Молочные реки, кисельные берега

Mark Yankov learns to some
potato skillz at culinary club.

The Russian saying "rivers of milk, banks of kisel" is used when  everything in life is going great, which is true of my first month of working here at Lutugino's School #1. I have been granted classroom independence for 9 of my 18 classes, which gives me the freedom to teach as I see fit. Also, the classes I teach alone are comprised of a filtered group of only the most motivated students, so we really have a lot of potential for improvement over the course of this next year. I'm getting along well with teachers, staff, and neighbors, and I even have a regular cashier at the grocery store and egg lady at the bazaar with whom I routinely converse. I generally feel good about the Russian progress I've been making, and I feel that my tutor is effective. I've started a club for 11th grade boys who want to learn how to cook (a skill which this country seems to think men don't need) and I'm planning to attend a conference on methodology in two weeks with my counterpart. I feel generally that the school, personal, integration, and volunteer sectors of my life are successful and fulfilling.

7 awesome ladies and me, at the regional
performance for talented teachers

If that's not a wide enough milk river for your liking, yesterday the town itself celebrated its 115th birthday. "Day of the City" is a pretty big deal, including an all day concert, basketball tournament, horse rides, street food, flash mob, and fireworks. I spent the day supporting my performing students and spreading my circle of acquaintances and friends. Here are some of the highlight pictures from the festivities. C праздником!

Soviet dance number?

Kids were encouraged to decorate the pavement in the central square.

Inside the House of Culture was a singing competition that felt sort of like Tuesday night karaoke.

My 11th grader Natasha did very well!

Horse rides around the square

Several barbecue stands popped up around the edges.

Basketball tournament in the afternoon

The local militia performs.

The presentation of the city flag

Flash mob!

The ever-fabulous Shashlik

Our technology teacher demonstrates the proper de-skewering method.

This dude had no idea why I wanted to take a picture.

Lots of my students were in this one. It was really fun to watch!

Look at Me Now, Look at Me Now...

I'm makin' papers!

My first week in the town, it was my terrifying privilege to conduct an English Camp, one of the aspects of this job at which I have absolutely no experience. Not 3 days at my site, still crashing on the couch of my counterpart, and I'm expected to organize a 3 week, 6 hour per day English camp for kids I don't know starting tomorrow. Yeah, right.

Thanks to my killer negotiating skills, I managed to get the camp down to a more manageable duration and enlisted some help from my awesome site mate and the other English teachers in my school. Distilled down to a week of getting to know each other for an hour each day, the students and I had an excellent time introducing ourselves, playing charades and pictionary, scavenger hunting, and talking about everything from hobbies to family.

It was a nice first attempt, but nothing remarkable. What shocked me was being presented with this page of the local newspaper now, so many months later, which the physics teacher saved for the whole summer. Hopefully this is only the beginning of a long string of good news.

Adaptation

So the other day, I wake up hungover from a night of Russian billiards and cards with my neighbors to the piercing toll of an 8:30 am doorbell. I totter over to the door and answer it in my boxers, despite my deeply ingrained and cultural body image problem. My neighbor leads in the employee of the electric company to check the meter for accuracy. I sign some form and lead them back out, but by this time I've had to think too hard about communication to hope for sleep.

Getting my rear in gear, I light the broiler and start to take a shower. Within 60 seconds I notice the bathroom floor is covered with water, dropping my soap into the litter box in my scramble to shut the water off. Apparently when the landlady came yesterday to paint over the rusty pipes she moved the tub, which disconnected the drain from the plumbing.

Now I'm on the floor, wading under the tub to reconnect pipes, and all I'm thinking to myself is, Well, I won't have to mop this floor for a while, and now my soap is exfoliating. Then I realize that any one of those incidents would be unacceptable to me just 6 months ago. Maybe it was the apathy of the morning after, but maybe just maybe I'm starting to adapt to the unpredictability the governs every aspect of life here.

Ukraine: it's no Africa, but it's no cakewalk either.

Interactions with the Remont-ing Community

With winters here grueling and hard on both the soul and the structures, most Ukrainians busy themselves in the summer with remont-ing, or repairing. Finally, labourers are not discouraged by the subzero temperatures, and neither ice nor frozen earth can prevent access to pipes or walls. In this summer, I've had the experience to work with 3 remonters to prepare my own apartment for winter. Here are their stories.

Andrei
Actually the shop teacher at school, Andrei came to install a light fixture in the hallway and a counter top around my sink in the kitchen. He did a very fine job and used materials from the school, so he didn't charge me anything. The most distressing thing about my new apartment, however, is the broken window on the balcony. Left as is, my home will be open to all the ravages of winter without even a single pane of glass to protect me. Andrei promised to return with glass. 8 weeks ago.

Boris
Having been left with mostly old furniture that was used by someone's grandmother for centuries and then left unattended with the rest of the apartment after her passing a year ago, the sofas and chairs here were in no condition to be used. Boris, the cousin of a teacher from school, offered to reupholster the furniture with old drapes or excess fabric in his spare time. He has done an excellent job so far, but when he came to pick up the last three sofas (right? why do I need so many?), he gave me the most honest Ukrainian answer ever.
   Me: When will you return with these sofas?
   Boris: Not soon.

Vitaly
The downstairs neighbours had been complaining about the pipes leaking water for longer than I've been here. Two years ago, they got on the waiting list for a public plumber to come remont. Finally, an appointment was scheduled for last week. Seeing as how the pipes are either in their ceiling or my floor, the landlady asked me if the plumber could work through my apartment. Of course! What could go wrong?

Vitaly arrived at nine in the morning to begin replacing the rusty old pipes with plastic ones. He stood my tub upright, removed my toilet, dug out large sections of wall and floor, and in the process covered everything in my house with a layer of concrete (and presumably asbestos) dust. Around three or four o'clock, I noticed the stillness in my apartment, but judging from the state of things, he must have been working downstairs. It was only after the landlady arrived to survey the completed work that I realized Vitaly had left.

Now, I've not had a lot of experience with American repairmen, either opting to fix things myself or ignore the problem altogether, but I have a feeling that if one's work involved creating such a mess, one would at least take the hunks of concrete and rusty pipe out to the garbage, not to say anything about the grey snow left everywhere. Worst of all, a hole the size of a strawberry rhubarb pie was left in the floor behind my toilet, not only providing an escape route for my cat but also laying bare all acts performed in one bathroom to anyone with auditory or olfactory senses in the other. My landlady's solution? To remove the rug from in front of my bathroom sink and spread it neatly over the hole.

My favourite part of this story is that all four times I have explained to a Ukrainian the previous paragraph and my expectations of a repairman, the result has been identical: uncontrollable fits of laughter.

Perhaps this is a country in which the squeaky wheel always gets the oil, or perhaps I'm just too softened by first world conditions, but at the very least this is all part of learning to operate within a new system with different standards and expectations. Who knows what life will be like once September comes and I enter this strange world of Ukrainian employment alongside other labourers!

Picnic

With my friend E visiting town, I wanted to do three things: cook, can, and relax. While we did all of those things, I also felt it necessary to show her a bit of Ukrainian culture, since she came all this way. So, Wednesday we took a break from our extravagant kitchen plans to take a bag full of meat, a watermelon, and our neighbors out to the lake behind the supermarket. The result was an excellent time, some delicious grilled шашлык (shish kebab), and some great memories.

The spread

Shashlik

Kimchi!

Ira's niece refused to even look at me. I'm gonna be a great teacher!

Beware of hop-ons. You're gonna get some hop-ons.

Totally found a hedgehog, but no one could get a  focused picture of it for unknown reasons.

Integration!

Pickles Got Made

About a week ago I made a request of all my neighbors: If you are canning something, just knock on my door and let me watch. You don't have to give me anything but the recipe. Three days ago, Paulina took me up on that. She gave me a list of products to hunt down for home-made pickles. With limited Russian ability, I was only just able to locate all the specific ingredients (it is so hard to say "liter jars with lids"!). While gathered around  the potable water refill truck, I mentioned to Paulina that I now had everything I needed and would like to know what to do next. She gave me some lose instructions (some of this, cut it, add that), but I guess she could tell that I still wasn't quite sure what to do. 15 minutes later my doorbell rings, and there's Paulina with every other married woman from the building. They marched into my kitchen and made pickles happen. Here's how it went down.

They started by "sterilizing" the jars with cold water and baking soda. Does anyone know if that's a real thing? Meanwhile, one of the women was chopping the dark green leaves from horseradish and plucking yellow flowers from dill weed. They threw that with whole peppercorns and some garlic cloves (halved lengthwise) into the jars.

Yet another lady was slicing horseradish root at an angle to be added in. At the same time, Paulina was cramming in as many cucumbers as could fit in the liter jars. Some got cut, but she says that doesn't matter.

The jars were topped off with cold water, not vinegar. A tablespoon of salt and a heap of ground mustard got added to each one. In two of the jars, I convinced the women to allow a dried chili pepper to be added for some extra heat.

We didn't actually can them per se. These plastic lids sat in boiling water until they became malleable then were crammed on the jars. Now they've hardened again, but next time I can I think I'm going to do it legit. The product is three murky jars of pickles-to-be, just waiting for winter. It was all over as quickly as it started, and the women filed out.

Lutuhyne Bound

I've been busy, as you can imagine. Training ramped up to a maelstrom of hectic stress, with teachers rotating, projects culminating, and a speech in Russian to prepare for the embassy, just to top it all off. We took trips to Kyiv and Chirnigov, the nearest surrounding cities. We cooked, chopped, built, planted, and conducted. It was a busy time, but the hard part was the lack of ownership. Everything in training was temporary: the town, the family, the school. By the eleventh week, as we all gathered in the capital for our swearing-in ceremony, I felt completely psyched being just days away from my own town in which I could integrate, my own students with whom I could interact, and my own kitchen in which I could cook in nothing but underwear.

In Kyiv, on May 31st, my fellow members of group 43 and myself officially joined the ranks of the Peace Corps, swearing in at the brand new American embassy. Unfortunately, there is no video documentation of my phenomenal rolling 'R's featured throughout my Russian speech, but rest assured that they were magnificent. Much handshaking took place as later that hour I found out I was elected to represent my group in the Volunteer Advisory Committee, a body through which the volunteer community can address it's concerns with the management in the head office. What a proud day it was.

Goodbye to my Oster family: Luda, Nikolai, and Ram

I was introduced to my counterpart, Tatyana Sergeyovna. More on her later, but suffice it to say I was scared out of my pants. Everyone knows I love to talk, but I found it hard to get a word in edgewise through all of her plans and opinions. At least her English is extraordinary and her enthusiasm is top notch. It certainly was a long train ride together though, out to the eastermost oblast (province?) with nothing but time and women beleaguered with goiters and snores.

But now I'm finally home in Lutuhyne (loo-TOO-gi-nuh), and so much is going well. The town is fantastic: green and friendly, located in the midst of rolling hills near a lake. There's so much possibility for good work here! I've already begun establishing connections with the directors of the music and art school, the mayor, the department of social work, and the House of Culture. I've been invited to concerts, tea, and family dinners by my neighbors, all of whom are absolutely welcoming. My apartment is sizable and comfortable, and my friend Slukom has joined me. I've worked at two English summer camps already, thanks to the extremely friendly community of other volunteers in my area. I really feel like this is going to be a good year. It's so wonderful to show up in the middle of berry season rather than the dead of winter, isn't it?

Good things to come, but next up: a bumping vegetarian borscht recipe!

One Down

I'm now over a month into what I could swear was either a year or a week of training, it's hard to tell. I'm slowly finding my way through a mucky, consonant filled language and a rather unexciting culinary selection. I'm getting to know my community and my students, though not in any substantial way. I am buried in a whirlwind of feelings, ranging from hopeful to discouraged, uncomfortable to giddy, bored to hectic.

On weekdays, I go to four hours of language class. We are hurtling through Russian, but the results are truly unbelievable. After 5 weeks, we are able to describe ourselves, our families, food and recipes, the weather, directions to a place, the contents of a rooms, request repairs, and throw around some key safety phrases. All of this can be done in multiple tenses, in compound or complex sentences, but still with very little confidence. Over time I have no doubt that we will all be excellent speakers of Russian, but for the moment it's a bit like trying to cram an entire doctor's office worth of files into one drawer: it's a mountain of useful information but we can only find something if we know where it is already. We'll certainly need it all in the future, but it'll take some organization and a lot of time to clean up before everything is swiftly and reliably accessible.

Two mornings per week I teach classes at a local school. Oster is a small town, but not so small that they have only one school building. In addition to the regional technical college, a kindergarten building, and the 400+ student secondary school called Gymnasia, there's my school, which is divided into two buildings: first through fourth graders in one, 5th through 11th across the street. So far, I've been working predominantly in the middle grades, though this coming week I will be taking my song and dance across the road to the 3rd graders. The classroom portion of my training is the part with which I am the most comfortable. I have no anxiety in front of the kids and plenty of experience with classroom management and lesson planning. Relieved that there's one portion of my life of which I'm fully in control, I can just have fun with my lessons and enjoy substitute teaching.

The rest of my time is filled with various tutoring sessions, medical or safety sessions, community project meetings, or field trips into the community. We've been tasked with visiting each other's host families, meeting with the mayor, touring the House of Creativity (an after school center for the arts), vegetable price comparison in the bazaar, and even navigating the transportation systems to get to the capital. All this plus lesson planning, Russian homework, and teacher theory reading leaves very little time to unwind or socialize, but we make it work. Sundays are relatively free, and my co-trainees and I enjoy strolling down to the restaurant on the river bank and relaxing on the patio in the beautiful spring weather.

The food isn't entirely questionable nor is it half as exciting as Korea. Potatoes at every meal, no joke. For a while it was just bland. In fact, American food may be terribly salty for my tastes these days, but a lot of food here could really use some flavor. The soups need a little extra something, the dumplings don't stand out, and there's not a spicy dish to be had. Fortunately, I've found some ways to liven up my meals. Garlic and onions are always plentiful, and I've finally gotten those as a regular addition to soups and potatoes. I've backed off of the exorbitantly greasy meats (some of which are in fact pure fat) and get my bread instead with a thin layer of extreme sinus relief horseradish mustard or even just pure хрен (ground horseradish and beet). My co-trainees and I made a kicking borscht, the recipe for which will surely make it's way up here. I feel confidant that once I get control of my own kitchen, I will be able to eat happily here.

It's been an interesting several weeks on the home front. I'm getting to know my family better and better. Thus far, my best relationship is with my host father Nikolai. We've planted tomatoes together, shoveled dirt, and played with Ram, his massive dog. Every few days I get a fresh tour of the garden. When my host mother is out of the house, I peel potatoes and reheat leftovers with Nikolai. Just last night, our relationship took a huge leap as he asked me to cut his hair. The other day, he showed me all of his old driver's license photos. "This is me in '69. This is me in '72. This is me in..." Sometimes I go out to the river bank where he's tapped a few birch trees for sap, which we collect and haul back to the house. We sat down to clean fish two nights ago, but scraping the scales off of and rending the guts out from still living river fish is where I draw the line.

My host mother Lyuda is a bundle of bipolar. For the bulk of the time, she is a doting mother, over-feeding and petting me. Occasionally she exhibits all the fire and brimstone of any Korean ajuma. Woman loves a good gossip, and can often be spotted on her favorite sofa getting all the latest gab from one of her local sources. She speaks very clearly and slowly for my benefit. Having had four volunteers before me, this is not her first rodeo. She loves her grotesque cat Mambo and is completely blind without her glasses, although she only puts them on when it's absolutely necessary. Our worst time together occurred last weekend, when I didn't want to stand through the 3 am until dawn Easter mass. Woman turned on the guilt like a professional: "I guess you don't want to tell America about our important cultural traditions. We're all tired but we will sleep all day Sunday. If you're so tired why are you awake right now? All my other volunteers went and said it was extremely interesting. My cousin decorated the whole church, but I guess you don't support this family." Woah lady, back off. On the whole, however, we have a very nice relationship.

In the evenings, after the parents turn in for the night, I play Russian card games with the three tenants: Lonya, Kolya, and Dima. Lonya has the deepest voice I've ever heard on a man, Kolya is constantly drunk or sleeping it off, whereas Dima never drinks but mysteriously is the only one with a girlfriend. The three of them are students at the technical college, and as the semester winds down they are often drafting one of the 6 architectural designs required for graduation. On the weekends, they leave Oster to go back to their parents' homes in different cities around the region, leaving all the internet for me! Unfortunately, that time is almost expired. There's still so much that will happen in the weeks between now and swearing in, and I'll do my best to keep the updates coming. Hope all is well wherever you may be.

Community Encounters: Leonid Antonovich the ex-Militiaman

NO! We are talking!

Scarcely an inch over five foot, Leonid Antonovich bellows up at me, his catastrophic blood pressure evident by the firetruck complexion. My clustermate J was assigned this cherry bomb of a host dad, who kindly issued an open invitation for any PCT to stop in for tea. I had considered this a good opportunity to start making community connections as well as practice my Russian self-introduction. No sooner were my boots off than was I at the receiving end of a very intense interrogation.

Where have you come to now?
I'm in your house.
NO! Where have you come to now?
Where have I come to now.
NO! We are talking!

Clearly this man has a very specific idea of how this conversation should go, even more specific than I do (and I only know one phrasing of one of the many possible answers.) He whirls on J and continues his tirade.

WHY doesn't he KNOW this??
It's not my fault! (I'm so sorry Steven.)
Show me your papers!

He means of course the passport copies that I'm supposed to carry with me at all times. J has already told me that Antonovich is a retired militiaman and that he has instructed J in all the tricks of dealing with his brethren. For example, you should never surrender your papers but hold them just out of reach while they are being read. I'm totally ready to impress Antonovich. My fingers have gotten the pocket zipper halfway undone when the bellowing begins anew.

NO! We are talking! Where are your papers?
[does he want me to repeat the phrase?]
Where are your papers.
NO! Where are your papers? WHY doesn't he KNOW this?
[does he want me to ensure that he's really a policeman first?]
What do you do for a profession?
NO!

At this point I pull out the page of "Really Survival Russian" phrases and turn to the emergency section, the one reserved for near-rape scenarios in dark alleys of the capital.

Stop! I will scream!

Antonovich's onslaught evaporates like a broken fever. A twinkle glints across his eye and he lets out a hearty guffaw. Now we're in the kitchen, cracking walnuts, sipping tea, and pointing out on the map the towns in which he used to hawk potatoes before independence. We come to the conclusion that Leonid Antonovich was just looking for some entertainment and the bumbling Americans posed a perfect target for some good old-fashioned chain pulling. Next time I visit, I'll hopefully be strong enough in Russian to return the favor.

(Perhaps it's improper to speak of someone else's host family before my own, but I'm a sucker for a good story.)

Ya Amerikanitz

Every story has a beginning, and this one started two Decembers past with a lengthy application process and a disturbingly thorough physical examination. 3 months ago it took an unexpected turn when the Kazakhstan country program was cancelled. Having been reassigned to another former Soviet country, I began preparing my belongings and my life for the Ukraine. Sadly, the majority of my enthusiasm was spent on Kazakhstan, so I did next to no research to prepare myself for this country or its language. I'll be as surprised as the rest of you by what's coming next.

I had finally gotten my two bags below the acceptable weight limit, which the Peace Corps is so kind as to augment from 75 to 100 pounds on account of the bitter cold winters. With the car piled full, my mother and I set off to Bishop International airport for the first of four flights this week. I hop to Detroit in the smallest plane I've ever ridden, then continue on to D.C. There in Georgetown, I meet the other 61 people who have committed to serving in Ukraine, bringing the total number of volunteers in the country to well over 400. There's a surprising and immediate camaraderie between the group of us, all being a unique personality type and all at the exact same point in our lives: same aspirations, same anxieties. Lengthy seminars seem to fly by under the pressure of such anticipation and in the midst of such good company. It seems like no time at all before we are all on a Lufthansa jet over the Atlantic.

I've done this all before, and not simply the prolonged transportation. Peace Corps expectation number one is that I am prepared to give my life to this country for at least 27 months, but I spent a cumulative 42 in Korea. I've learned a second language, and then without total immersion. I lived with a host family and integrated into the local culture. Despite having done all this and without the assistance of a 51 year strong organization or a family of 489 peers, I still can't get myself to sleep on either the flight to Frankfort or to Kyiv. When we finally touch down in a half dug up parking lot for planes and presidentially descend the staircar into the blustering flat expanse, I feel delirious but relieved. I'm finally here.

For the next 2 days, training abounds. What should I do to stay safe? What will my host family be like? What will my classroom be like? What's the alphabet? Already my peers are being more precisely defined. Separated from the other volunteers who have come to work with community or youth opportunities, the other 11 English teachers and I form what's known as a "link." Together we will live in neighboring homestays, meet for group work and field trips, and support each other for the next three months. Even more specifically, among the 12 of us two "clusters" are formed, each with six teachers. We will be a language, culture, and methodology class until finally we are separated further: we will all be alone when we are sent to our sites in June to begin actual service.

In the village of Orset, known for its discotheque and river banks, I drag my luggage off of the bus and am accepted into the arms of Ludmila. While my new host mother is kissing my cheeks, her husband Nikolai is heaving my 100 pounds of luggage onto the roofrack of his 1979 Lada Sputnik. On the dashboard, a bumper sticker reads "I heart IBM," but the icons of Jesus and Mary indicate otherwise. We drive across the street without even a rope thrown across the luggage for appearances. The rusting is so severe that I can count the pebbles whisking below through the jagged holes. Their home is a spacious, stove heated, one floor house with a shed out back for the dog Ram (spelt PAM in Cyrillic). "Koli," as he's called, sits in his smoking corner by the stove every thirty minutes while "Luda" peels potatos on a nearby stool, the two of them striking an almost perfect stereotype. My bed is in one corner of the den, across from the curio cabinet and beside the faded pair of recliners. Luda practically force feeds me borscht, apricots, buttery dumplings, chicken and potatoes, and rye bread with sausage, spicy mustard, raw onion, and cold pig fat. If you know me at all you know I'm absolutely thrilled.

The room.

The family has three boarders, all of them college boys going to a local university. Leonid and I look at pictures intently, then pull out my map for pointing time. Thanks to Google translator, we're able to explain our families and majors. Through the powers of Uno, we bond and learn colors in each others' languages. "Zilony!" he declares, knowing I haven't a single green card. "Again zilony!"

At night, I sleep in my corner with the obese cat Mambo at my feet. The bed is slightly short, but comfortable and exceptionally warm. I expected a perpetual chill to hang over the house and the country as a whole, but I had to learn the word for "hot" very quickly. The parrot serves as my alarm in the morning, screeching for food when the sun rises. And I thought it would have been the rooster.

The door between my room and the rest of the house. It's a curtain.

My cluster rocks. It's very encouraging to have five comrades in the same neighborhood who are all going through similar adjustments. We will be spending around half of our waking life together, so I'm relieved to find we all get along. The other half of my life is with Luda, Koli, the boys, and the animals. I couldn't feel more supported or safe, sometimes even overly so. Everything goes swimmingly for now, but the pessimist in me can't help but wonder how long this honeymoon period can last (at most until the winter...).

So Much Longer than 80 Days

After 169 days of roaming, I'm finally home. Private, internal applause. Now to work: tell the story, start the next adventure!

When relating any part of the trip, a question I frequently hear is, "Why? Why travel so fast? Why not use airplanes?" When I've traveled in the past, it has always been to one place: I would go to a city or country for a few days or weeks, then come home. When we stay in one place for a longer period of time, we gain a deeper understanding of its culture, but we also acclimate to it. Then, even if we only go one country over, we notice all of the myriad of differences between the two. Think about even traveling within your own country. Having grown up in Georgia, visiting Michigan was never an exercise in how unified Americans are culturally but rather a shock over what strange sodas "they" drink "up there." By increasing the speed at which I traveled, I was never able to acclimate to any one given place. The effects were two-fold: (1) I lost that pervasive focus on the differences and saw the similarities between cultures, and (2) I got a feeling for the gradient between all aspects of these foreign places. How do landscapes, faces, music, food, architecture, and language slowly change over distance? That kind of observation could not be made by teleporting with an airplane in a disconnected series of dots but only by crawling along in a line, emphasizing the importance of small stops and the view from the bus window.

All waxing scientific aside, on account of the daunting amount of material of which this story is comprised, I've decided to blog the basic breakdown and do something more substantial with the details. Perhaps publish? Unfortunately for you, dear Reader, the bullet points alone are a leviathan of information. Proceed at your own risk.

I left my home in Farwell, Michigan, on the morning of the 13th of September, 2011. This would serve as the beginning and end of my land travel, since I had flown in from Korea. I rode Amtrak to start with, going first to Chicago then to New York City. I hung around NYC at museums and restaurants with some old friends before taking a car to the shipping dock behind Newark Int'l Airport. My plans having slightly changed from when I posted earlier, I boarded the CMA CGM New Jersey to cross the Atlantic.

With a Filipino and Croatian crew hard at work, I sailed for 9 days, occupying myself with whale watching, Flannery O'Conner's collected short stories, writing my journal, exploring the bridge, engine room, and fo'c'sle, watching DVD's, and preparing myself mentally for the whirlwind to come. The conditions weren't quite as spartan as one would imagine. My cabin was comfortable and the food was delicious in the officer mess. On the next to last day at sea, we threaded through the Azores.

We approached Tangier, Morocco, in the middle of the night. One of the mountains stood out of the darkness, for written upon its surface in lights are three Arabic words: God, Homeland, King. In the morning, I hopped off the ship and into a small van with an employee of the shipping company. We drove through the windy roads and arid landscape. Roadside brush fire, no big deal. Once in the city, I chuck my stuff at a hotel and start exploring. Mint tea is fantastic, the hobos make excellent tour guides of the medina, and every city in Morocco has a casbah which one could rock, if thus inclined. Yes, I bought a rug. Perhaps a terrible idea given the fact that I don't have a home, but when I do finally settle somewhere the chances are high that it won't be anywhere near North Africa. Opportunity: seized.

On the 29th of September, I rocketed across the Straits of Gibraltar in a high speed ferry, in a mere 35 minutes finding myself in Tarifa, Spain. There, in a small surfers' hostel near the coast, I had a miniature panic attack. Time constraints were already beginning to feel like a Death Star trash compactor; I had to cover the over 5,000 kilometers between southern Spain and Moscow in just two weeks! Feelings of loneliness and inadequacy started seeping through my skin, but this was far too early in the game for a break down. I got it together and hit the road on the bright, making my way to Barcelona. The snaking roads throughout the craggy Andalusian mountains weren't the least of my worries: the police hauled me and another guy who looked like me off the bus in the hunt for a murderer. Never fear, they were looking for someone else.

Here begins a non-stop whirlwind tour of some of Europe's highlight cities. The pattern was as follows: arrive in the early morning to a new city and find lodging for the night. Tour for the rest of the day and all of the next, then take a night train to the next location. During this period I was in a new country every other day and literally never slept in the same place for more than one night. I allowed myself one awesome meal in each country and mostly ate bread and cheese otherwise. I took a free walking tour through the fun-house architecture of Barcelona, climbed up a clifftop castle overlooking Nice's Côte d'Azur, spent an evening among the fast cars and high rollers of Monaco, and got hopelessly lost in the acutely worthless city of Verona. It was at this point that I gave up hope of learning any language, and, wiping the linguistic soup broth from my chin, started to get smarter about communication (though it would not be until South East Asia that I perfected it).

When I jubilantly put Italy to my rudder, I also said goodbye to Western Europe. Although Prague was the harbinger of new and fascinating sights and tastes, it did not manage to slow me down. I was then only one week from my scheduled Moscow departure, and there was little time to indulge. Arrival in the Czech Republic did bring one important change, however. From this point until leaving Malaysia, I would exclusively couchsurf, a program that would consistently afford me some of my best experiences. For instance, my Czech hosts and I visited the overwhelmingly disturbing Sedlec Ossuary, a church decorated with the exhumed skeletons of an estimated 40,000 corpses. In Warsaw, I sang karaoke and watched Xena with an awesome couple of doctoral students. In Minsk, I saw a double rainbow sprouting out of the KGB building and cooked Belorussian with Andrei and his wife.

Finally, Russia. All feelings of dizziness aside, I had kept my deadline and still had enough time to prowl the capital with a few models, enjoy borscht, and attempt tightrope walking with my host. Finally, the Trans-Siberian Railroad was just a run-through-the-glittering-subway-station away. I would stop in the industrial town of Yekaterinburg at the foothills of the Ural mountains and at Irkutsk, the Siberian town on the edge of Lake Baikal, but my apogee was the people I met. Though I seldom understood their names clearly enough to write them down and we never once shared a common language, those days of watching the browning birches hurtle past the window exceeded my every expectation. Of course we boozed and stole, but we also miraculously grew to be friends across cultural, linguistic, and generational gaps.

After freezing my buttocks off on the banks of the world's deepest lake, I veered sharply south to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. My first few hours are recorded in great detail, but I went on to sleep in a yurt-like structure, climb a tortoise-shaped rock (under the guidance of a stray dog), ride a Shetland pony-sized horse, and eat meat-ish substances. Upon departure, I distinctly recall wishing I had had more time there, the first such occurrence. Be careful what you wish for, eh? Ah, the infamous deportation from China. Let's just say that I was promptly but not inhumanely pulled from my train to Beijing over visa issues, forced to spend a night in a hotel with two immigration escorts (not the fun kind), and then gently pushed back over the border in the morning.

Getting stranded in the Gobi desert with a 200 dollar Chinese Lisa Frank sticker called a "visa" in my passport and no clue what to do next turned out to be the best thing that happened to me on this trip.
           [SPOILER ALERT::: the story only gets worse from here]
I got the opportunity to spend more time in Mongolia, and I had an improbable experience with the benevolent local who helped me back to the city. Having to break one of my criteria and fly over China was rendered less disappointing by the fact that I got to stop over in Seoul for one night of rancid soju, delicious duck, and great friends. Then I picked up my route on schedule in Hanoi.

In Southeast Asia, my paced slowed somewhat. Rather than racing through a city in 36 hours then catching a night bus, I had  room to spend four or five days in each: still meager, but comparatively much calmer. Alternately avoiding scooters while on foot and pedestrians while on scooter, Hanoi was all the steamy chaos I could have hoped for. Moving west through a mountain border crossing, the food kept getting better. I met a few couchsurfers in the capital of Laos for delicious food and what passed for beer. Vientiane was more a flat, dusty-road jungle town than a city, and exactly the sort of place in which you could lose yourself for months. Thailand offered the unique experience to play a part in the ongoing flood relief, a welcome respite from egocentric tourism, photographing locals, and gorging myself. I mentioned this being the high point in the evolution of my skills at communicating sans langue. The truth of the matter is that I was making do exclusively with thank you and I'm sorry, which I found could handle most any situation that pointing, a calculator screen, or the name of the next town could not. I suppose some may deem that to be a low point, but I 'm judging on the principles of efficacy, rapid adaptability, and ease.

FAQ 

What was your favorite place that you visited? 

On peninsular Malaysia, on the northwestern coast, is the state of Penang, regarded by its countrymen as "food paradise." Made up of little more than an island and its adjacent strip of land, Penang gained fame for its once bustling Straits of Melacca. Now overshadowed in the shipping industry by Singapore, Penang boasts all the character that its neighbor to the south sorely lacks. A gorgeous, colonial town is spread along the east side, but not so dispersed that one can't bike it easily. The multiculturalism is fascinating. It's not uncommon to find an Anglican church, Buddhist temple, and Hindu mandir at the same intersection while prayer call floats over it all. The Indian food is tied for second best I've ever had worldwide, and the local cuisine incorporates Chinese, Thai, and Indonesian with their own twist, all for prices cheaper than vending machines. Looking for some downtime? Take a bus trip to the backside of the rainforest mountain which serves as backdrop to this whole paradise, where you will find quiet fishing villages. Condos are cheaper than my rent in Athens, so you can bet your socks I'll be living here in my lifetime.

Leaving Penang was hard, but I had a powerful motivator. On the road I made many friends, but in a lifestyle of hectic change, nothing compares to a familiar and established sidekick. To my great fortune, I was met by three such cohorts during my race around the world. The first of those was flying from Korea as I clacked south through Kuala Lumpur to the island country of Singapore. (If you're wondering why I haven't added a single picture to this lengthy summary of foods and locales, it's because I suspect that it was on this train that my first 8GB of pictures slipped out of my bag and into oblivion.) Once in Singapore, E and I made the best of a fairly lifeless pile of iron and glass. The night zoo was a terrifying time of flying fox rooms, angry elephants, and other untethered creatures. The cable car (brought to you by Canon) afforded beautiful views of towering convention centers and magnificent hotels. The ritzy attractions too costly for our meager budgets, we tooled around Little India and the botanical gardens.

The fun continued in Australia, where I met the second of three magnificent mates. D and I rented a Yaris and drove that little hummingbird from Brisbane all the way to Melbourne, camping in the bush as we went along. We cooked on the barbie (burgers you racist), stood on the both easternmost point and the shore first  claimed by Cook, pulled ticks from chests as nature got all up in our business, huddled in a phone booth to shelter ourselves from the rain, sought kangaroos, both alive and in pies, and saw old friends, space exhibits, waterfalls, and koalas. We totally smelled unbearable by about half way through, and then it only got more nose-hair-singeing. Still wouldn't have traded it.

New Zealand was next, and was all anyone ever says it is. Breathtaking, variety, wonderful people, blah blah blah you've heard it all before. I did the requisite hiking and cinematic location visits without the extreme sky diving or bungee jumping. Then I hightailed it to North Island and my trans-Pacific freighter. The Bahia Negra was much the same as the New Jersey, except at sea for twice as long and with Poles instead of Croats. Together, we celebrated Christmas, combining the Polish traditions of pescetarianism and taking communion with the Filipino ones of roast boar on a spit and karaoke.

Only a few days before the new year, I watched as the locks of the Panama Canal emptied and lowered our vessel, then shortly after I disembarked. From the valley town of Boquete, I did a 12 hour hike up Volcán Barú, starting at midnight. We arrived at the summit to greet a frigid, gale-force dawn and scurry back down. In Costa Rica, I got up close and personal with sloths, parrots, and leaf cutter ants, then walked into town for dinner to choose my own sea bass from a cooler. Of course, Nicaragua saw my college education put to full use as I volunteered on a permaculture farm on the island of Ometepe for two weeks. Lots of rice and beans, machetes, and nature ensued. On my weekends, I attended bullfights, went for a dip in the springs, or biked around the island.

Having burnt all my Honduras and Guatemala time living on the island, I had to hurry to reach Oaxaca, Mexico at the same time as my third friend. I had some ugly dealings with some exploitative Hondurans at the border and my stomach finally started giving way to the forces of Latin America, but other than that I made it to southern Mexico uneventfully. B and I enjoyed local delicacies like chocolate, mezcal, and tlayudas, and visited some impressive Aztec ruins. The color and character of Oaxaca was all the more charming for the fact that the rest of Mexico possessed neither of those things in such quantity.

When it was all through I was ready for the victory lap. I passed through Mexico City with the time to stop but not the interest. I bused directly to the border with Arizona, where I slipped into Tuscon in the early morning of the 31st of January. From there, I visited my brother in El Paso and moved east toward Atlanta. Amtrak stopped long enough at San Antonio for me to go see the Alamo, but not having taken a single photograph I guess I'll just have to remember it. I stopped in New Orleans for a fun-filled night of seafood, beer, jazz, locals, and late night beignets. A series of stops in Birmingham, northside-Atlanta, Athens, and the 'burbs allowed me to visit the bulk of my friends and family still in the region. Lastly, a few days in D.C. mark my first trip to our nation's capital. On Leap Day 2012, I rolled into Grand Rapids Amtrak station in the snow, successfully circumnavigating by the two criteria that define the feat if not by my third personal challenge of staying on land for the duration.

In two days time, everything begins anew. I will join the other members of Group 43 on a flight to Frankfurt and then Kyiv, the first steps toward my 27 month commitment to serving in the Peace Corps Ukraine program. I'm still unsure what that exactly means, but rest assured that this blog will continue to chronicle it. Many thanks to my family and friends for all the good wishes and help in preparing for this step. My next communication will be from Ukraine, but that's about all I know of the future!

Sneak Peak: Bangkok

10 November 2011

After sundown, I go with Pete and his family for dinner. There's a never-ending spread of food. Every time a dish is close to clean, the remaining food is placed on another partially clean platter and some new delicacy replaces the empty plate. My memory is unreliable because I blacked out from pleasure, but I recall rotisserie chicken, fried fish steak, spicy papaya salad, saucy laab, spinach omelet, crispy pork slices, and a sharp vinegar and fish soup. Each plate came complete with its own unique sauce, and we ate pinches of sticky rice like dinner rolls.

Tonight the moon is full, marking the second largest festival in all of Thailand. People have gathered by the river banks, where numerous food carts are set up and the smoke and crackle of fireworks is thick. Each person carries a painted foam lotus flower, the top of which is speared with a narrow candle and sticks of incense. Around the base of these are marigolds and irises, held on by the faux leaves of the lotus. The people light the candle and incense, then concentrate on all the sin and sadness they've experienced over the past year. Then, the shrine is launched into the river, hopefully taking all the misfortune out with it. The dark waters are filled with tiny pyres, each one a twinkling prayer passing silently toward the sea.

In the northern style of Chang Mai, some people are launching makeshift hot air balloons, a thin, rice paper cylinder turned upside down and lifted by burning fuel hung from the mouth of the bag. Now the river is reflected in the sky. Bright ruby stars float past the orange harvest moon up into the stratosphere, drifting and impermanent constellations that change the once familiar firmament into something alien and beautiful.

The festivities are somewhat grim in conjunction with the flooding in the west. Pete and I are discussing what to do with our day tomorrow, and he makes an original suggestion. He is going with the family to assist with the relief effort and invites me along. It certainly would be more interesting than another day full of temples, markets, and walking. Thinking it a great opportunity, I jump onboard. What Pete doesn't mention is the extent of the problem. Or the army presence in the district. Or the utter lack of other white faces, destining me to be a spectacle. Or the escape of hundreds of crocodiles from the captive breeding center.

Sneak Peak: Ulaanbaatar

The first hours of Mongolia.

20 October 2011

The train arrives in the dark of the early morning. We are all shaken awake by the sheet collector around 5 am and out in the cold by 6. Ben and I both have an address on Peace Avenue, so we decide to walk it together. With what little clues we have, we set out into the dim pre-dawn for what unknowingly will become a three hour trek.

Both of us carry poorly scrawled maps of places sprouting off Peace Avenue, and neither of those maps contain our homes-to-be. It wouldn't make a difference anyhow, since not a single road is labelled nor building numbered. Fortunately, when you're lost with another traveller, nothing seems quite as hopeless. The threatening situations of lost, cold, dark, illiterate, and getting mugged on a street called Peace are much diminished.

* * * * *

By now the city has come fully alive. The streets crawl with honking, dusty automobiles and over-laden buses, and once empty sidewalks are teeming with people. The staring is intense, but whether its the height, beard, whiteness, piercings, evident lostness, bulging backpack, or a combination of all factors, I can't be sure. Fed up with aimless wandering, we decide to stop someone. Who better to locate Gandan Monastery than two monk boys, geared up in their golden robes with sleeves hanging past their hands and maroon belts holding the garb together?

"Excuse me, can I ask you a question? Do you two happen to know where we can find Gandan Monsatery?" Ben asks. Silly British courtesy. I pick up the directions and point to the word Gandan and ask, "Gandan: where?" The gap-toothed monklets turn and point their droopy sleeves up the hill.

This particular hill is mounted by a major highway which runs along the eastern edge of the slums. As we climb up, a painfully obvious temple, reminiscent of pictures I've seen out of Bhutan, rises above the dingy hovels. Monastery? It has to be, but just to be sure we turn and look back down the hill to see if we've passed anything bigger and more Buddhist.

Jaws hit pavement. The sun has just crested the mountains in the southeast, turning a pale dawn into a golden painting. The city is like stacked sheets of gold, each further layer brighter than the one before it until finally the city fades into the sky. The dust rising off the now busy roads gives every roof, every corner, every antenna a golden aura. It's so magnificent that neither of us can move or speak.

For those who've heard about my Chinese...immigration complications...fear not, it's all sorted. Best thing that has happened to me was getting deported from that awful country. The universe works in mysterious ways.

Calendar!

Wow this is convenient. I've been using it since the start but only just figured out how to share...what's my age again? All entries begin October 2011.

Sneak Peak: Atlantic

I couldn't in good conscience leave everyone hanging for five solid months, so I've chosen an excerpt from my trip to share. Enjoy!

19 September 2011

After Marin's watch, he escorts me to the focsle, or forecastle, or that pointy front deck area. Because the weather is windy and the seas rough, we thread through the tunnels between the ship's hull and her fuel tanks. These are narrow but high ceilinged and protect those inside from the elements or pirate RPG's. Coming out into the sunlight again a few minutes later, I see the waves for the first real time. What I had been gazing down on all along from the fifth floor of the accommodation tower had seemed like the stuff of lazy rivers. In fact, this was not the kiddie pool. Undulations crested along the lip of the deck only to plummet back down into cavernous recesses. To look at them one would think they'd get air time on the crest, each wave a trampoline.

"Now we can play Leonardo," Marin instructs. We walk to the forwardmost point on the ship, peering off the edge while the freighter cut the ocean in two. The water, in protest, picks the focsle up until we can't see the horizon then drops us at terrifying speed toward the deep blackness. Marin begins to tell how dolphins play Frogger by jumping back and forth in front of the ship, when suddenly a massive sneeze of sea spray blasts over the edge and into our faces. I sputter and shake off like a Saint Bernard and we both laugh. Marin turns to me and says, "It's ok. This is baptism," and I agree.

The Eve of Departure

It's been a comfortable, satiating, relaxing 2 weeks, but my American vacation is coming to a close. My attempt at circumnavigation begins Tuesday, September 13th, at four in the god-forsaken morning. I will board Amtrak bound for Chicago and, ultimately, New York City, where I will catch a freighter across the Pacific and the adventure will truly begin. After 9 months of planning, paper work, and headaches, the route is finalized and the visas are in hand.

I will depart from Newark for Morocco on the morning of the 17th. From there, I will cross the Strait of Gibraltar into Spain. Easing my way through early October and Europe, I will pass through southern France, northern Italy, Slovenia, Austria, the Czech Republic, southern Poland, and Belarus before arriving in Moscow. From there, I will cross Russia via the Trans-Siberian Railroad, plunging down from Lake Baikal, through Mongolia, and into Beijing before Halloween. I'll spend the next few weeks whisking southerly through China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. When I arrive in Singapore or maybe Indonesia, I will ride a 21 foot crocodile to Australia (actually, this leg is still not tacked down yet...) where my pace will slow and I will sashay around with my friend D. Our traipsing will deposit us in Melbourne in time for my boat to New Zealand, set for November 30th. I will have a measly 3 days in NZ before I will again take to the high seas, this time for the long haul: Panama. Sometime between Christmas and the New Year, I will arrive in Central America, ready for a scenic January. I'll bus my way north through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala, inching ever closer to home. After clambering through our increasingly hazardous Neighbor to the South, I will arrive at last in Texas. After that, it's a simple matter of getting back to Michigan by February first and thus completing my global circumnavigation by surface transportation alone!

Quick question: what foreign foods do Americans love best? I believe they are Italian, Mexican, Chinese, and maybe Thai as a distant 4th. Who is going to Italy, Mexico, China, and Thailand (not in that order)? Food trip extraordinaire! It only just occurred to me that this is what is happening. Maybe it's my subconscious at work.

Sadly, there will only be maybe one more blog post if that for the next 5 months. I will probably have the time and the means to post my trip through NYC and Chi-town, but everything else will have to wait. I would be remiss to share my stories without their accompanying photographs, and anyways the Internet access will be infrequent and unreliable. I will be documenting everything thoroughly, don't worry, and I intend to release the adventure day by day, as if were happening, except much after the fact. Believe me, you'll be glad for posts with pictures.

Also, big news for February! The international blur just won't stop since I will be shipping off to Kazakhstan for my Peace Corps assignment. Borat jokes: ready, aim, fire.

My Tribute to a Week of American Food

As promised, I’m back to liven the mood of the blog. No more gloom and doom, no more lamenting what’s over. It’s time to turn my attentions towards what I have and what’s coming. In the spirit of this new outlook, I’m here to gloat to all my friends back home in Seoul about the foods that I’ve missed so desperately for two and a half long years. I give you my food binge of the past week.

Act 1: Ingredients

What’s that? Limes?

Unlimited, fresh, versatile limes!!!

Breads of all types, for all occasions.

Focaccia in olive oil and balsamic, buns for hamburgers, bagels or whole grain toast in the morning, crusty loaves for sandwiches, pita for dipping.

Local maple syrup.

It flows as abundantly as soju.

Raspberries in your face.

Throw them in vanilla yogurt with granola or bake them in a pie!

Garden fresh vegetables.

Literally picked all this with my mom from the garden in our yard*.

*yard: an expanse of grass that surrounds one’s house**.
**house: a Western-style building consisting of many officetel onerooms in which each individual room serves a designated purpose.

Act 2: Sides

Corn, done right:

On the cob with butter.

Veggie tray to the rescue.

It comes complete with bleu cheese dressing. Dill pickles and celery on request.

Salads everywhere!

No cabbage or pineapple dressing here, folks. Just vinegar based sauces, fresh vegetables and tomatoes, whole milk mozzarella cubes, cucumber from the garden, and happiness.

Mac’n’Cheese.

Is it even fair to show you cheap pasta covered in legendary white cheddar goodness and baked to a crisp in an oven? Is that cruel and unusual?

Act 3: Mains

Wing night at the house.

That means big, meaty drumsticks off the charcoal grill slathered in mango habanero sauce. Face-melting good!

More grilling goodness!


Chicken thighs and vegetable skewers. Note the eggplant, baby portabella mushrooms, and yellow squash.

Chili dogs.

Homemade slaw. Optional upgrade to Amish sausage. Don’t forget the diced jalapenos.

Breakfast of champions is not called Wheaties.

It’s called cheddar grits, eggs over easy, and spicy breakfast sausage. Good enough for any meal of the day.

Act 4: Dessert

Rasberry pie.

It’s all there needs to be and more.

I’d say I’m sorry, Korea, but I’m trying to lie less. I do wish that you all could have been here to share it. It’s been a truly stodgy week here in Michigan.