Quaratine in Ukraine?

The H1N1 virus has finally arrived in Ukraine, and along with it a big ole dose of overreaction and panic. Reports vary on the number of infected and number of deaths attributable to swine flu, but there seems to be clear consensus that those who have died waited too long to seek medical attention. Then again, knowing the medical care available in regional towns and villages, it’s hard to imagine how going to the clinic or hospital would have really helped many of them – sad to say.

Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, in an attempt to scare the living bejeezes out of people, oops, I mean protect the population, has extended the autumn school break for another 3 weeks and advised people to avoid public gatherings. Once the announcement hit the wires this afternoon, parents started panicking – the flu immediately forgotten as they tried to figure out what the hell to do about childcare for another 3 weeks. Ex-pats were openly hoping the “quarantine” wouldn’t affect the international schools.

I saw three people wearing masks today, and another half-dozen covering their noses and mouths with scarves. Igor went to several pharmacies to buy echinacea and flu medicine, but no luck. Every place around us was sold out of both. So he bought a dozen lemons and insisted I drink the “family recipe” for good health – a potent concoction of vodka, lemon juice and honey.

I wonder how many of the unfortunate victims of H1N1 in Ukraine also thought their homebrew medicine was the right way to go. My father-in-law’s insistence that salo and vodka will protect you from and/or cure you of anything doesn’t seem like the best way to go right now. But what else to tell people to do?

Village museums

Another great weekend in Korosten – we need to take friends every time! It gives us a great excuse to do something new and different. This time we took up the offer from Igor’s old friend Sasha to check out the Precious Gem Museum in Volodarsk-Volynskyi, a town about 55 km from Korosten, in an area known as the “little Urals”, not for the mountains (not in flat, flat, flat northern Ukraine!), but rather for the rich mineral deposits. My beautiful blue topaz jewelry comes from this area, and the bountiful granite deposits have contributed to Korosten’s many colorful monuments, walls, walkways and buildings. The particular rose-colored granite of the region is especially well-known, and in fact Lenin’s tomb on Red Square is made from the rose-colored granite deposits around Korosten (a fact I learned in the Precious Gem Museum!).

We were thoroughly impressed with the breath-taking examples of quartzes, topaz, and many, many other minerals and crystals whose names I would hardly recognize in English even if I knew the translations from Ukrainian. Sadly, pictures weren’t really allowed inside the museum – well, for a measly 5 hrivna a shot, which hardly seemed worth it when the museum booklet, with numerous photos, cost only 7 hrivna (I’ll have to scan some of the pictures and post them!). This museum was quite a little treasure, no pun intended.

I love village museums, they are often chock full of things the local residents think are ordinary, but I find them fascinating. More than once I’ve managed to get someone to open up the village museum for me. They are usually just two, sometimes three rooms, and the folks with me (often Ukrainians who’ve grown up in cities) are stunned by the history held within the simple walls. Looms, spinning wheels, farm implements, intricate embroidery and cross-stitched clothes and linens, decorative blankets for horses, folk paintings, pottery, children’s arts and crafts – I have thoroughly enjoyed every village museum I’ve had the good fortune to visit in Ukraine and Moldova, and I hope to see many more! Anyone traveling around Ukraine – make a point to stop in any little museum you come across, and if it’s closed, ask around. Chances are, someone can find someone who just might let you in for a look around.

Home again

I’m back in Kyiv – exhausted, as usual, after two weeks in the US. Managed to be just grams under the weight limit with my luggage (I’m getting good at that!).

I wish I could have visited with more friends while I was in DC, but the week was really intense and jam-packed. Lots of exciting changes in our organization, which will be both fun and challenging. One new development is the addition of 7 more countries to my portfolio. I’ll definitely have my hands full!

Those of you in the central Ohio region, my school friend Kate is about to complete massage therapy school and I was a very lucky guinea pig for her. It… was…. awesome. If you want her to be on her list when she is fully licensed next month and ready to open shop, let me know and I’ll pass on your contacts to her. Trust me, you will not regret it. She has, as she called it, the Cadillac of massage tables set up in her studio. I would call it the Bentley. She’s got lots of really tall friends so she was purposeful to get an extra long table to accomodate taller frames.

The cat now has a definitive name. As much as we liked Ziggy, his personality ended up setting the name – Trasher. It sounds slightly less awful when said with a heavy Russian accent, but Igor informed me today that it’s the final answer. It’s my own fault, I jokingly refered to the cat once or twice as “musornik”, “trash can” in Russian, ’cause he eats just about anything and everything. Folks living in small towns and villages feed their dogs, cats, chickens and pigs with table scraps, but usually city pets (which so far, in Kyiv at least, don’t seem to include chickens and pigs) often get store-bought pet food. Our guy, for good or bad, is not so fancy and has turned up his nose to most brands of cat food, but is perfectly content with any and all table scraps. So Igor started calling him Trasher, and sadly the consequence of me being gone for two weeks is that now the name has stuck. *Sigh*

Everything else seems OK. Only one thing broke in transit this trip, and I think it’s fixable. I went wild at JoAnn Crafts and now Eileen and I will have sooooo many supplies for all those cross-stitch patterns we bought over the summer! I’m working on baby booties for a friend – they are adorable!

Family

The phone rang Wednesday afternoon. I happened to be home for a few minutes between the millions of things I’m trying to do in my short week in Columbus. But I hesitated to answer, since no one would be calling for me on the home phone. But I picked up. “Hello,” I said. Hesitation on the other end. “Is this the Merrill’s?” Oh great, telemarketers, I thought. “Yes,” I snapped. “Um, this is Mike, Will’s nephew.”

My cousin Mike figured he’d either get voice mail or just maybe my dad was back and would pick up, but a female voice was the last thing he expected to hear when he called with the sad news that their Uncle Jim had passed away.

Jim was my cousins’ uncle on the other side of their family, not related to me by blood but a relation nonetheless. He and his wife had a farm north of Columbus that we visited occassionally when I was growing up – I loved the open space, the horses, the woods, their big collie. His wife Virginia passed away 2 years ago, right after they closed on a house in town near their son. She never actually lived in the house, and so when Uncle Jim moved in, I can’t imagine how disconcerted his world must have felt, without her and in a strange new place. He couldn’t bring himself to sell the farm, though, and he drove up there 2-3 times a week (scaring the living daylights out of his children, no doubt, that their 89-year old father was making the 45 minute commute along the busy highway). He stopped at thrift stores and bought a piece of furniture now and then to put in the farmhouse, after everything else had been moved out. His kids brought up a cot, figuring it was better to have him sleep there if he got tired instead of driving back to Columbus.

He loved Wendy’s, and his granddaughter snuck a Frosty into the hospital for him earlier this week. He passed quietly, 90 years old, ready to join his beloved wife, sister and brother-in-law who have all died in the last 4 years.

My visits to Columbus are always jam-packed, this one no exception. But for some reason, I hadn’t managed to get Friday night plans finalized yet. Now I know why. Uncle Jim’s six nieces and nephews all came to town, from all across the country, for the funeral. I got to spend Friday afternoon and evening with most of them, and will see the others today. It’s been a decade since I’ve seen most of them, the last time was at their parents’ 45th wedding anniversary. I am embarrassingly out of touch with them, and I listened with amazement last night – doctors and teachers and pilots and researchers. A talented and successful bunch.

Scott will be back today from his trip to Japan with his new bride. She’ll have quite an introduction to the Merrill family!

Indulgences

Cookies-n-Cream ice cream hasn’t been invented in Ukraine yet

Chocolate martinis at Diversity Club

Indulgences

Visits to the US usually involve more than a bit of decadent indulgence for me- foods I can’t get in Kyiv, driving around everywhere, shopping shopping shopping. This trip started off pretty much like usual! Tuesday started with a trip to Target, I think I was the first person in the store when they opened at 8:00 am! (thanks in large part to jetlag that got me up at 5:00 am) A leisurely stroll around the store is always fun, marvelling at the stuff you can buy for just about anything. Then a stop at the grocery store to get my beloved Morningstar farms Veggie Sausage Patties, Thomas’ English muffins and a big block of Vermont cheddar cheese – yuuummm!

This trip I have noticed that there is hand sanitizer absolutely everywhere, dispensers on walls in stores, the doctor’s office, even next to the pump at the gas station. I’m all for cleanliness, but this obsession seems a bit out of control, if you ask me.

Julee invited me to their Girl Scout meeting Tuesday afternoon and talking with the girls and answering their questions about life in Ukraine was fun and boosted my lagging energy. Dinner with Julee and the girls was also a blast – as always, Julee’s memory for details can’t be beat and we had awesome tacos and burritos! So many cravings indulged in one day… 🙂

And one really delightful discovery at my dad’s house. Despite my vow to myself to not spend my vacation cleaning, I did have to make at least one room livable for me for the week. I vacuumed the carpet and changed the sheets – and found in the linen closet the beautiful quilt my grandma made nearly 30 years ago! The last time I had seen it was in her house, after she died. Shortly after my brother moved in there, I asked him if he had the quilt, but he couldn’t remember seeing it. We thought it may have accidentally been sold at a garage sale. I was heartbroken that Grandma’s beautiful handiwork was lost to us. So the highlight of this entire trip will certainly be finding the lovely pink and white quilt in the linen closet, a treasure long thought lost! She always sewed by hand, and her delicate and even stitching is just amazing to me.

In Columbus

It’s always a shock, those first few hours back here in Columbus. I arrive exhausted yet wound up, and coming into my parents’ house, my dad’s house now, is hard. There are traces of my mom still, around the edges kind of, but her touch is buried under the mounds of “stuff” dad accumulates. No place to sit, no place to prepare meals, no place to unpack, no place for me or my memories. As soon as I get here, I want to leave. It makes me very sad.