MoldovAnn

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.

As we were nearing the Niagara Falls area, Igor pointed to a place ahead of us and asked “What is all the smoke from?”
“It’s not smoke,” I told him, “it’s mist from the Falls.” Awe and wonder began to set in.

We are in Ohio! After nearly 24 hours of travel time, numerous delays, and some tense moments in JFK airport, we made it to Columbus late Friday evening, with everything except one suitcase. Fortunately the bag with most of our clothes made it to Columbus, but the bag with most of the presents spent the night in New York and was delivered to us on Saturday afternoon.

Igor was really impressed with Dad’s backyard - it really is a beautiful place full of blooming flowers, shady trees, a little fish pond, and lots and lots of birds. By Saturday afternoon, Igor had announced that he will move to America if he can live in Dad’s backyard.

Shopping was first on the To Do list, as we had brought very little with us (on purpose!). A quick trip to Target for some toiletries ended up being an hour, but Igor got a bathing suit and looked through jeans. He told us how in Soviet times there were three brands of jeans that everyone knew and wanted - Lee, Levi’s and Wrangler. When he saw Wrangler’s on sale for $15, he was thrilled. I suspect we’ll be taking several pairs back to Ukraine with us.

We then went to a local market and got some pork and other cook-out essentials. Igor is going to cook shashliki for our cookout on Sunday, kind of like ke-bobs. Our last shopping adventure for the day was the best shop on earth, the Eddie Bauer Warehouse. I was not disappointed! We spent about an hour there, which was pushing Igor to his limits for shopping for one day. The men’s clothes weren’t on such a great sale, but the women’s summer shirts, skirts and dresses were fantastic. When we finally dragged our haul out to the car and were ready to head back home, Igor asked me if I was satisfied. I look at him with a huge smile and said it felt like I’d just shot up with the best dope around - man, did I ever need an Eddie Bauer fix!

We spent the rest of the afternoon at my brother’s birthday cook-out. He and his family moved into our grandma’s house last summer, and it was the first time I’d seen the place since Grandma died. They’ve done a fantastic job sprucing the place up, and yet have kept a lot of Grandma’s things and it all looks great together. The yard is also beautiful, and Scott told us his plans for the backyard that sound really awesome.

Most of the people at the cookout were Scott and Carina’s friends, of course, but Clintonville is small and our lives and friends overlap in many ways here. My classmate Bob lives a couple houses down from Scott, and I was really happy to see him, his wife Jane and their 5 kids when they mosey over. Bob and I went to school together from 1st to 12th grades, and he grew up across the street from Grandma’s house. We don’t know if we knew each other before 1st grade, but it’s very likely we did.

By 7:30 Igor and I were both ready to fall asleep in our beers, so we decided to walk home. We laid in bed for a bit, listening to the birds sing and really enjoying the peace and quiet. Igor said he’d never imagined it could be so lovely in a city. I’m so glad we came in the summer. I’m so glad we are here. I’m so glad Igor is here with me and that he likes it!

In a week we’ll be in Columbus! I can hardly believe it’s been a year and a half since I’ve set foot in the good ole U.S. of A. I can’t wait to see family and friends, to show Igor the places I love, my hangouts from childhood and college.

Most of all, I can’t wait to go to Graeter’s ice cream, eat Mexican food (tragedy! My beloved Casa Fiesta has closed; thank god El Vaquero is still open), and dine at Aladdin’s. I want greasy Chinese food, especially egg rolls, and I can’t wait to eat so much salsa that I turn into a sombrero. I’m also desperate to get to Eddie Bauer Warehouse and re-stock my wardrobe and buy great presents for family and friends in Ukraine.

Igor told me that of all the places he’d like to visit in the US, Niagara Falls is at the top. Fortunately, it’s an easy drive from Columbus and we can make a nice overnight trip out of it. We’ve got reservations at a hotel right by the Falls, which Igor was most excited about when I told him breakfast was included - “Full American breakfast?” he asked. Oh hell ya!

Igor’s reading over my shoulder as I write and is concerned that all my food fantasies are because I don’t like his cooking. So, for the record, my husband is a fantastic cook and I am extremely lucky to be so well fed. If he picks up some new ideas and tastes in the US, all the better!

Cookout at Dad’s house June 15, at Scott and Carina’s house June 21, and various Happy Hours (mostly at Mexican restaurants - are you picking up on the theme here?) throughout the two weeks we’ll be in Columbus. It’s much too short of time, I know, but I am grateful for every minute. We hope to see as many people as we can.

We went to Korosten on the 22-23 September to celebrate Oksana and Nina’s birthdays (Igor’s sister and mother). Since the car registration is not moving along very quickly, we were back on the bus.

They’ve added a few new actual buses to the Kyiv-Korsoten route, in addition to the usual marshrutki (mini-buses). The new buses are quite comfortable, with a TV and DVD player. The driver showed “3000 Miles to Graceland“, a good movie but not exactly a “general audience” kind of film, I would say - it opens with a pretty graphic sex scene. But no one voiced any objections. The ride was comfortable and pleasant, with some actual air conditioning. The only downside of these new buses is that since they have twice the number of seats of the smaller marshrutki, and since they don’t run by schedule but rather they wait until they are full before departing, you could potentially be waiting a long time for the bus to fill up and depart.

We had invited Igor’s family to celebrate at a really great pizzeria in Korosten. His mom and sister always have so much work for any family celebration, and we wanted to do something special plus give them a break on their birthdays. So, we went straight to the pizzeria when we arrived in Korosten to finalize the order. We both were hungry, but I’m not sure that alone accounts for the absurd amount of food we ended up ordering. I think we temporarily lost of our minds. But in good Ukrainian tradition, the table should be overflowing, which it certainly was by the time Igor’s family arrived. And the food just kept coming and coming. We were there over 3 hours, and between the six of us, drank 3 bottles of champagne, a bottle of vodka, and two rounds of B-52s - cocktails made with kaluha, irish creme, and tequila, layered in a tall shot glass with the top layer of tequila set aflame. Igor had wanted to have something “exotic and fancy”, and the B-52s certainly were.

Oksana and her B-52

Igor’s plate: pizza, mushroom steak, salad, salo, mashed potatoes, cold cuts, bread, cheeses, and god knows what else.

The husbands (i.e., Oksana’s husband Vova and Igor’s dad Ivan) periodically commented how it’s better to celebrate at home. I think Ivan especially felt uncomfortable - they literally never go out to eat. It’s not only that he’s a homebody, but I know it’s also a financial issue. The fussed a bit throughout the dinner about how much it would cost us. Igor and I tried to focus on the fact that we wanted to do something special for the birthday girls, and we also assured them that compared to Kyiv prices, this feast seemed very affordable to us. Although Ivan never seemed quite convinced, Nina and Oksana both had a great time, and they both commented how fabulous it was that they didn’t have to do any work - no cooking, no cleaning, no mountain of dishes to wash when you are totally exhausted from the day. That, after all, was the point - that they should be able to relax and enjoy themselves at their own birthday party.

Happy Birthday Nina!

Happy Birthday Oksana!

Sunday they wanted to go “mushrooming” in the forest. I’m personally not a big fan of tromping around the woods looking for tiny fungi, but they love it so we headed out early in the morning. Since I’m seem to be best at finding the wrong kinds of mushrooms, I decided to focus on taking pretty pictures instead of pointing out every poisonous mushroom to Igor. Some samples below; full set on Flickr.

Yes, I have been at my new job for exactly two weeks and I am going on vacation! Actually, I’ve had the vacation planned for months, and my new boss very kindly agreed to let me keep my plans.

I am really enjoying this new position, I have to say. I wake up in the morning excited about going to work! While I enjoyed my work in the field with the Chornobyl Programme, I really didn’t care for the time in the office, which was mostly spent proofreading and editing poorly written English-language documents. It looks like I’ll have leadership on several new and really exciting projects as UNV Programme Officer, and well, frankly, I love being in charge. And I love new and exciting projects.

But these first two weeks have worn me ragged! I wore my pedometer one day and tracked over 10 miles of walking - to different buildings for various meetings, up and down three flights of stairs about a hundred times, etc. I decided I didn’t need to count my steps for awhile; I’m definitely getting my 10,000 a day.

So, I’m looking forward to a couple weeks of rest. Dad arrives tomorrow morning and we’ve got some fun and interesting things planned. This is his third time in Kyiv, so I decided we’d travel outside the city as much as possible so we both can see some new and different places. First, we’ll go to Korosten so he can meet Igor’s family (eek!). Then we’ve got a trip to the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone. Then 5 days in the Carpathian mountains. I haven’t decided exactly where we’ll go after that, but I’m thinking some day trips to places not too far from Kyiv. We’ll play it by ear.

So folks, enjoy the next two weeks! I don’t expect to writing much until July.

A recent post by Carpetblogger reminded me of one of my early restaurant experiences in Kyiv. About a month or so after I moved here, two Peace Corps/Moldova friends came for a long weekend. I still didn’t know my way around the city well, and certainly didn’t know the restaurant/café scene at all. Eating out with the girls had quickly proved to be a nightmare in and of itself. Neither of these so-called world travelers, who had been living and working in Moldova for over a year, understood any Russian or Ukrainian at all, and for some reason they decided all their hard-earned adaptation and survival skills could be checked at the border, leaving me to hold their hands and take care of absolutely everything.

After a long day comprised almost entirely of them trying to see every pair of boots available in all of Kyiv, we ended up near Kontraktova plosha, hungry, tired, and desperately in need of someplace easy to go to (at least, easy for me). We saw a café called Double Coffee, with an English name and a sign written in Latin letters. Personally, I find this to be one of the more obnoxious and annoying trends in Kyiv, when a place tries to be so “cosmopolitan” by using an alphabet the majority of the population probably doesn’t read. But at that particular point in the day, an English-friendly place was just what I needed.

Earlier in the day, we had stopped at a food court in a shopping mall for some lunch. After describing the experience to a friend a few days later, she said “Man, it sounds like taking a group of retarded kids on a field trip.” If only it had been that easy. I foolishly thought it would be easy for all of us to eat there, since most of the food kiosks had the food on display in glass cases. No such luck. Both girls, I learned, had the annoying habit of not paying attention at the same time. For some reason, they didn’t quite grasp that they could both hear the descriptions of the food choices at the same time; instead, I would finish going through all the options with one, and then the other would ask me to start from the beginning. By the time I finished the second time, the first girl had forgotten her choices and wanted me to tell them to her again. Then they wanted detailed explanations of the ingredients. I’m a vegetarian, so I’ve never really bothered to learn all the meat words. But I managed to get most dishes explained. Same routine started again – by the time I explained all the choices and all their ingredients, one girl would want me to start over from the beginning. Then the other girl asked me if such-and-such was good or not. I had to remind her each and every time that I don’t eat meat and thus have no idea if the beef in tomato sauce is good or not. The first girl finally managed to make a selection and ordered, while the saga of the food inquiry continued with the second girl. The first girl got her food and went to get a table, then came back to tell me she needed mayonnaise. By this time, I was in the middle of difficult negotiations with the cashier to order food for the second girl, who wanted a million exceptions and needed everything explained again for the hundredth time before being sure of what she was ordering (you’d think it was the last meal of her life!). I asked the cashier for a packet of mayo, but she was too engaged with the process of the ordering to immediately offer it up. Girl 1 stood behind me for the next 5 minutes, repeating every 30 seconds or so, “Ann, I need some mayonnaise.”

So, by the time we hit Coffee House, I was at my wit’s end and had high hopes that the girls could manage some ordering on their own. The first hint of the impending disaster was the ambivalence that greeted us at the door. “No tables,” shrugged the bored-looking waitress. “What about that one over there?” we asked, pointing to an empty table on the far side of the room. She shrugged again and walked away. We made our way to the table, and I sighed with relief when we were handed menus not only with pictures but also with English names and descriptions. But my dear friends were prepared to make even this experience difficult. Both girls came up with a bunch of questions not addressed by the menu, and both wanted substitutions and changes to their selected dishes. We quickly learned that the English language friendliness of the place did not extend to the wait staff, and thus I was stuck again negotiating all their intricate food needs.

Girl 1 ordered a Caramel Ice Cream Sundae, and even pointed to the picture of it in the menu. Several minutes later, Waitress brings her a chocolate sundae. Girl 1 looks at it, looks at Waitress, looks at me. “This isn’t what I ordered,” she says. Waitress stares at us with a blank look. “That’s not what she ordered,” I repeat in Russian. Blank stare continues. “I wanted the caramel sundae,” Girl 1 says, pointing on the menu to exactly the item she had pointed to when ordering. “We don’t have that,” Waitress says. “But I don’t want a chocolate sundae,” Girl 1 says. Waitress shrugs her shoulders and starts to walk away. I started to think our waitress wasn’t sharpest knife in the drawer.

I had ordered a latte. A few minutes later, Waitress brings me a cup of tea. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I think you brought us someone else’s order.” “No,” she said, “it’s your tea.” “I’m sorry,” I repeat (why am I apologizing?!), “I didn’t order tea. I wanted a latte.” “No, you said ‘mint tea’,” she stated, and walked away.

At that point, I thought we had just encountered the World’s Stupidest Waitress. Later, I realized we had met a graduate of the Ukrainian School of Customer Service.

When Waitress returned, my friend resumed the debate with her about the sundae. Waitress seemed to have no intention of remedying the situation, so Girl 1 finally said “Well, I’m not paying for this. It’s not what I ordered and it’s not what I want.” Suddenly, Waitress understands English really well, and she takes away the offending chocolate sundae. My friend is left to reflect on her bad behavior.

In the meantime, I still have my mint tea but no latte. Waitress has disappeared. I wait a few minutes for her to come back, to bring me my latte. No sign of her. I finally take the tea to the coffee bar myself, and order a latte. The woman at the coffee bar looks surprised, but I calmly explain that this is not my tea and I would like a latte. A minute later I have it, and I rejoin my friends at the table. Suddenly Waitress reappears and scowls at me – “What did you do? Why did you go to the coffee bar yourself?” she growls. “I wanted a latte, and it didn’t seem like you were going to do anything about it,” I growled back. Waitress stomped away, leaving us again to reflect on our bad behavior.

It’s been a long time since I posted my reading list. Lately, I have read: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt; Death on the Nile, by Agatha Christie; Love Medicine, by Louise Erdrich; Hitler’s Niece, by Ron Hansen; Thank You for Smoking, by William F. Buckley, Jr.; and The Telling, by Ursula Le Guin. I also listened to the podiobooks An Irregular Miscellany: A selection of essays and lectures from the Common University, by A.F. Harrold; and Singularity, by Bill DeSmedt.

Recently, we celebrated Igor’s Dad’s 60th birthday. The fun involved the usual insane amount of food and drink, lots of toasts, and a lot of reminiscing, especially by Ivan (birthday boy) and one of his oldest and closest friends who came to celebrate with him.

Ivan inherited his grandmother’s house in a village about 5 or 6 miles from Korosten, and it’s his dream to live there when he retires. He is an avid gardener, and he rides his bicycle to the village house every weekend, year-round, to tend the huge garden and work on the house and barn. He dreams of living there so he can tend his garden all day long and eat all the fresh fruits and vegetables he wants. I brought him some seeds from the U.S. for his garden, and he seemed quite excited about them. In particular, I brought him 2 types of corn. He already grows corn, which I had been excited to hear about last summer as corn on the cob is one of my favorite things - and such a symbol of summer for me! But it’s not very available here for some reason. Well, if his corn is typical of what is grown here, I can understand why people don’t eat corn on the cob. The first time I had it, at their house, I was surprised to see Nina cooking the cobs in a pressure cooker for a good hour or so. I thought it was so tough and awful ’cause she’d cooked the hell out of it. The next week, Igor brought me some raw cobs and I cooked them myself, for about 6 minutes in boiling water. One bite and I knew Nina’s cooking hadn’t been the problem. I told Igor that in the U.S. we have two kinds of corn - one for people and one for animals. Clearly, they were growing the animal kind. I hope the sweet corns seeds I brought Ivan will grow into big healthy plants with delicious, juicy, sweet and TENDER corn!

I also brought a special sampler pack of American whiskeys (whiskies?) I bought in the Duty Free shop in JFK airport. Last time I went to the U.S., I bought two bottles of Paddy’s Irish Whiskey on my return trip, which is THE best whiskey in the world, thank you very much. I kept a bottle at home, and took a bottle to Korosten for Igor’s family for the holidays. None of them liked it, though, and Igor and I ended up drinking most of the bottle ourselves at Christmas. I don’t know why I thought they’d have a better reaction to American bourbon. These folks just love their vodka. So far, the list of food/drink items I have brought that they don’t really like is significantly longer than the list of things they did like. In fact, the only thing I can think of that they did like was the Czech liquor called Becherovka. (By the way, Dad and I found it for sale in Columbus at Weiland’s.

Also in attendance at the party were some of Ivan’s friends whom I had not met before. A couple brought their 10-year-old grandson with them, and the poor kid was bored stiff. I gave him my digital camera to play with, and man, did he ever light up! Before I knew it, he was clicking away, and he took some amazing shots! Some crap, too, but that’s the beauty of a digital camera - delete and move on! When the kid put the camera down to have some dessert, Igor’s sister Oksana and her husband Vova started playing with it, too - and started goofing around and laughing like a couple of little kids themselves. It was hysterical to watch them taking pictures of themselves, making goofy faces and hamming it up for the camera.

Pepette and I both got haircuts this weekend. Her last one was May 2006, mine in September (I think). We were both WAY overdue. Her fur was especially out of control, a matted mess of knots and dirt and grime. She had stopped even attempting to groom herself, which wasn’t particularly pleasant. I had no idea, though, that a cat’s haircut could cost so much - three times more than my own! Ouch. But she’s much happier now that she’s not slowing roasting to death in my over-heated apartment. And much to my delight, she’s already bathing herself again! I’m reading up on “caring for your Persian” today, in hopes that we can keep her fur more under control in the future.

She looks pretty funny at the moment (I’m calling her “naked cat”) and the giant poof on her tail is hilarious.

We have had fantastic weather in Kiev so far this winter - sunny and warm - the total opposite of this time last year when temperatures were averaging -20C (-4F), and even got as low as -35C (-31F). So far this year, daytime temperatures have been around +10C (+50F). And it’s not just Kiev, or Ukraine even. This was the Christmas in anyone’s memory without snow in Moscow! There have been days when people only wear jackets. I haven’t put on my winter boots at all. My down coat hangs in the hallway unused this year.

So when I was awakened early this morning to a scraping sound outside, I didn’t pay much attention. I listened for a moment, then thought “Hm, that sounds like someone shoveling snow. I wonder what it really is.” Then I rolled over and went promptly back to sleep (and deep into a strange dream about the neighborhood where I grew up, but that’s another story). When I actually got up later in the morning and looked out the window, I was so surprised to see the ground was white! It really had been someone shoveling snow! We got a good 4-5 cm (2″) of snow overnight, and it’s below freezing for the first time this year (about -5C, +23F).

I haven’t been complaining at all about the warm weather, I’ll take it any day over the kind of winter we had last year. But I am happy to finally get to wear some of my nice winter sweaters! And another plus is that the temperature in my apartment might finally be comfortable. You see, most older buildings in Ukraine (and throughout the former Soviet Union) have a centralized heating system, and I can’t regulate the temperature in my apartment. Most buildings are poorly heated and many of my friends live in really cold apartments. I, on the other hand, live one of the rare buildings that seems to be both properly insulated and well-supplied with heat. I wear shorts and a t-shirt when I’m home, and even then I often (guiltily) open a window or the door onto the enclosed balcony. The cat especially likes it when the balcony door is open, as the poor thing is nearly suffocating from the heat, so she likes to sit out on the balcony windowsills, cools off, and when she’s good and cold she comes back inside to sit on my lap until she’s toasty again (yeah, she’s a bit weird). Anyway, I also don’t complain that my building is well-heated, as the alternative is far worse. But these past few weeks, with unseasonably warm temperatures and no regulation of the heating, it’s been uncomfortably warm inside.

So it looks all that will be changing. They are predicting temperatures in the minus teens C (+4 to -4F) starting next week. Winter has finally arrived.

We finished the last of the major holidays this past weekend with the celebration of “Old” New Year’s - new year’s eve by the old calendar (which, by the way, was changed nearly a hundred years ago!) . After three straight weekends in Korosten, and more food and drink than imaginable, I’m ready for a break from holidays.

We spent New Year’s and Orthodox Christmas (January 7) with Igor’s family. Both holidays were very nice, quiet and relaxing at home. This past Saturday, January 13, we celebrated Old New Year’s Eve with a bunch of friends, the same group we spent it with last year in Korosten. It’s weird to think that I’ve been here long enough to start to have a traditional way to spend a holiday! We had a lot of fun, ate a ton of great food. I was on the edge of a cold, which has now become full-blown. But, Ukrainians say that the way you greet the New Year is how your whole year will be, so I am glad that I spent it with Igor and friends, happy and warm and with a full tummy.

I added a couple new links to the sidebar. I am very excited about RPCV podcast, which has interesting discussions with Returned Peace Corps Volunteers about their time in PC. You can download the podcast, but I recommend listening and watching the stream from the website itself so you can see the photos they are talking about.

The other new link is for PAUCI, the Polish-Ukrainian Cooperation Foundation. I recently started volunteering with them, and am doing mostly proofreading so far (English version of the website, project proposals, and reports). They are a nice group of people, and I really like the work they do. I’m looking forward to being involved with them in the coming months. By the way, the organization used to be called the Poland-America-Ukraine Cooperation Initiative, but when the U.S. stopped funding the project, they re-organized into a new Foundation. It just infuriates me that so much international aid from the U.S. is being withdrawn from great projects like this one and redirected to Bush’s mess in the Middle East!

The books I’ve read lately are: Bury Me Standing, by Isabel Fonseca (about the Roma, or Gypsies - fascinating!); I Wonder as I Wander, by Langston Hughes (his autobiography of travels in the 1930’s to Haiti, Cuba, the Soviet Union, Soviet Central Asia, and Spain - one of the best books I’ve ever read); Tooth and Nail, by Ian Rankin; Bones and Silence, by Reginald Hill; and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt.

We arrived in Ivano-Frankivsk last evening. It is lovely! I had heard it is a very “European” city, and I see what they mean. We walked along a quaint cobblestone pedestrian street last night, brightly lit with holiday lights. This morning we took a nice stroll around the town center, and there is a beautiful town square just like we saw in Poland (which makes sense when you remember that this part of Ukraine used to be part of Poland!).

This part of Ukraine is definitely more attuned to Westerners - the train station in Lviv had signs in both Ukrainian and English, which they don’t even do in the capital Kyiv! The hotel we stayed in last night in I-F was as nice as any American hotel (the elevator was even an OTIS). Igor and I were both floored to see the breakfast buffet (included in the price of the room) - scrambled eggs, cereal, sausages, oatmeal, you ask for it! Of course, if wouldn’t be Ukraine if there wasn’t also cabbage salad for breakfast, but for once I got to eat things that make sense to me as breakfast foods.

We leave in a few minutes to travel another 2 hours up into the Carpathian mountains to a lodge, where we’ll spend the next 2 days. I’m sorry we have such little time in Ivano-Frankivsk, but I doubt it’s our last trip here.

Last weekend was a lot of fun. Friday I went to Pub Night at the Canadian Embassy with a small group of non-Canadians. Blane and I (Americans) had been invited a few months ago with Wesley and Shelley (Canadians). Blane has since gone to the bi-weekly event regularly, both with and without Wesley. He’s enough of a regular now that he served as our “in” for access this week. Hana (Czech) and Cathinka (Norwegian) joined us. Cathinka is a new UNV who just arrived 2 weeks ago to work with the UNDP Coordination Team. Hana is a UNV working with UNAIDS. We had a very good time, and it was nice to have the opportunity to socialize with Cathinka and get to know her better. She and Hana left at a reasonable time, but Blane and I decided to hang out a bit longer with the gang. That was all fine and good, but going to the after-party at some guy’s apartment really wasn’t the smartest decision I made that night, and I got home sometime after 2 am, having had more than my fair share of beer throughout the evening.

It wouldn’t have been such a bad thing if I hadn’t been planning to get up early to take the bus to Korosten and spend the weekend with Igor and his family. I finally made it out of Kyiv about an hour and half later than I had planned, and was fighting nausea the entire 2 1/2 hour bus ride. But, I made it to Korosten in tact, and the comfortable, pleasant atmosphere with his family helped me forgot my hangover.

As usual, we had a fabulous and huge meal - a late lunch or early dinner, I’m not sure which, but it was definitely enough to fill us up until the next day. I had brought everyone presents from the U.S., which I gave to them after we ate. It was fun to see them get excited over “something from America”. I also brought a bag of mixed Hershey’s chocolates, which included peanut butter cups. We’ve had numerous conversations over their dinner table about the differences between American and Ukrainian cuisine, and Igor always mentions his experience with “that horrible American peanut butter.” I haven’t met too many non-Americans who like peanut butter, and I know that it is especially not loved in Eastern Europe, it’s just not a flavor that suits the palate here. But I thought the combination of chocolate and peanut butter might make a better impression – no such luck. Actually, his brother-in-law actually seemed to like it, at least he ate several of them, but everyone else politely passed on seconds. They did enjoy the other kinds of chocolate in the bag, though, which made me happy. I also gave Igor’s mom and sister small bottles of scented body lotion, which they just went gaga over! I hadn’t expected them to be so thrilled with lotion, but apparently it was the right gift.

Igor and I stopped by his grandparents’ house Saturday evening to visit a bit, which was the first time I’d had an extended conversation with his grandpa. What an interesting man! And what a life he has lived. His mother died when he was very young, and then his father, a musician, was labeled “enemy of the state” and deported to Siberia. Grandpa was left an orphan, living on the streets throughout most of his childhood. As a teenager during World War II, he fought as a partisan. After the war, he was not recognized by the Soviet Union as a veteran or given any other special status or recognition because he was the son of an enemy of the state. He could never get regular work, and thus had a fascinating and varied “career” – working at different times as a musician (playing the trumpet), a blacksmith, and various positions with the railroad, among other things. I was also surprised to hear that he had been drafted into the Soviet Army, and I asked Igor about it later. How could the son of an enemy of the state be drafted into the army? As Igor ironically put it, so many people were “repressed” during Soviet times that if they excluded relatives of enemies of the state, there wouldn’t have been anyone to serve in the Red Army. But it was only after the break-up of the Soviet Union when he received veteran status, including special recognition for his work as a partisan during the Second World War. He is one of the few senior citizens I have met who not only does not miss Soviet times at all, he was glad to see the Soviet Union collapse and the Russians go.

One of Grandpa Pashinskiy’s first questions to me was what do Americans think of Ukraine and Ukrainians. I hesitated for a moment, not sure if I should say this or not, but then said that I honestly think most Americans still don’t understand that Ukraine is not Russia. To my relief, he wasn’t defensive about this but instead it sparked an interesting conversation about how some Ukrainians themselves don’t seem to recognize that they are different countries and different cultures.

Sunday was the party for Igor’s grandma’s 80th birthday. I had brought a gift and some chocolates for her, but Igor still needed to get his present, so we got up early on Sunday and walked to the shopping district. He wanted to give her something special, something she would never buy for herself – an assortment of exotic fruits. He had seen a coconut in a grocery store for the first time ever in Korosten, and that inspired his idea to buy a variety of “exotic” imported fruits. We had fun picking them out at the farmer’s market and the grocery store – a fresh pineapple, kiwi, oranges, mango, bananas and of course a coconut. We also bought a bouquet of flowers as we walked home. I wanted to make a fruit salad right away, but Igor suggested we put the whole fruits into a basket and present it that way, and it looked very pretty.

Igor’s grandparents live behind his parents, so as soon as we had the basket ready we rushed over there, where everyone else had already gathered - his parents, Nina and Ivan; his sister Oksana, her husband Vladimir, and their 14-year old son Denis; his Aunt Maria, and his paternal grandparents. I had met everyone on previous visits, except for Aunt Maria. Igor’s mom introduced me to her right away as “Igor’s-girlfriend-Anya-we-hope-she-will-be-our-daughter-in-law”. Igor and I looked at each other, equally surprised, and we both started to laugh. No pressure!

We had an incredibly huge and delicious meal, with lots of toasts to Grandma and lots of questions to me. One particularly amusing question, I thought, was when Grandpa Pashinskiy asked me if Canada was like an oblast or an autonomous republic, like the Autonomous Republic of Crimea within Ukraine. I tried hard not to smile as I explained that Canada is a separate country, like Russia is to Ukraine. Everyone asked numerous times when my Dad would be coming to visit, they are all very anxious to meet him. I said I had invited him to Ukraine for New Year’s, but Dad said he prefers to go someplace warm and sunny for the holidays instead. I can’t blame him!

When it came time for dessert, Igor and I presented the big basket of beautiful exotic fruit, and then we set to chopping it all up for a yummy fruit salad. I brought out the American chocolates I had brought, which included dark chocolate, chocolates with caramel filling, and mint chocolate. I had forgotten that mint chocolate doesn’t exist here, and it was the first time any of them had tried it. Igor didn’t care for it at all, which I just can’t understand – I love mint chocolate! And it’s such a common flavor for us in the U.S. Funny how something seemingly so typical and un-unusual can be exotic and even bizarre in another country! Once again, Vladimir (Igor’s brother-in-law) showed himself to be the more adventurous, and he liked the mint chocolate (as well as the cake).

The party was still going strong when it was time for me to head to the bus station for the trip back to Kyiv. Igor and I collected my things, I said good-bye to everyone, and we started walking up the street. Igor joked that his family seems to have us married off already, and I wondered aloud if they would invite us to the wedding.

It was a very lovely weekend, and I enjoy his family very much. There was a touch of the bittersweet for me, though, as I thought of the family I have lost this year. I would like very much to tell my mom and grandma about the nice people who are accepting me into their family.

I had a really great time during my visit home. I wouldn’t have thought 3 weeks could be “whirlwind”, but they certainly were!

I enjoyed making presentations at Ohio State University and Ohio University about Chornobyl and about international volunteerism. It was very exciting to present about topics I’ve come to know well, and to do it all in a language I’ve fully mastered!

Tanya and I drove 1200+ miles roundtrip, 24 hours total driving time, to spend a day and a half at her new beach house in Litchfield Beach, South Carolina. It was sunny, 77 degrees, and we even got a bit tanned sunning on the beach. Pretty damn awesome.

I also spent a night in Athens, Ohio, with my friends the Kleins. Jenny gave me a nice tour of Ohio University, and I thought the campus and town were really great. I can certainly understand the attraction to live in such an idyllic town.

Dad and I went to Ohio State’s campus to tailgate before the Ohio State-Michigan game, and that was a lot of fun. We watched the game with Scott and Carina at Studio 35 - what a blast! All the fun of watching with a pumped-up crowd, plus pizza, popcorn and beer! No wind, no rain, and no hassles getting in or out. The only part I don’t like about watching football on TV is that they don’t show the band’s halftime show.

I was back in Kyiv on Nov. 21, back to grey skies, fog and falling temperatures. I’m not really thrilled about another long, dark, cold winter here, but I’m hoping to break it up with a trip somewhere warm and sunny in February. Just back from one trip, and already working on plans for my next one!

I came across a link on Dan Miner-Nordstrom’s website to a cool map website. You can customize a map to indicate all the countries you have visited. Here’s mine!

create your own visited country map

As you may have guessed, Thanksgiving is not a holiday here in Ukraine. I worked all day Thursday, and then met up with two Americans for dinner that evening, Blane and Tom. We went to TGI Friday’s, where we proceeded to indulge ourselves to extreme excess, all the while reassuring each other that was “OK to gorge” because, after all, it was Thanksgiving. I almost needed help carrying my distended stomach home.

Saturday, Igor and I hosted a home-cooked Thanksgiving dinner for 10 at my apartment - 3 Americans (Blane, Tom and me again) and 7 Ukrainians (Igor; Igor, Olga, Mary and Peter Afanasiev; Lena; and Sasha). We made WAY too much food but we all did our best to put away as much of it as possible. My vegetarian stuffing passed muster with the Americans, and the Ukrainians liked it too (they’d never had anything like it before). The Afanasievs remembered my corn bread from last year’s Thanksgiving dinner, and were happy to eat it all up again this year. Igor baked some salmon steaks to appease the carnivores, and along with the numerous salads and side dishes, I think we all had more than our fill - in true Thanksgiving style!

I can’t believe I forgot to mention the other people I saw while in Moldova! That stressful end really overshadowed much of the rest of the trip.

In Tvarditsa, I had a very nice visit with Natasha and Galya, two girls from my English Club. Both are doing well, growing into lovely young women. Petya, my old walking buddy, is in Russia now, starting University outside of Moscow. His sister Maia is also in Moscow this summer with their mother, who works there. I didn’t manage to see their younger brother Nikolai, but we talked briefly on the phone. The crazy lady who always wanders up and down the street remembered me, much to my surprise. I saw from a distance the weird guy who followed me around the first few months in Tvarditsa, but managed to avoid having to actual talk to him. I saw the librarians, and of course the gang at the Primaria.

Wednesday morning I went to Ialoveni to visit my host family from PST - Tamara Ivanovna and Fyodor Ivanovich (Alyona’s parents). Their granddaughter Ksenia was there as well. She has simply blossomed in the past year! When I left Moldova, she was in that awkward pre-teen stage, all arms and legs and shyness. Now she is a beautiful young woman, clearly becoming comfortable in her body and her person. I had a wonderful visit with Tamara Ivanovna, and really wished I could have stayed longer with her. She complimented my improved Russian, which made me feel great! As a retired Russian teacher, she has high expectations, and I value her opinion very much.

Tamara Ivanovna was always very proud that I had been selected as one of the PCVs to give a speech at our Swearing-In Ceremony. I talked about one of my favorite books, Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz. I recently found it in Russian translation here in Kyiv, and bought about 5 copies right away! I took a copy to Anya in Tvarditsa, and gave one to Tamara Ivanovna, as well. I hope they enjoy it as much as I do.

Books I’ve read this past summer: Wormwood Forest: A Natural History of Chernobyl, Mary Mycio; Voices of Chernobyl, Svetlana Alexievich and Keith Gessen (translator); The Chronicles of Narnia (The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Silver Chair; The Horse and His Boy; The Last Battle), C.S. Lewis; Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, Jung Chang; In Her Shoes, Jennifer Weiner; and The Lost Continent: travels in small-town America, Bill Bryson. I’ve also listened to podiobooks Taken Liberty: A Tale from the Arbiter Chronicles, Steven H. Wilson; and Burn, James Patrick Kelly.

I had a really nice trip to Moldova. I had expected hassles and delays at the border, but everything went smoothly. We arrived early, even, in Chisinau! As I walked up the street to the Peace Corps office, I had to have a chuckle when I heard a rooster crowing in somebody’s yard - in the middle of the capital city of a European country. Yes, I’d forgotten some things about Moldova.

I spent Saturday with Joanna, and in the evening we had dinner with Beryl and Krystal, two other PCVs from our group. The M14s were all headed to Chisinau for their Close of Service conference. Yes, it’s been two years and the M14s are winding down their service and trying to figure out what they are going to do next. Some will go to graduate school, some will look for jobs when they get home, some will travel for a few weeks or even months. It was neat to see many of the PCVs from my group again, especially to see how the youngest ones have matured in the last two years. When I think back to our first months in Moldova, how everything was so confusing, so hard, and so damn frustrating, it was really impressive to see how settled and comfortable our group is now. Many things in Moldova are still confusing, hard and frustrating, but after 2 years, most PCVs seem to have figured out a good chunk of it, or are able to “go with the flow” in an almost accepting sort of way. I guess that’s what they call cultural adjustment!

Sunday morning I headed down to Ceadir-Lunga in hopes of catching the noon bus to Tvarditsa. It was a refreshing feeling to know that if I didn’t make it in time, or if I just plain decided I didn’t want to take the bus, I could splurge for the $7 taxi fare to Tvarditsa if I really wanted to. But much to my surprise and delight, my host brother Sasha had arranged with a neighbor who has a car to pick me up at the bus station. And there was Sasha waiting for me when I got off the bus! About 20 minutes later we were pulling up to the familiar gate on Dimitrova street, and there was Anya, Gresha, and their adorable grandson Greshka waiting for me. Babushka was at church, but was home soon after I arrived. We, of course, sat down to a huge and delicious meal. I’m not ashamed to admit that I pigged out on the delicious homemade bread and cheese, and the fabulous salads made from fresh-picked tomatoes and peppers. Yum! That was stuff I’ve been missing.

On Monday, Sasha took me on his motorcycle to a beautiful area near the Ukrainian border. PC does not allow volunteers to ride a motorcycle, even as a passenger, because of safety concerns, and thus this my first time riding with Sasha on his bike. We had always talked about going to this area, but as it is a good distance from home and transportation was always a problem, it just never worked out while I was living there. The family’s sheep spend the summer in the fields near the area we went to, but they were far out at pasture somewhere and we didn’t see them. We walked for a few hours along a series of three small lakes, chatting with local fishermen and inspecting their catches. One guy had a whole array of lines set up along the shore, at least ten, with small bells attached so that if a fish took the bait, he would hear the bell and come reel in his catch. We also saw some really interesting bugs sunbathing and a remnants of a big beetle.

We were literally right on the border of Ukraine, and my Ukrainian mobile phone worked but my Moldovan phone had no service. So I took advantage of the opportunity to make some calls to folks in Ukrainian without the international surcharge!

I had a good visit with my old partner Donna, who recently retired, and my friend Galya, who has taken over the community organization work in the village. Galya’s done great stuff, including officially registering the organization (ECOU XXI) and getting the mayor’s office to give her a small office in the building! She’s set to receive another PCV this fall, which makes me extremely happy. The next volunteer will start with so much more than when I arrived in Tvarditsa two years ago, when there was no registered organization, no office, and Donna was so busy with other things we hardly even saw each other.

Tuesday night we had a board meeting for ECOU XXI, of which I am a long-distance member. Some board members, including Donna, participated in a week-long canoeing/camping trip along the Dnister River this past summer. The trip was organized by an ecological organization in Chisinau (who’s president, it turns out, is the mother of a young woman I know in Kyiv!), with two goals for the participants: culural exchange between ethnic Moldovans, Russians and Bulgarians in Moldova; and learning about the ecological diversity and beauty of Moldova. The Tvarditsa participants showed us pictures, and I was not alone in being surprised by the incredible scenes - the participants said they themselves had had no idea such beautiful places existed in their own country! The group wants to make the trip again next year, and invited me to join. I would love to!

Anya and Gresha had been busy the previous days with several invitations to birthday parties. But Tuesday night, they were finally able to stay home, and Anya and I had one of our “traditional” long and thoroughly enjoyable after-dinner conversations. Just like old times. We all had a great meal together, and afterwards Anya and I cleaned up, then sat down with our cups of tea and talked and talked and talked. That was what I had missed most of all since leaving Tvarditsa, my evening talks with Anya.

Early Wednesday I took my “beloved” 6:00 am bus to Chisinau, and spent the day visiting the PCVs and doing a little gift shopping. It was again nice to have a bit more economic freedom, and I was able to buy some nice cognac in the Cricova store that I had always oogled but never could afford (now, it was hard to believe that $13 for a sampler set of 8 different cognacs was once too much for me to spend on a gift).

The trip ended on a very stressful note. I had stored my bags in the Peace Corps office during the day, and had had to leave my passport at the reception desk. As I was leaving, I stopped to get my passport and was surprised when the guard gave me someone else’s passport. “This isn’t mine,” I said as I handed it back to the guard. He checked it (as if I don’t know my own passport), and said that was only passport he had. “Probably the other guard gave your’s to someone else by mistake,” he calmly said. That’s a bit of a problem, I thought, as I checked my watch and saw I had about 50 minutes until my bus left. The guard, in an oh-so-typically-unhelpful manner, stood and stared at me. Joanna was with me, and we quickly looked throught the guest log and found the name of the man whose passport the guard did have. He had visited one the PC staff, and had left about an hour earlier. Joanna ran up to see what the staff person knew about him, and she kindly offered his email address (another oh-so-unhelpful offer). Joanna explained the urgency of the matter, and a home phone number was finally offered up, but she didn’t have a cell phone number for him. To our luck (and surprise) he was home. Since the PC office is only about 5 minutes from the bus station, I asked him to come to PC so I could try to get to the bus station on time. But he didn’t seem very keen on going out, much less coming to meet me at PC. He seemed utterly unconcerned about the urgency of the matter for me. I finally offered to pay for his taxi if he would come ASAP. I had a maddening 10 minute wait for him outside PC, not entirely sure he was really going to come or not. He did, though, and I quickly exchanged passports with him and jumped in the cab before the guy could even say anything. I made it to the bus station with about 5 minutes to spare, adrenaline raging, and pretty damn disgusted with several people.

The story had a happy ending, though, so I tried to focus on that on the long bus ride back to Kyiv. We made it in at about 7:00 am, and I splurged for a taxi home. Everyone at work raved about the Moldovan candy I brought in, and Igor was truly impressed with the cognac sampler.

I’m finally going back to Moldova to visit this weekend. I have tried several times over the past 10 months to go back, and something has always come up to interfere with my plans. My host mom Anya and host brother Sasha even got so tired of waiting for me, they came to Kyiv themselves in June! And Petya, my good friend and walking buddy, has visited me twice. At long last, the time has come for me to return to Moldova!

Getting my visa reminded me of what I’m in for - amusing hassles, absurd bureaucracy, and a need for endless amounts of patience. I’m looking forward to a few quite days in Tvarditsa, away from the hussle and bussle of Kyiv. Good food, good wine, and great friends.