Hiking with Safie and her school pals

It’s a Wednesday afternoon and I am home alone, sitting at the table, about to launch into making chicken chili for tonight’s dinner. I have so come to love having these Wednesdays to myself. I keep considering volunteer things I could/should be doing, but the truth is I have found it such a treat to have the house to myself. And I know how very much Lenura appreciates my cooking the Wednesday night dinner. She says it’s like a holiday every week for her. And I am sure it is, as probably this is the only time that someone else has taken over the cooking duties. Safie does once in awhile, but only under supervision and with limited output. So I think at least for now until something very compelling comes up, I am going to continue these Wednesdays of not going into the library and see where having this kind of time in my life takes me.

Last weekend was a hike with the kids. Safie, who is in the eighth grade (or “form” as it is called here), invited me to go on a hike to one of the mountains with her and four other classmates and a teacher/guide. I, of course, jumped at the chance, and early Saturday morning Safie and I trekked down to her school where we were to meet the rest of the group. Well, the group expanded quite a bit. Unbeknownst to Safie, eight fifth graders were also going. And still only one teacher—Igor. Igor something, actually, as people here go by their patronymic names, but I didn’t catch what his was and he just told me to call him Igor. The weather did not look too promising, but off we went anyways as Igor herded all the kids first onto a city bus, and then on to the trolley bus that took us to our stop down along the coast. Our intended destination was Mt. Paragilmen. Here is a wonderful description of it from the internet (overlook the clumsy translation—it’s pretty good for here, actually):

It is a landscape botanical reserve. This mountain - the highest the Main Range (855 m) outcast - is well seen from the trolleybus road against the back-cloth of Babugan-mountain pasture, in village Maly Mayak region. Like a stray traveller, who cannot find the way to the native home, this stone giant flew up lonely between the coast and range precipices. On the side, facing the sea, it looks like a huge trapezium(table). On the patch of the higher plateau, a grove of old, with a half-meter thick trunks, trees of pear is well preserved. On a sultry summer day its lowered silvery leaves look like a blooming crown. The most interesting sight of Paragilmen is two huge yew-trees, nestling in a deep crevice on the top. The thickness of one of the trunks is about 70 sm, and powerful branches threw themselves flat on either side for 7-8 m. This giant yew-tree is just as old as his thousand-year old fellow-tree on Ay-Petry. In 1979 on the mountain Paragilmen and surround it beech forest, the reserve of medicinal plants, 10 kinds of which are entered in Red Books, was formed.

But, alas, like my last venture up into the mountains, fog slowly began to obscure the top as we made our way up the roads and trails (and through an old metal works factory of some sort) towards the summit. Igor wisely decided not to go all the way up, so we spend the day hiking the forests below with great views of the mountain and also out to the sea. And the forests themselves were beautiful, as the trees are starting to turn their muted fall colors. Igor stopped frequently to point out various plants to the kids and talk about the geology and history of the area. He has been a wilderness guide for a number of years and was very knowledgeable about the area and seemed to know his way around. But I noticed that even he, who had been there several times before, asked the few people we encountered for various directions. There are just so many old roads and paths, that it seems even experienced hikers have to ponder a bit what path to take. I talked with him about it, and he said something about the importance of a compass, and I think he is right. It was following a compass that got us heading in the right direction up Demerdji, even though it didn’t “feel” right. It was a good lesson watching him—made me realize that perhaps it is kind of hopeless to think one can have a distinct path, but instead it is important to establish where you want to go (and having a visible summit certainly is helpful) and then just keep heading in that direction.

He was also good of keeping track of all those kids, constantly counting them. He did head off down a steep path at some point that made me wonder about his guiding abilities after all, but the kids just followed him like the pied piper and popped out onto a road below with everyone (including me—thank the goddess I now have my hiking sticks from home) intact. We stopped quite a while in a camp area and made a fire and everyone got out the food they had brought and the kids spent a lot of time exploring the area. The weather turned kind of nasty after that as the fog became rain and it continued to rain the rest of the day. Of course, no one had any kind of rain gear. Some kids at least had jackets with hoods, but many did not. I insisted Safie bring an umbrella and that was the saving grace for her group. I wished I had also brought an umbrella so they would have had an additional one (I, in my usual American fashion, had my full rain gear on). So they all were increasingly wet and probably cold, but I never heard anyone complaining and mostly they just seemed to be having one hell of a time. It was almost dark by the time we got the trolley bus back home, but the younger kids especially were still caring on, to the point that Igor had to tell them to shut up once in awhile.

It was a good day. Fun to be around all the kids, interacting with them a bit and giving them an opportunity to practice their (very) limited English. And fun to get to know Igor a little. He works for an organization that teaches kids about the environment and wilderness and “tourism.” We sat together on the last bus home, and I tried to ask him if there was any kind of organizations for adults, and he did tell me about some kind of adult travel club. Not sure what it all meant, but maybe I will be able to hook up with a hiking group around here. I know they must exist, but in the past, my lack of Russian as prevented me from exploring the idea much. But now maybe it is a little more possible. We’ll see…

This coming Sunday I’m going hiking (weather permitting) with my Ukrainian friends that live down on the coast that I haven’t seen since last year. We are going to go up to the highest mountain. That will be an adventure I have a feeling… I have already seen some snow up there. It will be a tale to tell, I am sure. And I also have some work related tales too, but that will have to wait until the next post.
With love from Crimea.
Safie (in the red coat) with her pals

PCV meeting and ancient Crimea

Crimean PCV's hanging out in the park. However, that long blonde hair one is an Ukrainian girlfriend of one of the PCV's. Photo Joohee Lee.And here we all are.
The Scythian Neapolis in Simferopol.
Photo Joohee Lee.
Our guide showing us the ritual water pool. Photo Joohee Lee.
It is a cold and blustery Sunday afternoon. I am sitting at my desk with my laptop in front of me, looking out at the roofs of Ak Mechet and the gray skies above. Not feeling like doing much besides sitting at my desk and writing and studying. Was going to make a plan to have dinner with Adrianne, but the thought of getting on the bus and heading into the city center is not very appealing. I find that I like being “home with the family.” The other day cousin Sara asked me to tell her the good things about living with the Seytaptiev’s. I had to think a minute, but then I realized how much more I like coming home to a house full of people than coming home to an empty home. Sure, there is much I find troublesome here and have to get used to—how Lenura yells at the kids, for instance—but I am finding more and more that the warmth and love I feel here overrides those things I find hard. I also am coming to understand each of them more as individuals, and one of the things I have learned about Lenura is that her yelling doesn’t mean much, that it is just how she communicates with her children, as do many people here. I also know how much she loves them, and they her.
So, what I’ve been doing these past couple of weeks… Last weekend was a meeting of Crimean Peace Corps Volunteers here in Simferopol. About twenty of the thirty Volunteers in Crimea came, including many of the new Volunteers. The usual idea of this meeting is to talk about our various projects and how we can collaborate. Some of that does happen, but what it is really all about is just spending some together and getting to know one another a bit. For me, it was a chance to get to know Joohee, who is the new Volunteer in Sovetsky, the town where my PCV friend Cheryl is located. I had met her earlier because she was in my “adopt-a-cluster” group when I helped with the PCV training last year. I did not get to talk with her much then, so I was looking forward to spending some time together.
We had planned a picnic after the meeting at an archeological site in Simferopol that I had wanted to see ever since I’ve lived here but have only recently visited. It was a warm and sunny fall day, so great for a picnic. No one much wanted to trek as far as the archeological site, so we all plopped down in the park near Adrianne’s school where the meeting was held and got out the lunch makings. Anyone passing by would instantly know that we are a group of Americans, because Ukrainians just don’t sit on the ground anywhere, especially in city parks. We all kind of make fun of that practice, but thinking about it, of course it comes from a sensible place—the fact that until very recently, clothes washing was done by hand and people did not have many clothes. Thus, taking care of the clothes one has is very important, and that sort of precludes sitting on the ground.
I still wanted to go to the archaeological site because I hadn’t paid the fee to go inside when I was last there and wanted to learn more about it. So a few of us—Joohee, Cheryl, and a young PCV—took off to explore it. A short bus ride, a walk though “old city,” and a walk along the river brought us to a steep bluff that rises high above the city. We opted for the shorter, straight up route, which wasn’t all that difficult. Up on top on the bluff is wide open grassland with 360 degrees views of the city. People walk their dogs there, graze their goats, have romantic interludes (or so it seemed) on overhanging cliff ledges, and on the highest point, is located the archaeological site. Called the Scythian Neapolis, it is the location of the palaces of the king of the Scythian peoples who lived in Crimea 2300 years ago. There is little left—only a few stone foundations—but as our young archaeological student guide explained, there is much they have learned about these ancient peoples by sifting through the site and reconstructing their lives through the fragments of civilization they have found. I was fascinated by his descriptions of these people as he pointed out a water pool that seemed to be only used once, possibly in some ritual at the crowning of a new king as they can date it to that time, and other pools used to collect rain water, a tomb that they believe to be that of the last king, shards of pottery and coins that showed that Scythians had contact with people as far away as the Celts. For me, it added another layer to my understanding of this piece of land called Crimea. Mostly when I think of Crimea, I think of it as the land of the Crimea Tatars, but I know its inhabitants go back centuries before the Tatars, as part of the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan, overran the peninsula and established it as their homeland. Many ancient peoples have lived here and the remains of those peoples echo over the land. One more reason that I find Crimea an endlessly fascinating place.
With love from Crimea.

Coping with life's little difficulties Ukrainian style

Monday morning at the library, trying hard not to be frustrated with the fact that we don’t have internet and no one seems to be able to fix it. Well, maybe it is being worked on, but no information is forthcoming. One thing I have noticed over and over is that situations that make us Americans kind of crazy—like the internet not working—seem to just be accepted here with the attitude of “oh well, it’s a drag, but what can you do…” (my words). I feel myself getting worked up about the situation, but no one else around me seems to be. Similar to when the bank demanded some kind of documentation before they would give the library the money we had received for the scanner. I was outraged, but no one else seemed to be which I found very interesting. I wondered if some of my perplexity is my lack of understanding of what is going on, but other Volunteers I have talked with also recognize this phenomenon. There is just an acceptance of adverse conditions here that I think Americans would find unfathomable. And though it initially feels like some kind of passivity and indifference, I think ultimately it’s not. Because they act on the problem—we did indeed get the documentation we needed to prove to the bank that the money belonged to the library and the internet problem is being worked on—but there is a kind of underlying acceptance that this is just the way things are and there is nothing you can do about it. Perhaps it comes from Soviet times when it became a survival technique to not question what was happening but just to quietly accept it. And though I think people no longer quietly accept it, they certainly don’t get worked up the way we do in America. And ultimately I find that kind of peaceful. Here I am, a couple of hours later with my work plans abandoned for the day because of the lack of internet, and I too, am feeling “well, okay, that’s the way things are today. I’ll just find something else to do. I don’t really have to do what I planned to do right this very moment. It can wait.” And it feels…well, kind of peaceful.

Next day, internet working—not only working but improved(!) as now there seems to be wireless in the library and because I use the library’s laptop for my computer, I can be on the internet via the wireless. Nearing the end of my day here so thought I would get back to this post and finish it to put on my blog tomorrow with some pictures. Hopefully. Actually I had thought I would have pictures from a little back packing trip I went on last week, but I was so wrong. Ended up with exactly one picture as the weather turned so bad, that we spent most of the time holed up in our campsite, feeding a fire with wet wood, and trying to stay warm in the cold wind and fog on the top of Demerdji mountain.

It has been beautiful fall weather here—just last Wednesday I went on a three-hour hike wearing t-shirt and shorts. So I convinced PCV pal Cheryl to do a little backpacking trip up in the mountains—just one night as that was all she had time for. We decided to go up to Demerdji because we had been there before, and it is very beautiful with many places to explore. We got off the bus at the pass (after yelling at the bus driver, who had apparently forgotten us, to stop) and started heading up through the forests on what seemed to be a marked route on the map. But like many places in the mountains of Crimea, there were several other trails through the forest, and it was a constant decision making as to which way to go. I had been to Demerdji twice before, and both times made it up to the plateau without too many wrong turns. But this time, we decided to try and follow the route signs on the trees that corresponded to our map. However, at some point we turned left instead of right, even though we were still following the route signs. Well, we got majorly lost and turned around, and it took us a couple of hours to eventually get back on track. It appears that though the map shows only ONE Route no. 128, apparently there are in actuality several branches of it.

But we did get up above the tree line and out onto the plateau with the beautiful views of the sea below us and the strange rock formations of Demerdji above us. We had planned to hike around the opposite end up the plateau from where we had been before, but as we started out on the trail, we saw the dense fog rolling in and knew it would not be safe up on the plateau in the fog, as many of the trails have vertical drop-offs. I had read in one of my guide books that every year several people die in the mountains of Crimea because though they are not all that high, they are characterized by plateaus with sheer cliffs and sudden fogs. There was also a cold wind blowing, so though it was only early afternoon, we decided to huddle down in a campsite in the forest with the hope that the next day would provide us some clear hiking weather. But that was not to be, as all day and night the wind blew and we were surrounded by a dense wet fog, and we woke up the next morning to the same conditions. We were both so cold when we set up camp, but surprising to us, given the weather conditions, we were able to get a fire going and keep it going all day and spent our time huddled around it for warmth. And, though, of course I would have liked it to be nice sunny warm weather (as was forecasted!), I still was just so happy to be out in the mountains, to be camping once again.

After sleeping pretty late, we made some breakfast in the vestibule of the tent, packed up our wet gear, and headed back down the mountain. And it wasn’t too far down the trail before the weather started to clear, and it wasn’t such a bad day, after all. I have often seen that phenomenon on walks near home to where I can see Chatyr Dag. There it is, encased in the clouds, and I am in the sunshine down below. We met several hikers on the way up—including a group of middle aged women who asked me my age and kept saying “moladets” (way to go!) to me—and warned them of the weather up above, something our Russian seemed capable of.

So got back home midafternoon with time to dry out the tent and gear and eat some lunch with the family. And determination to try getting up to Demerdji again—though maybe not this fall.
Much love to all from Crimea.

An idle Wednesday and a rock concert

It’s Wednesday and I am at home today, sitting at my desk, contemplating what to do. For the past two years, I have worked at the Children’s Library on Wednesdays, conducting English Clubs. With my extension, my commitment to the Children’s Library ended. I offered to continue with the afternoon English Club, but they are hoping to get their own volunteer or partner with an organization—a linguistics institute in Simferopol—who will be receiving a volunteer in December. I am glad I am no longer at the Children’s Library, as there was no one there to work with and they were generally not very supportive of even the English Clubs. I liked getting to know many of the kids, particularly the little bit older ones who could speak English better, but I always felt inadequate in my knowledge of how to teach English, especially to the younger ones who had little language skills.
So I am somewhat at loose ends, feeling a need and desire to do something productive on this day, but not sure what that would be. I am hoping to start an English Club in Ak Mechet on Wednesday evenings if we can get permission to use the mosque, as it is the only community building in Ak Mechet. Last week I also visited my friend Ira who is the director of a home for unwed mothers in a nearby village. It is a new concept in Ukraine—giving homeless young women with babies and children—many uneducated and with no families—a place to live for 18 months where they can learn skills to take care of their children and become self sufficient. There are only 15 such facilities in Ukraine and only one in Crimea. Ira, who is a fluent English speaker and has long worked in social services including being head of a nonprofit organization dealing with addiction, was excited to take over the position of Director of the new facility. However, as she told me, she has mostly ended up dealing with the never ending administration hassles, including being in a village in which they are not wanted and in a building owned by the town council who is demanding its return. She said about 80% of her job is resolving problems and only 20% actually working with the young women, which she loves and most wanted to do.
I had hoped to volunteer at the center, but as always, my lack of language fluency and no translator limits what I can do. There is a possibility we might do some kind of HIV prevention training in the future, as I have a number of materials in Russian from the Peace Corps training I went to last year. Ira is leaving on vacation soon and said we could talk about it when she returns. Ira is an interesting person—she is by far the most western leaning older person I have met here. When she was in her twenties, she lived in the US for two years on a student program and has since been invited back to social work conferences. She is married to a French citizen and spends her vacations there, and eventually plans to live in France six months of the year. Their common language is English, so her level of fluency is high. Her daughter is also married to a French citizen, and they live in Shanghai because of his work. They have a young daughter who speaks Russian, French, English, and Chinese! Ah, to have grown up in a multi-language world.
And speaking of language, perhaps I will now get back to my Russian studying for a bit and then take a walk later in the afternoon. I had hoped to convince Lenura to go on some kind of excursion with me as this is her last week of vacation, but because Neshet ended up staying home from work today—he’s supervising some kind of work on the road—she felt like she had to stay home. It’s hard to get past the feeling that I am once again “wasting” a beautiful fall day by being inside.
A few hours later after returning from a three plus hour walk. Boy, am I sore…not a good sign, as Cheryl and I are planning an overnight backpack trip in the mountains this weekend. But it sure was great being out on this beautiful day.
And for my final words on this blog post, I must tell about an amazing concert I went to Saturday night with Serdar. He had told me about a well known woman Russian rock singer who was coming to Simferopol with her band and had me listen to her on ytube. And it turns out she is a lesbian, which even Lenura told me and said that “she lives with another woman”—also a rock star. Well, that of course made me want to go, a desire even further increased by learning we have the same birth date, which I took as a sign that I should go to this concert. So I offered to buy tickets for Serdar and off we went Saturday night to the big performance theater in the city center. We got there early and stood around outside waiting to go in and what I took to be lesbian couples kept showing up. Yes, there is, somewhere, a lesbian community here in Simferopol. It was so great to see and it made me sooo homesick for that part of my life in America.
The concert was amazing—she is a powerful singer with that kind of deep Russian passion I find hard to describe but know that there is something different about it. I, of course, couldn’t understand the words, but Serdar told me she uses a lot of Russian poetry in her music. And at one point she recited a long Russian poem with such emotion and power that it totally brought the house down. Women were constantly bringing flowers to her on stage. This is a typical practice here at performances, but she generated a larger than usual outpouring. She clearly has a very devoted following. One woman even gave her a hand knitted top, and she promptly turned her back to the audience, took off the shirt she was wearing, and put on the gift and wore it the rest of the concert. Now that is something I don’t think you would see at many rock concerts. She was just incredible—I can’t think of any woman singer like her in America. I have a couple of videos Serdar took with my camera, and you can also check her out on ytube. Her name is Svetlana Surganova. Gave me a whole other view of Russia…and Simferopol.
That’s it for now. Much love from beautiful Crimea.

My new digs and a family outing

Just realized it’s been over a month that I have been back in Crimea. I’m sitting at my new desk which arrived last week, along with bookshelves and a night table. I spent last Saturday putting all my stuff away and now feel really settled into my new room. It is on the second floor and is a large room with a high ceiling, very light and airy. There is a large double window, and I love looking out over the rooftops of Ak Mechet, including my former home across the street.

I feel lucky to be living here—it certainly is an upgrade from my former place—but living with people is taking some getting used to. Not just people, but a family in which I have some kind of role, though exactly what that role is, I’m not so sure. Mostly I think I am seen as the live-in grandma who needs some taking care of. So I get all my meals cooked for me, my clothes washed, my room cleaned, my health attended to by various medications (though sometimes that can be very dubious as I looked up one drug Lenura was trying to foster on me for intestinal problems and it was an antibiotic no longer prescribed in the West because of a rare side effect that is fatal!). It’s a treat to be so taken care of, and I realize it gives me a lot more time in my life for other things. I do some cooking, some clothes washing, dish washing, etc. but it is minimal compared to when I lived alone. But of course there are tradeoffs too. I so miss my independence—eating when I want to, being quiet and alone when I want to (though shutting and locking the door to my room provides that to some degree), and just not having anyone paying attention to my daily life. I laugh at myself, because one of the reasons I no longer wanted to live alone was exactly that—I wanted there to be someone/s in my life that cared about my comings and goings. So it is an experiment in progress. I’m not sure how I will feel by the end of this year and I have to make a decision of whether to stay in Crimea or not. I know in the long term that if I do decide to stay for a period of time, that I would want my own place again.

I am feeling somewhat restless right now. I have more time on my hands—I no longer work at the Children’s Library one day a week, so I am only working three days a week. And I seem to have fewer friends to make plans with as PCV friends leave the country and others are busier in their lives. The weather has been beautiful this fall, and I so want to be out hiking, but am hesitant to go alone except around where I live. It’s not that I think it isn’t safe; it’s more than I just like the companionship of hiking with someone. Serdar, of course, has been a favorite hiking companion, but now that university classes have started again, he really doesn’t have the time to take a whole day off on the weekend. Occasionally, though, the family decides to go somewhere—well, actually, Neshet decides, as is always the case. A few weeks back we went to find Snake Cave where I had hiked to with Cheryl in the spring. We had some difficulty finding it, as walking and driving are two different routes, but eventually we did come out on the bluffs and the location of the cave. We couldn’t actually see the entrance to the cave, so decided that you must have to enter it from below the bluffs. I read a description of it recently—it is over 300 meters long and has a narrow, winding passageway, thus the name snake cave, I suppose. Anyhow, I hope that is so, because I would like to find the opening of the cave and explore it a bit and would rather not have the company of a lot of snakes!




While up on the bluffs, Neshet spotted a large lake in the distance—turned out to be the Partisan Reservoir. There are a lot of reservoirs in Crimea to provide drinking water. Usually, the access to a reservoir is restricted and there is no swimming. But Neshet decided he wanted to go to the reservoir anyhow and check it out, so we all piled in the van and took off on some very back roads—I had hiked one of those roads and thought it might be pretty impassable for a car, but by going very slowly and occasionally stopping to inspect the road, we managed to get through. We eventually got to the small village where the reservoir is located and, indeed, as expected, the road to the reservoir was gated off and a guard was posted. So no going that way. But Neshet, undaunted as always, drove around looking for another entrance and eventually pulled off on a side road, parked the van, and we all got out and started hiking down what looked like a cow path. How he knew where to go is beyond me, but I think Neshet has some kind of sixth sense about Crimean land—he always seems to find what he is looking for. And sure enough, we came out onto one of the arms of the reservoir and hiked along it for awhile. It is a beautiful lake nestled in the hills, and though access is restricted, apparently people do picnic there, and we did see one fisherman. We had brought picnic things with us but left them in the car because we had forgotten the sashlik equipment (sashliking is the Ukrainian version of barbequing which consists of cooking marinated meat on either skewers or a flat wire holder). We didn’t stay long, but it was nice to be there for even a bit and just be out in the lovely day. Maybe tomorrow (a Sunday) I can somehow get the family to again go on an excursion somewhere. Or maybe I will go alone and find the entrance to Snake Cave….
Love from Crimea.

Some of the my life after returning from America and reflections on life in a small village

Yesterday Nadjie returned to work. I went to her home in the morning and walked with her to the library (about two blocks). She is still walking with crutches and goes slow but can walk fairly well. I went to the local store and bought some cakes so we could have a celebration of her return to the library—a gathering of all the staff as they welcomed her back to work. I watched her all day as she worked away, seemingly unconcerned about her disabled state, and then walked home with her at the end of the day. On the bus back out to Ak Mechet, all I could think was “molya dets”—Russian for “good job” or “way to go.” I know four months ago when she fell and broke her hip, no one at the library expected her to return to work. Indeed, at a staff meeting the library director pretty much said that: “Don’t expect Nadjie to return; it takes months to recover from such an injury and she only has three months in which to do it. If she can’t come back to work in three months, she will lose her job.” Also she is at pensioner age (retirement age), and people expected she would just stay home. But they didn’t reckon with Nadjie’s fierce will, her determination to continue to have a useful and fulfilling life. So three months sick leave and one month vacation later, she hobbled her way back to work, everyone be damned. For myself, I feel so grateful that she has been able to return to the library, that I will have the opportunity to continue to work with her, that this difficult circumstance has had the silver lining of allowing us to become closer, that our ability to communicate with one another continues to grow. I look forward to seeing where this year will take us.

A few words (as promised in my last blog post) about what I have been up to since returning from America, besides trying to be part of a family.
I arrived back in Simferopol on the morning of August 18th after flights from Chicago to Amsterdam to Kyiv, and then the overnight train back to Crimea. Serdar met me at the train station, and we were both so happy to see each other again. We took a taxi together back out to Ak Mechet, and I spent the rest of the day unpacking, getting acquainted with my new room, and, much to Serdar and Safie’s delight, distributing some presents. That led to a further activity in the afternoon, when Serdar and I went back into the center to buy a wireless router for the house. With my moving in, cousin Sara giving Serdar her used Mac laptop and Neshet her used IPad, the house had all of a sudden become loaded with portable computers. So now we have internet access all over the house—when it is working, which is most of the time. It’s faster than what I had, and best of all, unlimited. (I have even taken to watching the Daily Show once in a while, something I didn’t even do in the States since I didn’t have cable).

The weekend after I returned was filled with hanging out with the family, spending time with Nadjie, and visiting with the neighbors. On Sunday I went with the family to the beach for the day. It was a glorious sunny warm day, but the sea continues to be so cold that it is difficult to be in the water for very long. Of the four times I went to the beach this summer, only one time was the water temperature tolerable, which is so unlike last summer when the water became very warm. The cold sea this year is due to a cooler summer, and especially the cool winds blowing out of the north.

On Tuesday of that week I went to see Nadjie again and then took off with Serdar for a few days visit to his grandparents’ (Lenura’s parents) village, Beravoska. At least I was supposed to go with Serdar. He got so involved in activities with a friend that he missed the bus and ended up coming on a later bus. But after the initial frustration of waiting for him, I really didn’t mind going there alone. It’s about a two-hour bus ride. Lilie met me out on the road, and we walked to their little house in the village. Ablumet was bringing their three cows back from a pasture further down the road, and Lilie got out the milking bucket and cans. Fun to watch her milk the cows, but I didn’t give it a try—I remember how difficult it is for the poor cow with an inexperienced milker! Then the three of us had some dinner and sat around and talked until Serdar showed up a couple of hours later. They were so welcoming to me, but I think they found it difficult to talk with just me and no Serdar there to help translate. For me, despite the communication difficulty, it gave me more of an opportunity to converse with them. Once Serdar showed up, they, of course, mostly wanted to talk with him. Besides the fact that he is their only grandson and they hadn’t seen him all summer, it is just so much easier to talk with another native speaker. As we all know. But they are both such sweethearts and tried to make me feel at home as much as possible.

Serdar and I spent two full days there—one of those days biking around the village, the other just relaxing and hanging out—and then headed back to Simferopol on an early Friday morning bus. While I was there, I went on a tour of their local school. Lilie and her sister are both teachers there, and her brother-in-law is the principal (or headmaster as they say here), and they all wanted me to see the school. Preparations were underway for the beginning of classes in a few days—fresh paint and displays, books organized, etc. We went from room to room—the physics classroom, the library, the small Crimean Tatar museum, the language department. Almost all the teachers are Crimean Tatar and at least half the children are Crimean Tatar. And though clearly everyone was trying so hard to make the school a cheery, inviting kind of place, I found it so depressing—hardly any computers or other technical equipment, old, very worn textbooks, none of the learning aides we are so accustomed to in even poorer schools in America. And even for Ukraine, I guess it is pretty marginal, as everyone kept asking what I thought of it for a “village school,” the implication being that the schools in the cities are much better, an impression that Serdar confirmed as he compared it to the school he attended in Simferopol.

I wondered how Lilie and Aublumet ended up in this small village that is populated, according to Ablumet, with 65% Crimean Tatars. They lived in a large city in Uzbekistan and had successful careers, she as a chemical engineer in a factory, he as a drummer in a famous band. Apparently they did quite well, enough so that they were able to send Lenura to camp every summer, a privilege reserved for the children of wealthier parents. Why didn’t they end up living in a city like Simferopol when they came to Crimea? I asked them how they came to live in the village, and they said that Lenura’s sister and husband were already living in the village, so they came there too, as families often do. Lenura married Neshet in Uzbekistan and ended up living in Simferopol. From Neshet I got another side of the story. If I understand correctly what he said (and I never really know—sometimes later I realize I was pretty far off in my understanding), when the Crimean Tatars started flooding back to Crimea, they weren’t allowed to settle just anywhere—they were denied work and building permits, weren’t allowed to buy homes. Apparently, the local governments were pretty much able to keep them out of their area if they so desired, and as a result, many of the Crimean Tatars ended up in remote villages where few people were living and no one else much wanted to live, a village like Beravoska. Located far out in the steppes, it has thirteen dusty, marginally paved streets, a few small stores, a long low building that houses the mosque on one side, the orthodox Christian church on the other, and a “house of culture”—the ubiquitous building found in any town of any size in the former Soviet Union. Sort of a community center, the Houses of Culture tend to be the home for various organizations. In Beravoska, we found a small library there, but not much else. The school in Beravoska, as do all Ukrainian schools, houses all eleven grades in one building.

And so that is where Lilie and Ablumet will live out their lives, I suppose. They don’t seem unhappy, but it’s hard for me to know what is in their heads and hearts, whether or not they long for a former—or different—life. They have had great tragedy in their life—a child that died within a year of birth and an only son who died in an accident when he was 18 years old. Lenura wanted to know if we were going to visit her brother’s grave while we were there—something she always does when she comes to her parent’s village. So Serdar and I rode out on bikes to a lonely graveyard surrounded by the unending wheat fields. The Christian and Muslim graves were all there together, and after a little search we found the grave with his photo on the headstone—what a handsome young man he was, with a face so similar to Lenura’s. I have come to love Lilie and Ablumet and it is heartbreaking to imagine the pain of such a loss. And maybe being close to the final resting place of their son is one of the reasons they will never leave their little village.

Reflections on my new life in Crimea

It’s Tuesday, September 6th, my second day back at the library after what feels like a long time away—my last day of work was July 14th, I think. Almost two months have passed since then and so much has happened—moving out of my little house; traveling 40 hours to get to America and then the hecticness of trying to see my friends and family spread across the country; returning to Ukraine/Crimea/AkMechet and my new living place; trying to be helpful to Nadjie; returning to the library and a new office/office mates. And attempting to find time in all of that to assess what these changes mean in my life, where they are taking me, and where I want to be going.

Unless Nadjie ends up not coming back to the library—which I so hope isn’t a possibility but know that it is—by far the biggest upheaval in my life is the change in my living arrangement. Due to a rent increase, I had to move out of the small house I have been living in for the last two years—not the greatest place, to be honest, but the space was mine and I could do what I wanted, when I wanted. And for nine years before joining the Peace Corps, I also lived alone. And so it is quite an adjustment to all of a sudden to be living with other people—and not just one other person as I have done most of my life—but a whole family, something I haven’t done since I was part of a family—and that’s been a long time ago. I did, of course, live with a host family during training for ten weeks, but this feels much different. Only time will tell how it will really work out, but right now there are many things I love about living with the Seytaptiev’s. Physically, it is a much more comfortable place—I have a wonderful, spacious room with lovely northern light from a large pair of windows, and of course, their house is an immense improvement over my shabby, falling apart, limited heat and water home. I so appreciate the effort they put into getting my room ready while I was gone to America, as it seemed to be a major remodeling job. They provided me with a decent bed (a vast improvement over my former beds—no backache so far), but I needed to purchase the rest of the furniture, including a wardrobe, as there are typically no closets in Ukrainian homes. I wasn’t quite prepared for how much all of that would cost—wardrobe, book shelves, desk, night stand—and of course, I also should have realized that this is Neshet’s house and he has a definite sense of design and what would be the appropriate furniture. But in the end it all worked out as a gift from my cousin took my mind off the money worries, and Neshet and I between us found some furniture that we both liked, which was something I despaired of happening on our first foray out into the world of Simferopol furniture stores. I am feeling a bit guilty about the fact that I will have one of the nicest bedrooms in the house because I can afford to buy furniture for it—Serdar still doesn’t even have a desk—but I think I will just relax with the idea and enjoy having a really comfortable place to live.

Of course, the most wonderful thing about living with the Seytaptiev’s is not my improved material circumstances, but the opportunity to develop more of a relationship with each of them, an increasing possibility as the constant Russian speaking continues to improve my language ability. I like talking with Safie about her school day, trying to get her to speak English; consulting with Lenura over recipes; sitting around the dinner table after supper, listening to Neshet’s take on Crimean Tatar life. But more than anything, I like how much closer Serdar and I have gotten, even in these few short weeks. I am someone he can bounce his ideas off, turn to for advice, share his new political music discoveries (not all of which I appreciate, of course, but some I have found quite interesting). And for me, he provides an important English speaking presence that can help me understand the ins and outs of household living and with whom I feel I can somewhat share the difficulties of my life here. And we just have a lot of fun joking around. I love knowing that I will get to see him every day.

There are hard things, too, about living with the Seytaptievs—all the family dynamics swirling around me, the reality of a patriarchal household, the loss of independence that has been an anchor of my life for many years. It is hard to imagine living in this arrangement into the future; but on the other hand, now that I am with all of the Seytaptiev’s on a daily basis, it is hard to imagine a life that does not include them, especially when I think of Serdar. I know by the winter I will have to make some decisions about my future here—am I going to stay in the Peace Corps another year (which theoretically is possible as the maximum service allowed is four years)? or am I going to return to America to live, and if so, where? and how (financially)? if I choose to stay on in Crimea, can I get a residency permit? meaningful volunteer work? and where would I live?

It will be an interesting year, I think, as I try to adjust to the new realities of my living situation and work situation, as I wrestle with these questions and also try to just be here, to experience whatever is happening in the moment, and to trust that whatever I am suppose to be doing will be revealed to me along the way.

With love from Crimea.