Man, those earrings are working!

The car is perfectly fine; well, not exactly but nothing is wrong with the brakes. The endless rain leaked into something and caused a short in the wiring that caused the brake warning light to come on. The mechanic apparently took me quite literally when I said “seal up” the leaky sunroof – he taped the roof with masking tape. It looks so bad, I have to laugh. At least I know that won’t last long.

Michael arrived last night, and Igor is playing with all his fancy photography equipment this evening (Michael’s a professional photographer).

We launched our new Youth Social Inclusion project yesterday – hrtrrah! It’s on our UNV website and the Ministry of Family, Youth and Sport. It’s taken nearly a year to get to this point, but we did it! And now for the hard part – actually putting the work plan into action!

Rain, rain, go away

It’s been raining for over a week in Kyiv. I hear it actually didn’t rain on Saturday, but we went to Korosten for a birthday party and it rained there. Two things I have learned in the past week: my favorite pair of ankle boots have been repaired one too many times and are no longer water-proof (found out the hard way in, guess what?, the rain); and the sunroof in the car leaks. Found that out the hard way, too, when the roof basically piddled on my head.

We went just for the day to Korosten on Saturday, and as we pulled onto the highway after a few hours of eating and (for Igor only) drinking, a red light on the instrument panel lit up. It’s one of those “universal” symbols that makes absolutely no sense, a circle with lines around the edges, kind of looks like a sun. A sun? Maybe my car uses solar energy and after 6 sunless day it’s power is all drained out? That was my best guess. So we pulled over and dug out the BMW manual from the glove compartment. Presumably this car was originally purchased in Germany, and as such the manual is only in German. We found the page with the picture of the instrument panel, each indicator light numbered, with a numbered list to the side with a description of each item. Sometimes words are close enough that I can guess what they mean, but no luck this time. My tongue knotted up trying to pronounce “Bremsbelag-Verschleissanzeige (rot)”. We both started laughing hysterically, and decided to see how far we could get until the car either died or exploded. The light blinked sporadically throughout the drive to Kyiv, which I figured either meant the problem wasn’t so serious yet as to warrant a full-time indication, or else the light is attached to the shoddy electrical system and ought to be on full-time but the connection is bad.

We did make it home, safe and sound. A little search on the internet came up with the words “brake” and “wear-indicator” (or “cobblestone”, go figure). So, the car is parked until I have time to take it to the garage. Having just paid a small chunk of change to have the motor repaired (yes, we have windshield wipers again!), it’s looking like monthly repairs are becoming the norm. It might be about time to send our dear Mashonka to pasture. She’s been good to us!

Our friend Michael returns to Ukraine today for his turn with a Fulbright. The last time he was here with his wife, who was on her own Fulbright grant at that time. He’ll stay with us for a bit while he looks for an apartment, then wife and baby will join him once he’s settled in. Some other friends should be returning to Ukraine next month after more than a year’s absence- how cool that much of the old gang will be here again!

Igor’s parents gave me a beautiful pair of gold earrings for my birthday, what are commonly called “gypsy” earrings here. They belonged to Igor’s paternal great-grandmother, who left them to her sister when she died. One winter many many year’s ago, that sister (Igor’s great-aunt) lost one of the earrings in the snow by her house. She thought it was gone forever, but couldn’t bring herself to throw away the one remaining earring. Lo and behold, after the snow melted in the spring, she just happened to look down one day and there was the missing earring, shining up at her out of the mud! Igor’s father told me they bring good luck, and he always comments when I wear them. I love the look on his face when he sees me with them, the memories these earrings bring back to him – he was mostly raised by his grandmother, and loved her very, very dearly. His eyes light up, and a big smile brightens his face, and he starts to tell me stories about his grandmother. And he always ends his reminiscences by telling me the earrings bring good luck and I should wear them all the time.

I don’t know if it’s coincidence or not, but some very good things are happening. Igor was hired to teach history at a kind of community college. Although it’s not his dream job, I know he’s a wonderful and natural teacher, and he’s enjoying being in a classroom again. I like being married to a professor. 🙂 There’s other good stuff, but I’ll write about it later.

Weekend update

My predictions for the baby’s birthday party were right on target. Cross-stitching on a bus – not as easy as expected, especially on a very bouncy bus. Got a bit done, but not much.

This week is off to a hectic and busy week. And it’s still freakin’ cold! I actually wore a scarf this morning. And contemplated the idea of pulling the winter clothes out of storage and putting away the summer stuff. But I’m just not ready for bulky sweaters and wool tights. Please, can we have a few more weeks of t-shirts and sandals?

Since we came back from Korosten by bus, Igor’s mom couldn’t load us up with an absurd amount of food like she usually does. But we did happily accept a big bag of probably the last garden tomatoes of the season. Did I mention I’m not ready for summer to be over? Oh how I love the fresh fruits and veggies straight from the garden!

Weekend plans

The heat wave is officially over – and it’s freaking cold! The cat suddenly is interested in my company now that she’s cold – normally she tolerates us only because of our ability to open the refrigerator and spoon canned food into her bowl. But when she’s cold she becomes the nicest of lap cats.

Igor went to Korosten yesterday, and I’ll join him today. The car is in the shop because the motor burned out, leaving us without windshield wipers. It came as no surprise that they couldn’t find a new or used motor for our 1984 BMW, so they’re trying to repair our motor. Hopefully it won’t cost an arm and a leg, since the car itself is barely worth an arm, or a leg for that matter.

So I’ll be taking the bus to Korosten, something I haven’t done in quite a while. And for once I’m not too upset about that, maybe even a little bit glad ’cause it means I can work on my embroidery while someone else does the driving! I’m about half way done with my first cross-stitch. It’s got quite a few mistakes in it, but I’m plugging along. One important thing I learned is to not try to do it at 1:00 in the morning when I’m exhausted but can’t sleep – I ended up redoing the same little area about 5 times before I finally got it right. I couldn’t resist buying my next pattern yesterday. It’s got six colors (up from three with my first pattern), and involves two types of stitches, so it will be a challenge for me. But it’s relatively small, so I think it won’t be overwhelming. I looked again at the traditional Ukrainian patterns, for the ceremonial towels and shirts and things, but they are still way too intimidating. It’s fun to have something to work towards, though.

Speaking of goals – I went to Buffalo Expatriate’s farewell get-together last night (she’s moving back to the States). She’s been working with the International Organization for Migration, and doing research on trafficking and related issues. There was such an awesome, interesting diverse group of people at the bar. We went around the table introducing ourselves, with most people saying the usual “My name is…, I work/study at…”. One young Nigerian man introduced himself and said “I am going to the be president of Nigeria some day.” Talk about having goals!

But back to this weekend. Igor’s godson turned one this past week, and today is his birthday party. What do you wear to a first birthday party? I don’t think that this will be like an American baby’s birthday party, with lots of other kids crawling around and parents swapping parenting stories. I suspect this will be like most other Ukrainian celebrations – adult family and friends squeezed around a table overflowing with food, which will keep coming until long after you can’t eat another bite, and plenty of drinking and toasting. This would be the down-side of not having the car this weekend, as it’s always a great excuse for me to pass on the vodka shots when I’m “behind the wheel”. Maybe I’ll use the “I’m taking some medicine right now” excuse; that one usually works pretty well, too.

I guess it’s time to get myself together and head out to the bus station. Can’t wait to get to work on my cross-stitch!

Honk and wail with the best of them, my friend

It’s a hard way to start the day, reading emails about a high school friend who passed away yesterday. I haven’t seen Brian since college, but I remember him very fondly.

He was a founding member of the fabulous band Honk, Wail and Moan.

Brian, the music just got better up there. Show them how to jam!

Volunteerism Promotion Campaign

Our second annual Volunteerism Promotion Campaign, conducted in 5 villages in zone 3 of the Chornobyl-affected territory of northern Ukraine, was another fantastic success this year.

To my great pride and delight, not only did we manage to recruit an American among the international volunteers, but an American from Ohio who is a student at Ohio State University! Go Bucks! Tobias was a fantastic participant – at least that’s what has been reported to me; I did my duty last year, so my colleague traveled with the group this year.

Who knew there were Buckeye fans in Ukrainian villages?

Heat wave and hobbies

The topics are not exactly connected, but they are both on my mind lately.

The brief introduction to autumn was short-lived – yeah! It was back up in the 80’s over the weekend, maybe even 90. Hot! I went to a folk festival at the Pirohovo outdoor museum on Saturday. Gosh, I love those things. Most of the time I only hear about such fun stuff after the fact, but I managed to find out in advance this time. We wandered around for a few hours, “window” shopping amongst the hundreds of vendors, enjoying the music and dancing.

Saturday evening Igor and I saw on the news that there had been another festival that day near the Lavra, close to our apartment, so we decided to check it out on Sunday. It must have been just a one-day affair, but there was a small kids’ festival at the Ivan Honchar museum. We popped in the courtyard and checked out the arts and crafts the kids were working on at different stations, watched to the children’s groups singing and dancing. We took advantage of the special free admission to the museum, too (and dutifully left a donation in the collection box). It’s a great little museum. I like it preciously because it is small – just 5 or 6 rooms, completely doable in a reasonable amount of time, no museum burn-out or glazed eyes from too much information. I love the old black-and-white photographs of men, women, families, clubs, teams, orchestras and other groups in traditional Ukrainian costumes. I love to imagine the crazy array of colors they are probably wearing. They have some exquisite examples of Ukrainian vyshyvka (embroidery). I love looking at it, and admire so much the talent, skill and time it takes to create these works of wearable art.

I’ve been thinking for a while to try my own hand at embroidery, actually. There are several arts and crafts shops that I pass occasionally, with embroidery patterns and cross-stitch materials. But I don’t want to do the goofy cats or unicorns or whatever. I’ve been wanting to try the traditional Ukrainian styles, but hadn’t seen any patterns. I finally asked the sales lady last week, and turns out she has a ton of traditional Ukrainian patterns, tucked away under the counter. Skimming through them, I quickly realized that they were all way more than I am ready to take on, so I asked her to suggest something for a beginner. She selected a pretty little napkin, with a Ukrainian motif. Perfect!

Naive me, I thought there would be some easy guide, maybe even step-by-step pictures, included. Nope, just some basic directions in terminology that I’m not at all familiar with. I decided to dive in anyway, and muddled through a few disastrous attempts before trial and error finally resulted in something that seemed to work and even resembled the photo of the finished product. I worked on it off and on over the weekend, making slow but steady progress. It finally occurred to me yesterday that I might be able to find some help on the internet. D’oh! It’s amazing how helpful it is to read the instructions! I was a speed demon last night, completing twice as much in one evening as I had all of the previous three or four days. Amazing! There are still mistakes, but it’s getting better and better.

And I’m loving it! What a great hobby. I used to crochet and do other such kinds of arts and crafts as a kid, but I don’t recall ever trying my hand at embroidery. I’m looking forward to finishing up this little project and starting another. I don’t know if I’ll ever have the skill (or patience) to try an elaborate and intricate ceremonial linen, but who knows!

South Ossetia is the new Liechtenstein

A colleague of mine is from South Ossetia, the break-away Georgian territory recently recognized as independent by Russia. We’ve had some interesting discussions the last few weeks, and he was talking to friends and relatives in Tskhinvali and other towns throughout the Georgian invasion and Russian counter-attack.

When Russia recognized South Ossetia’s independence the other day, I asked him if he really thought such a dinky country could survive independently in the world.

“What about Liechtenstein?” he challenged. “It’s a small country and doing great!”

So there you have it – South Ossetia is the next Liechtenstein! If only they had banks and could set up sophisticated tax shelters, they’d have it made!

Traveling abroad?

Last month, the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine sent out a great compilation of articles that any traveler would be wise to read and consider. I’ve also added the link the to my Travel Recommendations page.

Here comes Autumn

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

Yuck.

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

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

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

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

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

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