Summer diary including a trip to D.C.

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Summer and a Visit Home

Saturday, September 16, 2000

(or "16 September" -- we get confused here about being American or European. Actually we get confused about a lot of things.)

Dear Friends and Family,

We haven't written in a month and a half. Sorry to take so long answering your letters. (You DID write didn't you?) We have all the normal excuses (busy, restart school, travel, dog ate homework, etc.) but the truth is I got a bit lazy this summer. I was even known to leave the house without the little camera. You may view this as a good thing or not but we continue to have a long list of people demanding more Diaries and pictures. Well. maybe not a LONG list but a list. Two makes a list, right?

Since our last message from Tallin, Estonia, we've run home to the US quickly and then gotten into the start of a new school year. Nothing real exciting but here's a few notes. Here is Marianne packing for her trip to California to see Gabby. This was not completely planned but "the girls" missed each other and it was impossible for Gabby to come here so Mom went there. It was a 10 day trip so much of the time was spent adjusting to the 10 hour time zone change. But, in addition, Marianne got to see friends and family -- and shopping centers. Sorry but there's no pictures - I had the camera. But you all know what California looks like anyway. Sun. Blue skies. Green trees. Etc.

So on August 13, I took Marianne to the airport for her early morning flight and started my Kyiv-bachelor-summer. For starters, I walked along the river on my way to breakfast and took pictures of our local Dniper River cruise boats. Kind of "Soviet looking" but they also looked clean and shipshape. We have to put them on our list of things to do.

Originally, the plan had been for me to have ten days on my own, partying in Kyiv. But work intervened and I won my own trip to the States. A day or so after Marianne went to California I went to our home office in Maryland, outside Washington DC. This trip too was to be just long enough to recover from jet-lag but it was also a good opportunity for me to see family, friends and shopping centers.

I started with a visit to my sister and her family outside of Baltimore. The weather was beautiful, not like "regular" DC summer weather. The sun was out but the humidity was low and the skies were blue. We took advantage and visited a small park that had displays of the old rural Maryland farm life. The grounds were pretty and we looked in on folks practicing the old handcrafts like quilting. I found it interesting to compare the American farm life of 100 years ago with the farms here in Ukraine today. Of course many farms here today are reasonably modern with tractors and heavy machinery but there is still farming being done with horse and human labor techniques more primitive than that shown in the Maryland's museum of 100-year-old practices.

I was also able to catch son Geoff for a bit. He had just moved out to the suburbs from downtown DC. Nicer place, less interesting neighborhood (in my opinion anyway). Geoff seems to be doing well, continuing the long path toward a PhD. Better him than me although there were signs of even his patience reaching limits. Hang in there!

I got in one morning of picture taking of the most famous landmark. The last time I was in town the Monument was surrounded by scaffolding but now it was sparkling after the restoration job. Tax money at work.

After our out-and-back trips, we started the normal end-of-August routine. It's hard to imagine that we are beginning our third year in Kyiv but the school restart routines reminded us. The school social calendar opens with a bar-b-que at the Director's house where everyone compares pictures from the summer.

We also went to our third school picnic at Piragova, the local "outdoor museum". (Picture #8). It really is a lovely place and a peaceful setting any time of year. Late summer like this has the fields at their greenest but we've also visited in the colors of fall and the white of winter (ooops - I was not going to say that word). Piragova has many rebuilt houses from various regions of Ukraine. One is a re-created kitchen/living/bed room from a "prosperous" home in Western Ukraine. Not bad. Marianne even thinks we need a new project to rebuild one of these as a dacha somewhere. Yikes.

Of course the engineer in me was drawn to the horse-powered grain mill. The horse is held in a paddock on the right side, trying to climb the slope of the wheel. This moves the floor which turns the wooden gear box which in turn moves a stone mill wheel in the shed to the left. I can't imagine this contraption really working but the guide swore it was authentic and had been very common in the regions where wind power was not reliable enough. Like I said earlier, some farming in Ukraine is done the old fashioned way - and always has been done that way I guess.

Well fans, off to the market. We have dinner guests tonight and we'll spend much of the day getting ready. But the sun is out, the sky is blue and it's the weekend. Good deal wherever it happens.

Take care. Stay healthy. Write if you can.

John and Marianne

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Originally mailed September 15, 2001. Reformatted for web May 20, 2001.

This page created on a Macintosh using PhotoPage by John A. Vink.