Some Impressions From a Move In Process

They came and took our air baggage on Monday morning. Of course, since that is the little bit of stuff that is supposed to get to Dushanbe more quickly than the rest of our household effects (and since we now know that all our other "HHE" will go via slow boat first to a US government site in Belgium and then on some unknown route to Dushanbe, perhaps taking many months), we felt some pressure to choose wisely on what went into our air freight.

We hadn't really done the forethought to realize, for instance, that we'd want our desktop computer (and would therefore need to back up the hard drive and all) to go by air, so that was stressing us out on Sunday, once we'd realized. And of course there is always more sorting and organizing than you realize. But now we've had a little breathing room with the first packout day out of the way, and we are gearing up for the remaining packout to be done on this coming Monday and Tuesday.

At least next time, when they come for everything else, all we need to do is separate out what we'll take on the plane with us, and all the rest just needs to get packed and shipped -- not as many choices to be made.

Although, it's true that this packout is the one where you need to make sure whatever you don't want packed up is either nailed down, sealed in a secure and properly marked location, or forced outside where it can't hide and die in the shipment (that last again referring primarily to the risks involved with cats, but of course if a stray diaper were left in a diaper pail for the several months the shipment were travelling, that too would very quickly smell like something had died). This is the packout where your nightmare is that your passport gets packed up into one of the boxes -- then what will you do? (They even have a public service announcement about that on Armed Forces Network TV -- it's one of my favorites, right after the toddler choking hazard warning, "shady character from the nuthouse," spot.)

Of course, as we are preparing to leave I'm having little exchanges of both the positive and the negative kind, and they impress me differently than if I knew we were staying. The main negative one: the single, solitary response I have gotten to my public, online advertisements trying to find new homes for our cats was an accusatory message about "how dare we not try to take our pets with us," how "we humans are responsible for the animals we take into our homes" -- which made me furious and unable to shake my anger for several hours. (It subsequently has come to light that the sender was dumped with her parents Angora cat when they moved, but, hey, why take out your bitterness on me, lady? Take a moment to think before you press "send"!)

But I've also had some good interactions lately that make me feel good about the life we've had here in Vlad and in Russia, and not so much sorry to go, but I guess confident in some way that I'll be able to find similarly comfortable modes of being in Dushanbe.

I took in a bunch of old, too-small baby clothes the other day to donate to a local church, something I'd been meaning to do for a while. Of course, you can imagine that that wouldn't be a terrible experience, but in Russia you never know what can go wrong or turn out to be unpleasant. But, sure enough, I went into the lobby of the church out on the peninsula leading out to the lighthouse on the edge of town, and the lady manning the religious items and books kiosk that seems to always precede the actual sacred space in Russian Orthodox churches was all aflutter and happy to show me where to leave my boxes, and assured me that even little baby clothes would come in handy for the kids the church supports. It made me feel good to finally check something off of my list and of course -- an easy one -- to know I was doing something small that might benefit the local community.

Yesterday I took in a CD of photos to get them printed (I'm making a surprise gift for Marina of a little photo book with pictures of Anya all throughout our stay), and the guy in the photo shop was really nice, wanted to speak English with me in a friendly way, and in general the transaction went very well and the printed pictures were good quality and very cheap. (It even made me realize I should go back and print up another set to make a little photo book for Anya, as a keepsake of her first two years, spent in Vladivostok. What a concept -- digital photos on paper! It's been so long since I've developed photos...)

And then Anya and I went to the open market for some veggies and fruit, which has become my habit, finally, after many months (and on earlier visits to Russia, the equivalent of years, I suppose) of anxiety that made it difficult for me to tackle the market on a regular basis. But now I feel confident enough of myself and my Russian that I won't get ripped off (I can even demand unbruised pieces and can bargain a cup of berries down from exorbitantly expensive, if need be!). Now I enjoy going to the little market down the hill from us to get my fresh produce and dried fruit and nuts. This time the lady behind the counter where we bought our grapes was helpful when I had my arms full with kid and produce, and when Anya remarked "you hungry!" as the little bag of fruit appeared, the seller asked with a chuckle, "Does she know Russian too?"

I realized that I feel a confidence just being out and about a lot of the time here in Vlad that is a nice counterweight to some of the doubt I feel about how I've pursued my professional work here. For the most part I'm happy with the research I've done, and I know I've gathered a hell of a lot of material that will make a good history. But I guess I have learned something about myself in the past few years, and that is that I will always have trouble contacting live people who might be good to talk to for my work, and that has been true here for sure. Books and archival documents are just so much easier, there's so much less risk of a bad relationship! Anyway, I've been feeling bad that I am somehow unable to contact and speak a bit more to one of the virologists in town who studies tick-borne encephalitis today, feeling that I'm no good for having that trouble and, when all is said and done, for most likely never calling or meeting with her again. But then when I go around town running my errands or whatever, I realize how much has gone well in life here, how much I've been able to accomplish (and have needed to accomplish: the bottom line is we've been in a new, foreign place, not at home!) in other, more mundane, but no less important realms: knowing my city and driving around with confidence (I guess for the past year I've actually been the only spouse** here in our American group to drive at all!); shopping and getting what I need and what pleases me either food-wise or things-wise; having a few friends and balancing that with my work, and having success at gathering data and working with inanimate legible sources, if not with the animate kind; and taking good care of and having fun with Anya, whether at home or at Montessori or on the playground. I guess that is a pretty good set of things to have achieved, and I'm not unhappy with that.
[** Ha! I realized only belatedly that this idea really shows how much I've swallowed the reigning sexism of the Foreign Service: I'm of course the only female spouse (weaker sex, anyone?) here who has driven among all who've lived here this past year, but the one male trailing spouse, well, of course, he'd probably never dream of not driving -- not to mention his apparent views on not working...]

All of that is positive, but I have to at least note -- it is such a terrible set of events that I still don't know how to understand, so I can't write much more -- that we've also been following with trepidation as Russia and Georgia came to armed conflict in the past week. We've been thinking of our friends in Tbilisi, have been shocked at how quickly it all came to pass, and depressed about what it means for the people on the ground and for what it demonstrates about the political and foreign relations realities.

What we are saying:
all kinds of colors: yeyo, bwu, red, white, oinge, bwak (and a similar range in Russian)
comparisons: big, "hmah" (and sometimes even "small" -- we're getting better at s + consonant pronunciation)
(And, interestingly, Anya has made a very strong connection between big and heavy: to the point of even thinking and saying that if a butterfly is big, it's also heavy, or a hug that is big is also heavy.)
A series of numbers that demonstrates at least the start of an understanding of the concept of counting. Whenever there are more than one of an object, you're likely to hear "wann-too-fee-fawf," which is Anya's version of 1-2-3-4-5, with 4 and 5 sort of smushed together into one word. (Hey, those are big numbers, once you get up into the stratosphere, what's the difference?)
Many requests, and many of them accompanied by "please." Here is a typical exchange these days in our kitchen:
"More milk!"
"What do you say?"
"More milk, pweeeez..."
"Very nice, here you go."
Also: "kiss it!" and "hug!"
Also some past tenses: "kisst it!"
And some rocky starts to the use of pronouns, as in: "you hungry!" "you tired!" "you finished!" and "you scared!" when really what is meant is "I'm ....," or "carry you!" and "help you!" in place of " ... me!" I guess when your main mode of learning is repeating, of course you're going to get those things wrong when the perspective changes and you're saying it yourself instead of mom or dad asking whether you feel or did something.
Also a pretty good memory: especially getting reinforced when we turn down the leafy street that leads to the Vlad Motor Inn, and Anya remarks correctly that both sausage and slides/playground will soon be enjoyed.

What we used to say (for the record, an attempt at compiling past idiosynchratic words, with an asterisk denoting those that are not yet obsolete):
appi
bop
happa
bik
manna
wawa*
yaindann*
sseepie
uppadeez
noi
pafo*
hmoon
fumm
fingam
ayah
tikka*
payday
Tay-tay
Agga
tututu
bayo*
pato*
psai-psai
bayefai
aissee
tahs
tah-fee
pishi
yeg*
yabb-i*
yek*
Nimma
H'mp'hah
paya
fawf
oyay
e'feh*
gaggy
kroya
akkapiya*
pla-puh*
gai-yay
yips*
(Translations available on request.)

Long Overdue

Ugh -- I have been feeling terrible for the lengthy bout of "radio silence" here on the Vladiblog. And the longer it gets, the more I feel behind, the more stuff there is to report on, and it just snowballs and I feel like I'll never do it all justice. Clearly it would be better to just take the heat off of myself and dash off a few little updates, but that just doesn't appear to be my style, try as I might.

I'm not sure why it's been so hard for me to write any updates in the blog for so long. Partly it's that I've been really busy, which has mainly been a good thing.

I took two research trips in the months of June and July to the other major city in the Russian Far East (yes, there are others aside from ours), Khabarovsk. I've been a big fan of this city since my first visit there with Anya and Dan in fall 2007. It makes a nice escape from Vlad -- green; broad straight avenues to stroll on; clean, well cared for, etc. I went to collect some material in the archives for my history of tick-borne encephalitis in the RFE. My June journey was the first time away from Anya alone, and both of the trips were hard to take in the direct sense of having to leave her, and in having to arrange for Dan and Marina, her nanny, to pick up the slack on things that I normally do for her. But in the end, of course, she barely missed me, if at all (and as Dan's July post shows, they made a great dad-daughter connection without me here, which is really nice to see).

The trips were great from a research perspective. I gathered so much more material than I ever would have been able to in a comparable amount of time in Vlad, given the way the archives here work. And they also amounted to a really positive experience in allowing me to feel a professional confidence that I still find hard to fully grasp here at home, where I'm fulltime juggling being a mom, being the primary (if only by a hair) person responsible for keeping the domestic front running smoothly (which has its own difficulties in Russia), and being a historian. And from a personal point of view it was good to get away, have a little alone time strolling around the town, and enjoy Khabarovsk a couple of more times before we leave.

In general, I feel really good right now about my project -- I feel I've exhausted most of the avenues I was trying to research, gotten as much as I can in a place I'll likely not return to, and I've basically shifted completely to writing and getting two overlapping papers ready to present this fall.


Also, by way of explanations of what's been keeping me busy while I've ignored the blog: it's been summer, of course, so there's been much more opportunity to spend time outdoors (although that doesn't completely hold up as an excuse, since there have also been a number of the typhoons that regularly hit Vlad in summer, so we've been stuck inside on plenty of days while the blog has run dry). And then we took a quick trip to Beijing -- you know, we figured, why not hit it right at the height of the summer heat-humidity-pollution index, and just ahead of the Olympics? (Actually, although the weather was indeed amazingly energy-sapping, it was great. Have to sum it up in some other post, or maybe in the Flickr captions...)

And now here we are back in Vlad, for just 3 short weeks, as we try to wrap this puppy up: get our stuff given away, dumped in the trash, packed up & shipped off, or left on the stoop with some extra food for the next few months (OK, that last one is only likely for 2 of our possessions: the cats), with as few regrets as possible for the way we pursued and for the most part did not find happiness in this town. (I guess that's my way of expressing what else "partly" explains my silence, in addition to being busy: the anxiety level rises as we get closer to departure day, and that has to do not only with the logistics of moving but of course with all that is being left behind and left undone or unaccomplished or insufficiently enjoyed. While overall both Dan and I are glad to be moving on, that doesn't mean there aren't some things we're sorry to leave and people we're sorry we didn't spend more time with while we had the chance. And that bittersweet feeling, and the anxious ways that each of us tries to avoid it, don't make it easy to update the blog.)

As of August 22, it's back to the US for some time with family and friends, until early October, when we fly to Dushanbe. I'll try to practice brief update skills as we leave, but I can't make any promises. In the meantime, the ballot box is open for blog names/concise 'n' snappy URLs for the next incarnation of the Vladiblog...

Tentative Spring

It’s been a while -- first the major snowstorm ground things here to a halt, and then a strange bug laid me low (along with a bunch of the other Americans who live in our complex). We never figured out the source of the illness, but for me it was not fun. Seems like maybe it hit the mothers of young kids (and the one breastfeeding mother -- me) among us harder than others.

Now, with temperatures above freezing for the past several days, the snow and ice that snarled our local traffic is finally melting, and I am finally better. Hooray!

What is the news?

Let’s start with a little Anya Report:

The thing that busies the Little Person more than any one other activity is now standing (with the help of someone’s patient fingers for support, naturally). She is very good at communicating when she wants to stand up, and can be quite insistent about it. (There is video evidence of all of this posted on YouTube.)

We recently got a fun new high chair, which is a good addition, since eating various fruits and vegetables has become a much more regular event in L.P.’s daily life. (We’d been making more and more of a mess reclining in our baby rocker, which really wasn’t made for eating.) It’s also a fun to have Anya sitting higher up and safe in the kitchen while we’re cooking or cleaning in there, and when I’m here with her alone it allows me to scramble upstairs or down for a minute to get something without taking A. with me.

What is on the menu these days? Well, carrots and zucchini are well liked, especially when mixed with rice cereal. Apples, peaches, plums, prunes (those come in handy for reasons related to baby-plumbing every now and then), and -- oh my -- bananas are also well received. Peas were not a big hit but I may try again. Green beans are touch and go. And unfortunately those sweet potatoes we had in the US just don’t seem to be readily available on the Russian market, although the chef will keep trying.

Also a big hit with the Person of Diminutive Stature is dancing. Again, this is accomplished with certain Baby-Related Adjustments, so that the one who is really dancing is of course me, and Anya is content to bounce and squeal and laugh from her perch on my hip, held in my arms. In the search for fun sounds to listen to, our aural palette has taken a decidedly World Music turn: the Cajun group Beausoleil is perhaps Anya’s favorite, but Cuban son and the Malian duo Amadou and Mariam follow close behind. Select American jazz and blues artists, and of course good old indie rock, can also inspire a good squeak or two.

Two things that now more than ever before occupy Anya’s awareness, and cause her much amusement, are (a) the cats, and (b) mirrors. She seems to be at an age where she recognizes something more about these things than she used to -- that the cats are interesting furry blobs that move on their own (maybe even some understanding that they are alive, like her?), and that what she sees in the mirror bears some relation to herself (possibly approaching an understanding that this is her reflection?). Whatever goes on inside that baby head of hers, both of these things not only capture her attention, but more often than not they inspire giggles, smiles, and something in the overlapping category of snort-gasp-laugh.

.....

In other areas of life there are also interesting developments. I’ve begun teaching two English composition classes a week at the local international school (with just one student in each class, so no big groups of unruly teenagers or anything like that to wear me out, thankfully). Actually, this is the international division within a local boarding school for gifted students, which takes students in from all over Primorye region. The international division is quite new, having only opened this past fall, in an attempt to replace the Quality Schools International franchise that had served the education needs of the kids of international diplomats and business people in Vlad. QSI apparently closed up shop when there were just not enough kids to pay for the school. (QSI is a non-profit organization that runs international schools in Asia and Eastern/Southern Europe and often serves diplomatic communities.)

I teach the two international baccalaureate students at the school, one a Korean boy whose father is a local corporate representative, and one a Russian boy from Vladivostok. They each speak and read English surprisingly well, at least to me; although the school suggested I use an American 9th grade composition textbook, I was skeptical about whether I could really pursue the class in the same way you would for native speakers of English. But after two weekly meetings it looks like our approach will not be terribly slowed down from the suggested pace for American kids. And despite the fact that things are inevitably framed in a more elementary way in a school textbook, I think this is going to help me think more consciously about my own writing than I have for a long time, which is a welcome side benefit.

That is probably enough to read at this juncture, but I will try to report on the trip to Nakhodka that we took last weekend before it fades too far into the depths of memory. In the meantime, please check out the photos on Flickr!

Reunited With Our Toys

My apologies for having let the blog go untended. (Although I guess that conjures up images of an overgrown, weedy mess, which is not exactly what has happened here. I guess I left it unwatered or something.)

OK, first order of business, since we have been complaining a lot about our echoing, empty 4-story home and the delayed delivery of our air freight: I need to update my dear readers on that situation.

As many of you are aware, we packed out of our Bethesda home on October 11-12 and lived in a hotel room with our darling baby daughter for 8 straight nights specifically so that we might receive our things that much more quickly, especially the more important things that we placed in our “unaccompanied air baggage.” Much to our chagrin, despite that planning, once we arrived in Vlad it quickly became apparent that the shipping company had pitched our loot in a storage bin at JFK airport and was waiting for, oh, I don't know, I guess a special, engraved invitation requesting that they complete the transaction.

To be fair, knowledgeable sources assure me that such shipments can't leave their port of departure until the recipient is at his destination. In any case, nobody at the shipping company seemed aware that they even had a shipment to deliver until Dan checked its status on his second day on the job.

At the end of that first week we were informed that we would have our stuff on November 4. Yee-haw! Since that was a Saturday, we got ourselves all ready for a delivery on or about Monday, November 6.

Where the story gets a bit hairy is after nothing shows up on said Monday and Dan checks on the status again on Tuesday, November 7. Friendly shipper dude tells us our shipment is sitting in Krasnoyarsk, awaiting clearance by Russian customs. Now, if you aren’t familiar with Krasnoyarsk or its location, take a gander at the link I’ve helpfully provided. Scroll down until you see it on the righthand side of your screen, pinpointed in the red center portion of the map of Russia. Now, remind yourself of where we are located -– Primorskii region of the Russian Far East -– and look at this page to refresh your memory of where that is, again highlighted in red. (Ah, what would I do without Wikipedia?)

Joking geography lessons aside, the geniuses at "Stonepath Logistics" seem to have estimated that the fastest way to get our stuff between Washington and Vladivostok was very nearly to place it on a horse-drawn cart a'clop-clopping down a stone path. They arranged for it to travel east across the Atlantic Ocean via Frankfurt, and then to enter Russia smack dab in the middle of Siberia, where the customs agents (bless their hearts [said in retrospect, having looked over the insanely careful but fairly meaningless documentation they created]) appear to have no idea how to deal with diplomatic shipments. (Why would they??) It sat there for a few days, while Embassy personnel in Moscow helped get the wheels turning, then caught a flight to Vladivostok on Friday, November 10, where it sat for yet a few more days awaiting more customs paperwork.

(To add insult to injury, or maybe just heartbreak, the family who arrived at post in Vladivostok a full week after us, also from DC, received its air freight on that very Friday. It was even initially assumed that this diplomatic shipment was for us, since we were here earlier, and it only stood to reason.... But then on Friday morning they clarified that it wasn't for Kronenfeld. Arrrgh! The frustration!)

Long story short –- well, OK, I hear you: long whiny story long -– our air freight arrived at our home on a Russian UPS truck as it backed into our driveway on the morning of Tuesday, November 14.

One of the most amusing things to us was the notation on the label in this photo, to the right of the big "JFK": "Deliver by 10/25/06." Seems like nobody at Stonepath got the memo.

Anyway, as you can see from the Flickr photos documenting the event, one of the best things -– in my opinion -– to arrive in the boxes was the supply of toys for Anya to play with and continue to develop her fledgling motor skills (and, yes, I'll admit, entertain herself for a few minutes at a time while I make myself a cup of coffee or whatever).

Toys for the adults in the family also arrived but are not pictured: stereo receiver, CD player, and full-sized speakers, as well as desktop computer and home wireless network doodads, which Dan proceeded to play with, so we are technologically even more plugged in now than in my last report. And last, but certainly not least, about 8 jars of salsa, 3 cans of chipotle chiles, 3 bottles of hot sauce, and 1 bag of ready-to-mix tortilla flour, which I proceeded to play with and use to make us our first spicy dinner in a while. Best ill-formed tortilla, open-faced burrito-type-thing I have had in a loooong time.

Punk slobber

Punk slobber
Originally uploaded by lkwalker71.

As I was saying, Anya’s difficulties with the move have been the most important element influencing our own adult-sized perceptions of the transition so far, and in turn they've been the issue that’s most preoccupied us over the past week.

Since we arrived here on Saturday afternoon, local time, she continued in the vein she began in that darkened cube of a room in the Seoul airport, waking up about every two hours, regardless of the time of day or night, wanting to be fed. She seemed cranky for lack of a good, long sleep. We’ve tried hard to institute a routine: to get her down for a nap about a half an hour after each feeding and to get her back to sensing that night is the time for sleep. Thankfully, the last couple of nights she has done a lot better, with about a twelve-hour night from 7-ish to 7-ish, broken roughly in half by one middle-of-the-night feeding.

Surprisingly, the sunrise and sunset are pretty late here in Vlad (at least until this Sunday, when Daylight Savings Time ends), which means that we three have been rising pretty much in the dark. We go to one of two sitting areas and watch the sunrise as the adults drink their morning coffee and the munchkin has her milk.

Our place here is really big – without our stuff having arrived, too big and empty and echoing. (The latest report on the surface shipment of the bulk of our household effects gives an ETA of mid-December, which is not too bad at 2 months after our arrival. But: hello, frozen Herdez.) Hopefully our air freight will arrive soon. Not surprisingly, one of Dan’s first shopping priorities was to buy us a small stereo system, so that we can at least have some music and make our life here feel a little more familiar, and the place seem a little less empty.

We do indeed (as we had been told but found it hard to fathom) have four floors of living space in a townhouse whose footprint is a bit larger than that of the two-floor townhouse we had in Bethesda. Which obviously translates to a great deal more space. Like most diplomatic housing, it is furnished, and we are still trying to figure out how we want to situate the various kinds of furniture that were provided with the place, and, accordingly, how we’ll want to use the various spaces. The ground floor is set up with a sitting room toward the front, and a laundry room and storage, and entry to an [extremely!] unfinished basement behind that. Second floor has full dining room and a couple of armchairs in front area, and a large kitchen to the rear. Third floor has a master bedroom and a second bedroom, where Anya sleeps. The fourth and top floor has another bedroom in the back and a sort of undefined room in front, which opens out onto a balcony the width of the place. We plan to use that top floor as a study for me and a fairly well contained guest suite when all of you folks who promised a visit come to town (hint, hint).

Part of the issue with figuring out how to use the space is really the placement of bathrooms and kitchen, as well as the sheer number of floors you need to traverse to get from one place to another. We think we’ll use the top floor also as our main TV room and family living room when we don’t have visitors, and keep the second-floor dining room less crowded and also a bit more neat and presentable. But it sure will be a drag to go down two flights from the TV room for any drinks or snacks! Spending time on the second floor alternatively requires a trip up one flight for a bathroom, both for us and for any guests we happen to round up in our social life here. Finally, the lack of a phone jack on the second floor (and the fact that doorbell and phone ringtone are identical) means that if you’re in the kitchen or the sitting area on the second floor, you take a gamble either racing upstairs to grab the phone or galloping down to the front door when someone rings. I figured out the hard way this morning, though, that you’re fairly safe if you always choose to answer the phone, since the doorbell has a phone-based intercom. Which means that, if I’d gone upstairs when someone rang today, I not only wouldn’t have missed the mystery caller who waited long enough for me to see that no one was at the door but (of course) hung up the second before I picked up the phone. And if by chance it had been a live visitor, at least I could have let them know via intercom that I’d be down the two flights to the door in a jiffy. In any case, beginning to plan for how we’ll use the space is kind of fun, and hopefully we’ll get some help moving some of the furniture around and installing a phone jack on the second floor before too long to work out some of the kinks.

But enough complaining about the oh-so-terribly-spacious digs we’ve just moved to. I know -- nobody's feeling my pain. Next time I’ll start describing our environs, which will surely be more interesting.