Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Salt Crisis

Thanks to our new co-worker, Brian Enns, I'm now more current on what news is happening in this part of the world. It takes some time to track down the articles, and Brian does it monthly and sends us links. Anyway, for those of you who are interested in the political relationship between Ukraine and Russia, I just read an interesting article about the "salt crisis" in Russia. It describes the recent panic buying and increase by 20 percent of salt prices in Russia, because a Russian official said that Ukraine will cut off its salt exports to Russia. According to the article, Russia currently receives more than 40 percent of its salt from Ukraine. Read it here: Energy war drives Russians into a panic over their salt

It shows that the tensions between Russia and Ukraine are pretty high after the Christmastime gas crisis, in which Russia doubled the price of gas to Ukraine, then shut off the supply when Ukraine refused to pay. Ukraine's relationship to Russia is pretty sacred in this part of eastern Ukraine, where so many people are Russian citizens. Concern about the tense relationship will probably play out in the coming election at the end of March - currently the party leading in the polls is Viktor Yanukovych's "Party of Regions," which supports close ties with Russia. It's also the party that claimed victory in the fradulent presidental election in Oct. 2004. They eventually lost to the current president's party during the "orange revolution" after a fair election.

Laura

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Grandpa

My grandpa died on Tuesday. It’s difficult to get used to the fact that someone who has been a big part of your life is gone, especially when you’re far away. It doesn’t seem quite real. It helps to talk on the phone with family, but it’s not the same as being there.

The worst thing about living far away from home long-term is not being able to be there for important events. We were lucky to be able to go home this summer for our siblings’ weddings. And to see Grandpa then.

The funeral will be held on Saturday morning in South Dakota. He was 89, and had Alzheimer’s, so I guess it was his time to go. It wasn’t a surprise, but it’s still hard. So as the family gathers in South Dakota to say goodbye, I say goodbye here by replaying memories of him in my mind. The jokes he told at family gatherings. The stick of gum he always had in his shirt pocket for me. Riding with him in his red pickup to “check the crops,” or in the tractor as he made rounds in the field. Watching him shoot pool in the basement, with my cousins and siblings, leaning as close as we could to the action without getting our fingers in the way of the balls. Holding tight to him on the back of his motorcycle, cruising the country roads.

Laura

Babushka Entitlement

The other day I was staring off into space and enjoying my trolley bus ride when a “babushka” (literally meaning grandma, but generally used to refer to an elderly woman) hobbling down the aisle caught my eye. She looked rather determined and, while I wasn’t certain what the cause of this was, I had a pretty good idea. Sure enough, she reached the teenage boy sitting in the seat across the aisle from me, grabbed the back of his coat, and lifted him out of his seat. She then proceeded to sit down and tell him he was “too young” to need a seat.

While I understand her desire for a seat, and am willing to acknowledge that she has probably dealt with more in her 60-70 years than I will ever deal with in my life, I am often irritated with the sort of entitlement many babushkas seem to have here. Most of these interactions have taken place either on the sidewalk or in the trolley bus.

Sidewalks here are pretty standard. The average width is probably between four and five feet, which in my experience is plenty of space for bi-directional traffic. Almost everyone automatically moves over to allow a passerby. However, it does not seem to be the case when encountering many babushkas. They often have the look of a bulldozer operator in my father’s excavation business, just daring someone to get in their way. It is probably safer to step into oncoming traffic than to challenge a babushka, as they don’t tend to be afraid of berating perfect strangers.

I don’t often sit on the trolley bus, especially when there are people with small children or elderly people in need of a seat. It is customary that younger people will give up their seats. But it irritates me when the elderly lady approaches me with that look in her eyes and stares me down until I acknowledge her majesty by getting out of my seat. Once or twice I may have continued to read of even stare and pretended to not realize one was staring.

My behavior in those situations is contradictory to my position as an MCC worker. I am here “in the name of Christ”. I should be willing to get up for anybody, but in some of my interactions I have found that my behavior is far from the ideal. I am here to serve these babushkas. Yet when I think “babushka” my mind automatically thinks “grandma”. And while I get a laugh by envisioning either of my grandmas throwing a teenager out of a seat on a bus or bulldozing people off the sidewalk, I try not to get frustrated by such petty things so I can act as I am supposed to.

Dave

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Cats

This morning on my way to our apartment, I passed DCU’s cat, sitting in the snow. She’s a longhaired black and white “Sylvester” type. I petted her for a little bit, then she followed me to the building. And I let her in. It was freezing cold outside and I felt sorry for her. I figured it wasn’t so bad, since I’d seen her perched on the steps inside our building several times before.

I’ve always had a soft heart for cats, and it seems like I fit in just fine in Ukraine. Cats are everywhere, both running around outside like stray dogs, and in unusual places where you don’t expect to see them. For instance, the DCU cat. I think her name is Masha. Her home base, as far as I can tell, is the DCU cafeteria. In the kitchen, with the cooks. I’ve seen her rubbing against their legs as they stir the borsch and slice the bread. No one seems to worry about the cleanliness or health issues that might, in other places, accompany a cat’s presence in the kitchen. She occasionally wanders through the dining hall, but never begs for food. I suppose she gets her fill from the cooks’ scraps.

What gets me is that in Ukraine, you don’t just see pet cats in people’s houses. A few spots we’ve spied them: the bakery near the auto market - according to the owner of the cat there, kitty can tell when the pastries coming out of the oven have meat in them or not. (I don’t know how she signals this knowledge) At the state university - while finding my way to a session during an English-teachers conference, I glimpsed a cat darting down the hallway. In the airport - This was the most quintessential Ukrainian cat sighting yet to date. Upon returning from MCC retreat in France this summer, as I walked through the baggage screening area in the Dnieperpetrovsk airport, there, perched on its very own chair next to the human luggage screener, was a calm-looking tiger cat, doing its part to oversee the luggage traffic. Maybe a drug-sniffing cat? A note: Dnieperpetrovsk is a city of more than a million people, and although their airport is not what I would call classy or particularly modern, it is nonetheless a hub of international transport for central Ukraine. And yet, the cat has access. If only I could own a cat in Ukraine, then I could fit right in. Unfortunately, DCU’s apartment rules state that the only pets we may own must be contained in a cage or bowl. But even these rules don’t keep the cats out … our neighbors next door have a beautiful little kitty, and a family downstairs just purchased a kitten for their kid’s birthday …

Laura

Saturday, February 04, 2006

Circus

At checkout at one of the bigger grocery stores there are televisions that run constant advertisements. It seems to be a good idea as we have found ourselves standing there for long periods of time with nothing to do but watch them. Last week, we saw an advertisement for Moscow Extreme Circus, which showed a bear riding a motorcycle. We had never seen a bear ride a motorcycle, so we thought we would check it out.

Every large city in the former Soviet Union seems to have a building dedicated to hosting circuses. The ones we have seen look like they were pretty impressive in their day and must not have been cheap to build.


It has been a long time since I was last at a circus so I may not remember clearly what they were like, but this one seemed different. There were no lions or tigers, but we had an opportunity to have our picture taken with a crocodile or a bear (a smaller, stragglier looking one than the one in the picture). One act featured a guy with a bunch of reptiles, but that was repulsive and we won’t get into it. There were more traditional acts ranging from dogs jumping rope and jumping through rings of fire to a guy juggling dumbbells and catching them on the back of his neck. And there were more interesting acts, mostly involving bears but also the one in the second picture in which a guy was stacking and balancing on pipes. The bears were riding scooters, playing pattycake, walking across narrow beams, standing on their front paws on a spinning trapeze, and most impressively, driving a motorcycle. At times it seemed a bit inhumane, but overall it was 2.5 hours of good entertainment.

-Dave

Friday, February 03, 2006

Customer Service

Yesterday the lady I was buying fruit from at the market smiled at me. Not just a thin lip smile, but a wide, toothy, white (no gold teeth!), friendly smile. Actually, first she greeted me, then smiled, but I was too busy telling her what I wanted that I kind of missed that part. My manners with strangers have changed a bit since being here - I’ve gotten used to stepping up to the counter without hesitation or pause and saying what I want. Don’t be polite and wait around, don’t waste time with greetings or smiles, it won’t get you anywhere. If I don’t state my purpose, the man behind me will step in front and ask for his dried fish and beer, or the woman behind the counter will keep doing her crossword puzzle, examining her nails, or chatting with her fellow vendor. Or maybe she’ll just stare blankly at you. Customer service is not a big deal here, so when you experience it, it makes your day. And you remember it. Dave and I were once looking for a computer microphone and a random helpful tech store employee ran all over getting different types of mics and telling us about their features, complete with smiles and patient answers to our questions. When we decided not to buy any mics from him, I felt really bad. Then I remembered that at home, telling about the mics in a polite way would’ve been an ordinary part of his job. But I still remember that nice guy. So back to the smiley market lady - I was somewhat embarrassed to interrupt her customer service efforts and gave her an extra-emphasized ‘thank you’ and smile at the end of our transaction. Hopefully she’ll be back next time – even though I’ve adjusted to the cultural way of doing business here, I think I’d pay more for the fruit just to see the smile.

Laura