MoldovAnn

Monday, October 24, 2005
I arrived this afternoon in Kiev, Ukraine, as one of the new United Nations International Volunteers for the Chernobyl Recovery and Development Program. The plane landed at 3:30 pm and less than 2 hours later I was seated in the CRDP office, trying to focus on an impromptu “staff meeting” with 2 other UNVs and our program director, Pavlo. Yugesh is from Nepal and has been with the project for a little over a year now. Micezyslaw (pronounced something like Me-ches-slav) arrived from Poland earlier today. Pavlo is Ukrainian. Alessandra, the fourth UNV member of our team, is to arrive later this evening. Pavlo speaks Russian, English and Ukrainian. Yugesh speaks Nepalese, Russian, English and a little Hindi. Micezyslaw speaks Polish, German, French and Russian. Alessandra speaks Italian, English French, German and Russian. With only 2 languages in my command (and one of them not so well commanded after 2 weeks in the U.S.), I am not feeling very impressive.

Our sort-of staff meeting with Pavlo is conducted in Russian, the only language we all have in common. I struggle to follow the conversation: (a) I’m a bit out of practice, (b) I’m not used to any of these accents, (c) I’m more than a bit tired, and (d) I’m totally overwhelmed. With lots of concentration, I can understand most of what they say, but Yugesh’s Nepalese accent and Micezyslaw’s Polish accent make their Russian sound like something I’ve never heard before. I have a weird sensation of how I must sound in Russian.

There’s an international conference next week in Chernihiv, an old and apparently very nice city 2 hours north of Kiev. Participants will come from all the Ukrainian regions our project works with, as well as from Chernobyl-effected regions of Belarus and Russia. Pavlo says something about how our participation will be very helpful, but I didn’t quite catch what it is we’ll be expected to do. I’m too worried about where I am going to live to think about how I might be able to help with the conference next week!

All three of us newly-arrived UNVs have to find apartments this week. Gone are the good ‘ole days of Peace Corps holding my hand through things like this, we’ve got to find our own accommodations. Yugesh and other staffers are all offering to help, which is some comfort. Rental prices have apparently gone up tremendously in the last year in Kiev, so we’re not sure how we’ll find places within the housing allowance UNV provides us. Cristina, an Italian woman who is our Program Officer (and is the person I’ve had the most communication with over the past few months), tells me that she’s trying to lobby Headquarters to increase housing allowances for UNVs located in Kiev. All UNVs in Ukraine receive the same stipend, but those living in southeastern Ukraine (where another UNV project is being implemented) may have to pay only $100/month for an apartment, whereas I’m being told I’ll be lucky to find someplace for $700. I’ll have to worry about that tomorrow, I’m too tired today.

After an hour or so at the office, Yugesh invites me to have dinner with him and Micezyslaw. We stop at a grocery store on the way to his apartment to get a few things. Micezyslaw and I have a few minutes to play “20 questions” with each other. I’m guessing he’s in his early to mid-50’s. He tells me he has been a city mayor, worked for art museums and journalist organizations, and most recently taught at a University. There are more details in his answers but I have a hard time catching it all. I tell him a bit about myself, and when he hears that I’ve been living in a small Moldovan village for the past year, he seems quite interested and asks more about Moldova. Of course he’s heard of the wonderful Moldovan wine. I like him right away, he seems very kind, and I would bet his students loved him at the University – he has a very kind and patient demeanor, and I can tell there’s an impressive intellect that matches his extensive intellect, yet he doesn’t come across as snobby or condescending at all. In the grocery store, as I realized I was feeling overwhelmed, he made a comment of how this must be quite a change from village life. Yes, I say, it’s a little different. After I picked a couple salads from the deli case, he gently and kindly managed the selection of the rest of dinner with Yugesh. I was on the verge of wandering around aimlessly, staring wide-eyed at the cramped rows of boxes, cans and bottles. The aisles were incredibly narrow, barely enough room to squeeze past other shoppers, and the check-out lanes seemed to have been a last-minute thought, jammed into the front of the store with enough space for one customer, the rest of the line fighting with other shoppers for space in the clogged aisles.

As we check-out, I notice how the deli worker had put each of our 5 or 6 small containers of salads into individual plastic bags, and then put each of those plastic bags into a larger plastic bag. The cashier sllloooowwwwllllyy extracts each container from the layers of bags to scan the price sticker, and then returns them to their bags-in-a-bag, ultimately to put them all into yet another plastic bag. I comment to Micezyslaw how I remember it was in 1992 when I was studying in St. Petersburg – plastic bags were about as rare and valuable a commodity as gold bricks. He laughs, remembering, too, and says “It’s a whole different world now.”

You can say that again.