·
Thursday 30 May 2007
The Bus Smells of Hair Oil
The bus smells of
hair oil, human smells, damp air. (The hair
oil makes me think of George Clooney and “Dapper Dan” in the film “Wherefore
Art Thou Brother?”)
It is 1845 and we
are in
Three hours to go
to
Janeen dropped us
in
It rained in the
afternoon so we took refuge in an Internet café and whiled away the remaining
hours till bus time. We sipped clatter
and munched giant choco-chip cookies while we read and sent e-mail.
Around 1600, we
boarded the bus – destination:
It was very cold
on the bus so at the first stop I changed into jeans and purchased a
blanket. My hair got completely wet when
I made the dash back to the bus so I shivered under my blanket and tried to get
comfortable in the small bus seats.
At 0600, I was
grateful to step off the bus and have a good breakfast at a “yup-scale”
historic place in downtown
Now we are Crossing Wyoming
We drive across
Some More Brief Passenger Profiles…
·
A Russian Pair – There are two Russian-speakers two rows
back. We try to strike up a
conversation, but they are not responsive even when we speak Russian and make
references to
·
An Asian Couple – They have many tote bags crammed around
their legs and feet. They pull wonderful
foods from these bags and eat frequently.
The food smells are exotic. They
smile, but do not interact.
·
A Deaf Couple – Fingers fly. He speaks in the unsettling
voice of one who cannot actually hear himself.
The sound is like a seal barking.
She reads his lips and quietly signs in reply.
·
Monday,28 May 2007
Memorial Day Memories – Norman
“Rockwellesque”!
The annual Memorial Day Parade in Le Mars
is, well, memorable. All those American
flags flying in the morning breeze stimulate the senses and create sensations
hard to pin down. Each flag represents a
soldier, sailor, airman or marine who served and died. Among them are my own Father and my beloved
son.
This year, there
is a new addition. Dog tags have been
added to the 1,000 or so flags snapping in the breeze. The tags are like delicate wind chimes and
engage one more sense into the mix. The sight
of all those flags conjures up complex feelings. Awe may be the best word for this feeling.
Following the
parade and the dedication and posting of the new flags, my oldest nephew
catches up to me. He and his rider
friends (also veterans) have planned a small memorial service for our son
Caleb. It has been five years since we
dedicated and posted Caleb’s American flag here on the courthouse lawn in my
home town. My nephew did not know we
would be present when he planned this small event – all the more
meaningful.
The chaplain read
a few remarks and we surreptitiously scattered a few of Caleb’s ashes on the
courthouse lawn. Caleb’s flag fluttered
around my shoulders and his dog tags made sweet music.
We miss him.
I am grateful for
family and community.
·
Saturday, 26 May 2007
Drive West Till You Hit the
I’ve made the trip
from
She arrives with
twins and twin-paraphernalia loaded in her suburb-mobile. She is so efficient in her role as Mom and
chauffer. She has thought of everything! She rings the bell, thrusts a travel mug of
steaming coffee into my hands, and grabs my bag while I fumble with the door
key. We are off on our road trip.
The girls sleep
happily while my niece and I chat. My
niece is a delight, a treasure.
In
We crowd into the
car wit the twins and all their baby gear and head for my sisters’ farm.
We arrive at the
farm and mingle with the nephews…these funny bothers have bought the same make
and model car unbeknownst to one another!
Lots of laughter over this!
The small grand
nieces and nephew scamper around and the nephew’s clever, witty, wives banter
and take pictures. It is delightful to
be with family.
Who knew being an
Aunt could be such fun.
One of the highlights
of the day is the tour of the Baronial Hall in the R’s. Mansion! There is a huuuuuuge table with places for 14
guests (no leaves!). This wonderful
dining room has consumed my sister and her husband as thy made all the fun
decisions involved in making a dream come true.
All the room needs is a pair of thrones!
8-) It is beautiful!
Family Dinner at “The Ranch”
My sisters and I had a great time sharing
lots of stories and making up for lost time on our visit to “the Ranch”. There were nieces and nephews and small
children, cats and chickens, lots of laughter, too much food, and not enough
time – never enough time.
I am so grateful
we had the opportunity to spend some time together.
We had a good time
donning our “babushka” scarves and pretending to be much older than we
are. My family was kind enough to let
Mark and me babble on and on and on about our wonderful experiences in
“The Three
Late at night we
went upstairs and slept hard. It is god
to be “home” – home is where family is.
·
Friday, 25 May 2007
We boarded a bus
at 0900 (in Anderson, SC) yesterday – almost 24 hours later we are patiently
waiting as our stout bus driver recruits people to fill the empty seats on the
bus here in Kansas City, MO.
The last vacant
seat, in an otherwise well maintained, comfortable bus, has no seat
cushion. The springs show. It appears to have been vandalized, but the
unkempt bus driver ignores this and booms, “You can sit on this seat or you can
just sit on the step, r you can wait 24 hours for the next bus!” He pauses, “That’s all I can do for you!”
Because of delays,
we will arrive in
We had 4 transfers
on this leg of the journey. These
involve rousing ourselves in the middle of the night and dragging our bags out
from under the bus and scurrying to form a line where we wait to board another
bus. It is not a very practical
system. Though we paid for tickets, a
ticket does not guarantee a seat.
We are grateful
for the food we brought with us (a legacy from our travels in
We rolled across
the
We are literally
elbow-to-elbow with people and in the tight confines of the bus, people open up
in surprising ways. People share their
secrets. No business men or women with
briefcases, laptops, and work. That’s
for airline passengers, not bus passengers.
Outside, the
houses in the suburbs make me think of the dachas back in Ukraine…country life,
close to town, gardens, grass, trees…no children though and no cats or dogs
running free.
At the frequent
bus stops, smokers spill out of the vehicle and congregate and commune while
they share their smoking bond.
Some Brief Passenger Profiles…
·
Young Soldier – He graduated from high school Friday and
married on Saturday. This week, he
deploys. He has trouble managing his
duffle bag. Mark helps him hoist it into
the overhead rack. The boy/man is too
young to be going off to war.
·
Waitress – She is a talker and laughs often. She dyes (bleaches) her hair, chews gum and
is definitely from the south – her accent is the give-away. She gets up at 3AM each day to work at a
diner. She is off by 11AMShe served time
in jail. In the bus station, she gave $5
to a young couple with a baby and no cash.
She makes friends quickly and knows all about riding the bus. She shares pointers.
·
Coke-Baby Grown-up – He is a happy boy of 11, traveling with
a relative who is very kind and soft spoken.
He makes loud, peculiar sounds and shrieks occasionally. The woman pacifies him.
·
The Musician – He plays the sax and reads nonfiction
blues history as he rides. He as a
friend in
·
A Security Guy from
·
Prisoners – The Waitress (see above) advised us that
we would stop here and that prisoners would board the bus. “Don’t let ‘em sit by yew, if yew can help
it,” she recommends, chewing and popping her gum. Three prisoners board the bus. They wear white t-shirts and each carries a
large envelope with their release papers inside. No one on the bus makes eye-contact with
them. Outside the window the three
policemen who comprised their escorts to the bus door, laugh and smoke in the
dark night.
·
Pregnant Girl and the New Army Husband – she wears a Betty-Boop t-shirt that
stretches across her bulging belly. She
chews gum and wisecracks to her redheaded spouse. He is nervous about meeting her parents for
the first time. They talk about just
staying on the bus and heading for the West Coats instead of going through with
the big meeting.
·
Ex-Navy Guy – He travels with a large, black trash bag
as luggage. He is dealing with being
drummed out of the Navy on a medical disability. He stares out the window. What will become of him now?
·
4’9” Man – This man of such small stature lost his wife to cancer. She lost both her breasts and then died of
lung cancer. Life holds many surprises.
·
The Amazing B&B Twins
We arrive in
These adorable
baby girls (as pretty as their young Mom and the apple of their handsome
Daddy’s eye) are certainly charmers! We
whiled away a lazy day in the suburbs of
We relish a hot
shower and head off to sleep in a real bed.
No dreams, just sleep. Life is
good.
·
Thursday, 24 May 2007
Greyhound Adventures – Heading North &
West
We are taking the
bus across the
Since there is
actually no bus service in our little southern town, House-sitter Jim
chauffeured us to
The station itself
was a bit unsettling. It adjoins a seedy
gas station and the front window is actually a piece of unvarnished plywood
(see photo!) with a small cardboard Greyhound Bus sign tacked onto it. The bathroom is in the service station –
dirty, dirty, dirty.…and this from a women who has frequently used pit toilets
for the past couple years.
Everyone Should Travel by Long-Distance Bus
at Least Once…
Adults used to the
luxury of air travel and private vehicles could use a concrete reminder of what
it is like to be disenfranchised.
Politicians could
learn a lot by making a coat-to-coast trip via the bus!
After 27 months in
We are traveling
during the highest gasoline prices in US history (over $3.00 a gallon in sunny
SC and more in more affluent areas elsewhere no doubt). Taking the Greyhound bus makes economic
sense.
Riding the bus
allows one (forces one) to step outside privileged middle-class life and see
what another segment of real people deal with on a regular basis. Money buys freedom and usually those with
money do not have to deal with some of the frustrations of life.
Frankly, I am glad
my seatmate is my spouse. It makes
traveling easier and more fun of course, but right now I am grateful because if
a stranger sat beside me, I would feel very cramped. My personal space would be violated.
Outside my window,
a bright sunny
There are about
twenty people on the bus right now. Only
one person is reading (Mark). The others
have their eyes closed.
No one else looks
out the window.
Where are these
people going?
·
Saturday 19 May 2007
Ukrainian Mark & Me at Renn Faire in GA
Today we celebrated being back in the
We stopped at the
International Market in
·
Thursday, 17 May 2007
Coke Pipe, Cops, Mice, & Bamboo
Today the police
arrived, upon our request. While we were
in
The truck itself
is OK, but it had bamboo stalks growing up through the engine block and a mouse
had made a cozy nest under the hood.
Despite everything, our reliable Dodge pickem-up-truck cranked right up
on demand! So did the Jeep!
·
Wednesday, 16 May 2007
Pulling out Boxes & Pawing Through
Clothes – Too Much Stuff
Today I try to
find some clothes. The weather here is
much warmer. I arrived still wearing my
Ukrainian snow boots (with jeans). Here
in SC, it is hot outside.
I look through the
boxes we hurriedly stowed before we left for
Plumbing
Welcome home –
time for a plumbing challenge! Mark and
House-sitter Jim end up tackling a plumbing problem on our first day home. Mark is under the sink and Jim
supervises. We get a new faucet in the
kitchen during the repair operations It
is quite nice.
Later we grill
steaks, sit on the porch and sip wine while we talk, talk, talk.
·
Tuesday, 15 May 2007
Rental Car – Drive to Greenwood, SC with
stops at IKEA
Cruising down the
east coast of the
Home again!
We arrive home and
are greeted by our happy house-sitter and his girlfriend and the big, bold cat!
Home sweet home!
·
Monday, 14 May 2007
Off to
We caught a C-5
and had an uneventful (FREE) flight to
First Impressions of
My first
impression of the
My second
impression is equally negative.
Americans look like slobs. They
dress down or call it casual, but to my new eyes, most of them just lack any
style or attention to fit and flair.
Tomorrow we will
rent a car and drive south to sunny
·
Sunday, 13 May 2007 – Mother’s Day
Mark gave me a Cinnabon to celebrate
Mother’s Day
Yes, it is small
things that make life a pleasure and that humble cinnamon roll was a
pleasure! I munched on it and sipped
good
While we waited we
observed the military folks transiting the terminal. I was surprised when a major approached me
and said she recognized me from my Ai Force recruiting days back in
She was enroute to
After a few hours,
it was clear we would not get a flight today so we checked back into billeting
and went downtown to Kaiserslaughtern for a visit to a traditional German beer
garden.
·
Saturday, 12 May 2007
“American” Breakfast – Wow!
We strolled off to
the NCO Club for a typical American breakfast of pancakes, eggs and bacon plus
lots of black coffee. Then we explored
the base a bit.
We discovered a
terrific used book store. It was hard to
get out of there without a stack of wonderful books. After a couple years on a limited diet of
books in English we were a bit overwhelmed by the variety of selections and the
cheap price.
We visited all the
base facilities and wallowed in hearing English and meeting such friendly,
smiling people…
Tomorrow we will
try to HOP back to the
·
Friday, 11 May 2007
0415 Taxi Call
We take a cab
through the sleeping city and arrive in plenty of time to get a cup of coffee
and relax at the airport. My luggage is
overweight! The excess baggage fee is
$300…sigh. And that is not all…
Springing me from
Apparently my
multiple-entry visa for five years does not allow me to stay in country without
leaving for five years…I am in violation.
I can be detained. Eventually cash
resolves the issue. For 600 UAH I get a
reprieve – a little scrap of paper with a very mundane stamp which will get me
out of
So between my visa
and my excess baggage, I leave
Off to
We bounce across
No one in
We Stay at the Air Force Base
We take a clean,
modern train to the Air Force Base an hour from
Our delightful
host has to be the most generous and kind man I have met in a long, long
time! He smiles constantly and insisted
we take his tuck for the duration of our stay.
He kindly helps us get Mark’s ID card updated and settles us into a
comfortable room at billeting.
We were very
grateful and a bit overwhelmed by all the
We indulge in
Subway sandwiches, Mt Dew and junk American TV and smile, smile, smile. I took a long hot shower and crash.
·
Thursday, 10 May 2007
Peace Corps Office - Faces to Names…
This is our last
visit to the Peace Corps Ukraine offices.
We hand out a few pens and say our farewells.
A couple of Peace
Corps Volunteers in the lounge hear us talking and recognize my name from the
Peace Corps 2, Yahoo Group. We talk;
they ask questions and give me warm feedback on my advice, thoughts and
observations.
We learn that
another PCV we know is being Medivaced to DC tomorrow. Her disorder is a mystery and a Peace Corps
staff member will actually travel with her.
·
Wednesday,9 May 2007 – Victory Day
Parades, Presidents, Communists,Bands, Downpours, Patriots, Politics, & Flowers
The Soldiers Memorial, Motherland Statue,
Lavra & the
Coffee and Brandy under a pergola - This was a wonderful day – our last in
·
Tuesday, 8 May 2007
Packing and Sorting –Streamlining Again…
Airline
restrictions are extreme…we have to weed out more things. It is hard to leave things behind.
We watch sentimental
Hallmark movies on cable TV and take a walk around the neighborhood.
·
Monday 7 May 2007
Peace Corps Office
A dull day of
administrivia at the Peace Corps office…
·
Sunday,6 May 2007
House of Chimeras, Andreyevsky Spusk,
Museums,
We packed the day
with sight-seeing. Slava played tour
guide. He climbs like a mountain goat
and enjoys seeing every hilltop vista.
He is happy living in
At days end, Mark
and I are very tired.
We will miss
Slava.
·
Saturday,5 May 2007
It’s all Happening at the Zoo
Mark and I paid an early morning visit to
the Kiev Zoo. It is being upgraded, but
there is still a large section of the old Soviet-era cages. There are many children in the park and there
are zoo employees providing sidewalk chalk and soap bubbles and other
activities to engage the children.
Hiking
We hook up with
Slava, a friend formerly from
The gardens are
fabulous. We take lots of photos of the
beautiful lilacs and views of the city and the river.
·
Thursday, 3 May 2007
The flat we are
staying in for the next week has cable TV – including a couple English-language
channels. I spent most of my day
indiscriminately watching cheesy movies on the Hallmark Channel and shorts on
Animal Planet. I am mesmerized by this
TV that speaks in English!
Outside, it is
cold and windy and rain falls intermittently.
Mark is at the
Peace Corps office – a medical exam, then off to a dental exam and a few
appointments with staff members. There
are more appointments tomorrow and Monday.
It’s hard to believe in a few short days Mark will officially be a
Retuned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV).
·
Wednesday, 2 May 2007
Kiev is Cold, Cold, Cold…
There were snow
flurries in
I m glad I have on
snow boots!
We walk to the
Peace Corps office. The streets are deserted.
No cars or people about. The city
has the feel and look of a movie set for some disaster film where all the
towns’ people have mysteriously vanished.
No one seems quite sure of what the holiday is. Of course the First of May is a holiday, but
this is the second.
Notes on Checking into our Temporary Flat…
We take the metro
to the flat we reserved for our stay in the city.
T, our temporary
landlady, and her husband welcome us.
“You look like movie stars!” she says as we stand in the middle of the
one-room flat we rented for our ten days in
T. bustles around
making us feel comfortable. She tells us
where to shop, shows us how to use the washing machine and how to operate the
TV and the phone. Then she meticulously demonstrates how to lock and unlock the
various doors. Typical of soviet-ear
Ukrainian flats, there are two doors at the entrance and each door has two
locks. These open onto a hallway shared
by several flats. At the entrance to
that hall, there is a large metal door with a pair of locks. The flat is on the third floor so there is
yet another door and more locks!
“If someone knocks
and you don’t recognize them (through the peephole), don’t open the door(s),” T
advises. “Even if they say it is the
police, do not open the door.”
When the
conversation moves to work, T. is delighted to learn about Mark’s computer
background. She turns to her husband and
draws him into an animated conversation.
He teaches business and economics and is interested in getting up to
speed on using computers in business.
Conversation dances around that topic – no textbooks or materials
available in Ukrainian, and no experience…Mark mentions possibilities and says
something about working at the
“
T’s husband chimes
in, “Yes.
·
Tuesday, 1 May 2007
Leaving
Mark piles all our
baggage outside on the babushka bench in the warm spring sunshine. We take photos of
this embarrassment of baggage and then wait patiently for L. and V, who will
drive us to the train station. A small
boy, curious about the unusual activity in this quiet courtyard, wanders over
and engages us in conversation. He prattles away, asking questions in Russian,
and has a fine time coaching us on ours.
He teaches us new words, patiently spelling them out as his teacher might.
Mark gives the boy an American flag. The boy dances around in circles and the flag
flies, enjoying the dance. . I take photos of the boy. The boy and I wander around the courtyard
feeding stray cats from a small stash of cat chow I had. The boy tells me the names of the cats he
knows
At last our
friends arrive. We pile our luggage into
the car’s trunk. It takes two trips to
get us to the train station.
We trundle all our
various bundles (amazing how much you accumulate in 27-months!) into the
station café and sip bitter coffee. At noon, L. buys a bottle of cognac and a
plate of cheese. From my handbag, I pull
out a chocolate bar (I am so Ukrainian!) and put it on the table. We make
toasts, nibble and take photos.
The train
arrives. Several members of our English
Club arrive. A large, sunny-yellow, beribboned, bouquet is thrust into my arms
and several small gifts. More
photos. Lots of hugs. Every one on the rain is curious: is there a
celebrity on board? We pose with the
conductors. We settle in for our long
train ride.
Later a retired
Ukrainian Army Colonel joins us in our coupe and spreads a small feast of salo,
radishes, and dark bread on our table.
We sip wine and swap ”war stories,” alternating between Russian and
English. Outside our windows, we pass
charming dachas, each with an assortment of chickens and geese, cows, flowers
and fruit trees.
Can we really be
leaving Crimea and our cozy nest on the
ab
TO READ APRIL POSTS OR OTHER OLDER ENTRIES,
RETURN TO THE ARCHIVES ON THE LEFT.
FYI: If you want to read about our initial Peace Corps
adventures, start with January 2005; that’s when we received our invitation
(short-notice) to
ab