MoldovAnn

Igor and I are both stunned by how much stuff we have. To think that three years ago I moved into this apartment with two suitcases - everything I had in Ukraine fit into two suitcases. This weekend we moved four carloads of stuff to our new apartment, and there’s still at least one more car load to go. Wow.

I enjoyed unpacking most of it today - I love getting re-acquainted with my things! And it’s fun to organize and arrange our things in a new way, in a new place. I am soooo in love with “my room” (at least I’ve dubbed it “my room”!) - a small room with a fabulous huge new wardrobe and a reall dresser! I haven’t had a dresser or a nice wardrobe in 4 years, and I’m so excited to have enough space to arrange my clothes the way I like to.

We also are now the proud owners for our first set of living room furniture. Igor had heard about a good deal on a 3-piece cream and brown living room set. He went to check it out, brought me some pictures of it (since I couldn’t get out to see it myself), and when we decided to purchase it, he arranged for the delivery straight to our new place. So I actually hadn’t seen the new furniture until Friday, when we got the apartment keys. I was excited to finally see it, as Igor had been very enthusiastic about it - and it is, after all, our first major household purchase together. Imagine my surprise when I unpacked the loveseat and saw not cream, but GREEN! I would call it “lettuce green”, a soft green, kind of like key lime pie, maybe. It’s not bad, it’s just very much not what I expected. And somehow Igor was equally surprised. My first thought was that the shop pulled a fast one on him, delivering green furniture instead of cream, but Igor was standing there, helping actually, when they packed it up and loaded it all on the truck. How he could have ever thought this furniture was cream is beyond me. They must have had some funky lights in that shop. So we’re trying to get used to our lettuce green furniture, which doesn’t in the least bit go with the rug that came with the apartment. Looks like our next household purchase will be a new rug.

By the way, the rug that Dad brought us from Armenia goes absolutely perfectly in “my room” - yeah!

We’re going to stay one more week in the old place, and officially start living in the new place next weekend. I can’t wait! I’m glad we got so much done this weekend. I have business trips each of the next three weeks, so won’t actually have much time in our new place for nearly a month - just in time for Christmas!

Speaking of Christmas, Eilene and I went on a tour Saturday of a small factory outside of Kyiv that does hand-made glass Christmas-tree decorations. It was really cool to see the whole process - blowing the glass, applying the real silver plating and glazes, and the hand-painted details. The highlight, of course, was the opportunity purchase ornaments for absurd prices - none of them cost more than $4. I’ll write more and post photos as soon as I find the camera cable in a box somewhere.

We had our first real snow yesterday, and quite a bit overnight. The car was actually frozen shut! Igor finally brought out a kettle full of boiling water, which we poured over all the door locks. What a sight we were this morning, with stacks of suitcases on the sidewalk, trying to get into our car. The city was quite pretty today, all covered in white.

Time for bed. A busy week ahead.

We spent most of the weekend packing. Good grief, we have a lot more stuff than I realized. Amazing how much one can accumulate in 3 years time, especially when I was supposed to be here just temporarily! Our kitchen is back to state it was in when I first moved in - 2 forks, 2 spoons, 2 knives, 2 plates, no glasses, a few mugs, a couple pots. And to think - that was sufficient back then! As much as I hate packing, I LOVE unpacking. It’s like Christmas, only I get to relive the wonderful memories of each item as I unwrap it. Next weekend the fun part will begin!

The excitement of the weekend was when we discovered that someone had hacked into our wireless network and used up our internet limit for the month in the span of 3 days. Thank goodness we noticed the lights on the router going crazy late Friday night (or was it early Saturday morning) when neither of us was using the internet - we pulled the plug right away and cut the bandit off. We popped over to the internet company’s nearby office on Saturday, and they gave us a print-out of how to change the password for our wireless router. When we got home, we discovered that the screenshots they gave us do not in the least bit resemble the website, and after horsing around for an hour, we finally gave up and decided to go without wifi for the next week until we move.

I took a break from packing and internet fiascos yesterday to go to a huge mall with some American friends. Wow, I didn’t realize we had those kinds of places here! It’s huge, with an indoor ice-skating rink, bowling alley, movie theatre, gigantic grocery store, and a ton of over-priced speciality shops and boutiques. We did some window shopping, had a coffee, and decided to head home. Then the fun began. I swear, only Ukrainian drivers can manage to create a traffic jam in a freakin’ parking lot. Which reminds me, I saw a complete and total disaster of a traffic jam at a McDonald’s drive-through window the other day. How on earth? Only in Ukraine… I can hardly begin to describe the chaos of our particular traffic jam - it was utterly ridiculous. I finally ended up squeezing around a bus that just wasn’t going to move, and got out through the entrance. But we eventually made it home - after spending about twice as much time in the car as we had spent in the mall itself. Not a trip I plan to be repeating.

Tonight we are pooped from all the packing, the cat is busily inspecting all boxes and bags, and I’m looking forward to the week. How wonderful to look forward to going to work!

I made my first University presentation last night, about applying to MBA and PhD programs in the U.S. Wow, did I ever feel in my element! I surprised myself how much information I still have at my fingertips, but then again, I guess working for ten years at Ohio State ought to have left some remnants in my creaky ole brain. I had been thinking that I wouldn’t do so many outreach activities myself, since we have advisers and advising centers who are supposed to do that, but wow, I love being with a group of students again, talking with ease about a subject I know and love. I think I will join in on a couple presentations a month, if I can - especially if I can get away with doing them in English! We started our presentation in Russian last night (I was with one of our Kyiv advisers, Tanya, and my new assistant Ella -who, by the way, is absolutely fabulous), and one of the students called out “In English, please!” So we tag-teamed in two languages, since Tanya is more comfortable presenting in Russian (actually, she’s most comfortable in Ukrainian, but for some reason decided to present in Russian). I had a good chuckle after our presentation when a student came up and said that he was very impressed with my Russian - he said he hadn’t realized at first that I was American! I think he was putting into practice some of the advice from my presentation about the power of flattery - how a little flattery can go a long way if you are trying to get a professor to notice your application.

I’ve been back to the Middle Eastern restaurant 2 more times (and also have realized that they call it an Arab restaurant). On Sunday I got lunch to go, and while I waited I chatted with the young man working the cash register, Mohammed. Really nice young man, married to a Ukrainian woman. He introduced me to the new manager, Abrahim, who doesn’t speak English or Russian but who has a lovely smile and gives a good sales pitch in Arabic (at least he delivered it well, even if I didn’t understand the content). I was there again Tuesday night with Igor and some friends, and both Mohammed and Abrahim remembered me, greeting me with big smiles and a wave from across the restaurant. We had the same waitress as the first time we were there a couple weeks ago, and she also remembered us. I love this place!

We have just over a week until we can move to our new apartment - yeah! The coming weekend will be consumed with packing - yuck! I am so excited that we can finally consider ourselves “settled”. Granted, we’ll still be renting, but mentally I am finally ready to make some purchases that up until now seemed like splurging, not mention a pain the butt to haul around if we had to move to another country - my own set of stainless steel cookware, a food processor, a toaster (actually, Dad promised the toaster as a house-warming gift when we move), and a few other things that will just make life easier. Yeah!

I got a massage last weekend from a masseuse recommended by a colleague. He’s a medical student, and is putting his way through university working as a massage therapist. He comes to your place and does massages on the floor. It was a good massage, and much needed, but what I found most interesting was that he is from Turkmenistan. He’s been living and studying in Kyiv for about 5 years. I was a little embarrassed to admit to him that I know very very little about Turkmenistan, but he took advantage of my undivided attention to tell me a long and detailed history of the country. I didn’t catch all of it (it’s hard to concentrate on a history lesson in Russian when you are trying to relax and enjoy your massage!), but I enjoyed listening to him. Even though he dislikes the current regime, he clearly has a lot of pride in his people and heritage.

The sad news of the week is that I accidentally killed my ipod. It fell in a pot of water, and my attempts to dry it out with a hairdryer turned out to be not such a good idea - I think I fried it, literally. I am really missing my daily news dose on my commute to and from work. Electronics are so freaking expensive here, I hate to think of buying a new ipod here. But I don’t know if I can wait until my next trip to the States….

Here’s a really great article on the impact of the US elections on us Americans living abroad. I am happy to say that I have not experienced such serious anti-American sentiment myself, but I have certainly been called out on what my country has been doing the last 8 years. I’ve lost count of how many people have congratulated me in the last week on our new president, with such big beautiful smiles. One of Igor’s friends remembered that I once said I would not live in the US as long as there was a Bush in the White House - and asked if we are going to move back now!

I remembered I had to do something today that required my physical presence in the office, so I waited an extra hour this morning before venturing to the metro. The line was about 30 deep, and within a minute of me queuing up, another 30-40 people appeared behind me. People were patient but some clearly irritated. The automated machines weren’t working properly, so the only way to get the new tokens was to stand in line at one of two windows and get your tokens from a live person. Still no monthly passes (Igor was told they won’t be available until December).

I started chatting with the guy in front of me, and another lady joined in. I made a comment about it being a bit ridiculous that they didn’t start selling the new tokens a few days ago, and the lady chuckled and said (ironically) “But then people wouldn’t have to wait in line!”

You can see the Soviet legacy so clearly in certain aspects of Ukrainian society, and the ability and tolerance to stay in endless lines is certainly one of those legacies.

So the price of the metro (subway) goes up by 4 times starting tomorrow, from 50 kopeks to 2 hrivna. Can you imagine the public outrage of an increase from 50 cents to 2 bucks in, say, New York City? Granted, the price of the metro hasn’t increased in something like 8 years, and given inflation rates of 24% this year alone, clearly a rate increase is in order. But man does it suck to be your average Kyiv worker with a monthly income of about $200 - your monthly commute now costs not $5 (24UAH), but starting tomorrow will cost $20 (96UAH) - that’s an increase from 2.5% of your monthly income to 10%, would you be a little upset?

Frankly, I think Americans would be pitching fits in the streets, if an American public transit system would even dare such a move. In Ukraine, they deflect hysteria by not making available the new passes and tokens - a completely different kind of infuriation (is that even a word?).

Prices of public transportation change tomorrow, 4 November. I tried to buy a new monthly pass last Friday and today - nichevo - they don’t have any. So instead I tried to buy the new 2 hrivna tokens today - nichevo - nada - dream on.

Four million people will need to buy new tokens tomorrow - is this good planning? I am sure I was not alone in wanting to buy a new pass and/or tokens in advance so as to avoid the lines on 4 November. Hah!

The bagel I had for lunch today will NOT make up for the frustration I will face tomorrow morning, standing in line with 4 million commuters to buy the new tokens. I think I’ll work from home, just to avoid the chaos. It’s the whimp’s way out, but wow am I ever grateful that I have the flexibility to do it!

We are moving! We finally found an apartment that we like, with a manageable commute to my new office, with a price that doesn’t make us ill at the idea of paying it every month. We’re moving out of the center of Kyiv, though, which is going to be an interesting change for us. And not just out of the center, but to the edge of Kyiv - two bus stops past the last metro station. But wow, is it ever quiet out there. And there’s a giant park nearby, a forest really. We are really looking forward to some long walks there.

We are also literally “moving up” - to the 10th floor! Even though we’ll be far from the center, we’ll have an amazing view, and we’ll see the weekly Kyiv fireworks from our balcony, instead of just hearing them but seeing nothing through the high-rises that surround us now.

And yes, there’s an elevator.

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The temperature has finally dropped enough that the centralized heat was turned on a few days ago. We’d been waiting for that before we gave the cat her quarterly shave. I decided to give it a try this time, and the cat actually laid down in the tub when I got out the electric shaver! Guess she was ready to lose all that insulation. Igor somehow just couldn’t stand by and let me manage the process, and I finally handed over the shaver. He’s getting better at it, but Pepette’s patience is not endless, and she especially hates it when he shaves her legs and head. She looks utterly ridiculous, but she’s happy! She got some extra special yummy treats for being such a good girl, had a good sprint around the apartment to demonstrate her new-found energy, and is now curled up on my lap purring like mad. Ah, how I love my monster.

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My new job is starting up slowly but surely. There’s a lot of stuff I have to do before I can really start doing my actual job - set up my office, buy a laptop and other equipment, hire my assistant, etc. The computer I’m using until I get my laptop is a dinosaur, and frustrates me to tears with its slowness and lack of capacity. The IT guy did something today that made it a bit better, but man I can’t wait to get a new computer.

They weren’t kidding about the 50% travel! By the end of this year, I should travel at least to DC, Budapest, Moscow, and one or two cities in Ukraine. But I can’t schedule any of it yet because the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is taking forever to do my new visa (because my visa is based on my employment, I had to get a new one when I changed jobs). They’ve had my passport for going on six weeks now, and it is also frustrating me. On the other hand, I have this sneaky feeling that I should enjoy the inability to travel while I can, ’cause soon enough I’ll be traveling a LOT.

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Saturday was my three year anniversary in Ukraine. It’s incredible to think how much has happened in these three years. I came here expecting to stay a year, maybe two, and I just updated my profile with the State Department’s Travel Registration to “staying indefinitely”. Three years in this apartment is also almost a record for me - the second longest residency in one abode since I moved out of my parents’ 18 years ago.

Life is good. I’m so glad, and very grateful, that I’ve found my place in the world, here with Igor. And the monster (aka Pepette).

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I downloaded 5 seasons of Homicide: Life on the Street. I loved the show when it was on air, but discovered it only after a couple of seasons. I really enjoyed watching from the beginning now and getting all the ‘backstories’ that I had missed before. Man, what a great show.

I’m also still working on my embroidery. I finished three small projects so far, one of which I want to frame and give to Igor’s mom for her birthday. My current project is by far the most ambitious to date - eleven different colors and a pretty complicated pattern. I’m ready to be done with it and try out the Ukrainian patterns I bought during our recent trip to the Carpathians. I’m about half way through it, argh. One cool side effect is that I am catching up on my podcasts, and the Podiobooks and Librivox books that I’ve been wanting to listen to. But now I’m way behind on my stack of paper books. *sigh*

Crap, it’s cold today! It’s hard to believe that just one week ago we were melting in the unbearable heat in Moldova and Ukraine, taking cold showers that helped for about 5 minutes and then we were soaking wet again with sweat. Today I wore: jeans, sweater, jacket, soaks, and closed-toe shoes. I don’t remember the last time my toes were covered up, not to mention my arms! And Igor just closed the window because it is actually too chilly to leave it open.

Yuck.

I’ve been working all week on a post about our time in Moldova but somehow can’t quite finish it. We had such a great time. I’ll try to wrap it up the post this week.

Dad’s starting his round of Good-bye visits with friends; he leaves Friday for a 2-week Mediterranean cruise that sounds really awesome - Spain, Italy, Monacco, Greece. And he’s talking about coming back for the winter holidays. I hope we can find an affordable yet bigger apartment by then. This one is just a tad too cramped with 3 people.

Dad had his last visit to Korosten for this trip. Igor’s father slaughtered a lamb and they made shashliki. Dad made pancakes this morning, which Igor’s folks seem to enjoy.

Igor starts a new job this week, teaching history at an institute, kind of like a community college. He’s nervous since it’s been quite a few years since he taught. We brought his old history books back from Korosten this weekend so he can brush up.

I bought a cross-stitch starter’s kit today, with grand ideas to someday be able to do the beautiful, traditional Ukrainian embroidery. Based on the first hour of work, it’s going to be a long time before I’ll be ready to something so intricate and detailed.

Tomorrow it’s back to the grind. The masses have returned to Kyiv after a wonderful month when nearly the entire city was somewhere else on vacation - the roads are busy again, and the buses and metro are a nightmare. *Sigh* This city is great in August and January, when everyone leaves.

An entire day at home - ah, it was great. The rain kept Igor and me inside most of Saturday (that and his sprained ankle - so much for our jogging endeavors!). Dad was more adventurous, and braved the icky weather to spend a few hours in the city center. We weren’t entirely lazy, but after a few hours of very serious housecleaning (where does the grime come from?), we spent the rest of the day as couch kartoshki (potatoes), watching movies, drinking wine. Perfect.

The Patriarch of all the Orthodox churches, from Istanbul, is in Kyiv this weekend to celebrate the 1020th anniversary of Christianity in Ukraine/Rus’. It’s sort of a strange anniversary to celebrate, but I suppose it was a good enough reason, and President Yushchenko is not likely to have much of a political career by the 1025th anniversary, so I guess he’s getting in what he can. I was in Russia in 1988, the year of the 1000th anniversary of Christianity in Rus’. The official celebration was held in Moscow at that time, not in Kyiv (which was the seat of power at the time of and the actual location of the baptism of Rus’). We watched a bit of the ceremony on TV, looked like a decent crowd showed up despite the rain. The President’s speech was long, doubly long with the English translation.

Dad found the Aviation Museum on Friday. Kudos to him! I didn’t even know there was an aviation museum in Kyiv. And it’s not close to anything in particular, so it was an adventure in itself for him to find the place. He said it was not bad, even had descriptions of the displays in English. We’ll have to check it out sometime.

The one trip I did make out of the apartment yesterday was to get some passport photos - time to get a new passport! I hate showing people my current passport - it’s ancient, and the photo doesn’t even look like me at all. It’s like a completely different person, and I look 10 years older than I am now, instead of 10 years younger. I can see the sadness in my face, the depression and the low self-esteem. I was more than four years into an unhappy marriage, with 2 more to go. Boy, did it ever take me a long time to learn those lessons!

Well, I’m pretty happy with the photo this time around, and I’m definitely happy with my life now. Ready to start with some clean passport pages, looking forward to lots of new adventures.

of Pigs… In…. Spaaaaacccceee!
Don’t know why that is stuck in my head today, but it is. I’d love to watch some Muppets right now.

Talked to the landlady again today to ask if we could stay until the end of September. It would just be so much easier if we could deal with all this a bit later. Igor and I both have business trips in August, Dad’s here until early September… She has this nasty habit of telling me what I should do, what I can do, and wanting to debate with me our decisions. During our last conversation, when I told her we couldn’t afford what she wants for the apartment, she said “Oh come on, I know you get $X for housing from UN.” I curtly told her she was misinformed, that in fact my housing allowance is half of what she quoted. She then told me that I should tell “them” to pay me more. If only it were so simple! But either way, it’s none of her business how much my living allowance is and how much I chose to spend on an apartment, but I didn’t manage to express that to her last time.

Well, this time I was better prepared to not get sucked into a discussion of my personal matters. I did say that with Dad visiting us until early September, it would be really helpful if we could stay until the end of September, and deal with moving after he is gone. She started in with her questions, and I promptly cut her off with “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to discuss our various reasons with you. It’s our personal business. Our question to you is whether or not we can stay until the end of September.” She was a bit surprised, but fortunately didn’t seem offended by my rebuke. She said her idea had been to get two students to rent the apartment starting in September, so she’s not sure. Then she asked if we had made a final decision to move out, don’t we want to stay there? It’s expensive to move, etc etc etc. I told her we would happily stay there but the bottom line is we cannot afford the price we wants. Much to my surprise, she said she could take it down $100, just for us because she’s used to us, we’ve never caused any problems, etc. But she couldn’t resist going into her usual pity party about how it’s hard for them as pensioners, they don’t have any other income, her husband had to go back to work, etc. I would feel sorry for her, if I hadn’t been to her apartment myself a few months ago and seen the brand new wide-screen digital TV, and if she hadn’t herself told me about how they got a new computer and wireless internet. I don’t think they are as hard-off as she likes to pretend.

In the end, we agreed to discuss it at the end of this month when she comes to collect for the utilities. It’s tempting to not move, we love the apartment and the neighborhood. Another two hundred dollars a month in rent will be tough, though.

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In other events, we had a nice weekend in Korosten with Igor’s family. Everybody loved the presents Dad brought them - overalls for Grandpa; shirts, jackets and jeans for Nina, Ivan, Oksana and Denis; and 3 bottles of barbecue sauce for Vova. He was practically drinking it straight from the bottle! And he nearly finished an entire bottle just at one meal. Good thing Dad brought a BBQ sauce recipe too!

Dad, Igor and I spent the night in the village house with Ivan on Saturday night. He’s done so much work there in the last couple of years, it’s really amazing. And in preparation for Dad’s visit, he had promised to make a summer shower. Usually a summer shower (at last in my experience) means the water is heated by the sun. Well, Ivan being the handy-man that he is, managed to hook up an electric water heater, so year-round hot water! You might not want to use it in the winter, though, since it’s more-or-less an outdoor shower (a little shed next to the house). We saw all the animals - 4 sheep, 2 pigs, 1 goat, a bunch of rabbits, and about 7 or 8 turkeys. He’s becoming quite the farmer! Sunday I picked fresh vegetables from the garden while Igor and Dad grilled a rabbit and Nina made ukha, a traditional fish soup that fisherman usually make after a successful catch. the guys only managed to catch 3 dinky little fish that morning in the nearby river, so Nina supplemented with a quick run to the fish market.

We had a leisurely lunch sitting in the yard, enjoying the lovely weather and good company. The drive that evening back to Kyiv was perfect - hardly any traffic at all. Dad opted to come back with us instead of staying in the village with Ivan. I’m not surprised, 2 days is usually my limit, too, and I can understand what everyone is saying! We’ll be back there several times in the coming weeks, so plenty of time to get more village-life experience.

Oh, and the muffler on the car finally crapped out. It’s been coming on for a while, we could tell, and last week’s trip to Andrei and Natasha’s dacha for the wedding party was the last straw, I think. The roads to get there were just awful, and the undercarriage of the car got banged hard a couple of times (it’s really low to the ground - not a good car for Ukrainian village roads!). We tried to find a working mechanic in Korosten on the weekend, but no such luck. A friend of Igor’s looked at it, though, and the good news is that it’s nothing dangerous or horrible. The bad news is it’s damn loud and a bit embarrassing driving down the street. We got back to Kyiv a bit deaf but otherwise in good shape. One more project for this week…

The old man arrived in Kyiv a couple hours ago - with two beautiful bottles of Jameson’s for me! He’s with us for the next six weeks. Well, partly with us in Kyiv and partly with Igor’s parents in the village and probably with us on some trips if we can get them organized.

We’re looking forward to checking out some different sites in Kyiv - it’s always good motivation to do some sight seeing when we have company. Dad’s seen pretty much all the highlights, so we’ll dig deeper into some of the less known places, I hope.

Did we say we were ready for some changes? Holy cow, are we ever gonna have some. Our lease ends in August, and the landlady dropped a real bomb on us last night. I knew she’d want to raise the rent, but I wasn’t prepared for her expectations. Not fifty bucks, not one hundred bucks, but a whopping three hundred dollars! That’s not only completely out of our price range, it’s also just an absurd amount of money to pay for this apartment. Even if I had the means, on principle alone I would never pay that much. But it’s not about principles, it’s about our budget. So, we’re looking for a new place to live. Any leads would be most welcome!

Igor moved to Kyiv one year ago today, which means we are celebrating one year of life together. It has been the best year of my life - new job, cool trips, not to mention marrying the love of my life.

I hope he’ll always feel as happy and content as he looks in this photo

Я люблю тебе, коханий.

And summer=potatoes, and fall=potatoes, and winter=potatoes - at least in Ukraine. In spring, the country is obsessed with planting potatoes. (In summer it’s weeding the garden, including the vast potato patch; in Autumn it’s harvesting potatoes, which is much harder work than planting them; and in winter it’s eating potatoes over and over and over). Igor was called home by his parents to help with the spring planting this past weekend. I meekly asked if I should help to, and didn’t ask twice after he told me no. Instead, I planned an outing with my colleague and friend Elena.

After our usual Saturday morning fitness class, we planned to go about 90 minutes north of Kyiv to Ivankiv to visit my friend Valentina and to see a couple of the youth centers in the area. Elena is from Bulgaria, and although she’s been in Ukraine almost 2 years, she has not had much opportunity to travel outside of Kyiv. She’s heard me talk a lot about the youth centers and has expressed interest in seeing one or two of them. Perfect outing for a spring Saturday. Unfortunately, my car didn’t seem to agree. The good thing was that the car decided to stage its rebellion while we were still in Kyiv. I don’t want to even think what a nightmare it would have been to deal with a broken down car 100 kilometers from home!

It was the weirdest thing - suddenly, pressing the gas pedal caused no reaction in the car at all. The engine was running, but I couldn’t accelerate. Fortunately, we were able to coast to the side of the street to a not-too-busy spot. I called my mechanic, who called a tow truck for me. By the way, a tow truck is called “evakuator”, which for some reason I think is kind of funny. Anyway, after about an hour the tow truck arrived, hoisted the car up, and we enjoyed a pleasant chat with the nice driver on the way to the mechanic’s. Elena loves talking to taxi drivers, and I always find it amusing and entertaining to ride with her as she never fails to get a driver chatting. It didn’t take much to get this driver talking. He was particularly interested to know how much gasoline costs in the US. The last I heard, I told him, was that it was about $3/gallon, but I can never remember how many liters are in a gallon. Not to worry - he knew exactly - 3.8. (I just heard today that it’s up to $4/gallon.) It’s up to 6 hrivna/liter in Kyiv, which is about $1.20/liter or $4.50/gallon. When Ukrainians complain to me that they pay higher prices than in the US, I usually tell them they are lucky they’re not paying western European prices (i.e. $2.40/liter or $9/gallon as it was in Netherlands in February). But still, the prices are painful.

After dropping the car off at the mechanic and relieving my wallet of 318 hrivna (about $63), Elena and I were getting went in search of lunch. We ended up at a nice little Armenian cafe where we both got “lavash pizza”. It was fabulous, and along with a beer was a perfect way to chill after the stress of the car adventure. We were nearby the Botanical Gardens, which Elena had never been to, so we walked over in hopes of seeing the magnolia trees in bloom.

The line was ridiculous. In true Ukrainian fashion, on one of the first beautiful spring Saturdays, only one ticket window was working. The line snaked around several times, spilling out into the street. Even more brilliantly, only one gate was open and it was being used both for entering and exiting the gardens. The crowds of people pushing against each other in attempt to get into and out of the place would have been amusing if I wasn’t waiting to participate in the mayhem myself.

Once we finally got inside, we followed the crowds to the magnolia garden. I really regret that I didn’t have my camera with me! The tulip beds were gorgeous - and so many different varieties! We enjoyed strolling under the big pink and white blooms of the magnolias, and then found a quiet spot in the shade of a tall tree covered in delicate white buds. I don’t know what kind of tree it was, but the aroma was just perfect - kind of like honeysuckle. We sat and talked, enjoying the sunshine and tree’s perfume.

Sunday was gray and rainy, but tons of people were out enjoying the warmer weather, despite the drizzle. Dems Abroad got together to watch a recording of the Clinton-Obama Pennsylvania debate. What a load of garbage that was. Most of us left after the first hour when not a single question of substance, like about their policies, was asked. A thoroughly disappointing debate, which provide any information that would actually help one to make an educated decision about a candidate. Hopefully this primary mess will be over in a day, and then we can get onto the mess of the actual presidential election.

And as for the car, I didn’t really understand what the mechanic said happened , but he only charged 30 hrivna ($6) to fix it! We have now spent about the same on the car as we actually paid for the car - a hundred something to register it, and nearly 900 in tune up and repairs. Still, I can’t complain! We certainly couldn’t find another decent car for $2000. We might be taking our first long car trip/vacation over the upcoming holidays - stay tuned!

Oh, and the upcoming holidays are: 27 April, Orthodox Easter; 1-2 May, International Labor Day; 9 May, Victory Day. Most of the country gets all of next week off (28 April - 2 May), although UN only officially takes 28 April (for Easter) and 1 May as holidays. And many people will add on another week of vacation through 9 May, so the country is, for all intents and purposes, closed for 2 weeks in May. Igor and I, of course, couldn’t manage to organize ourselves in time to take advantage of all the free days, but we’re looking to take a few days right after the “May holidays”, which I hope will actually be better for us - everyone else will be back at work and we can enjoy some quiet, relaxing travels together. Let’s hope it works out!

Kruglik was the first youth center I visited, in February 2006, just a couple months after starting with Chornobyl Recovery and Development Programme. Coincidentally, Kruglik was the first youth center established under CRDP, in 2004.

As we toured the small one-floor building, I admired the plants lining the windowsills. I really enjoy houseplants, and in my house in Columbus I had a pretty decent jungle taking over my sunroom. One of the first things I noticed, and really liked a lot, in Moldova, and later in Ukraine as well, is that there are plants in nearly every office and store. They can range from the “fancy” potted plants you usually expect a business to purchase for its reception area, to simpler ones, obviously planted and tended by the staff, in clay or plastic pots (sometimes even in makeshift “pots” made from the bottom half of a one- or two-liter plastic bottle). I’ve seen most of the typical office plants - peace lillies, african violets, ficus trees - as well as ones I never would have imagined indoors - all kinds of vines (some that I would have thought of as weeds, actually), sapling oak trees, and plenty of other “wild” looking plants. I love that plants are so integrated into the indoors here.

In the Kruglik youth center, there was one interesting plant that I’d never seen before, and as I was admiring it, the ladies asked if I’d like a cutting to take back to Kyiv with me. I wasn’t sure it would survive the hour drive in what was one of the coldest winters on record, but I figured why not?

When I got home, I put the small cutting in a jar of water. Something like this:

A little over two years later, I now have two big pots brimming with the beautiful bushy guys.

And another pair of cuttings growing roots in the jar of water.

I’ve been to Kruglik probably three or four times since that first trip two years ago. I always admire the mother plant to my cuttings, and I always give an update on the progress of her offspring. The last time I was in Kruglik, in November 2007, I was startled to see beautiful little flowers all over the mother plant. I had no idea it flowered! I started to worry that mine had never flowered, but the ladies assured me it eventually would. It just takes some time for it to take root and be ready.

I have felt like that plant many times over the last few years - cut off, uprooted, replanted, not quite comfortable, slow to settle in, not ready to commit myself and bloom in this spot.

I know moving to Kyiv caused many of the same feelings in Igor. He had a good job in Korosten, he loved working with the Regional Development Agency, he was a well-known and well-connected man in town. He gave up a lot so that we could live together. He jumped in with both feet at his new job, though, and he was so busy with work that he didn’t have time to go back to Korosten for nearly two months. After his first trip home, I asked him how he felt, if he didn’t regret moving to Kyiv. “No,” he said. “But I don’t feel at home anywhere right now. Korosten is not my home anymore, but Kyiv is not my home either.” I knew exactly how he felt.

A few months later, when he was in Korosten without me for a weekend, I called him in the evening.
“I’m ready to go home,” he said
“What? You want to move back to Korosten,” I wasn’t sure I had understood.
“No, to Kyiv, to you. My home is where you are.”

During Igor’s visa interview at the American Embassy, the foreign service officer asked him why we had not applied for immigrant status for him. “Because we don’t want to live in the US,” he answered. “We want to live in Ukraine.”

As he told me about this exchange, after the interview, a realization came ove me. I am ready to make a home with Igor. I want to settle in and take root.

Believe it or not, the next day I saw the first flower on my plant.

OK, it’s a tiny one, not very strong yet, but it’s there. My plant has taken root, too.

My Girl Scout troop held a canned food drive in December, and we went on Saturday to donate the goods to a soup kitchen/food pantry run by the Missionaries of Charity, the order of nuns founded by Mother Theresa. There are four nuns of her order here in Kyiv, and the Missionaries has been here since 1991.

The sisters operate a soup kitchen 3 days a week for homeless people, and once a month they provide food packages to needy families. They also provide housing for about 6 alcoholic men in recovery (who help the sisters with their work), run a summer camp for needy children, provide clothes, shoes and school supplies to needy children and families, and many, many more charitable acts.

I had never been to one of Mother Theresa’s missionaries before, nor had I ever met one of her sisters. The word that keeps coming to my mind is “beautiful”. No, the facility wasn’t beautiful (it was simple and clean), but talking with the nuns, learning about their work, meeting their regular volunteers, and watching our Girl Scouts have a such a great time while learning and helping was an altogether beautiful experience.

The nuns are all the tiniest little things, short and thin. I could tell just by looking at them their diets are slim. Yet they each had a smile constantly on her face. They each instantly put our nervous girls at ease with their warm smiles and comfortable manner and gentle joking. I know it was a busy time for them, but all four of them took time to speak to the girls, to ask them questions about themselves, and to answer the girls’ questions. They are the kind of people you just want to be near, to stand next to and listen to and watch and try to absorb some of the kindness, warmth and love that emanates from them.

I don’t mean to gush, which I realize is what it sounds like I’m doing. I generally don’t care much for religious organizations, as I see a lot of hypocrisy and judgementalism (is that a word?) in most of them. These women were so clearly heartfelt, honest and simple in their devotion and dedication. Frankly, I had a brief moment of wanting to join them myself, to live so simply and to give of myself so entirely to others. While joining their order isn’t realistic for me, I am glad to know that I can support their work myself by helping them.

The nuns provide food packages to needy families once a month, usually 70-100 families. They regularly provide flour, sugar, rice, pasta, lentils, oatmeal, cooking oil, tea and coffee, and then add whatever other donations they have received that month. This month there were juice boxes, frozen fish, and the Girl Scouts’ canned vegetables. One regular volunteer told us about the month a candy factory had donated chocolate bars and the families had been so thrilled to get such a special treat.

The food is distributed based on the number of family members. The operation is quite well organized. A family checks in, hands over the bags they’ve brought with them to carry the food home, and a male volunteer is given their bags and a card indicating the number of family members. That volunteer comes into the room where the food supplies are, and volunteers man each station. The girls were in charge of cooking oil, juice and the canned goods. I worked the oatmeal station, where I had a huge barrel from which I bagged up oatmeal with a pre-measured one-kilogram scoop. 1-3 family members = 1 kg each of flour, oatmeal, pasta, rice, sugar; 1 package of tea, etc.; 4-6 family members = 2 kg of each item; 7-9 people: 3 kgs; 10+ = 4 kgs. Each volunteer placed her item into the bags carried by the male volunteers, and then the men took the bags back out to the waiting families. We did this for about an hour, and although I didn’t count exactly how many families we served, I would guess about 70. The regular volunteers said it was an unusually small number of families this time.

Most of the families were in the 4-6 people range. There were two or three “10+”, including one family of 14 which the girls talked about quite extensively. They tried to imagine who was in that family - 12 children? 4 grandparents? How did they live? We talked a bit with the girls about the amount of food each family received, and how much food their own families consume each month. It was obvious to me that the food wasn’t enough for a month, but I’m not sure the girls realized that since I’m sure none of them does much grocery shopping. I think we’ll give them a task to keep track for one month how much of the items we distributed at the food pantry their families consume - pasta, rice, sugar, juice, etc. so they can try to understand better.

There were 6 other volunteers there aside from our 4 Girl Scouts and their parents. One German woman said she’s been coming three times a week for 2 years to help the nuns. Two American couples come on Saturdays to help with the food pantry. One young Ukrainian woman used to come twice a week when she was in college but now that’s working she can come only on Saturdays. One young Ukrainian was there for the first time, too.

After the work, one of the sisters showed us their prayer room, with a crucifix and the words “I thirst” painted on the wall next to it. She told us that every one of the Missionaries of Charity has that painted on a wall, as it was Jesus’ last words on the cross and a reminder to them, as Mother Theresa said, that everything they do for others, they do for Jesus. There was also a picture of Mother Theresa above a candle, and the sister said they have a relic of her (but I didn’t go close enough to see what it was).

The girls unanimously agreed they want to take turns every month helping to distribute the food, and we will try to start a regular can food collection at their school. I was very proud of them.

Friday I lost one of the earrings that Igor’s mother gave me as a wedding present, the earrings that match my wedding ring with rubies and diamonds. Saturday night I broke one of the goblets Igor ordered for our wedding - special engraved with our names. If I was a superstitious person, I’d really be freaking out right now. As a not-particularly-superstitious person, I am really really sad and disappointed.

We made the bigger leap yesterday than a wedding - we combined our finances. Well, most of them, at least, as I can’t add Igor to my American bank account until this summer when we go to Columbus. But we added him to my Ukrainian account and opened a new joint account. Yikes - now it’s for real!

Went back to the gym yesterday for the first time in a month. Double yikes. I hurt like hell today. But it’s good to get back into my routine, and to be working out again. I’ve got to get some of this flab off before we go to Egypt for our honeymoon!

Kyiv has been so nice the last few weeks, hardly anyone here, such light traffic and you can actually get on a bus or marshrutka in the morning! When we drove back from Koroston on January 1, we crossed Bessarabska Square and there was not one single car! Right in the center of the city, one of the worst intersections. Igor laughed and said “This city’s not so bad when only the actual residents are here!” But that will end soon, school starts again this week and all the kids will return from visiting their grandparents in the villages.

We are starting the second round of holidays - Orthodox Christmas is tomorrow, so we will travel to Korosten today to celebrate the traditional Christmas Eve dinner with Igor’s family. Next week is “Old New Year’s Eve”, a fun unofficial holiday that marks the start of the new year by the old calendar - a calendar, I might add, that was changed about ninety years ago in this part of the world (and in 1752 in the American colonies).

I think I’m ready to get back to a routine, though, to go back to work and a regular schedule. The two weeks of guests and wedding madness were exhausting (albeit a lot of fun, as well), and the last week was more relaxing and restful. Dad took my nephew Kyle to Budapest for a New Year’s, and Igor and I went to Korosten. Actually, we couldn’t decide until the last minute whether or not we were going to go, but the final deciding factor was that neither of us felt like cooking, so we made the trip to get fed. We ended up driving our car, our first trip with the diplomatic plates, and found out a couple days later that we very likely would have been killed if we’d gone as we had planned.

You see, our car has summer tires on it, and crappy summer tires at that. A few weeks ago, before all the guests arrived, we decided to drive to a big warehouse store to stock up on things for the wedding and guests. The car has been parked in the UN parking lot for almost four months now, waiting for the registration to be completed. By the time we could legally drive the car, winter had started, snow had fallen, the streets were icy, and the parking lot was a skating rink. A sloping skating rink, actually, since it’s on a hill. I tried to pull out and ended up only sliding backwards in the parking lot. We managed to get the car back into a parking spot, and gloomily decided we’d get to use her in the spring.

December 31: we decided mid-afternoon to go to Korosten, so we hopped on the metro, headed out to Sviatoshin and the inter-city bus stop. The line was the longest I have ever seen for the Korosten bus - a good two or three busloads of people already waiting. Not encouraging, especially considering it was about -10C (14F) outside. Well, maybe the buses will come quickly today given the demand, we thought. (What naive fools we are!) The next bus arrived about 20 minutes later, and when asked, the driver said the next bus would be there in another 20 or 30 minutes. So, that meant we could reasonably expect to wait in the freezing cold for at least an hour until we got on a bus. “We have four options,” Igor said. “One, go home and spend New Year’s Eve in our apartment. Two, wait for a bus. Three, take the elektrichka [commuter train], a cold miserable trip of 3-3 1/2 hours. Four, get our car.” We flipped a coin a bunch of times to choose between the options, and the coin chose Car each time. We hopped back on the metro and headed to the UN parking lot. Although damn cold outside, the roads were not icy or slick, and much to our surprise and delight, the car which had been parked for nearly four months started up with ease. We cleaned her off, warmed her up, and chugged our way to Korosten. About 45 minutes into the trip we finally figured out how to work the heat properly. It was an uneventful drive there, a fun and appetite-satisfying visit with his family, and another uneventful drive back the next day.

On Thursday, we had some Korosten friends over for dinner, and they told us about a terrible accident on the highway, a bus going to Korosten had a terrible accident with a BMW around 6:00 pm; something like 16 people were killed and seriously injured. If the coin had not picked “car”, if we had waited for the bus, we would very likely have been on that bus. It’s freaky to think about. And I’m so sad for the people who didn’t have a choice that day on how to get home to their families.

I meant to write about holidays and happy things, but this post has a sad ending instead.

We went to the American Chamber of Commerce’s 4th of July picnic on Saturday. It sucked. The weather was horrible and the were wholly unprepared - one dinky little tent that didn’t even come close to having enough space for all the people stuck in the rain. The weather was bad last year, too, but at least they had a huge canopy/tent set up in the middle where you could sit down on a dry bench at a dry table. No such tent this year, which was a huge stupid mistake. We met up with the Democrats Abroad, toughed it out for a bit, and then a bunch of us decided to go to a warm, dry bar instead.

Sunday, Igor and I went to the Kraina Mrii (Dream Country) folk festival. It was FABULOUS! I was only disappointed that we hadn’t also gone during the first two days of the festival, on Friday and Saturday. We spent something like 6 or 7 hours watching the different artisans work (blacksmiths, weavers, embroiderers, potters, wood carvers), checking out all the cool stuff for sale (still can’t decide if it was good or bad that we didn’t have much money with us), listening to beautiful music, watching cool dances and Cossack “re-enactors.”

We were both really impressed to see so many people wearing traditional Ukrainian costumes - not just the artisans and performers, but regular people who were just out to enjoy the festival like us. We caught the bug and bought a couple of old shirts - hand woven linen with beautiful hand embroidery. I need to wash them, one of them was a real bargain but looks (and smells) like it’s been in a basement for about 100 years. But I think they’ll be really beautiful once cleaned up.

for waiting nearly two years before discovering the joy that is a house cleaner. I have known for a long time I’m about the only ex-pat in Kyiv who didn’t have a house cleaner. I finally decided to try it today. I popped home at lunch - oh my god, my apartment is sooooooo clean. It is so totally worth 20 bucks. I’m hooked.

And the good omen dream this morning makes me feel even better about it.

I attended the “roof festival” for the new center “Our Kids”, which is being built for street children in Kyiv. As the head of the German-Polish-Ukrainian Society, the organization implementing this project, explained, a roof festival is both a German and Polish tradition (and apparently an old Ukrainian tradition, too, that seems to have been lost in modern times) when people get together to celebrate the completion of a roof on a building under construction. We would have liked to have had an Opening Ceremony, but the construction gods weren’t ready to let that happen quite yet.

The workers worked their buns off the last 48 hours before the ceremony. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw how much they had accomplished so quickly - they even managed to get some flowers planted to brighten up the territory. Every other time I’d been at the site, there were 3 or 4 melancholy-looking men and women, usually standing around, smoking cigarettes, not even attempting to look busy. This morning, there was a crew of at least 30, cleaning windows, sweeping off the freshly-placed pavers, and moving the hordes of boards, wires, and other construction materials and trash out of sight. As Igor showed me around the site a few hours before the ceremony, I made a not-so-subtle comment as we passed the head of construction - “Gee, imagine how much would be done by now if they had this many people working here every day!”

The list of bigwigs was impressive, including dignitaries and donors who flew in from Germany and Poland. The ceremony was very nice, and it is a true credit to the Baroness (the head of the G-P-U Society) that the project has gotten this far. It was her vision to create this center, and it has been her blood, sweat, and tears, that have convinced people to contribute their time and resources.

There is still a lot of work to be done before the first building can open this autumn - after which construction will begin on the second and third buildings!