It’s been quite cold and snowy in Georgia. And I know that this is my first winter here, and thus have nothing to compare it to, but it does seem like it’s worse than usual for this area. Sure, some … Continue reading →

Another tardy blog post, eh? I kicked off 2012 in style. Whoops, did I say "in style"? I meant "in bed". Horrible illness notwithstanding, I managed to spend a little time with family and friends in London before hopping on a plane back to Tangier. Early January in Tangier was exciting, and not just because of the delightful weather. Not one, but two friends, Christopher and Erin, joined me in Morocco for the final week of my vacation. If I described our activities in detail, I would be sitting here on my couch, wasting beautiful Tangier sunshine for the rest of the day. Instead, here is a bulleted list.

After such a long hiatus from writing on my blog (and writing in general) it is difficult to know where to begin.  I can clearly remember sitting down with my laptop this past October but I can’t remember how to … Continue reading →

Today was a big day in Akhaltsikhe: The Americans came to town. More specifically, an entourage from the Tbilisi office …Continue reading »

Newark airport is a bit of a shock toanyone who's grown accustomed to Eastern European (lack of) customerservice. As soon as I got off the plane, I was almost immediatelyattacked by an army of red coated customer service professionals. “Can I help you, sir?” “Do you need help finding something,sir?” “Can I be of assistance, sir?” It is also striking thatthe majority of these customer service professionals are people ofcolor, which makes me wonder if that's all they hire or if that's allthat apply, since the ole American white folk seem ill accustomed tothe more traditional service roles. Or maybe there just aren't thatmany white folk in the Newark area. Was that a white guy over there? Nope, I was mistaken, he was a Hispanic guy with medieval lookingtattoo writing crawling up his neck, reading something in Spanishlike “Los Lobos reprazent!” Anyways, this blog isn't meant to be acritique of Newark's affirmative action program or a list of possiblyracist jokes.

As I approached the door to the bathroom, Ifound another attendant. “Let me open that for you, sir,” hesaid. As I approached the urinal, I let out a sigh of relief. Notbecause I was pissing – which was relieving – but because nobodyasked me if I needed assistance. I left and found my way to thetram, and waited underneath the sign to the SkyTrain. “Where areyou going, sir?” a customer service representative asked.

“TheSkyTrain,” I said.

“Just wait here, the train will behere shortly,” she said.

The electronic ticker next to thesign said two minutes. “Yeah, thanks,” I told her. When I gotto the SkyTrain terminal, I found that the army had occupied thatarea as well. I was unsure what to think of allthis, but I had a growing suspicion that maybe I was expected to tipeveryone. In which case they looked at me and whispered behind myback that I was another cheap Eastern European bastard. Ha! Littledid they know that this cheap bastard was one hundred percent, GradeA, Prime American cut.

The SkyTrain came in and I took it toNew York. I got off at Penn Station, though at first I wasn't sureif it was the Penn Station in New York or the Penn Station in NewJersey. I looked around for some maps and all I could find were mapsof the New Jersey metro system. I was a bit confused. I lookedaround for some red jacketed gentlemen, but just as I needed them,they were no longer supplied. Only in a well marked airport are theyhired to offer directions. Granted, would someone really trust a redjacketed, “customer service” professional in the New York metro? Probably not. So I went to the customer service desk. “I just gotoff at Newark and am trying to get to Penn Station. Is that whereI'm at?”

“Yes, it is,” the fat lady behind the countersaid.

“Which one? New Jersey or New York?”

“Whereare you going?”

“To Penn Station.”

“Which one?”

“The one in New York.”

“That's where you're at, sir,” shesaid, smiling. This wasn't the first time she had been confrontedwith some poor, lost, non-New Yorker trying to find the right PennStation. I followed signs to the metro, now comforted that I was onthe correct side of the Hudson and went to find where Jose lived. AsI approached his neighborhood, the Upper East End, I saw that I wasearly. I went about finding a cafe that had both wifi and coffee. When I passed a T-Mobile store, I decided to go ahead and get a newsim card. I purchased one for 10 dollars, with 15 dollars of creditfor 1000 minutes. It seemed pricey, but I knew that I was going tofeel new rippage in my anus around the wallet area after I leftUkraine anyway.

“Do you know where any cafes are with freeinternet?” I asked the clerk.

“There's no such thing asfree internet. You gotta pay everywhere. It's in the price of thecoffee or whatever. That's all that marketing and shit.” The guywas clearly an MBA fresh out of grad school.

“Yeah, nokidding, that's just bullshit,” I replied, attempting to speak NewYorker. “So holmes, where's it at? I mean, where can I log in forfree? For the price of a joe, you know?” I decided I was soundingless like a New Yorker and more like Sarah Palin trying to score votes with the youth, so I quit that jive and switchedback to normal English. “I mean, is there anyplace I can login?”

“I get you man,” he said. “No man, nowhere forfree. They used to be all over the place, but not no more. Listenman, you can go on down to Starbucks and log in.”

Werethose funeral bells I heard in the quiet void leftover from hisutterance of the Enemy of All Private Coffee Shops? “Surely youjest!” I said. Well, no, I'm not that stiff and proper, and Ithink I had said something actually a bit more coarse and to thepoint. “Last I was in the States, you had to pay for internetaccess at Starbucks. They had a deal with – ah, T-Mobile. But I do rememberthey shut down all their stores for some strategic meeting, justbefore I left, and one of the results was that they needed to offerfree internet. Yes, I remember. So they did?”

The proofwas in the pudding, as they say. I walked down the streets of UpperEast Manhattan, where last I had been three years ago, had at leasttwo or three private coffee shops every corner where you could log on for free, now there were diners you could drink coffee but not surf the net, and it was filled even morewith sushi shops, Apple stores, Starbucks and “Famous” pizza parlors ownedby different guys named Mike. Whoever says Capitalism bringsindividuality hasn't been to New York. I surrendered and went to thenext Starbucks, which was on the next corner. I felt as though I hadwalked into a zombie movie. Everywhere I looked, chairs were filledby people in business suits with Apple computers, typing away ontheir Facebook and Twitter updates and talking on ear-sets thatplugged into Apple iPhones. It was an Orwellian nightmare ofconsumerism.*

As I sat in the Starbucks, sipping mysteaming hot mocha, I realized that the interior of the shop wasdevoid of power outlets. I had used up my laptop juice in the airplane andwas unable to login to check my own Facebook and update Big Brother on my whereabouts. Unable to do this, I had to settle on watching all the people aroundme, looking for the minute differences that sometimes aboundin-between any two people. There were three black folk sitting onthe opposite side of the room, two of them males with Yankees baseball capsturned backwards, chatting with a girl who had an Erika Badu fro withtight pink sweats. One of the boys had an iPad out, sharing whateverlatest meme had come to his attention. Directly across from me wasan Asian girl, who was jotting down words in her notebook,occasionally glancing around the room, as though she were doing thesame thing I was doing but was actually physically taking notes. Next to me was another Asian girl, typing on her iBook. Some whitepeople were seated next to the window, each of them talking on theiriPhones, even though they had clearly come to the coffee shop tospend time together. In the corner was a large man with a kid in awheelchair who seemed to have Down syndrome, indicated from hisstunted growth and his weak neck that kept his head permanentlyturned. These people were all the same.

It was interestingto me that many Eastern Europeans strove so much to be likeWesterners when they themselves were the last bastions of modernindividuality. Starbucks hadn't yet entered Kiev, exchanging all thelocally developed Kofe Hauz and Coffee Life stores, as well as thesmaller places like Lviv-style coffee houses that have become mainstays ofUkrainian life. But as much as Ukrainians lust for a place in thesupposed modern world, they'll find themselves lost soon enough inthe ubiquity of the Starbucks Galaxy – though, to be honest, nonewould notice the difference between Starbucks and Coffee Life, andMcDonald's had already become a mainstay on most busy corners inKiev.

Back out to New York. Maybe I should have gone toBrooklyn. Isn't that where everything is cool? But in truth, I wasterrified of Brooklyn. I was terrified that I'd step out of themetro stop and find everyone had somehow transformed into dancingrobots and Jesuses, wearing shiny clothes with oversized, brightlycolored glasses, everyone shuffling and shuffling, like in the LMFAOvideos. I don't think I could have handled that culture shock. I needed baby steps. Butthen, there was always Little Odessa, where I could witness EasternEuropeans of the 90s sort, who were still listening to Malchishnik andNautika, sporting mullets and wearing track suits like they werestraight out of an Italian mafia movie. But then, I could have just gone back to Armenia for that.

I had enough of myfive dollars mocha coffee at Starbucks. It was time to find Jose.

*There are plenty of private shops in New York, I just don't know where they are. Ask your local couchsurfers!

Newark airport is a bit of a shock toanyone who's grown accustomed to Eastern European (lack of) customerservice. As soon as I got off the plane, I was almost immediatelyattacked by an army of red coated customer service professionals. “Can I help you, sir?” “Do you need help finding something,sir?” “Can I be of assistance, sir?” It is also striking thatthe majority of these customer service professionals are people ofcolor, which makes me wonder if that's all they hire or if that's allthat apply, since the ole American white folk seem ill accustomed tothe more traditional service roles. Or maybe there just aren't thatmany white folk in the Newark area. Was that a white guy over there? Nope, I was mistaken, he was a Hispanic guy with medieval lookingtattoo writing crawling up his neck, reading something in Spanishlike “Los Lobos reprazent!” Anyways, this blog isn't meant to be acritique of Newark's affirmative action program or a list of possiblyracist jokes.

As I approached the door to the bathroom, Ifound another attendant. “Let me open that for you, sir,” hesaid. As I approached the urinal, I let out a sigh of relief. Notbecause I was pissing – which was relieving – but because nobodyasked me if I needed assistance. I left and found my way to thetram, and waited underneath the sign to the SkyTrain. “Where areyou going, sir?” a customer service representative asked.

“TheSkyTrain,” I said.

“Just wait here, the train will behere shortly,” she said.

The electronic ticker next to thesign said two minutes. “Yeah, thanks,” I told her. When I gotto the SkyTrain terminal, I found that the army had occupied thatarea as well. I was unsure what to think of allthis, but I had a growing suspicion that maybe I was expected to tipeveryone. In which case they looked at me and whispered behind myback that I was another cheap Eastern European bastard. Ha! Littledid they know that this cheap bastard was one hundred percent, GradeA, Prime American cut.

The SkyTrain came in and I took it toNew York. I got off at Penn Station, though at first I wasn't sureif it was the Penn Station in New York or the Penn Station in NewJersey. I looked around for some maps and all I could find were mapsof the New Jersey metro system. I was a bit confused. I lookedaround for some red jacketed gentlemen, but just as I needed them,they were no longer supplied. Only in a well marked airport are theyhired to offer directions. Granted, would someone really trust a redjacketed, “customer service” professional in the New York metro? Probably not. So I went to the customer service desk. “I just gotoff at Newark and am trying to get to Penn Station. Is that whereI'm at?”

“Yes, it is,” the fat lady behind the countersaid.

“Which one? New Jersey or New York?”

“Whereare you going?”

“To Penn Station.”

“Which one?”

“The one in New York.”

“That's where you're at, sir,” shesaid, smiling. This wasn't the first time she had been confrontedwith some poor, lost, non-New Yorker trying to find the right PennStation. I followed signs to the metro, now comforted that I was onthe correct side of the Hudson and went to find where Jose lived. AsI approached his neighborhood, the Upper East End, I saw that I wasearly. I went about finding a cafe that had both wifi and coffee. When I passed a T-Mobile store, I decided to go ahead and get a newsim card. I purchased one for 10 dollars, with 15 dollars of creditfor 1000 minutes. It seemed pricey, but I knew that I was going tofeel new rippage in my anus around the wallet area after I leftUkraine anyway.

“Do you know where any cafes are with freeinternet?” I asked the clerk.

“There's no such thing asfree internet. You gotta pay everywhere. It's in the price of thecoffee or whatever. That's all that marketing and shit.” The guywas clearly an MBA fresh out of grad school.

“Yeah, nokidding, that's just bullshit,” I replied, attempting to speak NewYorker. “So holmes, where's it at? I mean, where can I log in forfree? For the price of a joe, you know?” I decided I was soundingless like a New Yorker and more like Sarah Palin trying to score votes with the youth, so I quit that jive and switchedback to normal English. “I mean, is there anyplace I can login?”

“I get you man,” he said. “No man, nowhere forfree. They used to be all over the place, but not no more. Listenman, you can go on down to Starbucks and log in.”

Werethose funeral bells I heard in the quiet void leftover from hisutterance of the Enemy of All Private Coffee Shops? “Surely youjest!” I said. Well, no, I'm not that stiff and proper, and Ithink I had said something actually a bit more coarse and to thepoint. “Last I was in the States, you had to pay for internetaccess at Starbucks. They had a deal with – ah, T-Mobile. But I do rememberthey shut down all their stores for some strategic meeting, justbefore I left, and one of the results was that they needed to offerfree internet. Yes, I remember. So they did?”

The proofwas in the pudding, as they say. I walked down the streets of UpperEast Manhattan, where last I had been three years ago, had at leasttwo or three private coffee shops every corner where you could log on for free, now there were diners you could drink coffee but not surf the net, and it was filled even morewith sushi shops, Apple stores, Starbucks and “Famous” pizza parlors ownedby different guys named Mike. Whoever says Capitalism bringsindividuality hasn't been to New York. I surrendered and went to thenext Starbucks, which was on the next corner. I felt as though I hadwalked into a zombie movie. Everywhere I looked, chairs were filledby people in business suits with Apple computers, typing away ontheir Facebook and Twitter updates and talking on ear-sets thatplugged into Apple iPhones. It was an Orwellian nightmare ofconsumerism.*

As I sat in the Starbucks, sipping mysteaming hot mocha, I realized that the interior of the shop wasdevoid of power outlets. I had used up my laptop juice in the airplane andwas unable to login to check my own Facebook and update Big Brother on my whereabouts. Unable to do this, I had to settle on watching all the people aroundme, looking for the minute differences that sometimes aboundin-between any two people. There were three black folk sitting onthe opposite side of the room, two of them males with Yankees baseball capsturned backwards, chatting with a girl who had an Erika Badu fro withtight pink sweats. One of the boys had an iPad out, sharing whateverlatest meme had come to his attention. Directly across from me wasan Asian girl, who was jotting down words in her notebook,occasionally glancing around the room, as though she were doing thesame thing I was doing but was actually physically taking notes. Next to me was another Asian girl, typing on her iBook. Some whitepeople were seated next to the window, each of them talking on theiriPhones, even though they had clearly come to the coffee shop tospend time together. In the corner was a large man with a kid in awheelchair who seemed to have Down syndrome, indicated from hisstunted growth and his weak neck that kept his head permanentlyturned. These people were all the same.

It was interestingto me that many Eastern Europeans strove so much to be likeWesterners when they themselves were the last bastions of modernindividuality. Starbucks hadn't yet entered Kiev, exchanging all thelocally developed Kofe Hauz and Coffee Life stores, as well as thesmaller places like Lviv-style coffee houses that have become mainstays ofUkrainian life. But as much as Ukrainians lust for a place in thesupposed modern world, they'll find themselves lost soon enough inthe ubiquity of the Starbucks Galaxy – though, to be honest, nonewould notice the difference between Starbucks and Coffee Life, andMcDonald's had already become a mainstay on most busy corners inKiev.

Back out to New York. Maybe I should have gone toBrooklyn. Isn't that where everything is cool? But in truth, I wasterrified of Brooklyn. I was terrified that I'd step out of themetro stop and find everyone had somehow transformed into dancingrobots and Jesuses, wearing shiny clothes with oversized, brightlycolored glasses, everyone shuffling and shuffling, like in the LMFAOvideos. I don't think I could have handled that culture shock. I needed baby steps. Butthen, there was always Little Odessa, where I could witness EasternEuropeans of the 90s sort, who were still listening to Malchishnik andNautika, sporting mullets and wearing track suits like they werestraight out of an Italian mafia movie. But then, I could have just gone back to Armenia for that.

I had enough of myfive dollars mocha coffee at Starbucks. It was time to find Jose.

*There are plenty of private shops in New York, I just don't know where they are. Ask your local couchsurfers!

I had made a small score of new friendsat the concert that I played at Divan. Mostly, they took the shapeof a list of names in my phone, people who I only vaguely rememberedor forgot altogether. We sat down at the bar at Divan, about to meeta couple of the girls that we had met the night before. Thebartender said an enthusiastic hello, turning to Daria, calling her“the girl who paid.” “What's that about?” I asked.

“Ikept paying for all my drinks. And I bought you a beer too, don'tyou remember?”

“Oh,” I said, smiling. “Notreally.”

As I sat at the bar with Daria, sipping on ourbeers, though still our heads were fogged over by our vastinebriations the night before, I scrolled through the phone. “Doyou know Ivan?”

“No,” she said.

“Sandra?”

“Nope.”

“Misha?”

“No.”

The list of names continued. Occasionally she might nod herhead yes or tell me that I was quite the player the other night. Notthat my playing amounted to anything, since most of the night Isimply sat on my chair, with my accordion on my lap, twirling aroundmy glass of whiskey while the people in the armchair next to me keptchanging. Only one person had occupied my attention then, which wasa dark haired girl sitting next to Oleg. I believe it was the layoutof her crooked nose and her dark inset eyes that had peaked myinterest in talking to her.

“Do you remember that girl yougot the rejection from?” Daria asked. “The one sitting next toOleg while he played the guitar?”

“I got rejected?” Iasked her. “Oh, yes.” She was getting up to go so I had quicklyintercepted her. But I had nothing really to say, except “Do youhave Facebook or vKontakte?” We hadn't said one word to each otherthe entire night and for some reason I had expected her to give meher contact information. Come to think of it, I don't even think Ihad asked her her name.

She paused, looked at me andreplied, “Uh, no.” Then she squeezed in-between me and the tableand went along her way.

We were at the bar that day becauseof something one of the girls had said to me. She had mentioned apossible teaching job in her village the night before at the party. She had told me that the university at her village was always lookingfor native speaking language teachers, since most foreigners weren'tinterested in going into some small village in Ukraine. But I hadsurvived the Georgian countryside for two years, why not one year orso in a Ukrainian countryside? When we were at the end of ourconversation, I told her, “Let's do it. Find out from your deanwhat's possible, then get back to me. Meanwhile, I've got to go backto America, come back and then meet up with an old Peace Corps buddyin L'vov. Sound good? Maybe I can stop by your town on myway.”

The next day, before I had to leave back to the UnitedStates, Daria and I decided to hang out again. To appease my weird,historical and grotesque interests, we decided to go to the World WarII museum at Victory Park in Kiev. What drew me to the museum wasthat there was said to be a glove made from human skin there. Theglove was designed by Madame Koch, a cousin of the father of the Kochbrothers of current corporate fame. She was well known for designinga whole wardrobe from human skin – and I was well known for takinginterest in things like this. I did, after all, make it a point tosee the ossuary in Kutna Hoara in the Czech Republic, and foundmyself held in fascination standing below the bone chandelier.

Wemade our way across the snow covered plaza of Victory Park, which waslined with heroic Soviet soldiers, carved into positions as thoughthey were eternally soldiering across mine covered, artillery shelledfields, rising from their downtrodden past to reach great gloriesabove the Nazi defeat. Triumphant Soviet music blared out fromloudspeakers and as we cleared the weird, faux-rock outcroppings thatformed a bridge over us, we saw the Mat Rodini, the Mother of theMotherland, standing over us, holding up her hands in a great “V”,with one hand wielding a sword and the other holding a shield,emblazoned with the hammer and sickle. The plaza opened out, withthe Mat Rodini on the right hand side and two “peace tanks” onthe left hand side. The peace tanks were an old Soviet T-34 crossingbarrels with a Nazi Panzer. Both tanks were covered in bright,pastel paints with flowers stenciled across them.

Victory Park before the snowThe WorldWar II museum was at the base of the Mat Rodini. Inside it therewere four levels, each level with thematic collections of artifactsof from the World War II period. I assume the curators had a greatdeal more material to work from, but had chosen what they could findto stick with themes and effects. Ukraine was one of the countriesthat suffered as the true brunt of the European theater, war beingwaged across its countryside for almost the entire duration of thewar. Ukraine witnessed brutal Soviet oppression, Nazi-sponsored andfree rebellions against the Soviets, brutal Nazi occupation with massarrests and purges that grew worse than was known under the Sovietperiod, Soviet sponsored and free rebellions against the Nazis andfinally, a return to brutal Soviet oppression. World War II, as onecan easily see from my short, concise and authoritative recounting,was not a happy period for the Ukrainians. There was no happybeginning, middle or end.

We raced through the musuem. Daria had an English class to teach. She had the advantageous setupof being a Ukrainian who grew up in the United States and who owned aflat in Kiev, passed on to her by her family. Now she taught Englishand art to sustain herself, while she figured out something to do toburgeon her art career. But until then, it was English classes. Werelated on that subject. We nearly ran across the first floor,looking at war passports and anti-tank defenses and mines, then on tothe Nazi uniforms and Mausers, on up to more classy looking Sovietgear that were clearly direct inspirations of the Hugo Boss designedNazi uniforms.

When we finished the museum, Daria saw I wasdismayed. “We can ask them where the glove of human skin is?”she told me, trying to raise my spirits.

“No, I think thatwould be an awkward question anyway. Maybe lots of Americans come inasking for it. 'Effing Americans!' they probably say behind them,'always coming for the Nazi-glove.' No, I'll just ask someone who'sseen it. My friend's coming in anyway, after I get back, he'll knowwhere it is. He's the one who told me about it anyway.'”

“Yousure? I could just skip the class.”

“No, you shouldn'tskip a class over a Nazi-glove,” I said, resigned. I would missout on the Nazi-glove that day, but it wouldn't keep me from myfuture adventures.

I had made a small score of new friendsat the concert that I played at Divan. Mostly, they took the shapeof a list of names in my phone, people who I only vaguely rememberedor forgot altogether. We sat down at the bar at Divan, about to meeta couple of the girls that we had met the night before. Thebartender said an enthusiastic hello, turning to Daria, calling her“the girl who paid.” “What's that about?” I asked.

“Ikept paying for all my drinks. And I bought you a beer too, don'tyou remember?”

“Oh,” I said, smiling. “Notreally.”

As I sat at the bar with Daria, sipping on ourbeers, though still our heads were fogged over by our vastinebriations the night before, I scrolled through the phone. “Doyou know Ivan?”

“No,” she said.

“Sandra?”

“Nope.”

“Misha?”

“No.”

The list of names continued. Occasionally she might nod herhead yes or tell me that I was quite the player the other night. Notthat my playing amounted to anything, since most of the night Isimply sat on my chair, with my accordion on my lap, twirling aroundmy glass of whiskey while the people in the armchair next to me keptchanging. Only one person had occupied my attention then, which wasa dark haired girl sitting next to Oleg. I believe it was the layoutof her crooked nose and her dark inset eyes that had peaked myinterest in talking to her.

“Do you remember that girl yougot the rejection from?” Daria asked. “The one sitting next toOleg while he played the guitar?”

“I got rejected?” Iasked her. “Oh, yes.” She was getting up to go so I had quicklyintercepted her. But I had nothing really to say, except “Do youhave Facebook or vKontakte?” We hadn't said one word to each otherthe entire night and for some reason I had expected her to give meher contact information. Come to think of it, I don't even think Ihad asked her her name.

She paused, looked at me andreplied, “Uh, no.” Then she squeezed in-between me and the tableand went along her way.

We were at the bar that day becauseof something one of the girls had said to me. She had mentioned apossible teaching job in her village the night before at the party. She had told me that the university at her village was always lookingfor native speaking language teachers, since most foreigners weren'tinterested in going into some small village in Ukraine. But I hadsurvived the Georgian countryside for two years, why not one year orso in a Ukrainian countryside? When we were at the end of ourconversation, I told her, “Let's do it. Find out from your deanwhat's possible, then get back to me. Meanwhile, I've got to go backto America, come back and then meet up with an old Peace Corps buddyin L'vov. Sound good? Maybe I can stop by your town on myway.”

The next day, before I had to leave back to the UnitedStates, Daria and I decided to hang out again. To appease my weird,historical and grotesque interests, we decided to go to the World WarII museum at Victory Park in Kiev. What drew me to the museum wasthat there was said to be a glove made from human skin there. Theglove was designed by Madame Koch, a cousin of the father of the Kochbrothers of current corporate fame. She was well known for designinga whole wardrobe from human skin – and I was well known for takinginterest in things like this. I did, after all, make it a point tosee the ossuary in Kutna Hoara in the Czech Republic, and foundmyself held in fascination standing below the bone chandelier.

Wemade our way across the snow covered plaza of Victory Park, which waslined with heroic Soviet soldiers, carved into positions as thoughthey were eternally soldiering across mine covered, artillery shelledfields, rising from their downtrodden past to reach great gloriesabove the Nazi defeat. Triumphant Soviet music blared out fromloudspeakers and as we cleared the weird, faux-rock outcroppings thatformed a bridge over us, we saw the Mat Rodini, the Mother of theMotherland, standing over us, holding up her hands in a great “V”,with one hand wielding a sword and the other holding a shield,emblazoned with the hammer and sickle. The plaza opened out, withthe Mat Rodini on the right hand side and two “peace tanks” onthe left hand side. The peace tanks were an old Soviet T-34 crossingbarrels with a Nazi Panzer. Both tanks were covered in bright,pastel paints with flowers stenciled across them.

Victory Park before the snowThe WorldWar II museum was at the base of the Mat Rodini. Inside it therewere four levels, each level with thematic collections of artifactsof from the World War II period. I assume the curators had a greatdeal more material to work from, but had chosen what they could findto stick with themes and effects. Ukraine was one of the countriesthat suffered as the true brunt of the European theater, war beingwaged across its countryside for almost the entire duration of thewar. Ukraine witnessed brutal Soviet oppression, Nazi-sponsored andfree rebellions against the Soviets, brutal Nazi occupation with massarrests and purges that grew worse than was known under the Sovietperiod, Soviet sponsored and free rebellions against the Nazis andfinally, a return to brutal Soviet oppression. World War II, as onecan easily see from my short, concise and authoritative recounting,was not a happy period for the Ukrainians. There was no happybeginning, middle or end.

We raced through the musuem. Daria had an English class to teach. She had the advantageous setupof being a Ukrainian who grew up in the United States and who owned aflat in Kiev, passed on to her by her family. Now she taught Englishand art to sustain herself, while she figured out something to do toburgeon her art career. But until then, it was English classes. Werelated on that subject. We nearly ran across the first floor,looking at war passports and anti-tank defenses and mines, then on tothe Nazi uniforms and Mausers, on up to more classy looking Sovietgear that were clearly direct inspirations of the Hugo Boss designedNazi uniforms.

When we finished the museum, Daria saw I wasdismayed. “We can ask them where the glove of human skin is?”she told me, trying to raise my spirits.

“No, I think thatwould be an awkward question anyway. Maybe lots of Americans come inasking for it. 'Effing Americans!' they probably say behind them,'always coming for the Nazi-glove.' No, I'll just ask someone who'sseen it. My friend's coming in anyway, after I get back, he'll knowwhere it is. He's the one who told me about it anyway.'”

“Yousure? I could just skip the class.”

“No, you shouldn'tskip a class over a Nazi-glove,” I said, resigned. I would missout on the Nazi-glove that day, but it wouldn't keep me from myfuture adventures.

So the Georgian language has proved to be a little more intense than I had imagined it would be. The alphabet is unlike anything I have ever seen before.

Here is a video of a Georgian explaining the alphabet:

ა ბ გ დ ე ვზ ჱ თ ი კლ მ ნ ჲ ო პჟ რ ს ტ ჳ უფ ქ ღ ყ შ ჩც ძ წ ჭ ხ ჴჯ ჰ ჵ ჶ ჷ ჺჸ ჹ ჼ ჻

....And I thought Arabic was hard. Hahhaha. We shall see how it goes. Lucky for me I have time before I leave so I am going to learn the alphabet before I go. That should help a lot as the language seems to be quite phonetic. Also it seems that once I can get down the alphabet it will be easier to write faster.

Another lucky part of this experience is that Peace Corps has already compiled and gave me a language package so I can study as well as listen to programs online.

For those who are unaware, I have been in the process of applying to the Peace Corps, an American organization. Below is my overall PC timeline.

February 28, 2010: I first made my PC login account on. I applied before my three semesters of my undergraduate degree so that I had the time to complete the application process.

June 22, 2010: My application was submitted.

July 16, 2010: I had my first interaction with my recruiter. My recruiter in the New York regional office was more than pleasant to work with. She made me feel very comfortable to talk with. She stated she was just waiting for my last recommendation to arrive before scheduling my interview.

July 17, 2010: I received my toolkit password.

July 18, 2010: My last recommendation was submitted.

July 19, 2010: My recruiter asked me if I was able to interview on July 29th in NYC. I replied telling her I was able to meet then. My recruiter confirmed and sent me more information about possible interview questions.

July 29, 2010: I interviewed with my recruiter. My recruiter wrote me an email before I even arrived back in Connecticut, thanking me for coming in. She told me to had to put my account on hold as I still had to finish school. Therefore she told me to email her in March 2011 to take my account off hold. She said it would not negatively impact my application.

July 31, 2010: My toolkit was updated with stating they received my fingerprints, NAC form and etc.

March 2011: Reactivated my account.

----Some information is withheld as I just don't recall some of the dates.

March 2011: Nominated for sub-Saharan Africa departing May 2012 in the field of health extension.

....

January 13, 2011: Emailed by the national PC office asked to update my resume.

....

More to add later.

I’m happy to report that a few of my projects from last fall have wrapped up – and I have …Continue reading »

A few weeks before, when I was inKharkiv, I met some fellows from Orkester Che. They invited me toplay after the lead singer and the main writer did their performance. It was on a Friday night at the club, Divan on Kreshyatik. I'vealready described Divan at length, with it's two long rows of plushcouches, filled with Kiev's punk and hipster population alike. Onthe stage were two chairs, one for Andrei, the writer, and the otherfor Che's lead singer and guitarist, Oleg. There were a variety ofpillows laid out for the audience to sit on, up close to the stage. When I first arrived at Divan, for soundcheck, everything was a bitlate getting rolling. I was in the upstairs room with the Chefellows, who had also invited to random girls up to hang out with us. We drank tea and ate pancakes filled with poppy seeds. Oleg wasgoing over the lyrics to his songs, making sure that he had them wellenough memorized. It was all easy routine for him, though headmitted to the girls that he was nervous. I myself didn't know howto feel. I was used to playing on streets and in front of smallgroups of people, but playing on an actual stage at a club withregular live music was an altogether different experience. I playedmy set, to make sure I had everything committed to memory, then putup my accordion and relaxed as best as I could.

Friends ofAndrei were slowly showing up to the scene to wish him a happybirthday. Each person brought a bottle of whiskey or cognac and madetheir greetings and paid their respects. They opened up the bottlesand the liquor began to flow. I kept thinking to myself, don't getdrunk yet, you've still got to play. But as it happens, one drinkturns into three or four or six, a magic trick that I had learned inGeorgia. I was still well though, and by the time that Oleg andAndrei were on the stage, I was convincing myself that I wasn't drunkand I was downing some bottled Borjomi mineral water. Then I was up.

I sat down before the packed audience. I suddenly realizedthat, actually, I was a little bit drunk. Compounded with the suddenspout of nervousness, I found my right hand shaking. I needed thatone steady, come on now, don't shake! That's the hand that has toplay all the solos! I started with my usual, “Me and Bobby McGee,”but found myself playing the wrong notes. I stopped singingmid-verse, almost stopping altogether, but I decided to keep on. Ijust started singing again, pretending that nothing significant hadhappened. The audience clapped a bit, trying to be supportive,knowing that it was my first time on stage.

I was a littlebit more at rest for “Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair,”though I still wasn't spot on, due to my shaking hand.

I felt thatmaybe it was my position that was giving me a problem the most, so Ishifted a little to the side and then nailed the Russian folk song“Ochi Chiornie” and the Tom Waits song, “Hold On” spot on. “Pei Moya Devotchka” wasn't the best I had played, it wasn'trocking the Casbah or anything, but it was good enough. When Ifinally got to “If I Had Possession of Judgment Day,” I foundmyself playing fine and at ease, but still nervous and wanting to getoff stage.

“Thank you, thank you. This was my first timeon stage,” I shared with the audience. “Thank you.” I got up,set my accordion down, and immediately retreated back upstairs, whereI downed another glass of whiskey to settle my stomach. I grewmorose and leaned back in my chair, thinking of all the mistakes Ihad made, replaying them in my head over and over again. How could Iplay so bad in front of so many people? I thought to myself. Dariaand Andrei were both there, telling me that I had played pretty welland I had nothing to worry about, but I didn't believe them,convinced they were being nice.

“You took some videos with mycamera, right?” I asked Daria. I took the camera from her andlistened to what I had done. They weren't bad. That was good, atleast. I was a little relieved and feeling a little more sociable. Girls were in and out, I was making a collection of phone numbers inmy phone, half of which I would try to remember who they belonged toin the morning. Then I nearly got into a fight with one fellow,about the Ukrainian hero Bandera.

“I just don't know howyou can raise a statue to the man in Lvov,” I said. I forgot whatbrought up the subject. Maybe World War II had been brought up. Itwas a common subject in Eastern Europe, since Ukrainians and Russiansare usually quite bitter towards Americans who think they thatAmerica had the sole responsibility for causing the fall of NaziGermany.

“He was a good man,” a Ukrainian guy said.

“He killed thousands of Jews, Russians and Poles. The guycollaborated with the Nazis against the Jews and Russians, and thenagain against the Poles. I don't know how you can call him a goodguy.”

The Ukrainian bent over the table and grabbed me bythe neck. “Don't make me hurt you! Bandera was a good man! Youare listening to the propaganda of Ukraine's enemies!”

“Whatenemies? Poles? Jews? Russians?”

“Ukraine's enemies areeverywhere! Bandera shall live on!” He let me go and stormed out. Later he came back and apologized, bringing me something to drink. “Sorry, I just get excited about Bandera. I didn't mean anythingby it.”

“I'm not against Bandera necessarily. Just youguys need to own up to it. I dig Andrew Jackson, but I alsorecognize he killed lots of Indians. It's cool man, it's cool.”

A few weeks before, when I was inKharkiv, I met some fellows from Orkester Che. They invited me toplay after the lead singer and the main writer did their performance. It was on a Friday night at the club, Divan on Kreshyatik. I'vealready described Divan at length, with it's two long rows of plushcouches, filled with Kiev's punk and hipster population alike. Onthe stage were two chairs, one for Andrei, the writer, and the otherfor Che's lead singer and guitarist, Oleg. There were a variety ofpillows laid out for the audience to sit on, up close to the stage. When I first arrived at Divan, for soundcheck, everything was a bitlate getting rolling. I was in the upstairs room with the Chefellows, who had also invited to random girls up to hang out with us. We drank tea and ate pancakes filled with poppy seeds. Oleg wasgoing over the lyrics to his songs, making sure that he had them wellenough memorized. It was all easy routine for him, though headmitted to the girls that he was nervous. I myself didn't know howto feel. I was used to playing on streets and in front of smallgroups of people, but playing on an actual stage at a club withregular live music was an altogether different experience. I playedmy set, to make sure I had everything committed to memory, then putup my accordion and relaxed as best as I could.

Friends ofAndrei were slowly showing up to the scene to wish him a happybirthday. Each person brought a bottle of whiskey or cognac and madetheir greetings and paid their respects. They opened up the bottlesand the liquor began to flow. I kept thinking to myself, don't getdrunk yet, you've still got to play. But as it happens, one drinkturns into three or four or six, a magic trick that I had learned inGeorgia. I was still well though, and by the time that Oleg andAndrei were on the stage, I was convincing myself that I wasn't drunkand I was downing some bottled Borjomi mineral water. Then I was up.

I sat down before the packed audience. I suddenly realizedthat, actually, I was a little bit drunk. Compounded with the suddenspout of nervousness, I found my right hand shaking. I needed thatone steady, come on now, don't shake! That's the hand that has toplay all the solos! I started with my usual, “Me and Bobby McGee,”but found myself playing the wrong notes. I stopped singingmid-verse, almost stopping altogether, but I decided to keep on. Ijust started singing again, pretending that nothing significant hadhappened. The audience clapped a bit, trying to be supportive,knowing that it was my first time on stage.

I was a littlebit more at rest for “Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair,”though I still wasn't spot on, due to my shaking hand.

I felt thatmaybe it was my position that was giving me a problem the most, so Ishifted a little to the side and then nailed the Russian folk song“Ochi Chiornie” and the Tom Waits song, “Hold On” spot on. “Pei Moya Devotchka” wasn't the best I had played, it wasn'trocking the Casbah or anything, but it was good enough. When Ifinally got to “If I Had Possession of Judgment Day,” I foundmyself playing fine and at ease, but still nervous and wanting to getoff stage.

“Thank you, thank you. This was my first timeon stage,” I shared with the audience. “Thank you.” I got up,set my accordion down, and immediately retreated back upstairs, whereI downed another glass of whiskey to settle my stomach. I grewmorose and leaned back in my chair, thinking of all the mistakes Ihad made, replaying them in my head over and over again. How could Iplay so bad in front of so many people? I thought to myself. Dariaand Andrei were both there, telling me that I had played pretty welland I had nothing to worry about, but I didn't believe them,convinced they were being nice.

“You took some videos with mycamera, right?” I asked Daria. I took the camera from her andlistened to what I had done. They weren't bad. That was good, atleast. I was a little relieved and feeling a little more sociable. Girls were in and out, I was making a collection of phone numbers inmy phone, half of which I would try to remember who they belonged toin the morning. Then I nearly got into a fight with one fellow,about the Ukrainian hero Bandera.

“I just don't know howyou can raise a statue to the man in Lvov,” I said. I forgot whatbrought up the subject. Maybe World War II had been brought up. Itwas a common subject in Eastern Europe, since Ukrainians and Russiansare usually quite bitter towards Americans who think they thatAmerica had the sole responsibility for causing the fall of NaziGermany.

“He was a good man,” a Ukrainian guy said.

“He killed thousands of Jews, Russians and Poles. The guycollaborated with the Nazis against the Jews and Russians, and thenagain against the Poles. I don't know how you can call him a goodguy.”

The Ukrainian bent over the table and grabbed me bythe neck. “Don't make me hurt you! Bandera was a good man! Youare listening to the propaganda of Ukraine's enemies!”

“Whatenemies? Poles? Jews? Russians?”

“Ukraine's enemies areeverywhere! Bandera shall live on!” He let me go and stormed out. Later he came back and apologized, bringing me something to drink. “Sorry, I just get excited about Bandera. I didn't mean anythingby it.”

“I'm not against Bandera necessarily. Just youguys need to own up to it. I dig Andrew Jackson, but I alsorecognize he killed lots of Indians. It's cool man, it's cool.”

I’m sorry I didn’t written sooner. I know you’ve all been waiting for my update with baited breath. Have you been worried about me? It would make sense if you were. After all, you love me (shh, you don’t have … Continue reading →

Installment two:1.12.12 Mari1.13.12 Old New Year Supra1.14.12 Cheers!1.15.12 Gossip girls1.16.12 Tamiltsikhe1.17.12 Anastasia1.18.121.19.121.20.12 First day of school(coincidentally, first snow day) 1.21.121.22.121.23.121.24.121.25.121.26.121.27.121.28.12

Peace Corps Glow Project: how to donate

GLOW summer schools have been successfully initiated by American Peace Corps Volunteers and governmental and NGO's partners in countries around the world for over 10 years. Our proposed GLOW summer school is a joint initiative between two local organizations and American Peace Corps Volunteers in Georgia. The project will bring at least 60 girls between the ages of 13-16 from economically depressed rural villages and IDP communities throughout Georgia together for a week-long residential summer school in a central location. The GLOW summer school will focus on topics such as self-esteem, leadership, career options, gender roles, and healthy lifestyles including sexual health and HIV/AIDS. The expectation is that the girls will return to their communities as leaders with new knowledge and skills. In addition, they will conduct peer education activities to enhance personal development and improve the lives of others in the community. The initial work for the GLOW summer school is to hold one-day information seminars in each of the regions. These seminars will aid in the recruitment of attendees. From: skate2388 Views: 0 0 ratings Time: 01:22 More in Nonprofits & Activism

I went to Puzata Xata, the cheapUkrainian buffet. It was a great place to visit, since the food wasalmost always tasty, ethnic, cheap and the interiors made it look asthough I were eating somewhere fancy. Not to mention, the sheerquantity of beautiful Ukrainian women that lingered around tables,eating sausages and cakes – that certainly was not a negative. OnTuesday nights, an English club meets at the Puzata Xata atKontraktova Square, attracting a large variety of Ukrainians andnative English speakers who want to practice their English. I hadgone with Daria one week, who noted that all the American and Britishmen in attendance were mostly LBHs, or Losers Back Home. I couldn'thelp to agree. I had met a couple of LBHs before – many of themhad come to Ukraine, feeling as poor and miserable and unwantedpeople in the US and enjoyed the popularity they received beingEnglish practice tools.

I met one near 50 year old guy whohad published his own poetry book and carried it around to show offto young 18 year old Ukrainian girls. “I'm a published poet,”he'd tell them, showing them his book. I was with another Ukrainianguy who was running a hostel then. The younger Ukrainian said, “Oh,I didn't know you were a poet.”

“What do you think I do? I'm a poet. Obviously. I can't believe you didn't know. How couldyou not know?” the guy said. He was skinny with a mustache andbeard and wore a cardigan, but not in a slightly “I'm cool becauseI do my own thing way” but rather in a “I'm a douchebag” way. It was clear he was a LBH. He kept talking to the girl saying, “Doyou like any American authors? Oh, I'm a literature professor. Hemingway is so awful, the way he writes women is miserable. They'rejust not strong characters, they're so dainty.”

“Butman,” I interrupted. “Femininity in the 20s was centered arounddaintiness, especially in Spain and Italy. And when you couple thatwith a culture that promotes women's virginity and innocence, that'swhat you get. I met many Georgian girls who act exactly like thecharacters in his books. I think critics of Hemingway in this regardoften just don't understand the culture that he was writing from.”

“No, you just don't understand a weak writer.”

“Youcan call him weak all you want, but he at least didn't have topublish his own books.” I didn't know why I was protectingHemingway, but if someone was going to critique him, it should havebeen on something more substantial than a bogus textbook feministargument.

The LBHs were everywhere that teaching English wasinvolved, mainly for that reason. Occasionally you met an Englishteacher who had a genuine interest in Slavic and Eastern Europeanculture, but it was the exception and not the rule. Most had come toUkraine to score with girls who would have been far above them on theladder scale had they stayed back in the United States. That was thesame comment that Daria was making. “You seem to be the onlynormal guy I've met from the States,” she said.

“I'mreally not a good standard of normality,” I told her. “Did Imention, I play accordion?”

Also at Puzata Xata, on Mondaynights, is Russian language club. Since I need all the practice Ican get, I decided to go. Chris wanted in on the practicing action,though truly I know he was going for ulterior motives. Granted, ifI got some hot Ukrainian tail due to my love of Russian language, Iwouldn't be against it. But that wasn't the primo uno reason I wasgoing. And, just my luck, it was all Frenchmen at my table whobarely had a Russian skill and one Ukrainian girl, who spoke at alevel only just above my own.

About thirty minutes into theclub, I got a call. “Shawn, can you come to the school?” Tanya,my new boss, asked. “I have a class for you to substitute.”

“I'm a bit far now, in Podil, it will take me some 40minutes to get there, at least.”

“That's okay, just comeas soon as you can.”

I got up from the table and went overto Chris. “Hey man, I got to go,” I told him.

“Whereare you going?” he said, looking something like a lost child. Itwas clear he wanted to come with me.

“To work!” I said,leaving him confused. I raced out of the Puzata Xata towards themetro. When I arrived at the school, Tanya led me to the class. During class, I felt I was back in my natural state. My new studentsencompassed everything I had liked about teaching English back inGeorgia. They were all friendly, playful and excited to learn –thus saving me from all the aspects of teaching in Georgia that Ihated. When I finished cleaning the classroom, Tanya came to me. “Listen, you will be the new permanent teacher for this class,okay? It will be 200 grivna a session. You have an envelope fromValya?” Valya was the mother of the two year old I had tried toteach that morning.

“Yes, here it is.” I handed Tanyathe envelope.

Tanya tour it open and took some cash out. “Here, this is for you,” she said, handing me 200 grivna. “I'llsee you next Monday? And if you want to attend anyone else'sclasses, you are welcome.”

“Thanks,” I said. I had anew class to prepare for. I left, wanting to celebrate with someonesomewhere, but couldn't, since I didn't want to ride 30 minutes onthe metro back into town and more importantly, since I didn't want tospend much money. Instead I just went to the store and picked up abeer, so I could drink it watching a movie back at home.

I went to Puzata Xata, the cheapUkrainian buffet. It was a great place to visit, since the food wasalmost always tasty, ethnic, cheap and the interiors made it look asthough I were eating somewhere fancy. Not to mention, the sheerquantity of beautiful Ukrainian women that lingered around tables,eating sausages and cakes – that certainly was not a negative. OnTuesday nights, an English club meets at the Puzata Xata atKontraktova Square, attracting a large variety of Ukrainians andnative English speakers who want to practice their English. I hadgone with Daria one week, who noted that all the American and Britishmen in attendance were mostly LBHs, or Losers Back Home. I couldn'thelp to agree. I had met a couple of LBHs before – many of themhad come to Ukraine, feeling as poor and miserable and unwantedpeople in the US and enjoyed the popularity they received beingEnglish practice tools.

I met one near 50 year old guy whohad published his own poetry book and carried it around to show offto young 18 year old Ukrainian girls. “I'm a published poet,”he'd tell them, showing them his book. I was with another Ukrainianguy who was running a hostel then. The younger Ukrainian said, “Oh,I didn't know you were a poet.”

“What do you think I do? I'm a poet. Obviously. I can't believe you didn't know. How couldyou not know?” the guy said. He was skinny with a mustache andbeard and wore a cardigan, but not in a slightly “I'm cool becauseI do my own thing way” but rather in a “I'm a douchebag” way. It was clear he was a LBH. He kept talking to the girl saying, “Doyou like any American authors? Oh, I'm a literature professor. Hemingway is so awful, the way he writes women is miserable. They'rejust not strong characters, they're so dainty.”

“Butman,” I interrupted. “Femininity in the 20s was centered arounddaintiness, especially in Spain and Italy. And when you couple thatwith a culture that promotes women's virginity and innocence, that'swhat you get. I met many Georgian girls who act exactly like thecharacters in his books. I think critics of Hemingway in this regardoften just don't understand the culture that he was writing from.”

“No, you just don't understand a weak writer.”

“Youcan call him weak all you want, but he at least didn't have topublish his own books.” I didn't know why I was protectingHemingway, but if someone was going to critique him, it should havebeen on something more substantial than a bogus textbook feministargument.

The LBHs were everywhere that teaching English wasinvolved, mainly for that reason. Occasionally you met an Englishteacher who had a genuine interest in Slavic and Eastern Europeanculture, but it was the exception and not the rule. Most had come toUkraine to score with girls who would have been far above them on theladder scale had they stayed back in the United States. That was thesame comment that Daria was making. “You seem to be the onlynormal guy I've met from the States,” she said.

“I'mreally not a good standard of normality,” I told her. “Did Imention, I play accordion?”

Also at Puzata Xata, on Mondaynights, is Russian language club. Since I need all the practice Ican get, I decided to go. Chris wanted in on the practicing action,though truly I know he was going for ulterior motives. Granted, ifI got some hot Ukrainian tail due to my love of Russian language, Iwouldn't be against it. But that wasn't the primo uno reason I wasgoing. And, just my luck, it was all Frenchmen at my table whobarely had a Russian skill and one Ukrainian girl, who spoke at alevel only just above my own.

About thirty minutes into theclub, I got a call. “Shawn, can you come to the school?” Tanya,my new boss, asked. “I have a class for you to substitute.”

“I'm a bit far now, in Podil, it will take me some 40minutes to get there, at least.”

“That's okay, just comeas soon as you can.”

I got up from the table and went overto Chris. “Hey man, I got to go,” I told him.

“Whereare you going?” he said, looking something like a lost child. Itwas clear he wanted to come with me.

“To work!” I said,leaving him confused. I raced out of the Puzata Xata towards themetro. When I arrived at the school, Tanya led me to the class. During class, I felt I was back in my natural state. My new studentsencompassed everything I had liked about teaching English back inGeorgia. They were all friendly, playful and excited to learn –thus saving me from all the aspects of teaching in Georgia that Ihated. When I finished cleaning the classroom, Tanya came to me. “Listen, you will be the new permanent teacher for this class,okay? It will be 200 grivna a session. You have an envelope fromValya?” Valya was the mother of the two year old I had tried toteach that morning.

“Yes, here it is.” I handed Tanyathe envelope.

Tanya tour it open and took some cash out. “Here, this is for you,” she said, handing me 200 grivna. “I'llsee you next Monday? And if you want to attend anyone else'sclasses, you are welcome.”

“Thanks,” I said. I had anew class to prepare for. I left, wanting to celebrate with someonesomewhere, but couldn't, since I didn't want to ride 30 minutes onthe metro back into town and more importantly, since I didn't want tospend much money. Instead I just went to the store and picked up abeer, so I could drink it watching a movie back at home.

I’ve done yoga ten out of the last eleven days. Sixteen out of the last nineteen. I quite like it. …Continue reading »

It was time to get a job. I had a fewleads from Bruce, a guy I had met a while back and stayed in contactwith, meeting him for coffee once in a week or two. He gave me theemail of a place near where I lived, near the Kharkivska metro. “They're about to have a few openings,” he told me, “since I'llbe leaving them soon, and they have a really unmotivated teacherthere too. I trust you're motivated enough. You've got to becareful who you recommend, because their actions can always reflectback to your own reputation.” We were at Kofe Hauz, his hands werepressed tight around a cup of steaming coffee. I was sipping on myown usual mocha. “Just know that even if you send something nowthough, you might not hear back from them for a while. I mean, it isthe break. The break doesn't end for a few more weeks, on January10th. People want to read the application and makeimmediate hires, that's just how it works here, with teachingespecially. If you can't work immediately, don't apply until youcan.”

I took his advice and waited until it was closer tothe end of the break. When I was in Kharkivska was when I sent outan email to his lead, Tanya. A few days later, Tanya emailed backand said almost the same thing. “Just come in on January 11th and we can talk.” On January 11th,I came to theschool. The language school had its own office in the elementaryschool and borrowed the classrooms after the school was out. As Iwalked in, there were still some children lingering in the courtyard,even though by seven o'clock the dark had already settled over thecity and stray dogs had come out to make their rounds at trashcontainers everywhere.

“You are Tanya?” I asked the girlsitting at the desk on a laptop.

“No, I'm Maria,” shesaid, smiling. “Tanya's coming though.”

I waited for abit and chatted with Maria. She was something of the main clerk forthe language school. We chatted for a bit. She was from theSoutheastern part of Ukraine, where it was the most industrializedand Russian. She shared the family name of a famous Russian marshalwho was one of Stalin's top advisors during World War II. “Once,in Bulgaria, I was late for a plane because of my connecting flightfrom Turkey. They held the plan for almost an hour for me. TheBulgarian captain greeted me, saying he remembered what the marshalhad done for his own father.”

Finally Tanya came, who wasevery bit as attractive as the younger Maria. “We can take you onas a substitute first, but otherwise we have too many teachers as itis. Oh, but I do know one client who has a two year old daughter. Have you worked any with two year olds?”

“The youngestI've taught was an eight year old, but I'm willing to try anything,”I said. I couldn't imagine how I'd come across to the mother of atwo year old girl or how I would just teach her. I could just playwith her and talk to her, I suppose that would work. The daughter ofone of my old host families in Georgia was two years old and we gotalong just fine. That's what I told the mother when we talked on thephone. “Though, to be honest, she ended up teaching me moreGeorgian than I taught her English!”

I went to the meet the next week onMonday. “You'll go to Lebidinska Metro and meet the driver there,”she instructed me. “Meet there at 8:30.” I was there at 8:35,underestimating how slow the metro would be, and how slow my walk toit would be, since I seemed determined on taking wrong turns. Iexited the metro into the tunnels and first took the tunnel to theright. I didn't think the station would be too complicated, but Ishould have realized that almost all the stations are. The drivercalled me and spoke in Russian, “Where are you?”

“I'mhere at the metro,” I said. I was looking around for landmarks. “Where are you?”

“I'm on the side with the green fence. Do you see a green fence?”

“No, I see a green storethough.”

“Oh, you are on the other side.” He hung up. I went back down into the winding maze of tunnels, filled with fruitsellers and window electronics and underwear vendors and came outnear a green fence, behind which was a construction site.

Myphone rang again. “Where are you?” the driver asked.

“I'mon the side with the construction.”

“Oh, I came to meetyou over on the side with the green store, next to where all themarshrutkas are.”

“Oh, okay, I'll come to you,” I said. “Just wait.” I went back into the tunnels and up near where Istarted. I went to the parking lot with the marshrutkas and wasimmediately met by a tall man in a black leather coat. “You'reShawn?”

“That's me.”

“Good, I finally foundyou!” he said. “Come with me, I'm on the other side of themetro.” We went back into the tunnels and came up near theconstruction site. We walked down there a bit and went up to a blackVolkswagen minivan. “If you come back, this is where I always parkand wait, got it?”

“Got it,” I nodded as I entered theminivan, which was already full, with six other passengers. As wedrove, I wondered if these passengers would be dropped off before orafter me. If they were dropped off before, I might be even morelate. As we drove further out of town and into a forest, it becameclear to me that perhaps these other passengers were going to thesame place I was. And if they were, what kind of place was I comingto? The forest cleared out, revealing a huge mansion. Two securityguards in black suits and earpieces were at the door, looking intothe forest. A quick glance around the forest revealed other securitycheckpoints, forming a vague perimeter around the mansion. As Iapproached the door, I expected the large Ukrainian man to take mylaptop case and search it, while the other over-sized guard checkedmy body, but instead they simply opened the door for me and allowedme on through.

The huge, two story circular entrance hadstairs that followed either wall, with a black and white checkeredtiled floor underneath. A Christmas tree still towered in thecenter, its peak reaching up to the ceiling, branches still ladenwith blue and red ornaments. I was brought to a cloak room on theside, where I could leave my things. The mother came in as I wastaking off my coat and greeted me, introducing me to her daughter,Lydia. “Hello Lydia,” I said. “How are you?” I bent downto greet the girl, extending my hand. She took it and said, “I'mgood.”

“What's your name?”

“Lydia,” shesaid. She stepped back behind her mothers legs and stared out at mefrom there.

“If you'd come this way and wash your hands,”her mother, Valya, told me. She was a dark haired Ukrainian woman. More homely than I would expect from someone this wealthy. I wouldhave expected more of a trophy wife, but clearly she had some hiddenattributes, or the man married simply to have a mother for hischildren, since it was clear she was not of the working type.

Ispent an hour and a half with the Lydia and her mother, who mostlysat in the corner of the large parlor room watching us. Lydia and Isat at a small plastic table, playing with a monkey doll and plasticfruits. The entire time, I felt a bit like the Mad Hatter playingtea with little Alice, having her pour me pretend tea into my littleplastic tea cup. “Pour me some tea, Lydia,” I would say.

“No,”she would reply.

“Why can't I have some tea?”

“Mommy!”Lydia said, repeating the word again and again until finally hermother came over and joined us, sitting on another plastic chair.

“I'm right here,” she said. Lydia immediately went toher and climbed up into her lap.

By the end of the hour anda half, the mother gave me a few pointers. “So, just next time,remember that. And we'll work through Tanya, okay? And give thisenvelope to Tanya, too.”

“Sure, right,” I said, takingthe envelope from her and silently wondering what was in it. I feltlike as I was just on a date with the mom and said something wrong –it was that kind of awkward. The driver pulled up in his minivan. This time it was just him and me. As he drove, we chatted in Russiana little, though I was constantly thrown in slight confusion wheneverhe said a word with a “g” in it since Western Ukrainians oftenhave a hard time with the letter, pronouncing it like “h”. Hewas clearly a Western Ukrainian. “Where are you hoinh?” heasked.

“Just drop me at the metro, that's fine,” I toldhim. “Kiev's a great city, isn't it?”

“Yes, it's reallyhreat.”

It was time to get a job. I had a fewleads from Bruce, a guy I had met a while back and stayed in contactwith, meeting him for coffee once in a week or two. He gave me theemail of a place near where I lived, near the Kharkivska metro. “They're about to have a few openings,” he told me, “since I'llbe leaving them soon, and they have a really unmotivated teacherthere too. I trust you're motivated enough. You've got to becareful who you recommend, because their actions can always reflectback to your own reputation.” We were at Kofe Hauz, his hands werepressed tight around a cup of steaming coffee. I was sipping on myown usual mocha. “Just know that even if you send something nowthough, you might not hear back from them for a while. I mean, it isthe break. The break doesn't end for a few more weeks, on January10th. People want to read the application and makeimmediate hires, that's just how it works here, with teachingespecially. If you can't work immediately, don't apply until youcan.”

I took his advice and waited until it was closer tothe end of the break. When I was in Kharkivska was when I sent outan email to his lead, Tanya. A few days later, Tanya emailed backand said almost the same thing. “Just come in on January 11th and we can talk.” On January 11th,I came to theschool. The language school had its own office in the elementaryschool and borrowed the classrooms after the school was out. As Iwalked in, there were still some children lingering in the courtyard,even though by seven o'clock the dark had already settled over thecity and stray dogs had come out to make their rounds at trashcontainers everywhere.

“You are Tanya?” I asked the girlsitting at the desk on a laptop.

“No, I'm Maria,” shesaid, smiling. “Tanya's coming though.”

I waited for abit and chatted with Maria. She was something of the main clerk forthe language school. We chatted for a bit. She was from theSoutheastern part of Ukraine, where it was the most industrializedand Russian. She shared the family name of a famous Russian marshalwho was one of Stalin's top advisors during World War II. “Once,in Bulgaria, I was late for a plane because of my connecting flightfrom Turkey. They held the plan for almost an hour for me. TheBulgarian captain greeted me, saying he remembered what the marshalhad done for his own father.”

Finally Tanya came, who wasevery bit as attractive as the younger Maria. “We can take you onas a substitute first, but otherwise we have too many teachers as itis. Oh, but I do know one client who has a two year old daughter. Have you worked any with two year olds?”

“The youngestI've taught was an eight year old, but I'm willing to try anything,”I said. I couldn't imagine how I'd come across to the mother of atwo year old girl or how I would just teach her. I could just playwith her and talk to her, I suppose that would work. The daughter ofone of my old host families in Georgia was two years old and we gotalong just fine. That's what I told the mother when we talked on thephone. “Though, to be honest, she ended up teaching me moreGeorgian than I taught her English!”

I went to the meet the next week onMonday. “You'll go to Lebidinska Metro and meet the driver there,”she instructed me. “Meet there at 8:30.” I was there at 8:35,underestimating how slow the metro would be, and how slow my walk toit would be, since I seemed determined on taking wrong turns. Iexited the metro into the tunnels and first took the tunnel to theright. I didn't think the station would be too complicated, but Ishould have realized that almost all the stations are. The drivercalled me and spoke in Russian, “Where are you?”

“I'mhere at the metro,” I said. I was looking around for landmarks. “Where are you?”

“I'm on the side with the green fence. Do you see a green fence?”

“No, I see a green storethough.”

“Oh, you are on the other side.” He hung up. I went back down into the winding maze of tunnels, filled with fruitsellers and window electronics and underwear vendors and came outnear a green fence, behind which was a construction site.

Myphone rang again. “Where are you?” the driver asked.

“I'mon the side with the construction.”

“Oh, I came to meetyou over on the side with the green store, next to where all themarshrutkas are.”

“Oh, okay, I'll come to you,” I said. “Just wait.” I went back into the tunnels and up near where Istarted. I went to the parking lot with the marshrutkas and wasimmediately met by a tall man in a black leather coat. “You'reShawn?”

“That's me.”

“Good, I finally foundyou!” he said. “Come with me, I'm on the other side of themetro.” We went back into the tunnels and came up near theconstruction site. We walked down there a bit and went up to a blackVolkswagen minivan. “If you come back, this is where I always parkand wait, got it?”

“Got it,” I nodded as I entered theminivan, which was already full, with six other passengers. As wedrove, I wondered if these passengers would be dropped off before orafter me. If they were dropped off before, I might be even morelate. As we drove further out of town and into a forest, it becameclear to me that perhaps these other passengers were going to thesame place I was. And if they were, what kind of place was I comingto? The forest cleared out, revealing a huge mansion. Two securityguards in black suits and earpieces were at the door, looking intothe forest. A quick glance around the forest revealed other securitycheckpoints, forming a vague perimeter around the mansion. As Iapproached the door, I expected the large Ukrainian man to take mylaptop case and search it, while the other over-sized guard checkedmy body, but instead they simply opened the door for me and allowedme on through.

The huge, two story circular entrance hadstairs that followed either wall, with a black and white checkeredtiled floor underneath. A Christmas tree still towered in thecenter, its peak reaching up to the ceiling, branches still ladenwith blue and red ornaments. I was brought to a cloak room on theside, where I could leave my things. The mother came in as I wastaking off my coat and greeted me, introducing me to her daughter,Lydia. “Hello Lydia,” I said. “How are you?” I bent downto greet the girl, extending my hand. She took it and said, “I'mgood.”

“What's your name?”

“Lydia,” shesaid. She stepped back behind her mothers legs and stared out at mefrom there.

“If you'd come this way and wash your hands,”her mother, Valya, told me. She was a dark haired Ukrainian woman. More homely than I would expect from someone this wealthy. I wouldhave expected more of a trophy wife, but clearly she had some hiddenattributes, or the man married simply to have a mother for hischildren, since it was clear she was not of the working type.

Ispent an hour and a half with the Lydia and her mother, who mostlysat in the corner of the large parlor room watching us. Lydia and Isat at a small plastic table, playing with a monkey doll and plasticfruits. The entire time, I felt a bit like the Mad Hatter playingtea with little Alice, having her pour me pretend tea into my littleplastic tea cup. “Pour me some tea, Lydia,” I would say.

“No,”she would reply.

“Why can't I have some tea?”

“Mommy!”Lydia said, repeating the word again and again until finally hermother came over and joined us, sitting on another plastic chair.

“I'm right here,” she said. Lydia immediately went toher and climbed up into her lap.

By the end of the hour anda half, the mother gave me a few pointers. “So, just next time,remember that. And we'll work through Tanya, okay? And give thisenvelope to Tanya, too.”

“Sure, right,” I said, takingthe envelope from her and silently wondering what was in it. I feltlike as I was just on a date with the mom and said something wrong –it was that kind of awkward. The driver pulled up in his minivan. This time it was just him and me. As he drove, we chatted in Russiana little, though I was constantly thrown in slight confusion wheneverhe said a word with a “g” in it since Western Ukrainians oftenhave a hard time with the letter, pronouncing it like “h”. Hewas clearly a Western Ukrainian. “Where are you hoinh?” heasked.

“Just drop me at the metro, that's fine,” I toldhim. “Kiev's a great city, isn't it?”

“Yes, it's reallyhreat.”

As we’ve mentioned, probably ad nauseum to many of you, we had a bit of a rough time adjusting after …Continue reading »

After I moved into my apartment, Ifound myself having the “now what” moment. My week of partyingin Kharkiv had come to an end and I had to find new ways to occupymyself in Kiev. I had already been building an array of friends herebefore I had left, so I decided to tap into that pool and get back intouch with Bridget. “You want to get some drinks sometime?” Iasked her over Facebook.

“Actually, you know there's aHash meeting and a concert tomorrow,” she wrote back. “You wantto come?”

“Right on.” Hashing is an international clubthat involves jogging, scavenger hunting and drinking. I loved atthe very least doing a third of those activities. Basically, what itinvolves is a group of people meeting at a pub somewhere in a city. They then follow a “maze” of flour spots that the leaders haveput out and they try to find the correct location. At the end ofthis, there's typically a break for beer followed by another flourmaze, then after the hashing is done, everybody meets again to drinkup all the calories they burned while jogging around in circleslooking for the right path. The things some people invent to passthe time in this life! All in all though, I suppose it's better thanwearing hair underwear and flogging yourself in a dungeon.

One view along the hash, piano made of tilesOrganizing the hash was Dima, the same large Ukrainian guywho was trying to kiss me at Anika's party. I didn't mind seeing himagain, since he seemed a decent enough fellow, despite all thedrunken kisses. Though I got used to men trying to kiss me a lotwith their slobbery lips while I was in Georgia, so this wasn't toohuge of a concern for me. I realized that some Eastern Europeans andAsians just tend to take the bromance thing to a whole new notch.

more public art on the routeThere was a decent mix of foreigners and Ukrainians in thegroup. There was one English guy who was in Kiev teaching Englishfor one company. “You should apply there, they take everyone,”he said. I did apply later, but never heard back from them. Thenthere was Daria, a girl who reminded me of the cartoon character ofthe same name, with a very dry wit and a face that looked like shewas never impressed with anything. She carried a professional stylecamera with her and was taking pictures of all the different scenesof the city that we witnessed. There was also Tanya, another girlwho was obsessed with drawing, she kept a sketch book with herwherever she went. Her goal in life was to design monsters for videogames. In the meantime, she was in love with a guy from Canada whoshe may or may not see again.

After the hash, we all wentback to Anika's place where we tanked up on beer, vodka andsandwiches before we headed on to the concert. The concert was at aplace called Babuin, a more Bohemian style cafe that commonly had livemusic. Books lined all the walls and Ukrainian hipsters adorned thechairs, reading books and surfing on their MacBooks while adjustingtheir fake, horn rimmed glasses. Though I have a natural disdain forhipsters – back when I lived in Denver, I used to wax ecstatic forhours regarding how the degeneration of a society can be measured bythe presence of fixed gear bicycles – I always enjoyed theirlocales. Mostly because hipster girls tend to be fairly attractive,slim, wearing black dresses and makeup. The only downside was thathipster girls tended to like more about as much as they'd like Tupac.

The band that we watched was a folk band, playing a varietyof old Ukrainian songs on ethnic instruments. The music was a bitstaunch and rigid though, and there was something a bit tooaristocratic about it to make it real folksy. It was more like if the king hired a "folk" band to play something nice for the nobility, like when Presidents of the United States of America played at a Billy Clinton rally in the nineties.

Moreinteresting was when they were finished. In the other room entered agroup of street bards, dressed up in colored cloaks and masks. Theycarried instruments with them, violins, accordions and bass drums,along with a stench that could be smelled from the other room. Theyplayed a much more lively version of Ukrainian folk. They played twoor three songs in the bar, while sending a bouncy woman around with ahat to collect money from the onlookers, before they retreated backup the stairs and went back onto the street. I assumed they weresome sort of musicians' collective who just toured bars and tried tolive off tip money.

My friends Alex and Katsia showed up,with an expressed intention to go somewhere to smoke some hookah. Assome of our troupe broke up, Alex stood up and said, “Let's get outof here and get some shisha.” We took some of the hashers with usin a jaunt across town, looking for a hookah place where we knew wewouldn't have to reserve a table – in most Kievan bars, tablereservations are a must, as they usually don't have standing room inmost of the bars. Alex took a path that led us through alleys andcourtyards, while Daria kept calling a boy to tell her their exactlocation.

“Why doesn't he just meet us where we're going?”I asked her.

“Because he wants to try to catch up withus,” she said.

“But with this route, he'll never be ableto find us,” I said.

“He keeps saying we're going thewrong direction.”

We finally found the bar, and a few ofthe other hashers caught up with us, but unfortunately the bar hadstopped serving hookah for some mysterious reason. “They usuallyhave hookah,” Alex explained. “I wouldn't have led you guys llthe way here if I had known.” “I thought it was a fun route,”I chimed in. “Maybe the hookah guy is just out? Who knows. Palata No. 6 serves shisha, we can check if they've got any.” Wewent on to Palata No. 6, but without calling ahead for reservations,we found it impossible to get a seat there. We decided to just walkin one direction go to the first place that served hookah, Uruk, whichended up being an Uzbek restaurant near Zoloti Vorota. Uzbek foodrevolved mostly around pilaf and these dumplings that mysteriouslylooked a lot like Georgian khinkali. I opted against ordering them,since their cost was the same as how much khinkali cost at theGeorgian restaurant I had found in Kiev a month back. The hookah wasalso the most expensive I had found yet in Ukraine. It was more thanEl Mate, and didn't have the premium hookah service and flavor thataccompanied the usual trip to El Mate.

Dima caught up withus at the Uzbek place, but only at the end. Everyone had to leave tocatch their respective metros. I was the last out, leaving Daria andDima alone at the bar. I raced to the metro, still having plenty oftime for the last train. Getting out at my stop some 30 minuteslater, the air was crisp and cold and I listened to my headphones onthe walk back to my apartment, ever enjoying the lights of thesurrounding apartment towers.

After I moved into my apartment, Ifound myself having the “now what” moment. My week of partyingin Kharkiv had come to an end and I had to find new ways to occupymyself in Kiev. I had already been building an array of friends herebefore I had left, so I decided to tap into that pool and get back intouch with Bridget. “You want to get some drinks sometime?” Iasked her over Facebook.

“Actually, you know there's aHash meeting and a concert tomorrow,” she wrote back. “You wantto come?”

“Right on.” Hashing is an international clubthat involves jogging, scavenger hunting and drinking. I loved atthe very least doing a third of those activities. Basically, what itinvolves is a group of people meeting at a pub somewhere in a city. They then follow a “maze” of flour spots that the leaders haveput out and they try to find the correct location. At the end ofthis, there's typically a break for beer followed by another flourmaze, then after the hashing is done, everybody meets again to drinkup all the calories they burned while jogging around in circleslooking for the right path. The things some people invent to passthe time in this life! All in all though, I suppose it's better thanwearing hair underwear and flogging yourself in a dungeon.

One view along the hash, piano made of tilesOrganizing the hash was Dima, the same large Ukrainian guywho was trying to kiss me at Anika's party. I didn't mind seeing himagain, since he seemed a decent enough fellow, despite all thedrunken kisses. Though I got used to men trying to kiss me a lotwith their slobbery lips while I was in Georgia, so this wasn't toohuge of a concern for me. I realized that some Eastern Europeans andAsians just tend to take the bromance thing to a whole new notch.

more public art on the routeThere was a decent mix of foreigners and Ukrainians in thegroup. There was one English guy who was in Kiev teaching Englishfor one company. “You should apply there, they take everyone,”he said. I did apply later, but never heard back from them. Thenthere was Daria, a girl who reminded me of the cartoon character ofthe same name, with a very dry wit and a face that looked like shewas never impressed with anything. She carried a professional stylecamera with her and was taking pictures of all the different scenesof the city that we witnessed. There was also Tanya, another girlwho was obsessed with drawing, she kept a sketch book with herwherever she went. Her goal in life was to design monsters for videogames. In the meantime, she was in love with a guy from Canada whoshe may or may not see again.

After the hash, we all wentback to Anika's place where we tanked up on beer, vodka andsandwiches before we headed on to the concert. The concert was at aplace called Babuin, a more Bohemian style cafe that commonly had livemusic. Books lined all the walls and Ukrainian hipsters adorned thechairs, reading books and surfing on their MacBooks while adjustingtheir fake, horn rimmed glasses. Though I have a natural disdain forhipsters – back when I lived in Denver, I used to wax ecstatic forhours regarding how the degeneration of a society can be measured bythe presence of fixed gear bicycles – I always enjoyed theirlocales. Mostly because hipster girls tend to be fairly attractive,slim, wearing black dresses and makeup. The only downside was thathipster girls tended to like more about as much as they'd like Tupac.

The band that we watched was a folk band, playing a varietyof old Ukrainian songs on ethnic instruments. The music was a bitstaunch and rigid though, and there was something a bit tooaristocratic about it to make it real folksy. It was more like if the king hired a "folk" band to play something nice for the nobility, like when Presidents of the United States of America played at a Billy Clinton rally in the nineties.

Moreinteresting was when they were finished. In the other room entered agroup of street bards, dressed up in colored cloaks and masks. Theycarried instruments with them, violins, accordions and bass drums,along with a stench that could be smelled from the other room. Theyplayed a much more lively version of Ukrainian folk. They played twoor three songs in the bar, while sending a bouncy woman around with ahat to collect money from the onlookers, before they retreated backup the stairs and went back onto the street. I assumed they weresome sort of musicians' collective who just toured bars and tried tolive off tip money.

My friends Alex and Katsia showed up,with an expressed intention to go somewhere to smoke some hookah. Assome of our troupe broke up, Alex stood up and said, “Let's get outof here and get some shisha.” We took some of the hashers with usin a jaunt across town, looking for a hookah place where we knew wewouldn't have to reserve a table – in most Kievan bars, tablereservations are a must, as they usually don't have standing room inmost of the bars. Alex took a path that led us through alleys andcourtyards, while Daria kept calling a boy to tell her their exactlocation.

“Why doesn't he just meet us where we're going?”I asked her.

“Because he wants to try to catch up withus,” she said.

“But with this route, he'll never be ableto find us,” I said.

“He keeps saying we're going thewrong direction.”

We finally found the bar, and a few ofthe other hashers caught up with us, but unfortunately the bar hadstopped serving hookah for some mysterious reason. “They usuallyhave hookah,” Alex explained. “I wouldn't have led you guys llthe way here if I had known.” “I thought it was a fun route,”I chimed in. “Maybe the hookah guy is just out? Who knows. Palata No. 6 serves shisha, we can check if they've got any.” Wewent on to Palata No. 6, but without calling ahead for reservations,we found it impossible to get a seat there. We decided to just walkin one direction go to the first place that served hookah, Uruk, whichended up being an Uzbek restaurant near Zoloti Vorota. Uzbek foodrevolved mostly around pilaf and these dumplings that mysteriouslylooked a lot like Georgian khinkali. I opted against ordering them,since their cost was the same as how much khinkali cost at theGeorgian restaurant I had found in Kiev a month back. The hookah wasalso the most expensive I had found yet in Ukraine. It was more thanEl Mate, and didn't have the premium hookah service and flavor thataccompanied the usual trip to El Mate.

Dima caught up withus at the Uzbek place, but only at the end. Everyone had to leave tocatch their respective metros. I was the last out, leaving Daria andDima alone at the bar. I raced to the metro, still having plenty oftime for the last train. Getting out at my stop some 30 minuteslater, the air was crisp and cold and I listened to my headphones onthe walk back to my apartment, ever enjoying the lights of thesurrounding apartment towers.

Friday was the first day back to school. Friday was also the day it snowed. A lot. I am fortunate in that I live in one of the warmest regions of Georgia, so last year we maybe got one or two days with snow, and it didn't really stick. Friday, however, was different. And since people here aren't used to snow like the rest of the country, no one went to school. I trekked my way there around 8:30 am because I knew the teachers would show up, and one or two students, and then after a brief snowball fight (it seemed like it was Georgians against Americans...yeah, there is only one American in my village) I headed back home to drink some tea.

One morning, Sasha had called fromKharkiv. I was in the other room and only heard tidbits of theconversation. “The police were called? What for? There hasn'tbeen anything here Sasha, it's been all quiet. There was a kidsparty upstairs, but that was it. Shawn's been quiet. There hasn'tbeen anything happening. No, Sasha, you need to talk with thelandlord and put your foot down. Nothing's been happening here.” The conversation gave me a little to worry about, but not much tothink about. I went back to surfing on Facebook. But then laterthat day, there was a knock on the door. I approached it, lookingfor a key, but then it opened on its own. A short, wide man withdarker skin and a thick, Stalin-esque mustache walked in. He lookedCaucasian, but I couldn't tell if he was Azeri, Armenian or Georgian,he had one of those pan-Caucasus looks about him.

Heimmediately walked in and started looking around. “Who are you?”I asked in Russian.

“I am the owner,” he said inRussian. “Who are you?”

“We're Sasha's friends,” Isaid. I didn't know how much he knew about us or if Sasha had eventold him about renting the other rooms out to other people. Being aninternational, you quickly learned that things like housing youwanted to know the least about and accepted the most tenaciousagreements.

“Which rooms are you staying in? That one?”he pointed to Chris's room. The room was a disaster. Papers wereeverywhere, the white pleather couch was missing cushions, there wasa mattress on the floor.

“Yes, we're both in that one.”

“And there's another occupied one,” he said, looking backat my room. “Who's in that one?”

“I don't know, we justgot here.”

He pulled us into the kitchen. “Listen,”he said, putting his hands on the table. “Where are youfrom?”

“We're Americans.”

Chris chimed in, “Tellhim we have our documents. Everything's in order. I can show him mywork documents and registration.”

“We have our documents. Everything's in order. He's got a work visa.”

Chris ranout of the room for a moment. The owner said, “I'm just worriedabout foreigners. You know, we are not supposed to have foreigners. They bring attention. You know, if someone asks about foreigners,then the police might come and check into and I'd have to pay thebribes. I don't like that. I'm weary about foreigners.”

“What'she saying?” Chris asked me when he came back in with a stack ofsheets. I translated for him. Chris hand the papers to the owner. “These guys are always overwhelmed by papers,” he said to me inEnglish, handing over all his papers.

“What did he say?”the owner said.

“He said that he was working in L'vov,” Itranslated. While the owner perused the documents, I asked him wherehe was from.

“Azerbaijan.”

“Azerbaijan! Yaxshi!” I exclaimed. “Yaxshi” meant “good” in Azeri. Iswitched to Azeri. “How are you?”

“I'm good,” he saidin Azeri. “And you?”

“I'm good too. How long haveyou been in Ukraine?”

“For 20 years,” he said.

Ihad expended my knowledge of Azeri, so I switched back to Russian. “20 years? That's a long time. Do you go back often?”

“Yes,often,” he said. “So how long are you guys staying here?”

Chris had gotten up to fix some tea for us.

“We'vebeen staying for a week.”

“How long will you stay?” heasked.

“Can we stay for a couple of months?”

“Whatwould you pay?”

“How about 1300 a month?” This wasthe same amount that Sasha was charging me. I figured it would beokay to offer that.

“How about in American dollars?” heasked.

“That is a joke, right?”

“Yes, ofcourse,” he said. I couldn't tell if he was relaxing a bit. Onlya small flicker of a smile came across his face, but I couldn't readwhy he smiled like such. I also noticed that he didn't necessarilyagree to that price.

“So why are you guys in Ukraine?”he asked.

After translating the question, Chris had metranslate his response. “I'm here because I want to get more intoOrthodoxy. I'm really active in the Church.”

“And whatare you?” the owner asked me.

“Catholic,” I replied.

“I'm Muslim.”

This is when Chris startedreciting a syrah. Chris had, in the course of his career as anEnglish teacher, lived and worked in Syria, where he also studiedIslam and Arabic. When Chris finished reciting the syrah, the ownertook it up and recited the rest. “Do you know what thatmeans?”

“It means that God is one,” Chris said.

“Yes,” the owner said. “Listen, when someone comeshere, tell them you are a friend of Taymaz. That's me. If someonecomes asking, they can't know you are living here. Just tell themthat you are friends of mine and are visiting. You're visiting fromL'vov. Understand?”

“Yeah, sure, no problem,” wereplied.

“Listen, Taymaz, do you know where any good cheapAzeri restaurants are around here?” I asked him, interested inwhere I could get some lamb shish kebab and pilaf.

“Wecould go get some food now if you want to join us?” Chris said.

“Okay, I know a place very close,” Taymaz said. “Butfirst I need to say my prayers.” He stood up, took off his jacketand went into the next room to say the prayers. I drank the rest ofmy tea while Chris went on talking, theorizing about just why Taymazhad come in.

“Do you think the whole thing about thepolice was a ruse?” he asked.

“It might well have been. He might have just wanted to check out the situation here.”

Taymaz came back in the room. “What do you want toeat?”

“I guess some shish kebab,” I told him.

“I'llcall a place.”

“Before we go, I need to go shower.” Iwent to take a shower. When I came back, Taymaz was still sittingthere with Chris. Not having a common language, they sat silently. “How about 1600 grivna for the room per month?” he asked.

“Ineed to talk with Sasha about that,” I replied. I had agreed withSasha at 1300 grivna, plus 200 for the bills.

“I need totalk with him about that,” he said. “1600 grivna?” herepeated, holding up a calculator. I knew that if I had refused todeal, then it would be obvious to him that we had made an arrangementwith Sasha already. But on the other hand, we didn't know what Sashahad arranged with him and if Sasha was receiving a cut from our rentmoney. I wouldn't have minded that, as long as Sasha would have toldme in advance what exactly was going on. After Taymaz insisted onsolidifying the deal, I decided to go ahead and enter intonegotiations.

“1500, but only if it includes everything. All bills paid,” I said.

Taymaz considered and thenagreed. “Okay then,” he said. “I don't want to put you guysout on the street during winter. Where would you go? 1500 is okay,with everything.”

Taymaz then brought us down to his carand drove us over the river. He was on the phone, so I had to waitbefore I asked him where he was taking us. I heard him saying on thephone though, “2,000 would be normal, yes? 2,000 for each room,with all the bills paid. In March we do that. The contract is untilthe end of March.” I didn't know what contract he was talkingabout, but I can only assume he had a surprise waiting for Sasha whenit was time to renegotiate.

When Taymaz hung up, I asked,“Where are we going?”

“Ah, that other place was out oflamb. I'm taking you to another place I know about. But I don'tknow how it is.”

“It's not expensive is it?”

“Idon't know, I've never been there.” When he parked the caropposite the street of the restaurant, he said, “I don't eat atrestaurants anyway. I eat only clean food. So I'll leave you twoguys here.”

“Where's the metro from here?”

“Far,you can just take the bus back. Any bus.”

“Right. Theidea was to eat with you, Taymaz.”

“No, that's okay, Idon't eat out as it is.”

He left us on the side of theroad. Luckily the temperature hadn't turned too cold yet. “Do youreally want to eat here?” asked Chris.

“No, not really,let's get back. I'm supposed to meet a girl soon anyway.”

One morning, Sasha had called fromKharkiv. I was in the other room and only heard tidbits of theconversation. “The police were called? What for? There hasn'tbeen anything here Sasha, it's been all quiet. There was a kidsparty upstairs, but that was it. Shawn's been quiet. There hasn'tbeen anything happening. No, Sasha, you need to talk with thelandlord and put your foot down. Nothing's been happening here.” The conversation gave me a little to worry about, but not much tothink about. I went back to surfing on Facebook. But then laterthat day, there was a knock on the door. I approached it, lookingfor a key, but then it opened on its own. A short, wide man withdarker skin and a thick, Stalin-esque mustache walked in. He lookedCaucasian, but I couldn't tell if he was Azeri, Armenian or Georgian,he had one of those pan-Caucasus looks about him.

Heimmediately walked in and started looking around. “Who are you?”I asked in Russian.

“I am the owner,” he said inRussian. “Who are you?”

“We're Sasha's friends,” Isaid. I didn't know how much he knew about us or if Sasha had eventold him about renting the other rooms out to other people. Being aninternational, you quickly learned that things like housing youwanted to know the least about and accepted the most tenaciousagreements.

“Which rooms are you staying in? That one?”he pointed to Chris's room. The room was a disaster. Papers wereeverywhere, the white pleather couch was missing cushions, there wasa mattress on the floor.

“Yes, we're both in that one.”

“And there's another occupied one,” he said, looking backat my room. “Who's in that one?”

“I don't know, we justgot here.”

He pulled us into the kitchen. “Listen,”he said, putting his hands on the table. “Where are youfrom?”

“We're Americans.”

Chris chimed in, “Tellhim we have our documents. Everything's in order. I can show him mywork documents and registration.”

“We have our documents. Everything's in order. He's got a work visa.”

Chris ranout of the room for a moment. The owner said, “I'm just worriedabout foreigners. You know, we are not supposed to have foreigners. They bring attention. You know, if someone asks about foreigners,then the police might come and check into and I'd have to pay thebribes. I don't like that. I'm weary about foreigners.”

“What'she saying?” Chris asked me when he came back in with a stack ofsheets. I translated for him. Chris hand the papers to the owner. “These guys are always overwhelmed by papers,” he said to me inEnglish, handing over all his papers.

“What did he say?”the owner said.

“He said that he was working in L'vov,” Itranslated. While the owner perused the documents, I asked him wherehe was from.

“Azerbaijan.”

“Azerbaijan! Yaxshi!” I exclaimed. “Yaxshi” meant “good” in Azeri. Iswitched to Azeri. “How are you?”

“I'm good,” he saidin Azeri. “And you?”

“I'm good too. How long haveyou been in Ukraine?”

“For 20 years,” he said.

Ihad expended my knowledge of Azeri, so I switched back to Russian. “20 years? That's a long time. Do you go back often?”

“Yes,often,” he said. “So how long are you guys staying here?”

Chris had gotten up to fix some tea for us.

“We'vebeen staying for a week.”

“How long will you stay?” heasked.

“Can we stay for a couple of months?”

“Whatwould you pay?”

“How about 1300 a month?” This wasthe same amount that Sasha was charging me. I figured it would beokay to offer that.

“How about in American dollars?” heasked.

“That is a joke, right?”

“Yes, ofcourse,” he said. I couldn't tell if he was relaxing a bit. Onlya small flicker of a smile came across his face, but I couldn't readwhy he smiled like such. I also noticed that he didn't necessarilyagree to that price.

“So why are you guys in Ukraine?”he asked.

After translating the question, Chris had metranslate his response. “I'm here because I want to get more intoOrthodoxy. I'm really active in the Church.”

“And whatare you?” the owner asked me.

“Catholic,” I replied.

“I'm Muslim.”

This is when Chris startedreciting a syrah. Chris had, in the course of his career as anEnglish teacher, lived and worked in Syria, where he also studiedIslam and Arabic. When Chris finished reciting the syrah, the ownertook it up and recited the rest. “Do you know what thatmeans?”

“It means that God is one,” Chris said.

“Yes,” the owner said. “Listen, when someone comeshere, tell them you are a friend of Taymaz. That's me. If someonecomes asking, they can't know you are living here. Just tell themthat you are friends of mine and are visiting. You're visiting fromL'vov. Understand?”

“Yeah, sure, no problem,” wereplied.

“Listen, Taymaz, do you know where any good cheapAzeri restaurants are around here?” I asked him, interested inwhere I could get some lamb shish kebab and pilaf.

“Wecould go get some food now if you want to join us?” Chris said.

“Okay, I know a place very close,” Taymaz said. “Butfirst I need to say my prayers.” He stood up, took off his jacketand went into the next room to say the prayers. I drank the rest ofmy tea while Chris went on talking, theorizing about just why Taymazhad come in.

“Do you think the whole thing about thepolice was a ruse?” he asked.

“It might well have been. He might have just wanted to check out the situation here.”

Taymaz came back in the room. “What do you want toeat?”

“I guess some shish kebab,” I told him.

“I'llcall a place.”

“Before we go, I need to go shower.” Iwent to take a shower. When I came back, Taymaz was still sittingthere with Chris. Not having a common language, they sat silently. “How about 1600 grivna for the room per month?” he asked.

“Ineed to talk with Sasha about that,” I replied. I had agreed withSasha at 1300 grivna, plus 200 for the bills.

“I need totalk with him about that,” he said. “1600 grivna?” herepeated, holding up a calculator. I knew that if I had refused todeal, then it would be obvious to him that we had made an arrangementwith Sasha already. But on the other hand, we didn't know what Sashahad arranged with him and if Sasha was receiving a cut from our rentmoney. I wouldn't have minded that, as long as Sasha would have toldme in advance what exactly was going on. After Taymaz insisted onsolidifying the deal, I decided to go ahead and enter intonegotiations.

“1500, but only if it includes everything. All bills paid,” I said.

Taymaz considered and thenagreed. “Okay then,” he said. “I don't want to put you guysout on the street during winter. Where would you go? 1500 is okay,with everything.”

Taymaz then brought us down to his carand drove us over the river. He was on the phone, so I had to waitbefore I asked him where he was taking us. I heard him saying on thephone though, “2,000 would be normal, yes? 2,000 for each room,with all the bills paid. In March we do that. The contract is untilthe end of March.” I didn't know what contract he was talkingabout, but I can only assume he had a surprise waiting for Sasha whenit was time to renegotiate.

When Taymaz hung up, I asked,“Where are we going?”

“Ah, that other place was out oflamb. I'm taking you to another place I know about. But I don'tknow how it is.”

“It's not expensive is it?”

“Idon't know, I've never been there.” When he parked the caropposite the street of the restaurant, he said, “I don't eat atrestaurants anyway. I eat only clean food. So I'll leave you twoguys here.”

“Where's the metro from here?”

“Far,you can just take the bus back. Any bus.”

“Right. Theidea was to eat with you, Taymaz.”

“No, that's okay, Idon't eat out as it is.”

He left us on the side of theroad. Luckily the temperature hadn't turned too cold yet. “Do youreally want to eat here?” asked Chris.

“No, not really,let's get back. I'm supposed to meet a girl soon anyway.”

near my hood I got back to Kiev. From the trainstation, I decided to first go to the new apartment and try out thekeys. I was in a rush to make sure I hadn't been scammed again andwas given a fake set of keys while someone scored on my money. ThenI was going to go back into town to get my main backpack, which I hadleft at the hostel, since I didn't want to drag it all aroundKharkiv. When I made it back to my apartment, I met my new roommate,Chris. When I came into the apartment, he was asleep, but soon wokeup. When he came to introduce himself to me, he wore a towel wrappedaround his waist and a t-shirt. He was short and bald, with intensebrown eyes that seemed to pop out and shake when he talked withsomeone – and he never talked about frivolous things. As his eyespopped, he would also lick his lips constantly, almost appearing likeHeath Ledger's rendition of the Joker, just without makeup, scars andknives. He would prefer guns anyway.

I sat down and decidedto try to talk with him for a bit to get to know my new neighbor. Chris was originally from the Pacific Northwest. He had searchedmost of his early life for a religion that he felt fit the Bible themost, going from Baptist to Pentecostal before finally setting onCatholicism. He became a very strict and traditional Catholic, evengoing on many Catholic missions around the world, from India to SouthAmerica. Eventually, he became disillusioned to what he saw was thecollapse of the Church due to liberalism and decentralization. Hedecided he'd look into Eastern Christianity. He went to L'vov,Ukraine, to see how the Greek Catholics were, if they were holdingtrue to a pre-Vatican II Church. When he saw the Novus Ordo massbeing practiced there, he was further disillusioned and decided tojoin the Russian Orthodox Church – what he saw was the mostconservative of all churches (I've since tried to tell him thatGeorgians managed to beat the Russians in having a conservative andtraditional church).

“I can't stand America anymore,” hetold me. He got up to stir his pot of legumes and grains that wasboiling on the stove. “It's full of degenerate mongrels. We'velet our society completely collapse. I just can't stand it. I hadto come here to find something better. But you know, even here, withhow everyone is looking to the West, you can see the degenerationslowly creep in. Here still, though, they have family values. Theydon't divorce, the wives serve their husbands, you know. Childrenare more obedient, because you can hit them if they aren't. Theystay in line. When I was teaching classes in a Catholic school inIndia, I was trying to keep the class calm. But they were crazy. The headmaster told me, 'Look Chris, just put a stick on your table.' So I did. And the class was calm for a few days, but then theyrealized I wasn't going to use the stick. A few days later, theheadmaster came back in, 'Look Chris,' he said to me, 'you'll findthe boy who is loudest and noisiest of them, just give him a thwack.' And I did. They shut up and paid attention the rest of thesemester.”

Sipping tea, after I got my bag, he went on,“You know what another problem in America is? Mexicans. I used tothink they'd have a positive influence, because they had familyvalues. But they don't have family values anymore. They've come toAmerica and degenerated in all the negative ways Americans have andare even worse, since they come to America and don't even try toadapt to the culture. They keep speaking their Spanish. When Iworked on a farm, I'd work side by side with the Mexicans. They'rehard workers. And even though I spoke Spanish, I would only speakEnglish to them because they were in my country and they should bespeaking English.”

“But you don't speak Ukrainian orRussian?” I interjected.

“That's something differententirely,” he replied. “They're in our country, wanting all ofour rights and benefits, they have to learn our language.”

“Manyjust want to make money and go back home.”

“That mightbe how it used to be, but now Mexico is even more degenerate thanAmerica, with how bad all the gang violence has gotten. And they'rebringing all that violence into America. We should just get rid ofthem all, and the ones that don't want to go should be shot.”

“Idon't know, I think language is a thing of economics. I don'tunderstand how you Republicans can preach laissez-faire on nearlyeverything, but when it comes to language, you puss out. Why? Youcan't learn another language? Whatever language is economicallyadvantageous to speak and know, people will learn. All secondgeneration immigrants speak English fine.”

“But they'redegenerates. And they're preserving their own degenerate race whenthey refuse to bledn into America.” And so on.

Chris wasa generally amicable guy, even though he had some pretty extremeopinions on everything, like how domestic violence wasn't thegovernment's business, how Sharia law was good because it enforcedfamily values and how all Socialist health care was the worst in theworld though he'd only lived in England and Italy (the two countrieswith the worst healthcare in Europe) and that America's was the best,especially because of the malpractice lawsuits and insurancestructure. Despite his opinions though, he was able to keep them atthe table. He never grew violent or directly offensive, nor did heever yell or become haughty and he always let the other person talk. But Chris could out talk anyone and would keep talking for hoursafter I got bored of the subject. Which was impressive, because Iwas normally that guy.

near my hood, after the first snowI had been lying low for those fewdays. Chris was also on a permanent state of lying low, complainingabout not being able to exercise since he was in a slump, or abouthow he hated the growing degeneracy of the Ukrainian people. Icertainly wasn't the most positive charge in the power plant, but hewas a charge, that much was certain. We walked around theneighborhood a few times. Kharkivska mostly consisted of massiveSoviet block apartments that looked rather barren at first site. Butthen I began to notice a cafe here, a bar there, a pub over there,hair salons and butchers, milk shops and fish shops. They even had small beer shops that served some twenty different beers from keg to bottle. The place wascrawling with activity – it was an unexpected surprise.

near my hood I got back to Kiev. From the trainstation, I decided to first go to the new apartment and try out thekeys. I was in a rush to make sure I hadn't been scammed again andwas given a fake set of keys while someone scored on my money. ThenI was going to go back into town to get my main backpack, which I hadleft at the hostel, since I didn't want to drag it all aroundKharkiv. When I made it back to my apartment, I met my new roommate,Chris. When I came into the apartment, he was asleep, but soon wokeup. When he came to introduce himself to me, he wore a towel wrappedaround his waist and a t-shirt. He was short and bald, with intensebrown eyes that seemed to pop out and shake when he talked withsomeone – and he never talked about frivolous things. As his eyespopped, he would also lick his lips constantly, almost appearing likeHeath Ledger's rendition of the Joker, just without makeup, scars andknives. He would prefer guns anyway.

I sat down and decidedto try to talk with him for a bit to get to know my new neighbor. Chris was originally from the Pacific Northwest. He had searchedmost of his early life for a religion that he felt fit the Bible themost, going from Baptist to Pentecostal before finally setting onCatholicism. He became a very strict and traditional Catholic, evengoing on many Catholic missions around the world, from India to SouthAmerica. Eventually, he became disillusioned to what he saw was thecollapse of the Church due to liberalism and decentralization. Hedecided he'd look into Eastern Christianity. He went to L'vov,Ukraine, to see how the Greek Catholics were, if they were holdingtrue to a pre-Vatican II Church. When he saw the Novus Ordo massbeing practiced there, he was further disillusioned and decided tojoin the Russian Orthodox Church – what he saw was the mostconservative of all churches (I've since tried to tell him thatGeorgians managed to beat the Russians in having a conservative andtraditional church).

“I can't stand America anymore,” hetold me. He got up to stir his pot of legumes and grains that wasboiling on the stove. “It's full of degenerate mongrels. We'velet our society completely collapse. I just can't stand it. I hadto come here to find something better. But you know, even here, withhow everyone is looking to the West, you can see the degenerationslowly creep in. Here still, though, they have family values. Theydon't divorce, the wives serve their husbands, you know. Childrenare more obedient, because you can hit them if they aren't. Theystay in line. When I was teaching classes in a Catholic school inIndia, I was trying to keep the class calm. But they were crazy. The headmaster told me, 'Look Chris, just put a stick on your table.' So I did. And the class was calm for a few days, but then theyrealized I wasn't going to use the stick. A few days later, theheadmaster came back in, 'Look Chris,' he said to me, 'you'll findthe boy who is loudest and noisiest of them, just give him a thwack.' And I did. They shut up and paid attention the rest of thesemester.”

Sipping tea, after I got my bag, he went on,“You know what another problem in America is? Mexicans. I used tothink they'd have a positive influence, because they had familyvalues. But they don't have family values anymore. They've come toAmerica and degenerated in all the negative ways Americans have andare even worse, since they come to America and don't even try toadapt to the culture. They keep speaking their Spanish. When Iworked on a farm, I'd work side by side with the Mexicans. They'rehard workers. And even though I spoke Spanish, I would only speakEnglish to them because they were in my country and they should bespeaking English.”

“But you don't speak Ukrainian orRussian?” I interjected.

“That's something differententirely,” he replied. “They're in our country, wanting all ofour rights and benefits, they have to learn our language.”

“Manyjust want to make money and go back home.”

“That mightbe how it used to be, but now Mexico is even more degenerate thanAmerica, with how bad all the gang violence has gotten. And they'rebringing all that violence into America. We should just get rid ofthem all, and the ones that don't want to go should be shot.”

“Idon't know, I think language is a thing of economics. I don'tunderstand how you Republicans can preach laissez-faire on nearlyeverything, but when it comes to language, you puss out. Why? Youcan't learn another language? Whatever language is economicallyadvantageous to speak and know, people will learn. All secondgeneration immigrants speak English fine.”

“But they'redegenerates. And they're preserving their own degenerate race whenthey refuse to bledn into America.” And so on.

Chris wasa generally amicable guy, even though he had some pretty extremeopinions on everything, like how domestic violence wasn't thegovernment's business, how Sharia law was good because it enforcedfamily values and how all Socialist health care was the worst in theworld though he'd only lived in England and Italy (the two countrieswith the worst healthcare in Europe) and that America's was the best,especially because of the malpractice lawsuits and insurancestructure. Despite his opinions though, he was able to keep them atthe table. He never grew violent or directly offensive, nor did heever yell or become haughty and he always let the other person talk. But Chris could out talk anyone and would keep talking for hoursafter I got bored of the subject. Which was impressive, because Iwas normally that guy.

near my hood, after the first snowI had been lying low for those fewdays. Chris was also on a permanent state of lying low, complainingabout not being able to exercise since he was in a slump, or abouthow he hated the growing degeneracy of the Ukrainian people. Icertainly wasn't the most positive charge in the power plant, but hewas a charge, that much was certain. We walked around theneighborhood a few times. Kharkivska mostly consisted of massiveSoviet block apartments that looked rather barren at first site. Butthen I began to notice a cafe here, a bar there, a pub over there,hair salons and butchers, milk shops and fish shops. They even had small beer shops that served some twenty different beers from keg to bottle. The place wascrawling with activity – it was an unexpected surprise.

It’s been quiet on here.  After the New Years-ing I’ve been thrown back into work, which isn’t necessarily a bad …Continue reading »

Tomorrow I’m going skiing. My host mom loves to ski and has invited me to join her. Georgia, with all its breathtaking mountains, is becoming known as an excellent destination for ski lovers and we happen to live just two hours … Continue reading →

Have you missed me?

I was completely ready to go through all of my pictures (and Kyle's....he took about 2000) to post them on here, but then I realized I needed to do my grad school applications. Then a big grant for GLOW, then some meetings in Tbilisi. So before heading back to site after arriving back in Georgia, I stashed away my camera in the office back in Tbilisi so I wouldn't even be tempted to look through them. Good plan, because I literally did not leave my house for 8 days straight while I was being productive. And now I'm hoping its pretty smooth sailing for my last 6 (!!!) months in Georgia.

So on to Spain. As you recall from an earlier post, we were incredibly excited to have tapas. They were quite a disappointment though. Basically all the bars at night serve them. They are small (which we expected) but after walking around for 10 hours all day like the tourists we were, small was not what we were looking for. We did end up having some really amazing meals in Spain (us Peace Corps Volunteers are really into our food when we're not in Georgia....cheers to no khatchapuri for a week!) as well as some really good beer and wine at each meal.

Valencia mandarins, paella, Estrella Inedit!, olives, Iberian ham, hummus, and spinach gnochi. mmmmmm

Our trip started in Madrid. The first thing I noticed when we all met at the hostel was just how much the guys had changed since I had left Arizona a year and a half ago. yep, my two roommates who never wore anything but t-shirts and khaki shorts were now standing in front of me, wearing jeans and jackets. yes, Steve actually can get cold, weird, right?

jeans!?!?

We spent three days in Madrid, wandering around some of their old town, wandering around looking for real restaurants, and visiting some of the museums to see Picasso, Goya, and Dali. Two of these artists I really like, the third was on some major creepster drugs and I guess that's just not my thing.

We also took a day trip to Toleda, the old Spanish capital, where we saw the house of El Greco and some of his paintings.

bored, hungry, and waiting for Steve.

a fountain in Madrid's huge park

all of the panorama's are from Kyle's new crack phone.as are the self pictures of the 3 of us

After wandering around forever on the first day trying to find real food. this also was ironically the only place to have the beer Steve found for me, Estrella Inedit, it's better than Blue Moon!

and it's beer served in a wine glass. classy.the palace

a tapas bar.

some fun architecture

For Christmas Spain had really creepy Jesus baby pictures hanging everywhere. They looked like a cross between a doll and a robot.

these were people who took garlands and made it into a costume, then added a snapping deer head. They tried to bite you.

plaza mayor, complete with Sponge Bobwaiting for cars to pass by in Toledo

a synagogue in Toledo

El Greco's house, or what someone thought it looked like. Kyle had a funny story to tell us. For those of you who know Kyle and his laughing fits, you can imagine how it took him ten minutes to squeak it out between tears and laughter. it's about Koala's, you should ask him about it.

We moved on to Granada for our Christmas weekend. We stayed in a really nice hostel where we got our own apartment, and where on Xmas Eve they served a free vegetarian meal for all of the guests. Christmas Eve Day was spent at the Alhambra, which was my favorite place in Spain. It was an old Moorish Palace grounds that the Spanish kinds added to over time, so the grounds are huge and the gardens are gorgeous. We spent the whole day there, ad then headed over to the Old Town cathedral for a nice lunch. Granada itself has a pretty center that is fun to wander around as well as on old Muslim quarter called Albaycin that is full of twisting roads and white houses. We spent the next two days exploring these parts.

a beautiful cathedral in the center of Granada

flamenco dresses. They only had them for little girls though, biggest disappointment of the trip!

the boys were not willing subjects of my photography

buildings however, had no choice.

an old market

another part of the cathedral

Christmas!

eating paella, a rice dish with saffron

churros with brandy chocolate

some kids playing, they probably had way too much chocolate.

people drinking Christmas Evein Charles' incomplete palaceit was square on the outside, circular on the inside.

it was sunny, this is the best picture we got.

they know how to do courtyards

view of Albaycin from the Alhambra

palace of relaxation

i got them churchkhela (Georgian candy turd thing), balloons, butterfly stickers, and a keychain. presents! I got ritz, reese's, and tea.

we may have had some wine by now....

We took the train from Granada to Valencia, where we were separated into boys and girls for the sleeper car. I was alone with a woman who knew no English, and after a few attempts to speak Spanish to me, she gave up talking to me to sit in silence. A few minutes later, she managed "where you from?" I answered and then asked her. To my surprise, she was from Russia. We started talking in Russian, and laughed at the randomness of being in the same cabin. We arrived in Valencia at 4am. Our apartment wouldn't be ready until 1 or 2, so we took the metro out to the Mediterranean, where we watched the sunrise. And it was so pretty we decided it wasn't even worth taking pictures! (no, not really, Kyle spent about an hour trying to do a time lapse only to have his phone erase it). After finding a Starbucks to crash in for another few hours, we checked in and then took a nap. Valencia had a really bohemian feel to its Old town, and we found a really amazing art cafe/restaurant for dinner. They also have a really modern looking science/conference center/museum area that we checked out. The next day we had to catch a bus to Barcelona, so there wasn't a lot of time to explore, but we did manage to get some of the best oranges and mandarins I've ever had in my life, which made the entire stop in Valencia worth it.

the bohemia area had some really fun murals

this was the center, all white buildings

We didn't have much time in Barcelona, just one day really, but we had enough time to criss cross the town looking at Gaudi's buildings and parks. Unfortunately his work doesn't lend itself well to photographing.

spain likes its outdoor escalators. So do I.

part of the Cathedral

door

meant to look like a forest

the columns had an interesting geometric construction

yeah, it wasn't any easier to look at in person. We decided to spend the last night in Spain on the mountain where the Olympics were held and where the guidebook said "you could spend a good few days on exploring." We took the funicular, excited to do something not Gaudi related. It started, went up the hill for literally one minute, and then stopped. That was it. The lamest funicular ever. We got out and there was really nothing at all to do but look at the stadium. We gave up and went back down the 'hill' to find a bar. So ended our trip to Spain.

waiting on the way back from the finicular.

Oh yeah, Matt Damon.

I have a life long love for Matt Damon, so I was enthralled with these posters all over Spain. It would have worked better if it had been smaller, oh well. A good ten day break from Georgia!

I went to Dasha's squat one last time,where I found the room full of people. When they saw me, they allgave me a cheer. “The American has returned!” Andrei cried. Immediately they brought me a glass of whiskey. “You couldn't getthe train?”

“It looks like I'll be with you guys anothernight,” I said, taking the glass of whiskey and drinking aroundwith them. They then began to pour some champagne and toasting “tovictory!” “What's all this?” I asked someone.

“Theyjust won the pub quiz,” Dima told me. We poured more rounds foreach other.

Andrei called out to me, “American! Play thatsong I really like!” I pulled out my accordion again and startedplayed a set for everyone. Dasha smiled, clapped and brought meanother round. She said, “I can't stay too long, I've got work inthe morning. But I love your singing.”

The night passedinto the morning, with much drinking and talking. Eventually, thedancing began and I took over the console behind the bar, playingrandom Russian songs.

“How do you know these songs?”Dima kept asking me. “People in America don't know these, right?”

“Right, I just do,” I said as I was putting onLeningrad's “Svoboda”. “Svoboda” is easily my favorite songby Leningrad, its chorus borrowing from an earlier Russian hair metalband named Kipelov. The lines, translated, are: “I'm free, likethe birds in the sky / I'm free, I forgot what fear is.” The songis, on the surface, about a woman leaving the singer and now he'sfree. The truth is though, his lover was the Soviet Union and he'ssinging about its collapse. The Leningrad version is more clear onits subject. “Just when you go against the stream / you understandwhat free opinion costs / Links gather into long chains / the line oflife become exact... to be different means to always be the same,choose what you want, poverty or prison / nobody gets freedom withouta reason / there is no exit and there is no entry.” The song notonly has a meaning I can relate with, but also memories that carryalong with it. I remember going to parties in Tbilisi to visit myEstonian friends, where me and Mathis would run around the placescreaming, “Ya svaboden! Slovna ptitsa v nebecax!” at the top ofour lungs, drinks held high to the air and arms around each othersshoulders. A scene later repeated in Estonia, near his home.

“Youare the best couchsurfer to stay here!” he said. It wasn't thelast time he said it during the night. They had told me about a fewof the past couchsurfers who had come. There was a Dutch guy who wasthere, busy finding women off the internet to come visit him at thesquat. One girl had come and he catered to her needs, only to findher wanting money from him before he left. Then there was an Englishguy who was busy traveling across the world. He spent an entire weekthere, doing nothing but playing on their Sega II. I wasn't simplythe latest normal couchsurfer to come, but also one with a genuineinterest in their culture. I can imagine, compared to those otherguys, I was quite a magnificent traveler.

The next day, Ihad spent most of my time in a coffee shop, waiting for it to pass. There are coffee shops everywhere in the big cities in Ukraine, mostof them resembling Starbucks, with the same corporate feel and almostidentical emblems. However, they usually also include servers andfree internet, two things Starbucks lacks. At the coffee shop, Ireceived word from a Fellowship that I had applied for. TheFellowship was done by a Russian bank, wanting to bring Americans into share their experience and knowledge as short term interns withRussian businesses and NGOs. They offered to fly me from Kiev to NewYork to interview. Of course, I immediately decided on this route ofaction and told my parents and friends and began to plot a trip toDenver if they'd let me stay a little bit longer in the States. Fromthe cafe, I went back to the squat to gather my things and spend myremaining time with Dasha and Andrei.

I left the squat thenext night. More people gathered there in the evening to celebrateDima's birthday. I couldn't stay though, since I was able to buy myticket online successfully and I had to make my train for that night. Dasha went with me to the train station to say goodbye. We waitedfor about an hour at the coffee shop that was right near the station,where we talked. She was worried about her tenure as a mother. “Idon't feel like a mother, but I want to be something to my boy,”she told me. Her boy was 8 years old and she was raising him withthe help of her parents. “I guess I just don't want to grow up. Iwant to be something different, but I want to be something for him.” She was having a hard time expressing her concerns in English.

Wemet Sasha, my new roommate at the platform at 11:30 at night. Mytrain was in twenty minutes. When I first booked, I had somereservations about trusting the Ukrainian railways with twentyminutes, since I knew Ukrainians, like most Europeans outside ofGermany, to be perpetually late. Sasha had reassured me earlier andsure enough, the train was on time. Sasha and his girlfriendstrolled up to me. “Ah, you weren't kidding about playing theaccordion!” he said, pointing to my cart and box. “You really doplay.”

“Yeah, why would I joke about that?” I said,shrugging. “Merry Christmas, by the way.” January 7th,the next day, was Orthodox Christmas.

“Thanks, MerryChristmas. So here are the keys,” he said. Sasha's eyes werealways bright and glowing and with his nearly modelesque stature, hereminded me of Awesome from the television series Chuck. He handedme the key ring and told me what each of the keys did. “ListenShawn, we have to go catch our bus before it leaves.” They left.

Dasha had been lurking in the background, smoking acigarette. She seemed somewhat shy about my leaving. “It's beenfun,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. Smoke trailed up fromthe tip of her cigarette, joining the smoke she exhaled, gatheringunder her hood before continuing to dissipate into the air.

“Listen, I know it's cold. You don't have to wait her withme, you can go catch the metro.”

“Are you telling me togo?”

“No, I'm just – I mean, wait here if you want, butI understand if you need to go catch the metro.” We walked over tothe next platform and waited for my train, neither of us sayinganything. It rolled up, again exactly on time. I was beginning tobe really impressed with the rail system in Ukraine. Comfortable, ontime, and now with my knowledge of the existence of on-line railtickets, easy to use.

I shared the compartment with anoverweight Ukrainian girl – perhaps the first truly overweight girlI had seen in Ukraine. I was afraid that I would come on board andwake up the inhabitants, since the train had first departed fromLugansk two hours earlier, but the girl had gone out of the train fora breath of air. She came back in with a quick grunt of a hello inRussian. She laid down and tried to sleep, but her phone kept goingoff and she talked in whispers. The light overhead was still on andI couldn't find the switch for it.

“Is that lightautomatic?” I asked her in Russian. The train hadn't begun movingyet, so I assumed that maybe the light would just go off after theystarted rolling and it was only on for the convenience of the newpassengers.

“No, there's a switch over there,” she said. She rolled up and across the room, shuffling aside my jacket whichwas hanging against the wall and turned off the light. She thenrolled back to her bed. Her bed was also on the lower bunk on theopposite side of mine. The top bunks were empty.

“What'sthe word for the thing that turns on the light?” I asked.

“Light-turn-offer. Or light-turn-onner, depending.”

“That's funny.”

“Russian is a very richlanguage.”

“I know! With words like light-turn-offerand light-turn-onner! It's why I love it so much.” It was oftensurprising how simple some things in Russian language was, especiallyin light of its absurd grammatical complexities. It's the littlethings like “lightswitch” and all of its comedic rhymes that makeit all worthwhile.

Even though the girl snored and breathedheavily through the night, I managed to sleep.

I went to Dasha's squat one last time,where I found the room full of people. When they saw me, they allgave me a cheer. “The American has returned!” Andrei cried. Immediately they brought me a glass of whiskey. “You couldn't getthe train?”

“It looks like I'll be with you guys anothernight,” I said, taking the glass of whiskey and drinking aroundwith them. They then began to pour some champagne and toasting “tovictory!” “What's all this?” I asked someone.

“Theyjust won the pub quiz,” Dima told me. We poured more rounds foreach other.

Andrei called out to me, “American! Play thatsong I really like!” I pulled out my accordion again and startedplayed a set for everyone. Dasha smiled, clapped and brought meanother round. She said, “I can't stay too long, I've got work inthe morning. But I love your singing.”

The night passedinto the morning, with much drinking and talking. Eventually, thedancing began and I took over the console behind the bar, playingrandom Russian songs.

“How do you know these songs?”Dima kept asking me. “People in America don't know these, right?”

“Right, I just do,” I said as I was putting onLeningrad's “Svoboda”. “Svoboda” is easily my favorite songby Leningrad, its chorus borrowing from an earlier Russian hair metalband named Kipelov. The lines, translated, are: “I'm free, likethe birds in the sky / I'm free, I forgot what fear is.” The songis, on the surface, about a woman leaving the singer and now he'sfree. The truth is though, his lover was the Soviet Union and he'ssinging about its collapse. The Leningrad version is more clear onits subject. “Just when you go against the stream / you understandwhat free opinion costs / Links gather into long chains / the line oflife become exact... to be different means to always be the same,choose what you want, poverty or prison / nobody gets freedom withouta reason / there is no exit and there is no entry.” The song notonly has a meaning I can relate with, but also memories that carryalong with it. I remember going to parties in Tbilisi to visit myEstonian friends, where me and Mathis would run around the placescreaming, “Ya svaboden! Slovna ptitsa v nebecax!” at the top ofour lungs, drinks held high to the air and arms around each othersshoulders. A scene later repeated in Estonia, near his home.

“Youare the best couchsurfer to stay here!” he said. It wasn't thelast time he said it during the night. They had told me about a fewof the past couchsurfers who had come. There was a Dutch guy who wasthere, busy finding women off the internet to come visit him at thesquat. One girl had come and he catered to her needs, only to findher wanting money from him before he left. Then there was an Englishguy who was busy traveling across the world. He spent an entire weekthere, doing nothing but playing on their Sega II. I wasn't simplythe latest normal couchsurfer to come, but also one with a genuineinterest in their culture. I can imagine, compared to those otherguys, I was quite a magnificent traveler.

The next day, Ihad spent most of my time in a coffee shop, waiting for it to pass. There are coffee shops everywhere in the big cities in Ukraine, mostof them resembling Starbucks, with the same corporate feel and almostidentical emblems. However, they usually also include servers andfree internet, two things Starbucks lacks. At the coffee shop, Ireceived word from a Fellowship that I had applied for. TheFellowship was done by a Russian bank, wanting to bring Americans into share their experience and knowledge as short term interns withRussian businesses and NGOs. They offered to fly me from Kiev to NewYork to interview. Of course, I immediately decided on this route ofaction and told my parents and friends and began to plot a trip toDenver if they'd let me stay a little bit longer in the States. Fromthe cafe, I went back to the squat to gather my things and spend myremaining time with Dasha and Andrei.

I left the squat thenext night. More people gathered there in the evening to celebrateDima's birthday. I couldn't stay though, since I was able to buy myticket online successfully and I had to make my train for that night. Dasha went with me to the train station to say goodbye. We waitedfor about an hour at the coffee shop that was right near the station,where we talked. She was worried about her tenure as a mother. “Idon't feel like a mother, but I want to be something to my boy,”she told me. Her boy was 8 years old and she was raising him withthe help of her parents. “I guess I just don't want to grow up. Iwant to be something different, but I want to be something for him.” She was having a hard time expressing her concerns in English.

Wemet Sasha, my new roommate at the platform at 11:30 at night. Mytrain was in twenty minutes. When I first booked, I had somereservations about trusting the Ukrainian railways with twentyminutes, since I knew Ukrainians, like most Europeans outside ofGermany, to be perpetually late. Sasha had reassured me earlier andsure enough, the train was on time. Sasha and his girlfriendstrolled up to me. “Ah, you weren't kidding about playing theaccordion!” he said, pointing to my cart and box. “You really doplay.”

“Yeah, why would I joke about that?” I said,shrugging. “Merry Christmas, by the way.” January 7th,the next day, was Orthodox Christmas.

“Thanks, MerryChristmas. So here are the keys,” he said. Sasha's eyes werealways bright and glowing and with his nearly modelesque stature, hereminded me of Awesome from the television series Chuck. He handedme the key ring and told me what each of the keys did. “ListenShawn, we have to go catch our bus before it leaves.” They left.

Dasha had been lurking in the background, smoking acigarette. She seemed somewhat shy about my leaving. “It's beenfun,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. Smoke trailed up fromthe tip of her cigarette, joining the smoke she exhaled, gatheringunder her hood before continuing to dissipate into the air.

“Listen, I know it's cold. You don't have to wait her withme, you can go catch the metro.”

“Are you telling me togo?”

“No, I'm just – I mean, wait here if you want, butI understand if you need to go catch the metro.” We walked over tothe next platform and waited for my train, neither of us sayinganything. It rolled up, again exactly on time. I was beginning tobe really impressed with the rail system in Ukraine. Comfortable, ontime, and now with my knowledge of the existence of on-line railtickets, easy to use.

I shared the compartment with anoverweight Ukrainian girl – perhaps the first truly overweight girlI had seen in Ukraine. I was afraid that I would come on board andwake up the inhabitants, since the train had first departed fromLugansk two hours earlier, but the girl had gone out of the train fora breath of air. She came back in with a quick grunt of a hello inRussian. She laid down and tried to sleep, but her phone kept goingoff and she talked in whispers. The light overhead was still on andI couldn't find the switch for it.

“Is that lightautomatic?” I asked her in Russian. The train hadn't begun movingyet, so I assumed that maybe the light would just go off after theystarted rolling and it was only on for the convenience of the newpassengers.

“No, there's a switch over there,” she said. She rolled up and across the room, shuffling aside my jacket whichwas hanging against the wall and turned off the light. She thenrolled back to her bed. Her bed was also on the lower bunk on theopposite side of mine. The top bunks were empty.

“What'sthe word for the thing that turns on the light?” I asked.

“Light-turn-offer. Or light-turn-onner, depending.”

“That's funny.”

“Russian is a very richlanguage.”

“I know! With words like light-turn-offerand light-turn-onner! It's why I love it so much.” It was oftensurprising how simple some things in Russian language was, especiallyin light of its absurd grammatical complexities. It's the littlethings like “lightswitch” and all of its comedic rhymes that makeit all worthwhile.

Even though the girl snored and breathedheavily through the night, I managed to sleep.

I still had to bring Tasha her key back, since she had toleave in the morning for work while I was still asleep. We met nearthe Kharkiv planetarium, a building a block off one of the mainstreets, towering high in some sort of Soviet pride of science andstars. I imagined scores of Pioneers, children in red scarves andbrown uniforms, surrounding the building in the past, weaving in andout of the lines to gaze at the artificial lights in dreams that oneof them might be the next Yuri Gagarin. I stood outside theplanetarium in the dark. It was only five in the afternoon, but thewinter dusk had already settled in, making it seem like a late nightKGB drop. Tasha came running up the hill and hugged me in greeting. “Here's your key.”

“Did you get your ticket?” sheasked.

“There was quite a line. I mean, an insane line,”I said. “I spent all day at the place. But I got iteventually.”

“You know, you could have just gotten yourticket online. I thought that's what you were going todo.”

“There's a webpage for that?” I asked.

“It'seven in English. That's what all the foreigners do, I thought.” She was smiling, laughing.

“Your last boyfriend was in thePeace Corps here, so he probably knew a little bit more than Ido.”

“True,” she said.

“What's thewebsite?”

“E-kvytok.com.ua,” she said. “You shoulduse that. You can charge to your credit card too.”

“Ah,”I said. “Thanks. Good to know for next time. Anyways, I've gotto get going.” We hugged again. I wanted to hold her longer, butit seemed it would be awkward to do so outside the planetarium.

“I'llsee you in Kiev then,” she said, smiling. “We've got a lot to dothere. Go to that shisha place you were talking about, and that gayclub I was talking about.” We left each other, like twoplanets that were momentarily aligned continuing on their orbit, rocketing towards the sun atdifferent speeds.

I went to the squat. Andrei was already there, cleaning the place and making pizzas. Heworked there for Dasha as a kind of club operator, keeping everythingclean and making food for dinner. I liked these little communal lifethat I kept running across, from Kharkiv to Berlin. They gave meconfidence in human existence that I didn't have in the overbearingworld of the corporations. Granted, they were in nature parasitic,relying on the products and services of corporations in order toexist. If everyone were aware of what freedoms could be had outsideof the corporate sphere, then there would be no comforts left. I'mnot saying that in communes nobody works – everybody works and attimes, much harder. But their work seems all that much moresatisfactory. Even in traveling, I find myself cleaning dishes,picking things up, cooking, performing accordion and trying to makelife easier for those I'm staying with. I don't consider thesethings work, but they are. They're all services that cost a persontime, or money, if the person pays another to do such. All ofeconomics runs off of this exchange principal of labor – aprincipal I was still working off of, even using couchsurfing. Labor, however, doesn't have to be demeaning or degrading; it can befulfilling. There are certainly those in the modern system that feelthey have a fulfilling position – and they do. Maybe even, it isbetter to live that way. But I'm not so lucky to be one of thosethat finds happiness in slavery.

My new roommate in Kiev, Sasha,called me. “Shawn, where are you? We have been waiting here atthe apartment for you.”

“I thought you said that youwouldn't be home on Thursday, so to come on Friday, yeah?”

“No,we said on the 5th,” he said. “It is the 5thnow. Shawn, you see, the problem is that we are going to Kharkiv onFriday night.”

“Well, what time does your train get in?”I asked.

“It gets in at 11:30 at night,” he said. Thatmeant the train got in after I left.

“Are there any otherroommates?”

“There is Steve, the American, but the problemis that Saturday is Orthodox Christmas and he is very religious, soprobably he will be gone all day.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Sohow are you going to get the key? Can you get here tomorrow?”

“I'll see what I can do.” I hung up the phone, somewhatsaddened. I was hoping to party all night with the crew at the squatand then to leave the next day. I voiced my problem and thoughts outloud to Andrei, “Maybe I could stay with you guys for a couple ofdrinks, then go off and get a train for tonight. Or I could get alater train for tomorrow night.” I decided to try the first ideaand if that failed, then the second. I waited a little while until areasonable time to go, thinking that if I was able to change thetickets, then I could just wait at the station or at a nearby coffeeshop. At the squat, people kept coming in. First Tasha, then Dimawith a large smile, Misha with a striped sweater. They kept coming. They were gathering to play pub trivia.

I returned to thetrain station, this time with all of my luggage, which I had workeddown to being just my accordion and my Soviet Red Army pack. I knewthe routine now. I had to avoid, at all cost, the regular ticketdesks for Ukrainians. I first looked for the international desk, itwas already closed. Then I went the information desk and asked aboutthe trains leaving. Tonight's train was already booked. But therewas a train coming through at one and another at one thirty. Iweighed my options and then called Sasha back.

“Look,would it be possible to just meet you here in Kharkiv?” I asked. “Then I could get the key from you when you get here and I couldtake the next train out.”

“Yes, of course, thatis possible,” he said. In truth, I had to repeat this a few times,so that my voice was clear over the din of the train station, withthe constant conversations and mechanical announcements beingbroadcast through the air. After we agreed on the drop, I went tothe Ukrainian ticket lines, knowing that I was going to be waitingfor another hour while the people back at the squat continued ontheir own party.

While I stood in line, another old personwho couldn't read Ukrainian asked me if this was the right line. “Iguess,” I told her back. “It seems to me they're always thewrong line, so they all must be the right one, yeah?” She lookedback at me as though I were talking nonsense.

The minutesturned into half hours and the half hours turned into hours. But Iwas glad for two things, that at least I wasn't constantly switchinglines because the clerks were going on breaks, like the problem I hadthe day before. Also, I wasn't in Georgia where no line existed,since Georgians are incapable of the concept of waiting for one's ownturn. In Georgia, even when you talk to a bank teller, Georgians tryto jump ahead of you by addressing the bank teller while you havealready begun discussing your business. “Waiting is for otherpeople,” one Georgian told me once.

I had to go to therestroom. The lady in front of me promised to save my position. Iraced across the train station to the only men's restroom, ran pastthe stern looking babushka with the broom and used the urinal. WhenI made it back, some ten minutes later, I noticed the line had barelymoved.

When I at last got to the front of the line, I told theclerk, “I bought the wrong ticket. Can I exchange it for the trainthat leaves tomorrow at midnight?”

“I can give you arefund here, but you'll have to go to the office outside to buy nextday tickets. We sell only today's tickets here. Do youunderstand?”

“Yes, of course,” I told her, while tellingmyself, “I understand that this whole ticketing system isbullshit.” It was a surprise to me that the entire train systemseemed pretty efficient – the trains were always on the dot intiming and they were fairly comfortable. But for the ticketing! Ileft with my money back in my hand and made it back to the squat.

I still had to bring Tasha her key back, since she had toleave in the morning for work while I was still asleep. We met nearthe Kharkiv planetarium, a building a block off one of the mainstreets, towering high in some sort of Soviet pride of science andstars. I imagined scores of Pioneers, children in red scarves andbrown uniforms, surrounding the building in the past, weaving in andout of the lines to gaze at the artificial lights in dreams that oneof them might be the next Yuri Gagarin. I stood outside theplanetarium in the dark. It was only five in the afternoon, but thewinter dusk had already settled in, making it seem like a late nightKGB drop. Tasha came running up the hill and hugged me in greeting. “Here's your key.”

“Did you get your ticket?” sheasked.

“There was quite a line. I mean, an insane line,”I said. “I spent all day at the place. But I got iteventually.”

“You know, you could have just gotten yourticket online. I thought that's what you were going todo.”

“There's a webpage for that?” I asked.

“It'seven in English. That's what all the foreigners do, I thought.” She was smiling, laughing.

“Your last boyfriend was in thePeace Corps here, so he probably knew a little bit more than Ido.”

“True,” she said.

“What's thewebsite?”

“E-kvytok.com.ua,” she said. “You shoulduse that. You can charge to your credit card too.”

“Ah,”I said. “Thanks. Good to know for next time. Anyways, I've gotto get going.” We hugged again. I wanted to hold her longer, butit seemed it would be awkward to do so outside the planetarium.

“I'llsee you in Kiev then,” she said, smiling. “We've got a lot to dothere. Go to that shisha place you were talking about, and that gayclub I was talking about.” We left each other, like twoplanets that were momentarily aligned continuing on their orbit, rocketing towards the sun atdifferent speeds.

I went to the squat. Andrei was already there, cleaning the place and making pizzas. Heworked there for Dasha as a kind of club operator, keeping everythingclean and making food for dinner. I liked these little communal lifethat I kept running across, from Kharkiv to Berlin. They gave meconfidence in human existence that I didn't have in the overbearingworld of the corporations. Granted, they were in nature parasitic,relying on the products and services of corporations in order toexist. If everyone were aware of what freedoms could be had outsideof the corporate sphere, then there would be no comforts left. I'mnot saying that in communes nobody works – everybody works and attimes, much harder. But their work seems all that much moresatisfactory. Even in traveling, I find myself cleaning dishes,picking things up, cooking, performing accordion and trying to makelife easier for those I'm staying with. I don't consider thesethings work, but they are. They're all services that cost a persontime, or money, if the person pays another to do such. All ofeconomics runs off of this exchange principal of labor – aprincipal I was still working off of, even using couchsurfing. Labor, however, doesn't have to be demeaning or degrading; it can befulfilling. There are certainly those in the modern system that feelthey have a fulfilling position – and they do. Maybe even, it isbetter to live that way. But I'm not so lucky to be one of thosethat finds happiness in slavery.

My new roommate in Kiev, Sasha,called me. “Shawn, where are you? We have been waiting here atthe apartment for you.”

“I thought you said that youwouldn't be home on Thursday, so to come on Friday, yeah?”

“No,we said on the 5th,” he said. “It is the 5thnow. Shawn, you see, the problem is that we are going to Kharkiv onFriday night.”

“Well, what time does your train get in?”I asked.

“It gets in at 11:30 at night,” he said. Thatmeant the train got in after I left.

“Are there any otherroommates?”

“There is Steve, the American, but the problemis that Saturday is Orthodox Christmas and he is very religious, soprobably he will be gone all day.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Sohow are you going to get the key? Can you get here tomorrow?”

“I'll see what I can do.” I hung up the phone, somewhatsaddened. I was hoping to party all night with the crew at the squatand then to leave the next day. I voiced my problem and thoughts outloud to Andrei, “Maybe I could stay with you guys for a couple ofdrinks, then go off and get a train for tonight. Or I could get alater train for tomorrow night.” I decided to try the first ideaand if that failed, then the second. I waited a little while until areasonable time to go, thinking that if I was able to change thetickets, then I could just wait at the station or at a nearby coffeeshop. At the squat, people kept coming in. First Tasha, then Dimawith a large smile, Misha with a striped sweater. They kept coming. They were gathering to play pub trivia.

I returned to thetrain station, this time with all of my luggage, which I had workeddown to being just my accordion and my Soviet Red Army pack. I knewthe routine now. I had to avoid, at all cost, the regular ticketdesks for Ukrainians. I first looked for the international desk, itwas already closed. Then I went the information desk and asked aboutthe trains leaving. Tonight's train was already booked. But therewas a train coming through at one and another at one thirty. Iweighed my options and then called Sasha back.

“Look,would it be possible to just meet you here in Kharkiv?” I asked. “Then I could get the key from you when you get here and I couldtake the next train out.”

“Yes, of course, thatis possible,” he said. In truth, I had to repeat this a few times,so that my voice was clear over the din of the train station, withthe constant conversations and mechanical announcements beingbroadcast through the air. After we agreed on the drop, I went tothe Ukrainian ticket lines, knowing that I was going to be waitingfor another hour while the people back at the squat continued ontheir own party.

While I stood in line, another old personwho couldn't read Ukrainian asked me if this was the right line. “Iguess,” I told her back. “It seems to me they're always thewrong line, so they all must be the right one, yeah?” She lookedback at me as though I were talking nonsense.

The minutesturned into half hours and the half hours turned into hours. But Iwas glad for two things, that at least I wasn't constantly switchinglines because the clerks were going on breaks, like the problem I hadthe day before. Also, I wasn't in Georgia where no line existed,since Georgians are incapable of the concept of waiting for one's ownturn. In Georgia, even when you talk to a bank teller, Georgians tryto jump ahead of you by addressing the bank teller while you havealready begun discussing your business. “Waiting is for otherpeople,” one Georgian told me once.

I had to go to therestroom. The lady in front of me promised to save my position. Iraced across the train station to the only men's restroom, ran pastthe stern looking babushka with the broom and used the urinal. WhenI made it back, some ten minutes later, I noticed the line had barelymoved.

When I at last got to the front of the line, I told theclerk, “I bought the wrong ticket. Can I exchange it for the trainthat leaves tomorrow at midnight?”

“I can give you arefund here, but you'll have to go to the office outside to buy nextday tickets. We sell only today's tickets here. Do youunderstand?”

“Yes, of course,” I told her, while tellingmyself, “I understand that this whole ticketing system isbullshit.” It was a surprise to me that the entire train systemseemed pretty efficient – the trains were always on the dot intiming and they were fairly comfortable. But for the ticketing! Ileft with my money back in my hand and made it back to the squat.

I met Tasha at the metro station. Assoon as I came up the escalators, she called out to me from acrossthe barriers. “Shawn!” she said, jumping excitedly and waving meover. “I was expecting you sooner. The guy that was on the phonewith me, your friend, he didn't seem to know Kharkiv very well. Hekept saying that you're an American and you'll get lost. But youknow Russian, you've been traveling, I knew you could figure it out.” She spoke in nearly fluent English without an accent. Her eyes andface and demeanor were bright and glowing and energetic. The way shemoved seemed to capture life, though she spoke at near lightningspeed. As we talked on our way to her apartment, she spoke almosttoo fast for me – the native English speaker – to keep up.

WhenI had sent out host requests for Kharkiv, two girls had almostimmediately replied. Dasha and Tasha. I was in luck, since this wasthe first time my top two picks had replied to me and quickly. DashaI had chosen because her situation sounded fun and interesting. Shedescribed her cafe / guest apartment structure as a “squat” withpeople gathering nearly every night. She loved alternative music andalternative lifestyles like my own. Tasha I chose because shemanaged bookstores and was well read. And she had red hair. And inour conversations, she wrote how much she loved accordions. My closefriends all know my childhood obsession with red headed girls. Bothhosts ended up being stellar choices.

Tasha's flat was apractice in interior design. She had mastered making old furniturelook new and modern, mostly by way of using some sort ofpaper-machete technique to cover the furniture in different types ofpapers. She stuck mostly with bright colored paper, to liven up theplace, though on the refrigerator and her bathroom door she used somesort of comic paper. She was well read and had opinions oneverything, and that first night we emptied her bottle of rum andtalked through the hours, even though she had to wake up early forwork. “I hate these things like Pirate Bay, because you shouldn'tbe allowed to freely distribute anything,” she said. “But youknow, books are so expensive and I truly believe that they should becheaper and more available to everyone to read. If the publishinghouses and printing houses would just lower the prices, then theseillegal printing houses wouldn't have to pop up and sell the booksfor less. And we stock those books. But we shouldn't have to.”

“But the presence of the print shops, and the sales ofthem, undermines the free market, so the larger publishing houseswill never feel the need to target the books,” I countered.

“That's not true, because the larger firms can take on theillegal ones as it is.”

“I guess you're right. Butstill, why not sell them if the larger firms aren't? I think you'redoing a good. And I think, for those who can't afford it, Pirate Bayis doing a good. I want people to listen to my music. Whether theyare paying for it or not isn't all that important. Though it'd benice to get paid for all my work, that's not why I do the work. WhenI download music now, I do it knowing I'll pay for the album later,when I have money.”

“Come on, that's just living in anideal world,” she replied.

“But that's my world. I'm anidealist. I live the world according to how I think it should be.”

“Not everyone is like that. And therefore, you'd neverget paid for any of your work.”

“That may be true, but atleast I'm living true.”

“Look, listen,” she said,“I've got to get to bed. You can sleep in as much as you want, andI'll leave you the key.”

“Awesome.”

The nextday, I slept in and walked around Kharkiv. Time was pressing though,and soon I would have to be back in Kiev to move into my newapartment. That meant I had to get the train tickets for the nextnight. I decided I'd get the tickets, then return to Tasha's, thenI'd go on to a coffee shop to write. I thought those would be simpleenough tasks.

The Kharkiv station, in appearance,looks quite orderly and convenient, as all the other stations I'dwitnessed in Ukraine (that is, the Kiev station) were. The floorswere shining and freshly swept and mopped, the doors sparkling, thebrass glistening like gold. The bathrooms were all immaculate andguarded by old fat ladies with brooms that doubled as clubs, to makesure there was no funny business going on like Senators putting theirhands under door stalls – none of that nonsense that happens indecadent Western states could happen at the Kharkiv station. Theticketing system was a greater piece of nonsense than past famousAmerican Senators though. There were about four windows, each withlines stretched across the hall. Each sign was about the same, Icouldn't really figure out the difference between them, though thiswas largely to my not knowing Ukrainian – like most of the oldpeople in the room trying to buy tickets.

“Is this theline to buy tickets?” I asked one old lady.

“I guess,”she replied. I stood in line.

Thirty minutes passed until Icould get to the front. When I was at last at the front, I addressedthe lady asking her about buying tickets for the next day.

“Thisis the wrong counter. Go to the blue sign.”

I steppedback and saw that this sign was indeed a white one. I still couldn'tfigure out the difference in the services listed, though this oneobviously didn't include buying tickets. I waited in the next line. After thirty minutes, I was only halfway through when the clerk wenton break. Her window snapped shut at the next person in line. Iwent to another window. A girl had come in and tried to sneak infront of me, but I let her since she was more attractive than the oldhunched man that was otherwise in front of me. She spent more thanthree minutes with the clerk, which meant the clerk slapped closedthe blinds in front of me. “Please!” I shouted. “This isalready my third window!”

I waited at another window. Ifinally succeeded in getting to the clerk. “We don't sell next daytickets here. You have to go to a ticket agent outside for that.”

I was on the verge of giving up as I stormed out of theticketing hall. But then I passed the information desk and decidedto ask the clerk there. “Is there any way I can buy a ticket fortomorrow? I just want to get back to Kiev.”

“Justacross the hall there, there is the international desk. It is forforeigners. You can buy your ticket there.” I walked across thehall and entered the office of the international desk. There wasonly one person in line. After that person left, the clerk waited tohear me out, then collected my money and printed a ticket. I walkedback to the information desk, “A huge thanks! You are awesome! Iwas waiting hours in that other hall and couldn't get anything done.”

In the evening, I came home a bit late, though with fullintention to fix dinner for Tasha. I wanted to find out where agrocery store was so I could buy some curry or some other herbs andmix something special for her. But I came to find that Tasha hadbeat me back and had already started cooking supper. And what atalented cook she was! She had fixed some tasty mix of pumpkin,chicken and rice. A friend of hers had come over, though he wasfairly quiet and was mostly on the computer in the other room. Welater watched a movie about some girl who pretended to be deafbecause her parents died, then she moved in with some girl that washaving sex with her own father. The movie didn't make much sense,but I guess usually the most quality movies never do.

I met Tasha at the metro station. Assoon as I came up the escalators, she called out to me from acrossthe barriers. “Shawn!” she said, jumping excitedly and waving meover. “I was expecting you sooner. The guy that was on the phonewith me, your friend, he didn't seem to know Kharkiv very well. Hekept saying that you're an American and you'll get lost. But youknow Russian, you've been traveling, I knew you could figure it out.” She spoke in nearly fluent English without an accent. Her eyes andface and demeanor were bright and glowing and energetic. The way shemoved seemed to capture life, though she spoke at near lightningspeed. As we talked on our way to her apartment, she spoke almosttoo fast for me – the native English speaker – to keep up.

WhenI had sent out host requests for Kharkiv, two girls had almostimmediately replied. Dasha and Tasha. I was in luck, since this wasthe first time my top two picks had replied to me and quickly. DashaI had chosen because her situation sounded fun and interesting. Shedescribed her cafe / guest apartment structure as a “squat” withpeople gathering nearly every night. She loved alternative music andalternative lifestyles like my own. Tasha I chose because shemanaged bookstores and was well read. And she had red hair. And inour conversations, she wrote how much she loved accordions. My closefriends all know my childhood obsession with red headed girls. Bothhosts ended up being stellar choices.

Tasha's flat was apractice in interior design. She had mastered making old furniturelook new and modern, mostly by way of using some sort ofpaper-machete technique to cover the furniture in different types ofpapers. She stuck mostly with bright colored paper, to liven up theplace, though on the refrigerator and her bathroom door she used somesort of comic paper. She was well read and had opinions oneverything, and that first night we emptied her bottle of rum andtalked through the hours, even though she had to wake up early forwork. “I hate these things like Pirate Bay, because you shouldn'tbe allowed to freely distribute anything,” she said. “But youknow, books are so expensive and I truly believe that they should becheaper and more available to everyone to read. If the publishinghouses and printing houses would just lower the prices, then theseillegal printing houses wouldn't have to pop up and sell the booksfor less. And we stock those books. But we shouldn't have to.”

“But the presence of the print shops, and the sales ofthem, undermines the free market, so the larger publishing houseswill never feel the need to target the books,” I countered.

“That's not true, because the larger firms can take on theillegal ones as it is.”

“I guess you're right. Butstill, why not sell them if the larger firms aren't? I think you'redoing a good. And I think, for those who can't afford it, Pirate Bayis doing a good. I want people to listen to my music. Whether theyare paying for it or not isn't all that important. Though it'd benice to get paid for all my work, that's not why I do the work. WhenI download music now, I do it knowing I'll pay for the album later,when I have money.”

“Come on, that's just living in anideal world,” she replied.

“But that's my world. I'm anidealist. I live the world according to how I think it should be.”

“Not everyone is like that. And therefore, you'd neverget paid for any of your work.”

“That may be true, but atleast I'm living true.”

“Look, listen,” she said,“I've got to get to bed. You can sleep in as much as you want, andI'll leave you the key.”

“Awesome.”

The nextday, I slept in and walked around Kharkiv. Time was pressing though,and soon I would have to be back in Kiev to move into my newapartment. That meant I had to get the train tickets for the nextnight. I decided I'd get the tickets, then return to Tasha's, thenI'd go on to a coffee shop to write. I thought those would be simpleenough tasks.

The Kharkiv station, in appearance,looks quite orderly and convenient, as all the other stations I'dwitnessed in Ukraine (that is, the Kiev station) were. The floorswere shining and freshly swept and mopped, the doors sparkling, thebrass glistening like gold. The bathrooms were all immaculate andguarded by old fat ladies with brooms that doubled as clubs, to makesure there was no funny business going on like Senators putting theirhands under door stalls – none of that nonsense that happens indecadent Western states could happen at the Kharkiv station. Theticketing system was a greater piece of nonsense than past famousAmerican Senators though. There were about four windows, each withlines stretched across the hall. Each sign was about the same, Icouldn't really figure out the difference between them, though thiswas largely to my not knowing Ukrainian – like most of the oldpeople in the room trying to buy tickets.

“Is this theline to buy tickets?” I asked one old lady.

“I guess,”she replied. I stood in line.

Thirty minutes passed until Icould get to the front. When I was at last at the front, I addressedthe lady asking her about buying tickets for the next day.

“Thisis the wrong counter. Go to the blue sign.”

I steppedback and saw that this sign was indeed a white one. I still couldn'tfigure out the difference in the services listed, though this oneobviously didn't include buying tickets. I waited in the next line. After thirty minutes, I was only halfway through when the clerk wenton break. Her window snapped shut at the next person in line. Iwent to another window. A girl had come in and tried to sneak infront of me, but I let her since she was more attractive than the oldhunched man that was otherwise in front of me. She spent more thanthree minutes with the clerk, which meant the clerk slapped closedthe blinds in front of me. “Please!” I shouted. “This isalready my third window!”

I waited at another window. Ifinally succeeded in getting to the clerk. “We don't sell next daytickets here. You have to go to a ticket agent outside for that.”

I was on the verge of giving up as I stormed out of theticketing hall. But then I passed the information desk and decidedto ask the clerk there. “Is there any way I can buy a ticket fortomorrow? I just want to get back to Kiev.”

“Justacross the hall there, there is the international desk. It is forforeigners. You can buy your ticket there.” I walked across thehall and entered the office of the international desk. There wasonly one person in line. After that person left, the clerk waited tohear me out, then collected my money and printed a ticket. I walkedback to the information desk, “A huge thanks! You are awesome! Iwas waiting hours in that other hall and couldn't get anything done.”

In the evening, I came home a bit late, though with fullintention to fix dinner for Tasha. I wanted to find out where agrocery store was so I could buy some curry or some other herbs andmix something special for her. But I came to find that Tasha hadbeat me back and had already started cooking supper. And what atalented cook she was! She had fixed some tasty mix of pumpkin,chicken and rice. A friend of hers had come over, though he wasfairly quiet and was mostly on the computer in the other room. Welater watched a movie about some girl who pretended to be deafbecause her parents died, then she moved in with some girl that washaving sex with her own father. The movie didn't make much sense,but I guess usually the most quality movies never do.

It snowed today. This isn’t the first time we’ve had snow this winter, but it’s the first time I’ve taken a photo of it. So New Year celebrations turned out to be everything I was promised. Over a period of … Continue reading →

Sean awesomely surprised me with a Kindle Touch for my birthday in December.  I’d always said I didn’t want one, …Continue reading »

I woke up at Andrei's place. I scanned the cabinets for food or water, but couldn't find anything and I didn't yet trust the taps in Kharkiv. It was best to stick with bottled water. But my mouth was dry and my belly aching from hunger, so I needed something. While I was shuffling around, trying to figure something out – and being distracted by Andrei's strange collection of cacti in pots on the floor of the kitchen – Andrei woke up. He sat me down and showed me a band that he worked with, Orkester Che. Orkester Che was a local band from Kharkiv, carrying on the “gypsy punk” tradition made popular in the States by Gogol Bordello. I, of course, instantly loved the band.

“Hereis the plan,” Andrei told me. “First we will go see a church inthe country. It is my favorite church. Then we'll go eat and thenwe'll go to a recording studio. But we'll come back here first. Okay?”

“Sounds good.”

We left the apartment,crossed the now snow covered streets, to a small “beer-a-ria”(roughly translated from the Russian) where we met with his friendwho ran the place. He poured us two morning beers and we stoodaround and talked for some while. Two security guards came up andtalked with us as well. Mostly they were talking about how the guywas remodeling his beer-a-ria, with fresh coats of paint on the walland soon they'll paint two large images of Popeye with beer drinkingquotes that went something like, “When I want strength, I drinkbeer” or “even if I'm without my woman, I'm still happy with mybeer.”

We hopped into the car of the bar-a-ria owner, whodrove us to another restaurant of his he was renovating before hetook us to the church. The church looked new, the inside covered inbright and shiny murals that look like they were painted yesterday. I asked Andrei if it was a new church, but he said it had just beenrenovated. Which explained why it looked new. The church appearedas if they took painstaking efforts to restore it to what it musthave looked like during its peak, each paint stroke replaced withprofessional accuracy.

From the church, the guy brought usto the center of town to drop us off so he could get back to work. Andrei took me to a native Ukrainian vareniki restaurant to eat someproper vareniki. “Puzata Xata is not real food,” Andrei told me. “I want you to try real Ukrainian food.” He was very insistenton this. He also ordered some real Ukrainian homemade vodka,something that tasted between honey and ass. We drank it waiting fora dumplings, watching on a giant projector screen Ghostrider, withNicolas Cage.

After the dumplings, we picked up my accordionand went to Andrei's friend's house. He was the guitarist forOrkester Che. We sat around drinking beer and vodka and listening toGuns 'N Roses, when Andrei finally said, “Come on, play that songthat I love for us. That 'Drink my girl, drink my sweetheart' song.”

“Sure thing.” I pulled out my accordion and played.

The guitarist was equally excited about my playing, affirmingwith Andrei that I needed to get to the studio. When a couple ofother band members arrived, we all went back out onto the streets andtried to hail a taxi. The taxis kept passing, full of passengers. People who would otherwise walk didn't want to bare the cold, snowyweather, so the taxis were pretty occupied. But one black car, whichwas not a taxi, pulled to the side of the road and agreed to driveus. We went by the liquor store, picked up some Scotch and made ourway to the studio.

We were sitting around, drinking andwaiting for the studio guys to get ready. This was the same studiothat the regionally famous 5nizza recorded at, as well as OrkesterChe. I felt a bit overwhelmed that I was playing at the same place. When I was first introduced to the production engineer, I felt a bitembarrassed and he looked a bit confused, “An American onaccordion?” he seemed to think. “What nonsense has Andreibrought me?” But when I got bored and pulled it out to play myversion of “Me and Bobby McGhee”, he came up to me and said,“What are you waiting for, let's get you into the studio.” Hisdemeanor had changed completely, now a lot more excited about therecording process.

We took three takes, one of “Pei moyamilaya, pei moya devotchka” (Drink my sweetheart, drink my girl, anaccordion adaptation of I wrote of the early 20th centurypoem of the same name), “Ochi chiornie” (black eyes, a Russiangypsy folk song) and one of Tom Waits' “Hold On”. I had grownaccustomed to playing to live audiences, since there's a bit moreleeway and I can gauge the audience response regarding how I play. Now when I play in front of people, I don't get near the nervousnessthat I first had in the streets of Vilnius and Regensburg when Ifirst started to perform truly publicly, outside of at parties. OnceI started playing in the streets though, my nervousness completelyvanished when playing at parties.

I came back into the maingreen room. Everyone was there clapping. “You did amazing man,”Andrei said. “Maybe you want to play at Divan after Orkester Che? It would be great.”

“I don't know man, if you want meto,” I said. “I don't think I did that well playing. This isall weird to me, you know?” They gathered around the table todrink more Scotch, which they traditionally drank with a chaser ofmilk.

“I don't want to get too drunk, I still have to meetmy next couchsurfing host. And I don't want to make a badimpression.” We took two more shots chased with milk. The rest ofthe members of Okester Che arrived and they began to work on theirnext album. Later, I went on my way to find my next hostess.

I woke up at Andrei's place. I scanned the cabinets for food or water, but couldn't find anything and I didn't yet trust the taps in Kharkiv. It was best to stick with bottled water. But my mouth was dry and my belly aching from hunger, so I needed something. While I was shuffling around, trying to figure something out – and being distracted by Andrei's strange collection of cacti in pots on the floor of the kitchen – Andrei woke up. He sat me down and showed me a band that he worked with, Orkester Che. Orkester Che was a local band from Kharkiv, carrying on the “gypsy punk” tradition made popular in the States by Gogol Bordello. I, of course, instantly loved the band.

“Hereis the plan,” Andrei told me. “First we will go see a church inthe country. It is my favorite church. Then we'll go eat and thenwe'll go to a recording studio. But we'll come back here first. Okay?”

“Sounds good.”

We left the apartment,crossed the now snow covered streets, to a small “beer-a-ria”(roughly translated from the Russian) where we met with his friendwho ran the place. He poured us two morning beers and we stoodaround and talked for some while. Two security guards came up andtalked with us as well. Mostly they were talking about how the guywas remodeling his beer-a-ria, with fresh coats of paint on the walland soon they'll paint two large images of Popeye with beer drinkingquotes that went something like, “When I want strength, I drinkbeer” or “even if I'm without my woman, I'm still happy with mybeer.”

We hopped into the car of the bar-a-ria owner, whodrove us to another restaurant of his he was renovating before hetook us to the church. The church looked new, the inside covered inbright and shiny murals that look like they were painted yesterday. I asked Andrei if it was a new church, but he said it had just beenrenovated. Which explained why it looked new. The church appearedas if they took painstaking efforts to restore it to what it musthave looked like during its peak, each paint stroke replaced withprofessional accuracy.

From the church, the guy brought usto the center of town to drop us off so he could get back to work. Andrei took me to a native Ukrainian vareniki restaurant to eat someproper vareniki. “Puzata Xata is not real food,” Andrei told me. “I want you to try real Ukrainian food.” He was very insistenton this. He also ordered some real Ukrainian homemade vodka,something that tasted between honey and ass. We drank it waiting fora dumplings, watching on a giant projector screen Ghostrider, withNicolas Cage.

After the dumplings, we picked up my accordionand went to Andrei's friend's house. He was the guitarist forOrkester Che. We sat around drinking beer and vodka and listening toGuns 'N Roses, when Andrei finally said, “Come on, play that songthat I love for us. That 'Drink my girl, drink my sweetheart' song.”

“Sure thing.” I pulled out my accordion and played.

The guitarist was equally excited about my playing, affirmingwith Andrei that I needed to get to the studio. When a couple ofother band members arrived, we all went back out onto the streets andtried to hail a taxi. The taxis kept passing, full of passengers. People who would otherwise walk didn't want to bare the cold, snowyweather, so the taxis were pretty occupied. But one black car, whichwas not a taxi, pulled to the side of the road and agreed to driveus. We went by the liquor store, picked up some Scotch and made ourway to the studio.

We were sitting around, drinking andwaiting for the studio guys to get ready. This was the same studiothat the regionally famous 5nizza recorded at, as well as OrkesterChe. I felt a bit overwhelmed that I was playing at the same place. When I was first introduced to the production engineer, I felt a bitembarrassed and he looked a bit confused, “An American onaccordion?” he seemed to think. “What nonsense has Andreibrought me?” But when I got bored and pulled it out to play myversion of “Me and Bobby McGhee”, he came up to me and said,“What are you waiting for, let's get you into the studio.” Hisdemeanor had changed completely, now a lot more excited about therecording process.

We took three takes, one of “Pei moyamilaya, pei moya devotchka” (Drink my sweetheart, drink my girl, anaccordion adaptation of I wrote of the early 20th centurypoem of the same name), “Ochi chiornie” (black eyes, a Russiangypsy folk song) and one of Tom Waits' “Hold On”. I had grownaccustomed to playing to live audiences, since there's a bit moreleeway and I can gauge the audience response regarding how I play. Now when I play in front of people, I don't get near the nervousnessthat I first had in the streets of Vilnius and Regensburg when Ifirst started to perform truly publicly, outside of at parties. OnceI started playing in the streets though, my nervousness completelyvanished when playing at parties.

I came back into the maingreen room. Everyone was there clapping. “You did amazing man,”Andrei said. “Maybe you want to play at Divan after Orkester Che? It would be great.”

“I don't know man, if you want meto,” I said. “I don't think I did that well playing. This isall weird to me, you know?” They gathered around the table todrink more Scotch, which they traditionally drank with a chaser ofmilk.

“I don't want to get too drunk, I still have to meetmy next couchsurfing host. And I don't want to make a badimpression.” We took two more shots chased with milk. The rest ofthe members of Okester Che arrived and they began to work on theirnext album. Later, I went on my way to find my next hostess.

One picture. Everyday. All year. Nuff said. (I started late, January 5, that's how I am)

The Upper Caucasus mountains over the Black Sea(5.1.12)The sunset out my window (6.1.12)My new hat from my package!(thanks fam! 7.1.12)my chichilaki, a traditional Georgian Christmas tree(8.1.12)Nazi's(my counterpart/friend) nephew, crashed out on the couch(9.1.12)brass elephants(10.1.12)my advent ornaments hanging in my room window(11.1.12)

I went for a walk this morning through the streets of Rustavi looking for coffee. After some time, I realized that I was unconsciously searching for a Starbucks. This is odd since I have never seen a Starbucks in Georgia and because not being constantly assaulted by their ubiquity feels very strange.

Look, I’m not gonna lie: it’s been tough readjusting to life in Georgia. Not because the Georgian New Year’s celebration …Continue reading »

In addition to my primary assignment, which is working with a nonprofit organization here in Akhaltsikhe (I’ll tell you all about it someday, I promise), I also am expected to work on secondary projects of my own choosing. This is … Continue reading →

First, let me say that I’m fine. For reals. I’m going to tell you about my weekend and I do not want you to get all excited or anything because I’m fine. There is no need to worry about me. … Continue reading →

Last weekend I and a group of other PCVs headed to Batumi, a Georgian city on the coast of the Black Sea. Part of the trip was for business (there were meetings, productive meetings!), but the rest was for fun. … Continue reading →

Recently I spent the weekend with my host family visiting Vardzia, which is just about one of the most amazing sites to see in Georgia. Ya know what’s almost as exciting as going to an interesting place? Looking through someone … Continue reading →

Cows in Georgia have it made.  Sure, some of them end up in khinkali and the rest are saddled with the burden of constant milk production, but most of the time they get to lead what appears to be a … Continue reading →