Lazy, Hazy (Foggy) Days of Summer

"Hey," you say, "where did those Vladibloggers go?" What have we been up to the whole month of July?

Well, of course, that first week included the "highlight of the Vladivostok social season" -- the American Fourth of July party that evidently every year in recent times has been held on board a visiting naval ship. In general this July, until this past Saturday, has been especially foggy and rainy -- even the locals have been complaining. But we did have 2 bright, sunny spots bookending our July calendar. The first was the Tuesday afternoon of July 3rd, when our July Fourth party was held, and the second was this past Saturday, when the other big, foreign-flavored local summer event, Canada Day, was held. (Where, you ask? Why, at the Vlad Motor Inn, of course -- it is known to some as "the Canadian restaurant," and the road sign that reminds you to turn in from the main highway is in the shape of a big maple leaf...)

Canada Day was an entire day's worth of barbecuing, games, races, contests, some more food, a handful of local bands, some more games and MCing, some more food, and then a huge several-meter by several-meter cake. And apparently fireworks to cap it all off, but we didn't stay that long.

What else? We have seen the departure of the Consul General who was serving here when we arrived and the arrival of a new CG to replace him. It has been fun showing the new consul and his wife around a bit, now that we are very fast becoming the Old Guard around here among the Americans. Our sponsors and models in raising small children in Vlad, the family who arrived here originally when their second son was just 7 weeks old, are leaving in the first week of August. Our consular officer friend is leaving in late August or early September. That will leave 3 American employees and their familes, all of whom arrived in September or October last year, and we really will be among the longest serving at this post, which is kind of crazy to realize.

I have turned in my application to do halftime work as the "CLO" -- Community Liaison Office -- coordinator, one of the jobs at diplomatic posts that are reserved for "eligible family members." No other eligible family members here or planning to get here soon were vying for it, so it sounds like it is mine for the taking. Since I enjoy exploring and getting to know places, and that still describes the ongoing process of living here in Vlad, I figure it will basically mean getting paid to do that (plus a few other administrative tasks that hopefully won't be too annoying). Already in meeting or anticipating the new people here in our very small diplomatic circle and what our next year could be like, I think I'll enjoy having the capacity to organize some things and hopefully raise morale a bit.

OK, here is what many of you have been waiting for... The Anya Report.

The Munchkin is even more intent on walking than ever before, demanding two hands from the nearest parent to help her get around. One hand just will not do (apparently even if you can manage with one, the trouble is, you can't walk as fast or as easily that way, so there is some amount of whining in order to get that second hand...). She's much better able to put the stacking-type toys together -- the ring toss that she took apart on one of the videos, and the stacking cups that came care of (Great) Aunt Nancy and (G) Uncle Jerry. She's also getting pretty good at the shape-sorter (not shape-shifter) toy that she has, putting many of the shapes in the right holes (or at least guessing pretty well as to where they go. Maybe like other small monkeys she will soon complete a line of Shakespeare). She is very interested in steps and stairs right now (much to our chagrin, but I guess we're trying to be safe while going with the flow of the growing child); a lot of the time spent on her feet is also spent going up steps. And just in the last few days that has come to include not just stepping up one, pausing, then stepping up with that same foot and pausing again; but stepping up just like big people usually do -- one foot following immediately after the other, just striding right up those steps in a (relatively) fluid motion.

Foodwise, Anya's eating more chunky pieces of well-cooked food, including tiny broccoli "trees" and little chunks of potato and grated baked beets. Our longed-for Cheerios arrived in the mail, and we have been exploring those, picking them up, looking at them, watching Mom demonstrate how they can be tucked into the mouth and chewed enthusiastically -- but for the first few days not putting them into our own mouths... I could put them in there for her, but for whatever reason she was not figuring out that she could do that too. As of yesterday, however, we are very eager to try to get them in our own mouths ourselves -- not always coordinated enough to get them in, but very enthusiastic all the same.

It's pretty unbelievable that it's just one more month until she hits the one-year mark!

Now that summer is in full swing, we have all been enjoying plums and peaches -- the smaller person in cooked form -- and the big people have enjoyed a variety of fresh berries. Despite the weather, we've been down to the beach at Shamora (east coast of the southern Primorye peninsula) a couple of times, and enjoyed grilled meat and salads there. I have been out a few more times with my internet-mama friends, including a foray this past Friday into the local nightclub scene, for a little dancing and relaxation, at a place near the waterfront called "Yellow Submarine." And we just met a diplomatic family from the Japanese consulate with two small daughters, with whom I think we'll have a chance to spend time again. It is a lot of fun to have a handful of people to socialize with, and a nice change from the first several months here. I think we feel like we are socking away social contacts in anticipation for the long winter... Luckily I think our store will have good depth and we'll probably have a very different second year in Vlad.

Breaking the Ice (Yes, In June)

I'm really happy to report that, finally, this month, I've been having some very promising social contact with people.

I'm not sure how much this has come across in our posts here or in individual correspondence, but this is truly one area where our life here has been slow to develop -- and where we've felt the strain. As we often remark jokingly, wistfully, frustratedly to one another, "we ain't got peeps."

As I mentioned in my last post, the first half of June was, for me, abustle with professional activity and creative inspiration. It also brought contact with the visitors (and the local participants) who had gathered for a history conference, which was also rewarding. But I find that there are several directions I want to be spending my -- now, of course, with Anya, seemingly limited -- time and energy, and it's tough to figure out how to organize them all and not feel like I'm doing many things only at half tilt. I want and need to spend time with Anya, of course, and spending time with Dan is also important. Professional activity is a priority, too. You can't ignore your own private, personal time, either, whether trying to get in a little exercise or reading -- that kind of thing. But then there's one more area, which I now realize probably would have demanded a little less energy in this first year of parenthood if we had not set out here in a completely new place, knowing no one, and of course not being native speakers of the language, and that is the social.

So far, I think our feeling about the very small diplomatic post (and in a place with very few expats in other, non-diplomatic spheres) is that it's pretty limiting socially. Partly it's an issue of one of us having already spent the entire workday with these people, and then you come home, only to have the same small set of people naturally at your doorstep to socialize with. Partly it's also that old issue of choice, which worried us coming in: given a somewhat random grouping of fewer than ten people, what are the odds that you're going to be socially compatible with them, for anything more than the occasional meeting-up? Not much, I will answer with some experience.

And, of course, we had hoped before we moved that my work would represent the outlet beyond the American diplomatic circle, but for various reasons that hasn't really panned out. I'm more happy spending time with Anya than I'd expected, and I haven't sought out (yet?) some of the more active kinds of things I'd expected to engage in (and the things I have done, for instance the high school teaching, brought less interaction with other people than expected).

But in the last few weeks, while Marina, our nanny, has been on vacation, I've been restricted in how much work I can do, which has meant, on the other hand, that I've had more opportunity to meet people. And you will never guess how it's happened...

See, there's this amazing thing called the In-Ter-Net (or is it Internets? Oh, you know what I mean, those tubes...).

No, but seriously, and more precisely, it really has been an online discussion forum that's helped. It's actually quite interesting what technology makes possible. I never would have predicted that this would be an effective way to make friends in, of all places, Russia, but it has. (And, above and beyond the social contact it has facilitated for us, it's amazing to me what a valuable language tool this form of communication can be. I can't imagine another manner in which you could so effectively listen in on native speakers speaking/writing in slang, unnoticed if you want, and therefore take all the time in the world to read and figure out what they are talking about... It provides such an amazing window into contemporary Russian language and culture, which I find fascinating.)

At some point in the spring, I found a website called "VladMama.ru," with some information on local events and on parenting in general, but by far the most interesting part of the site to me is its discussion forums. Just like its English-language counterparts, this local forum has the full gamut of subjects and subsections -- from discussions of pregnancy and parenting to cooking, crafts, cultural events and local things to do, jokes and games, etc., etc. I started out posting a little bit to this one "English language corner" subsection, where people were taking the opportunity to practice their English (and which since then unfortunately has actually fallen a bit into disuse -- which I hope I didn't prompt by poking my virtual head in as a native speaker! It honestly isn't clear why it's died down -- maybe just that it's summer, and nobody's stuck inside any longer).

Then, in April, I got so busy with teaching that I didn't have time to look at it much. But since school has ended, and especially with Marina gone, I've had quite a chance to read (and take part in) some of the discussions more closely, as well as to meet several of the women in person.

Since I've never been much of a forum participant in the U.S., all I can do is assume that typically these things don't translate into much of a social network in the "real world." But for whatever reason, surely in part because this is largely a local forum, a good portion of these people meet up in "real," as they say ("в реале"). In the past month or so I've gone from taking part in discussions on the public part of the forum and getting to know people that way to exchanging private messages with a few people on the part of the site that allows this, to instant messaging with one young woman who lives in our neighborhood, to meeting up with a large group of "VladMamas" at a local playground and bliny (Russian pancake) cafe one recent sunny day, and to meeting up on-on-one with a couple of women and their kids. And finally, today, I took part in a group charity outing at a local temporary rehabilitation home for kids. And it all feels really great!

Of course, as with any contact at the very beginning, you never can tell where it will lead -- whether it will really be possible to forge lasting friendships with these people. (I should say, of course, that it won't be possible to make such connections with most of them -- that's just a fact of life.) But it feels so good to have some contact with people, by definition pretty much all of whom are having many of the same experiences as us right now (well, so far it has just been the moms and the kids getting together, but I'm hoping to get the rest of the families together in a few cases). It also felt surprisingly good today to go out and do a little something to help some kids who aren't as lucky as ours, and to play with them and show them some tenderness, for which they clearly are very hungry. I guess the latter is a feeling not of making some tentative individual connections with people, but rather one of being a part of a larger whole, getting involved in an organized set of interactions that really strive to do something good (and what a pleasant surprise to find this in Russia -- the Land of the Lacking Civil Society!).

All of which is to say that this budding social life is of course taking some of my attention away from work, but I tend to look on this as just as important -- if not moreso -- in making our life here in Vlad more normal, and in getting us the human contact that one always needs.