Q&A with a journalist from eastern Ukraine

When Olena [last name removed], a journalist from eastern Ukraine, was a student at Donetsk National School, she and her roommates left a humorous sign on their dorm door. It had a list of rules for the house written in 10 Commandment style. The residents signed the list “the holy sisters.” The year was 1984. And Olena and her roommates were citizens of the Soviet Union.

The stunt nearly cost them their educations. Administrators reported the joke, thinking that they were serious, and Olena was almost expelled.

She likes to share this story because “it’s indicative of the time,” she says.

Olena, 49, recently arrived in Columbia, Missouri, with her husband, Yaroslav, 50, and their nine-year-old daughter, Olga. Olena and her husband, also a journalist, are from Donetsk, Ukraine, one of the cities seized by pro-Russian separatists this spring. The family left the city in May and spent the summer in the Lviv region in western Ukraine.

They continued to file stories — sometimes as many as 18 a day — but received a phone call from a friend in August warning them their lives were in danger.

After the threat, their 27-year-old son, Roman, a graduate student at the University of Missouri, arranged for his family to come to the United States on a two-month professionals visa.

From their son’s apartment in north-central Columbia, Olena and her husband, continue to report on the events unfolding in Donetsk.

Olena, who spent the early part of her career as a secondary school math and physics teacher, has been a regional correspondent for Ukrainian Independent News Information Agency (UNIAN) (http://www.ostro.org/) since 2000. She was always curious about journalism, she says, but it wasn’t until the Soviet Union fell and the media opened up that she chose it for her profession.

“The social importance of this profession is very high, and I decided for myself you can’t stay quiet, you need to have as much influence on the situation as possible,” she says.

The daughter of an electrician and coal-mine geologist, Olena grew up in a Donetsk suburb called Makiivka. Like most children of the Soviet Union, she participated in the communist youth group called the Pioneers. But even at a young age, Olena knew she had to be independent. “My personal freedom I tried never to exchange at any of those meetings or politically motivated events,” she said.

She met her husband during their second year of university study. Both were scientists, studying physics. But when the opportunity to study journalism presented itself, both opted to earn a 3-year post-secondary journalism degree.

At 35, she filed her first story. The information agency in 2000 was young, she said. “The most important thing wasn’t your age, experience, diploma, awards or anything like that, the most important thing was the result of my work,” she says.

Olena covered everything in the Donetsk region. She has been the agency’s only correspondent since she began. Her reports cover everyday life, general news, and corruption — including the 2001 murder of local reporter Igor Alexandrov who covered police corruption. (any stories in English I can link to?)

Fast forward to 2014. Olena sat down with Tracey Goldner to discuss the challenges of reporting from Eastern Ukraine.

(Olena’s answers have been translated to English from Russian.)

What is it like in Eastern Ukraine right now?

Olena: It’s a very difficult situation in Ukraine right now. There’s just one word: It’s war. No rule of law. It’s absolute spread of gangs. The police system doesn’t work. Special Forces don’t work. Most Ukrainians left a month ago. The National Squad and Army left. There are a lot of pro-Russian separatists and militants and international bounty hunters. We had a lot of gangsters of the local type before, but then the separatism, the military intervention, rocket artillery started. My relatives and friends that I talk to, they tell me they have rocket artillery and gunfire from different locations in the city. The fighters play with the city like it is a game of Battleship.

When did things start to get dangerous?

Olena: It began in April. Russian militants and armed militants seized our regional administration building. Journalists were hunted, threatened and intimidated at pro-Ukrainian meetings.

For some reason, they were very aggressive toward to the word journalist. They only talked to and accepted Russian journalists. Asking journalists to leave the events was the least offensive thing they did.

This was happening to all the journalists in the region. We had to hide our identities.

If they found out that journalists were at one of the events, they would make the crowd aggressive toward them.

There was this so-called referendum that the terrorists held in order to try to legitimize their effort. It was fully fraught of course. It was just pieces of paper that they just copied on a copier, and even then it was so-called polls. They found out there was a Ukrainian journalist there. They ran her out and she hid in the suburbs because when she left, she figured that had been tailed.

At the end of April there were massive meetings with Russian citizens. Six or seven buses of people came to Donetsk from Rostov, Russia. They lived in local hotels. It’s Yanukovych who paid for this. They basically tried to mind up the crowd with pro-Russian rhetoric. Russian television would show coverage as if this is what people in the region thought.

Can you give me a specific example of the violence in the city?

Olena: So this is a very precise example with students from the Donetsk National University. Seven boys were just hanging around their dorm, sitting and talking and suddenly some armed people came wearing masks and strip-searched them. They were standing there in their underwear for absolutely no reason. Nothing indicated what political opinion those boys had, the only thing was that one boy had a small Ukrainian flag.

They took them to the regional building, which had been seized by separatists, took them to the fifth floor and started torturing them. They had a personal conversation with each boy after that. When I interviewed them later they didn’t want to talk with me actually, but they did confirm that they were indeed tortured by people wearing masks. The separatists were trying to force them to claim that they were fighters for the pro-western Ukraine side.

They hit their toes with a shovel, crushed their ribs. When I spoke to them they couldn’t walk straight. One boy was wearing a hat because his head was covered with stitches. These were second, third and four-year students from the physics faculty, actually. They were pretty smart boys because they were studying on scholarship. They were all local boys and showed their student tickets.

I thought when I was talking to them that some young psychos tortured them. They told me, ‘no, we could see that those were grown-ups, over 40 that must have been working at a prosecutor’s office. They said they were skilled in what they were doing.

One of the most important parts of this story is that they tortured these boys separately and wanted them to admit that they fought for the right sector (a Ukrainian nationalist party). They were pressuring them separately and this lasted for the whole night.

About 4 a.m., they were put into one single room, were forced to lower their heads, and the separatists put guns in front of them, and at that moment Life News TV (a Russian outlet), rushed in. The separatists said they had captured right sector soldiers.

I couldn’t believe this myself. They must have some ethics. The boys told me they could see that these were professional journalists. They came with professional equipment. The journalists acted as if the students had claimed that they came from western Ukraine to fight.

The journalists left and from that moment we knew that those boys were captured so we tried to do whatever we could to release them. We found some international organizations and tried to buy them out. We did succeed and just paid cash for their release. That’s when I interviewed them. They were quite afraid to be in Donetsk after that.

Some relatives of those guys actually recognized them on TV and called back and were horrified. They asked, “Are our children really the fighters of the right sector?”

Did you continue to work after leaving Donetsk for Busk [a town in the Lviv region]?

Olena: Yes, we never stopped working. The only condition for us to stay there (in Busk) was to have Internet to be able to work. It was dangerous for us to tell the truth and report honestly from Donetsk. In Donetsk, if we used words such as separatists or terrorists in our reports, we could be taken hostage. Outside of the region, we could say the truth. We still had all the contact information for our sources. We received emails daily. People called us who knew us from all over the country. I had a phone connection all the time with the sources. We had contact information with the commanders of the Army Corps in Luhansk and Donetsk. The national squad would just call me and tell me stuff and I would record it.

Are journalists working in Donetsk now?

Olena: No, no one is working. Everybody is in the distance. Newspapers are gone long ago. Armed people would come into a newsroom and spend several hours explaining how to report, scare them very much and they were basically told how they should start working. All they could do is close the newspaper. People just stopped going to work.

What do you think of the United States?

Olena: It’s okay, we like it here, especially we are satisfied that the states are now supportive of Ukraine. We didn’t exactly expect the civil support, and it is a very good thing.

Are you still filing stories?

Olena: Yes, 10 stories a day. Sometimes more.

Your whole life is in Donetsk. What’s happening with your house and property?

I have no idea what’s happening with my house. I read some official reports, just look at the list to see if my address is on the list. I always worry for my building. We live downtown pretty much and so shells several times hit the stadium that you can see from our window. A lot of people just left, but a lot of single people stayed. I have no idea what’s happened to our car. We left it in a garage. We still pay off the monthly payment. My mom said armed people were checking around garages to see if anything was open. You can see they are bounty hunters. Shellings are not always precise. So I really want our home to stay safe though it’s not the most important thing. Even here with our son this is a relaxing situation for me. But every morning I wake up and see my house in front of me.

ah, editing

I have to admit. I am naturally resistant to editing. I was that kid who used to write a poem and and then leave it. I would move onto the next one, believing that editing would only destroy the magic and leave the poem weaker.

I continued that habit into high school and then into college. The bad habit that started with poetry when I was 11, persisted into my 20s with all of my writing. I'm not really sure how I got away with it for so long.

Before grad school, just one person ever explained it to me and that person, Patrick, is my best friend from high school. A few years ago, Patrick started writing poetry seriously and would talk about the wonders of editing. He said that's where his poems began. They would become better, stronger iterations of themselves after each edit. I kind of scoffed.

"What about the magic," I asked.

He told me there is no magic. Just agonizing, exhausting, mind-numbing editing. Every morning before he went to his job as a preschool teacher, he would wake up to move commas and search for the precise word. I wondered if I would ever become that kind of editor. I figured it wouldn't happen until I was forced. As my quantitative methods professor used to say, the mind is hard wired to find the shortest possible path to resolution. It's not that we mean to be lazy. It's just that we're wired to find the path of least resistance.

This summer, I learned the kind of editing Patrick talked about. The editing process with stories is now longer than the reporting process. The interviews seem easy at this point. That's the fun part. The icing. The hard part is being merciless with the copy. Cutting out every redundancy.

I love the lines "the lean editor is the mean editor" and I really love "kill your darlings."

I spent hours last week editing with various city editors and copy editors. It was mind-blowing to see how they work: being critical of every line and thinking of all the possible phrasings (as writers) and interpretations (as readers).

Although I am exhausted both mentally and physically, I am sad this advanced reporting class is ending. It's the hardest and most enjoyable course I've ever taken. There is something insanely difficult, yet rewarding about reporting. If I get to continue doing it, I will be grateful.

But the million dollar question at this point is, how do I get more stamina?

the unexpected turns of being a reporter

I like the unexpected turns that reporting takes.

Sometimes, I'll identify the key players in a story, only to write a story that hardly attributes them at all. People who seem like they'll be crucial to the story turn out to be unquotable. Experts never call back. A shot in the dark call for a quick verification on a minor detail offers a new perspective that adds an entire section to the story.

Constant flexibility is crucial and necessary.

Last Friday, I prepared for an interview I had with a national allergist for about two hours. Most of it was background and the rest was question crafting. The public relations coordinator for National Jewish Hospital told me I had an hour. I planned accordingly. I had so many questions I needed to verify and didn't want to rely on the Internet.

I called just a few moments after noon here and 11 a.m. in Denver. He was in with a patient. He would call back. I waited for 20 minutes, hoping I'd be able to cram all my questions in. I felt confident I could if I hurried.

About 12:25, he called back. I introduced myself, told him about the story and told him I had about 20 questions. He said okay hesitantly. I launched into my questions, starting with the background and planned to hit the technical stuff after we got going. Two question in, he said he had two minutes left.

I felt flat, realizing I shouldn't have hoped for so much. I should have diversified my portfolio of national sources. I asked one last question, trying to prioritize 15 questions into one in a matter of moments.

We hung up and I felt disappointed, insulted. My skin has grown thick enough in this industry to not take it too personally. I just felt isolated from the topic. Where was my spirit guide? Where was the person who would explain the intricacies to me? Why hadn't I been able to identify that person? I had been planning on that interview since Tuesday.

I learned a valuable lesson. National experts are important, but perhaps best reserved for that highly technical question: the one that can only be answered by someone in their position. The other background-y questions should be reserved for the local nurse or doctor.

I called a nurse in Columbia on Monday. She spent 30 minutes with me, patiently explaining while she read charts and ushered patients in and out. I know this because I could hear her and because once she admitted to reading to charts.

Health care workers are slammed. At the top level, they hardly have a moment. They are triple booked. While I was bummed to not be prioritized, it's hardly surprising. Just a couple hundred, maybe a few thousand will see my article. I'm not the AP. Perhaps experts like him should be reserved for the bigger media dogs.

I'm glad I tried my hand. I won't give up. I'll try again. Next time, I'll prepare the same. But instead of having one list of questions, I'll have two: one for the 5 minute interview and one for the interview that actually turns out to be an hour.

After all, he's a sample size of one. It's certainly not enough to generalize to all doctors of his standing.

so, quant was worth it

Last semester, I used to show up to my quantitative research methods course at least 15 minutes early. My palms were always a little sweaty. My heart beat a little quicker. Dr. Leshner had a propensity for passing out quizzes unannounced.

My first few scores were 2 out of 10. I thought for sure I wouldn't pass the class.

So, I bumped up my studying. Rather than just reading the material, I composed what felt like mountains of note cards. I flipped through them at all hours of the day.

I learned the language of quantitative researchers. I memorized the terms. I hoped that by knowing everything on command, I could reason my way to the answers. It helped. I was at times, unable to synthesize the necessary information. My brain doesn't quite work in a mathematical or logical way. I think in analogies and networks of information that look more like the roots of a tomato plant than a computer chip.

My parents have told me. Friends have teased me about it. Boyfriends have even endearingly termed our conversations slightly related tangents. Drawing relationships between seeming unrelated information is something I adore, but it can make communicating with other people who don't think this way, difficult. It's a logic that makes sense to people who know me, and a logic that drives people who work from point A to point B absolutely crazy, especially when I pop up with point K.

Although, it can be difficult at times, I'm okay with thinking differently; I've come to peace with it anyway. I like noticing patterns that might not be obvious to other people.

Taking quantitative research methods was like spending hours with point A to point B people. Every step had to be examined before the next decision could be made.

I could feel myself becoming more rational.

I'm not worried that I'll lose myself in a different way of thinking. This language is another option I now have. I have noticed that the downside is that it feels constricting. When I think "logically," I miss the freedom that comes from dismissing the "rules." But, being a health reporter, requires attention to detail and often, a careful examination of medical studies.

So, I felt especially grateful to Dr. Leshner today. as I combed through about two dozen medical studies. I read them with varying levels of understanding, yet am certain I comprehended much more today than I would have last year at this time.

Statistical significance and p-values scattered through the literature. I paid attention to confounds. My new knowledge helped me sort the information into a hierarchy and know which studies should be given more prominence than others.

I still felt like I was drowning in a sea of information, trying to make sense of it all. Synthesis is key, and that's the main task of the reporter. Stories bring the data to life. But, at the core of the story is the ability to make sense of it all.

I love striking a balance between the personal and the logical. People will always be anecdotal because they are a sample size of one. But, it amazes me to this day how much more powerful that sample of one can be when set against mountains of data.

Perhaps that's why I'm drawn to journalism in the first place. While the data is part of supporting the story, the story itself comes to life through quotes and personal experience, something quantitative researchers might quickly dismiss with the flick of a wrist.

thoughts on an interview

I'll never forget the moment I turned up the drive to Angela Anderson's house. My palms were a little sweaty and my chest a little tight. I was excited and nervous to meet the woman I had spent the past few weeks thinking about. Ever since one of my editors — Katherine Reed — told me her story, I had been thinking about the interview. I wondered how I would keep my emotions in check; and even wondered if I could. The interview took an emotional toll on me, as I expected it would.

It reminded me of the interview I did with Tracy Edwards last December. When I walked into his home and saw him in a wheelchair with bandages wrapped around the stumps of his recently amputated legs, it was hard not to get emotional. I am, at times, incapacitated by sadness.

I remember these interviews intimately. I remember the smells, the awkward moments, the questions I forgot to ask and even the ones I did. But, as the interviews begin to bleed into one another, I realize that these are the interviews that are easy to remember. But every interview is special and has surprises. I think it's easy to latch onto extremes, but it also is in the everyday experiences that stories lurk.

Yesterday, I met a mother, Amy Pope, who has two extremely allergic children. It was the first in-person interview I'd done since I interviewed Angela. I found myself comparing the two stories, but stopped once I got into the details and immersed myself in the story of the woman in front of me.

She surprised me with information I hadn't considered: shopping for children with allergies takes hours, is cripplingly expensive and has essentially forced her to stop working. As I biked back to the Missourian to finish off my copy desk shift, I felt myself pondering the life experiences of Amy. She had invited me into her world, as each subject of a story hopefully chooses to do.

I felt honored, as I typically do following an interview. I learned something. And, even though the timing was tough — my mind will wander back to Angela for probably quite some time — it was a good step back into more everyday reporting. It was also a good reminder that every interview is unique, is surprising and has something to teach.

spinning globe

I grew up in a 2-level home. The first floor is where we lived and the second floor is where we slept.

As a child, I spent summers in a hot pink one piece running around with a super soaker squirt gun. My brothers and I would scream until our voices became hoarse and my mom would call for us, particularly me, to do something cerebral.

I had no idea what the word even meant. I remember I was holding a sun chip and had my eye on a doughnut the first time she said it. "What's that," I remember asking. She told me it means doing some reading or writing; something with your brain. I protested that I was already keeping a journal. I guess it wasn't enough.

That afternoon, I ventured into my dad's home office to thumb through his books and spend time inside. I was glum. His shelves of dusty books looked thick. I stared at the computer. A stack of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing programs he'd bought us for the summer sat nearby. The plastic wrap was still on them. I told myself I'd start those programs soon and turned my attention to the globe to the left of his computer. I started spinning it around and stopping it with my finger to see where it had landed.

It was on this day, I started to really look at the countries of the world. Their outlines started to mean more than just a new blob of color. I landed on the U.S.S.R. (it was an older globe) and looked it up in the encyclopedia. I landed on Panama and started reading about the canal. The afternoon passed.

My dad came home and found me on the floor of his office with the globe and stacks of encyclopedias in a circle around me. Back then, we had one large book for every letter of the alphabet. I think it was 25 or 26 books in all.

I remember being unimpressed with Asia. I didn't feel an urge to go there, no matter how many times my index finger landed there. Years later, I told my friends Asia was the last place I wanted to visit. Iceland, Uganda and Peru were much higher on the list. The entries for those places seemed much more interesting for some reason.

So, it was strange when, at 27, I found myself living in Sri Lanka and just a few months later, embarking on a 2-year Peace Corps stint in Central Asia. Instincts, or rather, the information I'd gathered in those encyclopedias or in my daily life, had not successfully informed me about the wonders of Asia.

My experience in Asia was intensely life-altering. It's the reason I'm in grad school and the reason I'm studying journalism. Asia taught me about community and communality and the importance of others. It is a magical place. And I cannot for the life of me understand why I didn't understand that sooner. In fact, my little brother just said over the weekend, "I'd like to travel, but am not really interested in Asia."

I just thought: If only you could just go there to see it. You might have a different take.

I think that telling stories well is a lot like my struggle to understand Asia. Anyone who has been to Asia will understand this statement, which I know sounds a lot like a huge generalization. But, the dozens of Asian countries share a common culture, just as every state in the U.S. shares a common understanding.

It took me more than a year to wrap my head around the cultural differences. The divide between Western culture and Eastern culture is wide. But, when I left, I could safely say that I knew how to think like a Turkmen. It is a skill that is incredibly useful if used in parallel in the U.S., but that if used directly would do nothing to help me. Thinking like a Turkmen in the U.S. would be maddening for me and most likely maddening for everyone around me. Essentially, I would be unable to operate in our culture.

I think being a reporter means living in a divide like this. We are tasked with inviting readers into a situation they are completely unfamiliar with. We tell them what it's like. We invite them to understand it, to smell it and to feel it. But, they've likely never been there themselves.

Our job is to be the bridge and to invite readers over the divide.

rhythm

I love the readings we do for class. It seems they are reading my mind. Varied sentence length. Varied paragraph length. Varied example count ... I think about this constantly.

One word.

Two words.

Three.

Four?

I really love Roy Peter Clark's assertion that one is for power; two for comparison, contrast; three for completeness, wholeness, roundness; four or more to list, inventory, compile and expand. I also like how four can be used to introduce an awkward idea.

The more I delve into writing, the more I realize that the magic I once felt for it is starting to evolve into something less like magic and more akin to power.

Constructions are intentional and while writing from the gut is always the answer, knowing the tools used in those constructions by feel, touch and smell is equally as powerful.

To wait, or not

Waiting between interviews and the writing process is tricky. I was working on another story between the time that I interviewed Angela and the time that I sat down to write a profile on her. I lost some details in between and learned some good lessons about the danger of waiting.

We learned last week that the 20 minutes following an interview are the most important. Writing everything down during that window is ideal: the items in the rooms, the smells, the pictures in the picture frames, the name of the dog. Capture the details. What was the flavor of ice cream Garrett ate while sitting on the porch that Friday afternoon?

I didn't do this.

After interviewing Angela, I stepped away from the sadness. Seeing Brayden's room. Seeing Alexandra's room. It was like looking at death. I stepped in and then straight out of tragedy. I think it's a natural impulse, but it did nothing to improve my writing. I should have stayed in it. But it scared me.

It took me a week to process the loss. And, even now, I don't think I can comprehend it. I tried, but by the time I did, I think I had lost some of the natural power.

I should have stayed with that fear, that anger and that sadness. Had I stayed, I could have written both with more efficiency and power.

If I had it to do over again, I would have spent the weekend adding details from memory, listening to the recording of the interview and playing with potential leads and anecdotes.

I think another reason I waited is because I was overwhelmed with details. It was when I stepped away from everything that I was able to focus on something. So, I did what most beginners probably do when they approach a daunting topic like this one. I stepped away from it and came back when it was less overwhelming, less intense. But perhaps digging through all of those details is worth the challenge.

It'll be interesting to see the difference in the results when the chance comes around again.

Hopefully next time I won't opt for the door.

truth!

I love this piece of advice on note-taking from Dan Clery: "I use notebook and pen and my own bastard shorthand. One of the benefits of this not very speedy technique is that it creates voids that the interviewee feels obliged to fill. If they finish what they were intending to say, and you don’t immediately come back with another question because you’re scrawling down their words, they’ll often just keep going and say things they might not have wanted to say or make off the cuff comments that provide good colour."

This is so true. So true, in fact, that is usually happens to me.

The benefits of being a beginner, I guess.

Writing headlines is hard

Our executive editor, Tom Warhover, wrote a great column last week about the sexual assault discussion that is taking place right now on our campus among the curators. In his piece, he lauded the UM System for its adoption of new definitions and interpretations of sexual assault. The changes will make it easier for campus investigators and will hopefully empower women as they work through paperwork/bureaucracy post-assault. Tom also mentioned his distaste for George Will's recent column about how sexual assault victims are given too much power and even privilege.

When the article hit the rim slow queue Friday, I was the copy editor on duty to edit it.

Tom's column had a headline that summed up his points perfectly: DEAR READER: In the dialogue on sexual assault on campus, UM takes two steps forward, George Will two steps back.

The only problem was that his headline had more than 20 words in it. Our typical maximum length for web heads is 10 words. I sifted through his main points again and tried writing a few different ideas. But, I liked what Tom had. I didn't want to ditch it.

His excerpt was also quite catchy. He had taken it from the middle of the column. It was something along the lines of, "George Will's claim that sexual assault victims are some sort of protected class is incendiary and ludicrous." I really liked the excerpt because it hit his point home and because I've never actually used the word "incendiary" in my speech or in my writing. I thought it was great.

It was at that moment I realized I could switch his headline and his excerpt. In my months on the desk, I'd never thought of that option before. My mind is starting to think outside the box. And as I learn the rules and become more comfortable, the strict boxes I once used to structure my thinking, are starting to loosen.

I shortened up his excerpt a bit and added it to the headline box. It was 14 words. Still long. But, better. I added his headline to the excerpt box.

I'm not sure how Tom will feel about this change. I tried to keep his points intact and not change his words too much, but at the same time, make it easier for our readers.

I know that headline writing, no matter how long you do it, is an exercise in mental agility. Great headline writers are great readers. And, I know I need to do more reading and writing to get better.

So these days, I'm writing new headlines rather than just sending them through as they come in. Sometimes, in AP wire, I can't get a better angle. Sometimes, I can. I figure it's good to take some chances and partake in the mental agility game.

Hopefully, Tom will approve.

The unexpected benefits of gardening

I showed up at Kilgore’s Community Garden on Wednesday with a splitting headache. I’d been in class, interviewing people and then writing up articles for the Missourian since about 9 a.m. At 3 p.m., it seemed like I wouldn’t be able to make it out to the garden in the 80-degree heat and in that kind of condition. But, it wasn’t yet time to make a final decision.

Around 5:30 p.m., I wrapped up an article I was writing on napping and instead of heading to bed, I got into my car and drove up Providence. If Advil couldn’t kill the headache, I thought maybe pulling up some weeds would.

 I arrived about 45 minutes late, but was glad to have made it. Liberty, the edible landscaping manager, and Aly and Kate, two other volunteers, greeted me with a wave.

I grabbed a shovel and started pulling up Bermuda grass. We chatted and weeded and weeded and chatted.

 I forgot about my headache and soon enough, it had dissipated. The pounding that had made it difficult to interview, take notes and write up articles for nearly the whole day, suddenly vanished.

 It felt good to pull up the grass around the blueberry bushes. We were giving the bushes some breathing space and reducing the competition for water.

We also spent some time plucking peas and harvesting herbs. The scent of sage and oregano filled my nose as I created a few little herb bundles for the Anne Fisher Food Pantry.

I learned a valuable lesson on Wednesday. Gardening relieves stress. And making life better for the plants also makes life better for our bodies.

As I drove off, headache-free, I was really glad to have spent my evening at the garden.

Performance goals - week of 6/16

Med school diversity
-final edits with Jeanne on Wednesday 6/18
-complete ac/cq by Friday 6/20

Collegetown:

Drinking safety
-first draft by Wednesday 6/18
-complete ac/cq by Thursday 6/19

Sleep/Work/Life balance
-first draft by Wednesday 6/18
-complete ac/cq by Thursday 6/19

Angela Anderson
-first draft to Jeanne by Thursday or Friday 6/20

Pinhook & thinking about story organization

We recently read a 2011 article by Anthony Schick called, Mississippi River town of Pinhook struggles to reclaim its community after levee break.

The article is long — over 15 pages printed. Our professor, Jeanne Abbott, asked us to read it with an eye for organization and try to reconstruct the reporter's outline.

So, here goes.

Pinhook outline:

Start with a bible quote -"And I heard a voice from heaven, like the voice of many waters, and like the voice of loud thunder."

Lede: bring reader into the flood area. Visuals are deer and water creeping into cornfields.

Nut: "That was life by the river. The people of Pinhook knew when a flood was coming, and they knew what to do when it did.

But it never came like this." (The nut graf foreshadows what happened and also hints that the history will be given.)

What happened: The Army Corps of Engineers blew open the levee intentionally and flooded 130,000 acres of land. They did this to prevent levee failures. Officials opposed the action.

Technical information about flooding in the area: The residents live on a ridge, so they didn't think they had anything to fear. Gives a little history about the last time they evacuated and the only other time the levee had broken. Residents were informed of the upcoming levee break by officials.

Robinson's family experience with the levee break: They waited for word, but the water came and they were told to evacuate immediately.

Evacuation story: Packing cars, saving keepsakes and getting to the bridge.

Robinson family history in Pinhook, starts in 1943. Included past interviews and statements.

Growing up in Pinhook: details about life back then. Jim Crow South.
- living off the land and each other, families relied on one another to survive
-fish fries

Information about the levee and the flooding that occurred every year:
-included reason about why they were unable to fix it

After the flood of 2010: picking up the pieces, included another bible quote and a reference to a bible that had been destroyed in the flood - really nice detail here
-details about what the people lost and what those items meant to them, when they acquired them, etc.

Financial aspect of the story: federal buyout

Where are they now: still getting together to share time and food, hoping to go home

Reframing philanthropy

Before I was a grad student, I worked for a nonprofit in Portland, Ore. I started there in 2004 fresh off an internship with Nike. After just three months working for one of the world's largest corporate giants and just a few months after being yelled at in the locker room for wearing Asics running shoes, I decided to veer left and head into the nonprofit sector.

This particular nonprofit, now called Medical Teams International, focused on providing medical care to people in developing countries. It also brought dental care to children and the homeless around the state. The organization mostly worked in war-torn countries and occasionally stepped in to assist following natural disasters.

The year I started working there, the great Boxing Day tsunami and Hurricane Katrina hit. As a young professional just out of college, I spent the first few years watching and learning. I saw how complex the politics of the aid world can be. I yearned to head "to the field" and see the people all of my hours and weeks and months and eventually years of work were directed at helping. But I actually never got that opportunity.

Eventually, my co-workers, many of whom had served with the Peace Corps, talked me into joining and taking on the "hardest job you'll ever love." Peace Corps Volunteers can always tell when the thirst for development work is real and I think that sensed that in me.

But between my departure for Turkmenistan and my first day at Medical Teams International, about five years passed. I watched the nonprofit weather many seasons. The tsunami brought nearly $10 million through our doors. In 2007, we received a PEPFAR grant. In 2008, we hunkered down for The Great Recession and I watched my department of five became a department of two. After that, things were never the same, but still, I learned.

While my work at the nonprofit taught me many things, it did not teach me to question the way the philanthropic system as a whole works. My master's studies have taught me to do that. The critical thinking we do as journalists and as students, pushes us to take a macro-view of life and to think about big-system questions. At Medical Teams International, I was a worker bee. In the Peace Corps, I was a worker bee. In AmeriCorps, worker-bee again.

But this year, I entered the realm of journalism graduate school and this experience has given me both the ability and the license to ponder big issues.

I recently watched a TED Talk about philanthropy and marveled at this man's brilliance. I hope, as a journalist, to be able to nudge people toward his own perceptive realizations. It seems that everyone, including journalists, have been framing philanthropy less effectively than we could have been. But, according to Pallotta, the system was set up a long time ago and changing it will take some real innovation. Then, perhaps, it might actually be possible to change the world.

Dan Pallotta: The way we think about philanthropy is dead wrong

Performance goals

After the conference last week, I'm feeling a little behind on reporting. I'm hoping to spend some time this week wrapping up my first article and then moving on to the next one. My performance goals for the next couple weeks are:

Diversity at MU's medical school: Submit second draft to Jeanne by June 13
Anderson profile: Submit first draft to Jeanne by June 19 (haven't reached Angela yet)

Story ideas:
Physician discipline board research with Caleb O'Brien (more longer term story)
ACA update: profile someone who signed up and get their thoughts/opinions (mid-July)
What happens to the stuff people don't buy from Goodwill? (more longer term investigative story)
Heartland virus, new tick disease in Missouri (quicker story?)
Collegetown articles due June 19

AHCJ conference recap

I attended AHCJ's rural health conference last Friday in Portland, Ore. Key takeaways for me were:

• Health outcomes for urban and rural populations are more alike than they are for suburban populations. Surprisingly, these seemingly disparate populations face similar challenges. 
• Dental therapists are contentious within the dental community. 
• There is a shortage in health care providers of all kinds, but the shortage is especially pronounced in rural areas. 
• There is less of a financial incentive for medical school students to become family practitioners than surgeons. A surgeon typically makes three times what a primary care physician makes. 
• Community health workers — the gatekeepers — are as powerful in the U.S. as they were to me as a health educator with the Peace Corps in Turkmenistan.
• States that opted for local state marketplaces and expanded medicaid had twice the number of new ACA enrollees as states that opted for the federal exchange and declined medicaid expansion.
• The U.S. spends more money than many other developed countries for health outcomes that are not as good. In other words, our health care is more expensive and less effective.
• Americans pay for health transactions, not health.

I learned so much in just a few hours. I hope to blog more about some of the presentations this week. I want to thank AHCJ for sponsoring my travel for this conference. 

trying out a new platform

Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek changed the way a lot of people thought about how to present stories online. I've even heard the story's headline used as a verb: "you should snow fall that story," to mean, add photos, audio and video to a plain text article.

Derek Poore, one of our visiting photography professors, visited our advanced reporting class last week to show us how to 'snow fall' a story. He said that following stories like Snow Fall and the Guardian's Firestorm, a few startups set out to give the masses the ability to do in a few minutes what used to take months. Among the free platforms are Creatavist and Medium.

On my way out west, I spent a few hours combing through my photos and videos from Turkmenistan. The desert flashed across my screen as the plane zipped through clouds, and the images took me back to a place and a time that now seems imagined.

I watched myself speak Turkmen with friends in the old bazaar. We climbed ancient ice houses. I remembered falling in and out of love with a country so maddening I will always have a love/hate relationship with those memories. Despite the struggles, my nostalgia is mostly romanticized now. Time has lessened the pain of the wounds that naturally arise from living as a Westerner in an autocracy. One thing I learned as a Peace Corps Volunteer is that sugar-coating doesn't really help anyone. Presenting uncomfortable realities can be a little awkward, but these days, I find there is no way not to do that. I've seen too much. Anyway, back to the project at hand.

Building the multimedia project itself took little under an hour. I'm sure there's lots more to explore. I created some chapters, embedded a video, clicked around for drop caps and eventually gave up after about 10 minutes of not figuring it out. The final produce is basic, but so much more visual than text blocks.

A story from Turkmenistan: Running in forgotten lands

MU Research review (& one other thing)

I worry sometimes that the Missourian is too MU-focused. I wonder if, because we are MU students writing for a community newspaper, that we lose touch with the community and get lost in our MU bubble. Of course, the answer is not easy and it probably depends on who you ask. I realized this evening as I read through the MU Research News site, that for me, the story often starts at MU, but it can certainly venture beyond the university itself. The first connection might be an MU-related person, but then that person can and should connect us out to the wider world beyond MU.

The MU research site has an endless number of story ideas. The overviews are like reading news briefs. There is no central character or narrative, but there is the possibility of one.

These were some of the topics I think could make potential stories (with the right narrative and character):

• Specialized clothing for individuals with disabilities
• Photovoice and empowerment
• Health broadcasts too short to be helpful
• Baby boomers and their savings accounts (especially post Great Recession)
• Food insecurity in Missouri (with a link to an interactive map)
• Should alcohol and pregnancy mix or not?
• Child maltreatment deaths in Missouri (follow up with fellow)

I also really want to write about what happens to stuff when it isn't sold or is deemed "too gross" for Goodwill. Many people treat it as a catch-all for everything they don't want, so how much is sold and how much is sent elsewhere (where?) or tossed out? I hope to look into this question sometime next week.

Waiting for the results; life goes on

We went to Ellis Fischel today to meet with Aaron's oncologist. We cuddled and cried and bought some breakfast and cracked jokes about Aaron's heartrate being too slow to detect.

He's one calm dude. At his cancer check-up, his heartrate was 58. I figured mine was twice the speed, but no one was checking me.

After the nurse had been in our room nearly 10 minutes, typing away, taking Aaron's vitals, she asked, 'and who is this,' waving toward me. Aaron said, 'my girlfriend.' She quickly typed a line and left the room.

Cancer broke into our life last January. It left me with fear and memories and loss. But, it also woke me up. I'm not the invincible teenager I once was, with timeless expectations and infinite possibility. Life is a series of intentional decisions and I can see that now. Aaron's cancer gave me that clarity of vision and that appreciation of time.

It's been about five months since his initial diagnosis. We've been through surgery, a rough few days filled with pain pills and sorrow. The knife cut out the cancer, but it also left a bright red wound that turns to purple in the cold; a constant reminder of our mortality.

The recovery was slow at first, then the semester caught us off guard. We woke up one morning a few weeks after surgery with looming assignments and the promise of yet another research paper. I buried myself in books, sharpening my thoughts, taking to research and studies like that knife to Aaron's skin.

Aaron's appointments are always scheduled on a Tuesday. We are always placed in a sterile room with that famous John Lennon lyric, 'life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.' I've noticed that doctors like consistency.

I like that lyric, but only because the doctors keep giving us good news. I think I would permanently maim that paint job if a doctor told me I had just a few months to live. The fact that John Lennon died prematurely would be of no comfort to me in that moment.

On this particular Tuesday, there was no maiming of any property. Dr. Hossein walked in and before he had a chance to sit down, I blurted out, "Is everything ok?"

He smiled. My tension immediately faded and I started crying. For now, no cancer has developed. Aaron and I have another three months before the suspense begins to build again. Every time it gets easier. Maybe that's because this experience has become routine and I know what to expect, or at least I think I do. Or, maybe it's because time builds optimism.

Either way, I'm grateful for today; for the good news that Aaron does not have cancer.

food deserts and Columbia, Mo.

--> As a Peace Corps Coverdell Fellow, I am expected to volunteer about 10 hours a week with a local nonprofit. I chose CCUA as my service partner because I wanted to learn more about growing veggies and growing awareness about food insecurity.

I first heard about food deserts last year when I was living in New York City. I was working at a youth development nonprofit in East Harlem and my coworker and roommate, Prospero Herrera, mentioned the term. He had studied urban planning and had spent a few years out in Oakland volunteering with an urban agriculture nonprofit.

Prospero told me that a food desert is a place that does not provide easy access to fresh, healthy and/or affordable food. It can be an inner-city neighborhood, a suburb or a very rural area. Food deserts exist because of uncoordinated city planning, poverty, structural inequalities, racism, lacking infrastructure, big box businesses, fast food chains, and sometimes, simply distance. They exist for complex and highly politicized reasons. And, the fallout of a food desert is complex as well. When people cannot easily access fresh food, they resort to fast food, which causes health problems like diabetes and high cholesterol. Essentially, living in a food desert long term can be harmful to your health. The USDA estimates that 23.5 million Americanslive in a food desert.

I’ve learned that eliminating food deserts takes a coordinated effort. A health conference I attended last March included a panel on improving communities. Paul Lopez, a city councilor from Denver’s third district, said his neighborhood really needed a grocery store, but faced quite a struggle in getting one. People in his community didn’t have a place nearbyto buy vegetables at a reasonable price, but they did have plenty of liquor stores and convenience stores filled with processed food. Lopez worked with a grocer for several months, and was finally able to convince the grocer to open a store in his district. It took intense pressure and a lot of effort to open that one store. Lopez’ anecdote illustrates the complexity of food deserts and the uphill battle people face in eradicating them.

When I moved to Columbia, I was surprised to find no markets or grocery stores downtown. In my neighborhood in Washington Heights, just north of Harlem in New York, I lived within half a block of several large grocery stores. But, in Columbia, I couldn’t find a single grocery store within walking or even biking distance.

Walk Score is a website that uses data to estimate how walkable and affordable various zip codes are. According to Walk Socre, Columbia is a car-dependent city. 

Walk Score's data ranks Columbia 26 out of 100 for walkability. In other words, most errands within this city require a car, and most areas are not bike friendly, either.

Those numbers are tough to see. But, if you look closely at the Walk Score map, you’ll see a small green dot in the middle of downtown Columbia. That’s indicative of a walk/bike-friendly location. In the nine months I’ve lived here, I’ve seen Lucky’s, a natural food market, establish itself just a few blocks from downtown Columbia. I’ve become involved with CCUA, an organization that not only grows fresh food for residents and delivers it to the doorstep of local food pantries and children’s organizations, but also teaches people how to grow food on their own. I imagine that green dot growing just a little wider every time a store like Lucky’s comes to town or an organization like CCUA takes root in a place that has been labeled ‘car dependent.’

I wanted to write about food deserts because I think that complex issues like this one can teach us a lot about our communities and what we might need to do to make them better.

CCUA is quietly addressing this issue, even though you won’t see this word listed anywhere in their literature. Yes, bringing healthy food to people is part of the answer and making that food accessible is certainly a big step in the right direction.

CCUA won’t put another grocery store in downtown Columbia. Only a grocer can do that. But they are addressing the issue by cutting down on the negative impact that food deserts have by teaching people how to grow gardens in those deserts. Urban agriculture empowers people to grow their own food, instead of relying on external systems that may disappoint them by being too far away, too expensive or too inaccessible. It’s a revolutionary idea, really. It’s an innovative solution to a complex problem and it’s making a difference.

Read some stories about how growing food is improving thelives of Columbia residents.

Advanced reporting: Summer 2014

This summer, I want to:

• strengthen my voice
• improve my ability to organize a narrative
• tell more compelling stories through sensory detail (aka: conduct stronger reporting)

I'd like to focus on:

• health-related stories
• Current topics: psychological consequences of sexual abuse
• Diversity in the student body at MU's medical school 
• One mother's ability to overcome grief
• Profiling a doctor who often diagnoses people with terminal cancer
• ...

I want to continue writing day-turn articles. I've worked as a reporter for one semester, and I know that I still have a lot to learn. Last semester, I learned about how to construct articles, interview and report. But, these skills are not instincts, yet. The motions are not fluid and my own writing voice feels awkward and constrained. I want to be able to sit down with a topic, identify the players, do the reporting, research and then put together a well-organized narrative.

My weaknesses (as I'm aware of them) include:

• story organization
• transitions
• integrating sensory detail
• moving into "uncomfortable" interview territory quickly
• nerves
• multi-tasking through a couple big stories at once

#journalism

the truth about you

part I

i am pulled to you
because of your refusal
to completely let me in

in you
i've found the opportunity to
laugh...cry...sulk...and swim into a vast ocean of emotional connection

your currents steer my tears
away from the shore
but i know i don't want to be on land anyway

your reticence reminds me
of my own fear; my own aloneness

at night, when i am tucked safely away from the world
with the blinds drawn and the covers pulled up

i remember
about being alone
the emotions and memories flare
then weaken and slowly subside into another dimension

part II

this solitute used to scare me
not in any superficial way
but the deep kind of way
the kind that creeps from the base of my core up into my heart
nesting there
waiting for a salve
that may never arrive

the years have weakened this naive panic
and replaced it with
.patience
..appreciation
...and joy
my own loneliness has softened into something a little less fierce

lesser
it still remains

part III

last year, when the leaves began to die
right before winter's birth

i met you at a bicycle rack

and i remembered the

first time i saw you
it was your eyes
that caught me
as i quickly scanned through facebook profiles
i stopped there in that pupil blackness
and saw a flicker
of recognition; or something else

your eyes reminded me of candlelight
and the way it dances around a wick the moment it's lit

in them
i saw sadness
hidden
just out of reach
of consciousness
and knowing

i stepped toward those eyes
knowing that your reticence, your aloneness
would keep me
returning

for another look

this entanglement of ours exudes a stubborn perseverance
something deeper than a look
a way of knowing

or even seeing

what i learned from my grandmother

The day my grandmother died, I laced up a pair of old running shoes and stepped outside to dig. Her death made my hands long for the earth. I dug around old weeds that had spent months rooting themselves deep into the soil. I dug around them and as the misty rain fell, I felt only calm and mud and sadness. My grandmother was a sad woman. She was always fun to be with, but just below the surface, she carried a great sadness. Even as a child, I felt it, though, I never did ask her about it. My grandfather fell off of a ladder and died suddenly. It seemed to me that after that day, she too, had fallen. And, I'm not sure she was ever able to stand again.

I still remember the feeling of the wet soil mixing with tears. I only cried a few times because I knew she wasn't suffering anymore and that made me happy. But, selfishly, I knew I wasn't ready to say goodbye to her. We had been lifelong penpals and I knew that habit would die hard. I still find myself reaching for postcards to send her when I'm out of town, and then pulling my hand back in surprise when I remember she's gone. She won't ever get another postcard.

Every spring, I remember the mud and the weeds and the rainy Easter morning that she died. I remember yanking at roots until I lost my balance and fell into the concrete. I remember the regret my grandmother felt when she realized she was dying, but hadn't done all the things she'd hoped because her life had somehow frozen and moved slower after my grandfather's death. I remember her because I want to learn from her. So, I joined the Peace Corps. I moved to New York. I went to grad school. And, when someone tells me that my time has come or when I come to realize it myself, I don't want that shadowed look to cross my eyes. I don't want to feel the regret that comes from knowing it's too late. I always want the soil to be in my fingernails and life to be growing nearby.

the way water moves

i like the way the water moves
through your hair
it rolls down your neck in skinny little rivulets
joining the mist and the spray of this morning shower

sometimes, i feel like i'm outside
as we wash and wiggle through the water
sharing the space as if our body

was one

i like the way the water moves
through your eye lashes
and into the lather you've built up around your scruff

you always squeal a little because i like water
that's near burning
and you like your water

just a little colder

but as the water moves, you adjust
and defer to me
i try to imagine what you must be thinking
is burning your skin just a small price to pay to shower with me?
do you like the dramatic moment of entry?

or is it just one of the ways you show me that
you
care?

i don't ask
i prefer to shower with you
to wonder
to enjoy the mystery that comes with knowing someone so well

listening

listening. really. actually. listening. means that your mind is not heading in a different direction than the person you're talking to. it means following them. down. their. path. i think as a little kid listening meant. waiting my turn to speak. as i headed into middle school, listening meant. connection & validation. into high school and college, listening meant. learning. striving. making comparisons. and of course. romance. as an adult, i've found that there are different types of listening.

there's listening. to connect with. friends. family. and lovers.
there's also listening. for information. for work. for learning. for change.
there's other listening. like listening to music. for pleasure. and fun.
there's an even different kind of listening. for survival. in the silence. and the darkness.
in graduate school at the university of missouri. we are taught. to. listen. to. everything.
and amid the piles of research assignments. and papers. and readings. i realize. that all of this listening.
is starting. to. change. my. life.
because it is through the stories. i. hear. when i listen.
that i learn to. be. a. storyteller.
myself.

when the unexpected occurs

Last month, my new boyfriend of just two months was diagnosed with testicular cancer. We had known about the lump in his left testicle for nearly a month. After a bout with the flu, he noticed tenderness and I instinctively reached down to feel. A few moments later, I felt panic rush over me as I pinched a tiny lump between my thumb and index finger. It was hard and he winced as I rolled it around in my fingers. It took my breath away.

We went to a doctor on our east coast road trip and he assured Aaron it was an infection. Even though a doctor had assured us it was nothing, I felt dread in the pit of my stomach. After a full course of antibiotics, the lump remained. We returned to Columbia, started class and Aaron made an ultrasound appointment. Just 24 hours after the ultrasound, his doctor called with the news. There seemed to be extra blood flow in the area. It was indicative of.

And the rest he didn't want to tell me over the phone. But I made him. My stomach was in a knot and I couldn't concentrate on my ethics homework.

"Cancer," he said.

It's indicative of cancer. We spent the weekend with a dark cloud hanging over us. I felt fear, sadness and helplessness all at once. I had nightmares that cancer had spread throughout his body. We spent an agonizing four days waiting for the news.

On Tuesday morning, we drove together to the cancer center in our small college town. In the span of three hours, we heard that Aaron most likely had cancer and that he would be having surgery in less than 24 hours to remove his testicle.

We raced over to the fertility clinic before class to deposit sperm and tried desperately to summon romance when all we wanted to do was weep in each others arms.

What I remember most from that week is a steady stream of tears falling down my face. I went to class. I did my reading. I took notes. But, in the quiet time, I thought nothing of school and only of cancer. I had nightmares, but couldn't remember them. I woke up crying.

Aaron bravely walked through the outpatient doors of the clinic on a Tuesday morning resolved to remove the cancer and move on with his life. He took 40 pain pills in the course of a week and woke up in agony every morning for days.

"I want to learn from my dad," he often said. His father died of prostate cancer 10 years ago and that fact terrified me more every time I heard it. As I write this, I can hardly believe that this was my life just a month ago.

These days, Aaron is riding his bike, running down the stairs of his basement to switch his laundry from the washer to the dryer and running in the afternoons on the MKT. His doctors told him they can't detect any cancer in his body at the moment. But, he's under surveillance and will be probably continue to be screened carefully for the rest of his life. His insurance company is fighting the bills tooth and nail, claiming that his testicular cancer was a preexisting condition. After riding such an emotional roller-coaster, getting angry at the insurance company seems like a silly waste of time. Besides, it's so obvious that cancer, in any form, when diagnosed for the first time, is not preexisting.

My vicarious experience with cancer has influenced my life in many ways, but at the same time, it hasn't really changed it at all. Yes, cancer is scary as shit. It is a reminder of our mortality and our total and utter lack of control over our own lives, despite what we may think or feel about this topic. During that time, Aaron and I still fought about little things, like any couple does. We just fought with tears in our eyes and a little more fear than normal.

The process of finding out about cancer, treating it and moving forward is much more drawn out than I once thought. There is no particular day that changes everything. Rather, it is an experience like any other. Knowledge comes in small deliveries. And, really, there is no way to be completely sure of anything.

As my quantitative research methods professor says, "it's just a matter of what kind of error you're comfortable with." Really, I believe that in life, it is better to live as if no error will occur at all and when it does, look back with great appreciation for what has already occurred.

But perhaps the greatest realization I've made through all of this is that I met a great man last October and this experience has both given us more respect for life and for each other.

starting up again

I haven't blogged in awhile. It's nice to be back. My goal for this semester is to blog every day. It's seems a little formidable, but I think if I just aim for a short line or two, it'll be manageable. Hannah sent me a link to a New York Times page asking for Returned Peace Corps Volunteers to share their thoughts. I just typed something up quickly, but would like to preserve it here. I find that I have a difficult time articulately my experience. It was so complex and my emotions surrounding that time shift. So, here's what I think of my Turkmen experience today:

Peace Corps made a profound impact on my life. These days, I never put underwear in my washing machine without thinking of the days when I used to hand wash for hours in our little outdoor bathing room. I carried the water in a big plastic bucket from a tap on the main road and poured it over my clothes. I would turn them over and wring them out, all the while squatting over the bucket as my host aunt's six year old and seven year old ran around the yard chasing each other. There are people who will tell you that Peace Corps volunteers shouldn't be doing their laundry. But I will tell you that washing my laundry taught me more about time management, water conservation and gender roles than four years at a liberal arts college ever did. I would brainstorm lesson plans and watch in amazement as my laundry would dry in less than 10 minutes during the heat of the day in July. Turkmenistan is a formidable place with severe weather, an autocratic government and the same types of people I've know my whole life. No matter where we go in this world, people have the same basic desires. They want to sleep in on Saturdays, share meals with friends and family and create relationships with meaning. Peace Corps removed the "othering" we often unconsciously commit as people, regardless of our affiliations or cultural upbringings. Being alone in a new culture taught me how to see the culture as a local person. It probably took me more than a year, but once I did, the culture became my own and I no longer thought of the differences, and instead marveled at our similarities.