The Borderland Chronicles

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 |

A few months back, while on a tour of Konstantinovka’s dilapidated factory areas and trash heaps (“The Wonders and Horrors of Donbass”, April 13), I met a young journalist from Donetsk named Alex. Alex is the editor of the online news outfit НОВОСТИ, based in Donetsk. We chatted for a while about journalism and I promised him I’d give him an interview about what I’m doing here in Ukraine

We just wrapped up the interview this week. The interview is in Russian, but you can run it through Google translate and get the jist. Here’s the interview.

Posted in Donetsk, Encounters, Journalism, Konstantinovka, Media, Peace Corps, Russian, Teaching, Ukraine |

Each year Ukrainian schools celebrate the end of the school year with a Last Bell. Following singing, dancing, certificate presentations and dramatic performances, a student of the graduating 11th form, hand-in-hand with an entering 1st form student, ring the ceremonial bell, signaling the beginning of summer holiday. These are a few photos from that day last week, May 27th, at the Red Village School, where I worked as a teacher this past year.

Posted in Culture, Holidays, Krasne, Peace Corps, Ukraine |

This report from The Bureau for International Reporting does a good job of explaining the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Ukraine. And it is an epidemic. Nowhere in Europe does HIV spread quicker than in Ukraine.

As a Peace Corps volunteer working in youth development, part of my job entails teaching about HIV/AIDS to Ukrainian youth. I’ve done so at summer camps and in schools, and I’ve received training to do so from Peace Corps staff and health experts.

Posted in Media, Peace Corps, Teaching, Television, Ukraine |

Student and community volunteers, as well as myself and members from our newly formed NGO, Green Grass, got together last Sunday morning to clean the banks of Artemovsk’s North Pond. The event was the first for Green Grass, but – we hope – not the last.

In all, about 35 people attended the cleaning event. With gloves and trash bags provided by Remondis, an Artemovsk waste company, volunteers worked for nearly four hours to pick up discarded glass, plastic and more.

Local media came out to cover the event. One news outlet, Donbass Gazette, published a short piece this week about our efforts at the lake.

Translated excerpt from the story:

Youth group Donetsk – that’s us! and public organization GreenGrass, long associated with city residents to share creative and unusual flash mobs, attracted concerned and socially active girls and guys. And about two dozen activists, as well as Peace Corps volunteers from the United States and Italy, working in the city, all Sunday morning were at the lake.

“Ukraine is a beautiful country. But I see a lot of garbage. People generally understand the problem, but, unfortunately, still do not feel the motivation for action. I am pleased that young people have come here today to make sure a small piece of nature is cleaner and prettier. I am pleased to take part in such events in America and in Ukraine,” said volunteer Chris Miller.

You can find the story (with photo) in its original form at the Donbass Gazette website.

Posted in Artemovsk, Culture, Environment, Media, Peace Corps, Television, Ukraine |