We finished the bathroom project!!! Thanks for all your help!!!

English language Week redux

Per last year's resounding success, we held another English Language Week at my school. This year, the theme was Disney. While 1-4 grades sang children's songs, 5-11 grades were assigned different disney movies, to celebrate the birth of Walt Disney on the 5th of December. As a special contest, anyone who correctly names the titles (and movies) for all of the songs in the comment section will win a special prize from me/my students! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx0xL7z446Y&feature=youtu.be

Girls Camp

I feel like I don’t write about a lot of successes. The truth is life here can get you down. I fail much more than I succeed, and as someone raised always believing he could be the best at anything, well, its hard to feel like I can’t. There is this battle in our minds between who we are and who we desire to be, and it is a force that can be both reformative and destructive. I want to believe I can singlehandedly make the world a better place, and when I undoubtably don’t, I am deflated.

There was a lot I thought I would do upon coming here. I imagined coaching a team to the little league world series, opening a recycling factory, making the village sparkly clean. While I pushed at first, the engine eventually slows down. I don’t have the energy left I had those first few months in the village. How could I? The little (and stout and balding) engine could not.

I’ve talked here and there about feminism---about my mother, about what gender roles mean in our society. Its something I’ve wanted to convey to the girls at my school for some time now, to show them an alternative to the life they know. Go to school, get in to university, find a husband, settle down. There is a notion that if you are not married by 25, then you are doomed, forever to live alone, never to find love. An old maid at a quarter century.

It’s not that women are viewed as secondary citizens in the Ukrainian mentality. In fact, an argument could be made that there was more “feminism” in the Soviet Union than in pre-War America. Its just that in the Ukrainian village, each has their role. The man works the land, feeds the animals, and drinks the vodka. The woman milks the cow, cleans the house, and cooks the food. These are stereotypes, of course, but preconceptions grow deep in the Ukrainian soil.

There is more out there than what they know. That’s all I’ve ever really wanted to show my kids, to encourage them to imagine, to expose them to something different and new. There such a rote process to this still deeply Soviet education system that the notion of creating isn’t so emphasized.

This past summer, three of my students, all girls, attended a Peace Corps summer camp organized by the Gender and Development council, a Peace Corps Ukraine working group. The camp, which was organized by Peace Corps volunteers including two of my friends, Stephanie and Vanessa, was a week long bonanza where the girls would learn about important female issues as well as have the opportunity to meet other young female leaders from across Ukraine.

While all three of the girls are great, one of them, Olia, is a real All-Star. Olia is the niece of my director, Kolya, and my counterpart, Tamila. Barely 14 years old, she has the best English in the school. She is at the top of her class and popular to boot. She has a thirst for knowledge which I don’t often see in my students. Everything she sees, hears, feels, you can tell she is registering it all somewhere, tucking it away as if portended for later use.

While I was happy that I was able to give these three girls the experience, I of course wanted to help more of my students, as well. The Gender and Development group began offering small mini-grants to conduct gender-related projects, so Olia suggested we do a mini-camp for the girls at our school. All projects needed a counterpart---Olia, 14 years old, a girl whose mother succumbed to cancer two years ago, stepped up to the plate.
Together with Olia (as well as Yulia, another of my students who attended the camp over the summer) we organized a weekend “feminist training,” as it was entitled by my somewhat skeptical director. We invited two Peace Corps volunteers, Vanessa and Niza, to help conduct the camp, as well as Vanessa’s Ukrainian friend Sveta. Sveta is a rock star, a jack of all trades swiss army knife who works in Cherkassy, our Oblast center. She used to run a youth center there, but now simply goes from project to project, whether it is organizing a film festival about domestic violence, cleaning up the Dnieper river, or teaching girls in small villages about HIV/AIDS.

The camp took place over two days, a Friday and a Saturday. While I was incredibly nervous about attendance (it ain’t easy to get these kids, or any kids, to come to school on a weekend) the camp was heavily attended by a healthy cadre of 20 girls, ages 14-17.

The first day, Friday, was all about HIV/AIDS. Ukraine has the highest HIV/AIDS rate in Europe, and it is growing at an incredibly fast rate. While the official HIV rate stands at 1.3% of the population, only 11% of the population has ever been tested, leading to speculation that the actual rate could be higher. Sveta is a certified HIV/AIDS trainer through an organization known as PEPFAR.

PEPFAR is fascinating for a variety of reasons. First off, it is on the forefront around the globe of educating at-risk countries about HIV/AIDS knowledge and prevention. In Ukraine it has truly begun to make inroads, and Peace Corps Ukraine has two employees specifically delegated to PEPFAR programming. For me, however, the most interesting part is that PEPFAR was actually a brainchild of George W. Bush. Say what you like about him and his Presidency, he may have been the greatest ally (in terms of overall financial assistance) in the fight against HIV/AIDS that the world has ever known.

I did not participate in the Friday discussion, nor would I participate in many of the conversations that occurred over the next few days. These are serious topics--HIV/AIDS, transmission, stereotypes, prevention--and I wanted my students to feel open and unobserved. I am their teacher, but Sveta can double as their friend. The day was a huge success; using before and after questionnaires, Sveta showed me the marked strides my girls had made.

On Saturday, Sveta and Vanessa covered quite a few important topics, including Domestic Violence, Human Trafficking, and what it means to be a woman in today’s society. Meanwhile, Niza was preparing the painting of a World HIV/AIDS map. The map is color coded to convey the different HIV/AIDS rates that exist throughout the world. As you can see, Ukraine is much, much darker than the rest of Europe.



The whole time I was incredibly nervous. Would the girls enjoy themselves? Would they learn something? Would they care? I can’t even begin to explain how I felt when, at the end of the day, the girls didn’t want to leave. They truly had a great time. A handful of girls stayed two extra hours, just to make sure that the map was as beautiful as can be.

Olia was, of course, the last to leave. She cleaned the brushes, swept up the trash, put the tables and chairs back in place. This was all expected. This was Olia. But as she was leaving, she did something she had never done before. She gave me a hug.

Afterwards, she was embarrassed. I am, after all, her teacher. Yet that hug meant so much to me, because it really showed me that I had done something right. I doubt myself every day. I never know if I’m doing what I am supposed to be. Am I “developing the youth?” Am I making the village a better place? Am I a good volunteer? Olia’s hug was a wonderful affirmative, her way of conveying her appreciation and her growth.

The village may be the same, but Olia, and these 20 other girls, are already better.

Star Spangled Banner

Last week, the school held a contest of singing National Anthems. While I helped various classes learn the anthems of Great Britain, Papua New Guinea, and Poland, here my 9th formers praised the Red White and Blue

Indoor Toilets!!! (for the school, not for me)

Ukraine can get a little cold in the winter. Bitter winds, mounds of snow. And while our school is (somewhat) heated, the only available toilets for the students lay in dreaded outdoors. While I, strong Ukrainian man that I am, can easily handle such tribulations, some of our younger students really struggle. So the idea for a project was born---rebuilding (or, building might be the better word) the schools once-planned toilets. The Soviet Union collapsed as they were building the school, and the toilets didn't quite get done.

Like our project building the garbage can, this was done through the generosity of watercharity.org, a website that funds ecological and water-related projects for Peace Corps volunteers. Please click the link below to help donate to our project. I am asking for ten dollars from all of my lovely friends and family (and distant acquaintances). Anyone interested in giving more, please check out some of the other great projects on the appropriate projects site, www.appropriateprojects.com! We plan on building not only toilets but sinks as well---we will try and keep our students more sanitary and thus healthier throughout the cold winter.

As an added bonus, students will have no excuse to go sneak a cigarette outside during class time. Two birds with one click of the mouse!

http://appropriateprojects.com/node/892

Thanks for all your help!

Dream

A big thank you to everyone who bought a music album! We ended up raising $500 to help buy music equipment for my school!!! Here is a slideshow of some pictures of my students, set to the music of "Dream," by my student Katya Verhulatsky. Happy Listening!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!!

Please, feel free to call my mother en-masse on this day of her jubilee plus 13.

Rosh hashanah

On Rosh Hashanah it is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed.
I’ve been getting a lot of questions in my village this week about the Jewish New Year. How on earth is it 5772? What does “Rash Hashina” mean? What are all those bearded Hassidim doing in Uman? Are Hassidim even Jews?

I try to answer each of the questions as best as I can. We began counting from the creation of the world. It means the “Head of the Year.” The Hassidim are there visiting the grave of a famous Rabbi, Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, who promised good fortune to all those who visited his grave during the new year. There are many different types of Jews, including Hassidim, not to mention that there are many different types of Hassidim. Do you understand yet?

At the onset of the Jewish New Year, Jews are given ten days with which to get their affairs in order. Our tradition tells us that on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, all Jews are split into three groups: the righteous, the evil, and the in-betweens. Most of us, not surprisingly, fall into the last group. And so on Rosh Hashanah these in-betweens are written into the book of death (which is, understandably, bad) but are given ten days to rectify our mistakes. On the tenth day we celebrate Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, where first we atone for our sins against man and then we atone for our sins against God. Every year, our eternal existence hinges on a day ten window in early autumn. And people wonder about the root of Jewish anxiety.

What bad things have I done in the past year? I try to be a good person, do the right thing, follow the path of righteousness, etc. etc. But there exists this vision in my mind of the person I ought to be, and when I look in the mirror I just don’t see him. Perhaps this is a part of the struggle, what these ten days are supposed to be about: Reflecting on the difference between who we are and who we strive to become.

This Rosh Hashanah, my friend Avital and I organized a program for Peace Corps Volunteers in Dnieperpetrovsk. Following a successful Passover Seder where we had about 15 volunteers, , we wanted to do another event to try and injext some yiddishkeit intp the Peace Corps service of some of the other Jewish and non-Jewish volunteers alike.

While I’ve certainly had a taste of Jewish communities around Ukraine, most of my experiences have taken place in Kiev, the capitol. I thought that Kiev had a vibrant and growing community, looking towards the future. Then I saw Dnieperpetrovsk, and a new standard was set.

Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetzky, chief Rabbi of Dnieperpetrovsk, has a presence. In a synagogue where even on high holidays it is not unusual for tieless businessman to take a quick call on their bluetooth, when he gets up to speak, everybody listens. Rabbi Kaminetzky came to Ukraine 21 years ago for a year. But before the former Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, passed away, he made Kaminetzky promise he would never leave. The Rabbi has truly built a community, where Jews from all walks of life feel comfortable walking into the synagogue. He has gone from a group of disorganized wandering Jews in post USSR Ukraine to the opening, in February, of the Menorah Center, a Jewish community center that will scrape the Ukrainian skies. He is both knowledgeable and inclusive, a traditional Jew with an open door.

He was a welcome change to some of the other Jews I have encountered so far in Ukraine, especially more recently. One Hassidic woman, over a meal, accused me of not understanding Judaism. “How can you not help your own people?” she demanded to know. How could I have such care for these gentiles and chuck the Jewish people to the wind (her words, not mine).

Rabbi Kaminetzky was the opposite of that. In fact, he seems to be one of Peace Corps’ biggest cheerleaders in Ukraine. He regular welcomes my friend Avital, another Peace Corps volunteer, to his home and to his table, and extends open arms to Peace Corps compatriots passing through, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. He has great respect and admiration for all souls, and the feelings are almost certainly reciprocated.

Rabbo Kaminetzky could not have been more helpful in preparing for our event. He gave us a room to use in the synagogue complex, and had a huge traditional festival meal prepared. He also spoke to the volunteers for about ten minutes at the beginning of the program, thanking them for their service, and welcoming them to his community.

Avital and I then split all of the particpants (which numbered about 40, 30 of them peace Volunteers, 15 of them Jewish) into groups of 2 or 3. In Judaism, one is supposed to study with a Hevruta, a word without a true direct translation into English. Perhaps the best explanation is the translation of an old verse explaining the ideal study partner: Make for yourself a teacher, acquire for yourself a friend. Learn from them, learn about them, learn about yourself.

Avital and I directed each of the Hevrutas to ask each other a series of questions that Jews regularly ask themselves during these ten days. What bad things have I done in the past year? What can I do better? Who was I? Who am I? Who may I become?

Avital and I were each others Hevruta, and we dove deeply into these questions. I am constantly disappointed in my work here. I suppose it is the lasting remnants of my undying idealism, this belief that not only I CAN change the world, but that I MUST change the world. And yet every time I seem to fall short of my goal.

What have I done wrong in the past year? Many things, but none more so than being entirely discontented with the work I have done. Who may I become? Someone who continues to try their best to make the world better, for sure, but someone who will also be happy regardless of the outcome. Why am I not the man I see in the mirror? Perhaps it is because of the expectation of the man I expect to find.

I had the change in Dniperpetrovsk to spend some time with Yossi Glick, who runs the Jewish girls orphanage there. Yossi is, in my mind, what Jewish tradition might refer to as an Ish Tzaddik, a truly righteous man. He devotes his life to a small group of 15 girls with no family to turn to, teaches them, cares for them, loves them. He has seven children of his own whom he showers with affection. And to top it all of, twice a week he rides around in a small van through the poorest and most decrepit areas of Dniperpetrovsk. With a local social worker in tow, they build relationships with the city’s runaways, youth who gather in small groups to find warmth under a local highway or inside an abandoned factory. They talk to these children, ask if they can pass messages to their families, try to bring them back to a real life. Yossi admits that their success rate is low. But as the Talmud teaches us, he who saves one life saves the entire world.

Yossi will never be on any list anywhere of the most influential people in the world. He will not cure cancer, he will not solve world hunger, he will not win a Nobel Prize of Peace. But Yossi is trying to do his part, and he is happy, regardless of the outcome.

And so, a new years resolution: From now on, I will look in the mirror and see the man I am. For now, this will have to suffice.

Yom Kippur

I will have a longer post next week, but I just wanted to take this opportunity to ask for forgiveness from anyone whom i have wrong in the past year. I will truly try and do better next year, try to be more considerate of those around me (and not so around me but still close to my heart). May the coming year bring us all empathy and understanding, love and trust. Gmar Chatimah Tovah may you all be sealed in the book of life for a long life and an everlasting one.

Hello, fair listeners!

I am excited to present to you the first every music album from the Boyarka School Players, entitled, "Everything, little by little." Composed exclusively by students, we have managed to put together quite the amateur production. Its a wild mix of songs the students wrote themselves, english songs they learned, and Ukrainian songs they already knew. Theres also a little Alphabet variation I concocted, because the guitar chords for the traditional alphabet song were too difficult.

The best song on the album, by far, is "Dream" or in the Ukrainian, "Mriya." It is by one of my favorite students, Katya Verhulatski. My internet is too slow to post the song, but I hope to do that later. For now, enjoy her lyrics---she is a true poet!

Anyone interested in buying an album, please contact my mother at annhappelbaum@gmail.com. She has copies in America for $10 if you pick it up from her in person, $12 if postage is included. All money raised will be used to buy musical equipment for my school. As a disclaimer, this is a direct fundraiser for my school, not a Peace Corps fundraising device, and all the money will be specifically used for the purposes of buying equipment for the school.

Enjoy listening!

Dream, by Katya Verhulatski

What does a dream mean to you?
Is it the hope of your life?
Is it the wind of your thoughts?

Let your dreams fly up into the sky,
If you look around, everything is so truly beautiful.
Let your soul sing, sing,
And do not forget your dream.

I have a dream, but it is protected
From all that could harm it
So that you and I can be happy.

Let your dreams fly up into the sky
If you look around, everything is so truly beautiful
Let your soul to sing, to sing
And do not forget your dream

And allow your soul to sing, to sing
And do not forget your dream

understanding

How far can cultural understanding really go? I know I’ve covered this topic before, but it reemerged on my consciousness this past week as we solemnly remembered the ten years that have passed since that Tuesday in September.

Memory often fascinates me, especially my own. I can remember obscure facts from my sixth grade Social Studies textbooks (the rise and rule of Justinian comes to mind) but I struggle to remember what I did last weekend. Things I read tend to stick with me; things I do tend to fall by the wayside. A friend of mine once remarked to me that she felt I paid more attention to books than to life. She might have a point.

But I will always remember the 11th of September, or at least I will always remember my Hebrew teacher Shoshana Cohen coming to me after Second period and telling me that the Twin towers had fallen down. It would weeks, months, years before I would even begin to wrap my head around those statements. I remember driving through Montclair and seeing the black smoke enveloping New York city. I remember walking into Jeff’s house, more scared than I’ve ever been in my life. I remember the days afterwards, the planes flying overhead and the silent wondering, “could we be next?” I remember the fear that permeated us all, and the terror upon which we declared War.

How does one properly convey a memory? Next month, I am beginning a series of lessons in Lysyanka, the nearest town of 10,000 people which before the war was almost 30% Jewish. I will be teaching about tolerance, stereotypes, and Jewish history and traditions. Together with the students, we will conduct a research project about the Jews of our region, and we will hopefully build a museum of Jewish history and tolerance on the grounds of the former Jewish cemetery.

The topic of our first lesson will be, “What is History?” I’m going to attempt to convey that no history, no story, can be completely objective. The author or the teller’s voice and opinion always seems to seep through. In Ukrainian, the word for examination, ohlyad, is very close to the word pohlyad, or viewpoint. Does the lone p explain enough of the difference?

Most of my students know nothing of 9/11. People my age tend to be inundated by many of the 9/11 conspiracy theories, theories that have such a casual relationship with the truth that it in many ways saddens and offends me. Even the people in my village who know of the day---how can I explain to them what it meant? What it means? What it will mean tomorrow?

On Friday, I asked my Director if I could take a few moments to speak to the students the following Monday. He agreed.

On Saturday, the Sabbath, I read a book, Holocaust by Bullets, written by Patrick DuBois. It is the story of how DuBois, a French priest, traversed the Ukrainian countryside in search of Jewish mass graves, interviewing aging witnesses, recording unwritten history. The book is depressing in and of itself, but living in a village much like the ones he describes, it was especially difficult. The worst part of the book, the hardest chapter to read, are the ones where it describes the pits that were dug, the bodies thrown in, and the reports of what it looked like afterwards: For three days, the earth moved. Jews were shot and buried alive. For three days, the earth moved.

On Sunday, I thought about the ten years, and the seventy years since the mass killings, and the almost 80 years since the great Ukrainian famine. I thought about the pain of memories we have and the pain of memories we hear from others. I thought about life, and about death, and about God.

On Monday, I came into school. After second period, I called an assembly. And as the students were standing there, I told them about that Tuesday in September, and about the towers, and about the terrorists, and about the nearly 3,000 people who died. I asked them to remember that these people were killed in the name of hate. I shared with them my believe that weapons of hate can only be defeated with weapons of love. I told them the only thing we cannot tolerate is intolerance. I gave them a piece of my memory, in all its subjective glory.

And then I asked them for a moment of silence for the lives lost. In silence we stood.

On Friday, there was another in a long line of Ukrainian holidays, the day of flowers. Children picked flowers from their gardens and brought them to school. Tables were laid out with reefs abd bouqets galore. Olha Alexandrivna, the Ukrainian language teacher, asked me to clarify the date of the tragedy of which I spoke. A few minutes later, she showed me a reef of flowers her children had made. Pamyatayemo bci scho pomerli na 11oho veresen, 2001. We remember all those who died on the 11th of September, 2001.

They may not understand what 9/11 means to me, or how much it troubles me to know that for three days, the earth moved. But it seems that I can convey to them the importance of it all, at least to me. Getting them to care, having them remember my subjective memories, might be victory enough.

Poems

I'm hoping to have a more traditional "introspective-Jeremy" post tomorrow, but in the meantime, here are two poems written by some of my best students. Olia wants to be a flight attendant (she wants to see the world!) and Yulia wants to be a Doctor. Please be generous with the rhymes while reading.

One short and beautiful day
I met a flower in my way
She lives in a garden near home
And is happy when I come.
She told me all about flowers
About hot and funny summers.
One time, since you've heard what I say,
When you will be coming this way
You'll find this flower in a garden
Olia Pretula
9th form


A Rose is a nice flower
It has a very big power
Its Power is matchless
It is nice like her dress
A dress with Roses
Is the garden of clothes
Yulia Cherevko
9th form

Batki

Ann Appelbaum, and her husband Rabbi Borovitz, are two of the best troopers I have ever met in my life, not to mention a fairly decent set of parents.

My parents recently completed an 11 day sojourn in Ukraine, a trip that has been in the planning since I got my official letter of invitation to join the Peace Corps some 20 odd months ago. Obviously, I had some trepidations about the parental visit. I am used to a certain lifestyle in Ukraine, one that involves overnight train rides and youth hostels and outdoor toilets. My parents are accustomed to a slightly different lifestyle of their own, one that consists of airplanes and fancy hotels and toilets with automatic flushers so as not to unnecessarily spread germs.

Compromise is a part of life, however. So I gave my parents nice hotels in exchange for a pair of overnight train rides, and I secured an assurance from my neighbors that my parents could dabble in their toilet.

From the time I met up with my parents in Lviv, the trip was nearly flawless. From the Ukraine’s west to Odessa in the south back up north to Kiev with a quick jump to my village in the middle, I couldn’t have planned a more fluid or enjoyable excursion.

My parents really met me halfway. Upon reading that in an infusion of Jewification I have begun donning my tefillin and praying every day, my father brought his set with him, as well. While my father is a very religious man, Tefillin is not necessarily his path towards connecting with God. But he knew it was a part of my path, and so he donned the Tefillin in order to better connect with me.

On the first full day of our trip, we took a day long trip to Rohatyn, a small town (or large village, depending on your perspective) from whence my father’s grandfather, David Nagelberg, once came. Rohatyn also happens to be the Peace Corps site of my good friend Abe, the daydreaming philosopher king of PC-Ukraine. While visiting the site of the old Jewish cemetery, under which ground my ancestors once laid (and perhaps remnants of which still remain) my father and I donned our Tefillin and we began to pray. And as the words left our mouth and enriched the soil beneath, as we recited the EL Maleh Rachamim, the Jewish prayer for the dead, I felt something wonderful. Not so much because I was connecting with God or my deceased ancestors, but because I was connecting with my father.

Probably the most hilarious part of the trip occurred on the train ride from Odessa to Kiev. I had ordered a four bed train car for my parents and I, along with my comrade Kevin who tailed us on our visit. As many of you may or may not be aware, my father suffers from sleep apnea, which causes him to snore excessively. After years of my mother suffering from massive exhaustion, my father eventually purchased a machine to help him breathe while he sleeps. It cuts down on noise, and the whole lot is better off.

Except the machine requires an electrical outlet, and those aren’t always so easy to come by on a Ukrainian train. The good news: our train compartment had an outlet. The bad news: it was near one of the top bunks of our train car. The top bunks of a Ukrainian train are not the most accessible place in the world. But through a combination of the massive might of Kevin and myself, we were able to lift my father into the bed. Of course, our efforts were in vain, because two hours into the train ride the electricity on the train shut down and the snoring most certainly did commence.

The two days we spent in my village were an experience, to say the least. Lots of the locals were very excited to meet my parents, and wanted to tell them some small anecdote about my time in my village. It was hard for many of them to understand, however, that my parents didn’t understand what they were saying. Probably my favorite of these interactions was when one of my neighbors looked at me and said “how is it that your parents have such a smart son and yet they aren’t smart enough to learn ukrainian?” I didn’t think it was necessary to add that, you know, we speak a different language in America. Then there was my other neighbor, who had knocked back a few or four, and was so excited to see my parents that he kissed my mother. I can only imagine how much she enjoyed it.

My mother, however, was the true champion of the trip. For all the family chatter about my outdoor toilet, my mother did not hesitate to give the ol’ fortress of solitude a whirl. Sure, she used my neighbor’s bathroom a few times. But her perseverance was remarkable, her lack of complaining heartwarming.

There is a Ukrainian word, Batkivshina, fatherland. On the one hand, it happens to be the name of the political party of Yulia Tymoshenko, the embattled and imprisoned former Prime Minister of Ukraine. But it also expresses a specific emotion, a certain yearning, a connection to our ancestors and our past and our families.

I hadn’t seen my parents in some time. And our roles were most certainly reversed. I was the parent, the one communicating with the world at large, the one leading the way, the one with an idea of how the world worked. But the most amazing part of our trip was how nothing had really changed at all.

David ben Gurion one said that we can change anything in this world. We can change our name, we can change our country, we can change our religion. But we can never change who our parents are. I couldn’t be happier I’ll never have to change mine.

The girls of Ukraine

Hi all,

Here is a hastily put together video to get my friend Josh to stop pestering me for more video. As you can see, I am daily tempted by the awe-inspiring beauty of the women of this country.

A post should follow later in the week about my parents visit...

The boys

Its probably safe to say that Ben is my oldest friend. I’ve known him as long as I’ve been able to hold down memories, and there are photographs to prove we were bonding long before then. In the 24 or so years of our relationship, we’ve managed to have together a plethora of near-death experiences. We got mugged in New York city, almost drowned in a lake, and crashed a car.

I met Jeff in Kindergarten. My first strong memory of Jeff is pretty well documented. We were having some sort of ceremony at school, and Jeff’s mother Debbie approached me. Jeff was apparently bawling, because the Gods for some reason had placed him to sit in between two girls. So I graciously sat next to him, to save him from this daunting wave of x chromosomes.

I must have met Eric sometime around Kindergarten also, although we met through the local synagogue, not through school. Our parents used to drag us both to synagogue on saturday mornings (my father was the rabbi, so it was likely an occupational hazard) and Eric and I would spend our time pretending we could pick the locks of various doors using only the bobby pins meant to fasten our yarmulkes to our heads. We never succeeded.

It wasn’t until high school that the four of us began hanging out regularly, and perhaps it was some time later when we really began to gel as a group. But they are my oldest friends, and know me better than anybody. As soon as I knew I’d be spending 2 plus years in Ukraine, I immediately began my fineigling to convince them a trip was necessary. On July 1, 2011, they arrived.

My time here has both gone incredibly slowly and at the speed of light. When I think of the pace of some of the days, they creep by at a snail’s pace. But the memories of my last moments are vividly clear, that hanging over a cliff feeling, not knowing the depth of the fall.

How have I changed? I’ve always believed its impossible to tell how a certain situation or event has changed you until its completion. The person I am becoming will only be clear once I have returned to life in the States. But for the amazing ten days I spent with my friends, I was afforded a lens of sorts with which to view my “new” self.

All in all, I had a great week with the boys. We spent some time in Kiev, celebrated the 4th of July with other Peace Corps volunteers, and hung out in the village. But as much fun as I had, and as happy as I was to be with them, I was surprised at how hard it was for me to adjust to them being around.

I remember there once being a culture shock for me in Ukraine, but that moment has long passed. So for me, when an outlet doesn’t work or I end up not sleeping and eating bread and cheese for three days, I just chock it up to a part of the experience. And as a part of my desire to be a Sprazhni Ukrayinski Muzhik, a real Ukrainian man, I try not to let anything bother me, to roll with the punches. This is probably one of the best changes that has occurred to me so far, my ability to accept things more for how they are. Sometimes I forget how different that is than the person I used to be.

Jeff had some sort of allergy to my house. And for some reason, I had trouble being sensitive to this issue. Ben hurt his toe, and was reluctant to accept the advice of local doctors. I was unable to realize that if I was in a foreign country and didn’t speak the language, I’d be skeptical of some topless dude who took a break from working on his farm to peak at my foot. Eric wanted to stay in a nicer Hotel in Kiev. For me, any place with running water is such a huge step up, I fail to realize that different people have different standards. I’ve spent a lot of time and energy getting to know the people here, investing myself in their successes and failures, trying to understand where they are coming from, who they are, what they want. Somewhere along the way, did I forget how to empathize with those who are closest to me?

I’m more Jewish than I used to be. This may be hard for some people to understand, and its definitely hard to describe. But there have been two main changes in my Jewish observance that are somewhat significant. The first is that I pray and wear Tefillin (or Jewish phylacteries every single day. While my friends were certainly shocked by this development, they were supportive to varying degrees. The second, and more problematic one, is that I am now shomer shabbat, or at least in the process. This means that on Friday nights and Saturdays, on the Jewish Sabbath, I do not use electricity, I do not travel in cars, and I attempt to take a meaningful break from the rest of my week. While this was problematic during my friend’s time here, they were incredibly respectful and caring to my new desires. I know it wasn’t necessarily easy for them, and they certainly don’t agree with my choices. But they are my best friends, and so they accept me and love me for who I am.

The boys happened to be in the village during the holiday of Ivana Kupala, which is a mixture of an old Pagan holiday mixed with the Christian worship of the apostle John. Basically, it involves people dressing up in traditional Ukrainian clothes, putting on various skits and contests, and jumping over a fire. While at the celebration, Natasha, who was the woman running the event and is also the head of the local house of culture (not to mention the mother of one of my students), called me up to participate in an event. The village’s response was uproarious; pretty much any time I do something that is considered very “Ukrainian,” the village thinks its absolutely hilarious. I also was wearing my traditional Ukrainian shirt, which likely increased the hilarity. After I participated in the contest, Natasha insisted my friends participate as well. And thus Jeff was forced to pull toothpicks out of an apple with his teeth and Ben braided a random girl’s hair. Probably the funniest moment of the whole trip was Ben looking at me, a girls locks in his hand, and asking me, “What do I do? Make a challah?” And make a challah he did.

It was nice to expose them to this aspect of traditional Ukrainian culture, to show them the country that has become my new home. And they lived in my house and helped me do laundry and peeled potatoes and went to the well and worked in the fields. It was definitely really hard for them at certain points, hard in ways that used to be impossible for me but have since become a part of my daily routine (pooping is definitely high on that list.) But to their credit, they really did try very hard to enjoy themselves. Because they are my best friends, and they love me, and thats what best friends do.

On our last night in my village, we cooked a big dinner. Two of my Peace Corps friends, Avital and Paula, were there as well. As part of a long, extended toast, my friends went through the various stages of my life. First there was fat Jeremy, who was loud and annoying and a show off. Then there was Frat-tastic Jeremy, who was a super “bro.” And now, to misquote Jeff, there is “preachy” Jeremy. I thought the word sounded harsh, as well, but, Jeff swears, he meant it as a compliment.

Preachy? Perhaps thats not a bad way to describe it. I’ve been described to a whole different way of life here, and I love it. Its as if through the land and the people and my tefillin I’ve discovered some sort of individual truth I’d like to share with the world. And I have trouble describing it and I don’t know what it means because I’m still in the thick of it and what I really need is to be on the outside looking in. But Jeff and Eric and Ben, they can still see me, they still understand and will always understand who I am and what I’m about, even when I can’t see myself. Because they are and always will be my best friends, and thats just one of the things best friends are able to do.

Russia

I just got back from an amazing trip in Russia. Moscow is a phenomenal international city, and St. Petersburg is stunningly beautiful. I was also fortunate enough to be there during white nights, when, due to the summer months, the sun sets at 1130 and there is light until 2-3 am. Two small thoughts about my trip:

1) I visited Lenin's grave. He has been preserved through some sort of embalming process, and is on display in the creepiest room I have ever seen in my life. You stand on line for an hour, then you are ushered into this small, dark room where only his tiny, shriveled body is lit up. It was the first time in my life I truly realized how much Communism was a religion as well as a political and social ideology.

2) Be careful booking hostels via hostel world. Below is the review I posted for my hostel Crazy Duck, in St. petersburg. As a note, 3 am is not late in St. petes----

My friends and I rented a private four person room here. One night we got back at around 3 am when we ran into some guys from New Zealand. My friend Tom went back out with them, as he knew of some cool clubs. At about 8 am, I hear the door open. The next thing I know, some dude is PEEING ON TOM's BED. I smack him across the face, and, thinking it is Tom, scream "TOM. NO. BATHROOM." As he drunkenly stumbles out of the room, when my friend Kevin says "dude, that wasn't Tom." Tom soon returns and we scream "DONT GET IN YOUR BED!!!!!" When we went downstairs to tell reception about our new air freshener, they were a little accusative. Why didn't you lock your door? Well, we didn't think someone would confuse it for the toilet! Best Hostel Ever!

11 Steps to planting a Ukrainian Garden

Step 1: Go to college. Lose yourself. Become convinced you need to do something outlandish in order to get rid of your upper white middle class Jewish guilt. Go out with friends one night senior year and announce you are joining the Peace Corps. Start the application later that week just to prove wrong the doubts milling in your head. Wait one year. Receive your invitation to go to Ukraine.

Sep 2: Arrive in Ukraine. Experience culture shock, followed by immense guilt that you chickened out and didn’t go to Africa and get attacked by mosquitoes every night. Express your desire to the Peace Corps personnel to go to the smallest, most remote place they can find.

Step 3: Begin life in your small Ukrainian village. Realize you have no idea what you are doing. Wake up at 6 with the roosters. Go to the well for water. Head over to school during the summer holiday lull and realize you have nothing to do. Play with small children, because they find you of interest. Teach how to throw a baseball. Build a seat for your toilet. Memorize a poem or two by Taras Shevchenko, the Ukrainian National Poet.

Step 4: Take baby steps. Give English lessons. Have absolutely no idea what you are doing. Learn rules of English Grammar. Refuse to accept monetary payment, taking potatoes, beets, carrots, onions, and various basked goods in their stead. Teach Vannya the guitar. Clean up the trash that litters the side of the road, first alone, then with previously stated small children in tow.

Step 5: Help with the fall harvest. Dig, Collect, Sort. Potatoes, Beets, Hay. Chop Wood. Learn how to seal tomatoes for the winter. Run the soil through your toes. Cut grass using a scythe. Try to gain a sense of what your urbanized ancestors lost some years ago. Take a bucket bath.

Step 6: Invent a project idea out of thin air. Write a grant. Buy some wood. Learn to hammer, nail, measure, cut, sand, paint. Build some trash cans. Tell your English students that in exchange for lessons, they have to help collect the trash. Try to create something sustainable. Fail, try, try again.

Step 7: Notice the cold is beginning to set in. Seal up broken windows. Become sad when days end at 3 or 4 o’clock. Continue giving English lessons until 8 in the evening, for lack of a better idea of what to do with your time. Question your purpose. Have Vannya come ask if he can begin giving guitar lessons to others. Teach some English songs for a big concert. Go Sledding. Go Ice Fishing. Watch your clothes freeze on the line. Have the days begin to get longer. Regain momentum. Start anew.

Step 8: Hear an idea for a new business, to sell produce over the internet to people in Kiev. Decide its time to become a music producer, and start recording an album, the children as the stars. Be approached about an ecological project. Write a grant. Begin to earn trust of people who never trust, speak a language beyond verbs and nouns and conjugations. Push ideas to completion, even when they tell you they cant, even when you tell you you cant.

Step 9: Ask your neighbor for a plot of land. Have neighborhood kids, the ones who clean up trash and learn english and rock out on the guitar, help you dig holes and plant seeds and water tomatoes. Learn how to hoe, the difference between a weed and a cucumber. Identify Potatoes, Beets, Watermelon, Onion, Garlic, Peas, Peppers, and everything in between. Wake up extra early every day, just to see the progress your plants are making. Pray for Rain, but not too much.

Step 10: Wake up with the sunrise and go to the well. Feed the dog. Cook some Borscht. Teach English. Record Vannya’s new song. Write a business plan and translate it into Ukrainian. Build a Bench. Learn something. Head for your garden, your land. Hoe some weeds. Feel the sun on your chest and the earth under your feet. Stand and admire. Realize you have returned to something, the joy in planting a tiny seed in the ground and watching it grow to something huge and wonderful and hopefully delicious. Be proud. Forget about Africa, and about guilt, and about the myriad of your villages problem. Work the land, work on yourself. Learn Something.

Step 11: Repeat, if necessary. I guess that’s why Peace Corps is two years.

One year in

School’s out for summer.

Its hard to believe I’ve been here a year already. While the days have occasionally gone by in an arcanely slow motion, the year has positively flown. It’s difficult to fathom that I am half way through my service, and I am forced to wonder: what, if anything, have I really done?

One of my favorite parts about Ukraine is its reverence for tradition. At every Ukrainian School, on the first of September, a ceremony known as first bell is held. The new first graders are marched in on the hands of the new 11th graders (Ukrainian schools have no 12th grade of high school), ushering in the year to come. Today we experienced the last bell, with the eleventh graders completing their final day in the institution that they have been attending for the majority of their lives.


Probably the most jarring aspect of the first and last bell ceremonies is the outfits that the girls are required to wear. They are a uniform somewhere between a catholic school girl and a french maid. From 1st grade to seventeen year-olds, all the girls are clad in too-short skirts and white ribbons in their hair.

But, the truth is, after a year at school, I’m not shocked by much of anything any more, let alone the dress. Somewhere around the 4th grade, all girls decide, with the aid of their mothers, that it is their job to wear to school as scandalous clothing as possible. Of course this is not a rule across the board, but the vast majority of middle school girls and above wear skirts that I will one day refuse to let my daughter wear outside of the house. As long as the appropriate regions are at least mostly covered, any outfit seems to be kosher.

After the last bell, the teachers all got together in the lunch room for a meal, which is code for getting absolutely wasted. The school’s director, the town mayor, and the local doctor were all there. When I refused to take shots of vodka with them at 11 in the morning, all three questioned my manhood. When I told them I had work later, they laughed at me. Cancel your english lessons. Forget about your work. Its time to drink!!!

Vassil Ivanovich, the school’s physics teacher, and I were the only ones not to really partake in the revelry. We had a grant application to fill out, and then I had english lessons to give, and really, all in all, there was work to be done.

As long as I have already lived here, there are still cultural elements I find it hard to grasp. If a teacher in my school growing up had ever been caught drinking while supposedly “on the job,” they would have been immediately fired. Here, it is those who don’t drink who are excluded from the group. But, again, the shock is gone. I knew there would be drinking at school today. And so I made sure to have pre-scheduled work on the horizon, because I just dont feel like drinking at 11 am.

The worst part is, I had really hoped that more of the teachers would be excited about some of our projects. One project idea is to create a web site, to sell our farm produce over the internet to consumers in Kiev. Another involves the creation of an ecological classroom, where out students would learn about the functions of different plants and their possible healing effects. And yet a third is our ongoing trek to create a music album.

While the teachers are often “supportive” of my project ideas, only a small handful (Vassil Ivanovich, his wife Olha the Ukrainian teacher, my school’s Director Mikolya Petrovich, his wife Tamila who is my Peace Corps Counterpart) continuously put in any real effort to help. Even if they really see the benefits of a project, they are reluctant to do much more than the bare minimum.

And thats why too many of my projects fail, too many of my dreams just fail to get off the ground. Because as confident as I can sometimes seem, I just can’t do it alone.

Don’t take this the entry the wrong way. I have no regrets. And I am happy. I just wish I could do more, I wish I could transform this place into something wonderful. Do I put smiles on the faces of children? Yes. Do I teach English? Yes. Will some of my students be better off for having known me? Probably. But the village is still the village, and will still be the village in five years time. I wanted to be, in the words of our President, the change that I believe in. I haven’t come close.

My biggest shock since coming to Ukraine? The mountain which I must conquer in order to tinker with even the most minute of problems. School is out, one year has passed, and I am much the wiser. But is anything different?

Maybe I am reaching to high. Or maybe I am not trying hard enough. Or maybe as time goes on, things will improve, they will get easier. Momentum will begin to flow and suddenly we’ll be on the path to a new promise. I hope this happens. But I don’t know.

At the least, however, I can surely say I am happy. Life is good, although stress is abound. I am busy, busy trying, busy failing. The sun is shining, the grass is green, and there is work to be done. What else does one truly need?

My Birthday in the village

Bubbe

I’m long overdue on blog entries----I’ve got lots to say about my post-Soviet Passovers and the Peace Corps freedom seder, and I’ve had some really extraordinary experiences cultivating the small plot of land my neighbors have given me to plant. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention something about Bubbe, who died early Tuesday morning.

Bubbe, Yiddish for grandmother, closely tied linguistically to the Ukranian Babusia, was not my relative. Frankly, I don’t know how to describe my relationship with her, if the sum of our interactions even constituted a loose definition of that term. Bubbe was my friend Jeff’s grandmother, and she was tough as nails.

I don’t know how old Bubbe was, or where she was born. I’ve got bits and pieces of her biography scattered throughout various stories I’ve heard over the years. Her legal name was Tilly Gittelman, but even though she was not my grandmother, I always called her bubbe.

Jeff lived about five minutes away growing up, and we spent a lot of time together. Sometimes too much time together. We rode our bikes around town, we played basketball in the park, we meandered around the local mall for hours. And every time, there was bubbe, warning us to take a helmet, or a cell phone, or a full body styrofoam suit incase we fell.

Bubbe never went to a doctor. Not in years, at least. But she must have been pushing ninety when she died, proving most anti-aging techniques tenuous at best. Bubbe simply had this unbelievable will to live, a refusal to get sick, a refusal to die. For a woman who couldn’t have weighed much more than a hundred pounds, she had a mental strength that I’ve rarely seen.

Everyone will likely always remember where they were on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. I was in Jeff’s living room, scared shitless, waiting, because Debbie, Jeff’s mom, Bubbe’s daughter, hadn’t yet returned home from her office on the 64th Floor. She never did.

I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to fully verbalize what happened in those few months. But I do know that somewhere, somehow, Bubbe, and her husband Ralph (or in the Yiddish Zayde) decided they were going to stay alive to help raise all the kids. Jeff was 14, and he had siblings as young as 9.

Here we are, almost ten years later, and they did it. They woke up early every morning and firmly planted themselves within the confines of Jeff’s house at 19 Clarkson Court, making lunches, running errands, dropping off at after school programs. They gave up everything, and they got even more in return.

At the time, they were occasional complaints. Her chicken often needed salt, and the nagging could be a bit much. But I can guarantee that ten, twenty, fifty years from now, Jeff and his siblings will remember they had a Bubbe who loved them, and who showed it, in her own tough, stubborn way.

Sometimes I am walking around in my village, and I see a woman with a hunched over back and little hair and bad eyes. And they are lugging a bucket of water or a pile of hay or occasionally a live chicken. I always offer to help (well, sometimes not with the chickens) and they almost always refuse. They’ve been doing this for some time now, they tell me, and they can take it a little bit farther. This is the picture of the Ukrainian Babusia, never quitting, strong of spirit, an unspoken power. They go to the well every day because that is was Babusias do.

Bubbe raised children for 60 odd years, first her own, and then her children’s children. She cooked and cleaned and nagged and helped and taught and warned and loved. And when people told her to stop she kept going, because that was just what Bubbe’s do.