was funny too b/c one woman kept getting phone calls on her mobile, but the teacher did razz her a little bit for talking during class. In the same building as the gym is some sort of martial arts studio. There are photos of the people doing this art and it is really beautiful and they’re super flexible. There are swords involved, but it’s not the Japanese sword art whose name escapes me now. Kendo, that’s it.

As I got ready to go to class, I realized that what I needed to wear to class was the one piece of clothing with an American flag. Could I have been more conspicuous? No matter, no one tried to rip off my shirt and burn it or anything. I just think it’s funny b/c I really would never wear the flag on clothes, just not my style, but I didn’t even consider that when this shirt made it into my allotted 100 lbs. of baggage. I just thought, “good workout shirt,” not “obvious sign that I’m American.”

To be clear: I am a patriot, but I just find wearing the flag on my chest a bit conspicuous. I will never sew a maple leaf to my backpack or anything like that, but nor do I want to be walking around waving the red, white and blue and speaking English loudly. (Americans are, um, renowned for being very loud in public relative to other peoples)

At the end of class, our aerobics queen ordered everyone to hang suspended from a bar for at least 5 seconds. All in all it was very interesting and if I can walk tomorrow w/o a cane, I’ll be very excited. I learned a new word, “rukki” which I thought meant “march,” but afterwards I looked it up in the dictionary and it means “hands.” :-0 It was exciting to understand certain words, though, such as “right,” “left,” and “straight.”

Time for sleep. The upstairs neighbor has decided it’s time to do some construction; I’m still trying to figure out what power tool he’s using. This will be a good test of my earplugs. I love earplugs. They make me a good neighbor and a well-rested girl. Duje noch.

Today I saw a new weather icon: the sunny, rainy, snowy symbol. Yeah, don’t see that at home much! However, sunny, rainy, snowy pretty much describes the weather right now. Monday a.m. I woke to see a coat of fresh snow on the ground. It was pretty til the afternoon, when it turned slushy. Dan, fellow PCT, and I joke that we have one word for all the engineers here: drainage. It’s quite a gauntlet avoiding car-eating muddy potholes and the walls o’ water that the marshrutkas produce when ploughing through them.

It might sound like I’m complaining or despondent, mais non, mon ami. I find cheer in the small chickadees that hop around, sometimes providing the only color in the gray landscape, the yellow and green on their chests. I look forward to seeing my favorite street dog on his corner as I walk from class to the internet café each day. I also find humor where it comes and these days that is in many places. I’m warm and fed and thank god I have headphones and tons of music. Life is good.

Helena keeps telling me that once April 15 hits, the weather will change and it will really be spring. We’ll see. I also remember that in CO, one can’t count on consistent weather til June.

Here are the latest ramblings from this country we call Ukraine, borderland.

Since I last wrote, our cluster met with the Unemployment Center. We had a group of the 7 PCT’s, our translator, Natasha, her husband, Peter, an Australian, two of our Peace Corps Business Development staff, Victor and Vickie, and finally, Ira, my host sister. Quite a mess of people. We gathered a great deal of info about the center, such as how the help unemployed people, how they’re processed and registered as official unemployed, the amount of unemployment money they receive and finally that these registered unemployed can submit a business plan for a small enterprise and receive the full amount they would get for a year as unemployed as a lump sum. This money they don’t have to pay back, but the risk is that they aren’t eligible for more money if the business isn’t successful.

The Unemployment Center had 3 people representing their side. It was very interesting working with translators. Protocol is that one should speak to the people one is trying to communicate with, not the translator, which is difficult to do and sometimes I didn’t do it. We decided that we will work on two projects with them: 1. Provide and translate to the Ukrainian context an American business plan and 2. Provide training for center staff about how to access if a business idea is viable, with an emphasis on how to conduct market research on a small level.

Our Peace Corps Biz Development people indicated that the three women we’re working with at the center are a lot more forthcoming in asking for help than many unemployment centers that they’ve worked with before. They seem very professional and our group is excited to work with them. The center is in a very spiffy new building, apparently built with German money. It will be very interesting to visit other PCV’s once we’re all at site, b/c my understanding is that Kyiv gets the lion’s share of growth and revenue, while the rest of the country is much farther behind developmentally.

We’ll meet again with the Unemployment Center this Wed. 9 April to propose the above and see if there’s anything else they want from us during our remaining approx. 6 weeks.

Next Thursday, the Business Development group, all of our clusters, will go to Kyiv for our mid-training conference and then to visit our sites. I will not travel far to my site, but most people will be going at least overnight on trains. I must admit to being a tad jealous, but know that I won’t be when they are dealing with moving all of their things on said trains.

What else? I finally gave in and started taking antibiotics to properly kill a bug that’s had me in its grasp since arriving in Brovary. Nearly immediately after beginning a cycle, I’m no longer a snot factory (sorry, I’m sure this is TMI, aka too much info) and my cough has stopped coming from deep inside lungs. Hurrah!

It snowed today! Spring here is nearly as psycho as in CO. The locals swear this isn’t par for the course, but we’ll see next year.

Two of the trainees in my cluster were medevac’d to Kyiv this past week. They’re fine now, but lots of minor illness and accidents abound. One trainee in another cluster was mugged, but it was described to me by our Training Director as being a case of being alone in the wrong spot in his town. I’m safe b/c I don’t tend to leave the apartment after I come home at 4 or 5pm. I suppose after the weather changes (when? If?) I might venture out accompanied by friends, but I’ve little incentive with the weather as it is.

This coming Friday, Ira is having a party here for the PCT’s and some of her friends, most of whom speak English at least a tad. It’s been entertaining hanging out with youngens like Ira (20 yo) and some of the vocabulary I’m getting from them is very teenager, my Russian teacher tells me. Julia, said Russian teacher, says it makes her feel old the vocabulary I’m bringing in, as she’s all of 27.

Julia is such a wonderful teacher and especially so because she too is away from her family for three months while teaching us. She not only is our Russian teacher, but also our community liaison and cheerleader, patient professor and expert translator of cultural norms. We have a 20 minute tea break in between our 4 hours of class, which is held in her tiny flat, and she has instituted a Russian only rule. It at first was sort of a drag, as it made it less of a break, but now it’s fun and we try to creatively use the small vocab we have to converse. It’s actually amazing how much one can say when one tries to think only in known words and keep things simple, instead of thinking of complex structures and vocab.

Learning has been a bit of up and down for me. I’m so enjoying the classes and being in a structured learning environment, and especially enjoying the satisfaction that comes from studying something and then hearing it on the street or using it at home. However, I’ve found myself quick to be despondent when I can’t think of a word or grammar and quick to think that I’ll never learn the language.

When I’m more rational, I feel pretty good about how much I’ve learned in a month and confident that I’ll be able to learn a great deal of Russian, a bit of Ukrainian and perhaps speak Dvoryak, the combination of these two languages that most Ukrainians speak. People have been encouraging about my growing ability, particularly those who first met me in the early grunting/pantomiming stage.

One thing that’s funny to me is how sometimes I’ll mix Spanish in with the Russian. Some things are difficult, like “ya” is “I’ in Russian, and “already” in Spanish, but used frequently in conversation. Or “nada” (nothing - Spanish) means “need” in Russian. Little things really, but sometimes hard.

Saturday was our one month anniversary in country. It was funny to me that that was a particularly hard day. There is a set model of stages of culture shock, but like any model, parts may apply to a person, while others might not and likely one’s own schedule may be different than the model. I had a “Stage 2” day - blaming and finding fault in everything, impatience and grumbling. Missing home terribly. Some days will be like this and I hope that most won’t. I mainly am happy about how few days I have like that.

Of Black Swans and Pigeon Livers

Yesterday, Ira took me to see “Swan Lake” at the National Opera and Ballet Theater in Kyiv. We went in early to hang out and also to see if I could get a transformer at Tsum, the enormous department store that I think is somehow related to the “Gum” megastore in Moscow.

Getting ready took much of the day, what with baths, hair and manicures. I also had to study, so even though I got up at 8am to run in the park with my fellow cluster mate, Larry, suddenly it was 3pm and time to go.

We ran into other cluster mates Chris and Maria at Tsum. After unsuccessfully looking for a transformer, Ira and I bid Chris and Maria goodbye and wandered around Kyiv for a while. I was able to avoid going back to the 3 story underground mall that Ira loves and reminds me of parts of modernity that I dislike. Next time, we’ll go there, in deference to Ira.

This time I got to see some beautiful parts of the downtown area, including a monument to a cat that saved its owners by alerting them to a fire. The city has many ornate buildings (I’m sure there’s a predominant style, but I’m woefully uninformed about architecture) and much has been restored, some well done and many done then painted in what I consider gaudy colors. Nevertheless, the city has a strong European feel, with many cobbled streets and squares, and many spots that Ira kept pointing out as spots where cafes will open later in the spring.

Ira gets really excited when she hears other people speaking English and hastens to point this out to me. I’m rather a curmudgeon and usually grunt and change the subject.

We ate at the coolest cafeteria. It bills itself as Ukrainian home cookin’ and seems to really offer good food at reasonable prices. As such it was fully mobbed, but we were able to get a decent cappuccino and dessert and people watch.

Then, the theater! It is simply grand. Ira got us box seats and I felt rather posh sitting there. I realized how lovely it was of her to get the tickets and spend another whole day with me. An aside: I also realized on the metro to Kyiv that I’ve only been living here with Ira and Helena for two and a half weeks! It’s good to remember, especially to appreciate how well things are going and how close I feel to them and how comfortable I am here.

Anyway, the ballet was wonderful. I’ve only been before to the Nutcracker, also by Tschaikovsky, so I was unsure of some things. For example, I don’t know if it is universal ballet behaviour to clap after any good solo, during an act. I also was confused when the principles took a curtain call between acts 2 and 3, suggesting to me that the ballet was over. Also, at some points, the clapping changed to be in unison.

At the ballet, I saw our PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer), Nurse Linda. It was funny to be in such a big city and run into 4 PC affiliated people. There were many expats at the ballet and I’m looking forward to going again and maybe even venturing into opera.

One thing I felt while walking around Kyiv is that I really want to do whatever I need to do these next two years to learn Russian, get a masters in international development, whatever, in order to be able to live abroad and do interesting development work. I feel so lucky to be able to get this training via Peace Corps and in particular the language training.

In a couple of weeks, we’ll go back to Kyiv and have a mid-training conference for a couple of days, then have a 4 day site visit. I’m super excited to find out how far away my apartment is from work, as work is right downtown and I’d be really lucky to be less than 20 minutes from work. I could be as far away as 45 minutes via public transport. The metro here is quite nice and there are many marshrutkas (mini-vans that cost about $.25)

Back to Sunday, when we returned Brovary and the apartment at about 11pm, Helena was waiting up to find out all about our evening. I changed and then came out to find a small meal waiting, along with the ubiquitous chai (tea). Helena had made amazing blini (crepes) w/ a sweet cream cheese filling and also blini with grated apple. There was also a plate of something I at first thought was sautéed mushrooms and I began to worry, as I hate mushrooms. Then I realized it was some kind of meat and it didn’t smell good. I took a tentative bite and realized it was liver. I tried subterfuge by eating the blini, but soon Ira was asking me if I liked the other thing. I took a deep breath and said, “not so much.” I asked what it was, thinking it to be some kind of liver. At first Ira said chicken, then asked for the dictionary.

After a moment’s dictionary perusal, she said, “No, it’s pigeon liver.” Even though I felt guilty for not being grateful for whatever they give me to eat, I must admit to being happy I still haven’t eaten pigeon liver. I think maybe it’s a poor translation, and really it’s game hen or something, or maybe that’s what I tell myself so that I feel better at night. My cluster mate Larry asked somewhat seriously if I thought it was free-range pigeon.

Joking aside, people here live very close to near-poverty and as such, they eat what they have. Not eating something because they don’t like it isn’t a luxury many have. I sometimes forget this fact because people tend to be so well dressed and kempt and because I’m living in a relatively affluent suburb. Even so, there are countless babushka selling something on the street, sunflowers, pickles, gnarled beets and they do this to survive. There are also many babushkas begging and this is difficult to see.

It was a fowl day, full of birds one finds at the park, on stage and on the table.

Ring a death knoll for hot water: the word on the Brovary streets is that it will be officially turned off on April 15. Hmm, US tax day and the end of hot water. I feel lucky that at least I’ve had hot water during the cold weather this past month and at least the temperature is heating up now. Sort of. Anyway, I’ll take it like a Peace Corps Volunteer and pretend I got some really hard assignment instead of the Posh Corps like I did. Sponge baths aren’t so awful, right? Right?

Tonight, the babushka downstairs who is somehow related to Ira and Helena came up to ask me to try to find her friend that lives in America. She’s told me about this person every time we meet and tonight brought up a letter from 1999 w/ a name and address. With Ira translating, she asked me to find her, then maybe see if someone in America could phone her. I told her I’d try to find her phone no. and/or address online first. She hasn’t gotten a reply from this friend since ’99 and she wants to try to find the friend or her daughter to find out what happened. I tried not to promise too much, but it would be cool if I could find an email for the daughter, who apparently is a journalist.

Dobre noch - good night…

The weather has begun to break - warmish and sunny, the mud slowly drying and children, birds, street animals of all ilk and the babushkas are beginning to come more alive. I keep hearing how different the country is in the summer and I’m beginning to believe it. Indoor space is at such a premium here, so when the weather is nice, people break free to enjoy time outdoors.

I’m just about at one month in-country. Language is progressing, though slower than I’d like, but then sometimes I feel good that I can put together a slow sentence at all, considering that this is a completely new and not particularly easy language. I’m also trying hard to speak with people even if I don’t know all the vocabulary that I need - which is most of the time… :-D

Our cluster is beginning our project and we are working out finding translation help and also setting up meetings with the Unemployment Center that we’ll work with. The center has asked for help to set up a training workshop and we’re going to find out what kind of training and then work to teach their staff to do the training so that they could continue after we leave in 2 months or so.

It’s funny because in some ways three months seems like such a long time for training, but I know it’s precious little, both for our internship and also studying language. I asked my LCF yesterday if I could get more work and also for tips on working outside of class. I’m so motivated right now to study Russian and really want to take advantage of having such a good teacher and also these intensive classes. She was super responsive and already has made some changes to our class to accommodate my request and I’ve spent some hours organizing grammar and vocab to do self study.

Yesterday, after class Ira and I planned to go for a walk. I came back to their apartment, and changed into “sporty” clothes, as Ira put it. She got dolled up as usual, which is the norm here and what I’m beginning to do as well. “Dolled up” means putting on makeup, which varies from a subtle, put-together look to full-on “I’m using every product Mary Kay creates” faces, having one’s hair at least be kempt if not styled and wearing pressed, clean clothes and shined shoes. Ira falls in the former category and always looks and smells nice before leaving the house.

However, I looked “sporty” and didn’t have on my long, black wool coat that fits in so well here, and for the first time since I arrived, really felt out of place and that people were looking at me. It was interesting and made me realize how little of that I’ve experienced here, especially contrasted with Costa Rica, where I was constantly being pointed at, out, etc. I guess that’s the advantage to being white in a homogeneous, white society. I understand that volunteers of different ethnicities, but particularly African Americans, can experience much prejudice and hassle in Ukraine.

When we returned from our turn around town and the nice park in town, the neighbor babushka sitting at the entrance to the building stopped Ira and I. Between my lack of understanding and her eating those ubiquitous, black sunflower seeds, I got the words “American” and “militia” (which is what they call the local police). After we got into the apartment, I asked Ira what babushka had said. Apparently, some police officers had come by the apartment to investigate the American living here.

We met with the mayor, head of the city militia and several city officials on Monday and all of us have been registered with the city militia, per custom and law for foreigners. Apparently, police officers visited all of the volunteer’s home stay apartments yesterday. Only one of us was home and he said they were quite nice, but didn’t speak English of course and he didn’t understand their Russian, so the interview was brief. He found out from his neighbor that they interviewed the neighbor and asked lots of questions, some of which were making sure he was being taken care of by the family.

It is difficult to understand from an American perspective why the police might concern themselves with such a trifle as Peace Corps volunteers living among them, but I think some of it comes from a mentality that goes back to Soviet times. In discussing this with our LCF, we found out that many Ukrainians sort of assume their phone could be tapped, as so many were before during Soviet times. As such they don’t discuss anything sensitive at all, such as money, being away from their apartment for a vacation, etc.

In any case (Mom - this is for you!) the visit poses no danger and not even an annoyance. The two LCF’s in Brovary with us are meeting again with the militia to clear up any questions they have.

This Sunday, Ira and I are going to see Swan Lake at the National Theater. It should be lovely. I’m excited for an outing! I’m going to try to arrange a trip soon with a friend to stay overnight in Kyiv and just have a day and a half of non-home stay time. Just a few hours. That or I really could use an afternoon outdoors away from cars and concrete. I’ll have to figure out easy ways to accomplish this when I live in Kyiv!

21 mar 03
Today is the Academy Awards, or at least will be when it’s nighttime in CA. We’ll see them tomorrow and I’m excited for that…

Today was full of small excitements and excursions. First of all, I finally felt good enough to go to the gym. I went by myself and it was a good realization that I know so little Russian. There were of course nice Ukrainians who spoke decent English who showed me around and I got a good workout. The gym is in a brick building and the interior is quite nice, exposed brick and lots of windows. There was a serious aerobics class going on that I got the schedule for, so that will be fun to try. I think if I go regularly and try to talk to people, I’ll meet some of them and practice Russian.

I laugh to think about how excited I was to go to the gym and also for my next outing, shopping w/ Ira. After the gym, I showered, dressed and put on the makeup I’m accustoming myself to putting on before leaving the house. It’s not a lot, but certainly more than I would wear on a regular basis in Boulder…

We first went to Spar, the large, new supermarket that has Brovary abuzz. Spar even is putting out a weekly circular, a new idea here. Spar is a large store, with wide aisles and lots of selection. There’s another supermarket named Forum about 200 metres from Spar, and I actually prefer it. The prices are almost the same and both stores have second floors devoted to small shops w/ cosmetics, clothing, toy guns and interesting chatchkas, such as figurines of naked ladies and fish.

Which leads me to my first digression today, the prevalence of nekkid ladies. The gym had a poster of a sweaty, topless girl, titled, “Absolute Fitness.” Some of the tabloid newspapers have topless babes and Ukrainian Cosmo this month had a pictorial of men’s and women’s heads and unclothed bodies, with a quiz to see if one could match the head w/ the body. Torsos and tushes only, not full frontal.

I don’t really have anything to say besides that observation. I am unused to so much nudity, but it doesn’t particularly bother me. The violence in the Russian soap operas and the reality TV shows does upset me, but not the skin.

Back to the outings of the day – I was really sort of scarily excited to go shopping with Ira, in particular to the bazaar (open air market that sells fruit, vegetables, clothes, live fish, chickens of questionable origin, flowers fresh and in colors not found in nature, basically everything). I realized that I sort of made sure I looked nice to go shopping. I guess I find it scary as I write this for an American audience because I see how different my life is at the moment and how basic it is. How excited I get when I speak correctly in Russian or how accomplished I feel when I do something small like ask how much something costs and understand. Scale is different here.

The bazaar was fine, normalna in local parlance, and only one thing was weird for me, the woman selling fish swimming around in bloody water. I realize I am such a wimpy meat eater. I also think that it’s ok to chose how one buys meat or fish and that one doesn’t have to support merchants that sell fish in such a way.

Ira hates the bazaar, she tells me that she finds it dirty and she’s short spoken to some of the sellers. In general, I think that she wants very much to be part of a more modern Ukraine and that things that seem old fashioned or not 1st world aren’t to her liking. This judgment, of course, 10 days after having met her.

Final digression: I realized the other day that I’ve been saying the word for “five” instead of the casual greeting word, “hi.” They slightly similar in Russian, verrrrryyyyy slightly and this realization explains so many things to me, the least of which is the lack of response I’ve been getting.

20 mar 03
I look at my nails. They are painted my favourite red and etched with an intricate design in white with silver accents. Ira, my host sister, painstakingly painted them, using a sewing needle and small brush for the design.

I look at my pretty nails and feel guilty for not enjoying Ira’s company today, for wanting to go into my room, really her room, and close the door. I feel guilty for having this stupid computer, I feel guilty for using their medicine, I feel guilty for having nice things, so I am constantly bringing things out to share. I don’t only do this to assuage my guilt, but partly. I feel guilty for my existence and my utter luck of being born American, white, into a family that loves me, etc. Ira is white, born into a family that loves her, getting and education, survived illness from Chernobyl.

I also feel awful because Helena and Ira are both a little sick from my cold. Helena is coughing and looks poorly. Of course, this could mean that some of the food onslaught would stop, although

I look at the intricate design of these nails and feel unworthy of such attention and care. I also am wishing that I’d only eaten ½ of the pelminiky (pork dumplings) w/ butter that was tonight’s dinner.

I so wanted to veg out and watch TV, try to glean the English underneath the Russian dubbed made for TV movie. I wanted to read Russian Cosmo w/o Ira pointing out every page, parroting her good English and careful Russian for me.

I’m not always up for being on, for dealing w/ the language, the constant hanging out, the lack of personal time. Communicating that while I thoroughly enjoy the cooking, I absolutely cannot eat another pelminiky. Please could I have yogurt and fruit instead of chicken soup for breakfast.

I’m reaching the stage where some novelty has worn off and this is where dedication, time off, persistent learning and staying out of ill-thought-out routines will help me get on. I need to allow myself to close the door when I need to and also challenge myself to socialize spontaneously.

I also need to get super regimented about my health. Being sick this past week has really emphasized this.

A Trip to the Big City 16 March 2003

On Sunday I went to Kyiv w/ Ira, my host sister. She took me around to some pretty areas of the city and it is still amazing that I might live there. The metro here is deep underground and riding it involves taking a steep escalator that freaks me out. That combined with the fast speed of said steep escalator makes for an adventurous ride. Did I mention the crowds? Taking this escalator was an exercise in deep breathing, but the metro is clean and normal by my standards.

In Kyiv, we walked along a major street that is closed off on the weekend, the Khreshcatyk and also to the outside of a couple of churches and along a cobbled street that has a major tourist market. There are many old looking buildings and several major renovated churches and I’m excited to explore it ruther.

When we returned to Brovary, we went to a party that was for all of the PCT's (Peace Corps Trainees - perhaps much like the military, we have many acronyms) in our cluster (why did they name it cluster? I keep thinking of squirrels - is that from a cereal??) We met in the basement of one of these gargantuan apartment buildings here. We 7 PCT's were seated at the head of a long table heavily laden with food and drink.

One old tradition in Ukraine is to greet guests w/ an elaborate loaf of bread with pretty decorations on top and salt, both of which the guests eat. We were entertained by the musical stylings of one of the host mothers who performs Ukrainian folk songs with a group while wearing traditional embroidered dress. I kept thinking how we had traveled so far and how we were now, I don't know, rewarded for our efforts. Not so much by the food and music, but rather from all the effort that these people make for us. It is so hard still to fathom that these people take us in as strangers and treat us as honored guests, all on no merit of our own. I am humbled every day to be here, to be treated as I am. We are tremendously privileged to have this opportunity and I thank especially the American taxpayers for supporting us.

Much merriment, toasting and drinking of homemade wine and vodka ensued, from which I already have a headache (the wine, not the merriment per se). There may have also been dancing to loud Ukrainian traditional songs translated to pop music and a poor rendition sung of "America the Beautiful" but I will never tell our cluster's secrets.

The Way to a New Home -- 12 March 2003

I am away from everything and everyone that I know, in a land where I don’t know the language. I take 2 buses (called marshrutkas and really they’re mini-vans) and 2 metros, it is raining and getting dark. As I get off the last marshrutka a group of women and children are waiting for me, and from the group, 2 come forward to collect I. I stammer my prepared greeting (my name is ____, very glad to meet you) and they guide me through the rain and mud puddles to their apartment building. They are a mother and daughter (Helena and Ira, respectively) and are bundled up so much in the cold rain that I can’t really see their faces well in the cloudy afternoon and waning light.

Once inside, I remember to take off my shoes at the door, as is the custom. A beautiful Siamese cat begins mewing underfoot and I get out another phrase, “I love cats.” The mother hurriedly calls the daughter and the daughter brings out a piece of paper, from which she reads, “The cat is very dangerous and vicious.” Ok, will remember to leave the cat alone. I remember my solemn pledge to stay out of Ukrainian hospitals.

Helena and Ira show me to my new room, which I ascertain is Ira’s room, as she still has some books and personal effects in it. The room is spacious and as is customary here, has a pretty Oriental rug hung on the wall and one on the floor. I have a bed, a desk and what they call a “skof,” which is a set of cabinets and shelves that seem to be omnipresent in homes here. Despite all the warnings about how small Ukrainian apartments are, or perhaps because of them, I am pleasantly surprised at the room in the apartment.

Ira begins to speak English and tells me to wash up for dinner. I change clothes to something non-muddy and brush my hair, trying to spruce up for dinner. They set a table in the living/tv room with a pretty white table cloth. I break out my first gift for them, a box of nice chocolates. It is very important to never, ever come to someone’s house w/o at least a box of chocolates. I have homemade soap as another gift, but that is deep w/in a bag, so it will have to wait.

We sit down to a table full of dishes. Pickled tomatoes, cucumbers and red peppers, mashed potatoes, some kind of meat, cabbage rolls stuffed w/ rice and meat (golubets), cookies for later and another box of chocolates. There is also a bottle of champagne, juice and water. Helena opens the champagne and makes a toast to friendship, which Ira translates. I try to make a toast saying that my parents thank them for taking me in, but am unsure how it translates. The dinner is marked w/ some moments of ackward silences, but generally nice and I have to work hard not to stare at the TV, which is on.

Before going to bed, they take me around the house, showing me how the bathroom and toilet work and telling me that it’s ok that the doors don’t fully close, since we’re all women. I’m thrilled beyond belief that there’s hot water! So far no cold showers.

The next day is a half day for me for class, and I feel a little funny waking up and being in their house while they’re at work. I worry that they are worried, worried that I might light the gas stove incorrectly or forget to lock the door or go through their things.

Not to worry, for the cat, Dulcinea, watches my every move, following me around the house, hissing at me if I get too close to her perch. Definitely will never, ever pet this cat. It is psychotic for sure.

The next night, I come home after class and running some errands. Ira and Helena ask me what I did and more importantly, where I ate lunch. I tell them how I had some valrenneky (dumplings) at a café w/ my teacher and cluster mates. They tell me that I should have lunch everyday at their apartment. We were told that we wouldn’t be fed lunch and are given an allowence each week for lunch and bottled water, but I soon find out from my other cluster mates that no one’s family’s are letting them eat out.

I find over the next few days that I must be careful what foods I say I like or careful how I compliment a dish, b/c it may directly affect our menu. I find that Helena grows increasingly determined to feed me 5 helpings each meal and complains via Ira that I don’t eat enough. This causes chortles from me, as it might some of you. I learn how to say “That’s enough, thank you.” Helena feigns incomprehension. I repeat or leave some food on my plate to back up my point. I stop eating lunch b/c it’s really so much food to have three meals. Who am I kidding? If I come home before dinner, I get fed a whole other meal with tea.

I am a stranger that this family has adopted as someone to feed and worry over. If I leave w/o a hat, Helena will get me to carry it. I have gotten sick – I wanted you to know how they are caring for me. I actually have a bad-sounding cough and a sinus infection, so my symptoms are rather loud and dramatic. Ira has been bringing me cough syrup, losanges and when Helena got home tonight, they came w/ nasal spray and the thermometer. I was grateful that they showed me to put it into my armpit before I put it in my mouth!

There’s also a chapter in my Russian language book on health, so I was able to tell them in Russian that I didn’t have a temperature, which was exciting for me. It’s amazing how doing what interests one does for one’s attitude. Instead of feeling homesick and sorry for myself for being a bit ill, I am excited to learn new vocabulary! :-)

Joking aside, I am trying to slow down a bit, which is difficult due to aforementioned enthusiasm. I did phone the Peace Corps medical officer to describe my symptoms, as I’ve never had this particular kind of cough and he recommended rest, fluid and that if I don’t improve in the next 2 days, that I come to Kyiv for them to check me out.

Now some more about Ira and Helena. Perhaps the most humbling fact for me is that they are Chernobyl survivors. I’m pretty sure they lost their father/husband to illness from it. They were living in a village 50 km. from Chernobyl and didn’t move until about 8 years ago. Ira briefly mentioned that they were ill, but then said that was before and now they’re fine. I’m curious, but am waiting to get to know them better before asking too many questions. Ira is 21 and teaches political science and philosophy at a middle school and also is studying at a university in Kyiv. She commutes each day to do either one or both. Helena does some kind of work that I don’t really understand with pensioners, or retired people who are living on now miniscule pensions from Soviet times. As in any economy, they are perhaps the most vulnerable to the vagaries of economy and change to a market economy.

Ira aspires to be upwardly mobile and sees the way to do this via education, something that is very easy to identify with. The Peace Corps training thus far and much of my independent study about Ukraine prepared me to be faced with many challenges in terms of outlook on life and change. So far, perhaps because I haven’t strayed far from Kyiv, I haven’t experienced very much of this. Oh, right, perhaps it’s also b/c I don’t speak enough Russian nor Ukrainian to understand the cultural difference!

Blog for the dates of 6-11 March 2003

We began our language training, technical training and medical exams (read, many needle pokes) the next day. We also had many interviews to try to fill in information about us for the decision making process to place us at our permanent sites.

This week was a surprisingly (to me, anyway) difficult time. I kept thinking that it should be so much easier and shouldn’t feel so emotional, as I was in a nice hotel-like situation, surrounded by Americans, being fed three square meals. Probably I was decompressing from the last few days in Colorado, all the logistics, all the work, all the goodbyes, all the mourning and loss. Ugh. That sucked, but I know was a necessary evil.

The bright sides were many: the interesting and wonderful grocery store nearby, our amazing Language and Cultural Facilitators (LCF’s), the interesting seminars about Ukrainian culture, economy, government and current status, slowly being able to read signs in Cyrillic, trying out Ukrainian champagne. Checking out the expo grounds each morning. The party we had the last night for our LCF’s in the lobby of our dorm. Meeting people, hanging out, etc.

After a week of this, we were scheduled to first find out what site and city we’d been assigned to then leave for our clusters for the remaining 3 months of training. “Clusters” means that we’re broken into groups of 3-5 people, each assigned a host family to live with, and each cluster has one LCF to teach whichever language is requested by our site, e.g. either Ukrainian or Russian.

The day before we were to depart for clusters, we were gathered in the afternoon in a large auditorium at the PiGy to find out our site and locations. The auditorium stage was laid out with paper to form a not-to-scale map of Ukraine, with major cities indicated by pieces of paper.

The Peace Corps has divided the country into regions not along oblast (like states) lines. I think there are 6-7 regions per the Peace Corps. In any case, the PC directors of these regions were there. Our training director, Andrey, read out our names, then the regional director for our site read out the organization name and city. It was rather like a game show and there was a keen sense of anticipation and nervousness among us.

I was really, really, really shocked when my name was read out attached to “Kyiv.” I stood on the stage in awed silence, growing increasingly upset as I read the sheet of paper that had a description of the organization I’d been assigned to.

Even though I knew from our training that little of what was written on the sheet of paper would really be true in our experience at the organization, I still was quite upset. The organization, the Consortium for the Enhancement of Management Education, works to promote increased and standardized business education in Ukraine. It seemed like a very generic, business assignment and I couldn’t tell at all what part of my experience was related to business education. Further, how could I learn Russian if I was in Kyiv? My paper listed the fact that all the staff members spoke English and that the director was American.

Everything seemed so contrary to what I’d been preparing myself for: a mid-sized city away from the international, urbane capitol, in a situation where I’d absolutely HAVE to learn Russian/Ukrainian, somewhat isolated from Americans or other expatriates. How could I have this super-posh assignment and really have a true Peace Corps experience? I was going to be a complete lazy, English speaking moron, working for a business education organization.

Thus, I had my first proper meltdown. It was somewhat public, as I have never been skilled at hiding my emotions. Some comments about how my meltdown was received. The LCF’s were around, probably on purpose as I imagine I’m not the first PCT to meltdown at this stage. When I was trying hard to get out of the building to compose myself in private, a couple stopped me with concern. That was lovely, despite my utter incoherence at the time. I also was really touched by how supportive some of my fellow trainees were, especially the ones that were really excited by the page of information they received.

I did get to my room, drank some water, tried to calm down. I went to the session the Kyiv regional manager was having to orient us. I was still really upset and couldn’t speak to anyone without crying.

After the session, I left and soon realized that I needed to talk to someone about my concerns, because otherwise I was going to *really* freak out. Peace Corps is pretty touchy-feely for a government organization and encourages “reaching out.” However, I really hate being very teary in public and further really hate to complain about things that don’t feel justified, so it was difficult.

I was able to talk privately with a Peace Corps employee who’s helping with the Kyiv region and he was not touchy-feely, but very helpful. I needed facts mainly and also a bit of time to wrap my head around this concept of working in the capitol and for an American-lead organization.

He was a skillful salesman, and helped me to see the potential in the site placement and also told me that it was a high-profile job that could give me excellent contacts within the international development community. He could have sold me prime farmland in Chernobyl Zone 1 at that point, but it calmed me and allowed my reasoning functions to resume and my body to leave the stress zone.

Blog for the dates of 4-6 March 2003

We flew via Lufthansa uneventfully to Frankfurt. Lufthansa is nice. Frankfurt was a great layover, as it was German and therefore nice and clean, but very European, so a little foreign, which was good to adjust to.

We then took a smaller plane that was all Business Class (read, “bigger, leather chairs, nicer food and especially friendly flight attendants”). When we began to descend, I was riveted as we emerged below the clouds and saw a frozen vista, white and gray and black and more gray. I think I imbued it with a sense of difference, but if I’d been told we were descending into Kansas, I would have believed it.

The Peace Corps Ukraine staff was waiting for us after Immigration with warm greetings and luggage carts. We loaded up, then gathered outside the airport to toss bags into one truck, bodies into another.

By this time, we’d been traveling for 18 hours or so, counting the Frankfurt layover, and my body was tired. I’d slept pieces of time during the journey, but really very little. I found myself getting annoyed with a particularly loudmouthed fellow trainee that had sat behind me on both planes and now the bus – 18 hours of loud comments that were only funny the first 5 hours. When he said this particularly insensitive comment, I almost throttled him: “I guess if I roll around in the dirt for a while, I’ll look just like the people here.” Luckily, our training director, Andrey, was talking with this person and had a patient retort for him.

We arrived at our home for the next week, the Post Graduate Institute, or the Piggy, on the outskirts of Kyiv. I was thrilled, thrilled, thrilled to find nice rooms, nice bathrooms and HOT WATER!! I realized how much I’d prepared myself for hardship in this experience and how each time something was nice, how happy I was.

I needed to stay awake and desperately needed to be outside, despite the cold and gray or perhaps because of it. I found some co-conspirators and we pretended we didn’t know we weren’t supposed to leave the grounds. For god’s sake, we’re not in Iran, we’re just in Kyiv and the suburbs for that matter! Even though it will take away from the rebel factor, one of my co-conspirators, Carrie, is a fluent Russian speaker, so we knew we’d be ok. Safe rebellion isn’t as sexy.

We walked up a broad avenue and saw a golden spire of some type in the distance and decided to walk to it. What we found was an immense grounds of an exposition center, full of nearly 20 enormous Soviet style buildings, each with wonderful tributes to the agricultural might of Ukraine. We ventured up to one and found it open and heated, somewhat of a surprise. We’d find out eventually that this was built in the 1960’s and was a former National Fair grounds, now used for conventions. That was a find.

We had dinner in the cafeteria and enjoyed our first pounded, egg battered fried meat and mashed potatoes meal and then soon retired for sleep. I slept a normal night and felt quite unscathed from jet lag, a first for me.

Blog for the dates of 1-4 March 2003

It has been some time since I have written here. I will endeavor to catch the blog up to date in small batches.

I last wrote after the Tour d'East Coast and family adventure. I returned to Boulder for about 12 days to finish up work and packing and get in a healthy dose of freaking out.

I was so overwhelmed by my friends' outpouring of support, meals and attention. One common thought throughout this process has been how I do nothing alone and how I am so supported in this adventure.

We had a happy hour at Bacaro in Boulder the Saturday night before I left. I was gratified at the amount of people that came, down to Sherry, a wonderful, interesting woman I know b/c she has been cleaning my teeth at Dr. Baxt's office for 6 yrs or so...

It was surreal to think that the night was my last one for a while and saying goodbye at times was difficult. I stayed out too late, guilty all the while for not being home and spending QT with Hawk. It’s hard even now, some 3 weeks later, to think of it. It was snowing hard and when Christopher and I got back to Frieda’s home, we took Hawk out for a jaunt in the snow. Hawk was a bit more crazed than usual perhaps in reaction to my obvious stress. I guess there’s just no good way to leave.

The next morning, I got up early, still finishing last bits of packing, and Christopher helped me stuff my 4 bags, Hawk and us into his jeep. Luckily, it had stopped snowing sometime in the night, and the driving was fine. I was tired, numb, overwhelmed, grateful beyond compare to Christopher for being with me and being willing to drive me to the airport.

Without going through the whole sad saga, I said a difficult goodbye to both the dog and the man. I made it to my gate and found my PC friend, Scott, waiting already to fly to Chicago.

When we took off, the plane made a broad arch to the West to turn around and I felt so happy to see those craggy, snowy peaks from such a vantage point one more time before leaving. It felt right to say a proper goodbye to them as well. Only they are nearly guaranteed not to change much in my absence.

We arrived in Chicago to the hotel where we’d stay for 2 days before departing for Ukraine. Those days were pretty surreal. I met lots of people, we had initial training to begin our PC indoctrination and took care of some logistics. There I met Carrie, who is becoming a good friend, as well as loads of cool, interesting people from all sorts of backgrounds. Young college grads, people with a few years work experience, retired lawyers, business people, lots of non-profit experience, lots of living abroad experience. We had a generous per diem and it was indulgent to eat Vietnamese, sushi, etc. for lunches and dinners.

The last night in Chicago, I stayed out way too late at an Irish pub and had fun meeting new people and hanging out with people I already knew. One of our PC staff, Matt, was out also and it was fun to get to know him unofficially.

The next day was full of “hurry up and wait” moments. I was thrilled to be able to comfortably carry my luggage on my back and w/ the luggage cart and felt quite smug when watching other PCT’s struggle. (competitive nature rears its ugly head – must remember, the race is with myself)

I was so grateful that Frieda had gotten me a postage-paid envelope for me to mail my cell phone to her from the airport. I spent much of my time in the line to check in talking to Stephanie and this was such a lovely way to say goodbye to home, and spent much of my waiting time before the airport calling people, leaving messages on answering machines, etc. It was so comforting.

I’m sitting on the floor at lovely Frieda’s house, with whom I’m staying til departure. I am surrounded by neat piles of clothes, her scale and miscellany, wearing my red fleece bathrobe and a vintage rabbit fur hat that is one part Elmer Fudd and one part Russian. Ah, packing. I’m exhausted, probably self-inflicted for being so damn emotive. The scale is to weigh the disparate bags that I’m packing. Am down to 8 lbs. of summer clothes! Am planning to wear many layers of clothing on the plane to offset luggage weight. Am so ready to leave, tired of saying goodbye’s and explaining what/where/when. Am whining. Am writing like Bridget Jones wanna-be. Am, or perhaps have, lost mind.

The remainder of the trip down the eastern seaboard went well. After NYC, I went to DC, to visit Nanny and got the bonus of time with my cousin, Kelly and her charming husband, Jae. They were asking about winters in CO, wondering if they’d enjoy moving here, but are worried about the weather. The weather here?! It was sleeting and freezing in DC, which one knows will be followed by a steamy and dank summer. I’m not sure who’s doing the PR for CO weather, but they need a new marketing campaign. Actually, with the number of people moving here, I guess we need to keep up the subterfuge regarding the weather.

In DC, I visited with Nanny in her nursing home, the aptly named, “Sleepy Hollow.” It is a surprising name, as it seems to me that many such facilities prefer more euphemistic names, such as “Golden Sunsets.” It was a good visit, she knew who I was and was happy to see me. I’m not sure if I’ll see her again alive and that is difficult.

Then, I took Amtrak to NC, where Mom picked me up at the lovely Cary train depot. I must admit to a bad attitude about the ‘burbs. We traveled farther south to SC, to visit WONDERFUL, INSPIRATIONAL, FANTABULOSO Great Aunt Eva. She is so much a hero to me. Her attitude, spirit and sense of humor, at any age but particularly at 85, give me such joy and hope about growing old. Before we arrived at Aunt Eva’s house in Great Falls, SC, we visited to other great aunts, Theo and Sadie, both residing at Bethea Baptist Home, a wonderful facility for white Southern Baptists.

Aunt Theo is 97 and she told us this visit that she’s tired and ready to go to heaven. Aunt Theo never married and lived a very full life, first working all over the southeast as a nurse, and then in retirement, traveling with her church and with friends. We always spend a lot of time during our visits looking at her carefully put together photo albums and hearing her stories. Sadie is the 92 year old matriarch of a large family and an avid seamstress. While it was difficult to hear Aunt Theo talk about being ready to go to heaven, it also is good to hear someone be clear about dying and even really for someone to talk about it at all.

A Southern tradition that I just recently learned is that of buying and erecting one’s tombstone before one passes. The name and birth date are carved in, awaiting the final date. The first time I saw Aunt Theo’s it creeped me out, but now I see the practicality and control that it gives a person. Aunt Eva, who takes care of Aunt Theo since she doesn’t have any children to do so and because Eva is the baby girl of that generation, told Mom and me that Theo has already picked out her burial outfit and what she wants in the coffin with her.

After SC, we returned North. We had a party with many of my parent’s friends who have known me since I was a lil’ girl. That was a lot of fun and everyone was super interested and supportive. Ken, our old next door neighbor, had the funniest comment: “Wendy, (say with good sized drawl) do people ask you all the time what the fuck you think you’re doing?” referring to going to work in some God-forsaken part of the world where they probably hate Americans.

It may be cheezy, but I think I will draw substantial amount of comfort and imagined support thinking back on these travels when I am far far away from home.

love,
wlu

Hello after a brief hiatus! I am in NYC visiting family at present and grateful to have finished the majority of dealing with storage and moving out of the charming house on Spruce back into friend Frieda's palatial condo. Regina, roomate of said charming house, gave me a very sweet card in parting. Hawk is now soujourning with Sarah as I make my way down the east coast. Yesterday, I drove ALL BY MYSELF through the city to La Guardia. All these years I've been coming to the city and I've always avoided driving like a mushroom pizza, but there was a need for a driver and I decided that I should risk it. Fran, ex-wife of my Dad's and still family, gave me excellent directions and it was a hassle-free adventure, cutting off taxis and singing along w/ Norah Jones.

After returning to the city w/ Fran and Karen, I walked east to meet Dad for lunch. Afterwards, he took me up to the condo in Trump Tower that he's renovating. It belongs to a commercially successful author, Robin Cook, and is a tad nouveau riche for my taste. Then I kept walking about mid-town, first east to the Ukrainian Consulate, which was closed, then back west to meet Sam and walk in the park. We stopped for a moment at the boat pond and there were 2 Asian wedding parties having their photos and videos done. The brides were very elaborate white gowns and the bridemaids wore pastel dresses and all had their hair twisted, sprayed and decorated high.

Today, back to the Consulate for dog shipping info, downtown to work at Dad's place, then meet a couple, Tom and Tina, for dinner. They are in the same group to Ukraine and I think we'll go to dinner somewhere in the East Village, perhaps a Ukrainian place they know. I need to look for calling cards there.

It is good to be in the city and it is good to see family. I love just walking around, observing odd New York moments, typical New York moments, sad New York moments. Examples in order: 1. guy boarding bus w/ traveling cart full of board games such as "Green Eggs and Ham, the board game." 2. Woman, dressed to the nines in big shades, big hair, fur coat and Monolo Blahniks talking loudly on cell phone while strolling down 5th Ave. 3. The street guy w/ a kempt beard, nice feng shui on his decorated cart. The organized street people really make me sad.

love,
wlu

Last night I dreamt a long time about Ukraine. The people were rather more Northern Scandanavian and all spoke very good English. Their sense of personal space was much closer than mine and I was uncomfortable with their proximity and shoving about. I was at a church of some kind, after riding on a bus with a Chinese family that spoke no English, and it was a holiday. A handsome, red-haired lad tried to get friendly with me. He told me my hair looked like a copper scrubby thing and meant it as a compliment. Hawk was tied up outside, so I didn't stay long in the church, but long enough to listen to the service. While I'd been on the bus, the vista had been one more suited to Nepal than Ukraine, with soaring mountains and brown-skinned people wearing hand-woven garb. (the Nepal bit maybe came from an NPR segment yesterday about a new internet cafe at Mt. Everest base camp). There was a man on the bus of the previous description and he was trying to figure out what language I spoke and where I came from. He asked me in French, Spanish, German then English if I spoke each of those languages.

It's getting very close, soon all of this life in Boulder will seem a distant and surreal dream.

Off for Hawk and my daily sanity-preserving run.

love,
wlu

Today, I met Peace Corps Ukraine Business Dev. Project Group 24's Rizwan Merchant and Scott Lasher (who I already met last wk) to hike to Mallory Caves west of NCAR. Meeting people in my group has been so helpful, particularly because the two I've met so far have been such compadres! Creating a sense of community this early really helps me with any lingering fears I have about being REALLY alone, instead of just being alone. :-D We discussed some of the threads on our discussion board on Yahoo! (PeaceCorpsUkraine) and where we'd all been in our lives when we decided to join the PC, relationships, etc. Good news: Rizwan can cook northern Indian, hurrah!

Am still in the process of selling my car. Today, a lovely and well-meaning lady who test drove it, asked if she could "rent" the car for 2 weeks, then decide about buying it. I had to decline her offer. I'm hopeful that a college student that drove it today may buy, otherwise, Super-Rupair will on Fri. Then I'm moving out of this lovely home on Spruce St. and going back east to see my Dad & Samala (NYC), Nanny (DC), Mom (NC), Great Aunt Eva (SC), etc.! It will be the Gran Tour'd'East Coast and I hope to remain calm thru out.

Non-sequitor alert: Yesterday while running past some Boulder HS students taking a morning gym class, I saw how some were thin and athletic and others were lagging at the end of the line running. I wanted to shout out something to them from my older vantage point. "Get used to exercise - you need it!" or "Don't despair, the thin and athletic ones aren't perfect!" Anyway, I didn't because I realized suddenly that I had no wisdom to share, that I have fewer answers than ever. I'm comfortable with that.

love,
wlu

Today was a day of logistics and a bit demoralizing. I've been trying to be up front with people interested in buying my car and they seem to use this as a bargaining tool. In any case, I know it will all work out in the next couple of weeks and will seem no big deal in retrospect. It just makes me tired. I'm so looking forward to being done with all the errands and such and living out of my backpack. I say now. :-) Off to read and sleep early, the best cure for exhaustion.

xo,
wlu

This morning was a classic example of everything I love about living in Boulder. I got up early to run in Mapleton Hill w/ Hawk, then met Amy Wicker, Fried and a couple other ladies for a Hike n' Brunch for Amy and Baby Wicker. We hiked an easy loop at Chataqua and it is beautiful, warm, sunshine for days, perfect Boulder Sunday. I think knowing that I am leaving makes me appreciate the mountains, endless sunshine and comfort of Boulder. I'm still so excited for this change, even as I sort of mourn leaving this amazing place. I think I'd be bored if I stayed - too much sun, too many smiling, 3% body fat, fit people, no diversity. But I will miss hiking and trail running with friends, feeling small under the flatirons, eating great burritos, the farmer's market, a myriad of things. This has turned into an Ode To Boulder. :-D

love,
wlu

Welcome to my Peace Corps::Ukraine blog! As I begin this journal, our group (Group 24) has 36 days to departure. On 2 Mar. 2003, we will go to Chicago for a 2 day pre-training ("staging" in Peace Corps parlance), then fly to Kyiv, Ukraine on 4 Mar. Last night I had my first going away party, a "Take What You Can Carry" shindig, where I invited people to take whatever stuff that I was getting rid of. My friends helped me out by taking nearly 1/2 the bags of clothing, shoes, books and miscellany as well as drinking a good bit of sangria. Made my job today much easier hauling away the remainder...

Last Thurs., I met Scott Lasher, who is a trial attorney in Denver, lungs-of-iron-mountain-man and also going to Ukraine with Group 24 in March! We had a great time hiking Mt. Sanitas here in Boulder and comparing pre-trip notes. It was so comforting to meet someone from my group and triply so because he is rather a kindred spirit. I can't hardly wrap my mind around what my life will be like in a few months, but I guess that I don't really need to.

That's it for today's report. Please check out the FAQ and maps that I posted at http://www.wendylu.com/pcUkraine/info.

I wonder if Hawk, my dog who is peacefully and a little odiforously lying beside me, is aware of our imminent changes?

over and out,
wlu