If I were Ukrainian...

…I’d now be eligible for pension payments from the government.

Ukrainian women may become pensioners at the age of 55, men at 60. The minimum amount paid monthly is about 600 UAH, today worth about $100. As one local friend put it, “It’s enough not to die.” Military, police, and other public servants’ pension payments are higher, and may begin earlier. When we’ve told our Ukrainian friends that the retirement age in the US for both men and women is 65, often their response includes some joke about how the typical Ukrainian would never receive such a pension because they wouldn’t make it to 65. Indeed, current life expectancy at birth for Ukrainians is 62 years for men and 74 years for women (CIA Factbook). For Americans those numbers are 75 years for men and 80 years for women.

We had a low-key and perfect celebration for my birthday, eschewing the local tradition of hosting a big dinner for all your family and friends. We opted instead for a quiet, delicious two-person late lunch out followed by a walk in the crisp clear weather.

Monday, November 17, was International Students Day, which was celebrated here in different ways by different universities. One gave students the Friday before off; another offered an afternoon performance and recognition ceremony on the day of. The university at which both of us now teach arranged a party at a local discothèque in honor of the students last night, which both students and faculty attended, and gave all the day off today, Friday. We went to the disco, stayed dancing until midnight, and are happy to have this morning off to recover! As we left the apartment last night at 7:30, we told the delightful 65-ish woman who would need to let us back into the building later that we were going off to dance with the students at a disco. She lit up and said “Maladets!” which means something like “Good for you!” and then did a smiley little jig before sending us on our way.

Thanksgiving Day for us here will be a normal work day. We enjoyed a weekend visit earlier this month from six Peace Corps friends, who came together because half of us have November birthdays and another was headed home a week later. We celebrated by putting together a local approximation of Thanksgiving dinner. We party-hat-wearing celebrants enjoyed Peter's signature grapefruit martinis with cheese and crackers, followed by chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, squash, salads, pumpkin pie and Boston cream pie. All was homemade and delicious, and we were thankful to be together.

Fall Update

Congratulations and our thanks to you if you are reading this! You’d be within your rights to have given up on us, as we’ve been seriously negligent about keeping current. Once school got underway, time really started flying. We’ve settled into full routines here that keep us healthy and sane. Additionally, your primary correspondent has been spending way too much time following (obsessing over?) the upcoming Presidential election by reading various Internet news and blog sites.

Our school year began on September 1. We’re both teaching the same classes we did last fall, so can rely on that experience now, which of course is much easier. Peter is teaching even more sessions each week of his American Studies and Entrepreneurship courses than last year, and enjoying it that much more. I am teaching International Marketing and Ethics & Culture classes, as well as a new course – for which I am especially qualified – in Ukraine’s Foreign Relations(!). I’ve also been invited to help teach at Peter’s university a couple of classes each week, which has been a nice addition to the schedule. We try to get to a local gym that we like a couple of times each week for a weight workout, and also still have our weekly English Club at the local library, which is attended by a dedicated group of enjoyable individuals with a strong interest in improving their English.

We received our absentee ballots a few days ago, and have enjoyed sharing them with our English Club and classes. They’re impressed with the overall process, as well as the quality of the information, and even the computer-readable ballot itself. (Elections here rely on hand-counted paper ballots, a labor-intensive process that is now likely to be used for the third time in three years here for a controversial Parliamentary election next month.) We even printed copies of the League of Women Voters one-page statements from each Presidential candidate to share, and then held mock elections in each setting. It’s generally been running about 75%-25% Obama-McCain.

The economic issues are definitely being felt here. Inflation has been high all year, and the local exchange rate has been on a roller coaster ride lately. For the duration of our first year here, the exchange rate stayed consistent at about 5 UAH (the local currency called the Ukrainian grivna) to the US dollar.. It started dropping in the spring, and reached its nadir in June at a rate of about 4.60 UAH to the dollar. Then the rate started rising, and yesterday it was just shy of 6 UAH to the US$. This means that $100 exchanged in June yielded 460 UAH, and today it gets 600 UAH – a huge swing.

We’re starting to be aware of how limited our remaining time here is: we expect to be home for good in time for our sons’ college graduations in May. After more than eighteen months in Ukraine, numerous local sights and experiences that initially seemed strange now go virtually unnoticed. We’re feeling more and more connected with a growing circle of local friends, who’ve extended gracious invitations to dinner, to music performances, and to outings. Peace Corps has said that most volunteers make their most significant contributions in their second year of service. Don’t know about our significance, but there’s definitely a level of comfort now in our second year that we’re happy to discover.

Thanks for your patience and persistence!

P.S. A special hello to George C. Thanks for the comment this summer. We enjoyed hearing from you, and look forward to hearing more. Take care!

Good People Everywhere

We are back in our Ukrainian city after a month and a half away. During our travels we attended a 5-day Peace Corps Russian language camp, visited with our first host family, went to several “mid-service medical” appointments in Kiev, spent four glorious weeks at home, and most recently enjoyed a Ukrainian vacation at the seaside. Only now do we have the pleasure of reflecting on the richness of our travels and the blessings of so many wonderful people in our lives.

For starters, the day before we were to leave, way back on the last day in June, our local host “mom” (who’s the same age as Peter) made a special trip to our apartment to deliver a package, even though we had spent the previous day together at her dacha. She was annoyed at herself for forgetting to give us this package then. We were touched that her package contained three small gifts, one for each of our children, whom she knew we would be seeing when we got to Seattle.

Our Russian language camp allowed us to reconnect with other Peace Corps volunteers, many of whom we’d not seen since swearing-in, as well as with our lovely language instructor, whose gentle grace and fine instruction were the centerpiece of our initial 12 weeks of intensive language training. We then had a fine overnight visit with our first host family, at which they also gave us gifts to take to our children, as well as a gift to bring to my mother, whom they had never met. We found this again to be very thoughtful. (Is this a Ukrainian custom that we should be aware of?)

Then it was off to Seattle, plus a brief trip to California, for nonstop and wonderful visits with our children, families, and friends. We couldn’t have asked for more. We were relieved and happy to discover that not only had home not changed significantly in sixteen months, but neither had we. We were able to slip right back in to our former life, and are grateful to many friends and family whose help while we’re gone makes that possible.

Our travel back to Ukraine included some excitement at Charles de Gaulle airport – two unattended bags near the gate for our connecting flight necessitated cordoning off the area and exploding the bags. The two explosions were clearly audible by the hundreds of us who were being held back by armed security guards. This delayed our flight and ultimately separated us from two of our bags, which eventually were delivered to the Peace Corps office in Kiev on our third and final day there before we got on the overnight train back to our city.

Less than 24-hours after arriving home, we joined two of Peter’s co-teachers for 6 days at a Black Sea beach town two hours away. We thoroughly enjoyed their delightful company and experienced a real Ukrainian vacation. We enjoyed daily dips in the sea. Peter (as most of you know, not a sun worshipper) did more sun bathing in that week than he’s done in the last ten years. In addition to lots of relaxing visiting – in English – we made a significant dent in our NYT crossword puzzle book.

We’re now catching up at home, surviving the 98-degree weather, and getting ready for the new school year which begins September 1. With one year already under our belts, and most upcoming classes being repeats from last year, we know what to expect and look forward to it.

Changes

Schedule change: The school year is over. Regular classes ended a couple of weeks ago, and our last final exam was given this week. Our schedule has shifted into summer mode, which includes occasional English club meetings, preparation for next year’s classes, and a bit of traveling to explore new parts of this country. Most exciting to us are plans to fly home for a few weeks to visit with family and friends.

Water change: We’ve mentioned that the water in our apartment has usually been turned off at night. From about 10 or 11 pm until roughly 5:45, we’d have no water, which was not really much of an inconvenience. This schedule changed recently, so that now the water goes on and off throughout the day according to a strict schedule: ON from 6:00-9:00am, OFF from 9:00-11:30am, ON from 11:30am to 1:30pm, OFF from 1:30-5:00pm, ON from 5:00-9:00pm, OFF from 9:00pm to 6:00am. It took us a couple of days to figure out that there was in fact a schedule in operation. Other neighborhoods in our city have operated according to this same water schedule, but it is new to ours. We find ourselves rushing to complete activities “before the water goes off” and our life is somewhat more regimented as a result, but it is certainly tolerable.

Tulips and Beer Tents

Tulips and beer tents are popping up all over, our heat was turned off a couple of weeks ago, and Orthodox Easter was celebrated here on Sunday, so spring is definitely here. Another annual event also occured recently, though we didn't know about it until it was in progress.

Most nights, between approximately 10:00 pm and 6:00 am, the water in our apartment is turned off. (We've always questioned the reasoning behind this: why turn it off if most folks are asleep at that time anyway? One PCV posits that perhaps it's because so many Ukrainian toilets run, so that shutting it off would in fact save water, which is the only plausible explanation we've heard.) Anyway, last week on a day neither of us was scheduled to teach, the water failed to come on at the normal time. We waited, assuming it was just a matter of time before it would be turned on. Well, our wait lasted until late the next day. Turns out that the water in the whole city is turned off for 1-2 days once or twice a year for cleaning and maintenance. It was announced on the radio, so the locals all knew about it, but we missed it. When you know it's coming, you fill buckets and big bottles with water in anticipation, and life can go on fairly normally. When you don't know, as we didn't, well, life isn't quite so normal.

We ended up hunkering down in our apartment, basically waiting for the water so that we could shower and get on with our day. We did have to teach the next day, so we sponge-bathed with the bottled water we buy, and finally learned about this annual pipe-cleaning when we spoke with our colleagues at school. By the time the water came on, our kitchen sink was full of dirty dishes and, well, you don't want to know about the bathroom. So we survived another unexpected cultural moment or, in this case, two days. But we're chagrined to realize that, after more than a year in this country, we're still so far from being fluent or even tapped in to the local scene. Basically, a large notice could have been posted in our building's elevator, and we could have stared at it multiple times a day, and we wouldn't have understood what was going to happen. Ah, motivation to keep at our Russian language studies...

Twenty-five Years!

We celebrated our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary last week with a trip to Odessa, one of our favorite Ukrainian cities. It’s only 3 ½ hours away by bus, and it’s a delightful big city with lots of charm, especially in its older leafy center. In honor of our anniversary, Peter gave me a very romantic gift – a classic heavy padlock with our initials and wedding date written on it. This is romantic? Yes.

Here’s some background. When we visited Kiev in January with our kids, we took a self-guided walking tour of the city and came across an unusual pedestrian bridge in one of the central parks. It was a wood plank bridge with attractive metal-work railings, stretched across a ravine near the big stadium of the popular Kiev Dynamo soccer team. On the bridge were signs of a newly-popular practice: attached to the metal rails were hundreds of padlocks of all shapes and sizes, most labeled with the first names or initials of couples who’ve pledged their love for each other by attaching their lock and throwing away the key. Above is a close-up of this unusual bridge in Kiev.

When we shared this discovery with local friends in our English Club, they said this practice is only a few years old and in fact there is a similar pedestrian bridge in Odessa. Knowing of our plan to visit Odessa this weekend, Peter’s clever and, yes, romantic gift brought us laughs, smiles and appreciation of our fortune at having 25 wonderful years together.

Our visit to Odessa was for the combined purpose of celebrating our anniversary and attending a meeting of a “support group” for older Ukrainian Peace Corps volunteers (PCVs). Our group of visiting older PCVs participated in a delightful walking tour of central Odessa given by a knowledgeable younger Odessa-based PCV who is a history teacher by training. Lo and behold, what should be one of the final points of interest on the tour but the famous Mother-in-Law Bridge – a pedestrian bridge across a ravine. It was supposedly built by a former mayor whose mother-in-law lived across the ravine. Two reasons have been given. He had the bridge built in order either to more easily enjoy her wonderful borsch or for her to more easily return home after a visit, rather than spending the night there. In any case, the bridge has become a favorite among lovers and newlyweds, and it is adorned with hundreds of labeled padlocks! See all the locks stretched across the Mother-in-Law Bridge above right.

So in the middle of the tour, we whipped out our padlock, chose an appropriate spot on the bridge, and attached it in honor of our anniversary. Our Peace Corps friends documented the moment for us.

One Year!

Exactly one year ago today we landed in Kiev to begin this adventure. Some days it feels like we’ve just arrived, others feel like we’ve been here quite a while. In any case, time marches on and life is good.

Two typical indicators of spring at home have not yet occurred here. We have not yet switched to Daylight Savings Time – Ukraine relies on the same schedule the US formerly used, and won’t spring forward until this Sunday. And we have not yet celebrated Easter – Ukrainians celebrate Orthodox Easter, which will occur the last Sunday of April. But even absent these indications, it’s clear that spring is here by the glorious weather we are enjoying. It has been sunny and clear here this week, with midday temperatures over 60 degrees F, except on the day when there were snow flurries! We like the trend, and can safely say now that our first winter here was a mild one. We’re told that the heat in our apartment will go off sometime in April.

Back in Touch

It’s hard to believe it’s been over two months since our last blog posting. In that time, we enjoyed a fabulous visit from our children, during which we explored new parts of Ukraine, and then got swept back up into the weekly whirlwind of researching, planning and teaching our classes. What is harder to believe is that our one year anniversary of arriving in Ukraine approaches at the end of this month! We note that life here has taken on a certain normalcy. The ‘cultural moments,’ or experiences that remind us we’re not in Kansas anymore, happen less often. Can’t imagine that Ukraine or Ukrainians have changed for us, so we assume the acculturation has happened on our end.

Today is International Women’s Day, a major holiday here. Since this year it falls on Saturday, schools are closed on Monday. Women receive flowers, candy, and gifts, while the men do most of the cooking. There was a minor day to celebrate men last month – formerly Soviet Army day – but this is a much bigger deal. Our Ukrainian friends are surprised to learn that the US doesn’t celebrate this holiday.

We did have one recent minor cultural moment. We attended a local performance of Swan Lake by the visiting Moscow City Ballet. It was a fine production. At its conclusion, the audience applauded loudly. But soon the cacophonous roar of applause morphed into a single rhythmic sound, in which all were clapping to a single beat to show their appreciation, serving a purpose similar to our standing ovation. But to our ears it was jarring, almost rude. The same thing happened this week at the conclusion of a wonderful concert by a pianist from Kiev. It was still jarring, but now less noteworthy.

In fact, here are some former cultural moments that no longer elicit much notice:
§ Uneven and/or missing chunks of sidewalk, uncovered manholes, etc. We’re so familiar with our neighborhood and other well-trod parts of town that we only have to look down at our feet when we’re in unfamiliar sections of town.
§ Friday and Saturday bridal caravans. It is Ukrainian tradition for the bridal party to drive around town in a caravan of decorated cars, often rented especially for the occasion, honking and making stops at major landmarks to leave flowers and take pictures. By evening on most Fridays and Saturdays – the traditional wedding days here – all the statues and memorials are festooned with beautiful beribboned bouquets.


For the last two weeks we’ve had wonderful spring-like weather. As usual, with more warmth and sunshine come energy and renewal. We’ve even gone back to hanging our laundry to dry outside on our little balcony rather than inside draped over radiators and furniture! However, our centrally-controlled apartment heat quietly continues its work.