Random note from today. Lately, we have received hundreds packages of information materials, books, brochures, posters, etc. As a result, we’ve asked for lifting help from the guards at our office, who work twenty four hours day, seven days a week.

While they’re not employed by IOM, they are super friendly and helpful, and always go out of their way to go above and beyond their job description, something not always present in a post-Soviet work force. (No one got fired during Soviet times, unless one was a political dissident, then “firing” meant off to the gulag.)

The IOM office has four floors and we often are moving things from the basement to the third floor, where my office is. It’s a lot of stairs. Those guards aren’t spring chickens.

It struck me as very indicative of my life here as I was writing a reminder into my mobile that reads, “Buy vodka for guards.”

I no longer remember if giving thank you gifts is as important in the U.S. as here, but in Ukraine, it’s crucial to maintaining relationships. If it were a woman I was giving a gift to, I would give some scented lotion, flowers or chocolates. (Have I rhapsodized enough in this space about the wondrous substance that is Ukrainian chocolate?)

However, for a man whose hobbies I don’t know, vodka is the gift of choice. :-)

I write this in our kitchen. Tonight we renegotiated rent with our landlady, Svetlana, the eccentric pianist you’ve seen portraits of. She surprised us by not asking for something exorbinant, as we had expected. We managed to agree on a very reasonable rent.

I love our flat. It’s funky and while I regularly curse the old toiler smell that no amount of bleach can banish for longer than a few hours, it’s big, comfortable and a fabulous location. I can walk to work in 20 minutes, we’re near a lovely park, and two metro stations.

We overlook a small tree grove between a Soviet behemoth building, part of the Arsenalna complex, and a noveau-riche apartment highrise.. The sun hits the trees at dusk, now at 9pm due to our northern latitude, and the highrise’s glass panels reflect the sunset.

Sydney is laying at our feet, Christopher is playing his PSP, latest toy, and showing me how cool it. We’re listening to new Beastie Boys and BBQ is cooking on the stove, sauce courtesy of a friend who had it shipped from Georgia.

This life is so comfortable now. I still am in love with the international mixture of daily life, despite the concurrent daily frustrations of living in said international environment.

I wonder if one day I won’t love it anymore, but in the meantime, I’m so lucky to get to do this and that I have Christopher who supports me in it.