So, after I dragged my butt out of bed this morning after yet another night of staying up way later than I should have, I walked into the kitchen and said good morning to my mother. She said something in Ukranian that I didn't catch because I was still in a stupor, and after I asked "Scho?" (what?) she snapped at me, harshly repeating what she just said, which was to go wash my hands for breakfast.
After a few tense minutes of eating, I slowly started prying into what had gotten her upset, and wondering if I had yet again made some cultural gaffe. After a bit it started coming it: she wasn't mad at me, but three of Ukraine's eastern regions had held a referendum to become autonomous.
And I was reminded yet again that my attention span is way too short. After a few days where nothing but the revolution was the topic of conversation, we had returned to our daily routine: language classes, teaching, nights spent watching movies and playing guitar. After all, we couldn't go to Kiev, and, other than Yuchenko grafitti, orange streamers tied to trees, or the 1:00 AM drunken chanting of: "Nas bahato ee nas ne podolati!" (We are many and we will not be defeated) that is the preminent chant of the Yuchenko supporters (bested only by the 1:00 AM chants of "Yu-Chenk-Ko! Yu-Chenk-Ko!"), we are cut off from the revolution. Oh, by the way, it's not being called a revolution by the Yuchenko camp. It's called "an evolution of democracy."
The evolution of democracy is being televised 24 hours a day here (the title of this post, by the way, is the closest the Ukranian language can get to "The revolution will be televised"), but as I still can't keep up with the breakneck Ukranian spoken on it, I get my news updates from the same place much of America does: Yahoo News.
Still, I do get a side that can't be gotten in America: the reactions of the Ukranians. My host mother is at turns glowing with pride and worried to tears about her country. Losha, who returns from Kiev each day beaming, red-faced from the cold and sporting yellow and orange streamers. The host grandmother of one of my link mates, who tied an orange shawl around her head, declared "I am not afraid" and stomped off in her boots to a marchrutka bound for Kiev. Oxana, my Ukranian teacher, who watches the television and points out that people are smiling, her psyche looking for any bit of evidence that this will turn out alright. Helen, my technical trainer, returned from Kiev yesterday, where she had spent the day amongst the tent city that has sprung up along Krechatic avenue. "Everyone is trying to be kinder than everyone else," she told us, giving us stories of the free food being passed out, apples being forced into people's hands, the free toilets that that have been set up, the free ride she recieved back from Kiev when her marchutka driver declared that he would accept no payments from anyone for the ride.
The demonstration in Kiev, rather than being an impromptu gathering, is obviously is what it is: the successful result of massive organization. A never-ending series of concerts with all of Ukraine's top artists entertains the crowds from the main stage and on plasma screens. Someone brought in those portable toilets. Someone handed out the hundreds of orange tents. Someone is funding the field kitchens feeding hundreds of thousands of people. That someone, of course, is Yuchenko's party. I don't know if it's insidious or not, but the simple fact is that this was prepared for. I had heard the rumors before the first election: that if Yannokovich won, there would be a revolution. So it wasn't unexpected when they descended on Kiev. What's surprising is that it's lasted a week in sub-zero weather and heavy snow. Frankly I'm impressed, but let no one think that this wasn't forseen, that this revolution (or whatever it's called) wasn't orchestrated.
And we will see what the future will bring. After a few days, after no violence, I think we all relaxed, the Americans at least. Police were joining Yuchenko's crowd in droves. Kuchma and Yannokovich went to the negotiating table with key EU people mediating. We thought it was but a few days to a transfer of power or a new election.
But now what becomes apparent is what is not being carried in most Western news media: that Yannokovich has more than just thugs and mafia supporting him. That a huge percentage of the east did support him in an election that, even without fraud, was very close. And now that Eastern section, completely shut out by the media and dubbed as lackeys of a corrupt government, is threatening to break away.
And one would say good riddance, save for one thing: it's the industrial center. Currently, Ukaine cannot economically survive without it. If it breaks off and becomes independent or allies with Russia...well, I can't predict, but the results would be dire. And that's the balance of power: a West that refuses to be led by Yanakovich and an East that refuses to be led by Yuchenko. The West is the intellectual center, but the East is the industrial, and they need each other. Revolutions are grand things, amazing things, especially when so many people pack themselves into one place to together shout down corruption, but things do balance on the edge of the knife, and that's why my host mother was snapping at me this morning...
Sunday, November 28, 2004
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Ukraine: The Coup Continues
Here, in Obhiev, the snow continues to fall, and the city is blanketed, purified in white. Children outside of School #3 throw soccer-ball sized snowballs at one another, and, save for a few people with yellow flags sticking out of their pockets, the cause behind the rallies that have stopped Ukraine and gained the world's attention seems not to exist.
My host-mother returned from Kiev last night. She was one of the quarter-million that supported Yuchenko taking his symbolic oath of office, watching on a huge videoscreen as he read the words with his hand on a 300 year-old bible. It was with her this morning that I watched on television as a deputy from Zhytomyr told the gathered crowds that Yuchenko was the president of their oblast, and Lviv and Ivano-Fansisco have declared the same.
My host brother, Losha, and his friends are on a marchrutka as I type this, on their way to Kiev to lend their support. What could I tell him but "operechno", be careful?
Kuchma, the current president of Ukraine staunch supporter of Yanokovich, finally came out of hiding and announced that the government was willing to negotiate. Yuchenko has agreed to negotiations, his supporters now being ringed with militia. All is still peaceful, but Yanokovich suppoters in the capital are growing in number, covered in blue the way Yuchenko supporters are covered in orange. The television still hounds down any threats from the east, trailing miners from Donetsk who say they are going to Kiev "for a football game", and who may well try to stir up violence. The government has promised not to be the first to start the violence, but an outbreak of fighting would be the perfect excuse for an intervention...
Despite the illegal grab for power, Yuchenko still has legal routes to take. The parliment could declare no-confidence in the election and the supreme court could null the votes in some of the disputed regions (all of which are Yanokovich supporting) thus giving the election to Yuchenko.
The problem at this point is that no matter what is said at the negotiating tables, there is no way the Western oblasts will accept anyone other than Yuchenko as president. And with Western governments completely in his court, Yanokovich and Kuchma are backed into a wall. Even Putin in Russia is backing off his earlier support for the Yanokovich win. Still, the last thing Russia wants is the EU and NATO spreading right to its doorstep.
The White House has said it was "deeply disturbed by extensive and credible indications of fraud committed in the Ukrainian presidential election," according to spokeswoman Claire Buchan and reported by the AP.
Putin has branded the West's criticism of the elections as "inadmissible". Ukraine "doesn't need to be lectured."
I'm still twiddling my thumbs in Obhiev. Everyone in America wants me to stay out of trouble, which is endearing, but my romantic side wants to be in Kiev. I know that this is real life, real danger, but that is why I want to go. I want to go because this is real life, history in the making. If this goes off like the Rose Revolution in Georgia not even a year ago, this will be one of the seminal turning points in Ukrainian history, something noted in Eastern European textbooks for centuries to come. If Ukraine finally takes its place in the EU, which I hope to see it do in the next decade, this will be the moment that helped that to happen. But being in Peace Corps is more important to me than being at a rally, and so I stay.
At least my mom will be happy about that...
My host-mother returned from Kiev last night. She was one of the quarter-million that supported Yuchenko taking his symbolic oath of office, watching on a huge videoscreen as he read the words with his hand on a 300 year-old bible. It was with her this morning that I watched on television as a deputy from Zhytomyr told the gathered crowds that Yuchenko was the president of their oblast, and Lviv and Ivano-Fansisco have declared the same.
My host brother, Losha, and his friends are on a marchrutka as I type this, on their way to Kiev to lend their support. What could I tell him but "operechno", be careful?
Kuchma, the current president of Ukraine staunch supporter of Yanokovich, finally came out of hiding and announced that the government was willing to negotiate. Yuchenko has agreed to negotiations, his supporters now being ringed with militia. All is still peaceful, but Yanokovich suppoters in the capital are growing in number, covered in blue the way Yuchenko supporters are covered in orange. The television still hounds down any threats from the east, trailing miners from Donetsk who say they are going to Kiev "for a football game", and who may well try to stir up violence. The government has promised not to be the first to start the violence, but an outbreak of fighting would be the perfect excuse for an intervention...
Despite the illegal grab for power, Yuchenko still has legal routes to take. The parliment could declare no-confidence in the election and the supreme court could null the votes in some of the disputed regions (all of which are Yanokovich supporting) thus giving the election to Yuchenko.
The problem at this point is that no matter what is said at the negotiating tables, there is no way the Western oblasts will accept anyone other than Yuchenko as president. And with Western governments completely in his court, Yanokovich and Kuchma are backed into a wall. Even Putin in Russia is backing off his earlier support for the Yanokovich win. Still, the last thing Russia wants is the EU and NATO spreading right to its doorstep.
The White House has said it was "deeply disturbed by extensive and credible indications of fraud committed in the Ukrainian presidential election," according to spokeswoman Claire Buchan and reported by the AP.
Putin has branded the West's criticism of the elections as "inadmissible". Ukraine "doesn't need to be lectured."
I'm still twiddling my thumbs in Obhiev. Everyone in America wants me to stay out of trouble, which is endearing, but my romantic side wants to be in Kiev. I know that this is real life, real danger, but that is why I want to go. I want to go because this is real life, history in the making. If this goes off like the Rose Revolution in Georgia not even a year ago, this will be one of the seminal turning points in Ukrainian history, something noted in Eastern European textbooks for centuries to come. If Ukraine finally takes its place in the EU, which I hope to see it do in the next decade, this will be the moment that helped that to happen. But being in Peace Corps is more important to me than being at a rally, and so I stay.
At least my mom will be happy about that...
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Ukraine: So You Want A Revolution?
I don't know what's making the news in America, but it's a bit of a madhouse in Ukraine right now.
First off, let me say that I am safe, I feel safe, and I don't think anything's going to happen to me.
That said, Ukraine is having a revolution. In its most important election since independence, Ukraine was split down the middle in support for Viktor Yuchenko, who wants to ally Ukraine with the West, and Viktor Yanocovich, a friend of Putin who wants to tie Ukraine closer to Russia.
In elections condemned by the EU and the United States as "flawed" (the United States has threatened sanctions), Yanocovich was declared the winner. That was two days ago. Since then, millions of Yuchenko supporters (Yuchenko is the liberal one and the one I'm rooting for)have flooded the streets. The western half of the country, including Kiev, has refused to acknowledge Yanocovich as the winner. Strikes have ensued all over the country and they refuse to stop until recounts are had or Yuchenko takes office.
In my little city, 45 minutes from Kiev, the streets haven't been flooded, but there is a trickle. Told to stay away from demonstrations by Peace Corps, I've instead watched as couple hundred people, decked out in Yuchenko's colors of orange and yellow, march up and down the main street.
As a bit of a back story, Yanocovich is both a convicted felon and supported by the Ukranian mafia. There was an assasination attempt on Yuchenko last month, apparently by Yanocovich supporters, during which he was poisoned with Ricin and, as a result, the left half of his face no longer works.
A few hours ago, Yuchenko (the loser, according to the elections) walked into parliment and,
backed by a quarter of a million supporters outside, declared himself president. He then took the oath of office on the bible used for such purposes.
During his speech to his supporters, he said this, as quoted by the AP:
"Ukraine is on the threshold of a civil conflict," the Western-leaning Yushchenko earlier told lawmakers in the chamber before his oath. "We have two choices: Either the answer will be given by the parliament, or the streets will give an answer."
Of course, violence is a concern, but thus far everything has remained peaceful. The embassy has released a warning to U.S. Citizens to avoid the rallys, and that's as far as it's gone.
There are rumors that Russian milita are moving into the area to settle the protests in favor of Yanocovich, and the Ukranian news is currently full of shaky camera shots of buses and trucks moving into Kiev that may or may not contain troops.
As far as the Peace Corps is concerned, there will be no evacuation as of yet, and the following was sent to all of us:
***1) The public demonstration in Kyiv has at least doubled in size, and itappears demonstrations in Kyiv will continue for some time with resultantdisruptions in transport, business activity, and freedom of movement in the city.
2) We have received reports that demonstrations in support of Yushchenko arealso underway in the following Ukrainian towns: Zaporizha, Kirovograd,Odessa, Kharkiv, Lutsk, Zhytomyr, Poltava, Chernigiv, Rivne, Dnipropetrovsk,Chernivtsi, Cherkassy, L'viv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Vinnytsya,Khmelnytsky, and Sumy. A pro Yanukovych demonstration is reportedly underwayin Sevastopol.
3) The opposition has called for strikes of workers in public services including the railways and bus services. Volunteers should avoid intercitytrain and bus travel or expect altered timetables and cancellations.
4) Thus far the demonstrations have been peaceful, and the demonstrationorganizers are on record as urging all demonstrators to avoid any use ofviolence.5) There are continuing reports that a large number thugs have been broughtinto Kyiv by Yanukovych supporters to cause trouble at the demonstrations.
6) Also there are new reports that common criminals, including juveniledelinquents, have been released from jails and encouraged by the authoritiesto disrupt the demonstrations. At the same time, the incidence of streetcrime in Kyiv including muggings, robberies, and random physical attacks isreported to have increased.
7) Kyiv Volunteers are strongly advised to stay indoors at night and to bevery careful when moving around the city in the daytime.
8) Nothing, repeat nothing, that has happened thus far is of a sufficientlyserious nature to cause PC to consider evacuation. Rumors that an evacuationis about to begin are entirely untrue.***
So that's what's going on in my world. Frankly, I find it rather exciting. I wish the Democrats had risen up this strongly during the 2000 elections. Our elections then were obviously flawed, but after a few inefectual rallies, opposition died away. Yuchenko supporters have shut the country down and refuse to let it back up until there is a full and fair recount in the disputed regions.
I wish I was out there now, taking photographs and interviewing people in broken Ukranian, but Peace Corps effectively has all the trainees in lockdown.
More information can be had by doing a search for "Ukraine" under Yahoo News or wherever it is you get your information. Also, if anyone has seen anything about this in the states, let me know. There is a dispute in my cluster as to whether the U.S. media has bothered to carry the story at all.
First off, let me say that I am safe, I feel safe, and I don't think anything's going to happen to me.
That said, Ukraine is having a revolution. In its most important election since independence, Ukraine was split down the middle in support for Viktor Yuchenko, who wants to ally Ukraine with the West, and Viktor Yanocovich, a friend of Putin who wants to tie Ukraine closer to Russia.
In elections condemned by the EU and the United States as "flawed" (the United States has threatened sanctions), Yanocovich was declared the winner. That was two days ago. Since then, millions of Yuchenko supporters (Yuchenko is the liberal one and the one I'm rooting for)have flooded the streets. The western half of the country, including Kiev, has refused to acknowledge Yanocovich as the winner. Strikes have ensued all over the country and they refuse to stop until recounts are had or Yuchenko takes office.
In my little city, 45 minutes from Kiev, the streets haven't been flooded, but there is a trickle. Told to stay away from demonstrations by Peace Corps, I've instead watched as couple hundred people, decked out in Yuchenko's colors of orange and yellow, march up and down the main street.
As a bit of a back story, Yanocovich is both a convicted felon and supported by the Ukranian mafia. There was an assasination attempt on Yuchenko last month, apparently by Yanocovich supporters, during which he was poisoned with Ricin and, as a result, the left half of his face no longer works.
A few hours ago, Yuchenko (the loser, according to the elections) walked into parliment and,
backed by a quarter of a million supporters outside, declared himself president. He then took the oath of office on the bible used for such purposes.
During his speech to his supporters, he said this, as quoted by the AP:
"Ukraine is on the threshold of a civil conflict," the Western-leaning Yushchenko earlier told lawmakers in the chamber before his oath. "We have two choices: Either the answer will be given by the parliament, or the streets will give an answer."
Of course, violence is a concern, but thus far everything has remained peaceful. The embassy has released a warning to U.S. Citizens to avoid the rallys, and that's as far as it's gone.
There are rumors that Russian milita are moving into the area to settle the protests in favor of Yanocovich, and the Ukranian news is currently full of shaky camera shots of buses and trucks moving into Kiev that may or may not contain troops.
As far as the Peace Corps is concerned, there will be no evacuation as of yet, and the following was sent to all of us:
***1) The public demonstration in Kyiv has at least doubled in size, and itappears demonstrations in Kyiv will continue for some time with resultantdisruptions in transport, business activity, and freedom of movement in the city.
2) We have received reports that demonstrations in support of Yushchenko arealso underway in the following Ukrainian towns: Zaporizha, Kirovograd,Odessa, Kharkiv, Lutsk, Zhytomyr, Poltava, Chernigiv, Rivne, Dnipropetrovsk,Chernivtsi, Cherkassy, L'viv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Vinnytsya,Khmelnytsky, and Sumy. A pro Yanukovych demonstration is reportedly underwayin Sevastopol.
3) The opposition has called for strikes of workers in public services including the railways and bus services. Volunteers should avoid intercitytrain and bus travel or expect altered timetables and cancellations.
4) Thus far the demonstrations have been peaceful, and the demonstrationorganizers are on record as urging all demonstrators to avoid any use ofviolence.5) There are continuing reports that a large number thugs have been broughtinto Kyiv by Yanukovych supporters to cause trouble at the demonstrations.
6) Also there are new reports that common criminals, including juveniledelinquents, have been released from jails and encouraged by the authoritiesto disrupt the demonstrations. At the same time, the incidence of streetcrime in Kyiv including muggings, robberies, and random physical attacks isreported to have increased.
7) Kyiv Volunteers are strongly advised to stay indoors at night and to bevery careful when moving around the city in the daytime.
8) Nothing, repeat nothing, that has happened thus far is of a sufficientlyserious nature to cause PC to consider evacuation. Rumors that an evacuationis about to begin are entirely untrue.***
So that's what's going on in my world. Frankly, I find it rather exciting. I wish the Democrats had risen up this strongly during the 2000 elections. Our elections then were obviously flawed, but after a few inefectual rallies, opposition died away. Yuchenko supporters have shut the country down and refuse to let it back up until there is a full and fair recount in the disputed regions.
I wish I was out there now, taking photographs and interviewing people in broken Ukranian, but Peace Corps effectively has all the trainees in lockdown.
More information can be had by doing a search for "Ukraine" under Yahoo News or wherever it is you get your information. Also, if anyone has seen anything about this in the states, let me know. There is a dispute in my cluster as to whether the U.S. media has bothered to carry the story at all.
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Ukraine: Ukrainian Peculiarities
Ukrainian peculiarities
What’s different about Ukraine? The little things.
Guards at the grocery store. A grocery store is a radically new concept in Ukraine. Most people are used to haggling at the bazaar for their food. The grocery store in Obuhiv is where you go if you want Western products like Pringles or Gillette razors. Because these things are so high priced and rare, there is a security guard every two aisles that watches you like a hawk.
Holodetz and salo. Holodetz is volunteer kryptonite. Think Jell-O. Now think Jell-O made out of meat. A square of translucent gelatinous stuff on your plate that is, in fact, meat. This is holodetz. Salo. Salo is simply pig fat. A slab of it. You eat it with black bread, butter and garlic. Sometimes, they dip it in chocolate and you eat that.
Refusing something three times. Customarily, you are supposed to refuse something the first time. If you don’t actually want it, you have to refuse its offer three times. Why would you refuse it? I don’t know, maybe because it’s an offer of more holodetz or salo.
A refusal to hand you change. In the Cossack era, a person had to refuse a position of leadership three times before he was worthy to accept it. You’re also supposed to refuse money three times before you can accept it. Because of this, a cashier will never hand you change at a store, instead putting it in a little dish for you to take, thus subverting the three-refusals rule and speeding things up.
Bread. Bread is a nationally worshiped food. The Ukrainian flag is blue on the top to represent the sky, yellow on the bottom to represent grain. The name of the city where I will live and work for two years, Zhytomyr, is made up of the words “Bread” and “Peace”. Bread is served at every single meal (and you eat it plain) and you never, ever throw away uneaten bread. Even if you’ve munched on your bread until it’s an inch-wide wafer and you can’t stand another bite, that bit goes in the breadbasket for the next meal.
Giving an odd number of flowers. An even number of flowers is given at funerals to the grieved. On any other occasion, it is bad luck. One of my clustermates, Liz, once gave her host mom three flowers, and the head of one fell off. The host mom freaked out and quickly put the two remaining flowers in separate jars to make them two gifts of one, thus keeping the flowers at an odd number.
Whistling indoors. Don’t do it. Ever. It’s bad luck.
Opening windows on public transportation. It doesn’t matter if it’s the middle of the summer, your shirt is transparent from sweat, your hair is plastered to your forehead and you are beginning to merge with your seat, you must not open windows on public transportation. There is a long-standing belief that the draft will make babies and old people sick and possibly kill them. Our cluster mentor, Nick, related a story during which he had opened a marchrutka window in the middle of summer. The entire marchrutka went into an uproar and, after he got it closed, an old man came up, grabbed Nick by the shirt, waved a fist at him and said in Ukrainian: “if you do that again, I will punch you in the face.” For the rest of the two-hour ride, all the occupants of the marchrutka glared at him.
Toilets and bathrooms are separate concepts. Toilets get one room, the bathtub and sink get another. This is probably because it’s customary to do laundry in the bathroom and who wants to be constantly interrupted by the biological needs of others? They are such separate concepts that one host family I know of built a brand new bathroom (finally bringing indoor plumbing into their home) but didn’t bother to build an indoor toilet, continuing instead to use their outhouse.
Oh, public toilets don't have toilet paper, so you have to always carry some in your pocket.
Light switches. All the light switches are outside of the room that they are for. This leads to two problems: one, if you wake up in the middle of the night and want to turn on the lights, you have to stumble outside your bedroom door and blindly search in the hall for your switch. Two, central rooms that lead into several rooms (as in the case of the one that leads to the bathroom, the toilet, the kitchen, Losha’s room and the hall) will have all the switches for each room. Next to one another. So if you’re trying to use the restroom in the middle of the night, you find yourself staring at them, trying to figure out which one will turn on the light for the toilet instead of the light in Losha’s room, thus waking him up at two in the morning.
No shower curtains. There simply are none. Liz swears she found a room with one at Prolisok, but no one believes her.
Interesting health prohibitions. Ukraine is a cold country. Ukraine is a country with very little access to medical care. Therefore, there are many prohibitions that, if you violate them, will cause your host mother to throw a conniption fit. Drinking cold liquids is one. All liquids, from tea to milk to juice to soda, are served either hot or at room temperature (yes, Liz was once served heated Diet Coke when she was sick). Ukrainians don’t believe in ice. When I go to the McDonalds in Kiev, I can be found swirling my drink around just to hear the ice rattle on the sides. Another prohibition is walking out the door with wet hair. A third is walking around the apartment barefoot. You’re supposed to wear slippers, but my host mom will settle for socks.
Apparently, all this will keep you from getting pneumonia.
No locks on the interior doors. At all. Even your bedroom.
Milk in bags. This one makes absolutely no sense to me. Milk is sold in plastic bags. Not cardboard boxes or plastic jugs, but in bags. When you pick one up, it’s this amorphous blob in your hand as the liquid swishes around. You cut a corner off to get to the milk, but if you don’t use it all there’s no convenient way to store it other than putting a clothes pin on the end and hoping it doesn’t leak in the fridge. Yogurt is sold the same way, and I’ve seen more than one American just upending the corner of the yogurt bag over their mouths and squeezing.
Black pointy shoes and black leather jackets. Everyone wears them
Carbonated water. If you buy bottled water, you’d better specify ne hazodna because Ukrainians, like Europeans, love carbonated water. Frankly, I can’t stand the stuff and before I learned how to read Cyrillic, I bought several bottles of water that later just got tossed.
Patronymics. This is a Slavic thing, but I find it interesting. You don’t use the term Mister or Missus to denote respect in Ukraine. Rather, the formal way to acknowledge someone in Ukraine is through their patronymic. This is their first name followed by the first name of their father with –illa tacked on the end for women and –ovich for men. There are other ways to form the patronymic, but I stick with that. In Ukraine, I am formally Daniel Fosterovich. And an American named after his father could very well be Bob Bobovich.
Babies. I think the long winters, cultural traditions, and small apartments lead to one thing: an outdoor baby density of two to every square foot. You cannot take a ten minute walk (and I am in the habit of taking longer ones when the weather isn’t deathly freezing) without seeing dozens and dozens of little babies, bundled to twice their size, all in cute colorful little winter caps with two ore three little points on the top, being carried or pushed in strollers. Mothers sit on faded blue and yellow benches, talking to one another while they absentmindedly push their strollers back and forth with one hand, rocking their children. Babucias coo from beneath head shawls at their grandchildren in parks covered in yellow leaves. Even older brothers and sisters push the little babies around, giving them fresh air, getting them out of the apartments. It’s one of the nicer things about Ukraine.
And lastly there are babushka bags. No one uses backpacks or sling bags or even big purses to carry things. They use plastic department store bags colloquially called babushka bags. You know when you buy clothes from Sears or the Gap or Structure and the salesperson puts them in a plastic bag with the store’s name emblazoned on the side? Those are the bags I’m talking about. Every person you see on the street will have one swinging at their side. Stalls at the bazaars sell fifty different kinds for three hrivna each. Women color coordinate these plastic bags with their outfits. The esteem of the bag coordinates with the brand on the side. BMW plastic bags, for instance, are in high demand. Mine is a Hugo Boss bag, black, that I use to carry my books to class.
The first day I, in my leather jacket and walking through a crowd of babies, went to buy a bag of milk with my babuska bag swinging at my side, I felt very, very Ukrainian.
What’s different about Ukraine? The little things.
Guards at the grocery store. A grocery store is a radically new concept in Ukraine. Most people are used to haggling at the bazaar for their food. The grocery store in Obuhiv is where you go if you want Western products like Pringles or Gillette razors. Because these things are so high priced and rare, there is a security guard every two aisles that watches you like a hawk.
Holodetz and salo. Holodetz is volunteer kryptonite. Think Jell-O. Now think Jell-O made out of meat. A square of translucent gelatinous stuff on your plate that is, in fact, meat. This is holodetz. Salo. Salo is simply pig fat. A slab of it. You eat it with black bread, butter and garlic. Sometimes, they dip it in chocolate and you eat that.
Refusing something three times. Customarily, you are supposed to refuse something the first time. If you don’t actually want it, you have to refuse its offer three times. Why would you refuse it? I don’t know, maybe because it’s an offer of more holodetz or salo.
A refusal to hand you change. In the Cossack era, a person had to refuse a position of leadership three times before he was worthy to accept it. You’re also supposed to refuse money three times before you can accept it. Because of this, a cashier will never hand you change at a store, instead putting it in a little dish for you to take, thus subverting the three-refusals rule and speeding things up.
Bread. Bread is a nationally worshiped food. The Ukrainian flag is blue on the top to represent the sky, yellow on the bottom to represent grain. The name of the city where I will live and work for two years, Zhytomyr, is made up of the words “Bread” and “Peace”. Bread is served at every single meal (and you eat it plain) and you never, ever throw away uneaten bread. Even if you’ve munched on your bread until it’s an inch-wide wafer and you can’t stand another bite, that bit goes in the breadbasket for the next meal.
Giving an odd number of flowers. An even number of flowers is given at funerals to the grieved. On any other occasion, it is bad luck. One of my clustermates, Liz, once gave her host mom three flowers, and the head of one fell off. The host mom freaked out and quickly put the two remaining flowers in separate jars to make them two gifts of one, thus keeping the flowers at an odd number.
Whistling indoors. Don’t do it. Ever. It’s bad luck.
Opening windows on public transportation. It doesn’t matter if it’s the middle of the summer, your shirt is transparent from sweat, your hair is plastered to your forehead and you are beginning to merge with your seat, you must not open windows on public transportation. There is a long-standing belief that the draft will make babies and old people sick and possibly kill them. Our cluster mentor, Nick, related a story during which he had opened a marchrutka window in the middle of summer. The entire marchrutka went into an uproar and, after he got it closed, an old man came up, grabbed Nick by the shirt, waved a fist at him and said in Ukrainian: “if you do that again, I will punch you in the face.” For the rest of the two-hour ride, all the occupants of the marchrutka glared at him.
Toilets and bathrooms are separate concepts. Toilets get one room, the bathtub and sink get another. This is probably because it’s customary to do laundry in the bathroom and who wants to be constantly interrupted by the biological needs of others? They are such separate concepts that one host family I know of built a brand new bathroom (finally bringing indoor plumbing into their home) but didn’t bother to build an indoor toilet, continuing instead to use their outhouse.
Oh, public toilets don't have toilet paper, so you have to always carry some in your pocket.
Light switches. All the light switches are outside of the room that they are for. This leads to two problems: one, if you wake up in the middle of the night and want to turn on the lights, you have to stumble outside your bedroom door and blindly search in the hall for your switch. Two, central rooms that lead into several rooms (as in the case of the one that leads to the bathroom, the toilet, the kitchen, Losha’s room and the hall) will have all the switches for each room. Next to one another. So if you’re trying to use the restroom in the middle of the night, you find yourself staring at them, trying to figure out which one will turn on the light for the toilet instead of the light in Losha’s room, thus waking him up at two in the morning.
No shower curtains. There simply are none. Liz swears she found a room with one at Prolisok, but no one believes her.
Interesting health prohibitions. Ukraine is a cold country. Ukraine is a country with very little access to medical care. Therefore, there are many prohibitions that, if you violate them, will cause your host mother to throw a conniption fit. Drinking cold liquids is one. All liquids, from tea to milk to juice to soda, are served either hot or at room temperature (yes, Liz was once served heated Diet Coke when she was sick). Ukrainians don’t believe in ice. When I go to the McDonalds in Kiev, I can be found swirling my drink around just to hear the ice rattle on the sides. Another prohibition is walking out the door with wet hair. A third is walking around the apartment barefoot. You’re supposed to wear slippers, but my host mom will settle for socks.
Apparently, all this will keep you from getting pneumonia.
No locks on the interior doors. At all. Even your bedroom.
Milk in bags. This one makes absolutely no sense to me. Milk is sold in plastic bags. Not cardboard boxes or plastic jugs, but in bags. When you pick one up, it’s this amorphous blob in your hand as the liquid swishes around. You cut a corner off to get to the milk, but if you don’t use it all there’s no convenient way to store it other than putting a clothes pin on the end and hoping it doesn’t leak in the fridge. Yogurt is sold the same way, and I’ve seen more than one American just upending the corner of the yogurt bag over their mouths and squeezing.
Black pointy shoes and black leather jackets. Everyone wears them
Carbonated water. If you buy bottled water, you’d better specify ne hazodna because Ukrainians, like Europeans, love carbonated water. Frankly, I can’t stand the stuff and before I learned how to read Cyrillic, I bought several bottles of water that later just got tossed.
Patronymics. This is a Slavic thing, but I find it interesting. You don’t use the term Mister or Missus to denote respect in Ukraine. Rather, the formal way to acknowledge someone in Ukraine is through their patronymic. This is their first name followed by the first name of their father with –illa tacked on the end for women and –ovich for men. There are other ways to form the patronymic, but I stick with that. In Ukraine, I am formally Daniel Fosterovich. And an American named after his father could very well be Bob Bobovich.
Babies. I think the long winters, cultural traditions, and small apartments lead to one thing: an outdoor baby density of two to every square foot. You cannot take a ten minute walk (and I am in the habit of taking longer ones when the weather isn’t deathly freezing) without seeing dozens and dozens of little babies, bundled to twice their size, all in cute colorful little winter caps with two ore three little points on the top, being carried or pushed in strollers. Mothers sit on faded blue and yellow benches, talking to one another while they absentmindedly push their strollers back and forth with one hand, rocking their children. Babucias coo from beneath head shawls at their grandchildren in parks covered in yellow leaves. Even older brothers and sisters push the little babies around, giving them fresh air, getting them out of the apartments. It’s one of the nicer things about Ukraine.
And lastly there are babushka bags. No one uses backpacks or sling bags or even big purses to carry things. They use plastic department store bags colloquially called babushka bags. You know when you buy clothes from Sears or the Gap or Structure and the salesperson puts them in a plastic bag with the store’s name emblazoned on the side? Those are the bags I’m talking about. Every person you see on the street will have one swinging at their side. Stalls at the bazaars sell fifty different kinds for three hrivna each. Women color coordinate these plastic bags with their outfits. The esteem of the bag coordinates with the brand on the side. BMW plastic bags, for instance, are in high demand. Mine is a Hugo Boss bag, black, that I use to carry my books to class.
The first day I, in my leather jacket and walking through a crowd of babies, went to buy a bag of milk with my babuska bag swinging at my side, I felt very, very Ukrainian.
Thursday, November 11, 2004
Ukraine: In the Eye of the Marchrutka
I’m performing marchrutka-cises (my word, mind you), the daily calisthenics required to ride in a people-packed minivan driven by a man five minutes out of his hug-himself white jacket. Currently, I’m squatting (very good for conditioning calves and thighs). Other days, I’m standing hunched over, clinging to an overhead strap (very good for the upper body).
Marchrutkas are capitalism’s answer to a communist failure. The old Soviet accordion-style busses could barely be kept running after the collapse of the USSR, the state unable to provide for them as they are barely able to provide for street repair, building refurbishment or garbage collection (have I mentioned yet the smell of the half-dozen or so trash fires burning continually throughout the city?). Into this transportation void stepped a few forward-thinking city employees that eased tax laws, sold the machines to themselves and started the franchise-without-a-franchise concept of marchrutkas. Now, hundreds of these privately-owned little minivans, packed to bursting, dart about the major cities and actually provide faster and cheaper (the capitalist mantra) transportation than the few remaining busses.
I do not apply the adjective “safe” to these little speed demons (also, when I say “speed”, I am not referring to the quality of going fast, but rather the hysterics-inducing amphetamine). I feel the safety factor of taking a marchrutka was best put forth by the U.S. Embassy head of security, who addressed the Peace Corps volunteers the very day we stepped off the plane. His speech was long, convoluted, and full of politically correct phrasings, but one of his points amounted to this: “if you ride on a marchrutka, you will die.”
This sentiment was later rebutted following by our Ukrainian coordinators: “that man has a private car and a chauffer.” In other words, if you want to get anywhere in Ukraine, get on the damn marchrutka.
The sight of a marchrutka, despite the Mercedes symbol on the front grill, does not inspire confidence. All have dents and dings (some have fully-imploded panels), and all but one I have ridden on required help from the 3M company to keep going. I don’t know how the Soviet Union existed before the incorporation of that company known for Post-It notes, but I feel it would still be around today had it discovered earlier the now omnipresent products of masking, cellophane, and duct tape.
Take the marchrutka I’m riding on now. The spider-web cracks that spread the length of the windshield are being held firm through cellophane tape, and it is through that tape that I see а hapless car being bared down upon before the marchrutka dives into oncoming traffic and then back into the proper lane, leaving the car to suck down dust. Marchrutka drivers, despite taking off with the side door still open, making change for the fares en route and never letting the gas pedal off the floor, always drive as if they’re running late. Late for getting an iced-down heart to a transplant patient, that kind of late.
This type of driving isn’t limited to marchrutkas, mind you. Every driver in Ukraine drives this way, weaving in and out of traffic, barreling straight at pedestrians (who most certainly do not have the right of way), and driving on the sidewalk. Although I have not heard it uttered aloud, there must be a Ukrainian proverb that goes: “If God did not want me driving on the sidewalk, he would not have paved it.” My host father in Zhytomyr admonished me for putting on my seatbelt, saying I did not need it in Ukraine. I put it on anyway, telling him it was habit. I think the reason seatbelts are not required is that no one would survive a Ukrainian car wreck, so why bother wrinkling your suit? After pulling a very illegal U-turn in the middle of the street and barely making it out of the way of oncoming traffic, my host father told me not to worry. “Ya droog miliziom,” he said by way of explanation. I am a friend of the police. Which is almost a superfluous thing to be in this case, because in a month and a half of traveling between cities on marchrutkas, I have never, ever seen someone pulled over on the side of the road. I have seen babucias selling onions, horse-drawn carts and an SUV on fire on the sides of Ukrainian roads, but never the police.
So really it’s no surprise when my marchrutka nearly hits a grandmother walking on the edge of the road , literally nearly hits this woman as it's trying to dodge around a too-slow car, and this babucia doesn’t even bother to have an expression of fear or disgust on her face, doesn’t even bother to shout an obscenity (not that it could be heard over the Ukrainian reggae music blaring from the driver’s radio) and instead stolidly kept walking as if her life had not been put on the line by a man driving with one wrist on the steering wheel as he tries to make change for the twenty sardine-impersonators in his minivan.
So it is in this way, as it is twice a week, that I partake of my morning workout session en route to the city of Ukrainka, having no doubt that I will arrive on time (provided I survive) for my technical session on how to stay safe in Ukraine, riding the whole way in the eye of the marshrutka.
Marchrutkas are capitalism’s answer to a communist failure. The old Soviet accordion-style busses could barely be kept running after the collapse of the USSR, the state unable to provide for them as they are barely able to provide for street repair, building refurbishment or garbage collection (have I mentioned yet the smell of the half-dozen or so trash fires burning continually throughout the city?). Into this transportation void stepped a few forward-thinking city employees that eased tax laws, sold the machines to themselves and started the franchise-without-a-franchise concept of marchrutkas. Now, hundreds of these privately-owned little minivans, packed to bursting, dart about the major cities and actually provide faster and cheaper (the capitalist mantra) transportation than the few remaining busses.
I do not apply the adjective “safe” to these little speed demons (also, when I say “speed”, I am not referring to the quality of going fast, but rather the hysterics-inducing amphetamine). I feel the safety factor of taking a marchrutka was best put forth by the U.S. Embassy head of security, who addressed the Peace Corps volunteers the very day we stepped off the plane. His speech was long, convoluted, and full of politically correct phrasings, but one of his points amounted to this: “if you ride on a marchrutka, you will die.”
This sentiment was later rebutted following by our Ukrainian coordinators: “that man has a private car and a chauffer.” In other words, if you want to get anywhere in Ukraine, get on the damn marchrutka.
The sight of a marchrutka, despite the Mercedes symbol on the front grill, does not inspire confidence. All have dents and dings (some have fully-imploded panels), and all but one I have ridden on required help from the 3M company to keep going. I don’t know how the Soviet Union existed before the incorporation of that company known for Post-It notes, but I feel it would still be around today had it discovered earlier the now omnipresent products of masking, cellophane, and duct tape.
Take the marchrutka I’m riding on now. The spider-web cracks that spread the length of the windshield are being held firm through cellophane tape, and it is through that tape that I see а hapless car being bared down upon before the marchrutka dives into oncoming traffic and then back into the proper lane, leaving the car to suck down dust. Marchrutka drivers, despite taking off with the side door still open, making change for the fares en route and never letting the gas pedal off the floor, always drive as if they’re running late. Late for getting an iced-down heart to a transplant patient, that kind of late.
This type of driving isn’t limited to marchrutkas, mind you. Every driver in Ukraine drives this way, weaving in and out of traffic, barreling straight at pedestrians (who most certainly do not have the right of way), and driving on the sidewalk. Although I have not heard it uttered aloud, there must be a Ukrainian proverb that goes: “If God did not want me driving on the sidewalk, he would not have paved it.” My host father in Zhytomyr admonished me for putting on my seatbelt, saying I did not need it in Ukraine. I put it on anyway, telling him it was habit. I think the reason seatbelts are not required is that no one would survive a Ukrainian car wreck, so why bother wrinkling your suit? After pulling a very illegal U-turn in the middle of the street and barely making it out of the way of oncoming traffic, my host father told me not to worry. “Ya droog miliziom,” he said by way of explanation. I am a friend of the police. Which is almost a superfluous thing to be in this case, because in a month and a half of traveling between cities on marchrutkas, I have never, ever seen someone pulled over on the side of the road. I have seen babucias selling onions, horse-drawn carts and an SUV on fire on the sides of Ukrainian roads, but never the police.
So really it’s no surprise when my marchrutka nearly hits a grandmother walking on the edge of the road , literally nearly hits this woman as it's trying to dodge around a too-slow car, and this babucia doesn’t even bother to have an expression of fear or disgust on her face, doesn’t even bother to shout an obscenity (not that it could be heard over the Ukrainian reggae music blaring from the driver’s radio) and instead stolidly kept walking as if her life had not been put on the line by a man driving with one wrist on the steering wheel as he tries to make change for the twenty sardine-impersonators in his minivan.
So it is in this way, as it is twice a week, that I partake of my morning workout session en route to the city of Ukrainka, having no doubt that I will arrive on time (provided I survive) for my technical session on how to stay safe in Ukraine, riding the whole way in the eye of the marshrutka.
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Ukraine: Meeting Cujo
Once again, I have discovered that a first aid kit is a talisman against wounding and should be carried at all times, if only so it is never used.
Evidence: this summer I climbed the highest mountain in the continental United States without a scratch, first aid kit weighing heavy in my bag. The summer before, I had forgotten to bring a first aid kit to Europe, and managed to both gash open my hand in Amsterdam (righting an overturned boat) and break a toe in Switzerland (getting out of bed; sad but true).
Now, here in Ukraine, I managed to get gastrointeritis before we were distributed our medical kits, and after, well, we'll get to that in a second. First let me talk for a second about the medical kits, each the size of a small suitcase, that each volunteer recieves. I could perform an apendectomy with this kit, which comes complete with several million bandages, several thousands of kinds of over the counter drugs, three kinds of antibiotics: amoxocillin, cipro and bacatrine, sunscreen, chapstick and exactly four condoms. I did not bring this kit on my short trip to Zhytomyr, though, and that was my first mistake.
The dog seemed friendly, the big St. Bernard that belonged to my new host family in Zhyotomyr. Coming home the first night, it ran away from me. The second night, it ran towards me to see who I was, and then went back to its dog house. The third night, it repeated this, and I felt that I should befriend this dog. I started with the motion you're taught as a child: extend your hand palm forward, below the level of the dog's head. This allows the dog to get your scent. If it appears friendly, you can then slowly raise your hand to pet it. As I was extending my hand, though, I had this exact thought: "it already knows what I smell like." So, as the dog was coming forward, I raised my hand to pet it.
Sensing a threat, the dog's inner Cujo came out. It opened its jaws and clamped them down upon my hand. Luckily, I jerked my hand back at the first growl and its teeth only caught the side of my hand, leaving some small, tooth-shaped gashes. It was because this wound was, as I was later told, a "crush wound", that it immedietly swelled, looking as if my hand had gout, and sent searing signals of pain up to my brain.
My first thought was: does this dog have rabies? I figured no, because it was the family dog, not a stray. My second thought was: goddamn my hand hurts. I have a pretty high threshold, so I was in stunned disbelief that these little wounds on the side of my hand could hurt so badly.
The dog had since put itself between me and the door of the house, doing its job of protecting the family. Cradling my hand, I walked up the steps to the door, the dog growling and barking loudly, and I stopped about four feet from it, watching it out of the corner of my eye, trying to seem unthreatening, debating my options.
I was on the outskirts of Zhyotymr, Ukraine. The temperature was below freezing. My host family was inside and asleep. Possibly, they would come see what the dog was barking about, possibly not. My brain had an internal arguement then. The pain bit wanted something done about the pain bit as soon as possible. The fight or flight bit let every other bit know that the adrenaline had been opened full blast and wondered why we were neither fighting nor flighting. The anger bit was waving its hands about and demanding that this dog be kicked in the face, but the rational bit was trying to tell it that it wasn't the dog's fault and that the situation needed to be resolved in a, well, rational manner. The libido bit wanted to know when I was going to be laid. This is an emergency, the other bits said, go away. Perhaps I can use my powers of seduction on the dog, suggested the libido bit. Shut up, replied the rest.
And it was in this manner that I stood for at least five minutes while this dog barked its lungs out at me and neither of us budged an inch. This thought occured: "I can't believe that dog bit me." This thought occured: "am I really going to have to bum rush this dog to get into the house?" This thought occured: "will someone come out and see what this goddamn dog is barking at?" And, to show my screwed up sense of priorities, this thought occured: "If I try to get to the door, and it attacks, I really hope it doesn't damage my jacket." The jacket, it should be noted, was a birthday/Christmas gift from my mother, and I already felt bad enough about loosing the gloves she also bought me on a marchrutka coming back from Kiev.
I had just made up my mind to slowly inch my way to door (and possibly begin kick at the dog should it try to attack) when the interior lights came on and my host mother opened the door. She was surprised to see me standing there and motioned for me to come in. I had taken exactly one step towards her when the dog lunged.
Seeing the dog in motion, this fifty year-old woman said one harsh word in Russian, and the dog simply stopped in mid-attack, dropped to the ground and began whimpering.
I quickly walked past the dog and into the house, and it was then that my host mother noticed me cradling my bleeding hand. She flipped out. She began yelling in a fast, high-pitched Russian, beeseeching God, apologizing to me and cursing the dog all at the same time.
She had me wash the cuts off in the bathtub and then brought me into the kitchen. After she sat me down, she scooped some strange black stuff with the texture of grease out of a mason jar and began smearing it onto the cuts. Then, she slit open a bell pepper, scrapped out the seeds, put the skin of the bell pepper over the cuts and secured it to my hand in linen gauze.
My heart was pounding throughout all this, my whole body amped to do something: flee, pummel this dog, cry war cries, something, anything, but I was simply sitting on this stool in a kitchen having a woman put vegtables on my swollen, bleeding hand.
I told her in Ukrainian that I needed to call Peace Corps, and she didn't want me to. I think she was afraid that they'd take me away because the dog had attacked me. She kept telling me that this was the first time this had ever happened and apologizing over and over. I insited that I wasn't going anywhere, but I had to tell Peace Corps. Finally she relented and gave me the phone.
I called Peace Corps, slightly embarassed that this was my third medical call in my first month and a half of service (the first for gastrointeritis, the second for a throat infection). The nurse listened to everything that happened and then told me to get all that crap off my hand, wash it vigourously with soap and water, put antibiotic ointment on it and wrap it in gauze.
I went to do so and gave the phone to my host mother so they could explain to her in Russian all that needed to be done. I also told them to make sure she understood that I wasn't angry at her, and that I wasn't going leaving them.
I didn't have my antibiotic ointment or gauze, they were both safe in my medical kit in Obhiev. After I washed my hand, my host mother pulled out several tubes of stuff, none of which had intelligible words to me, and she began smearing everything on the wound in thick globs. I don't know what was in those tubes, but I'm pretty sure one was aloe vera. I kept tellng her I needed antibiotic ointment. She told me I needed all of this. Finally, slightly frustrated, I took the one tube that she told me was antibiotic cream, went to the bathroom, washed all that stuff off, put on the cream and wrapped it up.
It's a lot better today, not as swollen, and scabbed over. So, emergency averted. I went down with my host cousin to feed the dog the day after. The dog barked up a storm, but greedily wolfed down the food I tossed to her. So, hopefully the dog and I will get to be friends.
The dog's name, by the way, is Katrina.
I know one thing, though, I'm never going anywhere without a first aid kit.
Evidence: this summer I climbed the highest mountain in the continental United States without a scratch, first aid kit weighing heavy in my bag. The summer before, I had forgotten to bring a first aid kit to Europe, and managed to both gash open my hand in Amsterdam (righting an overturned boat) and break a toe in Switzerland (getting out of bed; sad but true).
Now, here in Ukraine, I managed to get gastrointeritis before we were distributed our medical kits, and after, well, we'll get to that in a second. First let me talk for a second about the medical kits, each the size of a small suitcase, that each volunteer recieves. I could perform an apendectomy with this kit, which comes complete with several million bandages, several thousands of kinds of over the counter drugs, three kinds of antibiotics: amoxocillin, cipro and bacatrine, sunscreen, chapstick and exactly four condoms. I did not bring this kit on my short trip to Zhytomyr, though, and that was my first mistake.
The dog seemed friendly, the big St. Bernard that belonged to my new host family in Zhyotomyr. Coming home the first night, it ran away from me. The second night, it ran towards me to see who I was, and then went back to its dog house. The third night, it repeated this, and I felt that I should befriend this dog. I started with the motion you're taught as a child: extend your hand palm forward, below the level of the dog's head. This allows the dog to get your scent. If it appears friendly, you can then slowly raise your hand to pet it. As I was extending my hand, though, I had this exact thought: "it already knows what I smell like." So, as the dog was coming forward, I raised my hand to pet it.
Sensing a threat, the dog's inner Cujo came out. It opened its jaws and clamped them down upon my hand. Luckily, I jerked my hand back at the first growl and its teeth only caught the side of my hand, leaving some small, tooth-shaped gashes. It was because this wound was, as I was later told, a "crush wound", that it immedietly swelled, looking as if my hand had gout, and sent searing signals of pain up to my brain.
My first thought was: does this dog have rabies? I figured no, because it was the family dog, not a stray. My second thought was: goddamn my hand hurts. I have a pretty high threshold, so I was in stunned disbelief that these little wounds on the side of my hand could hurt so badly.
The dog had since put itself between me and the door of the house, doing its job of protecting the family. Cradling my hand, I walked up the steps to the door, the dog growling and barking loudly, and I stopped about four feet from it, watching it out of the corner of my eye, trying to seem unthreatening, debating my options.
I was on the outskirts of Zhyotymr, Ukraine. The temperature was below freezing. My host family was inside and asleep. Possibly, they would come see what the dog was barking about, possibly not. My brain had an internal arguement then. The pain bit wanted something done about the pain bit as soon as possible. The fight or flight bit let every other bit know that the adrenaline had been opened full blast and wondered why we were neither fighting nor flighting. The anger bit was waving its hands about and demanding that this dog be kicked in the face, but the rational bit was trying to tell it that it wasn't the dog's fault and that the situation needed to be resolved in a, well, rational manner. The libido bit wanted to know when I was going to be laid. This is an emergency, the other bits said, go away. Perhaps I can use my powers of seduction on the dog, suggested the libido bit. Shut up, replied the rest.
And it was in this manner that I stood for at least five minutes while this dog barked its lungs out at me and neither of us budged an inch. This thought occured: "I can't believe that dog bit me." This thought occured: "am I really going to have to bum rush this dog to get into the house?" This thought occured: "will someone come out and see what this goddamn dog is barking at?" And, to show my screwed up sense of priorities, this thought occured: "If I try to get to the door, and it attacks, I really hope it doesn't damage my jacket." The jacket, it should be noted, was a birthday/Christmas gift from my mother, and I already felt bad enough about loosing the gloves she also bought me on a marchrutka coming back from Kiev.
I had just made up my mind to slowly inch my way to door (and possibly begin kick at the dog should it try to attack) when the interior lights came on and my host mother opened the door. She was surprised to see me standing there and motioned for me to come in. I had taken exactly one step towards her when the dog lunged.
Seeing the dog in motion, this fifty year-old woman said one harsh word in Russian, and the dog simply stopped in mid-attack, dropped to the ground and began whimpering.
I quickly walked past the dog and into the house, and it was then that my host mother noticed me cradling my bleeding hand. She flipped out. She began yelling in a fast, high-pitched Russian, beeseeching God, apologizing to me and cursing the dog all at the same time.
She had me wash the cuts off in the bathtub and then brought me into the kitchen. After she sat me down, she scooped some strange black stuff with the texture of grease out of a mason jar and began smearing it onto the cuts. Then, she slit open a bell pepper, scrapped out the seeds, put the skin of the bell pepper over the cuts and secured it to my hand in linen gauze.
My heart was pounding throughout all this, my whole body amped to do something: flee, pummel this dog, cry war cries, something, anything, but I was simply sitting on this stool in a kitchen having a woman put vegtables on my swollen, bleeding hand.
I told her in Ukrainian that I needed to call Peace Corps, and she didn't want me to. I think she was afraid that they'd take me away because the dog had attacked me. She kept telling me that this was the first time this had ever happened and apologizing over and over. I insited that I wasn't going anywhere, but I had to tell Peace Corps. Finally she relented and gave me the phone.
I called Peace Corps, slightly embarassed that this was my third medical call in my first month and a half of service (the first for gastrointeritis, the second for a throat infection). The nurse listened to everything that happened and then told me to get all that crap off my hand, wash it vigourously with soap and water, put antibiotic ointment on it and wrap it in gauze.
I went to do so and gave the phone to my host mother so they could explain to her in Russian all that needed to be done. I also told them to make sure she understood that I wasn't angry at her, and that I wasn't going leaving them.
I didn't have my antibiotic ointment or gauze, they were both safe in my medical kit in Obhiev. After I washed my hand, my host mother pulled out several tubes of stuff, none of which had intelligible words to me, and she began smearing everything on the wound in thick globs. I don't know what was in those tubes, but I'm pretty sure one was aloe vera. I kept tellng her I needed antibiotic ointment. She told me I needed all of this. Finally, slightly frustrated, I took the one tube that she told me was antibiotic cream, went to the bathroom, washed all that stuff off, put on the cream and wrapped it up.
It's a lot better today, not as swollen, and scabbed over. So, emergency averted. I went down with my host cousin to feed the dog the day after. The dog barked up a storm, but greedily wolfed down the food I tossed to her. So, hopefully the dog and I will get to be friends.
The dog's name, by the way, is Katrina.
I know one thing, though, I'm never going anywhere without a first aid kit.
Ukraine: An Update from Zhyotomyr
Well, my little weblog is vastly behind real life at the moment, considering the latest is from day three in Ukraine and I’m at a month and a half and going strong. So, an update: I am currently in Zhotomyr, a city of about 300,000 that also happens to be over a thousand years old. It’s a two hours bus ride west of Kiev, and will be my new home for two years starting in January.I’m currently visiting the city for a week, getting to know my new host family, teaching classes at the teacher training institute where I will be working for two years, and generally seeing if there’s any problems that Peace Corps needs to address before I permanently move here in a month and a half.
Life in Obhiev, where I currently live, is going really well. Language training is coming along very rapidly. This is what happens when you have six hours of language class a day and live with people who don’t speak English. My new host family (and perhaps they were being nice) thought I’d been studying it for several years. That’s probably not far off, considering that in two semesters of college you would only receive, what, 72 hours of language instruction and I’ve already received somewhere around 90 hours worth? In any case, I’m at about an intermediate-low level (to use the official ranking system) able to use public transportation, haggle at the bazaar, describe myself, and carry on shallow conversations Intense has always been the word to describe Peace Corps training, and that’s fairly true. Your entire day is packed up with technical sessions, language sessions, teaching classes and moving between cities to get all these done. And, theoretically, you should be sleeping at night but you actually spend most of your evening hanging or partying with fellow Peace Corps people. All the Volunteers that I’ve met that have been in country for over a year say that training was the worst part of Peace Corps, and if that’s true, I have nothing but good times to look forward. I’m loving this. It’s like college and a summer camp rolled into one, with the added bonus of getting paid every two weeks.
Training is officially half over, and the time came to see our future sites. My division of about 50 Peace Corps Trainees met back up in Prolisok where, after listening to the election results come in via BBC radio, there was much partying late into the night to take the edge off the knowledge that we’d have to endure four more years of Shrub (this was lubricated by 12 point Ukrainian beer). Following three successive nights of this were three successive days of bleary-eyed tech sessions focusing on both teaching techniques and safety issues, a boring experience since A) all the teaching training is a rehash for me (out of 109 trainees, only eleven of us have prior teaching experience) and B) they’ve been giving us the same security information over and over since we got off the plane in September. But they did give us our diplomatic papers, which was cool. Since Peace Corps is technically a diplomatic organization (albeit an apolitical one), we are accorded the status of diplomatic administrative staff. This does not mean I get diplomatic immunity (sadness) but I am free to move about the country without any restrictions and am legally allowed to say I am a diplomat with the U.S. Embassy.
We all departed Prolisok yesterday, some with 17-hour train trips ahead of them, and, after eating McDonalds, I got on a bus to Zhotomyr. Oh, let me digress on the McDonalds. It’s sad, but I craved it. This country does not have the sheer variety of food that we have in the States, and after a month of bortch and varenike and galupste and cabbage, cabbage, cabbage, the fatty, salty goodness of McDonalds was a beautiful thing. I ate a whole double cheeseburger meal (and the drink had ice in it!) and then bought another double cheeseburger meal and ate it, too. It’s sad, but an American diet is one that trains your body to feel leaden after a meal, and to associate that feeling with being full. Consequently, I haven’t felt full since I’ve gotten here. I’ve stopped eating because my stomach could contain no more food, but I haven’t felt full. I now know why dieters fall off the wagon so much when they switch to healthier food; it’s because they still feel empty. Actually, I’m in much better shape here, more energetic, eating more, exercising more (mostly in the form of walking everywhere), but my body does miss that feeling of being filled to the gills with grease. Sad, but true. So, yes, McDonalds was a sating experience.
Zhotomyr is very old, and I imagine it will be very pretty in the summer. The architecture is more of the soviet block style buildings, but there are many of the onion-domed Orthodox churches here, in beautiful blues and yellows that contrast with the gray skies and bare, brown trees. My new host family lives in a three-story house by a river on the outskirts of town. Once again, I seem to luck out while everyone else gets little mud and brick houses in tiny villages or cramped apartment buildings in packed cities like Liviv or Odessa. The father was in the Soviet military, but has been decorated by both the UN and the United States (for peacekeeping work by the former, and for helping to clear a minefield by the latter). The mother is the most, um, motherly person I’ve ever met, showering constant attention onto her two teenage sons, smoothing their clothes and kissing them over and over, embarrassed looks on their faces. She has already declared me her third son, and I fear the day that this attention will swing to me. Both sons do a lot of boxing (my room is covered in Mike Tyson posters) and they have told me they will teach me this gentlemanly sport of how to get the crap beaten out of me while wearing padded red gloves. Should be interesting. You have to cross the river to get into town by walking across a bridge. The bridge looks not so much made as evolved, a metal and rotting-wood contraption that has the added benefit of being fifteen feet above the icy water. Running from the bulls was less scary than crossing that thing.
I discovered that I will not be speaking Ukrainian when I move here. Zhotomyr is a Sergic city, which means they speak both languages. Well, theoretically. In actuality, everyone at my workplace and everyone in my new host family speaks Russian. They can understand Ukrainian, but since they’re not used to it they have to concentrate and are much happier when I drop into what little Russian I know. Ukrainian and Russian are as close as Spanish and Portuguese. Which is, to say, kind of. If you’re a native speaker of one, you can kind of understand the other, but guess what? I’m not a native speaker. The grammar is the same, about 30 percent of the vocabulary is the same, and that’s it. On an interesting note, after a long introductory conversation that included a mishmash of Russian and Ukrainian with my host mother and English with one of my host brothers, my host father pulled a letter from Argentina where he has business contacts. It was in Spanish and he doesn’t speak Spanish, so could I translate it for him? Surprisingly, I was able to, but I don’t know how the Dutch manage to effortlessly switch between four languages because it gives me a splitting headache (on the other hand, though, I like bragging about it). It would make sense for me to switch to Russian training, but I will also be going to a lot of schools in the countryside as part of my job, where they don’t speak a lick of Russian. Peace Corps’ current plan is to have me finish out Ukrainian training and then switch to Russian at site in January and work with a Russian tutor until I have a decent grasp of it.
I like having to learn both languages for one very good reason: travel. Now that everyone has their sites, I have discovered that, much like how it was in America, I am central to a whole lot of friends living on the outskirts of the country. My cluster mates, whom I’ve grown very close to, are now on the borders of Poland, Romania, Moldova, Russia and Turkey. We already have massive travel plans this summer to meet up and cross those borders. Since Polish is very close Ukrainian, it’s best to speak that language. And Russia, well, they don’t speak anything but Russian. Romanian is actually a romance language, somewhat close to Spanish. And Moldova and Turkey? I might have to resort to (gasp!) English.So, much to look forward to, much to look forward to, especially since Krakow, Bucharest, Budapest, Moscow, and Istanbul are all within a day’s train ride (well, you have to take a ferry to Istanbul), and then, of course, there are Ukrainian’s golden jewels of Kiev, Odessa, Yalta and Liviv…
In any case, I’ll stop here. Currently, my only complaints are the cold (and winter has not yet begun), the fact that it is pitch-black dark by 5:00 PM, and the excessive amounts of cabbage I have to eat (a fellow PCT received Cheese-its in the mail and shared them. I was brought to an near-delirious ecstatic state by their cheesy goodness). More later, but I wanted everyone to know that I’m safe, having fun, and getting to know this country that, while bleak and coming out from under the dual yoke of poverty and a Soviet legacy, is a really amazing place, with really amazing people that experience the world on an emotional level that Americans don’t get to without a lot of time and trust. I’ve learned a lot, have a lot to learn, and am really enjoying what I’m doing.
Life in Obhiev, where I currently live, is going really well. Language training is coming along very rapidly. This is what happens when you have six hours of language class a day and live with people who don’t speak English. My new host family (and perhaps they were being nice) thought I’d been studying it for several years. That’s probably not far off, considering that in two semesters of college you would only receive, what, 72 hours of language instruction and I’ve already received somewhere around 90 hours worth? In any case, I’m at about an intermediate-low level (to use the official ranking system) able to use public transportation, haggle at the bazaar, describe myself, and carry on shallow conversations Intense has always been the word to describe Peace Corps training, and that’s fairly true. Your entire day is packed up with technical sessions, language sessions, teaching classes and moving between cities to get all these done. And, theoretically, you should be sleeping at night but you actually spend most of your evening hanging or partying with fellow Peace Corps people. All the Volunteers that I’ve met that have been in country for over a year say that training was the worst part of Peace Corps, and if that’s true, I have nothing but good times to look forward. I’m loving this. It’s like college and a summer camp rolled into one, with the added bonus of getting paid every two weeks.
Training is officially half over, and the time came to see our future sites. My division of about 50 Peace Corps Trainees met back up in Prolisok where, after listening to the election results come in via BBC radio, there was much partying late into the night to take the edge off the knowledge that we’d have to endure four more years of Shrub (this was lubricated by 12 point Ukrainian beer). Following three successive nights of this were three successive days of bleary-eyed tech sessions focusing on both teaching techniques and safety issues, a boring experience since A) all the teaching training is a rehash for me (out of 109 trainees, only eleven of us have prior teaching experience) and B) they’ve been giving us the same security information over and over since we got off the plane in September. But they did give us our diplomatic papers, which was cool. Since Peace Corps is technically a diplomatic organization (albeit an apolitical one), we are accorded the status of diplomatic administrative staff. This does not mean I get diplomatic immunity (sadness) but I am free to move about the country without any restrictions and am legally allowed to say I am a diplomat with the U.S. Embassy.
We all departed Prolisok yesterday, some with 17-hour train trips ahead of them, and, after eating McDonalds, I got on a bus to Zhotomyr. Oh, let me digress on the McDonalds. It’s sad, but I craved it. This country does not have the sheer variety of food that we have in the States, and after a month of bortch and varenike and galupste and cabbage, cabbage, cabbage, the fatty, salty goodness of McDonalds was a beautiful thing. I ate a whole double cheeseburger meal (and the drink had ice in it!) and then bought another double cheeseburger meal and ate it, too. It’s sad, but an American diet is one that trains your body to feel leaden after a meal, and to associate that feeling with being full. Consequently, I haven’t felt full since I’ve gotten here. I’ve stopped eating because my stomach could contain no more food, but I haven’t felt full. I now know why dieters fall off the wagon so much when they switch to healthier food; it’s because they still feel empty. Actually, I’m in much better shape here, more energetic, eating more, exercising more (mostly in the form of walking everywhere), but my body does miss that feeling of being filled to the gills with grease. Sad, but true. So, yes, McDonalds was a sating experience.
Zhotomyr is very old, and I imagine it will be very pretty in the summer. The architecture is more of the soviet block style buildings, but there are many of the onion-domed Orthodox churches here, in beautiful blues and yellows that contrast with the gray skies and bare, brown trees. My new host family lives in a three-story house by a river on the outskirts of town. Once again, I seem to luck out while everyone else gets little mud and brick houses in tiny villages or cramped apartment buildings in packed cities like Liviv or Odessa. The father was in the Soviet military, but has been decorated by both the UN and the United States (for peacekeeping work by the former, and for helping to clear a minefield by the latter). The mother is the most, um, motherly person I’ve ever met, showering constant attention onto her two teenage sons, smoothing their clothes and kissing them over and over, embarrassed looks on their faces. She has already declared me her third son, and I fear the day that this attention will swing to me. Both sons do a lot of boxing (my room is covered in Mike Tyson posters) and they have told me they will teach me this gentlemanly sport of how to get the crap beaten out of me while wearing padded red gloves. Should be interesting. You have to cross the river to get into town by walking across a bridge. The bridge looks not so much made as evolved, a metal and rotting-wood contraption that has the added benefit of being fifteen feet above the icy water. Running from the bulls was less scary than crossing that thing.
I discovered that I will not be speaking Ukrainian when I move here. Zhotomyr is a Sergic city, which means they speak both languages. Well, theoretically. In actuality, everyone at my workplace and everyone in my new host family speaks Russian. They can understand Ukrainian, but since they’re not used to it they have to concentrate and are much happier when I drop into what little Russian I know. Ukrainian and Russian are as close as Spanish and Portuguese. Which is, to say, kind of. If you’re a native speaker of one, you can kind of understand the other, but guess what? I’m not a native speaker. The grammar is the same, about 30 percent of the vocabulary is the same, and that’s it. On an interesting note, after a long introductory conversation that included a mishmash of Russian and Ukrainian with my host mother and English with one of my host brothers, my host father pulled a letter from Argentina where he has business contacts. It was in Spanish and he doesn’t speak Spanish, so could I translate it for him? Surprisingly, I was able to, but I don’t know how the Dutch manage to effortlessly switch between four languages because it gives me a splitting headache (on the other hand, though, I like bragging about it). It would make sense for me to switch to Russian training, but I will also be going to a lot of schools in the countryside as part of my job, where they don’t speak a lick of Russian. Peace Corps’ current plan is to have me finish out Ukrainian training and then switch to Russian at site in January and work with a Russian tutor until I have a decent grasp of it.
I like having to learn both languages for one very good reason: travel. Now that everyone has their sites, I have discovered that, much like how it was in America, I am central to a whole lot of friends living on the outskirts of the country. My cluster mates, whom I’ve grown very close to, are now on the borders of Poland, Romania, Moldova, Russia and Turkey. We already have massive travel plans this summer to meet up and cross those borders. Since Polish is very close Ukrainian, it’s best to speak that language. And Russia, well, they don’t speak anything but Russian. Romanian is actually a romance language, somewhat close to Spanish. And Moldova and Turkey? I might have to resort to (gasp!) English.So, much to look forward to, much to look forward to, especially since Krakow, Bucharest, Budapest, Moscow, and Istanbul are all within a day’s train ride (well, you have to take a ferry to Istanbul), and then, of course, there are Ukrainian’s golden jewels of Kiev, Odessa, Yalta and Liviv…
In any case, I’ll stop here. Currently, my only complaints are the cold (and winter has not yet begun), the fact that it is pitch-black dark by 5:00 PM, and the excessive amounts of cabbage I have to eat (a fellow PCT received Cheese-its in the mail and shared them. I was brought to an near-delirious ecstatic state by their cheesy goodness). More later, but I wanted everyone to know that I’m safe, having fun, and getting to know this country that, while bleak and coming out from under the dual yoke of poverty and a Soviet legacy, is a really amazing place, with really amazing people that experience the world on an emotional level that Americans don’t get to without a lot of time and trust. I’ve learned a lot, have a lot to learn, and am really enjoying what I’m doing.
Monday, November 01, 2004
Ukraine: Training
This is Peace Corps Ukraine training:
Four hours of language class a day, usually in the afternoon. Teaching twice a week, 10th and 11th graders at a local school. They're pretty cool. As a teacher trainer, I observe my clustermates as they teach (and they teach four times a week) and give them feedback. Saturdays, we have ungodly long technical sessions that last all day where they teach teaching skills. As I did this for both my bachelors and my masters, I am bored. Nights: hanging out with clustermates, talking or watching episodes of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" on Seth's computer. Weekends: Extremely hard partying with the link, which usually involves drinking at Rastafaris and dancing at Indigos.
All in all, a lot of fun, I'm kept very busy and I wouldn't trade the experience for the world.
Four hours of language class a day, usually in the afternoon. Teaching twice a week, 10th and 11th graders at a local school. They're pretty cool. As a teacher trainer, I observe my clustermates as they teach (and they teach four times a week) and give them feedback. Saturdays, we have ungodly long technical sessions that last all day where they teach teaching skills. As I did this for both my bachelors and my masters, I am bored. Nights: hanging out with clustermates, talking or watching episodes of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" on Seth's computer. Weekends: Extremely hard partying with the link, which usually involves drinking at Rastafaris and dancing at Indigos.
All in all, a lot of fun, I'm kept very busy and I wouldn't trade the experience for the world.
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