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.)

In Bloom

Often the irony of life in Vladivostok has meant that for one reason or another I haven't really been able to describe life here very well to those who'd like to hear about it. One reason comes at times when nothing much is going on, and the general mood has been a bit melancholy, and therefore there really isn't much inspiration to write either e-mails or blog entries about news here. The other reason is at play when there's a lot going on, when the mood picks up, but when there's just so little time to write something about the developments and news. We've gone from a winter of a lot of the former to a spring with already a bunch of the latter, so I feel I need to force myself again to at least try to write entries to the blog a bit more often and make them a bit shorter, just so I can get the news out the door. It feels like I've been jotting down ideas of what I want to report throughout the past month since the previous entry, only to lack the time to really edit it well, and then I watch as things change yet again, and the news of the day or the week shifts. I need to catch things more often and offer them up so that you can see them!

Play
The Pink Elephant is no more. Sometimes it seems like all the good things in Vlad just end or disappear right after you've found them and have started to get used to them being a joyful part of your life. I was pretty bummed about the closure right after I became aware of it, just before May Day. But then I decided we should just get right back up on the horse again and check on another local Montessori center I'd heard about for the under-3 set. Who knows, I told myself, maybe this one will actually be better than the P.E.! Then, in the couple of weeks after the Pink Elephant breathed its last, life of course sort of oozed into the cracks where that activity had been fitting, and after one frustrating unsuccessful phone call to get the basic info on "Vershina" ("Summit" -- a decidedly less interesting name...), it took me a little while to make another attempt to get us signed up and try it. An update on the new place will follow in the next post.

We did exchange phone numbers with the class leader from the Pink E. with whom we clicked the best, though -- Vika. Well, since we encountered three different leaders there in our 3 months of going, all of whom were named Vika, that isn't very precise. But we know which one we mean, and we are planning to meet her tomorrow for our first attempt at the children's performances that are given at the Regional Philharmonic. Tomorrow will be "The Ugly Duckling." I told you, there is so much going on, I need to set myself to writing a little shorter posts a little more often to really report it all on time -- so news of performances will have to go in the next entry, too.


Drive
OK, I admit that I was kind of a whiner about the car. It probably sounded like I was a spoiled brat who couldn't bear to take public transportation (except that, for those of you who have seen our location, really, it is not the easiest place to move around from without a car, am I right?). It was mainly the shopping (getting there and back AND lugging groceries or other purchases, e.g. big bags of diapers) that I did not relish having to do on buses. But, to be honest, I've actually had fun this past month viewing the city from a new perspective, taking the bus and marshrutka (minivan fixed-route taxi) to get around when it's just me and my work. And what has undoubtedly allowed me to have that fun was our decision to go ahead and use the car a limited amount, for grocery shopping and going places with Anya, just to try to stay off of it, like a bad ankle, as much as we can. Well, that, and the fact that it really is finally spring.

For some of the places I need to be for my research and writing, the bus can actually be a better way to get around. Right now I'm working at the state archive down next to the railroad station, and sometimes at the regional medical library, down across from a large candy factory and just up the hill from the regional clinical hospital (and upstairs from the regional blood bank - just in case!). Both of them are on easy and reliable bus routes, just a single bus to get there and back. And taking the bus certainly lets you see your surroundings in a different way. I'm really able to look around in a way that isn't possible when you're driving -- I see the ads for the latest performances in town, plastered on all the fences (Tibetan yaks at the Vlad Circus, anyone?), notice new businesses that either just opened or never caught my eye before. And you're just able to coexist with people in a more direct (if anonymous) way on the bus than driving around in a car lets you.

(And about the car itself: oh, it is a long and drawn-out saga indeed. Let's see, when I last reported in, we had had our steering wheel mauled by a particularly mal-meaning Russian mechanic, had made first contact with Nissan USA, who then made first contact, before first light, with the Riverside branch of the family. Everything from there just kind of got more and more mired in the muck. The well-meaning Nissan rep apparently gave us the wrong contact number, so all of Dan's increasingly urgent calls over the last two weeks of March went unheard. A few more calls at hours when most of us are asleep, to Riverside and to Vlad, and we determined that nothing this side of Irkutsk has enough of a legitimate connection to the Nissan corporation for the folks to send the part. But we determined we could get reimbursed for a part and labor we paid for directly, as long as Nissan is on the bill(s). Dan immediately ordered the part from a dealership in Virginia and our feet seemed to be loosening from the mire.

Cut to this week, when the part finally arrived via diplomatic pouch (no special delays, that's just how long it takes), and Dan goes with the help of a friend and colleague to begin getting the work done. One disappointing moment is when we learn that indeed neither of the 2 places that appear to have a connection to Nissan have enough of a true claim on the name to put it on their official bill. But the more depressing and frustrating news arrived when the better of the 2 choices of mechanic, apparently a thoughtful guy who was very willing to hear Dan out and not leap in where he didn't have enough information or didn't know what the heck he was doing, noticed that THE PART SENT BY THE U.S. MECHANIC GOT BROKEN IN THE MAIL! So, who knows what recourse we have with them: as Dan notes, they probably just threw the thing in a box to our Dulles address, not taking into account the beating it might take between State Department warehouse and plane, etc., and if they hear the whole transit itinerary they will surely withdraw all responsibility for its loss of integrity en route. We are just heading into the weekend, so we haven't had a chance yet to take stock or investigate what our next steps are. All I can say is: what a royal hassle!)


Work
Whether thanks to the bus, or spring, or just an unrelated change in momentum, my research is resurgent. I returned to the archives in March and I've finally found a lot of interesting primary documents on regional public health and tick-borne encephalitis. I have a bunch of things I hope to get a chance to look at (and the time left is just starting to seem like perhaps too little to get through it -- but regardless I'll have time to collect a bunch of interesting stuff).

It's also just fun to be back in the archives, after an absence essentially since last summer, before I took the Consulate job. There is a weird kind of feeling you get working there and being accepted by the ladies who run the reading rooms, one of whom especially here in Vlad is very serious and bureaucratic until you crack her, and she then really is friendly and supportive when you need it. It sounds good, but there's a weird side that emerges when you see someone flailing who hasn't cracked the unsmiling exterior, and you feel a little superior and comfortable in your position -- I don't necessarily like that feeling, but somehow having a little success in Russia in the face of adversity can do that to you.

My experience generally in archives so far in my career, primarily during my dissertation research, was a very needle-in-a-haystack experience, mainly because of my topic. I think that feeling is actually pretty much par for the course in archival work, but I suspect that the way my dissertation topic was defined so very differently from the way the archives were organized (and from the way any Russian asks questions of Russian history), it made it difficult to easily pinpoint what files might be useful. But now, simply by virtue of the fact that I'm interested in a particular disease, one that has a regional significance, for the first time in my work I've actually had the experience of writing in my notes "Jackpot!," after finding a file titled "Data about the morbidity and mortality of tick-borne encephalitis and malaria for 1940-41."

A Brief Update

What we're saying:

This month we have turned to verbs! And we're just recently getting into prepositions, noticing when those that are essential to a particular verb get attached to words in English. So, "put your shoes on" gets repeated as "shuzon"; "let's take your hood off" becomes "hoodoff."

tawai! = "vstavai!" ("get up!" in Russian)
go-oup = go/get up
syajish! = "syadis'!" ("sit down!" in Russian)
shiji! = "sit!" or "sit there!" in Russian
sit down! (very well enunciated - no need to translate - and almost always all of these sit-related imperatives are directed at "Beah," the funny little stuffed puppy whose species in the sleep-deprived mode of new parents we evidently could not identify, and thus he received the name "Rabbit-Bear," which for Anya is now and will surely always be "Beah.")
want (another one that really is pronounced pretty much on target, and is starting to be used to good effect.)
no (unfortunately this one is now in VERY wide usage. I know it would have gotten in there inevitably at some point, but I think I can actually trace its integration pretty well to the week we received a gift from Cousin Stacey and family: a really good little book, "Where's Spot?," whose refrain in every location where Spot is sought is, sadly, "no." Anya picked up on it very quickly and has run with it.)
pway! = play!
syuda = this way, over here in Russian
syagi = sadik, "preschool" (what I call Montessori center) in Russian
bai-sik-ull = bicycle (a real obsession for some reason, surely related to the appearance of our neighbors' tricycle outside, Anya's recent notice of the adult bikes perched unused downstairs in our house, and the existence of a picture of a trike on one of her blocks)
yogurr = yogurt (more to report next time, but I'll note here that we have ourselves a fan of homemade yogurt. And a person who has trouble distinguishing between the concepts "yoga" and "yogurt" when they are referred to too close together in conversation.)
syippah = slipper
tapogi = tapochki, "slipper" in Russian (For some reason, the little slippers with the velcro closure that I picked up on sale for the equivalent of about $7 at the local Bubbl-Goom store are a real hit.)
caw = car
mahina = mashina, "car" in Russian
crukk = truck
bussss! = bus (often followed by the comment "biiiig!" and more often followed by the comment "noi[se]" -- and in general when the identifying-vehicles mood strikes, it seems like every third one is a bus, so this word gets a whole lot of play.)

Impressions From August (and a Little Bit of September)

• Saw one of the first big departures from among our small American diplomatic community, as the veteran family with small kids left for California and then Yerevan. A bit of unexpected melancholy (at least for me) upon their departure, and the hole left in their absence.
• The much-anticipated visit of the Grandparents Kronenfeld. Great fun had by small people (walking with grandpa, placing little plastic blue men on grandma's finger, eating Cheerios under grandparental supervision, testing the northern Sea of Japan waters with her parents) and by larger people (catching up with the parents/in-laws, playing 'Oh Hell' for the first time in a long while, showing the finer points of Russian beer and four-wheel-driving, and just generally sharing more commentary on life here in Russia than usually gets fit into an email, a phone conversation, or a blog entry...)
• Some adventures in traveling with Anya -- far: Kavalerovo; and close: Reineke island. We've got photos of these trips on Flickr, and those who've seen them already have a pictorial narrative of the trips. The first was based in a small, Spartan room several hours north of here, near the coast of the Sea of Japan; the second, on a marathon boat trip to an island, about 12 hours long, from door to door. The kid took almost all the naps that were requested of her on both treks, played happily with toys and books, flirted with friends and family (and even new acquaintances who were armed with cookies), and generally behaved excellently for her diminutive size and age. We were very pleased.
• Kavalerovo packed a pretty wide range of weather and restful activities into two and a half days, from moist fog, to light summer rain, to just overcast, to sun-shiny and HOT. We frequented a cafe set back from the beach at Zerkalnoye Bay, and we explored a bit the vacation community that had sprung up there, in the form of a vast sea of tents and ramshackle camping compounds, as well as a handful of ecclectic summer cottages. We poked around the lake on whose shores our recreation base was located, and rented rowboats and skimmed out over the water to admire the flying fish. Several of us went out to sea with an old salt who promised fishing but delivered a sputtering motor and views of some bobbing seals and pristine beaches. We happened upon Russian karaoke night at our tourist base, with the full gamut of performances, from bored to over-enthusiastic. We cooled off from the hot sun in the lake and tried the huge inflated water slide, trampoline and other various water games set up for swimmers. We got stuck in the mud and experienced the curious brand of familiarity and sociability bred among Russians in these camping spots. (Just as at home in the city, where everyone is anonymous and there is little feeling of community, people had no trouble staring blankly at us when they passed on foot on the beach or when we allowed them to pass in the car -- situations that in the U.S. would often garner a wave, a smile or a brief greeting. Yet at the same time, we did experience a little sense of community in the camping villages, for instance, when we got stuck and some men were eager to lend advice if not a hand. Or when we encountered (of course, drunk) college kids at the beachside cafe who were curious to practice their English and quiz us on the NBA and American rap.) We relaxed in a relatively secluded spot on the rocky beach, then returned to the cafe and the rapidly emptying beachscape -- with all of the campers packing up their tarps and tents and the rugs and blankets that formed the walls of their impromptu beachside outhouses to head back home on Sunday evening. Generally a pretty successful trip and fun to see another part of Primorye region.
  (You can read more from a different perspective about Kavalerovo and this grandparental visit to Russia here.)
• The boat trip -- known to some fashion-minded people as the 'banana-hammock trip,' for reasons that I will leave you to puzzle out -- was long, slightly overcast (probably for the best, when you are spending 8+ hours in the open air with few to no trees in sight), and filled with as much Zolotaya Bochka beer as you could possibly want to injest and lots of snacks and barbecued meat. We explored Reineke Island with the tot, enjoyed a chilly swim in the water, and met new people and had a chance to see more of people we had met previously in the local expat community. Unfortunately the evening ushered in the latest round of apparent food-poisoning for us big people; luckily Anya's food supply was untainted.
• Small people had big birthdays: Anya turned one year old on August 21. But on August 20, I started work at the Consulate, taking the half-time job of "Community Liaison Office coordinator," generally reserved for spouses at US diplomatic posts. Not only do I get to "liaise" with the local community, but I'm generally supposed to "support the morale" of the consulate employees, local and American. I'm still feeling my way into how that support can be done, but mainly it seems to take the form of planning social events and gathering and distributing information about what to do, where to do it, what to buy, where to buy it, etc., in the local community. It all sounds very easy, and it will be once I get fully settled. But I find I am actually still in the process of really getting the rhythm down in juggling an external work schedule with the demands of home and kid. And don't know when I'll be able to fit in the writing and research that had been giving me that completely self-organized schedule previously. Well, it will all work out, I know, but for now I am a bit frazzled (and, you see, not finding much blogtime).
• But back to the munchkin birthday. Because of the new work schedule, this was a little bit less planned than some first birthdays, but we did have the big American people we know over, we all drank beer, Anya looked wistfully at us with our bottles, we encouraged her to rip open a few presents, and then we helped her blow out a votive candle placed close to her cake. The kid generally seemed mystified, but that is probably par for the course. We are very much enjoying the fruits of the holiday, though, with lots of new books and toys and clothes to brighten up our play and ensure wardrobe variety and hipness throughout the fall and winter.

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.

History in the Headlines

This past week has been a whirlwind of professional activity and inspiration for me.

In the couple of days before last weekend, an international history conference held in Vlad brought me into a lot more contact with fellow historians than I've had the chance to enjoy in recent months. Thanks to that contact, I also got a leap start in work at the Far Eastern state historical archive. And, perhaps most surprising, the current topic of my research came back to bite contemporary Russians, quite literally.

The federal health agency in Russia recently declared an epidemic of tick-borne encephalitis (TBE), with over 30,000 people across the country infected with the disease, and 15 dead. Apparently the region suffering the most is Novosibirsk, with 12 thousand cases of infection, about a third of which are children. The Far East, where TBE was first observed and studied by modern medical virologists exactly 70 years ago this summer, is not among the very worst hit, although the region surrounding the other major city out here, Khabarovsk, apparently has reported about 4,000 cases.

It's not very clear what explains this year's rise in the incidence of infection. Gennadii Onishchenko, former Minister of Health (he now heads the federal Consumer Rights Surveillance Agency, which performs some of the functions that the FDA and the CDC are responsible for in the US), says the unusually warm winter and unseasonably warm spring that hit in Siberia and the Eastern parts of Russia are partly to blame. He also calls attention to lax planning on the part of regional officials. Apparently every year health officials in the regions are supposed to order up doses of preventive vaccine and the immunoglobulin treatment that is really the only recourse once a person is infected with TBE. This year, perhaps because 2005 and 2006 saw a downturn in infections, Onishchenko says the regions ignored his calls for orders and now find themselves scrambling for treatment doses that were not manufactured.

Some reports note that localities often spray parks and recreational areas to keep the tick population down. A Kommersant newspaper article points to local officials skimping on such spraying or doing it too late this year. Personally I was surprised to hear that they try to spray at all to help prevent this disease, since in my understanding the danger of being bitten by an infected tick is much higher out "in nature," as Russians like to say -- in other words, outside of town, at a remove from urban areas, and in places that cover enough territory that I would assume spraying is really not a feasible option. But apparently now that this year's epidemic has been declared, officials are trying to be particularly vigilant about spraying around children's camps, as most of the young population heads out for the summer.

Evidently the joke among virologists right now is that the ticks' heightened activity is their way of marking the anniversary of modern medical scientists having taken note of their viral baggage. I wonder what Lev Aleksandrovich Zilber -- head of the 1937 medical expedition whose participants sleuthed out the fundamentals of the disease -- would think if he were here today?

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!