In Our Own Words

WENDY CHRISTIANSEN: TIME I've been a little obsessed with time lately. Maybe because I am now working 50 hours a week. I thought technology was supposed to make things more efficient and therefore give people more time. It seems to have done just the opposite. Maybe that is just my own personal assumption and nobody else even considered such a thing. I look back on Russia and just laugh. I was reading two to three books a week and I know I wasn't the only one. Did I have time on my hands? You betcha! I was an 'ecolog' -- I had time to watch the grass grow, except there was no grass in Russia. Side note: I saw Erika and Steward at SFO airport (RFE V). What did Erika want? A big green salad and to walk barefoot through the grass. We were able to accommodate both and visit the Golden Gate Bridge, which is really orange. What got me started on this time issue again was going to a Thai restaurant about a month ago for a Saturday night dinner. Two tables caught my eye due to the great contrast between them. One was an older couple, in their 70's, talking and enjoying each other's company. They seemed very happy and simply took their time. They were in no rush. At the other table there was a man, I would say in his 40's, wearing a suit and tie, sitting with a very attractive woman. One would think he would want to pay attention to her. Nope. The entire time we were there he was on his ever important cell phone. She was patiently waiting for him to get off the phone before they ordered. She waited for over an hour! My friend and I both agreed that she should have gotten up and left. When we left we were shaking our heads, but soon we had wide smiles on our faces when we saw the older couple once again. The older gentleman opened the car door of their 1967 blue VW van for his woman friend and they rumbled off down the road. They seemed to relish the time they had together. Now it seems as though people are so busy that some don't even have time to know that their children are building bombs and planning to blow up their school. People need to be in constant communication, have stores open 24 hours a day and have overnight delivery. My god, how did people function with carbon paper and typewriters, not having answering machines, faxes or email, let alone pagers and cell phones...? Don't get me wrong, I do like the comfort of having those things, but something just seems a little off kilter. My friend who works for the county can't send a memo directly to someone; she must route it through four other people who must pass it on to the next person until it gets to the appropriate person. What the f. . .?! I guess since things are simpler to do we must find ways to make them into a bureaucratic nightmare. Now that spring is here, please make time to go on a hike, walk barefoot through the grass and smell the flowers. MIKE HINKEN: ON THE ROAD TO MICHELLE'S WEDDING The road from Peoria to Nebraska is wide and flat with nothing much to see along the way. Eight hours on Route 80 in early May with the empty fields newly plowed, the air bright with sunshine and nothing for this RPCV to do but think of the destination--Lincoln, Nebraska. In the capital of the Cornhusker state, on the second of May, our very own Michelle Kraviec married Dennis Kaskovich. The ceremony was intimate, as family and friends gathered in a turn-of-the-century bed and breakfast, the Rogers House, located in the historic district of Lincoln. The ceremony opened with Michelle's sister, Suzie, singing Shania Twain's "From This Moment," accompanied by Grampa Bob on guitar, as the bride descended the polished wood staircase. The groom, outfitted in Marine dress blues, waited near the fireplace mantle with his father, the best man, and Michelle's sister, Charlotte, the matron of honor. During the ceremony, the justice of the peace spoke of the usual wedding fare, then quoted a passage from Kahil Gibran's "The Prophet," advising the couple to keep their individuality sacred in the marriage. Michelle and Dennis then exchanged vows they had written themselves, kissed after the pronouncement, and entered into a new life together to the applause of family and friends. The clouds blew off later that day, and the sun warmed the wide porch where guests gathered for the reception, held at a remodeled Victorian mansion. The bride wore her gown--a simple yet elegant satiny dress with white flowers embroidered near the hem--and the groom sported a seersucker suit in white and robin's egg blue. The newlyweds made the rounds among the guests who sat at tables near the porch rail. The conversation hum punctuated occasionally by laughter's rise and fall; shadows on the floorboards cast by an evening sun; and the scent that comes from grass and flowering hedge after the rain, a smell of newness and life -- it was all there. And so was I. And it was good. Of course I knew nothing of this driving west on the first day of May -- I could only anticipate the event and recall memories. Like the first time I really met Michelle, during a marathon Russian language lesson in an over-airconditioned classroom at West Virginia's renowned Concord College. Sometimes on our breaks, Michelle would light a cigarette as we sat on the science building steps, and we would talk about writing, Russia, letters from home, those stupid technical training classes, and Dennis. In fact, it's fair to say the basis of our friendship came of those discussions, centering most often on how much we missed the ones we loved. Throughout two years of visits and letters in Russia, a history and even a literature of our friendship developed between Michelle and me--a friendship that is strong because it is forged in dire circumstances. There were the gray and frozen afternoons in her tiny apartment, talking about what life would be like back in the world, looking at photographs, wondering about the mail; the times she came to my school and wowed the teachers with her singing voice, taught the kids about Nebraska and Indians and Buffalo Bill; the hours on bus or train riding through the middle of nowhere and the free-association games, lists of must-see movies, or even the idle chat that fills the minutes and hours of friendship. Those and so many other memories will float up as you drive across the middle of the country, to the wedding of a fellow companion on the long strange trip that was PCRFE. You drive and think to yourself how funny it is, the way things turn out; how life is not like this ribbon of road thrumming under the car wheels, leading you straight and true to an anticipated destination. The destination is always unknown, the map more often than not is upside down, and the next rest stop is usually a few more miles away than is comfortable. You understand your life in reverse, by the road you've travelled. Friends you've made may steer you one way or the other; some experience might serve as a valuable road sign; but it is always the journey, only the journey, that matters. This is what you think about, this is what you know, as the fields like memories roll by and the weight of something you once read suddenly becomes so real: Whatever you live is life. JOHN McCAFFERTY: ON THE BALKAN PENINSULA RFEers might be interested in Peace Corps life in Macedonia and Bulgaria, as opposed to the Really Freaky Edge, where we come from. No reason to compare with Russia, really, since all they seem to have shared were communism and language, but for some reason I keep wanting to compare Peace Corps experiences. In a word, volunteers in those countries had a good deal. It would be hard to come up with a more comfy-cozy country to serve in. Communism didn't wreck these places the way it did Russia, maybe since they didn't close themselves off while everything went to wrack and ruin. But it did leave them a little backward in some ways, and their infrastructure is somewhat tattered. Same old commie moderne architecture here and there, same chipped plaster. Same depressing doorways. Not as depressing as Rich Miller's in Vlad, but aesthetically displeasing. Both countries' languages are similar to Russian, but much simpler. We had the feeling that about 50% of the words are the same, but of course we didn't know which 50%, so we didn't communicate very well. Cyril and Methodius, the drunk monks who wreaked such havoc with the language, appointed a cleric named Kliment to fix things. This he did on the shores of Lake Ohrid, in the southwest corner of Macedonia. That no doubt is where the monks drank "rakia," the local spirit of choice (fruit brandy, often home-made, like samogon) until all hours and made grammatical decisions like the random sprinkling of case endings around the language, forever twisting people's minds and instilling fear and loathing in those who have to study it. So the Slalvic linguistic nightmare started in Macedonia. Macedonia and Bulgaria are very pleasant and agrarian. There isn't much besides agriculture. Some metal mines and smelting plants, but they looked closed. Lots of grapes in Macedonia, leading to a fairly successful wine culture. The vineyards look nice, draped around the hillsides like quilts. Similar situation in Bulgaria, where the wine is even better. Not up to French or California levels, but close. Remember the watery wines for sale in Russia? Imagine how sad Soviet Moldovans were when they came out of their holes, blinking in the bright light of the West, and found that their wine was second- or third-rate by comparison, yet another commie failure. Farming in western Bulgaria is largely in high mountain valleys. It's greener. Macedonia's hills and mountains are drier, like Greece. It's a lot like Greece, in fact, even in the food and appearance of the people. The people are excellent folks, of various ethnic stripes, the Balkans being a crossroads. They still do Balkan folk dancing in the taverns. They eat well, with lots of restaurants, fast-food kiosks and cafes. Bulgarians are really crazy about sidewalk cafes, BIG xamburgers, and pizza. Bulgarian girls are dieted down to a fault. Bird legs, cartoon characters with the huge platform shoes now in vogue. Blagoevgrad looked like a health farm for anorexics. Muslims here and there. Men in beanies, women in shawls. Heard some amazing moaning about 5:15 one a.m. in Skopje. Thought maybe it was a German tourist with a horrible hemorrhoid, but decided it came from a nearby mosque. People don't like other groups very much. Macedonia is in a real mess, since they wish the Albanians would go back to Albania. Who needs this? they ask. People in different villages speak different dialects and want nothing to do with each other. These provincial people really know how to hate! Doubtful that bombing is going to change that. The bombing is making people really sore at Amerika, especially since many Macedonians have friends and family north of the Kosovo border. Overall assessment: Put the Balkan peninsula on your travel itinerary when the war is over. Probably won't be much left to see in Kosovo, so skip it. I don't think there was too much to start with. We didn't get to Macedonia's popular Lake Ohrid and region because of the evacuation; too bad, since everyone raves about it. We bused down to Thessalonika, Greece, and the famed monasteries at Meteora, only a few hours south of Macedonia and Bulgaria. I am recommending that Bill Gates buy Albania and turn it into a giant ocean-mountain resort. Then the Albanians could return to work there, and everyone would be happy. I'm sure he can afford it; we read that the gross national product of Albania is less than the cost of one B-2 bomber. I'll conclude with the ringing words of the late Jackie Vernon: "My grandfather was an old Yugoslavian guerrilla fighter. My grandmother was an old Yugoslavian guerrilla." MARTIN McGUANE says he hopes to get a full-time position at his school next semester and go to school at night. "I've also been looking into the PC fellows programs; there was one where you teach on an Indian reservation, such as teaching Hopi children in Flagstaff,AZ, while earning a Master's degree. It sounds kinda cool."