Morsels from Ukraine

At Home

2009-06-05T17:10:00.001-07:00

Greetings from stateside! Our last day in Ukraine was May 1, and was preceded by several weeks of farewell gatherings and events. We taught our last classes, gave our final final exams, and said goodbye to fellow Peace Corps volunteers, to students and co-teachers, to dear host families, to special friends, and officially to the Peace Corps. We were feted at a memorable afternoon gathering at Peter's university at which more than 80 students came to say goodbye and present gifts. This was followed by a lunch with the 15 teachers and administrators we'd worked with, and included the tradition of going around the table to offer eloquent, sometimes tearful, toasts. We were honored and touched. Our last visits with our two host families were bittersweet and wonderful. When we got to the 8:30 pm train that would take us away from our city for the last time, a dozen locals came to see us off, including regulars from our English club, members of our extended host family, and co-teachers and their families who've become special friends. We left with feelings of sadness and satisfaction, and many connections that we intend to maintain across the miles. Our wonderful and talented 19-year-old Russian tutor, who has never been on an airplane before, will be coming here to spend the summer with us. Especially since she was so helpful to us, we are excited to show her our neck of the woods here, and help her experience much of what the US has to offer. In a way, our Peace Corps service continues.

It's Official

2009-02-13T06:39:00.000-08:00

Our last day in Ukraine will be May 1. It’s hard to believe that our two-plus years is almost over. Here are some Ukrainian "cultural moments" we've grown to appreciate.

Fireworks - Most weekends, and sometimes during the week, we can hear and view fireworks from our ninth-floor apartment window. It’s a tradition to set them off to celebrate weddings, which typically occur on Fridays and Saturdays, and for birthdays, which can be any night. They’re now a part of everyday life that we enjoy and will miss.

Beets - We have a newfound appreciation for beets. Their stunning color, healthful contents, and ubiquity here have made us fond of them. Ukrainians like to make a beet salad dressed with lots of mayonnaise. We like them grated fresh with a simple vinaigrette, or in our version of Ukrainian borsch, which most Ukrainians think doesn’t measure up, but we like it.

Root Vegetables in Soil - Whether purchased at modern grocery stores, at the central market, or from a cute little babushka on a street corner, vegetables such as carrots, potatoes, and beets are sold with lots of the soil they grew in still attached. It's also not unusual to have little feathers or other nest remnants attached to eggs.

Escorting Your Guests - At the end of an evening, Ukrainian hosts have a lovely tradition of walking their dinner guests, not just to the door, but to the street, at least, if not to the bus stop, which can be several blocks away. Since most Ukrainians that we’ve gotten to know live in high-rise apartment buildings, as hosts at the end of an evening they always walk with us down to the front door of the building. We have been walked several blocks to our bus stop home. Once we were escorted all the way home in the dark by one nice family (parents and 12-year-old son), a distance of a dozen long blocks or more that took probably 30 minutes. It took us a while to catch on. Our first dinner guests (probably offended) were bid farewell at our front door. Eventually we’ve figured it out, and enjoy the leisurely stroll at the end of a visit.

Happy 2009!

2009-01-16T02:50:00.000-08:00

We’re back in Ukraine after a too short two-week holiday visit home to Seattle. The unusually cold and snowy weather there truncated and slowed the pace of our visiting, but it was good to be home nonetheless.

Our time here is quickly winding down. When university classes begin again the first week of February, we’ll have three months remaining. Most of the courses we’ll be teaching are again repeats of last year’s, so only minimal tweaking will be necessary for preparation. We’re currently battling nasty colds and an intermittent or excruciatingly slow Internet connection, but want to take this opportunity to wish all a very Happy New Year!

If I were Ukrainian...

2008-11-21T01:25:00.000-08:00

…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

2008-10-26T12:05:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-21T03:18:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-14T20:05:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-30T13:24:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-04-16T06:30:00.001-07:00

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!

2008-03-28T01:26:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-08T00:31:00.000-08:00

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.

Holidays

2007-12-31T12:13:00.000-08:00

Our Ukrainian holidays began with the arrival in Kiev of our sons on Saturday, December 22. After meeting their on-time flights, we spent the afternoon and evening exploring the capital city. We arrived serendipitously at the main square just as the Christmas tree lighting ceremony was about to begin. There was a large well-lit stage set up beside a massive dark Christmas tree, and several fur-clad performers entertained with holiday songs. The main street, closed to traffic for the evening, was filled with revelers who were also warmly dressed against the freezing crisp air. After a countdown to 5:00 pm, the tree lights were illuminated, and a ten-minute fireworks show began. The tree flashed through a series of pretty multi-colored geometric diamonds, circles, and stripes, producing a holiday light show second to none. Following the ceremony we enjoyed traditional Ukrainian borsch at a nearby restaurant before heading to the train station for our overnight ride home.

Back in our home city we introduced the boys to our various groups and haunts. Our train arrived at 10:15 am Sunday, and at 1:00 that afternoon they graciously helped with our children’s English Club by leading “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes,” and acting out one of our favorite children’s stories, “The Paper Bag Princess.” Since paper bags are virtually unheard of here, plastic bags sufficed. Keith was charming as the princess with a plastic bag hat, and Scott was deliciously haughty as the dragon who is outsmarted by the princess, and Peter played the handsome but vacuous Prince. The kids loved it.

On Monday we had our host mom Sveta over for lunch. Tuesday, though Christmas Day at home, was a regular school day. The boys were invited to my university to lead an 8:30 am 2nd year English class. Then we were invited to lunch at our host mom’s with her and her sister-in-law, a gracious special woman whom we call “babushka.” The boys experienced the type of multi-toast, special event meal that we have come to know well, and Keith got a first-hand look at the equipment used for making samahone, the local homemade vodka. He was hoping to get a demonstration, but the timing wasn’t right.

On Wednesday night we attended an end of semester party for the university department at which Peter works. It was held at a local club, and students and teachers celebrated together. There were skits and entertainment provided by the students, followed by disco dancing until the wee hours. Keith and Scott were of great interest to the (especially female) students of English. Both decided that it was the closest they will ever come to feeling like rock stars. We oldsters left at 11:00, and the boys found their way home by 1:00.

The holidays feel compressed here. Kiev and our city’s Christmas trees were lighted on December 22. Tree lots could start to be seen around town about that time. Gifts are to be exchanged on January 1, and most families were carrying home the small cut trees a day or two before that. All in all it feels quite lovely and sane.

We will be celebrating when all five of us are together, beginning January 5 with Kristen’s arrival. In the meantime, we wish all a happy and healthy 2008!

Winter

2007-12-20T08:03:00.000-08:00

It is snowing outside, Peter has taught his last class for the semester, and I am writing the final exams for my classes to take next week. It is definitely feeling like winter. The city looks pretty, covered in white. The streets and sidewalks are quite icy, and it’s not unusual to see folks slip or even fall as they make their way along. The women look elegant wearing fur or fur-trimmed coats and stiletto-heeled boots, and both men and women can be seen wearing those warm, boxy traditional fur hats.

Modest holiday decorations went up only this week inside major stores here. The city’s big 40-foot tree now resides in a local square, with a group of kids’ amusement rides beside it. We heard our first Christmas music in the local grocery store, familiar pop ones like “Santa Baby” and McCartney’s “Simply having a wonderful Christmas time.” Christmas isn’t celebrated here until January 7th; December 25 is just another day. And gift exchanging apparently happens on New Year’s Day, while Christmas is a holiday for enjoying a special family meal and honoring older relatives. There are two New Year’s days: new New Year, on January 1, and old New Year, on January 14, a remnant from a previous calendar, though it’s the new one that is primarily celebrated.

The restaurant square footage in our city has shrunk by more than half since the summer. When we arrived here in late spring there were dozens of “beer tents”, either stand-alone or extensions of regular cafes and restaurants, that provided shade from the intense sunlight, breezes through the open-air sides, and always at least a cold local beer or soft drink and some kind of snack, if not a whole meal. We enjoyed exploring our town – beer tent to beer tent. It was well into fall before we ate inside a restaurant. All of those restaurant extensions have now been taken down and put away. We had the initial impression that there were not many smokers in Ukraine. Now we think there are lots, because any venture into a café or restaurant leaves one reeking of cigarette smoke. The change in perception is due to all being forced inside.

We’re excited to welcome our sons here this week for their vacations from school. Our daughter will arrive two weeks later, just in time for Ukrainian Christmas, which will be our family’s official holiday. While they’re here we’ll introduce them to our city and local friends, and do some exploring within Ukraine. The boys have been invited to visit English classes at my university, and will also join our English Clubs at the libraries.

We send our heartfelt wishes to all for Happy Holidays!

Culture and History

2007-12-02T00:20:00.000-08:00

The heat came on in our apartment this week. In each of our three rooms there is a radiator, and each radiator is now warm to the touch instead of ice cold. We’re not being blasted by the heat, but it’s enough to keep the apartment warm, with only occasional supplementation by our electric heaters. Don’t get the impression that we have ever been anything but comfortable. Even before the heat came on, with snow falling outside, an additional sweater or the electric heater was all that was needed to keep us cozy.

In our city there are two movie theaters plus one theater for dramatic and musical productions. We have seen a movie at each of the “kinoteatres,” and decided to check out the other one this week. When perusing the posters and information posted at the theater, we learned that there are different types of productions, which change each night. (Perhaps they travel from other nearby, larger cities?) We were pleased to see that the next night’s performance was an evening of Edith Piaf songs, and bought tickets for $4 each, which got us seats in the fifth row.

So this past Sunday we were treated to a wonderful evening of familiar music, sung half in French and half in Russian by a tiny woman with a powerful voice, just like Ms. Piaf. The staging was stark but clever – they managed to suggest an Eiffel Tower with only a few metal bars – plus there were nine modern/ballet dancers behind the singer who added a very French feel to the production. It was a real treat, and we left with “La Vie en Rose” playing in our heads.

This week Ukraine is marking the 75th anniversary of its “Holodomor.” We’re chagrined to have known nothing about this horrific episode in Ukraine’s history prior to arriving here. Holodomor means the Great Starvation, and it refers to the 1932-33 period when between 3 and 10 million Ukrainians died in a man-made famine. (The actual number is unknown, and scholars disagree.) Stalin responded to Ukrainians’ resistance to forced collectivization of their farms by instituting severe policies. A few quotes from Ukraine’s President Yushchenko:

Holodomor “was a state-organized program of mass starvation that in 1932-33 killed an estimated seven million to 10 million Ukrainians, including up to a third of the nation's children. With grotesque understatement the Soviet authorities dismissed this event as a "bad harvest."

“Stalin's cruel methods included the allocation of astronomic grain requisition quotas that were impossible to meet and which left nothing for the local population to eat. When the quotas were missed, armed units were sent in. Toward the end of 1932, entire villages and regions were turned into a system of isolated starvation ghettos called "black boards." Throughout this period, the Soviet Union continued to export grain to the West and even used grain to produce alcohol. By early 1933, the Soviet leadership decided to radically reinforce the blockade of Ukrainian villages. Eventually, the whole territory of Ukraine was surrounded by armed forces, turning the entire country into a vast death camp.”

”During the long decades of Soviet rule it was dangerous for Ukrainians to discuss their greatest national trauma. To talk of the Holodomor was a crime against the state, while the memoirs of eyewitnesses and the accounts of historians like Robert Conquest and the late James Mace were banned as anti-Soviet propaganda. Yet each Ukrainian family knew from bitter personal memory the enormity of what had happened.”

Cocooning and Plateauing*

2007-11-24T02:43:00.000-08:00

Good news: As of this week we have reliable, high-speed Internet right here in our apartment! Not only do we have the convenience of getting online, answering questions, researching for class lectures, learning about current events, and sending and answering emails whenever we want, but free Skype conversations are now also possible. We had our first high-quality Skype conversation with our kids this morning – they’re together, with cousin Andrew, in Boston for the Thanksgiving weekend – and the sound was clearer than anything we’ve gotten over the telephone. Plus, the cost of phone cards to make international calls, which is no longer incurred, will more than cover the cost of our Internet service here. It was a fabulous way to start our Saturday, as they stayed up late to finish their Friday!

Even though it’s close to freezing outside and we still have no heat coming out of our apartment’s radiators – our landlord said it will be this weekend – we have our trusty electric heaters, we have the Internet, and we have each other. It’s quite tempting to stay here in our cozy apartment each day – cocooning – and leave only when it’s absolutely necessary. We even have the luxury of hard copies of English-language newspapers, provided thoughtfully by son Keith (WSJ) and sister Claudia (NYT). Though much of the newspapers’ contents are available online, we’re old-fashioned enough to prefer and enjoy holding the actual paper, and indulge each morning in our old habit of coffee with the newspaper. We often find stories that are relevant to what we’ll be teaching to our classes, or sharing with our English Clubs. To complete the cocoon day, we also occasionally indulge our taste for Peter’s special martinis – made now with ubiquitous and inexpensive local vodka and the absolutely delicious and sweet-tart, juicy pink grapefruits from Israel which are available from the “fruit ladies” who sell various fruit – bananas, kiwis, grapefruit, lemons, and oranges – from little stalls set up on the street. Our favorite fruit lady now calls us by name, greets us when we walk by, and looks forward to meeting our kids when they arrive here next month.

Needless to say, all this English makes it tempting to fall into the trap that Peace Corps warned us about. That is, many volunteers, once they attain a certain level of Russian or Ukrainian language proficiency, tend to put much less effort into continuing to learn it. They plateau at the level of knowing just enough to get their needs met and to do their work, and lose motivation to continue working at it. In our cases, we teach in English, have English-speaking colleagues at work, and speak English with our English Club members and of course with each other. We now know (just barely) enough to shop in the grocery store, to order in restaurants, to greet neighbors, and to have rudimentary conversations with locals. We have Russian-speaking friends who can help us when our language (frequently) is inadequate in specific situations. To top it off, our wonderful Russian language tutor left this week to immigrate to Canada with her family. It would be very tempting to put our language learning on the back burner in favor of other activities. But we will try to resist.

At this time of Thanksgiving, we’re grateful for wonderful family and friends who make our lives so rich. Thank you for all you do and are! Now go to http://www.skype.com/ and download their free calling software (if you haven’t already done so), email us your skype address, we’ll send you ours, and let’s talk. Our cocoon will be that much cozier!

* Sorry about the title of this Blog entry. Peter wonders if I’m now turning into Faith Popcorn…

Brrrr

2007-11-08T12:10:00.000-08:00

Still no heat in our apartment, and the temperature is freezing. In fact, it’s snowing lightly as I write! When asked when we might expect the heat to be turned on, a student said that it’s a complete mystery; a local adult friend said that it will come on November 15; and a librarian said she read in the news that the heat has started to be turned on, but only in schools and hospitals – apartments may get heat in two or three weeks. Guess time will tell.

We have opened up our “winter” suitcase for sweaters, gloves, and hats, and the electric heater provided by Peace Corps is working full time whenever we’re in the apartment. Often we’re warmer when out walking somewhere than when inside not moving as much. It’s an inconvenience, but not at all an unmanageable one.

We hosted a celebratory dinner last week for our wonderful Russian tutor and her husband and 19-year-old son. She confided to us a few weeks ago that their request to emigrate to Canada had been granted by the Canadian embassy. Our dinner was to celebrate the completion of the final step in their process – the immigrant Canadian visas now affixed to their Ukrainian passports. Their enthusiasm is infectious, and the latest news is that they now have tickets for their flights to Toronto later this month.

Local attitudes about Ukraine’s prospects for the future vary. Our tutor has not expressed much hope for her country’s future, and it was not altogether surprising that she had been working for months for her family’s move to Canada where her brother lives. Many locals that we have met in our English clubs, when asked about the recent parliamentary election, were apathetic, saying it doesn’t matter who is in office, nothing will change. We’ve also met those who are optimistic about the future. Many students and teachers that we work with are excited for the opportunities that education will bring.

We had a Halloween party at our children’s library English club. The kids enjoyed Pin the Nose on the Witch, bobbing for apples, mummy race (which team can wrap their mummy in toilet paper fastest?), and pumpkin carving. Halloween candy sent by family served well in the simulated Trick or Treat finale.

Goodbye dear friend

2007-10-28T12:40:00.000-07:00

Dear friend and very special person Tom with Peter in 2001.

Time Flies

2007-10-18T11:53:00.000-07:00

We send special greetings and deep love to our dear friend Tom Hermes and his family. (He continues in his battle against brain cancer.) You are in our thoughts daily.

It’s been more than a month since our last update here. Time flies when you’re having fun, or at least when you’re swept up into a busy routine. Our life here has settled into a full yet comfortable routine that includes regular classes, preceded by varying amounts of preparation time, and interspersed with exercise, multiple English Club meetings, and exploratory visits to different parts of the city and region.

We have been asked by a few different local organizations to host these English Clubs, at which participants hope to improve their English by talking with native speakers. The cutest were the younger group of children at our city’s Children’s Library – we were greeted on the first Sunday afternoon by 22 perky faces that ranged in age from about five to fifteen years old. We also have an older group at the Children’s Library, an adult group at the Regional Library, and a student group at Marcia’s university. We enjoy conducting these groups together, and are still figuring out how best to use the time to maximize their speaking of English. We’re using everything from songs (the hokey-pokey elicited mixed revues) and games with the youngest, to photos, books, conversation cards, and discussions of art and current topics with the older groups, in an attempt to both make it fun or interesting and to encourage conversation.

The temperature has dropped significantly in the past week, and we’ve gone into our “winter” suitcase to pull out some of the extra layers that are stored there. The interesting thing is that the heat in our apartment, and in every other indoor space in town, will not be turned on until some mysterious power determines that it is the right time to do so. It is all somehow controlled centrally, and apparently since there are still some occasional warm days there's no reason to turn on the heat yet. As a result, students sit in class bundled up as if they were in a snowstorm, classes at the university have been moved to the warmer from the colder rooms (more sunshine makes the difference), and we have unpacked one of the two electric heaters provided us by the Peace Corps. We were pleased (assuming no one put a penny in the fuse holder) to learn that operating the device has no ill effects on the electrical system in our apartment – a situation not shared by some other volunteers that we know here, whose electrical systems blow fuses every time the heater is turned on. Once the heat is turned on, we have no control over it, since there is no thermostat in the apartment. If it gets too hot, our only option will be to adjust the windows!

We were pleased to welcome our first visitors from home late last month. Matt and Evelyne were on a bicycling trip through Eastern Europe, and left their vehicles in Bucharest in order to fly to Odessa, where we met their flight. We spent a fine first day in Odessa, which sparkled in the fall sunshine. It turned out that Odessa was celebrating the re-opening of its opera house after two years of renovation. Our evening stroll took us through the leafy older central part of town. Crowds gathered outside the opera house there to enjoy the night’s simulcast performance shown on two large video screens, creating a festive atmosphere. The second day of their quick visit was spent in our somewhat-less-sparkly home town. After a walking tour of the highlights, we were able to offer a home-cooked meal, and also got in a few hands of bridge. We’re grateful they made the effort to see us, and enjoyed our time together.

Two older gentlemen who live in our building stopped Peter one recent evening as he was about to head up to our apartment. They were sitting outside on one of the rustic benches near the door to the building. They invited him to join them and share their drink and snack. First Peter was offered one of their two disposable plastic shot glasses – after first “sterilizing” it by swishing a bit of their powerful homemade brew around in it. They also offered to share their snack, which at that point consisted of one piece of bread with a large slice of salami on it. Tearing it into three pieces was difficult, so the gentleman made the final break using his teeth. The three toasted, then drank and ate, while the two of them tried to make conversation with Peter given his still-quite-limited Russian. It was a nice gesture on their part, since showing warmth to strangers is not the typical approach here.

Observations on a recent morning run:
· No fewer than six different head-scarf-wearing, rustic-broom-wielding bent little grandmothers were out vigorously sweeping sidewalks, gutters, and pathways.
· Another grandmother was tending her five-goat herd as they nibbled their breakfast in the large city park near our apartment.
· Numerous plastic trays of leftover food were set out beside doorways, further examples of locals caring for the feral dogs and cats.

Also recently seen was a woman, dressed and on her way to catch a bus to work. All of a sudden she stopped, reached into her purse, and pulled out a little package of leftovers. She bent down and laid them out near the window well of a building where a family of cats lives, before hurrying off to continue her day.

School's In

2007-09-14T12:19:00.000-07:00

Overnight, the weather has cooled significantly to usher in the fall. So not only are Ralph and Alice happily no longer making appearances, but school is underway. We now have two weeks of teaching under our belts, and overall it’s been a positive experience.

Peter came home after his first day exclaiming, “This is fun!” We both teach in English, the classes last 80 minutes, and the students are polite. We’re not sure how well we’re being understood, but students as well as our co-workers seem happy to have us there.

At Peter’s large university, he is working with first- and second-year students (who are 17 to 19 years old) in their Management and Translation departments. Working from textbooks edited by the department faculty, he teaches in “Entrepreneurship” and “American Studies” courses, rotating through subgroups of the 80-student classes to lecture on the same topics for two weeks at a time. So though he teaches two classes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning, he sees the same students only once every two weeks. As someone who feels it’s important to learn people’s names, he’s struggling with the realization that it may be next to impossible to learn the 150 or so names if he sees them only once a fortnight. And after discussing “Immigration” and “Types of Businesses” six times each in the last two weeks, he’s now able to talk about them in his sleep!

At my much smaller university, I’m teaching two classes, International Marketing to 4th year students and “Ethics and Culture in International Enterprise” to 5th year students. In both cases, the topic was assigned, but the course content and structure were left up to me. I have a couple of textbooks as well as the Internet and the local library to draw from for material. I’ve also used some old Wall Street Journals for articles and case studies. The students have no textbooks, so they copy selections from my books, or else I type up condensed versions of the material. Classes are small at six to eight students. The English level varies, and it’s hard to gauge the best level at which to aim the material, but I’m feeling my way along as best I can.

Peter was pleased to find a nice local gym in which to get back to working out. We had checked out some other “fitness clubs” here but most were small, dingy, below-ground, filled with old equipment, and populated by massive, unfriendly body-builder types. It turns out there’s a new, large, clean place just a couple blocks from our apartment, with good new equipment and helpful staff. It’s just what he was looking for, and he now visits a couple times a week.

Ralph and Alice Live Here

2007-09-05T11:43:00.000-07:00

Extremely hot weather has returned for the moment, and we’ve taken to calling ourselves Ralph and Alice (as in Kramden). You don’t want to picture this, but when we get home to our hot, small, 9th-floor apartment (which we still like very much), we turn on the electric fan, pour a couple of cold beers, and enjoy them in our underwear, because wearing any more than that is just too hot. We’re experiencing tenement living at its finest!

More Cultural Moments
We learned recently that Ukrainians, when saying their email addresses, call the “@” sign “sobachka” which means little dog. We’ve read since (in the Int’l Herald Tribune which we were thrilled to find, along with a current WSJ, in Kiev) that many languages have come up with their own descriptive names for this symbol. In Czech it’s their word for “a herring wrapped around a pickle,” in Hebrew it’s “snail”, in Mandarin it’s “little mouse,” and in Thai it’s “wiggling worm.” Never thought about how someone who doesn’t speak English would have to come up with something to call this funny symbol with no meaning.

Speaking of dogs, there are many apparently feral dogs (and cats) that live on the streets here. What’s noteworthy is how calm and unthreatening they are, even when running in packs. Unlike the Central American experience of our son, whose knee-jerk reaction to seeing a stray dog now is to grab the nearest stick or rock in order to protect himself, these dogs are universally not problematic. Our theory is that they are so well cared for by locals, who seem to really love the dogs, that they’re rarely hungry. Our local host mom is an example. She keeps in her refrigerator a container for bones and other table scraps, which she regularly carries out to the fields near her apartment to give to the dogs. We even heard the mother of a young boy, who had dropped one of the pretzels he was eating at an outdoor play area, tell him to “leave it for the dogs.”

It is not unusual to see Ukrainians working in their gardens, whether at a more private dacha or in an open, more public plot on the outskirts of town, wearing only their undergarments. (Peace Corps volunteers have made jokes about “Speedo gardening”) It’s hot out there, and it’s just more comfortable.

News Flash
We are sad to report that, as of today, the one English-language TV channel we could get here, BBC World News, has just been replaced by…MTV-Ukraine! We could try to be grown up about this and say it will be better for our language study to have no English-language TV, but in fact we're quite disappointed. It's another opportunity for us to say to ourselves, "Remember, we're in the Peace Corps."

Ambiguity Land

2007-08-23T05:41:00.000-07:00

Over the past few weeks we have focused primarily on trying to learn this challenging Russian language. The Peace Corps’ “Self-Directed Language Learning Manual” tells us that successful language learners are able to live with a lot of ambiguity in everyday situations. Well, we have no choice but to live with lots of ambiguity. We often find ourselves in the situation of having been told something in Russian, without having understood all of the words. We then go through the following logical exercise: Well, if she said X, then A will happen; if she said Y, then B will happen. We then figure out how to be ready for any of the possibilities or, if it’s really important, we ask again to see if we can’t get better understanding of the situation. We met today with our landlady, who speaks no English, in order to take care of our rent payment, and to discuss getting Internet service to our apartment. We got a lot of what was said, but no matter how many times and ways we tried to get clarification, we couldn’t get the details. We know that Internet in our apartment will be possible, but not what’s involved, or what the price she was quoting would pay for (is it for installation, a fee per X-megabytes downloaded, a monthly fee for unlimited access, or?), nor what the delivery mode would be. It is in these situations that we go to our fallback position, and bring in our wonderful language tutor, who will kindly call the landlady, get the information, and in general represent our interests.

So, how tough is this Russian language? It starts with the different Cyrillic alphabet, which has some letters that are identical to ours and represent the same sounds (“true friends”), some that look like ours but make different sounds (“false friends”), and some that are completely new symbols to us (“new friends”). The good news is that once we have the alphabet down, word pronunciation is completely consistent. That is, each letter always makes the same sound. We start learning vocabulary, which is fine but often hilarious, because a simple word which in English is one short syllable is translated into a multi-syllabic multi-consonant mouthful. “Please” becomes “pa-ZHA-luy-sta” and “hello” is “ZDRAV-stvooy-tye.” There are three genders and six cases, which take effect by changing the endings of nouns and their adjectives, not always in the same ways. Verbs come in perfective and imperfective pairs, which are usually the same word but with prefix or suffix changes. To further complicate things, the alphabet in handwritten cursive, or Italic when in print, includes such extra challenges as the lower-case “t” looks like an “m” and the lower case “d” looks like our “g.” It took us the longest time to figure out that what we thought was the “salami” section on restaurant menus was actually the “salads” section. (“Salat” is Russian for “salad”) Recall also that Ukraine is a bilingual country, and that the official language is Ukrainian which is just close enough to Russian to tantalize but confuse. Most official signs and notices are written in Ukrainian. We’re sometimes uncertain of the reason for our not understanding something. Is it because it’s in Ukrainian or just because it’s advanced Russian? Suffice to say that our brains are forming all kinds of new neural connections, albeit much slower than we’d like.

We just returned from a wonderful visit with our first host family. We had been exchanging text messages over the weeks since we left, and they’d been encouraging us to come back for a visit. So we booked spots on the overnight train to Kiev, spent one night there to do some sight-seeing, then took the 2-hour marshrutka ride back to our first city. While there we enjoyed their great cooking and company, another picnic in the forest with friends, and another Sunday night at the banya. We’re excited to think about bringing our kids to meet them in December.

The start of school is just around the corner. Classes begin September 3, and faculty meetings will be held next week. We’ll finally begin in earnest our official Peace Corps work. Excitement and anxiety combine as we realize how little we know about what to expect. All will become clear soon though. We’ll meet the faculty and students of our respective universities, and find out if the lessons we have planned are on target for the students’ level of English and previous instruction.

Waiting to Exhale...

2007-07-27T03:14:00.000-07:00

…describes the way we’d felt for the last couple weeks. Can’t tell you how often our conversations had opened with, “As soon as we get into our own apartment…” It felt as if everything was on hold until we could identify our home for the next two years. Peace Corps required us to live with a host family for the first month in our permanent city, but that month was quickly coming to a close. We had looked at a few apartments with the help of our university counterparts, but either didn’t react fast enough to the couple we liked, or didn’t feel we could be as “flexible” as some of them would have required us to be. Our still-very-poor Russian language skills prevented us from doing the apartment hunting on our own, and our counterparts were now on vacation. After a few days of being in the awkwardly frustrating position of wanting to do the legwork to find an apartment but not feeling able to, our host mom came to the rescue. We had been anxious to find a place, but we didn’t want to offend her with our eagerness to do so. But last Thursday morning she said, we think, why don’t you go and buy the new classified ad newspaper (it comes out weekly on Thursdays), read through it to find apartments you’re interested in, and I’ll make the calls for you. (Perhaps she was as anxious for us to find a place as we were?) Well, she is the heroine of this story, because by the end of the day, with her calling, organizing, charming, and coordinating, we had looked at three decent apartments, and committed to one that we’re thrilled with.

Breathing
We moved in on Saturday, again with the charming and energetic coordination of our host mom whose friend was available on short notice with a small truck, and couldn’t be more pleased. The apartment is centrally located within walking distance of all basic needs, and only short marshrutka rides away from each of our universities. Many major Ukrainian cities have central parks with statues of Lenin featured prominently. Well, our new apartment is a block and a half from this city’s Lenin. It is relatively spacious, well-maintained, furnished, clean and light. There’s electricity and hot and cold water 24/7. It’s a “two room” apartment, which here means that it has two rooms in addition to the assumed bath and kitchen. Along with the bedroom there’s a living room with cable TV and a couch that opens to a second bed. Most of our belongings are unpacked for the first time in four months, and it’s beginning to feel like home.

Summer “Work”
Now that we’re settled in our apartment, we’re using our unstructured summer days to try to get a better handle on this Russian language. Peace Corps provides an allowance for us to hire a tutor, and we’ve started working with a good one two or three times per week. She is patient, gracious, speaks English, has a husband and an 18-year-old son, a brother living in Canada whom she’s visited more than once, and an untypical international perspective on life. (She likes and makes sushi, for example.) She serves not only as a language tutor, but as a cultural interpreter as well. We prepare lists prior to each session with questions about our assigned language lesson and about the particular mysteries (to us) of the day. Next up: how exactly does this couch open into a bed; if indeed this special plug in our kitchen links to the local radio station, where do we get a receiver to hear it; what’s the exact meaning of this combination of words we saw at a restaurant, etc.

Making “vodka” at home
We had the pleasure of watching this process recently, but based on our host mom’s reaction to our attempts to photograph it, we probably shouldn’t be telling you about it. The process she used matches that described to us by our first host dad when we asked how the homemade vodka, called “samaHONE”, is produced. He drew a small diagram, and what happened in the kitchen recently was that sketch come to life.

The ingredient list is short: water, beet sugar (the only kind here), and yeast. They are combined in a large vat in proper proportion, kept warm (our host mom wraps old heavy coats around what looks like a well-used ten-gallon milk can which then sits undisturbed deep under the kitchen table), and allowed to ferment. After two weeks or so, it’s time to check for readiness. This is done by lifting the lid and placing a lit match inside. If the match goes out, fermentation is still occurring. If it doesn’t go out, fermentation is complete and it’s time for distillation.

Distillation takes several hours, and two main parts are required. There’s the milk-can vat with fermented ingredients. And there’s a metal condenser, a 10-inch long by 3-inch diameter cylinder, with two openings at the top and two at the bottom. One tube connects the vat to the top of the condenser; another connects the kitchen faucet to the other opening at the top of the condenser. There’s a bucket placed below the condenser to collect the water which passes through it and exits from one of the openings at the bottom, and a large jar to collect the condensate (the whole point of this exercise!) which exits from the other opening at the bottom. The (heavy!) milk-can vat is placed atop the stove, the rubber tubes and condenser are all connected and taped tight, and the heat is turned on. As the juice in the vat is heated to evaporation, it passes into the condenser where it is cooled by the cold water dribbling past it in the neighboring chamber. The condensate drops into the glass jar to be enjoyed later as is or perhaps a hot pepper or walnuts are added for flavor. About one gallon of “samahon” is produced, and the six or so gallons of cooling water are saved to water plants. (We didn’t see what, if anything, remained in the vat at the completion of the process.)

We were fascinated watching this process, so much so that Peter got out the camera in order to document it. Immediately our host mom said, emphatically, “Nyet!” And something like, “What are you thinking?” Though no photos were allowed, our experience indicates this apparently illegal process occurs in many Ukrainian kitchens.

Gratitude

2007-07-14T11:07:00.000-07:00

We would like to express our profound gratitude to family, friends, and especially our fabulous children, for your love, support, communication, and understanding as we proceed on this adventure. We’re happy when we hear that you read these words, happier to hear directly from you of your own news, and happier still to imagine the various gatherings, celebrations, and performances that occur in our absence, though we often ache to be there. We can almost taste the tangerine martinis being sipped on the front porch with Lake Washington and Mt Rainier in the background.

More Cultural Moments

We’ve eaten more different chicken parts here than ever before, but the most unusual food we were served, which was gamely consumed by Peter, was pig’s ear, marinated with salt, pepper and garlic. Crunching on the cartilage, he said it tasted more like nose than ear.
Mayonnaise is the favorite salad dressing of Ukrainians. It is also widely used as a garnish, as a dip, as a topping on just about anything you can imagine, and some things you can’t.
It is fashionable for men to shave under their arms.
The largest grocery store sections are those for cooking oil and for vodka.
It is exceedingly rare to experience good customer service.
Sidewalk entrepreneurs take a regular household scale, cover it with plastic, and set it out next to a handmade sign advertising, “Your weight for 50 kopeks,” about 10 cents. (Yesterday a price war began: your weight for 25 kopeks.)
Ukrainians have a lovely tradition at birthday dinners. Everyone in attendance at the dinner table is expected to make a toast to the birthday celebrant. Not just a quick “to your health,” but at least a paragraph of eloquent compliments and good wishes, and even some of the youngest do it. They occur for the duration of dinner, and all hold up their shots of vodka while the toast is made, then clink their glasses all around before bottoms up.
At every museum we’ve visited, each room of the museum has a person attending it, who turns on the lights in that room before we arrive, and turns them off as soon as we leave to go to the next room.
We can count on one hand the number of racial minorities we’ve seen in Ukraine. If we don’t count Americans, it’s no more than two.
There are essentially no English language newspapers or magazines here. It’s rumored that the New York Times can be found in Kiev, but there’s nothing in English in the two cities in which we have now lived.
Our eyes tend to focus at our feet as we walk – to watch for the ubiquitous uneven sidewalks, big gaps in the asphalt, and uncovered manholes.
So far our favorite name for a local enterprise is the “BrokeBusinessBank.”

Bye for now.

At the Dacha

2007-07-02T10:37:00.001-07:00

We have visited our current host mom’s dacha three times now, and it’s a notable experience. Before coming to this country, we thought a dacha was an elaborate Russian summer home. From our limited experience so far, we understand that most dachas are small properties, no more than an eighth of an acre, usually with a small rustic cabin, whose primary purpose is to grow food in a “kitchen garden.” They tend to be in what might be called dacha developments, side by side by side in neat rows, sharing services such as well water and power. There’s no indoor plumbing. Outhouses are located on the opposite end of each property from the cabin. We mentioned earlier that our first host family, who live in a village just outside of our training city, had a large garden on their property as well as another garden a short walk away. Dachas seem to serve the same purpose, of growing one’s own food, for apartment dwellers, as well as offering a nature break from the cement high-rises in which many live.

When we go to the dacha we’re out the door by 7:00 am to catch a marshrutka bus to a small boat dock. There we board a small low-slung metal boat with fabric roof that holds a lot of people, all heading out to their dachas. The main reason for the early start is that on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays, from 8:30 to 10:30 AM (and only those times), river water is pumped through the pipes in the dacha development, so everyone can water their crops. When we arrive at our host mom’s place, we first change into our dacha clothes: well-worn and oversized shorts, T-shirts, and plastic sandals. Then we clomp around getting hoses set up, and once the water comes on, we’re focused on getting everything soaked. Everything currently includes tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, squash, potatoes, onions, garlic, and lots of flowers. There are also fruit trees: apricots, berries, apples, peaches, pears, and a spectacular grape arbor that is bending with the weight of plumping fruit. We city-slickers have enjoyed watching things grow from the first time we were there six weeks ago during our brief “site visit” until now. It is currently the season for apricots and cucumbers, as well as some absolutely delicious berries, unlike any we’ve seen before.

The setting is quite beautiful. Across the river from the city, these dachas are surrounded by green trees and bushes that make them invisible from the river. Small river-lets snake between the different little islands, and many folks enjoy the option of jumping in to cool off.

At the dacha, after the watering is done, it’s time for breakfast. There’s a hot plate for cooking, and soup, eggs, salads, and of course potatoes, are all on offer, as well as coffee, homemade vodka, and juice. After breakfast, with bamboo fishing poles in hand, we’ve usually gone to our host mom’s second “dacha” which in this case is another similar-sized property, with no structures, used strictly for gardening – mostly potatoes. It is located on one of the river-lets, with a few planks propped up at the river from which to fish. Our host mom catches three or four times more than anyone else, and the fish range in size from two to five inches. When we return to the cabin, they are promptly cleaned, floured and fried up for lunch -- the smaller ones eaten whole.

The Tom Sawyer feeling is augmented when we must cross a different small river-let to get to and from this second dacha. We now call it the “chain raft” and here’s why. The 20- by 8-foot metal raft is attached to chains on either end, which are each permanently attached to small metal docks on either side of the river, about 30 yards across. To cross, we first pull on the chain that connects the dock we’re standing on to the raft in order to get it to our side of the river, and we board it. Next, we grab the chain that’s attached to the other side of the raft, and pull on it, which results in the raft’s moving across water. Mission accomplished.

Peter has become made the primary “shashleek” preparer, always considered a man’s job here. At the dacha it involves stacking a few bricks in two short rows and starting the BBQ fire with kindling from the yard, papers, and small pieces of firewood. Chicken parts have been marinated, and Peter skewers the meat alternately with onions from the garden, and then tends them on the fire until they’re done. They’ve been part of either breakfast or lunch on different dacha visits.

The last thing we did before returning home most recently was to shake the big apricot tree so that bucketsful of perfectly ripe and sweet apricots fell. We’ve been enjoying them both fresh and cooked into jam since. Apricot overload is possible, but not likely.

Official PCVs

2007-06-26T10:49:00.000-07:00

It’s official! On Wednesday the 20th, we were sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers at a ceremony held in a beautiful auditorium at an institute in Kiev. The U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine did the honors, and all 70 of us took an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution and discharge our duties with respect and vigor, or something close to that. We left Kyiv the next day and have been in our new city since the morning of the 22nd. We live with a nice woman in a medium-sized apartment for a Peace Corps-required one month home stay. We’ll spend this month looking for our own place, and we’re greatly looking forward to living on our own again. Plans for the summer include preparing for classes that will start in September, working on our Russian, getting involved in other programs in town, and exploring this city and other parts of Ukraine. The weather is quite warm, but tempered by a breeze. The people we’ve met so far have been great. We each have “counterparts” at our universities who’ve agreed to be primary support persons, both at school and in life beyond school. They’ll be helpful in our apartment search, and in our looking for Russian tutors. Both are teachers of English, and speak it beautifully.

Though we were tickled to be finished with training, we had a tearful farewell on the 17th when it was time to say goodbye to our new family and friends. Not only did our host family come to see us off at the bus meeting place, but also the couple with whom we had enjoyed our forest picnics and nights at the banya (Russian sauna) surprised us by coming out to say goodbye. With promises to come back to visit regularly, and especially when our kids come to visit in Dec/January, we waved goodbye from the Peace Corps bus. (Another cultural moment, or perhaps not that surprising if you know Peter, was the goodbye gift our friends gave Peter: a bottle of local vodka.)

Cultural Moments

2007-06-10T01:06:00.000-07:00

“Cultural moments” are what our delightful language teacher calls those experiences which are uniquely Ukrainian, such as ceremonies on national holidays or other special occasions. We also now apply the term to those smaller experiences or reflections that shine a bright light on the fact that this is a different place, which is not always obvious. Two recent cultural moments:

Our host mom, age 38, just had major dental work done, which included getting a whole new set of front teeth (this non-dental-specialist thinks it might be called a “full bridge”??), and she looks great. She was surprised by Marcia’s positive answer to her question, “Are those teeth your own?”

While riding home on the marshrutka, we sat facing two women deep in conversation, both carefully coiffed, one with hair of bright orange while the other’s was maroonish-purple. (Natural hair color is not the fashion. Much care is given to one’s appearance, and many women – of all ages and professions -- go for rather unusual colors.)

We suffered through a couple weeks of very hot weather, but now it’s lovely, warm with a slight breeze. And it’s strawberry season! For the past week we’ve been eating fresh strawberries with almost every meal, all freshly picked from our hosts’ backyard garden. They’re small and very sweet – yum!

In one week we must say goodbye to this pretty city and, even harder, to the wonderful people we have met and lived with for the last three months. We will go again to Kiev for a few days of classes and meetings before the big event: swearing in as official Peace Corps volunteers. The next day we get on a train with all of our belongings, which have grown with the books and supplies added to the already maxed-out quantity we arrived with, and officially move to our new city.

We learned last month that our home for the next two years is to be a large city in the south of Ukraine. We visited there for three days, and were pleased. It has a population of approx 350,000, is located on the Dnepr River not far from where it meets the Black Sea, and offers all the amenities of a big city, as well as a bit of the blight. We’ll be teaching at two different universities, Peter at a larger public “technical” university, Marcia at a small private business and law university, both in the International Economic Relations departments.

Off now to study for the big oral Russian language exam that awaits us later this week…

Fine Forest Gatherings

2007-05-14T10:18:00.000-07:00

Overnight, the fruit trees and tulips bloomed. It is a beautiful time of year here. On May 1 we celebrated Labor Day by joining our host “parents” and their good friends for an afternoon picnic in the forest. We walked to the friends’ house, carrying supplies and food in a duffle bag. After 25 minutes we arrived at their house, and proceeded to load their two well-used bicycles with all of the supplies for a barbeque in the woods: marinated pork for shish kebab (called “shashliki”), breads, salads, desserts, water, beer, wine, vodka, stakes, crossbars, skewers, blankets, napkins, etc. Then we six walked to the outskirts of the village, pushing the two loaded bikes into the forest. After about an hour the perfect site was located, the supplies were unloaded, firewood was scavenged, and a fire was built in the clearing. The four stakes, curved at the top to support crossbars, were planted at the corners of the fire. The two long cross bars would eventually hold a dozen large skewers filled with beautifully marinated meat, skewered alternately with onions and “sala.” Sala is a Ukrainian favorite, and is basically pig fat that looks like the fat part of raw bacon. The fire was stoked until really hot, and then allowed to die down as we enjoyed the first course, which included the first toasts.

This was not the first time we had participated in the ritual of multiple rounds of toasts. It starts with filling everyone’s shot glasses with vodka (sometimes also wine or beer is served). Then a toast is made in honor of the occasion, all clink and repeat the toast, and down their shots. (It is considered poor form to “sip” your vodka – but some of us do it to survive the occasion in an upright position!) There is a tradition about who should be toasted when (something about the third toast to the women, etc.), all at the table (or blanket) are expected to eventually make a toast, and toasts tend to be counted. It’s not unusual to have several.

Next at the picnic, the meat, onions, and sala were threaded perfectly onto the skewers, and placed over the smoldering fire. They were slowly roasted until perfectly cooked, and then enjoyed, one large skewer each. We ate right off the skewer, and they were delicious! Even though we still speak so little Russian, and they speak virtually no English, we communicated enough to have a wonderful afternoon.

We have neglected to mention that it was snowing when we set out for our picnic. By the time we arrived at the site, the sky had cleared to sunshine which lasted until our walk home at dusk, when the snow came back with strong winds. We had dressed for cold weather, and stayed comfortable. There are regular jokes now about how bad weather doesn’t keep the six of us from doing things together.

Next up was an outing on Victory Day, May 9, which celebrates the Soviet victory over Germany in 1945. We attended a wonderful morning civic ceremony at this city’s large memorial, at which veterans from that war arrived in uniform with all their medals proudly pinned to their chests. The tradition is to bring flowers to hand to a veteran for him to place at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier there. By the end, there was a beautiful, colorful mountain of flowers at the site. Afterward, we met our four picnic compatriots for a walk in the large city park and an hour’s boat ride on the city’s river. It rained on and off, but we had a delightful time.

Then just this Saturday night, we were again invited for a picnic in the forest. It was a much more typical Ukrainian menu. First, slices of sala (remember the pig fat?) were cooked over the campfire, followed by plump fatty sausages. A variety of greens, freshly picked from the garden, accompanied the meat. All was eaten by hand, and punctuated by toasts of vodka and beer. We were next to a stream, there was a beautiful sunset, the frogs and birds performed a “sunset symphony”, and it was again a lovely gathering.

We have discussed why picnics in the forest seem to be a favorite social event for our host family and their friends. At home, if we wanted to enjoy an evening with friends, we might go out to eat. However, this is not a restaurant culture. The cost of eating out, while inexpensive to us when prices are converted into dollars, is relatively quite expensive for most Ukrainians. Many families, like our host family and their friends, grow much of their food. Our family has a large garden behind the house, which includes a big greenhouse, as well as a separate plot 10 minutes’ walk away. At the house, lots of greens, tomatoes, strawberries, cabbage and more are grown, plus fruit from apple, cherry, and grape trees/vines. The distant plot is where the potatoes and carrots are grown. (The whole family went out a couple of weekends ago to plant next year’s crop.) At most meals we enjoy the fruits of these gardens, which have been stored in their cellar or canned. Grocery shopping is minimal, usually fresh fruits, cheeses, sausages, small amounts of meat, and sweets. The freezer is full, and milk and eggs come from neighbors. Given this norm, it seems perfectly reasonable that if you want an evening out with friends, you pack up what you have, and go out into nature!

Between social gatherings, we have continued with language lessons each morning, teaching or teacher training most afternoons, homework and lesson planning at night. Tomorrow we will go to Kiev and find out where we will be spending the next two years. Since we will be gone from here for ten days, it may be awhile before we can tell you the news. In any case, we continue to do well, we’re grateful for our fine host family and their hospitable friends, and we’re enjoying the adventure.

Almost the Mid-Point of Training

2007-04-30T11:00:00.000-07:00

Today begins our sixth week of Peace Corps training, which means we’re almost half way through. It’s a grind, but the fact that it’s short-lived makes it easier to tolerate. We have each co-taught four Business English classes thus far, and the sink-or-swim training method has produced many mistakes for us to learn from! Tomorrow is a holiday – May 1st is Labor Day, and it’s a big deal here. Schools and most businesses get Sunday- Wednesday off, but Peace Corps takes off only the actual day of Tuesday. Nonetheless, we appreciate the extra day to catch our breath.

In two weeks we learn where we’ll be spending the next two years. We find out at a much-anticipated Site Announcement Meeting back at the funky conference center outside Kiev, which occurs the night before we leave to actually visit the location. We’ll spend three days there, meeting our professional counterparts, orienting ourselves at our future worksites, and staying with a second host family, with whom we’re to live for the first month “at site.” Then we return to our current city and host family for the final weeks of training.

We continue to greatly enjoy our current host family. They have invited us to join them at their regular Sunday evening sauna sessions at a rustic local community center ten minute’s walk from the house. For our anniversary they surprised us with a special cake, and a small statuette of two love birds. Most nights the six of us have dinner together, and manage increasingly in-depth conversations (read: we’ve improved from mime and grunts to three-year-old level sentences). We can’t wait for our Russian to improve enough to have real conversations with them – they’re great people.

Here’s is a collection of things we’re used to now that seemed strange initially:

Maps – Ukrainians are self-admittedly terrible at reading maps. There were no maps in the country prior to 1991. Curiosity about what might be outside one’s city or village was viewed with suspicion. Consequently, today’s adults have little concept of N, S, E, & W, and struggle with orienting themselves on a map.

Shoe care – At the door of every Ukrainian home are found shoe polish, brush, and other shoe cleaning equipment. Every time one goes out, thorough cleaning of shoes precedes departure. Shoes are never worn in Ukrainian homes. When you arrive at someone’s home, whether house or apartment, you remove your shoes at the door. You either put on your slippers (if at home) or spend the visit in your socks.

Pedestrians – do not have the right of way, ever. One must be ever vigilant, and if it comes down to you or the vehicle, it is assumed the pedestrian gives way.

Food & eating – Meals are served on small plates, about desert plate size. Refills are plentiful. There are lots of potatoes at every meal. (A great selection of other good things also, but always the central dish is some kind of potato, usually mashed, or boiled then kind of stir-fried with vegetables and spices.) Napkins on the table are always thin small paper ones, cocktail napkin size, rolled together into a cup to be taken as needed. For special occasions, guests are given humongous dish/kitchen towels to spread across their laps. Peter and I usually share one. Knives are rarely used at the table. One uses a fork, spoon and fingers. (Our family has one table knife, and a couple of great sharp ones.) There’s only instant coffee. Breakfast is the main meal, lunch and dinner are progressively smaller meals. Overall the cuisine is hardy but bland.

Greeting strangers – one doesn’t. Apparently a cultural remnant from more secretive Soviet times, one doesn’t nod at, let alone greet or smile at, someone one passes on the street. At first we thought it was because we were strangers, but then we noticed that even our host “parents”, who both grew up in this village, rarely say anything to people they pass in the street. We assume the faces are familiar, if not well known, but no acknowledgment is made. In homes and at other meeting times, there is warmth galore, but not out in public.

Moving on from "Delete"

2007-04-19T11:19:00.001-07:00

Actually, we are pretty sure we know what happened to our blog: operator error in Ukrainian. We've been going online at an Internet cafe in the main part of our city. When we went to our blog posting site, all of the instructions appeared in Ukrainian. In my confusion I must have inadvertently clicked on the "delete this blog" button. We've lost what had been written before, but we'll just go on from here. The very exciting thing is that as of today we have this cool technology which allows Internet access through our new cell phone. Right now I'm sitting in our bedroom at our host family's house, typing this post. Since we're on our own laptop, the blog instructions are in English! Hooray -- I don't think we'll be deleting ourselves anymore.

Life continues to go well here. Roosters and the alarm wake us each weekday at 6:15. After showers and a hearty breakfast we're out the door at 7:50 to catch the "marshrutka" bus into town. By 8:30 we're sitting down to 4 hours of Russian language study. The afternoon is time for "technical" training, which has involved visiting various Ukrainian educational institutions, and instruction in a range of aspects of teaching. We have each been scheduled to co-teach with another trainee for eight sessions in the next three weeks. We're working at the college level, teaching 17 to 21 year olds. Today was the first day of instruction for both of us. We were both nervous going in, but the outcome was positive. We teach in English, to students with a wide range of English ability.

The Peace Corps keeps our schedules full, and we're looking forward to the weekend. Take care!

We don't know what happened either

2007-04-16T20:22:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the blog being down for awhile. We don't know what happened to it either. Maybe we accidentally misread the ukrainian computer directions. Anyway, everything is fine, and we will continue posting as usual.