Summer begins

Lenura's 40th Birthday. That's her mom, Lilye, whom I adore.

Having some food and drink with the library folks in a hotel room after the library seminar.

The beach in Sudak where I got to take my first summer swim.


Oh, I am so feeling the need for a break from the constant struggle to live in this world in which I understand the language so little. Soon, I know… Anyhow, wanted to get caught up a bit on my blog, though haven’t been doing a whole lot lately, it seems. Last week was Lenura’s 40th birthday, which in America can sometimes be at least a fun occasion, but here “jubilee birthdays,” as they are called, just seem to mean a hell of a lot of work, especially if you are a woman. Because that is what you do to celebrate birthdays here, Lenura prepared a huge feast for 30 of her co-workers. Her mother, Lilye, came the day before to help and I came over that night to also lend a helping hand. Early the next morning, Lenura hauled all the food to the hospital where she works while Lilye made 140 manti to be delivered later. Needless to say, by the time we had a small celebratory birthday dinner that evening (leftovers from the big feast), Lenura was exhausted and not feeling too joyous, especially combined with the fact of turning 40—she started crying when Neshet was making a toast to her, and it didn’t seem to be tears of happiness. Many neighbors and friends dropped by in the next few days to wish her happy birthday, and the next time I was part of a birthday dinner—a couple of nights later with their friends from the neighborhood—she seemed to be in better spirits and enjoying herself. Maybe it was the vodka toasting….
Last week went with some of the library staff to the annual international library conference in Sudak. Check out my library blog for a description of our event. I actually didn’t do much this year, tried to meet the few Americans who were there-- which I did--but they were on their way to an excursion somewhere, so we didn’t get a chance to talk much. The real highlight for me was that, like last year, it was an opportunity for my first swim this summer in the Black Sea. The water is still cold this time of the year, so there were few swimmers, but being from Minnesota, I loved it. Was feeling kind of shy so chose to bring my tank suit instead of the bikini I wore all last summer, but that will not happen again—felt like I had on way too many clothes to be swimming!
This past Wednesday was my last day at the Children’s Library. I had considered continuing to do one English Club in the fall for older kids, as many of the kids had asked me to “keep teaching” them, but when I brought up the idea with the director, she told me that they will be partnering with a language institute here who will be having a new Peace Corps Volunteer in December. So that was a relief, because I didn’t actually want to keep coming to the Children’s Library, even for the one or two hours of an English Club. I have never felt very welcome there, nor have I connected with any of the staff. I did connect with a few at the beginning, but they all left within the first few months I was there. I feel a bit of a failure in my work at the Children’s Library, but I also know what could be accomplished was limited by the small amount of time I was there—one day a week and sometimes not even that—and the amount of time involved in preparing and conducting two English clubs. So that phase of my Peace Corps life here is over. No one much acknowledged that it was my last day, and it felt strange to walk out of the building with just the usual goodbyes. But I didn’t really expect anything else, and it seemed okay. Most of the kids I had gotten to know were gone for the summer, but two sisters came that I know pretty well, so that was nice. I do think I will see at least the older one (she’s a first year university student now) some in the future.
Well, off to the bus station to meet Grace, who is coming into Simferopol for her last visit before leaving Ukraine. I sure will miss her.
Love to all from Crimea.

Happenings at the library, my home, and a walk to Snake Cave

Still trying to get caught up on my blog posts. Today is Monday, June 6th, and I am at the library in a quiet office for once, since one of my office mates is gone to the annual international library conference in Sudak, a conference I will be attending on Wednesday, hopefully to meet the American representatives there.
My work at the library the last few weeks has been framed by two events—one is the two-day Peace Corps sponsored seminar that we held at the library on May 24th and 25th. I wrote about the seminar and posted quite a few pictures on my Library blog—see the link on the side bar to go to that blog. Overall, I think (hope) that it was a success, though I sorely missed Nadjie’s presence. She was the one with the energy and enthusiasm for the idea of promoting volunteerism in Crimean libraries. I think the rest of the library staff that participated—mostly my office mates and the new young woman who sort of speaks English—wanted to have a successful seminar but were not as interested in the idea. Of the three “experts” (speakers) that we invited from other parts of Ukraine, only one seemed passionate about what she was doing and the information she was trying to convey, and maybe that, too, would have been different with Nadjie’s presence. I do hope the participants got some good information from the conference, and, more importantly, the inspiration to start volunteer groups in their libraries. The evaluations we received were favorable, but for me, without the language capabilities to be able to truly converse with the participants, it was hard to know what affect the seminar had.
The second phase of our project is to work with the libraries in five or six regions to have a “Volunteer Day” in their communities to promote volunteerism. I am hoping that by September or October when we would be doing this part of the project, Nadjie will be well enough to fully participate. I think without her presence it won’t happen.
The second major event at the library is that we received a grant I wrote to purchase a $15,000 book and newspaper scanner to digitize and preserve the rare documents at the library, something the library has been wanting for years. A couple of weeks ago I woke up one night, unable to sleep, and finally got up and turned on my computer with the intention of doing what, I don’t remember. But there was an email announcing the grant award. I really couldn’t believe it. I had sent the grant off a couple of months ago and had somewhat forgotten about it, especially since there was no follow up from the grantor beyond acknowledgement that they had received it. But there was the email before my 4 a.m. eyes, listing the Gasprinsky Crimean Tatar Library as one of eight recipients worldwide to receive a grant from the EMC Corporation Cultural Heritage Trust. They are small grants—we received the maximum amount of $15,000—but it is an important first step for the library in their endeavor to preserve Crimean Tatar history. And I think what I found most gratifying was that someone, somewhere out in the world, read about the Crimean Tatar people and thought, “yes, it is important their culture be preserved.” It is such a recognition and acknowledgement of who the Crimean Tatar people are, which is probably the underlying purpose behind all my work here.
And besides the happenings at the library, in my home life major changes are afoot. Starting in July I will no longer be receiving money from the Gasprinsky and Children’s libraries towards my rent—the Children’s Library because my two year commitment there will have ended and Gasprinsky because they no longer have the money due to budget cutbacks. The Peace Corps has upped the amount they give me, plus I continue to put in some of my own money, but it still is not enough to cover the rent my landlords want. Typically, people in Ak Mechet with small houses like mine rent to groups of students, so the accumulated rent is quite a bit more than I can pay. My neighbors have been renting to me for the last two years because I think basically they like having me there, but what with gas, electric, and water prices all going up, they just simply need to receive more money. I think there is also the possibility that Abdul—their oldest son—and his wife Anifer will move into my place after their child is born this summer.
So I needed to find a new home. I know I want to remain in Ak Mechet, so I decided to ask the people I know here if they are aware of any places for rent. And of course, I immediately asked Lenura and Neshet and, as I knew they would, they extended an invitation to me to live with them. We had talked about that possibility last year when I thought I might lose my home, and now a year later, I think the idea of it is even stronger in our thoughts. At first I hesitated—mostly I am concerned about what living together might do to our friendship—but my love for them and the thought of sharing a family life—something that I haven’t really done in my adult life—was overpowering, so gradually I said yes, I want to live with you. And Neshet has kicked into high gear, trying to finish Serdar’s room so he can start working on mine. I do feel kind of bad that my moving in is causing him to work even harder than he already does, but Lenura assures me that the work needs to be done anyhow. Though maybe not quite this fast… But as of now, I will move in with them after I come back from my visit to the states in August. And I am so looking forward to it, despite my worries about loss of privacy, adjustment to different routines, etc. I feel so much a part of their family now—I really want to live that feeling and see what it is like.
And finally here are some pictures from a long (very long—maybe 10 miles or more) hike that Cheryl and I did, starting from my home in Ak Mechet. We were trying to find something called Snake Cave that we had been told about by an old Crimean Tatar man we met on our last hike. After a couple of wrong trails, we did find where the cave was supposed to be (it was marked by a sign), but we didn’t actually find the cave, as it appeared to involve some scrambling down steep cliffs. But we didn’t really care, as it was so gorgeous up on the bluffs with the beautiful views of Chatyr Dag and the rolling land in multiple shades of green. How blessed I am to live in this beautiful land.
Much love from Crimea.

Training in Chernigov and Day in Yalta

We got back late on Monday night from Sevastopol (missing a plov dinner that Lenura had made for us, I am sorry to say), and I had only one day to get as much done as I could at the library, and then off on the overnight train on Wednesday to Kyiv, and then Chernigov. Chernigov is the city I lived in when I first came to Ukraine during my ten weeks of training. It is a lovely northern city with tall chestnut trees lining its main boulevard. Surprisingly, it was much warmer in Chernigov than down in southern Crimea. The chestnut trees were in full bloom, and the center plaza was filled with beds of blooming tulips.
I had come to participate in the “Adopt a Cluster” program in which experienced volunteers become a mentor to a new group of training volunteers. I also made two presentations for the community development volunteers on my work at the library and on Crimean Tatar culture. They all seemed very stressed out—I so remember that constant feeling during training—but I think they particularly appreciated the information about the Crimean Tatars, as most people know so little about them. While in Chernigov, I stayed with my original host family from when I was in training, and it was the highlight of my visit. It was such a treat to spend time with them, to see how Artum—now 6—and Max—now 16—had changed. And the very best part of it was that now I could talk with them! They thought my Russian was pretty good—wow, what a great encouragement that was. I think at least some of their enthusiasm about my language skills was in response to the shyness of their current volunteer to speak with them, but nevertheless, it sure made me feel good. Of course, the next day when I spent three hours in language class with the new volunteers, I saw all the ways in which my language hasn’t greatly progressed—that grammar gets me every time. I seem unable to learn it. But all in all, it was a very encouraging experience.
I also enjoyed getting to know the new volunteers a bit—it will be interesting to see where they end up, how their lives develop at their sites. Some of them seem to be adjusting better than others, but I have found that doesn’t necessarily indicate how well they will adjust to their permanent site. There are fewer older volunteers in this new group, which is a disappointment, but PC Washington is no longer recruiting older volunteers, so not surprising.
I got back to Simferopol on Sunday morning and spent the day resting up, visiting with the neighbors, and getting prepared for the upcoming week, our last week of preparations before the SPA seminar the following week. Turns out I needed to be pretty rested, because trying to do that much planning without Nadjie—even though she participated as much as she could from her bed at home and I frequently went to her house to consult—was a huge challenge. I had to take over much of the preparations that she normally did, and it pushed my lousy Russian to the max. Different people at the library did take over various tasks, but they still kept coming to me for information, questions, etc. In ways it was good for me—I definitely participated much more fully in the preparations—but I sorely missed Nadjie. And, of course, it was so frustrating for her to be stuck at home, unable to contribute much to a project she so believes in.
By Friday I was pretty exhausted, but my PCV friend Adrianne’s mother was here for a visit, and I wanted to spend some time with them. Turns out another PCV, Nitai’s, who lives in northern Crimean, grandparents were also here. They had rented a car and driver to escort them around, and since there was room for all of us, we went on a day excursion together to Yalta to see the botanical gardens and the Livadia Palace. I had been to both places before (Livadia several times), but it was a treat to just hang out with them all. The funniest thing that happened was at the botanical gardens there was a “labyrinth” advertised—it cost extra to go into it, but Judy (Adrianne’s mother) and I both jumped at the chance to “walk the labyrinth,” a spiritual practice we were both familiar with. Well, it turns out the word “labyrinth” in Russian translates to “maze” in English, and that is definitely what it was, complete with screeching sounds that went off when you went under certain arches. Definitely not a spiritual experience. The rest of the group joined us after a bit, and we all proceeded to get very lost and continually set off the screechers. Judy and I were laughing so hard, we could barely get out of the maze. So much for walking the labyrinth in Ukraine.
The rest of the day was very pleasant—what a major treat to be driven around in a car (!!)—so by the time I got home in the evening, I was pretty relaxed. The next morning I took off with Adrianne and her mother on a two-hour bus ride to a PCV’s village in eastern Crimea where a big gathering was planned as a sendoff to the four volunteers that are leaving their sites in Crimea. Judy couldn’t believe that we would travel two hours for a party, but we, of course, thought nothing about it, as that is typical here if there is any kind of PCV gathering. It was a lot of fun and some really great food, and though I got back pretty late, I had the next day to rest up for the SPA seminar week. More on that in my next post.
Love to all from Crimea.

Language lessons in Chernigov. That's Tamila on the left, my original language instructor.

Mike practicing presenting flowers and wishing happy birthday.

My adopted cluster in Chernigov.

The Yalta group pose for photo in front of Aya Dag--Bear Mountain in Crimean Tatar.

Judy in the maze.

A scene from the gardens.

The bamboo forest.

Adrianne and Nitai's grandmother enjoy a beer in a cafe in Yalta.

May Holidays--Hirdirlez and Victory Day in Sevastopol

The ruins of Chersonesus.




The Victory Day Parade in Sevastopol.


A Russian submarine up close on our tour of the harbor.

Here I am sitting in front of the monument to sailors lost at sea.

Our Sevastopol friends who shared their holiday with us.


The month of May in Ukraine is a time of many holidays. The first of May holidays—International Workers Day—is followed by the May 9th holiday—Victory Day—which celebrates the end of World War II (called the Great Patriotic War) and honors those who died and the surviving veterans. And the numbers that died here are staggering—40 million in all of Russia which includes the 6 million who died in Ukraine, 2 million of which were Jews murdered in the Holocaust. Once I learned more of the history of the war here, I understood the tremendous importance the May 9th holiday holds for people in Ukraine.
May is also a month of commemoration for the Crimean Tatars. May 18th is the anniversary of the Deportation of the Crimean Tatars and is marked by a huge gathering in the center of Simferopol. This year another gathering of Crimean Tatars also occurred in May—a celebration of the spring holiday Hidirlez. In the past this holiday has only been marked by small neighborhood gatherings, but this year a huge outdoor festival was organized which attracted Crimean Tatars from all over the peninsula. Nadjie had told me about it weeks earlier and we had made plans to go, but obviously, that was not to be. I ended up going with the Seytaptievs, and my PCV friend Cheryl was in town so she also came with us. We got an early start, driving about 15 miles to a beautiful tract of rolling green land. Booths were already being set up and people were gathering, and soon crowds of people—almost all Crimean Tatars—thronged the area. There was a main stage with traditional dancing and singing, booths selling crafts, organizations like the library promoting their services, many kazans (large wok type pots) filled with plov cooking over open fires, traditional games, men proudly displaying their homing pigeons (a very developed hobby here), and much more. The crowd was estimated at over 10,000, and it was a great beginning to what is destined to become an annual event. And it felt joyous, hopeful—people laughing and having a good time—an antidote to the grief of remembrance that occurs for so many Crimean Tatars around this time, as the tragic stories of deportation come flooding into people’s consciousness. Neshet dragged Serdar out of bed and told him he had to come. He was a bit disgruntled by it all at the beginning, but I think by the end, he was perhaps glad he had the opportunity to experience this with his father. (Go to my library blog http://crimeantatarlibrary.blogspot.com to see photos of Hidirlez)
The day following Hidirlez, Cheryl and I took off for two days to Sevastopol. I have been in Crimea for almost two years, and I had yet to explore the most famous city of Crimea, the Russian dominated seaside port of Sevastopol. I had driven through it several times on the way to other destinations but had never lingered. Cheryl and I had received an invitation to visit from a woman we met when we did the professional women’s seminar in March, so we decided the May 9th holiday weekend would be a good time to take her up on her offer. And she was delighted to show us around. Turns out she has a twin sister—they each have a young child and live with their mother in a comfortable new apartment, where we stayed for the night. We spent the first day walking around the ancient ruins of Chersonesus with a knowledgeable English speaking friend of theirs as a guide. Chersonesus is the site of an ancient Greek colony founded approximately 2500 years ago on the coast of the Black Sea. The ruins were excavated beginning in the 19th century, and today it is a world heritage site and one of the most interesting archaeological sites in Crimea. It is a beautiful location and despite the cold wind we spent several hours exploring the ruins. Afterwards, we went to the panorama museum in the city center, another famous Sevastopol tourist site. It is an immense circular building that contains an amazing painting of the Crimean War and the siege of Sevastopol. The installation is a mix of the actual painting on the curving walls and life size replicas of battle scenes. It is very hard to tell where the replicas end and the painting begins. The building was opened in 1905, but like all of Sevastopol the Panorama Museum was destroyed in the Second World War--not a single building survived intact. It reopened in 1970.
The following day was the Victory Day celebration, which began with a parade of veterans of the war—ancient men with chests full of medals—and then soldiers from the present military forces. Sevastopol was an especially significant place to view the Victory Day parade—besides being the site of some of the most ferocious fighting of the war, it is also the present day location of the Russian naval fleet, so the Russian forces were very much in evidence and the Ukrainian and Russian sailors marched together. Crowds thronged the sidewalks to watch the parade and constantly shouted hooray and thank you as the veterans walked by, giving us some sense of how deeply imbedded the experience of the war is in people’s consciousness. There is not a single family in Ukraine that isn’t affected by the war, that had at least one family member die or suffer tragic consequences.
We spent the rest of the day wandering around Sevastopol, looking at all the Russian naval ships docked in the port, taking a short cruise of the harbor where we could see them close up, watching the crowds of people enjoy themselves on this holiday. The weather didn’t cooperate much—it was very cold for this time of the year—but it didn’t keep people from taking advantage of the holiday to party with friends and family. Later there were big fireworks, but by that time we were on a bus back to Simferopol. I was glad to have a chance to see some of Sevastopol, especially with people who lived there as guides. But I was also glad to get back to Ak Mechet. Sevastopol is so Russian—for years it was a closed city and no one but Russian citizens were allowed to live there. As a result, the Crimean Tatar presence seems to be pretty minimal. I did see a mosque, but when I questioned our hosts about the Deportation Memorial Day on May 18th, they did not know what I was talking about. And never in my two years of working at the library has there been any reference to the libraries in Sevastopol, and no one seems to have relatives there. I do know people who have lived there and they all love it—it is a beautiful city—but they are Russian. Russian rule of Crimea devastated the Crimean Tatar population and culminated in the genocide of the deportation, so it is no wonder that most Crimean Tatars have little connection to Sevastopol.
I came back with just a couple of days to get a lot of work done at the library on the upcoming seminar, and then I was off again to Chernigov, my training site when I first came to Ukraine. More on that in the next blog.
Love to all from Crimea.

A tragedy befalls my friend Nadjie

It has been four weeks since I last posted in this blog. I feel like so much has happened in those four weeks, and that in many ways, my life here has been much altered.
The two days following our day trip to Tahankut were vacation days from the library. I don’t remember exactly what I did, but I enjoyed some time at my house, getting caught up on household chores, taking walks up into the forest and hills. I came back to work at the library, prepared to help Nadjie with preparations for our upcoming two-day SPA (Peace Corps grant program) sponsored project. However, Thursday morning as I was teaching my English class at the library, tragedy struck. I hadn’t even seen Nadjie that morning—she was out running errands for the seminar—but then we got a call that she had fallen and was at the emergency hospital. Over the course of the day, we learned that she had broken her hip. I was afraid that with my limited English I would be in the way if I immediately went over to the hospital, so I called her and promised to come the next day. I found out later that it was me she wanted to come to the hospital that day, so I regretted that decision.
A word about health care in Ukraine. Though the government says that there is free health care as there was during Soviet Union time, in reality there is little that is free. I don’t thoroughly understand it, but you have to pay for all kinds of things—bandages, medicines, operations, treatments. These aren’t “official” charges, but if you want to have an operation, for example, you are going to need to give the surgeon some money. Some people tell me that if you are truly desperate, they will do the operation for free, but otherwise payment is expected. And given the fact that doctors make so little money here—only $150 to $200 a month—it isn’t surprising. So when Nadjie was told that she would need an operation, I knew she had no money and immediately sent out an appeal to my friends back in America and the Peace Corps Volunteers here who know her.
As I expected, my friends were amazingly generous, and I collected over $2000 to help pay for Nadjie’s medical bills, a large sum in Ukraine. However, she decided not to have an operation because the doctor (who only would talk with her once he learned that she would be able to pay for an operation) told her that an operation had only a 50% chance of having a good outcome. The other alternative was to have a toe to waist cast put on her broken hip and go home and lay in bed for three months. Which, unfortunately she chose, despite my assurances that I could raise whatever money was needed. In the end, it wasn’t so much the money, but the 50% prognosis and her desire to get the hell out of that hospital. Which I certainly understood once I saw the cramped condition of her room (four patients in a very small space) and the lack of nursing care.
So now she is back in her little home, which fortunate for me, is only two blocks from the library. I go to see her often and have gotten to know her 38-year-old daughter and two-year-old grandson who have moved in with her. I hate to see her lying on her bed, unable to move, but I also treasure the time it has given us to just sit and talk, which we seem to be able to do, despite my poor Russian. And her spirits remain amazingly (at least to me) good, despite the fact that she must know in her heart she will probably never be able to walk normal again. For a long time, I despaired of her ever returning to the library, but now I think her energy and love of life will carry her through. We are already talking about what we are going to do when she returns to the library in the fall, what projects we will work on together. And because she does live so close, I have continued to be able to involve her in my work here, especially as the library decided not to postpone our planned seminar but to proceed without her direct guidance. I will write about the seminar in a later blog post.
When I visited her in the hospital and she understood that she would not be returning to the library for a long time, if ever, she said to me, “Don’t forget me.” I responded instantly, “Hekogda (never)!” As is so often the case, the loss of someone in your life makes your realize how precious they are to you, and so is the case with Nadjie and me. Over the past two years, I have come to love her and recognize her as a true friend in my life here. I have resolved to help her in any way I can and to truly “not forget her.”

Tarhankut with the Seytaptiev's

It’s a Tuesday afternoon, and instead of sitting at the library where I usually am on a Tuesday, I am at home, sitting at my desk, looking out on spring with the apricot and apple trees in bloom. It’s May 3rd and the second day of our two-day May 1st holiday. There are a lot of holidays here in May—Easter (Paska), then May Day, then the Great Patriotic War memorial holiday—all involving at least one day off from work. I also have been home more than usual because for a week, the library had no electricity. I’m unclear why, except that it had something to do with the fact that the Ministry of Culture has never appointed a replacement director for the library when the original director resigned last year, so we really don’t have a director who can make the Ministry of Culture pay the electric bill. So since no electricity meant no computer, I worked at home. Did get a lot more done, but I sure missed being at the library and around the people there.
This past Sunday I took off with the Seytaptiev’s for a May 1st holiday picnic. They didn’t want to go camping like we did last year because it is still pretty cold at night. Hopefully we will go sometime in June. We were debating where to go—the cave city of Eski Kermen or Tahankut in far western Crimea. Tarhankut won out because Serdar has always wanted to go there, and so have I, once he showed me pictures of it on the internet. Problem is that it is pretty far and almost impossible to get to by bus. It looked to be about a 3-hour drive, and we didn’t get going very early. Actually, it is really about a 2 ½ hour drive, but because we didn’t follow the maps, it took us longer. The typical way of navigating around here seems to be to just stop people on the street and ask for directions. That is what we frequently did when I was driving around with the library for our regional seminars last year, and it is what Neshet did this time too. However, one of those directions ended up sending us down a very bad, ultimately dead end, road. Backtracking took a bit, and finally, exasperated, Serdar got the GPS going on his phone, and we followed that. Which doesn’t take into account things like major potholes and cows wandering across the road, but did give us the shorter route and ultimately took us to our destination. Coming back was much easier and faster.
Tarhankut lived up to all its expectations. Initially there is the village with a lighthouse and not such huge cliffs, but then we followed a dirt road along the edge of the cliffs and it just got more and more spectacular. A lot like the headlands of northern California. It would be a wonderful place to kayak, because the surf in the Black Sea is not so strong and there are many caves along the shoreline to explore. We were on a large open grassy area on top of the cliffs. Eventually we pulled over and hiked around, took pictures, and got out the “shashliking” equipment. Shashliking is the Russian form of barbecuing, which is cooking chunks of meat on skewers over a fire. A very popular activity around here. Any holiday the nearby forests are filled with people shashliking.
Serdar decided he wanted to practice driving, so I went with him in search of a bush to pee behind. It was a little nerve wracking—the road is right on the edge of the cliff—but he really has driven enough now that he is pretty competent. Just that a mistake would end up us not in the ditch but instead… Actually, when we left Neshet had him drive the whole length of the road along the cliff, which really made me nervous, but all was well (or I guess I wouldn’t be writing this, would I?)
The weather wasn’t great—kind of cold and cloudy—so we didn’t say very long, but all of us were so glad to have seen this far edge of Crimea. As Neshet said, Crimea has so much varied topography—the sea, the steppes, mountains, marshes, forests, sea cliffs, rolling hills—all in a fairly small area. I think you can drive west to east in Crimea in maybe 8 hours or less.
Off soon to have dinner with the two young PCV’s who live here in Simferopol. They hang out quite a bit together, but I really don’t see a whole of them, which isn’t surprising. I am, after all, quite a bit older than their parents!
With love from Crimea.

On Chatyr Dag with Serdar

It is so very hard to keep track of my life here, it feels like sometimes. What has happened since my last blog post? I am always asking myself. In some ways, every day brings new thoughts, adventures of one kind or another, new ways of thinking about something that I need to shift around in my head. And, always, much of it is about language. Feeling good, feeling bad, I’m getting a little better, I’m getting worse and I will never learn it, no one wants to talk with me, etc, etc. Without a doubt, one of the biggest challenges of my life. Soon I will be going back up to the city of Chernigov in northern Ukraine where I spent my first two and a half months here in training. This time I will be coming as an “experienced” volunteer, ready to impart words of wisdom…or not. But I know—I remember—that many of the questions will have to do with learning the language. And I think some about what to tell people, especially those older volunteers who like me are already struggling trying to learn Russian. Here I am, two years later, still struggling, and why do I keep trying, I ask myself? For me, the answer is clear—I want to be able to talk with the people I love—Nadjie, Lenura, Neshet, Safie. Sometimes it seems we will never be able to progress in our relationships unless I can somehow learn Russian better. But then I have to keep remembering that we did get to this place—of caring deeply about each other—with even less language than I have now. Somehow it happened in spite of our inability to freely speak with one another. And that is the fact I need to keep clear in my head, and which I need to convey to the new trainees.
Last Saturday Serdar and I decided to go up into the mountains—to Chatyr Dag, the peak I can see from my walks in Ak Mechet—to, as Serdar put it, clear our heads from all the stress of the visa disaster and also, for him, girlfriend anxieties. We knew there would still be snow up there and that was part of the appeal, despite the assurance that it was going to be a very cold day. And that it was, but we were dressed for it with warm layers, hats, scarves, gloves (though Serdar hadn’t brought gloves, so I brought two pairs and he ended up wearing the gloves that use to be my mother’s—it was a nice feeling to see him keeping his hands warm with something that kept my mom’s hands warm too. She would have liked that.)
It took us a bit to get there—usually only a 45 minute bus ride from the bus station in Simferopol—but for some reason the bus driver told us he wouldn’t drop us off at Pereval (the pass), and instead we had to take the trolley bus. The trolley bus is the world’s longest trolley bus—50 miles from Simferopol to Yalta. And though it is very cheap, it is also very slow, as all the babushkas flag it down at every little settlement. But finally we did make it, 2 hours after we started, which didn’t give us enough time to make it to the highest peak, but definitely enough time to get up to the plateau and the beautiful views of Mt. Demerdji and the Black Sea.
The minute we were away from the road noise and walking up through the forests, a happiness came over me that never left that whole day. Indeed, I thought to myself later that it was one of the happiest days of my life. Being with someone I love so much in a place I love so much—it is a gift that I don’t know what I have done to deserve. My relationship with Serdar has made me think about love and what it means and how it comes in so many different unexpected forms, and how we just have to stay open to whatever life brings us. As we sat up on the mountain top, eating some lunch out of the wind, watching the fog roll in and roll out, laughing and talking about all kinds of things, I felt a deep gratitude for the gift of my life here in Crimea.
It’s a week later now, kind of a hectic, hassling week, especially with the electricity being turned off at the library for reason unbeknownst to me. But today it got turned back on and I had a good chat with Nadjie and we made a plan to work together tomorrow for a bit. And then on Sunday and Monday hopefully I am going to take off somewhere with the Seytaptiev’s. It’s the May 1st holiday, and last year we went on our maiden camping voyage. I am sort of hoping for that this year, though I think they think it is too cold. But whatever we do, it will just be a treat to be with them.
So bye for now, dear readers. And to at least some of you—I will see you this summer. With love from Crimea.