The Borderland Chronicles

Greetings! Or, rather, Nǐ Hǎo.

I can hardly believe it, but I’ve successfully completed my service as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ukraine. As of one week ago today, I am an RPCV, or what those of us who’ve finished service call a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. (In PC there are a lot of acronyms.) I’m still able to vividly recall my first day, hours in Ukraine as a trainee more than two years ago, after being whisked from Boryspol airport to a quiet sanatorium in the small town of Desna outside Chernigov, like it was yesterday. Now I’m here in Shanghai, China with all that in the past. Wild.

Honestly, I still haven’t processed it all. Two years, while sounding like a long time, in reality passes like a train in the night. I think it’s going to take some time before I’m really able to sit down and figure out what it all meant and means to me, as well as how the whole experience influenced my life. Right now I feel as though I’m merely on vacation. Any day now I’ll be returning to my home in Artemovsk, right?

Fortunately – and unfortunately – no, I won’t be returning there. Yes, leaving Ukraine was bittersweet. I had some great times, but I experienced some extremely trying ones, too. I’d say Ukraine and I had a love-hate relationship. There were certainly times during the past years when I felt lower than ever before, but there were also times when I felt extremely proud, appreciated and as though I was a contributor to the development of the country. It was, at risk of sounding extremely cliche, an incredibly enriching, fulfilling and invaluable experience.

I’ll forever remember my time in Ukraine, especially a select few things. Visiting the Chernobyl exclusion zone was a fascinating look into a post-apocalyptic world. Traveling around the southern coast of Crimea with my girlfriend and swimming in the Black Sea among the many jellyfish and thonged Ukrainians was a wonderful getaway. Celebrating holidays with my Ukrainian friends and colleagues over incountable bottles of vodka and samagon was always an interesting cultural experience. These memories and many others I’ll forever cherish.

Now I’ve begun the next chapter. Let’s call it the China chapter. I’ve been in Shanghai one week now, and I can happily tell you that I’m enjoying it immensely. It’s not only wonderful to finally be living with my girlfriend of three years, but it’s incredibly fascinating to be living and working in the People’s Republic of China. If all goes according to plan, we’ll be living here at least a year, teaching, photographing and writing.

So far, deprived of a vast variety of food during my 27 months in Ukraine, I’ve eaten an array of cultural dishes from all around the world here in Shanghai. I’ve huffed down a delicious Reuban with a pale ale that put Ukrainian beer to shame, I’ve chugged 2-for-1 margaritas and fed my face with fish tacos and I’ve devoured an enormous amount of Chinese street food, including meat-filled dumplings, fried octopus and assorted vegetables and strange fruits. Since arriving I’ve been in a state of pure foodie bliss.

I’ve also seen more smiles in one week on the street than I did in during all of last year. The Chinese are incredibly friendly people. I’ve already made pals with the woman who sells produce down our lane, the guy who works at Toby Good Eats, a quaint food kiosk across the street, and a very talented cobbler who I bought a gorgeous pair of shoes from this afternoon. (The cobbler and I strolled down the street arm in arm in the rain discussing his learning to make shoes as a child in a leather factory operated by his father.)

So I’m off to a good start here in China and I’m looking forward to what’s still to come. But I’ll never forget the good times I had in Ukraine, the friendships made, the vodka shared, the borsch eaten, nor will I forget the many trials and tribulations. It’ll all forever be with me.

Consider this my last blog post here at The Borderland Chronicles. In the not-so-distant future I hope to start a separate blog for my adventures in China, as well as a new personal website highlighting my written and photographed work. If you’ve enjoyed this blog over the past two years, keep your eyes peeled for these news sites soon to come. I’ll post links on Twitter and Facebook once they’re up and running.

Posted in Artemovsk, Chernobyl, Crimea, Culture, Donetsk, Food, History, Journalism, Kiev, Life, Lvov, Odesa, Peace Corps, Public Transportation, Russian, Soviet Union, Trains, Travel, Ukraine |

Oleg, center, with a stuffed bear on his head. He made it his personal mission to get me plastered. And he succeeded. He also invited me to butcher a pig with him at his dacha.

I’ve been hiding in my bedroom for about five minutes, standing over my bed with my head out the open window, and I’m inhaling and exhaling deeply, doing everything I can not to get sick from all the vodka I’ve drank during the past hour.

Then, from the other room, a heavily accented voice beckons. “Kree-ees,” it says, drawing it out in the middle.

I take one last deep breath, give myself a light slap to the face and then walk to the other room.

It’s Ira’s 23rd birthday, and her entire family has come over to the apartment I share with her and her boyfriend, my very good friend Igor, to celebrate.

Birthdays in Ukrainian culture are a very big deal. It’s typical to host a large dinner for family and close friends on the day of your birthday. And it’s important not to have empty space on the table during those dinners.

So for the past three days Ira and her friends, Ira, Ira and Tanya, have been baking, cooking, preparing elaborate mayonnaise salads and decorating the living room. They’ve also accumulated a table’s worth of booze. Every sort, from champagne to cognac, is represented.

The birthday dinner itself follows a strict formula. First, the dinner must be held on the actual day, or after, but never before. Once at the dinner, no one dishes up before everything is laid out, and no one drinks until everyone is present and ready to begin. A toast to the person whose birthday it is sets everything in motion.

On Monday night it’s Ira’s uncle Oleg who starts.

“Let’s drink,” he says, standing and raising his shot glass. The rest of us follow accordingly. “To Ira, my beautiful and wonderful niece on her birthday! May you have a long and prosperous life.”

Everyone throws back their glass of vodka, and we’re off to the races.

Plates are passed around, with the women scooping enormous helpings of everything onto them for the men. Discussions begin, with topics running the gamut from gossip to politics. The latter is one that I try to tread lightly on, because it has the power to ignite a firestorm amongst Ukrainians. And over the course of the next hour there are more than a dozen toasts, to the honored guest and just about everything else.

“I would like to make a toast to love!” Ira’s aunt cries out. So we all stand, clink our glasses and toss one back.

A few minutes later Ira’s father announces, “To the lovely couple – Ira and Igor!” Another shot down the hatch.

Not long after someone else shouts, “To women!” And everyone drinks again.

There’s a toast for men, another for Ukraine, one for friendship between Ukraine and America. There’s even one for me, for making it through the past two years. “It must have been difficult for you living with all of us,” someone jokes. All the while Oleg is watching my glass to be sure I’m drinking the shots in full. When I try to get away with just drinking half he calls me out.

“It’s bad luck to drink only half after a toast,” he explains. “Finish that now and let’s get you another.”

It’s after that next one that I escape to the toilet and then to my room. I need some air, and I need to stand up. I need to focus myself, because this thing’s not close to over.

But what I really need is to purge all this booze, drink some water and sleep. It’s a Monday night, and I have English lessons at 8 a.m. the next morning. Oleg, though, won’t let that happen. He’s made it his personal mission to fuck me up.

Somehow, sometime during my five minutes away, he’s acquired a new bottle of vodka. How the wretched thing materialized is beyond me

“Chris, you see?” he says, flicking his finger against the raised bottle of Nemiroff, his wedding ring clinking the glass. “This is just for you and me. For new friends!”

“Oleg,” I say, slowly shaking my head. “I don’t know. I just– ”

“No excuses. Only drinking,” he tells me, with a flick to his neck. “C’mon!”

Now I have no choice but to continue. His father, Ira’s grandfather, has sat me down on the sofa and is now holding my shot glass in front of my face, waiting for me to take it from him.

“You’re young and strong,” he tells me. “Everything will be OK.”

But after more than a dozen shots, I’m not sure if I believe him.

I finally get Oleg to let me take a break, but only after Ira’s aunt goes to bat for me, explaining to her husband in a rather patronizing manner that I’m American and I shouldn’t be held to Ukrainian standards.

“They can’t drink like us in America,” she says.

For the next several minutes I consume as much mashed potatoes, salad and bread as I can, in order to soak up some of the alcohol, careful not to overindulge for fear of becoming ill.

Living here for more than two years, you’d think I’d have learned all the tricks to surviving the Ukrainian birthday dinner. During Peace Corps training we’re even warned about it and taught ways to say no to alcohol. They tell us we’ll need to say “no” forcefully and at least three times for people to comprehend that we really don’t want or need anymore, or that we should think of a medical excuse.

But that’s just stupid. And the latter only works if you’ve not been drinking from the start. The former, well, sometimes you do want to partake, have fun and be lively. It’s not that I can’t take more than three shots, it’s that I don’t fare so well taking more than that in a span of just 10 or 15 minutes.

Three shots into the new bottle, I cut myself off, informing Oleg that it is now impossible for me to drink anymore without paying dearly for doing so. When he asks me what that means exactly, I make a vomiting gesture.

Tossing his head back in laughter while simultaneously patting me on the back, he finally gets it.

Thirty minutes and two pieces of cake later, Oleg and everyone else are gone. Igor and Ira do their best to convince me that going to a nightclub called Fresh is a great idea, but I make it no further than the courtyard in front of our building before I feel nauseous. Forget dancing, the simple act of watching someone dance might incite vomiting.

So I make my way back inside, stumble on my pants as I take them off to climb in bed, and hit the sack.

The next morning Igor and I bump into each other in the hallway. We leave for work at the same time.

“How are you feeling?” He asks.

“Terrible,” I say. “How about you?”

“Like a Brontosaurus Rex,” he tells me. “I think we drank a lot of vodka.”

Posted in Artemovsk, Culture, Encounters, Food, Holidays, Life, Peace Corps, Russian, Travel, Ukraine |

With the end of my Peace Corps service staring me in the face, I decided to do a bit of traveling in hopes of seeing a few more places in this country that I’ve come to care so deeply about. The fact that other PCVs wanted to do the same, and that the annual humor festival was going on in Odessa – a city I’ve longed to see but have never visited – only added to my yearning to hit the road.

And so I set off, first to Donetsk, a city I’ve spent quite a bit of time in, and then to Odessa – the famed city by the sea. It took an overnight train ride to get there. Luckily I did it with four other friends, making this train ride particularly enjoyable. After settling in we enjoyed some in-transit vodka shots and a couple of beers. Our train was filled with university students on their way back to Odessa, and so we weren’t the only ones imbibing. Sometime late in the evening we got acquainted with the group of young folk in the cabin nearest to us. One of the guys with them had a guitar, which he used to play American hits from the 90s, including Nirvana’s “Rape me”, which we may or may not have sang at the top of our lungs in an open car.

The rain came down in buckets the morning we arrived in Odessa, and it didn’t stop. By the time we’d made it to the hostel we were soaked nearly all the way through. There’s nothing like a good shower and a lie down after a long train ride, which is exactly what we all did. Soon, though, more friends arrived, and the hostel turned into somewhat of an American party.

Some catching up with friends ensued, and then we all went out to some divey basement pub near the city center. It was dark and smokey there, and being Funk Night, the DJ had James Brown on heavy rotation. I sipped a beer near the dance floor with a couple of friends while watching Ukrainians do their best to imitate the great funk legend. After some more drinks and a few games of cards, we called it a night.

Saturday was spent exploring the city. We strolled down Deribasovskaya Street, the city’s famous pedestrian walkway, where cafes, parks, public squares and food kiosks abound. We popped in to see the Passage Hotel’s gorgeous century-old courtyard, popped off to a Greek restaurant for a gyro and then made our way toward the sea.

When you approach the neo-baroque styled opera house, with its archways and metallic dome, you immediately understand its prominence. Supposedly a whisper from its stage can be heard from anywhere in the concert hall.

Walking further, across a small square and through a hilltop parkway, we reached what might be Odessa’s most famous symbol: the Potemkin Stairs.

The Potemkin Stairs were made famous in one my favorite films, Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 silent film, The Battleship Potemkin. In the film armed soldiers open fire on people on the stairs. While the film is a work on fiction, a similar massacre did occur in 1905.

Supposedly the stairs were designed to create an optical illusion. When viewing the stairs from the top only the landings are visible, while viewing them from the bottom allows one to see only the steps. Testing this on my own, I found this to be nearly true.

Past the stairs is the port area. While the view wasn’t anything to write home about, it was nice just being near the sea. Being landlocked for months at a time in the Ukrainian steppe can take a toll on a person.

We migrated from the port toward the city center, where a few of us broke off to dine in luxury at a swanky steak house, where a waiter visited our table with a large plank of raw meat and asked which we’d like to enjoy. I chose the bacon-wrapped filet mignon. It’d been ages since I’d treated myself to anything of the sort. It cost me nearly four times what I spend on food for one week here, but I enjoyed every bite. Besides, after two years doing perhaps the most challenging job I’ve ever done, I deserved it, damnit.

We went big that night. After all, it was Saturday, and the eve of “Yumorina,” or Odessa’s famous Day of Humor celebration, which happens every April 1. As a group we went to a club called “Shkaf,” which translates to “cupboard” or “wardrobe” or “closet” in English. And the place felt somewhat like a cupboard, all worn-in wood floors and dark brick walls. Despite that, the atmosphere was great. On a back wall a large projector showed a game of Mortal Combat. Shouts of “Aroogun!” echoed throughout the place. After ordering at the bar we found our way to another room, which housed the DJ and dance floor. Electronic music pulsed so loud I could feel the hairs on my head vibrate. The scene was like something out of a movie: everyone dancing as if they hadn’t a care in the world. I barely got halfway through my first drink before my friends dragged me onto the dance floor.

Hot, sweaty, drunk and happy, we danced and laughed and lived it up until early morning. On the way home some people popped over to all-hours food carts to satisfy their hunger. The rest of us sang songs in the street as we hobbled on back to the hostel.

The next day was “Yumorina.” At noon we all went out to find a place along the street to take in the parade. Thousands of people turned out. And while it was interesting to see so many people in such a small city center area, all donning wigs, mustaches, oversized glasses and goofy hats, the parade was a bust. For whatever reason, it was all regional football teams who marched, along with their signs and a few flamboyantly-dressed supporters. Still, it made for an entertaining environment.

The weather was the best part of Sunday. Having not seen much of the sun these past few months, I couldn’t soak up enough of it. Along with some friends, I explored more of the city, wandering down streets at random in hopes of uncovering something fascinating. Together we found some interesting monuments, though none that were particularly remarkable, and a dilapidated building once home to Nikolai Gogol, the famous playwright and novelist.

On Monday we slept in, caught up on sleep and gathered our things before feasting at a legitimate Chinese food restaurant. Having not had much in the way of ethnic for during the past two years, that was a real treat.

We boarded a train that evening, myself and three friends, made our beds and turned in for the night. In the morning we arrived in Ternopil, a larger city in western Ukraine.

Arriving anywhere in Ukraine at 3:30 a.m. means having to wait for a couple of hours until the buses start running to get anywhere. We could have taken a taxi to Terebovlya, our final destination, but it would have cost us three times the price of a bus. Plus, we weren’t sure our host, another PCV, would be awake that early. So we sat at the train station for an hour before making our way to the city’s bus station, where we sat another hour before boarding a bus to Terebovlya.

On the bus we all fell asleep. It wasn’t until another passenger nudged and woke us up that we realized we’d arrived in Terebovlya. Upon exiting the bus, we received some peculiar looks, looks that seemed to say, “What the hell are you doing here?”

Most people haven’t heard of Terebovlya, and most never will. Outside of the fact that it has a thousand-year-old fortress, there really isn’t much there. But the town, which is home to a little less than 10,000 people, has a hell of a lot of charm. Despite the fact that I speak only Russian and this part of Ukraine speaks Ukrainian as their first language, no one minded me speaking the language of the east. Mind you, they responded in Ukrainian, but they were all smiles, very pleased to interact with a foreigner.

The PCV we stayed with there had an incredible four-bedroom village-style house, without a doubt the best living quarters of any PCV I know in Ukraine. After a brief nap we joined our host at his school for three class lessons, during which we interacted with young students, discussing hobbies, family, geography and more. We had to endure dozens of photographs with students and teachers before being released for the day.

That afternoon we went for a walk through the forest. After living in the industrial east, an area known as the Donbass, which is marked with slag heaps and smoke stacks, my lungs were happy to breath in the fresh air of the west. What’s more, at the end of our stroll we were rewarded with remnants of an old monastery and fortress that overlooked fields and village homes as far as the eye could see. It was gorgeous.

That evening we cooked our first shashlik (barbecue) of the year. Two kilos of meat, some onions, tomatoes and more all cooked over an open pit. It was pure bliss. At night we enjoyed some locally brewed beer, talked and played “durak,” the Eastern European card game.

The next day we needed to be on a bus by 1 p.m. So rose early to cook a large egg breakfast before going out to explore the fortress on the hill.

I don’t know much about the history of the fortress, only that it’s around 1,000 years old and has been sacked about 15 times by multiple armies. Most recently it was taken over by the Nazi’s during WWII when they occupied Terebovlya. To mark their territory they inset a large tablet into the side of the fortress, which remains today.

From the top of the fortress I looked out over the entire town and to the hills beyond it. Where I live in the east is mostly flat. Slag heaps are the highest points visible. So this was refreshing.

We split up in Terebovlya. Some of us needed to get back home, back out east. Others went on for a few more days. One of my pals and I headed back to Ternopil, where we spent the remainder of the day strolling around the city before our train at 8 p.m. that evening.

I was pleasantly surprised by Ternopil, a city I knew nothing about before going there. Young people were everywhere, as were cafes, bars, parks and shops. I even managed to find a burrito place. And the burritos tasted like actual burritos.

An endearing moment came when I wandered into a souvenir shop to pick up a magnet for my roommate. Looking around I noticed there were a lot of photos of a large lake. So I asked the woman, was there a lake nearby?

“Oh, yes!” she answered emphatically. “I can show you.”

Reaching into the glass case housing the various magnets she pulled out six of them and proceeded to describe to me the path to the lake using each magnet’s pictured landmark.

“You’ll enjoy it,” she insisted. “Good luck.”

With that, my friend and I set off to find the lake.

The woman was right, I enjoyed it. The sun was out, a slight breeze made ripples atop the water, and further out two windsurfers glided along. We took it all in on a bench.

That evening we began what would be a 20-hour train ride back east. It was definitely among the longest I’ve endured since moving here. But we made it home, exhausted, slightly sore and stinking.

It was a good time, like many of the other trips I’ve taken during my two years here in Ukraine. But something about this one in particular had a certain finality about it. During the ride back to site I couldn’t shake thoughts of finishing my service here in just six weeks, and that during that six weeks I’d be busy with all of my Close of Service tasks required by Peace Corps, packing and saying goodbye to everyone who’s been a part of my life over the past two years. I wouldn’t have time to do much else – this trip would be the last of its kind in Ukraine.

Posted in Culture, Donetsk, History, Odesa, Peace Corps, Public Transportation, Russian, Trains, Travel, Ukraine |

My first day at my site, Artemovsk, with Nikolai.

This month marks two years in Ukraine. This I can hardly believe. I remember the morning I left like it was only yesterday. Filled with anxiety and excitement, I couldn’t sleep at all that night. Thoughts of my future life in Ukraine and what that would entail danced around in my head. Believing I’d forgotten something, I went over and over my mental packing list. Soon my alarm went off, signaling the beginning of the journey.

Now, after 24 months, thousands of miles traveled, hundreds of English lessons taught, dozens of new friendships made, I’m preparing to end my Peace Corps service and leave Ukraine. Tomorrow is the first big step in that process: the group 38 close of service conference in Chernigov.

It’s all down hill from here. The next 59 days will no doubt pass by in a flash. But I’m ready for a new challenge, much like I was that last night before leaving Portland for Ukraine. But just what that challenge will be remains to be seen.

Posted in Peace Corps |

Nescafe 3 in 1 TURBO, for when you need a little something extra.

Before March of 2010 I’d never drunk instant coffee, never even had a taste. Sure, I’d had the cheap stuff. Folgers was a mainstay in my suburban childhood home. The garage was lined with the empty cans. My father used them to store nuts, bolts, nails and screws. As I got older, about high school age, I developed a taste for slightly better coffee, although I should say that it was my younger brother at age 10 who first asked for a French press for his birthday. It was rare for us then to drink coffee before school, but on the weekends we’d open a fresh bag of beans, grind them down for the press and enjoy a pitch black cup with our eggs and bacon.

By the time I entered college I was drinking two cups a day, sometimes more. Coffee was a necessary evil. Luckily, living in Portland, it was easy to get my hands on the really good stuff. I was a regular at Stumptown’s S.E. Division location, and from time to time I’d make it into the S.W. 3rd shop. My love affair with it continued a few years later when I moved downtown and got a job at Oregon Business Magazine. The office on S.W. Broadway wasn’t far from the Ace Hotel location, where I spent many a lunch hour sipping freshly pressed Hair Bender and preparing for interviews.

My palate used to quality java, I panicked when I arrived in Ukraine almost two years ago to begin my Peace Corps service and found my only coffee options to be Nescafe and Jacobs Original or 3 in 1. I knew that any coffee sold in small, one-serving packets at the check-out counter would never compare to the organic, dark-roasted grinds I had back home.

But you’d be surprised how well your palate adapts when your choices are shit and shit. Now, every morning with my two eggs over easy on toast, I drink a tall mug of it – and without cringing.

That said, there have been care packages from my parents over the past couple years that came with some of Portland’s finest coffee. And when they do, I make it last, saving it for those slow, heavy-eyed mornings when the snow drifts come up to my knees  and the thermometer reads just 10 degrees.

Posted in Culture, Food, Life, Peace Corps, Portland, Travel, Ukraine |

I was recently contacted by Matador Network to put together a photo essay that represented the eastern Ukrainian region that I’ve called home for the past two years.

Beautiful rubble of rural Ukraine was the result. And while you’ve seen many of the 20 photos here on The Borderland Chronicles, there might just be a few that’ll be new to you.

While you’re there, check out the other pieces I’ve published with Matador.

Posted in Artemovsk, Culture, Donetsk, Environment, Food, History, Holidays, Journalism, Konstantinovka, Life, Media, Peace Corps, Travel, Ukraine |

Today is World AIDS Day. And while I didn’t spend the afternoon teaching lessons to students about HIV/AIDS in Ukraine like I did last year, I did have some conversations about the situation here with some friends and colleagues.

In case you’re unaware, at 1.3%, Ukraine has the worst HIV infection rate in all of Europe. About half of those infected in Ukraine are drug addicts.

Despite this, the government does little in the way of prevention programs and anti-retroviral treatment.

Trawling my daily online sites, I came across this story in The Economist which does a good job of highlighting the HIV/AIDS problem in Ukraine.

From the story:

Ukraine and Russia account for 90% of all HIV cases in the region. Fewer than one-fifth of Ukrainian HIV patients receive anti-retroviral treatment. Botswana and Rwanda manage more than 80%.

In both Russia and Ukraine the epidemic is driven by intravenous drug use, with addicts accounting for around half of all cases. Yet the Ukrainian government seems uninterested in prevention programmes. “There’s a line in the national AIDS programme budget for prevention,” says Andriy Klepikov, head of AIDS Alliance Ukraine, “but its value is set at zero”.

Some believe corruption in Ukraine to be a reason for the lack of prevention programs:

Ukraine’s government has recently agreed a co-funding deal with the Global Fund, an international organisation, worth $85m over the next two years, but AIDS Alliance says that the government’s bit will be spent almost entirely on medical treatment rather than prevention. “They usually procure medicines at a higher price than they need to,” says Mr Klepikov. His (widely shared, if unproven) suspicion is that kickbacks are at work.

Among the Ukrainians I’ve spoken with about prevention programs, there seems to be a clear split. Some acknowledge that something needs to be done to put an end to rising infection rates, and prevention programs and education are it. On the other hand, fearful perhaps of admitting there’s a problem, succumbing to the stigma of HIV/AIDS that exists here, some believe that the situation in Ukraine is being blown out of proportion. One woman told me it was only morally bankrupt drug fiends that had HIV, and that no truly decent person could contract the virus.

Contrary to that woman’s belief, I happen to have known a truly decent woman who recently died from complications with AIDS. And I’d be willing to bet that her son, a hard-working young student now living with his grandmother, would agree.

On the HIV/AIDS front, it’s great that in parts of the world – Africa, for instance – we’re making big strides toward ending the AIDS epidemic. But there are still some places, even places that are in many ways more developed than, say, Africa, that have a long way to go. I hope a year from now we’ll be reporting a decreased infection rate in Ukraine.

Posted in Culture, Kiev, Life, Media, Peace Corps, Recent reads, School, Teaching, Ukraine |

In Ukraine repairs to homes, cars, anything of that sort, are done hastily. They are meant not to solve or restore things to their natural working order, but merely to extend the life of what it is that’s failing, to simply band-aid it, if you will, so as to get a few more months of use out of it. God forbid you go out and just buy a new whatever it is and install it.

And so early this morning, after about six months since my last electrical outage, as I turned on my chainik to boil water for coffee, my outlet blew along with my breaker box on my hallway wall, emitting a small shower of sparks, turning my apartment dark.

And this during the weeks leading up to the centralized heat being turned on. The weather’s turned from very warm to chilly; the past week’s temperatures were in the 40s and 50s. My only salvation during the times in which the central heat is off is a small space heater that Peace Corps provides its volunteers. As I write this I’m layered in T-shirts, a sweatshirt, an old Pendleton flanel, two pairs of socks and wool cap. The temperature on the thermometer I keep near my desk reads 43 degrees. If I take a deep breath and exhale I can see my breath.

Also as this is being written there’s a repairman pounding away at something in the hallway, cursing in Russian and saying to himself, “I don’t get it!” I went out to purchase new parts for my breaker box this morning, which I’d done before and had worked in the past. This time around, though, that didn’t do the trick. I had to have an electrician – the same guy that’s been here three times in the past 14 months – come over to fix this mess.

Peaking around the corner I can see that the repairman’s not done, but there does happen to be a sizeable mess of wires, sheetrock and wallpaper strewn about the floor. No doubt he’ll leave that for me to clean up when he leaves. But I only mind now that this mess gets fixed. I need heat and light. I need to plug my MacBook in before it dies on me.  And I need my coffee.

Oh, Ukraine.

Posted in Artemovsk, Culture, Heat!, It's Cold!, Life, Peace Corps, Russian, Ukraine |

Matador recently published another piece of mine. Notes on eating and drinking with Ukrainians is a collection of experiences in brief that I’ve had here in Ukraine. What’s included: Stories about drinking homemade vodka, eating rodents and having icicle sword fights. Sounds like fun, right?

Here’s a teaser:

Mystery meat and moonshine

It’s a two-hour bus ride from my home in Artemovsk and then a 40-minute walk to Alla’s father’s village. I’d met Alla months earlier while living in a suburb of Kiev. Her six-year-old daughter Liza shows me around. We walk past rabbit huts, a chicken coop, a large garden with tall green corn stalks and sunflowers, and then she leads me to a steel drum where a large rodent – an all-white nutria with an orange overbite – is frantically trying to escape.

Alla didn’t mention we’d be swimming in a nearby lake, so I wear my blue Hanes boxer briefs into the water. We drink Ukrainian beer and eat smetana-flavored sukhariki (crouton-like snacks) on the grass below a sweltering sun. Alla’s pregnant sister smokes half a pack of Chesterfield lights.

Back at the house that evening I help Alla’s father, Viktor, skin and butcher a rabbit by hanging its feet from the clothesline. At dinner Viktor tells me he has a couple of surprises.

“First,” he says, “my samigon!” Samigon is like Ukrainian moonshine. Unless infused with something – I once had a bottle infused with walnuts – the smell and taste resembles rubbing alcohol. He pours a shot for each of us, and we drink a toast to new acquaintances.

“And now, something else,” Viktor says, reaching across the table. He plucks a piece of meat from a plate with his fork and drops it onto mine. Alla is furrowing her brows and shaking her head at him, and I’m not sure why. Viktor ignores her.

With all eyes on me, I cut a piece of the barbecued meat and put it in my mouth. It’s stringy, and tastes a bit gamey.

“Tasty rat, huh?” Viktor says.

“Rat?” I recognize the word because it’s said just like my name, but with an “a” at the end.

“Yes,” he says, using the middle and index finger of his right hand to simulate two large teeth, making a lapping sound like Hannibal Lecter. “Nutria.”

Posted in Artemovsk, Culture, Encounters, Food, It's Cold!, Life, Media, Peace Corps, Russian, Travel, Ukraine |

I’m in Kiev this week for my Peace Corps mid-service medical examination, and also to help my girlfriend move into her new apartment in the city. Both have gone swimmingly thus far. I’m TB free, 15 pounds lighter than when I arrived in Ukraine 18 months ago and the apartment is very cozy.

The weather as warm and sunny as it is, this morning I opted to walk from my girlfriend’s apartment in the Perchesk region, near the monastery, to the city center, past Independence Square, along Khreschatik, up Shevchenko, down through the botanical gardens, to the Peace Corps office.

During this time I observed children dressed in their best – girls in black and white jumpers and blouses, their hair in tight braids with large white bows atop their heads, and the boys in black suits and ties – hand-in-hand with parents and each other on their way to their first day of school. The first of September is the inaugural first day of school in Ukraine each year. It’s commonly known here as First Bell.

Last year on the first of September I was at the small Krasne village school near my home in Artemovsk, being welcomed as a new teacher and giving a speech in Russian to curious students, parents and faculty. This year I’m in Kiev taking a break from the festivities. But while watching these students in Kiev file into their schools this morning, a thought came to mind. It was 10 years ago today that I began my first day of my senior year at Gresham High School. Time, indeed, does seem to fly by.

Another observation. While walking along Khreschatik Street, I noticed voices coming from a loudspeaker and flags and banners being waved. I went to get a closer look and accidentally found myself in the middle of a large group of Yulia Tymoshenko supporters rallying and protesting for her release. Things in the rally seemed calm; I didn’t observe anyone acting hostile. Even if the rally would have turned violent, there were plenty of police around to take control of the situation. For those of you that aren’t aware, Tymoshenko is the former Ukrainian prime minister who was recently jailed for contempt of court during the first days of her corruption trial. You can read more about what’s going on in this New York Times article.

Posted in Culture, Holidays, Kiev, Krasne, Peace Corps, Politics, School, Ukraine |