Seeing the Moon

Something drew me to my bedroom window tonight, like a magnet. I pulled the sheer white curtains aside and peered out: it was the moon, a beautiful full moon in a perfectly clear pitch black sky shining brightly on the planet, as if waiting for an audience.

It's the first full moon I've seen in the last few winter months. What a lovely surprise. It lifted my spirit. It almost lifted me physically off the floor. It pulled me up, like it pulls the tides.

I look at the moon and I see you. I see all those I love. I see the moon and I don't feel so far away. I feel connected. It's a kind of wholeness, maybe a holiness, that all of us on mother earth see the same moon in our night skies.

I want to capture the brilliance of it, its powerful light shining through my window, but a photo wouldn't do it justice. How do you capture silence shining? It is too elegant. Many have tried, and I chose this one flikr photo as an example.

Even the moon's landscapes are outlined tonight, a thin grey line around its continents, it is that clear, feels that close, awaiting an astronaut's next giant steps for mankind.

It seems benign, that yellow ball against a black canvas, yet it is pulling oceans and arranging the movement of the earth and the planets. It is conducting a grand symphony that few of us hear. Maybe a wolf in a forest on a mountainside hears it. Maybe a whale at the bottom of the ocean.

The sound of silence. The sound of brightness. The sound of fullness. The fullness of being. It's what Transcendentalist and friend of Emerson's, Margaret Fuller, in the 1840s in America, wished for all humankind: that we grow and love one another "not from the poverty but from the fullness of being." It was her moon song. I see that now. I see the attraction.

I cannot hear the symphony but I feel the pull. The moon is pulling the tides of my soul. I am in Ukraine, but I can be anywhere, anywhere on planet earth, and the moon will accompany me on the journey, and I will be with you as we go.

The Mystery of Sergei's Fight

When I woke up this morning, Saturday 27 February, I found Luba, her son Vitaly and his wife Natasha hovering over a sleeping Sergei. When I saw Sergei's face, I understood.

He looked like a battered boxer in the 9th round of a brutal fight. His eyes were black and blue and swollen shut, his lip was swollen and cut. His handsome face was bruised blue and yellow and covered with scratches and wounds. One of his hands was bruised, maybe with broken fingers. He was a sight, and I immediately felt bad for him. When he saw me he managed a grin and a weak wave, and mimicked a boxer punching it out.

What happened? I asked in Russian. I didn't get much of an answer, and I didn't understand in any case. I could tell Luba was upset, with a steadied calm that bespoke a mother's worry. Later the worry turned to mild anger, her body language indicating some displeasure with her son's behavior.

I surmised Sergei was in a fight, maybe a bar room brawl. but why, where, when, I do not know. Here's something I really want to know, I really want to understand, now, but I can't get the details. I want to ask if he gave as good as he got, too, but it'll have to wait. It's a mystery.

This is one of the most frustrating things about the language gap. If there has to be a new script to communicate a new situation, forget it. My Russian is inadequate to the task.

I have to live with the mystery until things become clear. I believe that in time, everything is illuminated. But by then the crisis is past, the heat of the moment has subsided, and you get in on the denouement, if that. When I really want to be in the now, I can't be there.

When google and the dictionary and writing out sentences in Russian fail, I usually turn to Natalia, my English-teaching friend at the university. I want to know what happened, I plead. Will you please call Luba and ask her what happened to Sergei, and will he be okay? And Natalia will do it and I'll know a little more.

At least I'll know enough to go back to the dictionary and google translate and up the communications a notch. It's a frustrating process, and more frustrating still because I don't think I'll ever be fluent enough to communicate on a truly meaningful level. Our feelings are strong, we know we care, it's just that words fail us.

Our Global Village

At our weekly English Club on Sunday we expanded on our February theme of Love to cover the world. We looked at our large map of the world and identified continents, oceans, countries, warm climates, cold climates. Then we made a global village using a powerpoint presentation shared by my PCV friend Barb Weiser in Simferopol, Crimea. I just printed out the colorful slides and used those. It went like this:

If you could fit the entire population of the world into a village consisting of 100 people, maintaining the proportions of all the people living on Earth, that village would consist of:
*57 Asians
*21 Europeans
*14 Americans (North, Central and South)
* 8 Africans

We took turns reading, repeated words and ideas, talked about our village. We recognized that the 14 "Americans" could be Caucasion, of African descent, Spanish-speaking, French-speaking, native Americans and Eskimos, Asians, and a combination of these. We talked about the complexites, and also the implications, some of which caught us by surprise.

In our village there would be:
*52 women and 48 men
*30 Caucasians and 70 non-Caucasians
*30 Christians and 70 non-Christians
*89 heterosexuals and 11 homosexuals.

* 6 people would possess 59% of the wealth
*70 would live in poverty
*70 would be illiterate
* 1would be dying
* 1 would be being born
* 1 would own a computer
* 1 would have a university degree.

Some of these statistics astounded. So many living in poverty? Only 1 with a computer? Could this be? We wondered about these numbers; we thought some of these figures might be wrong and some impressions might not be quite right. Some were hard to believe.

But we all agreed that this global village was something to think about. Sometimes we live in our own little world and forget about the larger world we share on planet earth. My theme was we need to love the earth and extend our love to people different than us. This is not easy to do, but if we can try we will have a more peaceful, caring world. We will be fighting poverty and ignorance, not each other.

I passed out the flags of the world, which everybody found fascinating-- there are lots of them (some 13 pages printed out!). Some look alike, some are very beautiful, some simple like Ukraine's flag. Many contain symbols of the nation they represent, like the maple leaf on the Canadian flag. Many have stars and stripes. Everyone chose a few flags to cut out, put on pieces of color paper that say something about the country, and put them up on our HUMAN FAMILY TREE.

Since I drew the tree, it wasn't very pretty, but it was beautiful after members got done with their flag decorations. They put nice descriptive words on their decorations. France: Eifel Tower, the Louvre. Britain, big ben; Ireland,green; Germany, modern; Canada, ice hockey.; Italy, the boot. Ukraine, blue sky above, yellow fields below. Turkmenistan, former Soviet Republic, beautiful flag. There were several former Soviet Republics, now independent nations. Irag, Iran, Middle Eastern countries, oil and war and poverty. African countries, wild animals, poverty, desert. Asian countries: China the most people; Japan, islands. We did a good job of covering the world.

As we were about to take a photo of our Human Family Tree, Tonya jumped up and said, "Wait! Where is the United States? Who has the United States?"

Silence. The members looked frantically through the pages of flags looking for the flag of the US. I assured them it was okay; we didn't have to have the US on the tree, but the members were now united in one voice. We must have the flag of the United States! We waited for Tonya to make her decoration: It was a red heart with the US flag in the middle. It was very touching. Now we were ready to take our photo (Tonya, far left, holding heart). "We are the World!"

My Cold's Going Around

How do you know when you are sick of winter? Photo

sent to me by my daughter Michelle

My cold is lingering, runny nose and cough, and now Luba has it. She sounds terrible. Some of Luba's friends have it too. I feel responsible. I am better but did not respond 100% to all those home remedies. My incessant coughing has kept her up at nights. Now Luba is canning the home remedies for doctors, nurses, and tons of meds from the pharmacy. I don't blame her. She even got a lung X-ray a few days ago, which looked pretty good to me, but a white fuzzy area in her lower lungs apparently indicates some congestion. I wouldn't know. All I know is she has my cold.

It's the time of year, after a long winter, when colds happen. And, yes, everyone is sick of winter, from Ukraine to Ohio. But still I blame myself. I got this cold, it won't go away, and everyone I know is getting it. I'm sure it started with our cold rooms in the Chernigov hotel, got a good boost in the unheated train stations in Lugansk and in Kiev, and another boost when we stood in a cold rain for 20 minutes while waiting to be let onto the train. So I shouldn,'t blame myself.

Meanwhile, the nurse comes daily for Luba, and I think she's medicated her really well to the point of sleeping, which is good for Luba. It takes a lot to keep her down. We were all coughing, wheezing and sneezing at her birthday party on Sunday afternoon, 14 February, which lasted 6 hours. Lovely friends. An incredible amount of food and lots of toasts. I was about to collapse from exhaustion but I kept going until the last guest left, ducking as many vodka toasts as I could because I didn't want to overdo it with the cough medicine I'm taking. I did okay on that front (which is a good skill I am learning), but I think we did a pretty good job of spreading germs around. Now Luba's friend Ira has the cold.

I'm afraid this cold will last into March. I am hoping it goes away before I head for the States to visit my family and friends in Ohio and Florida. I don't want to spead this cold to America. What if the Governor of Ohio gets it? What if he travels to Washington and spreads the cold there?

What if President Obama gets it? I'll really feel bad. He has enough problems. I know it won't be enough to just leave the scene in disgust, like Evan Bayh, or to say, "from Ukraine with love." I'll have to come up with some better Ukraine remedies. Maybe the new Ukraine president will have some better ideas. That's something for which we can all fervently hope.

P.S. On the election front: Yanukovich, the political power from Donestk, the Donbass, won by a few votes and I think Julia is challenging thie election in courts. It sounds like the Bush/Gore election. Most people think whatever the outcome it will be the same. I get my news in Russian so some of you may know more than I do! Some pundits have written that the most important thing is how the Ukrainian people "monitor, influence and control" the president, and hold him or her accountable. "The country needs a more responsible citizenry to make the political elite more responsible" (Kiev Post, December 2010). Some food for thought.

Happy Birthday, Elissa!

My daughter Elissa's birthday is today, 19 February. I always get nostalgic on her birthday. Same on my daughter Michelle's birthday, which is 13 June.

About a week before their birth days, I start counting down to the days they were born, just like I did when I was a young woman and pregnant in Madison, Wisconsin. I was a graduate student, one of only a few women around the history department at that time. There were no women faculty members, and I remember a not very cordial meeting with the chairman of the department, the famed Merrill Jenson, who questioned why I, a woman, was there. I would probably get pregnant and quit.

Dang, if I didn't get pregnant. But I didn't quit. I'm sure I was the first pregnant graduate student in the history department, and I'm sure the faculty didn't know what to do about me. I was about as huge and obviously pregnant as one could be, too. I waddled around the campus in a huge double-breasted coat, a bargain from Penny's, and looked like I was 9 months pregnant from the time I was 5 months pregnant. It was hard getting fellowships and teaching assistantships, not to mention getting up and down Bascom Hill. Abe Lincoln and I had many nice discussions as I caught my breath before making it to class.

My big fear was my water bag breaking in class. I don't think too many graduate students up to that time in the history of mankind had this particular anxiety. Ah, such are the pioneers!

I had finally gotten a teaching assistantship, too, in economic history, which I knew nothing about, but wonderful Mort Rothstein, bless his heart, assured me it was okay. All I needed to know was supply and demand, he said. Funny! My pregnancy didn't seem to daunt him either. I give him, and the department, credit for having some faith in me. I did my best, with lots of understanding from the students.

Elissa made her grand entrance at about noon on 19 February, with the help of Dr. Madeline Thornton, one of the few women doctors in Madison at that time. She would also deliver Michelle a few years later. By the way, fathers were not allowed in the delivery room . They could just twiddle their thumbs in a waiting area, with plenty of cigars on hand to give away once everything was all done. Their biggest concern was "is it a boy or a girl?" No one knew in advance then. "It's an Elissa," I told him several hours later, hugging her to me and smiling with joy through exhaustion as they wheeled me out of the delivery room. He had no idea what I had been through. He was happy. After a few days in the hospital, trying to breast-feed, I went home. There were some 80 bluebooks on my desk, waiting to be graded. They would have to wait.

Elissa was beautiful. She was a wonderful baby, cheerful, calm and curious, and we both made it through that semester okay. I loved watching Elissa and I loved studying history. I loved the questions and issues students were raising then, about who was included in history, who was left out, how to tell the stories of ordinary people. It was an exciting time to be a history student.

It was an exciting time to be parents, too. Elissa's dad, who was also completing his dissertation, was glad, for example, to get an emergency phone call from me one afternoon, explaining...well okay screaming hysterically...that he had to come home immediately to help me clean up Elissa and the dog after she had spread over a pound of Desitin (we had just bought the super duper economy size) all over the dog, a sweet German Shepherd, the furniture, and every surface in her bedroom, even the curtains (all of which were bright pink, which may have had something to do with Elissa's decision). Poor Elissa, aiming to be creative, and sensing she had created a huge problem. The smell of desitin followed us everywhere. We settled down with Dr. Seuss.

Then I got pregnant again with Michelle. The times they were a'changing, and fast. The escalating American presence in Vietnam provoked tremendous anger and civil disobedience, shouting matches and marches. Wisconsin was a hotbed of teach-ins and protest, offering cogent analyses of the history of Vietnam and questioning why we were there. People like Professor William Appleman Williams led the way and students were ready and forceful. The anti-war movement took off like a rocket, entering mainstream America. The Civil Rights movement was rumbling up to the surface of public awareness, too, starting at the grassroots in the South with people like Fannie Lou Hammer in Mississippi, building from the ground up and expanding with increased involvement of white and black students across the nation--an inexorable march toward justice and equality. The Beatles were on the scene. Rock n' roll took off. Then.... President Kennedy was killed. I was going up the front steps of the Student Union in Madison when Lee Kelley ran out of the building screaming frantically, "The president's been shot!" Bobby Kennedy was killed. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed.

Michelle was born on June 13, 1968, that eventful year in modern American history. For us, on that day, joy took over, and we celebrated a healthy new baby girl.

We left Madison that year, and headed for Toledo, Ohio, where the girls' dad got a teaching job. I had finished up everything but the dissertation; ABD it was called. We thought we'd be in Toledo a few years, and move on, but we ended up staying and raising the girls there. There were ups and downs, protest activities, challenges, and then in 1975 I finished my dissertation, on Utopian thought in American society. Merrill Jenson was probably rolling over in his grave. Rothstein, I'm sure, gave two-thumbs up, and so did my patient major professor, David Cronon, who stuck by me. It took 10 years, a little prodding from my Dad, my own inner resolve, and it got done. I had a family, I had my girls, and I had my degrees, and for the time that was saying something.

Since I was the only woman around with a PhD degree the chairman of the Toledo history department asked if I would teach a women's history course. The idea of women's history was just beginning then. I said no. I didn't know anything about it. I didn't have any women's history at Wisconsin. There weren't any women around, no faculty, no courses. I almost talked myself out of a job. After some thought I decided to give it a try and developed one of the first women's history courses in the NW Ohio area. There were so few books available, it's almost hard to fathom. But I added new books and new articles as they came out, and helped other departments start women's studies courses. Campuses across the country stirred with interest, students asked questions, scholars were born, did research, and created a historiography. A whole new field was born, and it blossomed.

Elissa blossomed too. Today is Elissa's birthday . A flood of memories. In fact the memories increase with each year of Elissa's age! Somewhere among our various belongings, in various places, there are lots of photo albums around, her baby book, her first tooth, first haircut, first grade, camp, piano recital, artwork, 8th grade, high school, BA degree. But some of my favorite memories are of Elissa turning over at 5 months and saying her first words at about 8 months old. Her birthday parties, every year, fun and games. Learning to roller skate. Her love of reading (she read constantly, and the teachers couldn't keep up with her). Her love of our dog Tryg and other animals (and her collection of model horses). Lots of imaginative play and Old West End Festival plays. Her times with my parents, Nana and Grandpa Curro, who adored her. Summers in Nantucket with the Cary-Coolidge-Butman family, which she loved. Her going off on her own, a time of some trepidation, learning and growing; stumbling and growing; and finding herself: a creative, artistic, compassionate, open-hearted, kind and beautiful person inside and out.

Elissa: Graphic designer, collector (of all things) and collaborator, artist and auntie, sister and friend, mother of Julia and Tony, grandmother of Philip, who threw her iphone in the water and left his GranE worse than phoneless, and loving daughter no matter what!

Happy Birthday dear daughter. May your life be full of good memories, good health, good energy and positive spirit, and lots of love. May you get a new iphone, too. Your ever-loving mom

Philip Is Famous, created by Elissa

Some Project Updates

Febrary 7 English Club

PCVS have different ways of integrating into their communities and discovering how they might be helpful. I tend to look at things from the bottom up, so I like working with local organizations serving the community. As you know, the economic crisis in Ukraine has filtered down to these grassroots efforts. Funding has been cut for the library. Local NGOs like Victoria have to struggle to do projects, and rely on a corps of committed volunteers. Their NGO structure is informal. I've thought about ways to address governance and planning issues, but right now the focus is on helping with projects that increase awareness and resources. I've written about these projects in various blogs. Here is an update.

"KNOW YOUR RIGHTS!"
We got the grant! But first, some background. Victoria has been working on helping victims of human and legal rights abuses for a few years. It has assembled a remarkable group of victims and witnesses who are not afraid to tell their stories to public officials, city and oblast officials, elected leaders, village militia and local police. Victoria has also worked to increase awareness among the media, journalists and the general public, no easy task. I've been working with Vera Flyat, the director and my counterpart, to write a Small Project Assistance grant to the Peace Corps to support creation of a Community Resource Center where victims can get help and citizens can research and find out about their legal rights. It was a difficult process mainly because of the language barrier. We missed the first deadline because of it, then submitted again. Thank goodness for the translation services of Natalia Dohadailo.

The good news: The grant was just funded for $4,000! Victoria will now be able to create a Resource Center equipped with computers, a color printer, a projector and screen; create a "Know Your Rights!" booklet and information packages, plus a powerpoint presentation based on these resources for training and public programs; develop a resources library; provide some legal counsel; provide training for volunteers (an important aspect of sustainability); and hold two public forums. It will be a busy and fruitful spring for Victoria.

ENGLISH CLUB and English Language Book Collection
We are in the 2nd year of the English CLub and interest remains high. Attendance continues to range from 6 to 16, with our super core group attending every week and serving as the foundation of the club. Some members attend as often as they can, and we also have new members every week of all ages and proficiency levels. This is a challenge, but it is a good challenge, and we have a variety of games, topics and discussions to accomodate everyone as best we can. This month the theme is "LOVE," and in addition to having fun and creating valentine cards, we increased our vocabulary by 20 words with the game "Love is....." Love is honest, sweet, unconditional, safe, trusting, hearts and flowers, giving, kind, etc. Very romantic!

The Library has received much recognition for hosting the Club. Helping the library increase its visibility and outreach is a major goal. I enjoy Mr. Romashy, who is director of Starobilsk TV, and I let him know about all the good things the Library is doing to reach out into the community.

Part of the English Club's effort is to begin an English-language collection at the Library. We know several boxes of books are on the way and we are awaiting arrival of the first books. I look foward to using the books as the basis for reading and discussing together.

Starobilsk Heritage Project Reborn
Part of the Starobilsk Heritage idea has found a home at the Library. I thought it was DOA. It floated for a while (see 7 December blog). But it now has wings.

It has become part of the Library's Internet Center project: a way to reach out to the community, advertise the Bibliomist project, spread the word about the coming of free internet access, celebrate Starobilsk's architecture and, perhaps, raise a few hrvnias.

How? The Library is going to create a 2011 CALENDAR. The calendar will feature a photograph of a different Starobilsk building for each month, by professional photographer Mikhail, plus a poem by Anton. 12 beautiful photographs of Starobilsk's historic buildings. Poems by a local author. A showcase for Starobilsk's creativity and talent!

Iryna Andreenov, the library's director, is pulling it together. She and Anton are looking for a cost-effective printer in Lugansk. Start up costs are the big factor now. It will be about 2500-3000 UAH to print 200 copies, more if notecards are printed (using the calendar photos). I am going to present an idea to get business sponsors for the calender, but I've been waiting for a good time to present yet another idea!

The calendar is a first for Starobilsk. It is a first for the Library. It is a first for marketing a product to increase awareness of Starobilsk heritage while raising resources for a larger project of value to the entire community.

Tap into a community's assets, find its strengths, go beyond it's problems, and you will uncover a treasure trove of talent and creativity, leadership and commitment. A new Internet Center is being born for Starobilsk. The Heritage calendar is now part of it. There's still a long way to go, and several issues to address, but now the idea has wings.

CONNECTIONS
I think the most important thing I do as a PCV here in Starobilsk, however, is make connections between people. I am always meeting people and introducing them to one another. These are more intangible but equally important aspects of my work, I would say. It's the Amerikanka meeting and greeting and connecting people along the way. I'm new, a fresh face, and a curiosity, and it all adds up to a fascinating convergencce of people, place and time in this wonderful community in far-eastern Ukraine. Connecting the global village on a people to people level is what the Peace Corps is all about.

Cold Remedies/Election Results

It was presidential election time again, the run-off election for the top two vote-getters from the first round, Julia Tymechenko and Victor Yanukovitch, and I was nursing a cold.

Not that I could vote, but I wanted to be able to cheer Luba and her friends on as they marched to vote for a new day in Ukraine.

I came back from Chernigov with this cold and it won't go away. Runny nose, burning eyes. cough, sore throat, chills. Luba has tried every home remedy known to Ukrainians across the ages. A heated oil mixture to rub on your nose. Another mixture to rub on your chest (she marches into my bedroom, lifts up my shirt, and puts on the mixture, which burns, but that's supposed to be good for you). A clove of garlic with every meal. I am not hungry but I have been stuffed with food. Maleena in chai (raspberry preserves in tea). No coffee. She takes my morning cup and dumps it out! Not good for a cold, she says. Hot milk with honey. Her friend Luda has been sleeping over lately and she's been helping out too, with "natural" remedies that she learned from her babuska. Today it was patches of heat around my rib cage, and the blankets pulled over my head. No way I was going to Lugansk for that meeting. I am being mothered.

On Sunday I was getting ready to go to the English Club. Luba and Luda were getting ready to go vote for president. It was 7 February, election day. This time their votes would really make a difference. They dressed up and looked elegant. When they eyed my outfit, however, they rolled their eyes and went to town. I wasn't dressed warmly enough for heaven's sake! Off came my sweater. "Ne naturale," Luda said. Luba pulled out a wool sweater, very pretty, and I felt better. I thought my sweater was just fine, by the way, but I checked the label and sure enough it was 100% polyester! How did they know that? It was the same scenario with my long johns and socks. On went another layer. Somehow I didn't look as elegant as they did, but no question I was very warm.


I pranced around, modeled, spread out my arms, and bowed, to their delight! Sergei winked at me, no doubt very familiar with the awesome mothering on display, and took a photo.
Ukrainian women are fantastic. The anchors of the family, workers and citizens. I had secretly hoped that Ukraine would elect a woman president, following the recent example in Costa Rica. It seemed like a harbinger of things to come,


But it was not meant to be. Yanukovitch won in a close election. For many Ukrainians, it will be the old crowd back in power, bringing an end for sure to the dreams of the Orange Revolution. But democracy is at work. The European Community and other transitioning countries are paying attention. Reformers and new voices are on the horizon. The non-governmental sector is growing and is bringing change from the bottom up. I'm placing my bets with this vital sector. It's onto another chapter in the political history of Ukraine.


Meanwhile, I succumb to the awesome mothering of Luba and her friend Luda, and feel grateful. boodyte zdarovy. Bless you! I hope the nation is in as good hands.


Interesting article about the election:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/7184349/Ukraine-election-Viktor-Yanukovych-claims-victory.html  Postcript: Writing in retrospect, this is the election Paul Manafort worked, for lots of money, in support of pro-Russian Yanukoitch. Yanukovitch proved as corrupt and as pro-Putin as predicted. He was forced to flee Ukraine to Russia after the Maiden Revolution of 2014 in Kyiv.

Freedom Fighters: Taras Shevchenko and MLK

One was born in America, the other in Ukraine. One had slave ancestors, the other was a serf who bought his freedom with the help of friends. They were both freedom fighters. Martin Luther King, Jr., meet Taras Shevchenko.

They lived at different times, and worlds apart. King was a preacher and a civil rights activist in America in the 20th century. Shevchenko was an artist and poet from the Ukrainian regions of what was then the Russian empire, ruled heavy-handedly by the Tsars in the mid-nineteenth century.

Their belief in freedom connects them across the ages, across time and place. Both fought against human bondage and both suffered and died for their beliefs.

Martin Luther King had a dream, and he gave voice to it with the passion and cadence of the great orator and consummate leader that he was. "I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood....I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal.'"

King reminded us of our ideals. He held us to them. He died before his dream was realized, murdered in cold blood on a gray day in Memphis. He had foretold as much, but we had hoped to get to the "promised land" with him. Today we hope he is happy with the progress we've made.

Shevchenko died in Russia on the eve of the American Civil War, in March 1861. He died the day after his 47th birthday, worn down by exile and jail, and seven days before the Russian government announced the Emancipation of the Serfs. The "heavy chains " of slavery were being broken around the world.

Shevchenko, too, was ahead of his time. He dreamed of creating a federation of independent but united Slavic states--a United States of Russia, a dream that never did happen the way he hoped it would. I never knew that such an idea had floated around in 19th-century Russia. What a different world it would have been if this dream had become a reality.

Shevchenko was an outspoken Ukrainian nationalist, drawing and painting its landscapes and writing about the land and cultures in a Ukrainian dialect. Today he is considered the founder of modern Ukrainian language and literature. There are monuments to his memory all over Ukraine, including here in Starobilsk (photo above), and indeed all over the world, including one in Washington, DC. Shevchenko, like King, belongs to the ages.

In the poem "Testament," written before his death, Schevchenko shared his dreams. He wanted to be buried in his beloved Ukraine.
When I am dead, bury me
In my beloved Ukraine,
My tomb upon a grave mound high
Amid the spreading plain,
So that the fields, the boundless steppes,
The Dnieper's plunging shore
My eyes could see, my ears could hear
the mighty river roar.
Oh bury me, then rise ye up
And break your heavy chains,
And water with the tyrants' blood
The freedom you have gained.
And in the great new family,
The family of the free,
With softly spoken, kindly word
Remember also me.

We remember Shevchenko with gratitude. He was first buried in Saint Petersburg, Russia, but fulfilling his wishes in this poem, his friends arranged to transfer his body to his native land. Shevchenko is now buried on Chernecha Hill by the Dnieper River near Kaniv. The tall mound built over his grave stands as a tribute to the freedom fighter and Ukrainian nationalist who, like Martin Luther King, had a dream: "To join the great new family, the family of the free."

January English Club: It's a Small World

With library director Iryna Andreevna in center, to right, and new PCV Stacie, center, below right

This blog is dedicated to the artistic creativity of Michael Jackson and his pathbreaking album, "We are the World."

The Starobilsk Library English Club got off to a good start in 2010, it's 2nd year. We chose monthly themes, welcomed new people, and discussed the January theme of "travel," including my trip to Istanbul and members' visits to Egypt, Paris, Prague and other places.

Anton's new book of poetry, "Almost Twins," was just published, and after much applause and warm congratulations, Anton read from his new collection at our 10 January meeting. Anton is also working with the Library on its Starobilsk Heritage Calender 2011, part of the larger Internet Center project. He will be contributing a poem a month to add to the 12 photos of Starobilsk's historic buildings that a special committee will select for the calendar.

I also introduced Iryna, the director of the Library, who attended for the first time, and the new PCV in town, Stacie. Stacie is a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) volunteer at School #3, one of my favorite schools. It has a great vice-principal, Galina, and great English teachers. Many of its students attend the English club.

Stacie is a graduate of Ohio State University with a BA degree in Anthropology and Russian language. She is from Columbus, Ohio, not far from my children and grandchildren, who live in Toledo, Ohio.

It's a small world, as I say to the English Club often. We look at maps and see great distances, but really, the global village we share is not that big. While many differences exist among countries, we are all connected, I tell them, and as people we have more that unites us than divides us.

As Michael Jackson and other fantastic artists sang in 1985, 25 years ago on 28 January, "We are the World!" That message still resonates. It's a joy to celebrate the 25th anniversary of that event, and to remember the great talent of Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, and the dozens of artists who made it happen.

Now it's onto February with the Starobilsk English Club. Our new theme is "LOVE." It's a small world, and that's probably the greatest connector of all!