Got in around 11 AM and did almost nothing for the next seven hours but work on the bike grant proposal. Every time I had a draft done I’d take it to someone in Peace Corps for a read through and then write another draft based on their comments. This was punctuated by many friendly interruptions in the Peace Corps office because, unbeknownst to me it was Saint Patrick’s Day and there was a party brewing.
After I couldn’t possibly change another comma, I emailed in the grant proposal, put a hard copy outside the responsible person’s door (it was now after office hours) and went out into the brisk night air with a few other volunteers to see what trouble we could find.
A cop found us: heard us speaking English and tried to extort money after we showed him our demanded passports, telling us we needed to show him a customs ticket that we didn’t have. He was a little surprised to hear us reply in Russian, and was even more surprised when Sean, who speaks near-perfect Russian, spun out an extremely intricate story about us having crossed into the country from Hungary, hence never passing through customs and getting this ticket. The cop finally let us go and ignored Sean’s proffered hand, walking up grumpily into the night.
We were told the party would be at Golden Gate, an Irish pub, and where else to celebrate Saint Patrick’s day? But turned out that everyone else in the city thought that as well, and they were no longer letting anyone in. On the mobiles and we found out that the other volunteers had gone to O’ Brian’s instead, Kyiv’s other Irish pub. Yes Kyiv has two.
Santa Sophia in the evening fog. We passed it while walking to the pub and I had to take a picture
There, we were told it was a 50 hrivna cover. Three out of four of us balked and the assenter, Sean, wanted to do a little pre-party in the street to save some money, so we walked to buy him a beer and us vodka before we parted ways. Normally my luck holds strong in such regards, but in this case it was Sean’s. He went back while we went to the metro and it turns out the bouncer was not at the door. He walked in for free. Must be the luck of the Irish.
Except Sean is Jewish.
Yes, I do suppose their could be Irish Jews. Nitpickers.
Inside O'Briens, with the bouncer who wouldn't let us pass without paying 50 hrivnas
Anyway, this left me back at the hotel with two girls and a bottle of vodka to kill between us.
That, my friends, is the luck of the Cubans.
NOTE: I am not saying I had a hot, drunken threesome at the hotel. I’m just implying it.
Actually, we just stayed up until three AM talking about race relations, which is a good topic for an African-American, an Iranian-American and a Cuban-American to get into.
I’m not sure whose luck that is.
Onward: the next morning was also spent at the computer, this time getting all the handouts ready for the Across Ukraine run meeting, which went really well. The night was more interesting, as it was one of dancing with old women under the streets of Kyiv and fist fights with fire twirlers.
We were walking on Krechatic when a guy started a fire twirling act. I went to pull out my video camera, realized it wasn’t in my bag, and was frantically searching for it when Jon said he remembered seeing it back at Peace Corps office. Sean offered to accompany me there and on the way back, camera now safely with me, we ran into Kyiv’s weekly senior citizen dance party (no, it's not really called that), which takes place Friday and Saturday night in an underground crossing.
The Senior Citizen Dance Party
A tradition for forever, a small band (that night it was an accordion player, a tambarine player and three female singers) will put out a hat to collect for donations and then start to play. To their music, a group of people with a median age of 65 begins twirling around in ballroom steps.
Sean nudged me while I was filming and asked if he should ask an old lady to dance.
There just happened to be one watching just five feet from us.
“Yeah, go ask her,” I said, nodding.
“Think she’ll say yes?”
“Of course.”
He went over, and she said no.
When he came back, dejected, I said, “Try picking one already dancing,” motioning at two 60 year-old women twirling with each other.
“Let’s pimp this together,” he said. Those who know Sean will know this is an exact quote.
So I stashed my camera, took off my jacket and followed him onto the floor. The shorter of the two ended up in my arms, head at my sternum and pressing herself sexually-close against me. This wasn’t any ballroom dance I knew, but some pattern of Soviet steps that changed every eight counts. It’s a little awkward to dance with a sextegenarian’s knees between yours and trying to pick up a new set of steps every few seconds. Still, it was fun, and we parted at the end of the song.
I was just picking up my jacket when the same old lady grabbed my arm, pulling me back onto the dance floor for the fast song that had just started. Everyone was bouncing around in a step-step hop that never changed, meaning I could ignore my feet and have fun bouncing around with this old woman who had more energy than I did, spinning herself as our shoulders see-sawed to the rhythm and the whole crowd rotated in one big circle under the streets of Kyiv.
It was damn cool.
We got back to the fire twirler and the friends we left behind to find the fire twirler sitting against a wall and the crowd gone. This is second-hand from those who witnessed it, but apparently while the fire twirler was twirling his fire, a drunk guy had jokingly acted like he was stealing the hat that had been set out to collect money. He had dropped hat, spilling the bills and change. The drunk, embarrassed, pushed the money into a pile but didn’t put it back into the hat, which the angered fire twirler then commanded him to do.
The drunk guy yelled back and the-ahem-fiery confrontation could have ended there when the drunk guy’s friends grabbed him and pulled him into the crowd. Only the fire twirler ran into the crowd after him, fists flying. It was his two fists against eight, though, as he soon found that the drunk guy’s four friends repeatedly punching him. He was on the ground getting kicked when the crowd pulled the friends off the fire-twirler, letting him escape back into the open space encircled by the crowd. In revenge, the fire twirler picked up the bottle of flammable liquid that he had used in his act and hurled it at the friends. I’m a little hazy what happened from there, but I think the cops became a part of it, and we only arrived to a quiet aftermath.
And that wasn’t the end of the night, although it was decidedly more sedate from there as we went to a tiny, smokey club that has live music and spent a couple hours listening to an orgasmically good jazz band.
The jazz band
And that was the weekend.
Oh, wait, there was also the following morning: walking in on Sean and Mike’s Brokeback Mountain moment and also walking through the massive political rally that is central Kyiv.
Sean and Mike
Just a small section of the hundreds of political tents set up
A paradoy that included Putin
Not sure which was the worst example of tawdry exhibitionism.
But that’s another story.