Saglasna

Today at about ten in the morning the sky opened. Fat steady streams poured through the leaves and branches and porches into the muddy ground. I stood at the window and watched the puddles grow and looked at the shiny, transformed world outside and thought about strange things, like my childhood and my friends and being home, in the States. Strange things for the rain.

I spent the weekend in the village next door. My friend Kathryn and I did what we normally do when we get together - we cooked. For once, we didn't get drunk on homemade cocktails, though. For some reason we're both kind of drunked out in this culture of endless toasts and rituals involving the necessity to drink. As I was climbing onto the bus in the wake of three dusty, immensely curious little boys ("Does your friend speak Russian?" they asked. "What's the English word for 'squirrel'?" they wanted to know. "You're Kathryn," they told my friend, "You're here with a big group of people." They were surprisingly well-informed for boys that appeared to be living somewhere between the doorstep and the street. Kathryn sees them around her town, carrying loads of scrap metal on a dilapidated bike to the junkyard. The leader, slightly taller and standing in between his companions, wore a cap and asked all the questions; his friends stole glances, posed like toughs and grinned at me secretly), we also realized that we should have been celebrating something, because the summer is going to kick itself into high gear within the week and we will only glimpse each other until the fall.

She's going to Kyiv for one thing, then the next week I'm going to Kyiv, then she gets home for a bit, then goes back, then we will meet for a Russian language camp at the old training compound where we spent our first three days in-country, then I'm going back to my village and she's doing this and that - including going to Turkey, exotic! - and I'm doing this and that, pretty much travelling every other week all summer and not being in the same place twice until September. Luckily, in the Peace Corps, time stretches.

I'm even going home home. I'm a little concerned. Not so sure if it's a good idea, given the loneliness and homesickness that I currently struggle with. I suppose, though, that in the end I'll eat out every day, go shopping, see my people, and come back to finish the job I started. Won't I?

Sure I will. Despite struggling with teachers and students and systems and language and simple, everyday existence, it's a struggle that makes life worth living. Heck, I'm building character. Last Friday, Kathryn invited me over by text message. She wrote, "Coming over this weekend? Saglasna?" Do you agree? I wrote back that I would, if lasagna was on the menu, and at the same instant that I hit send, I received another message from Kathryn: "And let's have lasagna!" Great minds think alike, right? Tell me you're saglasna.