Food!

Fresh from the garden, many wonderful meals with friends, with loving attention to detail and great generosity; Luba's Easter bread and colored eggs; 12-dish Christmas eve dinners; growing , preparing, and celebrating food.

Well, I have gained about 10 pounds since being back in the States. What’s going on? It must have something to do with the American vs the Ukrainian diet.

In Ukraine, a meal starts with a bowl of soup, often borscht, the tomato,chicken or meat-based vegetable, potato and cabbage soup, sometimes made with beets, sometimes not. There’s a green variety of Borscht, too. I also like the chicken soup, strong chicken stock and lots of fresh vegetables with potatoes or noodles. After soup comes a helping of meat, a beef patty, fried liver or pork, a piece of chicken, served with potatos fixed in a variety of ways (boiled, mashed, fried). Other times we have vareneky (dumplings) or perogies (a kind of ravioli), a little fish, or stuffed peppers, which I love, especially Luba's. Valya and Nicolai make homemade chicken kielbasa (sausage), the best I ever had.

Accompanying this course, always, is a salad of some kind, picked fresh from the garden most of the year--tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, dill, garlic, peppers, eggplant, squash, carrots, and lovingly preserved mushrooms or pickles. Fresh-baked bread is a staple. The food is not overly spicey but tasty. All natural. My host moms, Valya in Chernigov, Luba and Natalia in Starobelsk, pride themselves on their fresh and natural cooking. Meals are nutritious and delicious. After dinner, a cup of tea, sometimes with dessert, cookies or cake (tort).

There are special holiday meals, too. On Christmas eve (рождественский вечер),which in Ukraine is 6 January, a beautifully set table (the best china and glasses come out of the cabinet)is filled with twelve dishes, representing the 12 apostles, and also 12 months of the year, for the more secular. The 12 dishes include the best variety of salads ever, special plates of pickled fruits, mushrooms, and eggplant; carrot salad, crab and corn salad (a favorite), beet salad, sausages and cheeses. At Easter there is special Paska bread (паска хлеб)and colored, often intricately decorated, eggs, some to fill an Easter basket to take to church to be blessed by the priest. Sumptuous and bountiful meals mark parties, birthdays, anniversaries, local and national holidays (and there are many). Of course there are grand and frequent toasts, with vodka or cognac, sometimes wine, but always with lots of food, gusto, and laughs. I’m not a great cook, but I had the best meals in Ukraine. That's probably because I hardly ever cooked, truth be told. And we rarely if ever went to restaurants in Starobelsk

What am I eating here? I’m having hamburgers and french fries (trying to limit the latter). I’m eating prepared foods, sandwiches and frozen meals, a bit heavy on beef dishes, maybe because I didn’t have a lot in Ukraine, some but not a lot. I think the portions are larger. Not good. In the morning, bagels and a bowl of cereal go down with two to three cups of coffee, with lots of sugar and milk. I’m eating more carbs, overall. In Ukraine, breakfast is usually whatever is left over from supper the night before, a little meat, vegetables, bread. I even got used to having liver in the morning. And no harm done. Lots of good restaurants in DC, too, and I'm taking advantage of them.

Okay, I see it now. Я панимаю. I understand. I ate more balanced meals in Ukraine, more natural, and healthier portions overall, than I am eating here in the States. It didn’t take long to fall back into old habits. No fresh vegetables from the garden, or from the storage cellar prepared for the winter months, or from street vendors, roadside stands, or the ever-lively bazaar, where you could always buy fresh produce from other people’s gardens.

In Ukraine you could buy produce from lots of small stores and shops, too, or the new “supermarkets” that are opening everywhere, but they are not as loaded as our giant foodstores. The selections are much smaller. Stores here are overstocked with pricey canned, frozen or preserved foods that have few nutrients but lots of calories. And there are so many choices. I was overwhelmed, when I first got back, at the many kinds of cereal to choose from; I must have spent 20 minutes just starring at the different boxes, all offering heart health and good nutrition. It was confusing, so I finally just went for the corn flakes.

When I get settled into my new home in Sylvania, Ohio, I’m going to have to pay more attention to what I am eating. This waiting around for appointments, going back and forth to Peace Corps headquarters, and seeing friends is wonderful, but it is leaving me too much free time to snack. How easy to get off balance. Things I got used to in Ukraine, living for two years with wonderful gardeners and cooks besides, are no longer an option, unless I live on a farm. I am going to have to think about my diet again. It’s my first lesson in post-Peace Corps living.

Cheer up, Ukraine. Spring is on the way!

The greening and flowering of Washington continues in spite

of colder weather we've had recently. I love the cherry blossoms and pansies, and I was thrilled to spot some pink camellias next to a downtown office building.

Cheer up, Ukraine. Don't despair. Spring is forcing its way into Washington, and it will do the same in Ukraine. It’s been cool here for a few days, too, down to the 30s, but that hasn’t stopped the greening and flowering of trees and bushes. Nor has sleet and snow. Yes, we had a little snow. Howard, Don and I walked to breakfast Saturday morning wrapped up in wool hats, gloves and scarves. Still the flowers are blooming. I thought it was warmth that brought out the flowers. But I think it’s as much longer days as warmer days. The cool weather has slowed things down a bit, but the process is inexorable: it's like watching a tree blooming in slow motion. Once spring starts, it doesn’t stop. What a wonderful lesson from nature in persistence!

This is to reassure my friends in Ukraine, where winter lingers. "I've had it with winter," a PCV friend admitted. "It's gloomy," said another. "Our winter too long this year," Vera emailed me. But really, Spring IS on the way. As soon as the daffodils and forsythia and apricot trees start to bloom in Starobelsk, it won’t stop there. Luba, Valya, Tonya and Natalia will be able to get back to their gardens. I know they can't wait. Nothing brings Luba more pleasure. So hang in there Ukraine. Spring comes to all of us; rebirth is insistent, persistent, and universal. All we have to do is wait.

So I offer this hope, a shorter version, in Russian as well!

Весна заставляет свой путь в Вашингтон. Она былапрохладной в течение нескольких дней, вплоть до 30-х годов, но это не остановило озеленение и цветение деревьев и кустарников. Я думал, что это тепло, чтовывел цветы. Но я думаю, что это как гораздо большедней, как теплые дни. прохладная погода замедлилвещи вниз немного, но это сделано весной лучше вкаком-то смысле. Как смотреть дерево расцветает взамедленном движении. Как только начинается весна, это не останавливает. Этозамечательный урок упорства. Это олжно успокоитьмоих друзей в Украине, где зима задерживается. Веснауже в пути. Как только нарциссы и Форсития иабрикосовые деревья начинают цвести, она не будетостанавливаться на достигнутом. Люба, Валя, Тоня иНаталья смогут вернуться в свои сады. Слава дней!Весна наступает для всех нас. Возрождение не толькоуниверсальным, настойчивый, настойчивый. Все, что нам нужно сделать, это ждать.

Longevity and Doubt

Flickr photos right.

Elizabeth Taylor just died, at 79 years of age. Now we learn that Geraldine Ferraro, Walter Mondale's vice-presidential running mate in 1984, died. I grew up with Liz Taylor, and Geraldine Ferraro was a favorite politician and pioneer, so these feel like personal losses. I feel this way about every artist, author and famous person that marked and enriched my life. I felt sad when Frank Sinatra died, and Paul Newman; when historians John Hope Franklin and Howard Zinn died; and Walter Conkrite and Lena Horne.

They were among the great signposts of an era, an integral part of the cultural fabric of my life. Thread by thread, the cultural fabric is unraveling.

My sister Andy and I talk about it; this must be one of the hard things about a long life . Everyone starts leaving. The signposts go down. The cultural markings are obliterated. The icons are dismantled.The familiar is replaced by the new and the strange.

Howard, Don and I talked about it at breakfast this morning. "When you are born, you are doomed," Howard said graphically, "to an inevitable ending." Don told of a great aunt, his grandmother's sister, who lived to 95 until a fall sent her to a nursing home, and to her inevitable end. She outlived everyone.

So has our Aunt Loretta, my mother’s sister, who at 94 is doing remarkably well 'for her age.' She still smokes, but what the heck, God love her. She's outlived everyone in our family but her cousin Bill in Columbus, including her two children, our cousins Maria and Skip, and her sister, our beloved mom. It’s been tragic, and yet she is resilient, and stubborn. I think the latter helps as much as the former. But I wonder about longevity. I wonder about living in a world of shrinking relations and continual loss. There must be some way to come to terms with endings, but I find it hard. I’ve struggled with this dilemma with my brother’s death. "But, Fran, he died doing what he loved, on a hike with friends, and quickly. No lingering painful illness. He was spared a too-long life."

"A too-long life." That's what I'm wondering about. And the alternative, " a too-short life." And on top of that, an afterlife. Maybe this is why I'm thinking about volunteering with Hospice when I get up North, although this, too, is up in the air, so to speak.

Actually, I’m finding I have less faith in some afterlife, or eternal life of the soul, than I thought. I’m thinking endings are endings, not beginnings. Howard and Don think so too. I know Loren would argue with us about this. On the other hand, maybe human beings need this belief in an afterlife of some kind to console the soul in the face of death. Maybe this faith that cushions endings and losses is worth hanging onto, whether you believe in it or not, whether you meet the angel of death, the grim reaper, at 75 or 95 years of age. Maybe. Who knows? Who among the dead can enlighten us? Goodbye Liz and Geraldine. Hello doubt.

Peace Corps Resource Center

Right: Rita and Amy, African artifacts at PC Resource Center, magnolia tree on the way; below and above, DC rooftops

I spent the afternoon at the Peace Corps Resource Center (PCRC) in Rosslyn, VA today. It’s a good sized office with a room full of computers, printers, scanners, fax and phones. It has a library of useful brochures and information. Amy, a RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer) who served in Azerbajan, greeted my PCV Ukraine friend Rita and me. We had a little tour, noticed the great wall posters and photos and displays of artifacts, mostly from Africa, and spent time at the computers.

The Peace Corps offers many benefits to RPCVs, and the Resource Center is there to help. These include employment counseling and job placement support ; noncompetitive eligibility for government jobs; extended health benefits for 18 months after service; and terrific education and graduate school opportunities, especially great for young volunteers, most of whom are recent college graduates or just a few years out of college.

Graduate school opportunities are fantastic. Scholarships, academic credits and stipends are available from PC “partners.” PC has more than 100 partnerships with schools from Boston U to Tulane to Northern Arizona University. These are unique opportunities to combine the experience of PC service with a graduate degree. I know several volunteers from my group 36 in Ukraine who plan to take advantage of these programs.

Getting to Rosslyn and back to Georgetown was half the pleasure. It was a rainy day, in the 50s, not warm, but many trees are in full bloom, the white and pink cherry trees and the magnificent magnolia trees pretty against a gray sky. We also saw lots of full forsythia bushes at their peak. Clouds of yellow in some places. I love the way spring moves from yellow and pink to red and purple, from daffodils and cherry blossoms to brighty tulips and iris. I can see why artists of all ages and places found the season irresistible, took out their brushes, and filled their canvases.

I also discovered it’s easy to take the new “Connector” buses from Georgetown to Rosslyn, easier, faster, and cheaper than a regular bus or the metro. So that was a good experience, too. Along the way I stopped to see my friend Esther at the Federation of State Humanities Councils, because it turned out the office was just down the street from the PC Resource Center. The degrees of separation between people around the globe seems to get smaller and smaller.

It’s a pink and yellow world in the nation's capital now, which makes these explorations a pleasure. It's the little things in life that matter sometimes. Not that our global anxieties are far from our thoughts, but that the beauty that surrounds us, and the little adventures we take, keep our spirits up.

Peace Cranes and Peace Elusive

Below photo of English Club: "Peace Cranes," colonel.korn flickr photostream.

We made peace cranes at the English Club once to thank Judy’s class in Virginia for contributing to a Peace Corps Partnership Grant that helped the Starobelsk Library build it’s first English books collection. My Peace Corps service is ending, but those books will last forever, a legacy made possible by American friends who care.

Now I’m thinking we need these peace cranes for the huge idea they symbolize: peace in the world. Dreamers have long tried to end wars, to find substitutes for war, to no avail. Perhaps there’s something about aggressive human nature that makes war unavoidable. Perhaps war is a prelude to peace, showing how worthless violence and killing are. But at what a cost? And what have we learned?

My brother Loren thought it had to do with patriarchy. Where strong men rule, where cultures worship them, make them heads of state, leaders, heroes and warriors, there also wars take place. Loren believed the dominance of patriarchy needed to be balanced with the presence of the goddess, with female spirituality. Without this balance, violence and war are inevitable. It’s looking that way now.

Moammar Gadhafi’s hold on power in Libya, long after the Lockerbee disaster, many UN resolutions, and a rebel uprising against his rule, is one of several contemporary examples of senseless ruthlessness and violence in the face of the people’s yearnings for self-determination. Bombing defenseless people in the streets? Killing innocent civilians? Unbelievable, yet he did it. Ruling with an iron fist and lining his own pockets with millions of dollars while the majority of people live in poverty? Yes, he is guilty, just like the former dictators in Egypt and Tunisia, all dictators we once supported in our long-established, woefully misguided foreign policy. Same with other dictators we support in Yemen, Bahrain, and even Saudi Arabia.

Should we be in Libya, a third war? Fact is we are in there, big time, hoping other western nations, and also the Arab League, in an unprecedented action, will support it, and take the lead. This sounds implausible, but who knows? It started with a UN resolution 1973, according to President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. It's about "stopping Gadhafi from killing his own people" we are hearing, over and over.

But what is the political, economic and social situation in Libya, the historical context? Who ARE the supporters of Gadhafi? Who are the rebels? Is it a tribal situation, or religious sectarianism, like in Iraq? Why is Libya different from Yemen and Bahrain, where the people are also exploding against their despots, and confronting brutal repression.

Regime change? No-fly zone? US cruise missiles hitting key cities and sites along the Libyan coast? Is this international intervention? What mission are these tactics supporting? Where will this lead? Where will it end? What is our appropriate role?

Loren would say we need some balancing force to emerge. But what might that be? Without Loren's take on this, I can only imagine. I imagine the best hope is for a quick end to this new war, which for the US should be neither an "odyssey" nor a "dawn"(an unfortunate and rather tortuous name for this supposedly quick operation that we will turn over to others soon).

I imagine some balance coming from a limited form of human intervention and a large form of divine intervention, mostly the later. I imagine the rebels getting organized to take over their own country. I imagine Gadhafi fleeing, soon, into dictator purgatory, pursued by over 1,000 peace cranes.

For a story about the origins of peace cranes see : http://www.buddhistcouncil.org/bodhitree/Books/Story_of_the_Peace_Crane.pdf

For a Buddhist peace site, The Bodhi Tree: http://www.buddhistcouncil.org/bodhitree/Introduction.htm#_top

A robin and the moon

Sunday, 19 March 2011

I saw my first robin of the season today as I walked through the park between Georgetown and Dupont Circle. The flowering trees and bushes are ahead of the robin sighting, but I almost jumped with glee. I wanted to call Loren to tell him about it, then remembered, dejectedly, that Loren is not here, not on earth to enjoy this change of seasons, this annual rebirth.

I long to hear his voice, to have him tell me about spring in Tallahassee, which he and our sister Andy shared and loved. At the very first sign of spring, Andy heads straight to her garden. Loren went straight to a nature trail to hike. I see him hiking now, in the grassy meadows, along the Aucilla river, at St. Marks’ Wildlife Refuge, with friends from the Tallahassee Trails Association.

On the way home from Dupont Circle that evening I saw the full moon shining brilliantly over stately Victorian buildings. I stood still for a long time. The silence of the moon. I thought it was shining brighter than usual, closer than usual, as bright and close as the lights lining the streets. It was, indeed, a "supermoon" I learned later on a weather report.

If it's a supermoon Loren must see it too, I thought, I hoped, although my hope is stronger than my faith. The brightness of this moon must touch his soul, somehow. I want to believe this, with all my heart. I want to believe that the lightness of his being was reflected in the light of this full moon.

Is the world unraveling?

Saturday afternoon, 19 March, a bright spring day: Libya has knocked Japan right out of the news. The U.S. fired over 100 cruise missiles on Libyan targets, the headlines scream. I’m not even sure what this means. Doesn’t this place us right in the heart of a war? Where is the so-called “broad international coalition”? And if Gadhafi is digging in his heels, doesn’t this mean we are in for a prolonged conflict in northern Africa, kind of how we got into Iraq, going after Saddam Hussein, 8 years ago?

Underneath this horrendous news ran this banner: Japanese radiation spreading, reaching California. Meanwhile, Japan is still reeling from the effects of the massive earthquake and tsunami, thousands killed, thousands still missing. A war and a disaster. Unbearable catastrophe.

Most of us are far away from the sound and fury of these natural and man-made disasters. Here on a bright sunny spring day in the nation’s capital, life seems serene, benign. It’s hard to imagine the depth and extent of the crises and the human suffering.

The bad news is so bad I don’t know how the journalists are deciding which is more newsworthy. It doesn’t look like any of these events, neither the spread of nuclear radiation nor the spread of war, will end soon. They will linger in reality and in the news for a long time. Good lord, what next?

Taking in the "Now," Again

Photos: A Slavsky Road (Carpathian mountains, Ukraine); an Iris in Starobelsk.

The One for Whom You Create
Poets, lose your pens,
Painters, toss your brushes
in the sea,
Musicians, give your instruments
away,
then go for a long walk.

When you're done,
keep walking,
notice the beauty all around you.
Don't try to remember
a single thing,
breathe.

This holy moment is your poetry,
your art, your song.
Do not concern yourself with giving it form.

From Mitch Ditkoff’s Blog, Heart of the Matter

This is a nice poem, found by accident on a blog called Heart of the Matter. Sounds like Deepak Chopra or Eckhart Tolle. As usual I struggle with the concept. I have some qualms about the message of this poem. I think this is taking the “NOW” to the extreme. Sure we breathe and take in the moment. We go for long walks and notice the beauty around us. We are grateful for the moment.

But do we want to breathe in a world without poetry, music, art? I have experienced many “a holy moment” in reading the poetry of Mary Oliver, listening to Bach or the Beatles, admiring the paintings of Frieda Kahlo, Georgia O’Keefe, Picasso, the sculpture of David Smith. I, for one, am glad that these artists and every artist on earth in all times and places have concerned themselves “with giving it form.”

Okay, I might be off base here. I’m open to suggestions. I welcome your insights. But now I will take a long walk, from Georgetown to the National Cathedral, and breath in the moment.

PCVs in DC: Kindred Spirits

Top collage: Peace Corps Headquarters; cherry blossoms; Emily relaxing in our Georgetown suite. Below: Georgetown scenes and PCVs Amy, Claire, Brent, Ina and Emily at dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant.

I am adjusting to being in DC rather than in Ukraine. First I felt torn from my site, lonely for Starobelsk. I missed my friends. I still miss my friends. I even miss being surrounded by the Russian language.

But Washington is my old hometown. I’m strolling familiar streets and sites, seeing some friends, reconnecting with a place that was home for almost 20 years.

It’s been interesting going back and forth to Peace Corps headquarters at 22nd and L, NW, from Georgetown to downtown. It's a rather nondescript, typical DC office building. It’s architecture is plain compared to PC headquarters in Ukraine, but serviceable, lots of offices with serious government workers, and tons of security just to get in. There have been lots of appointments at the office and also at nearby doctor’s offices. I’m lucky. My tests have gone okay and show no serious issues, no cancer. I’m very fortunate.

It’s also been nice to share a room at the Georgetown Suites with another PCV. Emily is a TEFL volunteer in Southeastern China. She’s one of 200 English teachers there, all concentrated in Eastern China. She’s really here for no good reason and just trying to get back to Hong Guang, which is near Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. We know it as Sechuan, and for its spicy cuisine. Chengdu was the capital of China 2000 years ago; the site of a technological miracle that diverted a river to irrigate the plains in 800 AD (which the Communist tried but could not duplicate) and, more recently, in 2008, near the site of the devastating earthquake that decimated an elementary school and killed thousands.

The University where Emily teaches was established because Chairman Mao stood on the site, spotted a tractor in a field, and announced there should be a university there to build tractors. So the school went up. Apparently Mao walked about China like this, seeing things, making pronouncements, and then seeing them come to life. This was when Mao was considered a “spiritual leader," and what he said was law. There is no “spiritual leader” in China today, Emily says, just power grabs between civilian and military leaders, a situation that complicates internal stability and international relations. Emily thinks China’s political and economic situation is precarious and that some kind of crisis is looming. This is somewhat contrary to what we hear and read about China rising, so I was fascinated by this “insider’s” view.

When I asked Emily what value the Chinese prized the most, she said “harmony.” Sounded nice. ”But not how we think of it,” she added quickly. “It has more to do with maintaining the status quo, not rocking the boat, than maintaining harmonious relations among different peoples. In fact they value ‘harmony’ at the expense of human relations, the latter not a priority at all,” she believes. Harmony as a form of oppression, she said. Interesting. The ying and yang of harmony, although Emily might take issue with this, too.

There are other volunteers here in DC, for various medical issues, none serious it seems. Claire is a Youth Development volunteer working with special needs kids in Peru. After PC she wants to get a PhD in psychology and work with people with autism. Ina is a volunteer in Antiqua, lives on the beach, speaks English. We tease her about it: it’s a hardship post, but someone’s got to do it. Amy is in Hondurus and Brent in Armenia. We’re all over the map and we enjoyed sharing stories, mostly hilarious, over dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant.

PCVs are a pretty laid back bunch, mostly young (unless it’s a big PCV country like Ukraine), take things in stride, funny and somewhat irreverent. They have interesting takes on the countries they serve and on their own country. They are open, tolerant, and have wide-ranging interests.

So the Peace Corps experience continues in new and different ways. Once a PCV, always a PCV. It’s a fascinating community of kindred spirits, no matter where you are.

Springtime Connections

l Collage featuring Taras Shevchenko statue and bouquet of flowers; Annex of Phillips Collection; Suzanne and me in front of Ghandi statue.

Washington is turning green. Well, it IS St. Patrick's Day. We're all Irish today, and it feels right! Every bar in DC is celebrating. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Spring is coming to Washington, so I imagine it unfolding in Ukraine. The trees are budding, the bushes leafing, the forsythia popping, the daffodils blooming, the cherry blossoms are blushing pink. I see what is here and now, and I think Ukraine. It will be like this for the rest of my life, I think, maybe especially in Spring, so welcome after a long hard winter. It was exciting to see the daffodils along Panfelova and the paths into town,the apricot trees in Luba’s yard, the tulips around the university, the Kaston (chestnut trees) in Lenin park, the iris and lilacs everywhere, in profusion. A palette of yellow, purples, lavender, and pink.

On Saturday I walked to the Philips Collection, a favorite art museum, to meet my friend Suzanne, enjoying the fresh air, savoring Spring. We toured the museum, saw an exhibit of works by David Smith, a favorite sculptor, and posed in front of the statue of Mahatma Gandhi across the street. We had lunch and talked politics, just like old times.

On my way back to the hotel I saw another beautiful statue and was moved by some unknown energy to take a closer look. There on the corner of P Street and Massachusetts NW stood Taras Shevchenko, the Ukrainian poet! That elegant statue has always been there, but this is the first time I really saw it, the first time it spoke to me. A love of everything Ukraine enveloped me, like it did Shevchenko, and I felt a love for that country that has been my home for two years. A fresh bouquet of flowers adorned the base of the statue, a gift from the Embassy of Ukraine. Shevchenko looked approvingly at the blue and yellow bouquet that symbolized Ukrainian culture and history, the colors of the Ukrainian flag.

Springtime Washington. Springtime Ukraine. The connection’s never been so strong, so beautiful!

"An endless scream passing through nature"

The cherry blossoms are weeping. Japan is suffering one of the worst natural disasters of modern times, a huge earthquake that triggered a mind-bending tsunami that has destroyed northern coastal cities such as Sendai, a once-lovely city of one million, considered Japan's "greenest" city (photo montage, below right, Wikipedia). Nature’s fury unleashed. We are powerless in the face of it. The destruction is unimaginable. It's like watching the twin towers crumble after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. I know it's not the same, but I feel that same sense of helplessness and horror.

It's how the painter Edvard Munch felt when he witnessed a blood-red sunset in Norway caused by the ultra-massive explosion of Indonesia's Krakatoa Volcano and a resultant devastating tsuanmi that totally wiped out this far-away island in 1883. This natural disaster was the source of his famous painting, "The Scream." I never knew this before, that a monster disaster, an explosion heard and seen round the world over 100 years ago, inspired this painting. “Suddenly the sky turned blood red,” Munch recalled. “I stood there shaking with fear and felt an endless scream passing through nature” (quoted in Wikipedia).

I was glued to the TV for several hours, then turned it off. Did I detect a hint of glee in the reporters’ coverage, an earth-shattering event that was good for the news. Somehow I think the news stations like these disasters. It brings millions to the tube. It goes on for days and days. Breaking news. Breaking news. Disaster. Death. Destruction.

Maybe I am being overly sensitive. Afterall, we do want to know what’s happening. But 24/7 for days on end? This is what I am not sure about. Perhaps the best thing is that the overkill news coverage mobilizes disaster relief. Japan helped Louisiana after Katrina, and joined other nations in helping Haiti after the earthquake, and now these nations will help Japan, along with humanitarian organizations and caring individuals hearing the horrifying news.

“An endlress scream passing through nature,” a horrific natural disaster made worse by nuclear meltdowns and a rising death toll. Another Chernobyl, another Hiroshima and Nakasake, loom. Massive radiation contamination. An unending crisis, one on top of the other. We pray for Japan, for the people lost, for the survivors of these families who grieve surrounded by nothing but rubble, destruction, a flooded wasteland, and now nuclear fallout. Some things are beyond understanding. The cherry blossoms are weeping.

Musings 3: Turnings

Turning points, flickr photo.

I'm having another turning in my life. I turn 71 today. Amazing grace! Last year I turned 70 in Toledo, Ohio, when I was visiting my family to celebrate the turning from one decade to the next. The English Club had a surprise 70th birthday party for me when I got back to Starobelsk (photo, below right). I thought I’d be turning 71 in Starobelsk, too, but it didn’t happen that way. A turning, and I am in Washington, DC.

It seems like everything turns. The seasons turn. Our lives turn, like the old soap opera, “As the World Turns.” Maybe that program’s still turning, I’m not sure because I don’t watch TV much and never during the day. But the world is definitely turning, on its axis, around the sun. The sun has crossed the equator, and winter is turning to Spring in the Northern hemisphere. The moon is turning closer to the earth, closer than it's been in decades, and we will have a huge full moon on 19 March. I'll be watching it with Loren, and all those I love all over the world.

And so we are turning corners in our lives, turning the pages, turning from one chapter to another.

Now comes another turning. My Peace Corps service in Ukraine is nearing an end, whether here in the States or there. I am also turning another chapter altogether in my decision to move from Florida to Toledo after Peace Corps. I had no idea this would happen when I left St. Petersburg. Some turning, and I will be re-turning to the place where I raised a family, and where my family still lives.

Sometimes these turnings and changes are great and sometimes they feel terrible, I remarked to a PCV friend. “Yeah, but if we aren’t turning and changing, we aren’t alive,” the friend said smartly. Looks like I will have more turnings ahead. It’s inevitable. It’s how we deal with them that matters, as the sages tell us. It reminds me once again of the Byrds' great rendition of the great Pete Seeger song based on one of my favorite verses from Ecclesiastics:

To everything (turn, turn, turn),
There is a season (turn, turn, turn).
And a time for every purpose under Heaven.

Leo Marks and Beyond

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours.

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.
By Leo Marks

I first learned of Leo Marks when Chelsea Clinton and her husband chose this poem as part of their wedding ceremony. It contains lovely sentiments, which can be interpreted in different ways; it touches a deep chord. My interpretation is that “my life and my love are for those I love, forever.”

It’s a lovely poem for a wedding, but the strange thing is that it is also a nice poem for a funeral. A wedding and a funeral. The beginning of a new life and the end of life. It seems odd. But once I learned a little more about Leo Marks, maybe it’s not so odd after all.

Leo Marks was a cryptologist, someone who creates and breaks secret codes. He was the son of an antiquarian bookseller in London, according to my favorite source for this kind of information, Wikipedia. He was first introduced to cryptography when his father gave him a copy of Edgar Allan Poe's story, "The Gold Bug." This is one of Poe’s most bizarre short stories, as I remember it, but I can see why a budding young cryptologist would find it fascinating. Young Marks demonstrated his skill at code breaking by deciphering his father's secret price codes. What a shock that must have been! It was the beginning of a long and brilliant career.

His father, Benjamin Marks, was joint owner of the Marks & Co bookshop at 84 Charing Cross Road, which achieved international fame with the 1970 book of that title by New York writer Helene Hanff and the later plays and movie. I loved the movie. A wonderful story, literary and enchanting, of unrequited love.

As a teenager, Leo Marks earned pocket money by setting the notoriously difficult London Times cryptic crossword. He became a cryptographer during WWII, a story he tells in his autobiography, "Between Silk and Cyanide," a behind-the-scenes look at the agents and policymakers of Winston Churchill’s secret service agencies. I’ve put the book on my ever-growing reading list.

According to reviews of the autobiography, Marks had no trouble breaking codes, but he could not break through the red tape and competition among different intelligence agencies, the Services Research Bureau or SOE among them, to get them to adopt a new system of codes that he thought would save lives. Marks said he was not a soldier or an agent, but just someone trying to keep them alive. He was considered brilliant at his work and sent many agents into enemy lines in occupied Europe armed with secret codes and life-saving techniques. His book is about his valiant but unsuccessful struggle for a new system of codes (“silk codes”).

But the old system prevailed, and interestingly it was based on encoding poems, classical and contemporary, Marks own poems among them. What a fascinating subject this turned out to be. So Leo Marks wrote poems encoded with secret messages and secret knowledge that he hoped would save the lives of soldiers and secret agents working against Hitler.

Well, then, what does Leo Marks’ poem, “The Life that I have,” mean? What secrets are encoded in it? Intriguing! But we’ll probably never know.

It's amazing what you find out when you are exploring something of interest and branch out from there into new and unknown territory in the world of knowledge. It’s like what Mary Oliver said about living your life in “Wild Geese:’
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Life calls to you “like the wild geese, harsh and exciting.” I think Leo Marks would have liked this particular poem. And maybe could have used it to encode messages that would save lives.

Musings 2: Layers of Experience: Coming Full Circle

The awesome layers of rock, from different ages and eons, that make up the majestic Grand Canyon, are like the layers of experience that compose our lives.

Our lives are layers of experiences, one on top of the other, sometimes running parallel to each other, sometimes blending together. Being a Peace Corps Volunteer has created another layer. For someone in her 7th decade, that's a lot of layering. It's gets down to that AARP adage (attributed to Abraham Lincoln) about "adding life to your years, not years to your life."

My Peace Corps adventure comes on top of many other layers: growing up in Rochester, NY; going to Wheaton college near Boston; attending graduate school in Madison, Wisconsin; children and family life in Toledo; humanities work in Washington, DC and Florida; teaching American history and women’s history at the University of Toledo and at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida.

These layers of experience sometimes seemed connected, sometimes disconnected, even disjointed. They brought joy and sorrow, achievements and mistakes, and often a sense of contribution to community, like my teaching, civil rights, and family violence prevention work in Ohio and, in DC, serving as an elected Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner for my Dupont Circle neighborhood.

Now I am completing my Peace Corps service, and I will be moving back to Toledo, close to my children and grandchildren for the first time in 26 years. I never thought I’d return to Toledo. When I was away, returning seemed a remote possibility. It felt like going backwards. Now it feels right. I have come full circle: I will add another layer of experience on top of the others, with a renewed sense of purpose and meaning. I will return home, enriched by my Peace Corps experience.

Musings 1: Deus ex Machina

It was hard being yanked out of my site so quickly, and probably unnecessarily. These appointments in DC could have waited two months. I’m working on my attitude to try to turn this lemon into lemonade. I’m having trouble with this. My dear colleagues voted me the "Toughest PCV" in group 36, a special honor. But this has been one of the toughest changes yet. I only had two months to go. I could have prepared the English Club and other projects for my leaving, had a smoother transition to a new PCV, done some goal setting and planning for the future. Instead I was taken out in one fell swoop, like a deus ex machina on a theater stage. But this is not theater; it's real life. And that's what feels so bad.

The only good side to all this is that my daughter Elissa was here in DC and between appointments we explored Washington, a really great walking and touring city. On Saturday we spent several hours at the National Museum of the American Indian, an absolutely stunning museum, from its brilliant architecture to its fine exhibitions. It's a testiment to the persistence of cultures and the human spirit in the face of horrendous oppression and adversity. The American Indians, our first people, are still with us, working hard to preserve their cultures into the future, for all time. It's a lesson for the present.

Elissa has returned to Toledo and I remain here in DC, but my heart is in Starobelsk. I am not sure what’s coming next. More tests, more doctors' appointments, and then what? I am working on my attitude. I didn’t have to be booted out of Ukraine, as it were, but now I think it would be painful to return and have to go through all the goodbyes again. So I am taking it one day at a time. I am a working PCV until 18 May, no matter what happens. I was assured of this before I left Ukraine. Once a PCV always a PCV. That is the only comfort right now.

Happy 50th Birthday, Peace Corps!

Peace Corps' 50th anniversary logo. Below, my daughter Elissa next to a Kennedy poster in the lobby of Peace Corps Headquarters, Washington, DC.


“Peace requires the simple but powerful recognition that what we have in common as human beings is more important and crucial than what divides us.” Sargent Shriver, first director of the Peace Corps, 1961-1966

I feel blessed to be a part of the Peace Corps as a volunteer in Ukraine. It’s hard to believe that its 50th anniversary is here. I remember when it started in 1961, in the happy halcyon days of the Kennedys. Over 200,000 Americans have served in 139 countries since then. Today there are 8600 volunteers in 77 countries, serving our country in the cause of peace from the bottom up.

The world has changed since 1961 and so has the Peace Corps, for some people not fast enough, for others at a good-enough pace given the difficult process of transitions. We contemporary PCVs are not as isolated as the early volunteers, who didn't have the internet and cell phones and the technology that keeps us connected. Current PCVs wonder how our predecessors, the pioneers, did it in those early days; we are lucky we can stay in touch with loved ones. Also, we are working on a host of different issues, from agricultural development to AIDS/HIV education, information technology, non-governmental organization development, human rights and environmental protection. We are in villages, towns and cities around the globe, "a legacy of service that has become a significant part of America’s history and positive image abroad" (http://www.peacecorps.gov/).

Here is a listing of some of the Peace Corps' newest programs and projects (http://www.nationalpeacecorpsassociation.0rg/):

HIV/AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean
The Peace Corps has intensified its role in the global effort to fight HIV/AIDS by training all Volunteers in Africa as educators and advocates of HIV/AIDS prevention and education. Regardless of their primary project, all Volunteers are being equipped to play a role in addressing the multiple health, social, and economic problems related to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Peace Corps programs in Botswana and Swaziland are devoted entirely to fighting the disease. In addition, efforts are expanding into the Caribbean, where more Volunteers are focusing efforts on combating HIV/AIDS.

Information Technology
Volunteers provide technical training and support to groups and organizations that want to make better use of information and communications technology. They introduce people to the computer as a tool to increase efficiency and communication and to "leap frog" stages of development. Volunteers teach basic computer literacy skills, (e.g. word-processing, spreadsheets, basic accounting software, Internet use, and webpage development) and they introduce host communities to e-commerce, distance learning, and geographic information systems.

Expanding Into New Countries- Africa Region
Since Ghana received the first Peace Corps Volunteers in 1961, more than 60,000 Americans have served in 46 African countries. The Peace Corps continues to enjoy strong cooperation and support from the people of Africa. At the end of fiscal year 2011, some 3,000 Volunteers and trainees will be on board, working in 25 countries. In 2003, the re-opening of the Chad, Botswana, and Swaziland programs poised the Africa region for substantial growth.

Europe, Mediterranean and Asia Region
More than 48,250 Volunteers have served in the Europe, Mediterranean, and Asia (EMA) region since 1961. EMA has well over 2,500 Volunteers and trainees working in 20 countries, most of which are undergoing rapid economic and social changes. Throughout the region, Volunteers work with governments, local organizations, and communities to provide needed technical expertise and promote cross-cultural understanding. Together, Volunteers and their counterparts work to address changing needs in agriculture, business, education, the environment, and health.

I would add to this description the work volunteers are doing in NIS countries, the Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union. Volunteers work in all areas and on all issues relevant to the transitioning economic and political conditions of these former Soviet republics. It is transformative work at the local level, step by step. It is about getting to know these countries and their cultures, and about them getting to know about America. Where there were enemies, there are now friendships. Where there was fear and hate, there is now acceptance and tolerance.

Inter-America and Pacific Region
Since 1961, more than 73,000 Volunteers have served in the Inter-America and Pacific (IAP) region, in more than 46 countries. Today, more than 3000 Volunteers work in 24 posts in all six of the agency’s sectors: agriculture, business development, education, the environment, health and HIV/AIDS, and youth. The Fiji program was re-opened in 2003 and a program in Mexico opened for the first time in 2004.

Celebrations of the 50th anniversary are now taking place worldwide. We are celebrating in Ukraine, joining PCVs all over the globe. We hope the spirit of the Peace Corps infuses international affairs and diplomacy at the highest levels in this fast-changing world, where the yearning for freedom, self-determination and peace are driving popular protests, people's revolutions, and drastic social change.

Check out www.peacecorps.gov or the National Peace Corps Association website for more information and ongoing updates on what's happening where. Below is a list of agency-supported commemorative efforts. This calendar will be updated continually as events are confirmed:

January 3, 2011:Worldwide launch of the agency's 50th Anniversary Year Commemoration efforts including release of a commemorative poster created exclusively by a prominent American artist.

March 1, 2011: Worldwide launch of inaugural "Peace Corps Month"

March 2–4, 2011:Director Aaron Williams and Chris Matthews at UCLA, panel presentation and a film screening.

March 5, 2011: Kennedy Service Awards Ceremony, Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, Mass.

March 17, 2011: National Archives and Records Administration panel discussion, Washington, D.C.

March 24, 2011: Director Williams will visit the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

April 2011: Congressional Community Event in Washington D.C.

May 18, 2011: Lillian Carter Awards Ceremony for Outstanding Senior RPCV, Carter Center in Atlanta, Ga.

June 30–July 11, 2011: Peace Corps will be a featured program at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall, Washington, D.C.

Summer 2011: Peace Corps will honor the departure of the first group of Volunteers to Ghana and Tanganyika (later called Tanzania) and passage of the historic congressional authorization of the Peace Corps in September 1961.

September 23, 2011: United States Institute of Peace panel discussion, Washington, D.C.

Goodbye, Ukraine

Me with Volodymir, Tonya, Luba and Natalia, Vera and Lyda, and collage with "Paka" party friends. including Tonya and Olga.

I’m in Washington, DC. I found out while on vacation in Prague that Peace Corps wanted to send me to Washington right away for more medical tests on some breast issues that came up on my Ukrainian mammogram. When I got to Slavsky in the beautiful Carpathian mountains for my Close of Service conference, I was confronted with the option of going directly to Kyiv to fly to the US, or leaving the conference after one day to return to Starobelsk to pack and say goodbye.

I am so close to the end of my Peace Corps service that the possibility of returning is slim. I pleaded with PC medical staff to let me stay for two more months, to no avail. I said a hasty goodbye to my PCV friends in group 36, the best group of volunteers ever, and took the 23-hour train across the country from the far west to the far east and then the 6-hour bus ride from Khargiv to Starobelsk to pack it up and say goodbye to friends. I was in a state of shock, I think, processing this fast turnaround, and I made the trip with a heavy heart.

So this is how I spent the past weekend in Starobelsk, my last days in Ukraine. It was a whirlwind of activity in a reluctant frame of mind. I went to the Library to say goodbye to my librarian friends and English Club members and later had a "Paka" Party at Natalia’s for some of my closest friends. We had a wonderful and moving last supper with Luba, my first host mom on Panfelova; Olga and Tonya, my fellow travelers and constant helpmates; Asya and Sasha, who helped me grieve for Loren and spread gentle good will; Lyda and Volodymir and of course the lovely Natalia who made me welcome in my second apartment on Kyrova. These were the people who took in a stranger and shared all they had. They made me a part of their families, their community, their lives. How blessed I am.

I received many special toasts. It was hard to hold back the tears in the face of so many compliments, the sharing of so many great memories. I got some lovely presents, but best of all were the heartfelt good wishes. I have never felt so embraced, so comforted, so complimented.

The only dear friend who was not at the dinner was Natalia the university English teacher, my tutor, my interpretor, my closest confidante, without whom I could not have accomplished as much as I did. Instead she and her husband Vasyl, and their sons Artur and Artyom, offered to drive me to Lugansk to catch the train to Kyiv. It spared me a lonely bus ride, and it was a time for Natalia and me to reminisce and share. She said she didn’t come to the dinner because she was too sad at my leaving. I changed her life, she said. I taught her to follow her dreams. I changed Starobelsk, and everyone I crossed paths with. I made her community richer and the lives of the people more hopeful. I made her more hopeful, she said. She wants one day to come to America on a temporary Visa to work and live for a while, to have a new adventure, “like you, Fran. I want to be like you.” Good god, what did I ever do to deserve such kindess and generosity of spirit?

So this is part of the Peace Corps experience too. Beginnings and endings. My beloved brother Loren used to remind me that ‘there are no ends in nature, only beginnings.” I hope so. Still, it was hard to say good bye, paka, dosvedanya dear friends, dear Starobelsk, dear Ukraine. I received so much more than I could ever give. I will always remember. Я всегда буду помнить.