A Piano Lesson with Svetlana Petrovna
As you may have seen in photos of our flat, we have a piano and our landlady, Svetlana Petrovna, is a concert pianist. We have three portraits of her in the living room depicting her playing the piano.
She is a bit effusive and often said when picking up rent that she’d like to teach me to play the piano and that she wanted Christopher to teach her to speak English. I just thought it something she said, but last week she called and asked me to come to the “conservatroi” (said as if in French, despite that we were speaking Russian) for a lesson. I accepted, but must admit to feeling not entirely up for it, unsure how it would be. I enjoy her brief visits to the apartment, but was a little leery of spending quality time. Plus I’ve just started taking lessons again with a lovely woman named Luda, and felt like it might be too much.
However, we pay a fabulous price for this place, so I thought it in our best interest.
A couple of nights ago, she dropped by the apartment to pick up rent. We had a few friends over for dinner and she stayed, drank a glass of wine, then entertained us with three or four songs. She plays very well and is quite dramatic at the keyboard. It was lovely and doubly entertaining to have her playing live and with the paintings of her playing all around us.
Today, I found the National Academy of Music after some trial and error. I first went to what I thought was the academy, but saw it was the Federation for Russian Writers. I asked a man smoking outside if he knew where the Academy was and in broken English and some Russian, he explained where it was. He looked the part of disheveled writer, hair mussed and unwashed, and apologized in Russian that he hadn’t spoken English in ten years.
From there I found the academy. The “conservetroi” has a beautifully restored exterior and is on a street with many luxe shops and cafes. Inside it has a broad staircase and I climbed to the third floor and found Svetlana in studio 49, as promised.
She was with another woman and I told them I would wait until the finished. The woman turned out to be a vocalist and sang a few opera tunes as they rehearsed for an upcoming concert. I sat behind them watching the sunset over the buildings opposite us and listened as they quickly ran through three or four songs. Afterwards, Svetlana gave me some music to study and promised to return soon.
I wrote out the notes, as I’m still not very comfortable reading music and went through the song a bit. She returned and she showed me hand positions. The other woman returned and while they discussed some matters, I practiced more. Then they asked me to resolve a debate about whether the ribbon pin the other woman was wearing was for “Anti-AIDS” or something else. This is when I realized I don’t know “breast cancer” in Russian and had to pantomime something to that effect. Then they asked me which colors meant what, and I explained that at least in the U.S., pink is for breast cancer and red is for HIV/AIDS.
After that, Svetlana took me through two songs and with her accompanying me, the music sounded so beautiful and professional! It turns out she is a great teacher and we had a lot of fun. I’m excited to continue with her and I’ll keep studying with Luda also. It’s sort of like a double lesson, as neither speak English. The only problem is that they use “do ree me fa so la” instead of “c d e, etc.” for notes, but I’ll get it eventually. Well, that’s not the only problem, in that music theory vocabulary I don’t even know in English, but again, whatever. I came to be challenged and a little uncomfortable and so I will be!
30 September 2004
A couple of weeks after returning to Ukraine, we planned a reception. We invited close to 50 people, friends from our work, from Peace Corps, etc. I catered it myself and was lucky to have a couple of girlfriends help me cook and shop, as well as Christopher’s shopping, cleaning and arranging the apartment. The day of the reception, I came home at lunch to finish cooking, put the food out, etc.
About 40 or so people came throughout the evening. I was really honored that so many of the people I work with came. Even though we specified in the invite that we didn’t want presents, people of course brought them. A couple that were really highlights: several of my coworkers brought us a painted container of salt and an embroidered fabric. Ukrainians love to give long, elaborate speeches and toasts, as I’ve likely mentioned before. Lecia, a very sweet coworker, represented the salt-gifters and told us how salt is representative of many things in a marriage – seasoning, that life will not always be sweet, prosperity, etc.
The other gift, perhaps my favorite because of its creativity, is a flowering plant, the "Flower of Love" that Christopher’s student, Lena, gave us. As Stephanie quipped, I hope that I don’t kill that flower. No pressure!
Christopher set up the computer to show a slideshow of photos from our wedding and the trip home and he played the wedding mix music as well. Everyone looked at our photo album, beautiful images taken by our talented and generous friend, Stacy Moore.
About 40 or so people came throughout the evening. I was really honored that so many of the people I work with came. Even though we specified in the invite that we didn’t want presents, people of course brought them. A couple that were really highlights: several of my coworkers brought us a painted container of salt and an embroidered fabric. Ukrainians love to give long, elaborate speeches and toasts, as I’ve likely mentioned before. Lecia, a very sweet coworker, represented the salt-gifters and told us how salt is representative of many things in a marriage – seasoning, that life will not always be sweet, prosperity, etc.
The other gift, perhaps my favorite because of its creativity, is a flowering plant, the "Flower of Love" that Christopher’s student, Lena, gave us. As Stephanie quipped, I hope that I don’t kill that flower. No pressure!
Christopher set up the computer to show a slideshow of photos from our wedding and the trip home and he played the wedding mix music as well. Everyone looked at our photo album, beautiful images taken by our talented and generous friend, Stacy Moore.
It’s been a long time since I’ve written here. Christopher and I went home to the U.S. for a month in July/August and had our wedding. (See wedding photos) The wedding and time spent in CO, TX, NC, SC and NY with family was amazing, stressful, beautiful. Many emotions come to mind. Stephanie suggested that I write a screen play about the wedding and its preparation, fraught as it was with disparate, interesting characters (i.e. our families), juxtaposition of said characters as well as the situations that arose from these encounters. Maybe I will, but it likely won’t be a public document. Smile.
It was particularly difficult trying to see all the people that are important to us and unfortunately this proved quite impossible really. Being home in general was simply pretty relaxing, and I didn’t experience the reverse-culture shock I’d expected. We ate tons of good food and spent quality time being good consumers. I felt so hungry to stock up on shoes, books and toiletries, perhaps because everything is so plentiful and understandable at home, versus here.
Since returning, my work has become very busy. Towards the end of our visit, I began to look forward to returning to work, which I felt good about, not having known before going home how I’d feel about returning. Both of us were ready to come back to our “Little America” as we call our apartment and our work here.
Rather quickly after returning to work, I became embroiled in a political problem of sorts with an organization that works in the same field as the organization that I am working with, International Organization for Migration (IOM). I have been working on the communications for the Ukraine mission and part of my work has been a counter-trafficking information campaign. A component of this campaign are ads placed in employment sections of newspapers advertising hotlines that provide information about services for people who are considering working abroad, as a way to educate them about potential dangers of becoming trafficked. Traffickers sometimes advertise in these newspapers and with a large percentage of Ukrainians working abroad (estimated to perhaps be as much as 5-6 million of Ukraine’s 30 million population) people need information to protect themselves.
This is a very skeleton explanation of the problem. For more detailed information, look at IOM’s website at http://www.iom.int.
What came to pass was that the mission failed to inform the organizations that run the hotlines about these ads. It was an oversight that we corrected as soon as we realized it, but this organization took this opportunity to attack IOM, as it has done many times in the past. For some reason, this org began contacting international donors, organizations and embassies accusing an unknown source of placing ads that discredited the hotlines. Given the content of the ads, it seems a strange accusation to me. Nonetheless, we spent the better part of two weeks having meetings, drafting letters and other damage control acts trying to inform our partners about the situation and clear up misunderstandings and correct erroneous information. It culminated in a meeting with partner organizations and the deputy chief of mission of a European embassy who said something about me in this meeting. I didn’t really take it personally, although I felt sort of awkward sitting at the meeting and tried hard to sit impassively and not let shock show on my face.
Mainly, I took a lesson away from this meeting. When there are big budgets involved and some perception of power and territory, people do not always act in the best interest of their cause. I already knew this, but I needed to experience it firsthand to really learn it. It is important knowledge if I continue to work in the development world at this level.
I felt tremendous sadness about the above fact. At the same time that we were dealing with this, victims of trafficking were still coming through our offices, receiving reintegration assistance and other support and their harrowing stories of the atrocities committed upon them kept the utter political nature of “Advertising-Gate” in perspective. I am tremendously lucky to work with real activists who deeply believe in their work and work hard to help the people who have been trafficked as well as to try to improve legal recourse and social society to decreases the prevalence of trafficking.
That’s the first installment of Ukraine, Part Deux. I feel like it’s part two after having returned from being home again. More later, gentle readers.
It was particularly difficult trying to see all the people that are important to us and unfortunately this proved quite impossible really. Being home in general was simply pretty relaxing, and I didn’t experience the reverse-culture shock I’d expected. We ate tons of good food and spent quality time being good consumers. I felt so hungry to stock up on shoes, books and toiletries, perhaps because everything is so plentiful and understandable at home, versus here.
Since returning, my work has become very busy. Towards the end of our visit, I began to look forward to returning to work, which I felt good about, not having known before going home how I’d feel about returning. Both of us were ready to come back to our “Little America” as we call our apartment and our work here.
Rather quickly after returning to work, I became embroiled in a political problem of sorts with an organization that works in the same field as the organization that I am working with, International Organization for Migration (IOM). I have been working on the communications for the Ukraine mission and part of my work has been a counter-trafficking information campaign. A component of this campaign are ads placed in employment sections of newspapers advertising hotlines that provide information about services for people who are considering working abroad, as a way to educate them about potential dangers of becoming trafficked. Traffickers sometimes advertise in these newspapers and with a large percentage of Ukrainians working abroad (estimated to perhaps be as much as 5-6 million of Ukraine’s 30 million population) people need information to protect themselves.
This is a very skeleton explanation of the problem. For more detailed information, look at IOM’s website at http://www.iom.int.
What came to pass was that the mission failed to inform the organizations that run the hotlines about these ads. It was an oversight that we corrected as soon as we realized it, but this organization took this opportunity to attack IOM, as it has done many times in the past. For some reason, this org began contacting international donors, organizations and embassies accusing an unknown source of placing ads that discredited the hotlines. Given the content of the ads, it seems a strange accusation to me. Nonetheless, we spent the better part of two weeks having meetings, drafting letters and other damage control acts trying to inform our partners about the situation and clear up misunderstandings and correct erroneous information. It culminated in a meeting with partner organizations and the deputy chief of mission of a European embassy who said something about me in this meeting. I didn’t really take it personally, although I felt sort of awkward sitting at the meeting and tried hard to sit impassively and not let shock show on my face.
Mainly, I took a lesson away from this meeting. When there are big budgets involved and some perception of power and territory, people do not always act in the best interest of their cause. I already knew this, but I needed to experience it firsthand to really learn it. It is important knowledge if I continue to work in the development world at this level.
I felt tremendous sadness about the above fact. At the same time that we were dealing with this, victims of trafficking were still coming through our offices, receiving reintegration assistance and other support and their harrowing stories of the atrocities committed upon them kept the utter political nature of “Advertising-Gate” in perspective. I am tremendously lucky to work with real activists who deeply believe in their work and work hard to help the people who have been trafficked as well as to try to improve legal recourse and social society to decreases the prevalence of trafficking.
That’s the first installment of Ukraine, Part Deux. I feel like it’s part two after having returned from being home again. More later, gentle readers.
