Cycles of Life

Like an ever-unfolding sine wave, life in Ukraine has proven to be a series of highs and lows, aptly mirrored by the title of the yearly new music festival in Odesa, "Two Days and Two Nights.”

Wonderful, helpful people, both newly made friends and casual acquaintances, have more than offset the frustrations and mysteries involved with bureaucratic hoop-jumping (as I write this my residency registration is as yet unsolved, but is on the right track… I think…). Enthusiastic student reactions - positive as well as negative - to newly experienced sounds and ideas of contemporary American music, act as a counterweight to my classes' irregular meeting schedule and unpredictable attendance.

The thrill of performing a new piece in the presence of the composer (and on her own turf, to boot) justifies the time spent locating and negotiating for practice rooms, then toiling away the hours on all-to-frequently sub-par pianos in cold rooms with little or no soundproofing. An impromptu house-call by a local 20-something computer whiz (one of a microscopic number of Macintosh users in Odesa) to attempt - unfortunately unsuccessfully - to diagnose a Mac-specific internet problem (which seems to exist only in our building) offsets the cold shoulder I get from my landlord in attempting to troubleshoot this same problem.

An uncomfortable encounter with an abrasive marshrutka driver is soothed by the kindness of an elderly passenger who volunteers the information I was attempting to solicit from the driver. The helpfulness of a fellow Fulbrighter in purchasing train tickets from afar, which solves the problem of a travel agent's inability to secure return tickets over a holiday weekend. That same travel agent's intercession with the Russian Consulate brings a Kafka-esque visa-application encounter to a stunningly rapid and positive conclusion. Worries regarding a scheduled - but never confirmed - concert are put to rest by a warm on-site welcome and, despite the language barrier, a convivial post-concert reception that left us genuinely touched.

And so it goes, the sequence of ups and downs, intensified by the sense of being an outsider but dampened through the assistance of insiders and via the collegiality of our fellow Fulbright voyagers.

Many more discoveries can be found on our blog:

"runedako in Odessa: The adventures of duo runedako (Ruth Neville and Dan Koppelman) in Odessa, Ukraine":
runedako.blogspot.com
and photos at:
picasaweb.google.com/runedako