congratulations!

This weeks marks a year living in Dnepropetrovsk (whaaaa!).  Yes, I know that I'm a few days short of the big day, but heck, my thoughts, my blog, my time - and I want to write!  So, hmm, shoop, sigh, uh, what now?  I've been living here for a year and I don't even know what to say for it.  I could be cheesy (check) and write something totally over the top and reflective, but I'm not in that type of mood currently.  I'm more just amazed at time's incredibly ability to speed up without notice.  


I feel like I was just celebrating Thanksgiving and running to Kharkiv for a camp on multiculturalism, and then proceeded to run a seminar on globalization (killah) in Krivoy RIg, and then was able to finally enjoy Dnepropetrovsk with friends here, but ran again to Caroline's village for a teaching seminar. In a few days, I'm on the run again to Crimea to celebrate one year with the people that I was separated from a year back.  I think my feet move faster than I am able to process my thinking.


It's totally okay to move around and dance and run and burn bright and sing out loud and go out late and dress up (or down- GASP UKRAINE!) and spend money and be tired and shout from lungs and clap for friends and speak loudly and make a mess... hey, as long as there's action, it's a sign that there is breath.  Making choices and doing things are all a part of the experience.


Cheers to running and movement.  Congratulations to volunteers who never stop.  Hear, hear to those who always look ahead.  Molodyetz to people who keep going forward without looking back.  УМНИЧКА.  Special shout out to Colette Sims, Courtney Koch, Andrew Shell, Anand Shivaprasad, Nicole Porter, Caroline Turner, Jeremy Borovitz and Catherine Kelly who keep my feet at pace.


I also really like this song and when I listen to it I want to grab my hairbrush and perform to my mirror.

5-7-5

what is thanksgiving?
ruined American art

turkey or chicken

giving grace and hugs
can't believe I'll miss you
we found a turkey


gathering at camp
teaching about human rights
let's play mafia!


volunteering work
for a place that stands well one
give me direction


canceled once again
repetitive nature time
what should I do now


apples and peanuts
I really don't want to cook
thank god for school lunch


happy to be here
but itching for winter break
reenergized soul

pork memoir

I recently had the pleasure, nay, the honor, of joining the Pork Memoir club.  Gilad joined first, so this makes it a brother-sister duo.  To read, just click: Packing Away Pigs.

fast

So much of my time here is spent figuring out schedules and calendars.  I always have desire to make sure everything is in place.  I like to joke that it's the "American" in me, but I think that I've always been so exact about writing lists and lists, dates and times, constantly in a state of reminding myself that I need "to do this!" and that I need "to do that!"  I am such a crazy when it comes to lists.  It's semi-embarrassing how many pieces of paper I waste writing down tasks that are obvious.  Between school and other projects (everything at site is going superb!), I feel like I don't have time to think and then I find myself thinking too much... it's terribly me.


Today I was penciling plans and meetings that I know are coming up in the next few months and I felt myself zooming through these days that I haven't even experienced yet.  It was like I saw myself ending service without even blinking.  Remember when you entered senior year of high school, or college?  Or started your last summer at camp?  When you planned a vacation somewhere and then it's all of a sudden the last day?  I feel like I can keep listing all those weird things that have expiration dates that we all go through... major tests, big birthdays, family celebrations, grant applications, training for work, etc.  It's like you can taste the end of something but you don't even know what it means.  A manna to imagination.


In seventh grade, I remember my bible teacher telling us that the rabbis believed that manna tasted something like oily, fatty goodness that could be transformed into any taste wanted - and now it is unimaginable/impossible to even comprehend the types of senses that were awakened that time ago.  What a radical idea.  I wish I could have some right now.  It would totally go well with my winter packing-it-in diet.

6 hours

I had this amazing train ride from Kiev this evening.  Unlike the many others I have taken in the past year, I wrote down my thoughts in pen and just let my hand glide over the paper without even thinking for a moment.  I couldn't believe that I was able to just let my hand do all this thinking without stopping and I filled up a few pieces of paper (any that I could get my hand on).


It was totally addicting.  I couldn't believe that I could just let my hand go off, writing down every last thing that was buzzing around in my head.  Starting from how I felt at that moment, into last week, and into this whole being (not human - simply as) in any part of my mind that my hand decided was worth to put into ink.


I started saying goodbye to volunteers this past week while I was in Kiev.  It was quite strange.  A year seems very far from now (although oddly enough, when I think about the next two months, time flies) but I can imagine that those who are leaving this week felt about the same as I do currently - contemplative, excited for travels this winter (!), wondering how to teach about Thanksgiving effectively, schedule crazed...


We only get so many moments in our lifetime.  Why waste them on moments of insecurity, non-opportunity, indecisiveness, obscurity and clouds?  Cheers to the next year+ of service.

rush

I am back in Ukraine after a whirlwind of a visit back home.  I can't remember a thing about being home except these lingering feelings of comfort that exist synthetically at times in Ukraine.  I really love my family, and my friends, and I am surprised by the normalcy and ease of my arrival.  I had this incredible nerve running through my body before I arrived home - what if things would change?  what if I changed?  what if people changed?  what does change even mean?  I always talk about how positive change is - I can't expect that others won't grow (up, down, side).  


And it just felt so good to lie in bed with a friend and laugh, or wake up my mom at the crack of dawn, or meet my brother on the street for a quick hug... and I see how much I have to look forward to, and that even when I feel like I am missing key things at home, that things are still going to be exciting when I return.  I will still be able to laugh and wake and meet when I make the next step into New York.  These two weeks do not define my relationships with my home, but they definitely help show me that it is malleable and adjustable... that leaving for two years has shifted into  "I'm not home right now, but I'll be back soon."


I feel good about my return.  School began like nothing ever stopped, and I already feel an onset of projects and ideas flowing towards me.  Let the busy-ness ensue, because man, it is so cold and dark and I need something to keep me up.

where ever it may be

I'm leaving home to go home!


And obviously, in real travel fashion, I broke my suitcase just like I did a year ago.  Is that am omen of good travels ahead?

start

I don't even know where to begin this post, so excuse the confusion that will ensue...

I find it funny that at this moment of clarity I have my head in many places. This whirlwind of reflection that has been going on for a year now reached its peak this past weekend. I hosted Jeremy and Amy at my house for the holiday, and then Caroline and Chris joined us for Shabbat, and then a few more people (40) joined on Saturday morning to learn about Rosh Hashanah and the Jewish community in Dnepropetrovsk. I am having such a hard time figuring out what to say, but I know that I am feeling amazing.

I spoke on Friday night at Shmuel and Chani's house. Jeremy and I have been seriously reflecting on what the holiday is about while planning for the program, and I shared with him more poetically, which I wanted to write about today...

This past Shabbat, we learn about the story of when Moshe tells the epic tale of the Jewish people, and includes all of their ups and downs, and chronicles the whole 40 years of struggle and wander... and since all good stories have a deeper meaning, I thought "does this relate to me?"

And I found that I feel like struggling and wandering is normal and almost... necessary. Yesterday we had to share all these things about our past year, and I was with a friend and he said "Avital, you are a different person. A better version of yourself." So maybe this past year I wasn't the best me, but I have a better version of me to show for it.

To anyone who is considering the Peace Corps, going to college, moving away, going into a program, starting a new job, beginning a major, figuring out a new hobby, reading a new book, recording a new CD, moving to Paris, recovering, finding new love... you will struggle. You will not feel comfortable at the beginning. And the beginning won't be over until you feel that you are at home. Which I am.

goodbye old year

... you were an okay friend. I'll just...(cue song)

ack!

My year anniversary is coming up and I am celebrating it with Rosh Hashanah, Jewish New Year. I just don't make these things up!

Ha. Okay. So, I feel like I should probably update on something more concrete than these flowery feelings that just fill up my body and make me smile day in and day out, but it's just so hard to not share all those little buzzes that keep on keeping on - that literally drive me out of bed to teach, make me want to dance in the morning, keep me smiling until I leave the Planet of Happiness. I still cannot believe that I work at the Planet of Happiness.

But, I kind of don't want to because it seems boring and makes me want to fall asleep while I am typing.

good

How Come You Never Go There by Feist

“If you spend your entire life doing something, you should come up with resonating things that you know to be true,” Feist said. “You can just sing a ditty and not feel it. But when you feel a song, and you wrote it from a place that was honest — or was as honest as you were able to be at that moment — it keeps refreshing you.”

-"The Bounty of Solitude," Jon Pareles, The New York Times, 9/16/2011

dig

The past week has been wonderfully productive and exciting. Almost a full year has gone by since I landed in Ukraine and incredibly enough, it falls right at the best time of year. Now, I have spoken about Spring's magnificent ability to make all things fresh and renewed and grown - adding a flavor of beginning to all of the flowers budding and rain pouring and trees smelling and colors shining and sun warming.

And then this summer flies by and teaches me about how low I can go - really exposing myself to the deepest and darkest part of personality - a place where I let my guard down and throw everything away for just one more. I have officially spent a summer being a bum and I don't like it.

I picked myself up and made the last two weeks of summer count with friends and work, making sure that I ended a season with some idea of what I used to think about when I started this whole journey. And that's when tonight my friend told me that I am digging for something. And I think I'm a bit closer to hitting gold, or at least something bright. And I am pretty sure that I am happier now than I have ever been.

So here's to Autumn, the season which is giving me one more chance to start fresh in a way that speaks about letting go - all of those leaves are absorbing the summer sun and hopefully taking a bit of my summer as well.

hive work

I cannot believe the smile on my face right now. I am on top of the world. I haven't felt like this in a long time and I want to run into the streets and scream out...

My head is buzzing for all good things.

know

snapsnap

I don't feel like writing much, but I have taken a few pictures in the past couple of days and want to share them. I went to visit Colette, Courtney and Adrianne down in the beautiful Crimea and enjoyed my time in Simferopol, Yalta and Saki.

Colette and I went to the Chekhov House. This is a clock from his kitchen and a few photographs from his mother's bedroom.

Colette made friends with this cat at the house.

We played scrabble.

Colette and I went to a wine bar in Yalta and tried different Massandra wines.

We went to a lake with mud (much like the Dead Sea, except less salty) and covered ourselves.

abuh

I don't even know what to write about. I usually count on a conversation with Gilad at some point during my week to get me thinking about something weirdly human and natural, and maybe he'll help by pointing me in the direction of a good text or philosophy, but not this week.

This week I haven't been myself. I feel on edge and confused and not really with it. I am going to take this time at home to just kind of reconfigure and re-re. Especially since I haven't done a single thing that might count for the month of September, and I think I need to start thinking about my actual service instead of "what sounds good for dinner?" Summer is closing up, but I am kind of happy about it because I get to be myself and do what I intended to do all along - teach, educate, integrate.

However, if there's one thing I've learned in the past 10 months (yes, it's been 10 months!) that the most important thing I can do when I'm feeling unlike me, is to surround myself with company who do like me. So, score one for mental health victories.

Here are some photos from the past.

Wavy sunflower fields on the way to Donetsk.

Dnipro football game fans.

A poster Colette and I made for children while we were in Russian Language Camp, I mean, лагерь.

Cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg pull apart bread made with Caroline.

Fresh tomatoes from the bazaar (2 kilo for 10 hryvna. Also highway robbery).

Tomato sauce I made from said tomatoes.

made

Today was the last day I helped with the Healthy Lifestyles project, and it was quite sad. July seems just about over and I'm headed into a new chapter of summer.

My meeting people mission is going quite well. After this month of trying to acquire friends that will lift me up, I have had the pleasure to get acquainted with a couple of Ukrainians that I hope will prove a huge help in my future during my time here. The word "new" has taken on a very positive and important meaning. It feels so great when I meet someone new that I know will be around as long as I make sure to keep him/her in close contact.

That is the beauty of this new friendship I have found in Tamara and Zhenya, two incredible Ukrainians that have made it their responsibility to educate youth about health. Even after just a few short meetings and days together, I know that I met special. If not for the educational inspiration that these two can offer me, I know that I met people that I can count on if I need help while living here.

New gifts, new friends, new moments, new days, new tools... all helping me figure out what I am doing here and forcing me to write into this blog something, well, new.

seize

Dudley Clendinen so perfectly writes in two pages about death. I have been trying to write and write and convey for the past 9 months something special about life and service, and I read this man's published words, maybe some of his last, and he zings me into the atmosphere after less than 2000 words and gets me thinking about death.

I love how he writes, as if I'm the one only one reading it and knows what he's thinking. He eases me into a conversation about death, convinces me that humans fail to really recognize that death is natural, exciting and inevitable. And the way he mentions us - for wanting so badly to live, even at the expense of our loved ones' wallets and time, hearts and emotions - it hardly even feels like a critique.

I love seeing that everything he is writing is carefully chosen - all the ink and effort that he uses is of value. Like, each word he wrote was a last breath for him. As if, his last words are of true worth, real advice - with all that is left of him he is trying to tell me, us, anyone... "I think it's important to say that."

All has been good. If you are already a loved one, then my announcement of coming home in October for a visit should be of no surprise... but it feels good to know that it's in less than three months, and I am happy that I can write about it in/on here. Three months until I can soak in my home, energy and love. Does it feel like I'm talking to you?

memo

Meeting new people is surprising. And then add in a big fire jump, no running water and a cow and it becomes a surprise party that can last for a few days.

And then after you meet people, there is always that goodbye feeling that infiltrates even if it does not directly include you. I had the opportunity to meet people that are important to Jeremy and see him smile in a way that maybe only happens when he surrounds himself with old friendship. The only complaint about meeting people that are so important in another friend's life is that the expiration date on visits magnifies the large themes of that friendship, and all the small details fall at the waist side.

Okay, so, note to myself: try and meet as many people as I can this summer and learn just a bit about them, or take in something that he or she says, that will make feel like I am engaging the summer brain. Then those fresh air memories or karaoke until 3am will make me smile instead of just fade into a log, or a cube (logs at least roll around).

Ivana Kupala bonfire

Jeremy and Sonja in her beautiful wreath (contest winner celebrity)

Cow that was milked and milk that was drunk

Roof tour of Boyarka

up

"Knowledge not increased is knowledge destroyed" (Hillel, Pirkei Avot 1:13)

You know that feeling when all goes well? When you just wake up and look around and it seems like everything is going forward? You have decided to make yourself move up. As if that thing that had been bugging you for so long seems irrelevant? And that one thing that keeps you down repeatedly... which burns your brain and keeps you from breathing, and pushes you into bed or into mistakes, starts fading.

This morning I woke up feeling so happy. I just knew that the day was going to be great, even if the weather outside seemed to be falling down on me, stopping me from whatever I want, and then the sun just peeked out of the clouds, and I continued on to a camp where I was greeted, along with two other volunteers, by almost 300 Ukrainian children cheering and screaming "HELLO!!!" And I saw that I have all that potential to make a kid smile just because she saw asking "how are you?" was enough to make me smile and communicate.

All of the work I can put into increasing my knowledge instead of destroying myself with television shows (although, LOST has helped time move faster when I am in between meetings), facebook (deactivation project is going well), obsessing over food blogs (one recipe in a million gets cooked), transitioning from love to hate to love to disgust to hate to ... I forgot to keep up that hobby I picked up in a fleeting moment. When we bother with all of those things in extreme, we lose sight of learning, stop going up and stick to what's bad. Man, I hate that.

"HELLO!!!" All you need to do is remember: "You will be holy, because I, God, am holy" (Leviticus 11:44)

oops!

bazaar

Hello fresh! Hello color! Hello bright! Hello fun! Hello nice! Hello smile! Hello breath! Hello air! Hello taste! Hello!

vision

I just read the most fantastic essay in a book that I've been putting down and picking up for longer than I'd like to admit. Drakulic talks about this idea that we grow up in an area, and once a move occurs, our eyes catch certain things. Our ability to focus in on experiences and choose what is important and what is irrelevant is so natural, and yet so immature. We look back on friendships, trips, words, fights, homework assignments, dreams and pick out what is conveniently obvious.

Drakulic was able to always point our poverty and extra food in the garbage based upon her experiences of communism and remembering that America was promised to be clean and perfect. Instead of the picture, she was faced with scenes of homeless people calling out for quarters and old McDonald's burgers going to waste. All those years of waiting for the ideal were crushed because she naturally looked for what was wrong without even thinking. How unfortunate to grow up and live in a way expecting bad to come, and always knowing that the transition out of habit would never fully be complete.

New volunteers have joined Dnepropetrovsk, and while we were chatting about our recent experiences, I pointed out that the only reason people here lose sight of what is important here is because they choose to see what is the worst. (Which reminds me that I had a fantastic idea to start the ultimate "two types of people" list - for example: those who choose to see the bad and those who choose to see the good, those who care about the future and those who care about the past).

Where was I? At my eyes, which only see what I want right now knowing that now it is more important to be smiling than it is to be waiting for the curve to get bigger.

Good luck to the new.

action

I wonder about why I care about other people. What makes me so inclined to care about what other people are doing at any given moment? And when other people act a certain way, what makes my stomach turn or my heart ache? What makes my mouth curve? Do other people do the same about me? When I make a wrong move, or if I say something bad, do others wish I did something else? Our obsession with our friends' and family's actions, or even the actions of strangers, is sometimes unreal. Do I want everyone to act according to me, or do I want to act more like them? When my friend hurts his or her self, do I wish he or she made a different decision? And is it fair of me to judge?

Here are some things that I'm doing in the moment:

Homemade vareniky.

Shashlik barbecue.

Our picnic.

Mulberries for jam.

Strawberries for jam.

Jamming.

holy

"Thank God, at the ultimate, we are a species of great potential."

Our potential to grow is so obvious but we drag ourselves down with old addictions and bad feelings, and we forget what we can do if we just let go and stop thinking for moments. When the oldest addiction has lost its effect, we keep going back to it because it is familiar, even when we know that maybe time away from it will give us the clarity we need to grow and find out if in fact it is addiction we want, or if it is the extension that we are missing. Addictions make us angry - chocolate, cigarettes, food, facebook, drugs, caffeine, perfection, being liked - when they are not given the right balance.

I just found out that my summer will be filled with camp until the end of July, so I am quite happy because I will have the chance to get some clarity, alone, away from school and in the best season of learning (summer).

"For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

baking powder

School is ending on Friday, and summer is about to begin. Dnepropetrovsk is burning up and spring is no longer happening anymore. The time for seasonal reflection is slowly coming to a close and a new season is upon us filled with strawberries and other delicious fresh things.

I keep on wondering about what type of person I want to become. A lot of people join the Peace Corps at a time in their lives when they are confused about their surroundings, and I am not one of those people. I decided to join for different reasons and I think that I am slowly fulfilling and reaching those ideas, but indirectly reflecting on the confusion of what I want in my life.

Some volunteers I have met were at a point where nothing seemed right, and they looked to this service as a time to do good work while also looking forward to a return home with clarity. On the contrary, I am not looking at these moments in my life as a way to reconsider, but rather to finally lay the groundwork for what I imagine is going to be a life filled. I didn't think my life was complete, but I knew that my life was not complete yet without exercising my values.

What I want is to use these two years to reclaim myself - to make myself better for everyone: friends, family, colleagues, strangers... What I want is for people to stop saying that I gave up two years, but rather that I gained... What I want is to learn how to master baking in an oven the size of a medical textbook... What I want is to knit a hat... What I want is to become a better writer... What I want is to travel to a place I've never been... What I want is to be complete... What I want is to make a student confident... What I want is to grow, heal, reflect, change, seize, think, run, smile, stretch, cry, imagine.

I made jam with Caroline and Bri the other week, and started on the baking education with delicious biscuits, blondies, cupcakes and pizza. Baking club is official - we are going to bloom (or flower/flour?). Maybe baking powder will help me rise. Here are a few photos for the blog scanners:

biscuits

pizza - before and after

apple cinnamon cupcakes

biscuit with jam

Brene Brown: The power of vulnerability | Video on TED.com

Brene Brown: The power of vulnerability | Video on TED.com

shalem

What does healing mean? Do we heal to get better? Do we heal to change? Do we heal to forget? Do we heal to move on? Do we heal to improve? Does healing help? What are the best ways to heal? Once we heal, do we try again? Is there a point in healing? What about scarring? Do we cover up our scars once we heal, or do we wear them proudly?

We are in the month of Iyyar, the Jewish month of healing. Right as the spring begins and we start our reflection, or at the very least, as I begin counting down towards what's next, my summer - open and desperate for plans. I am just closing up the wounds of learning from these past 7 (8?) months - all of the hard work and tiring hours and annoying lessons and frustrating moments and lonely times and sleepless nights and impossible mornings and cold coffee and bad food and freezing weather and breaking in and up and down and out, finally.

Summer is breezing in and it feels so good to finally walk home instead of riding the bus. Israel turned 63 today and it feels so good to love it and still see it grow and heal and grow.

חג שמח - עם ישראל חי

free

The weather has turned hot and I am sweating on the way to anywhere! I have done a lot of traveling around and feel like I have been in transit for almost the past month, and May's plans are not helping the momentum but I am grateful for any business that keeps me distracted.

Before I dive into photos, the most important thing that happened to me this past weekend was reflection on my current self. You'll see two photos from a seder that Jeremy and I prepared for other volunteers, and during that seder we asked questions to reflect on a volunteer's life: Why is this year different from all other years? What enslaves us? What does freedom mean? When is it enough? What do I know about myself now? I am lucky that I can answer these questions, and that even though they are hard to answer, the answer is still mine and no one else's. I am headed out of Egypt.

1. I went to Simferopol to visit Colette and there I was greeted by other volunteers. On the first day we went on a tour of Bakchisaray with Nitai, another volunteer, and his mother, Avia.

Me, Colette, Nitai, and Avia, Nitai's mother, at the Khan's palace.

A view of the cliffs from the Tatar restaurant. Lagman soup is the best.

We came across a HUGE Karaite cemetery filled with hundreds of tombstones written in Hebrew.

2. On the second day there, Colette and I teamed up with two other volunteers (Adrianne and Aubree) to explore Sudak.

Just hanging out on a castle.

Fortress.

A view from the top hill.

3. The next weekend I found myself back in Kiev for a wonderful weekend, but the highlight was when I joined other volunteers to experience a Passover seder. Jeremy and I spent the whole day cooking and preparing and it ended up being fantastic and more beautiful than I had expected.

Enjoying "Shulchan Orech."

Me and Jeremy finally taking a load off after a whole day of work.

Keep on keeping on!