Happy Christmas Eve! It was a bit strange. On the night of
the 5th, I went out with Alex for mineral water. He told me that he
was actually born in New York and goes there often to visit his parents. He
claims that he is learning Georgian and Russian, and so hasn’t learned English.
I’m not sure how much of this I believe, but it was nice to be able to
converse. He said he was leaving for New York the next day, and I told him that
I would be leaving for Kiev zeg. Then he pulled out some home-make cognac (this
is normal here) and insisted that we make the traditional 3 toasts. I agreed,
so we toasted to our countries, to each other, and to our travels. The cognac
wasn’t strong—I didn’t feel a thing—but I don’t think it was ready for
consumption. It knocked me off my feet for the whole next day and night…
Between the homemade drinks, unrefrigerated leftovers, and mystery fish, I’ve
been sick more this holiday that I’ve been in my life. Maybe my stomach will
come out of this year a bit stronger. I can only hope, right?
I forced myself to go to Keti’s puppet show rehearsal on
Friday, thinking that I could lie down until it was time to record my lines.
Instead, everyone tried to feed me and then I sat with them while they
practiced the opening a few times. I felt a little dizzy and so decided to go
sit outside where it was cool until they needed me. When I got outside,
however, I had a searing pain in my side which was so sharp that it made my
eyes water. A few other cast members came out and were alarmed. They had me
follow them back into the rehearsal room, and I laid down by the fire while
they debated what to do with me. One woman covered me in jackets while another
protested that I had a fever and so shouldn’t be kept warm. I tried to explain
that fevers are ok because they’re my body’s way of burning off toxins. The
ever-loving Georgian women were very worried. They suggested everything from
water with apple-cider vinegar to an ambulance and emergency injections to cake
and vodka. I think they’re trying to kill me. One of Keti’s friends is a
doctor. She said that my gall bladder is in the process of becoming Georgian.
She gave me a strict diet (which I was so grateful for) (//which Keti and the
doctor’s husband immediately tried to convince me to break) for the next three
days. Boiled potatoes and porridge. Hot water 20 minutes after every meal. No matsoni (raw yogurt) or “savory foods”
or fried things or coffee or tea. And she gave me the names of two Russian
medicines to pick up from the apotheka. Abebi
for Abi(bi). Abi is Georgian for
“pill” and Abibi is Arabic for “my
love” (though I think it’s usually male…).
Our Nona works at the apotheka, so off I went to see Nona.
She gave me different dosage instructions for the medicines than the doctor
did, but at least I know I have the right ones. Even as my Georgian gets
better, buying candy and medicines is still difficult because the labels are
all in Russian.
When this Kiev trip was being planned, I decided to fly out
the 8th so that I would be home for Shoba, Georgian Christmas, on the 7th. James and I found
a late flight for me so that I could take a marshutka in the morning and go
straight to the airport…but I should know better than to plan things myself.
When I got home from the puppet show rehearsal on Friday, Eka informed me that
she had planned out my journey to Tbilisi for me. I would be leaving early on
the morning of the 8th via her uncle’s marshutka. When we were
approaching the city, her uncle would phone to her cousin’s husband, who would
then meet me at the sadguri. Giga,
Eka’s cousin’s husband, would then take me to his parents’ home and I would
stay overnight with them. Then, in the afternoon on the 8th Giga
would drive me to the airport. So much for being home for Shoba or having a few hours to explore Tbilisi. People here tend to
be surprised that I as a young woman would travel alone and go so far from my
home. They are surprised that I’m here. They are surprised that I’ve lived
abroad before. And they are surprised when I do things like arrange to fly solo
to Kiev. Eka is a little horrified—and she told me that she feels much better
knowing that I’m being cared for by her family members en route. Someday I will
have to get into Tbilisi by myself for a tourist trip, but for now I do enjoy
spending time with her family. And spending time alone with them forces me to
practice speaking Georgian, so it teaches me a lot.
Friday night was Shoba’s
eve. Maguala boiled wheat (perchance with milk?) in celebration. At 9 pm,
we ate special bread with butter (Eka thus broke her fast) and we ate the
boiled wheat with ground nuts and honey. Before we ate the wheat, though, we
all laughed into the pot. If I understand correctly, this will bring happiness
to the family over the next year. They drank toasts to the family, and Eka
stuck lit candles to the 4 walls of the room and the street-facing window.
Meanwhile, children came to the house. Shoba’s
eve, children go door-to-door singing Alilo.
Neighbors (Jumberi and me in this case) then go outside and give them bags of
fruit and candy. The kids put the bags into a big sack, and at the end of the
night they divide the spoils. It’s a little like Halloween mixed with the old
version of caroling. We had 4 groups of children come by the house. I saw two
of my students, who were surprised to see me. Holidays are nice, but I do miss
those kids.
After our special meal, of course, we watched our soap
opera. This was a very big episode: an epic fashion-show faceoff. I wonder if
the Mexican producers knew that Georgian television station executives would
time the progression of the series so that this episode would double as an
advertisement for the Victoria’s Secret fashion show and the Miss Universe
competition…both of which will air over the next week.
Even with my medicine, I was wretchedly sick Friday night.
So instead of packing or sleeping then, I packed Saturday morning and then
slept on the marshutka ride into the city. Giga picked me up and brought me to
his parents’ home. It was an interesting set-up: one building had bedrooms, a
living room and a balcony, and then a second building had the kitchen, dining
room, and bathroom. Giga’s parents live there full time. His sister, her
daughter, and occasionally her husband live there, too. Then there’s Giga, Ia
and Nunsa, their daughter. And there was one older woman who is either Giga’s
grandmother or his sister’s mother-in-law (I’m not sure). I ate dinner with Ia
(Eka’s cousin) and her sister-in-law. Then, I played with Nunsa and Maria. My
Georgian is good enough that I can converse with small children. This may seem
like a silly thing to be proud of, but I am rather excited about it. We played
for a few hours and then we decided to go into the city center to see the big
Christmas tree. As we got in the car, Giga’s rather drunk cousin/neighbor
decided to come with us. Nunsa, much to our amusement, first told her young
cousin “Fuck you” in English (Ia to Giga: “Who taught her that?!?”) and then
informed this new arrival “You’re very drunk” in Georgian. I think Nunsa is 5
or 6 years old. It was priceless.
Then Zaza, the drunken cousin, learned that I’m American,
young, and unmarried. He immediately declared that I have eyes like stars,
causing Giga and Ia to burst out laughing. For the whole rest of the outing,
the two little girls enjoyed being adorable and sassy while Giga and Ia laughed
at Zaza’s attempts to convince me to marry him. The little girls got their faces
painted, had pictures taken with Tovli’s
Babua, went on a “sleigh” (Barbie jeep) ride, and jumped in a balloon
castle. We had a lot of fun. My sides hurt from laughing so much.
When we got home, we said good-bye to Zaza. For a while,
Giga and I played with the little girls. Similar to the way American parents
tell their children “I’ll send you to Timbuktu” or “I’ll sell you to the
gypsies” to threaten them into behaving, Georgian parents typically tell their
children “A wolf is coming to eat you.” Giga, however, tells Nunsa “I’m calling
the doctor. The doctor is coming for you.” As a result, the child is deathly
afraid of the doctor. She’s a diabetic toddler; they should be teaching her
that the doctor is her friend…
Giga left later, and I sat in the living room with the
grandparents and the children. There was this curious show on television that
some of my friends have told me their families watch together. One friend
described it as “family-friendly porn.” It’s a hidden-camera show where women
in everyday situations suddenly drop all their clothes. Then the camera shows
viewers the reactions of all the surprised men who pass by. Families watch this
show together: husbands and wives with their children and their parents…in this
case, the grandparents with their grandchildren. One of the little girls even
turned to me and said, “See how funny the men are!” I didn’t know what to say…
Later, I went to get ready for bed. I was sharing a room
with Nunsa and Ia. Giga sleeps somewhere else, but he wasn’t home yet. When I
walked into the room, Ia was crying. Nunsa’s sugars were dangerously low and Ia
couldn’t understand why. After waking Nunsa for some cola and candy, Ia turned
to me and said that she just didn’t understand why this had happened. I asked
if she has a good doctor. She answered ra
vitsi, “What do I know?” She explained that they’d had a bad doctor for two
years but that she thinks the one they have now it better. She is very careful
with Nunsa: the child is fed bread, cheese, yogurt, and fruit in carefully
measured portions at specific times of day. The parents understand that they
have to be careful with what Nunsa eats and that they have to test her sugars.
They understand that certain numbers are good and certain numbers are bad. But
I don’t think they understand how this illness actually works. I suggested to
Ia that Nunsa played and exercised a lot today but didn’t eat more than she
normally does. Ia asked ar sheidzleba? “She
mustn’t play and exercise so much?” I replied that she should play and exercise
but that when she is more active she should eat more. How has no one ever said
this to this family before? Of course one worries about a diabetic child, but
Ia would worry so much less if someone took the time to explain to her what
diabetes actually is. I explained how J brought fruit juice with her when we
were hiking around Berlin, and I suggested that juice would probably be better
than cola when Nunsa’s sugars drop. But what can I say more than that? What do
I know? I wish so much that I knew how to help.
Sunday
After playing with the little girls all morning, I looked up
at the clock and realized that it was time to be off to the airport. This was a
little startling because it both reminded me that I had only been with this
family overnight and it brought home the fact that I had tickets to fly to the
Ukraine. If you had asked me a week ago where in Eastern Europe I would be
visiting next, Kiev would not have been on the list. Ukraine scares me a bit:
between what I’ve heard about the sex-slave trade there and what I’ve been
reading about their politics, the country just doesn’t seem like one where I
would go for holiday.
But suddenly it was 4 o’clock and Giga was searching for his
car keys. We drove to the airport, and I was surprised when he pulled into the
regular parking lot instead of the drop-and-go lane. I was even more surprised
when he took my suitcase and came into the airport with me, through the first
security check-point and up to the check-in counter. I thanked him and said he really
didn’t have to trouble himself. His response was that I would be alone soon
enough and I would be alone for a long time so he wanted to keep me company as
long as possible. Sweet, right?
Eventually, though, we said goodbye and I headed to passport
control. Eka called for the 6th time since I left to see where I was
and if I was ok. I reassured her and then shut off my phone. I’ll admit, I was
a little relieved to finally be en route. I get nervous about new adventures
until I start moving. Once there’s no turning back, I’m fine. Next thing I knew
I was on a plane to Kiev. The magazine on the airplane was almost bilingual.
The articles were all in both Russian and in almost-English. I did rip out a
page of quotes that amused me. Hopefully someday I’ll be able to read the
Russian *crosses fingers and presses thumbs*
Usually, I’m not as down on airplane food and most people.
So long as I ask for the vegetarian option, the food is always stomachable.
This time, though, I opened the little lunchbox the stewardess handed me and I
almost laughed out loud. Aside from the bread, butter, chocolate, and meat
slivers, I had one olive, one tomato slice, two cucumber slices, and half of a
lettuce leaf. Who goes through the trouble to cut lettuce leaves in half for airplane
“salads”? I was pretty amused.
When I got to the airport in Kiev, my friend James was
waiting for me. As we walked to the bus that would take us to the city center,
he handed me a blueberry pastry. I should explain that blueberries have always
been one of my favorite fruits. When I was young, we had an elderly neighbor
whose blueberry bushes leaned over into our yard. As she hardly ever went
outside, she let us pick the berries and I loved her for it (and for a few
other reasons, of course).One of my favorite foods in the world is my mom’s
blueberry-peach cobbler. And now I’m living in a country where blueberries just
don’t exist. I had explained this to James a few weeks back, and when he saw a
blueberry pastry in a shop in Kiev, he remembered. Ra kargi bitchia!
We checked in at our hostel and then decided to go out
walking along the Kreschatyk, the main street in Kiev. It was about 8 pm, so we
couldn’t really see the buildings but we enjoyed people-watching and admiring
the holiday lights. At one point we walked through a group of tents with signs
and flags all over them. I found a sign in English which explained that the
demonstration had been organized by Tymoshenko’s party, “Batkievshchyna.” At first, James was
skeptical. He insisted that the people who had been there earlier were selling
cookies and sweets just like at the Christmas market across the street. Then we
found a second sign in English: “Thank you, people of Donbas, for the President
jackass!” This is a slogan that was started by soccer fans a few months ago.
There’s a huge story behind it, and I’ll write more on that next week when I’m
home with time to focus.
Anyway, we were also a little bit hungry, so we were looking
for some dinner. As we were looking around, we spotted a khachapuri shop. I pointed it out to James, and the shop-keeper
smiled in amusement. He greeted us in Russian, and James responded in Russian
but I greeted the man in Georgian. He switched into Georgian immediately,
called his wife to come meet us and asked us all about how we came to be in
Kiev. He was a student there in 1983 and just never left. After talking a bit,
we figured out that he’s James’s host-family’s uncle. Following this exciting
discovery, the man called to his family and Batumi and handed James the phone.
Imagine how surprised his host-father was to get that call! As the couple got
ready to close their shop for the night, they gave us fresh (and free and
delicious!) khachapuri and invited us
to their house for dinner tomorrow. We agreed and they wrote down their
address. Then we said good-night.
We wandered around on the Kreschatyk for a little while
longer, and then we went into a grocery store to buy fruit for tomorrow’s
breakfast. James spotted some cream puffs and got very excited. Apparently, his
grandmother used to feed him cream puffs when he visited her as a child. I was
in the Ukraine to see Kiev and keep him company; he was in Kiev in the first
place because his grandparents had emigrated from there. Originally he had been
hoping to find long-lost relatives, but when his parents wouldn’t help him and
he realized how huge the city is, he decided he would be satisfied to get
acquainted with his ancestral home. He was a little disappointed about not
finding his family, so finding the cream puffs made his night. And I was happy
for him.
Monday
After a slow (but happily fruit-filled) morning, we headed
out to see two of the main cathedrals in Kiev. Kiev is a pilgrimage destination
for many Orthodox Christians, because of the number of important cathedrals
located there. First we went to Saint Sophia. This was my first sight of an
Orthodox cathedral of this age and size. I was awestruck by the decorations
outside, but then we went inside and I was completely breathless. Mosaics, gilding,
and frescoes covered every surface. We tried to decipher the names of the
saints on the paintings and icons. There were also smaller exhibits in the
cathedral museum showcasing decorated eggs, amber jewelry, and mosaic work
salvaged from other cathedrals that had been bombed during WWII.
From there we walked to another cathedral, Saint Michael’s
of the Golden Domes. Outside stood a memorial to victims of Stalin’s famine.
There were also two large paintings of saints flanking the tunnel through the
bell-tower. Inside, the cathedral was again stunning. This one was not as big
or old as the first. It was destroyed in part during WWII, and then what
survived was razed by the Soviets as part of their anti-religion program. The
buildings we visited are reconstructions. Also unlike the first cathedral, this
one is still active. So I got a crash course in being a female tourist in Ukrainian
Orthodox churches. From Georgia, I already knew that I would be expected to
wear a scarf or cap to cover my head, and that when making the sign of the
cross I should use my thumb, index and middle fingers together to touch my
head, stomach, right shoulder and
then left shoulder. Unlike in Georgia, I didn’t have to wear a skirt in
Ukraine. Then James taught me (and I observed) that Ukrainian Orthodox
Christians bow upon entering and leaving their churches, and that I should do
the same.
By the time we finished in both churches, we were freezing
and it was starting to get late. We didn’t know exactly how long it would take
us to get to the Georgian’s house, so we left about an hour and twenty minutes
to get there. We walked a very very long way. To my amazement, we found their
apartment building and then were able to call up to their apartment…but no one
answered. We were a little late because we had gotten lost, but we weren’t any
later than people usually are when visiting in Georgia. We ducked into a market
to warm up, and we practiced reading labels in Russian for about 15 minutes.
Then we went back to their apartment and tried to call up one more time. No one
answered.
So we started on the long walk back, cold, disappointed, and
a little worried about how we would get in touch with this kind couple to
explain that we didn’t blow them off.
A friend of James’s had recommended that he go to a certain
restaurant to try traditional Ukrainian food. We decided to go there for
dinner. Upon arrival, though, we were surprised to find a menu of hamburgers
and salads. We did manage to order one Ukrainian dish. I’m not sure what it was
called, but here’s my guess at how it was made: mushrooms and cheese were
rolled inside slices of chicken. The chicken was then breaded (so presumably
coated in egg and then rolled in bread crumbs) and then the rolls were baked.
They were served with baked potatoes that had been carved into mushroom shapes,
with mayo “spots” on the “mushroom caps.” Yum…
As we walked back from the restaurant, we passed through a
small Christmas market. I spotted a trdlnk stand. Trdlnk is a special sweet
that I first tasted while living in Prague. It’s sweet dough that gets rolled
around something like a metal rolling-pin and then roasted. It’s best eaten
hot, coated with cinnamon-sugar and then sprinkled with nuts or chocolate
chunks. I left Prague thinking it would be years before I would have one again,
and here they were in Kiev. Needless to say, we joined the line so that we
could share a nut trdlnk on our walk back. It wasn’t quite hot, so I think
we’ll try again another day.
Tuesday
Today we went to a monastery complex that is one of the main
destinations for pilgrims to Kiev: Pechersk Monastery and Lavra Caves. First we
walked between two huge 18th century paintings and through the arch
of the bell tower. We walked to a Cathedral and were surprised to find that the
space inside was very small. The rest of the Cathedral was closed to visitors,
but the part we were allowed to see had a small brick chapel and then a
slightly larger room with icons and an alter-gate for Orthodox services. Our
guidebook said that the brick chapel was constructed at the behest of the
Virgin Mary herself.
As we tried to enter a few of the other buildings, we found
that the doors were always unlocked but the museums were always closed. We
would tentatively try the door, walk in to the building, and then encounter a
guard/hostess/cashier who would turn us away. One building did have a sign on
the door, but the sign said “Technical Break” so we figured that door was
broken and we entered through the other door. Inside, two women were sitting at
a desk eating, and they looked at us as if we were idiots for not understanding
their sign.
There were three other buildings open in the first part of
the complex. We explored a large Cathedral which was painted with dark,
somewhat art-nouveau-style images of angels and saints. Photography is
understandably prohibited in most of the cathedrals; however, in this one we
were allowed to take pictures for a fee of 50 grivna (about $6.25). For Christmas, there were
decorated trees and garlands around the room. Then there was a second room with
a small alter and an icon shop in it.
From there we went into a small building that used to be a
dormitory for monks. As we walked in, we entered a room with color photographs
of peasants and of Ukraine from the early 1900s. At the end of the room was a
large map of the Russian Empire. Of course, we found Georgia on the map and
looked to see which of the labeled cities we recognized. In the next few rooms
were military-related exhibits. There were uniforms, medals, photographs and
newspaper articles. More interesting for me was the last room. At the far end
of the room was a large black-and-white portrait of the Prime Minister Pyotr
Stolypin. He served under Czar Nicholas II and was assassinated
at the Kiev Opera House. James had bought us tickets to the opera, so we would
be sitting in the same theater that Stolypin was assassinated in
about 7 hours.
Another small building housed an exhibition of icons,
crowns, staffs and other items used by the patriarchs. Just outside that
building was a place from which we could look out over part of Kiev. I have to
say, the skyline from this point was not particularly beautiful. In the
foreground were the buildings from the lower section of the monastery. Behind
these towers and domes were trees and the large Mother Ukraine sculpture. To
the left, however, were the Dnieper River, island parks, and the smokestacks of
industrial Kiev. Saint’eresoa.
With everything else closed, we continued to the lower
section of the monastery. There were signs indicating that women should cover
our heads and wear skirts, and I worried about my jeans until I looked at the
other women visitors. A number of them were wearing jeans much tighter than
mine, which made me feel better. Though I know that a hat or even the hood of a
coat will suffice as a head-covering, I still feel uncomfortable wearing a hat
into a religious space so I pulled my scarf over my head and we walked into the
largest of the buildings.
These were the Lavra caves. It used to be that the monks
lived in these underground tunnels. Now, the bodies of Orthodox saints are laid
out there. They’ve been mummified by the naturally moisture-free atmosphere of
the tunnels, something that I hadn’t known when James told me we would be
visiting the monastery caves. At one point, someone held their candle too close
and lit a bit of her hair on fire. The smell of the burning hair hit me in the
same moment that I first caught sight of one saint’s mummified hands crossed
over his robe. While I knew, of course, that the black hands and the sudden
smell weren’t connected, something in my mind instinctually linked the two and
made my gut knot up.
When we emerged into daylight again, I felt a bit
light-headed. We decided that we wanted to stick to secular sight-seeing for
the rest of the day. We walked to the art museum that’s across the street from
the monastery, but it was closed. James knew of a large underground mall with a
bookstore in it, so we decided to go there to warm up. On the way we passed a
memorial park to victims of the Nazis. Since I’m fascinated by memorials, we
stopped to explore the park for a little while. When our hands and noses were
absolutely frozen, we continued to the bookstore. We searched for
English-language books and then ate a light lunch at a cafeteria-style
restaurant with Ukrainian food (no hamburgers there!). I’m not sure what
exactly we ate. One dish was something like a meatloaf with a hard-boiled egg
in the middle, and the other dish was a piece of chicken cooked with a tomato
and some cheese on top. We were just glad to be eating warm things after being
so cold all morning at the monastery.
After eating, we headed back to the hostel to change into
dress clothes. Before I arrived, James had met a friend who attends university
in Kiev. She told him how to buy discount opera tickets, and then they went off
together to see what shows were running. James saw “The Barber of Seville”
before I got there, but he said it wasn’t very good. Tonight, though, we went
to see Tchaikovsky’s “The Queen of Spades.” Marina, his friend who helped him
buy the tickets, came, too. She told me that she doesn’t usually like operas
but that she loves the architecture of the Kiev Opera House.
The performance was a bit long, but I really enjoyed it.
It’s all in Russian (it is based off a Pushkin story after all), so I couldn’t
understand a word, but I really enjoyed the music. James told me to listen for
the most famous aria from this show, which starts with the Russian for “I love
you, I love you excessively…” He also had brought an English translation of the
original story with him to Kiev, so I was able to read that before we went to
the show. This was fortunate in part because the story had been modified for
the opera. The opera version was supposed to be more melodramatic, with extra
romance and some “unearned” (to use James’s word) suicides. There was a rather empty
bit about a play-within-a-play, and the ballet breaks could have been shorter
since they didn’t help communicate the story at all. But for how the show was
written it was very well performed. We agreed that the cast did the best
possible job with it, and we also really liked the conductor.
We were hungry after the show, so we went to a coffee-house
where we split a panini and salad. I’m mentioning this because we were
overjoyed to find excellent feta cheese in the salad. After months of salty,
hard Georgian mountain cheese, I relished the different taste and texture of
this feta. I’m sure it sounds ridiculous…
Wednesday
This was a bit of a strange day. First we revisited Saint
Michael’s of the Golden Domes because we were thinking about buying two small
icons. I found a “Madonna with Child” one that I think my mother will like
(Surprise, Mom!), and James found one of three angels for himself. At first we
talked about looking for Saint George (Giorgi) icons, but then we decided that
we would wait and buy those in Georgia. From there, we walked to one of the
oldest parts of Kiev to admire ruins of building foundations and the oldest
lime tree in the city. The National History Museum is located in this area as
well. I was very curious to see how the Ukraine tells the story of their
national history. The doors to the museum were unlocked, so we followed a
mother and her child inside. No sooner were we in the main hall than a
uniformed guard barked at us that the museum was closed to visitors for the
day. We were confused. We knew museums were closed on holidays and Mondays. But
it wasn’t Monday, Shoba had already
passed, and Orthodox New Year wouldn’t be until Saturday. Our guidebook listed
one extra day each week that each museum was closed (usually Tuesday or
Thursday), but nowhere (even on the signs at the museums themselves) had we
read that the Art Museum was closed Tuesdays or that the National History
Museum was closed Wednesdays.
It was cold and we were a bit disappointed. As we walked
along a path that led through a sculpture park, James started feeling sick from
being so cold and my hands were numb, so we left the park for a bit and found a
coffee shop to warm up in. When he was feeling better and I had regained
feeling in my fingers, we went back to the park. There were giant mosaics loosely
based off “Alice in Wonderland,” a bench with metal hands supporting it, a
half-buried church, rainbow urinating babies, and several other curious works.
The park was set up so that it doubled as a playground. This meant that
children were climbing in the Cheshire Cat’s mouth and then running under the
arch created by the urinating babies. It was pretty amusing.
A path from the park led up a hill, down into a gorge with
many new-looking (expensive-looking, empty-looking) houses, up part of
“Andrew’s Descent,” and then up another hill. On that second hill, we were
expecting to find a few sculptures or even just a park. Instead, we found old
gravestones that had been broken and covered in graffiti. We wandered through
this graveyard and tried to guess what had happened there.
Unfortunately, we had to hurry away before we could fully
piece together the story of the place. We had met a man at the hostel who is an
English teacher at several private language schools in Kiev. In my program,
I’ve met a kind of people I didn’t know existed. These people travel around the
world teaching English for a living. They usually stay in a country for a year
or two, and they usually work for these “language school” businesses (think SAT
prep classes or “learning center” chains in America). It’s easy enough: you
don’t need many qualifications and there is always demand. It seems very
lonely, though, and I don’t think I would find it gratifying. One year in a
public school in Georgia I can learn from and I feel like I can give something
to my students. But ten years in corporate “schools” in different cities… I
don’t know how much personal growth I would find or how much use I would be to
the students.
The man we met in Kiev was one of these people who have made
a life this way. His heart’s in the right place, for sure, and I’m really glad
to have met him. He invited us to his classes and we told him we could attend
one this evening. When we left the cemetery, we headed to a metro and followed
his directions: sit in the back of the train so that you exit near the
staircase you need, look for the big rainbow shopping mall sign, enter the mall
and go to the third floor. Now I’ve seen a Ukrainian shopping mall!
We arrived a little early, so we sat in a bookshop until it
was time to go to the class. When we arrived at the school, we learned that our
friend hadn’t told his boss that we were coming. He took us into her office and
tried to convince her that we would be good for the students to practice
speaking with because our accents are different from his. His boss insisted
that there would be too many people in the classroom, especially since she was
planning to observe his lesson that day. James and I offered to take turns, and
so it was decided that I would sit in the hall for the first half of the class.
When I was called into the class, however, there were only about 20 minutes
left. Our friend the teacher was there with his boss, James, 10 students, and a
man I later learned is a professor from Mexico who was also supposed to be a
guest for students to practice speaking with. Maybe I agree with the boss that
this was a bit much. Our friend kept switching activities and making very
slang-filled jokes with the professor, so I don’t think the students got much
out of the lesson. It was interesting to see though. After the class, our
friend wanted to bring us to another school and then to a third tomorrow. While
he was out for a cigarette-break, we debated the best way to gently remind him
that we were on vacation and hoping to see some of the city. When we went to
join him outside, however, we found that he had already left, so no explanations
were necessary.
James had been talking about trying to attend a service at
Saint Volodymyr’s Cathedral after the lesson, but he became enamored with a
book on Kiev history that he found in the mall bookshop so we spent an hour
there instead. We did eventually go to the Cathedral, but it was closed by the
time we got there. We tried to get trdlnk again, but that didn’t quite work out
either. There was no line at the stand when we walked up, but there were fresh
trdlnks being taken from the roaster. We walked up and ordered a chocolate one.
The girl behind the counter said something we didn’t understand. The boy behind
the counter said “ten minutes” and then turned away. We didn’t mind waiting,
and as we stood there a line formed behind us. Then things got strange. The boy
started pulling the finished pastries off their rollers, and the girl added the
toppings and then put them into the baskets on the window. A man behind us
called to the girl and she handed him a fresh, hot, chocolate trdlnk and took
his money. Then a woman called to the girl and the same thing happened again.
Now there was only one trdlnk in the window, so James asked for it again and
held out his money. The girl shook her head and handed the pastry to a woman
behind us. We got frustrated and walked away. Maybe those people had ordered
earlier and so were technically in line in front of us? We decided that’s the
only explanation that makes sense…
Ukrainian is its own language. They have letters that don’t
exist in Russian, and I’ve found that Georgians will sometimes refuse to try to
translate a text if it’s in Ukrainian. This is silly, because the two languages
are very close...but it might have to do with national pride. The Ukrainian
economy is better than the Georgian economy, which doesn’t exactly inspire love
for the former country in the people of the latter. James looks Russian and he
speaks enough to use it for greeting people, ordering food and navigating the
city. I look…well…maybe sometimes I look vaguely like I could be from an
ex-Soviet country. Maybe. Anyway, usually people spoke to us in Russian because
of James, and the only time I was linguistically useful was when we were with
the Georgians. It felt strange to be dependent on someone else for
communications, and I did my best to learn to read so that I would at least be
able to use the metro without help.
When we got hungry, we started thinking about what kinds of
food we’ve been missing most. James lives in a city in Georgia, but even so
there are some kinds of food that one just can’t find. We debated: did we want
sushi? Tapas? French or Korean food? We decided we wanted Italian food just as
we spotted a restaurant named “Mafia.” I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.
We went in and found that the menu was half Italian food and half sushi. A
little strange, but we were so glad for green salad with balsamic vinegar that
we didn’t care. I had a hot chocolate and a cheese pizza. James had a beer and
lasagna. We were soo happy J
Thursday
We forced ourselves to get up early today so that we could
venture out to the open air “Museum of Folk Architecture and Everyday Life of
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.” What a name. People repeatedly
recommended that we go, but they warned us that we would be very cold. We
bundled up, but the weather turned out to be quite nice. I wish people had
instead warned us that the museum only partially operates during the winter.
Our guidebook’s directions instructed us to get off a subway at the end of the
line and then get on a bus. We discovered that three new subway stations had
been added since the publication of our book, so we studied a map and guessed
at an alternate route. We got off the metro at the new last station (which
still had balloons on the ceiling, so it must be very new indeed), and then we
caught a bus. The bus dropped us at the edge of a big field with a sign in
Russian saying “Museum, that way.” We walked about 15 minutes to the museum,
stopped to pray that this one was open, and approached the ticket desk. The
museum was open, and the nice lady at the desk sold us a map with English
labels. The museum is huge. Inside are different “villages” showcasing
traditional houses, schools, windmills, and churches from all the regions of
the Ukraine. There’s also a rather curious section that the woman called the
“Socialist neighborhood” which shows the kinds of houses built in the 1960s in
different parts of the country. During the tourist season, all of the buildings
are open and there are actors everywhere playing at the lives of their
ancestors. Because it’s winter, however, there were no actors and many
buildings were locked. We admired the exteriors and peeked through windows when
we could. In the very first cluster of buildings, we ran into some women who
were working as guides. At the first building we approached, the woman spoke a
little English and so she told us that this building was a peasant home from
the Khreschatyk village in the middle Dnieper region (I should have studied the
regions of the Ukraine!). At the next building, another woman began speaking
very quickly in Russian. I understood that one place was for livestock, that
one room was for cooking and one room was for weaving. I was waiting for her to
finish, because I figured that James would translate more for me when the woman
stopped for a breath. What happened instead left us a little embarrassed. The
first woman came in and stopped this new woman, explaining that we didn’t speak
Russian. The interrupted guide looked at us and said something to the effect of
“Why didn’t you say so?” in Russian. James answered that it wasn’t a problem
and that he could understand her, but she didn’t seem consoled. Then the other
woman tried to explain in English the history of the building that we were in.
She was struggling a lot, but she was determined to lead us through this entire
village reconstruction and teach us about it. I have to admire her
determination. At one point, I noticed that she was using German words when she
didn’t know the English ones. I mentioned that she could switch to German if she
wanted. My second chance to be linguistically useful. Hoorah.
The woman led us past a church, through a farmyard, into a
wealthy man’s house, and then into a church school. She explained that students
were taught only Russian, not Ukrainian, in this school. They studied reading,
writing, and the bible, and at some point girls stopped attending school
because they were at home learning to cook and sew. The teacher lived in the
school building during the school term, which was only in the winter because the
students were too busy helping their families the rest of the year. She then
led us outside. First, she showed us the priest’s house and instructed us to
look through his kitchen window (so that we could see the fine china and a
samovar on the table, showcasing his social status). Next, she gave me
directions for the most efficient and interesting foot-tour of the museum.
Finally, she suggested that we visit the working pub to have lunch and buy souvenirs,
and then she said farewell. We were delighted that she was kind enough to guide
us around for free, but we were also a bit glad to be on our own again. This
way, we could explore buildings closely and stop for pictures when we wanted.
We got into a debate about education systems and money as we
explored the rest of the museum. It was a bit of a heated debate, and we had
stopped talking by the time we passed a grouping of windmills, but then we made
up while having a picnic in the yard of a church from the Dorogynka village of
the middle Dnieper region. I mention this only because I often find myself
thinking about what the purpose of travel is and what kind of travel partner I
am/want. James and I did pretty well travelling together; when exploring a new
place, with limited time and money, and living in close quarters with someone
during this time, disagreements are rather unavoidable. It’s how we handle
these disagreements that matters. I need to be humbler, more patient, and more
communicative. Sometimes, though, I’m not sure how to go about changing in the
ways I know I need to. And these are the instances that I hope will teach me
and help me become a better person and friend.
About two hours after our picnic, we both noticed that dusk
was approaching. Our other destination for the day was Babi Yar (can I call
that a destination?), and we agreed that we wanted to be sure to get there
before dark. So we left the museum and walked back to our bus-stop. We caught a
trolley from there, but we weren’t sure how to pay our fare. Then a little old
woman barked at us in Russian and we gave her our ticket money. She gave us
tickets, but a few stops later she started yelling at us again. We had paid,
weren’t eating, weren’t smoking (duh), were sitting quietly and speaking in
whispers…we had no idea why she was upset. We were a little uncomfortable, and
I recognized the street we were on so we got off at the next stop. She was
still yelling as the doors closed behind us, and none of the other passengers
so much as blinked an eye.
While walking back to our metro station, we first passed a
huge convention center. We didn’t have time to visit, but our guidebook said
that the convention center grounds are considered a monument to Ukrainian
identity. Somewhat contradictorily, they house about 300 Soviet style
buildings. And the place is known for its impeccable landscaping. If I’m ever
in Kiev in the spring, you know where I’ll be. From there, we walked through an
underpass painted to celebrate "Euro 2012" coming to Kiev (which I’ll
write more about later…) and then up some very muddy stairs. This is
interesting only because I was deep in thought (James was humming to himself.
This was pretty normal for us.), slipped, and found myself falling on the
stairs. I wasn’t really hurt, but we were both a little startled. And I may
have mud-stained one of the two pairs of jeans that I brought to Georgia (bad
news since there’s a rip in the seat of the other pair). Oops.
Babi Yar is the name of a ravine where the Nazis carried out
mass executions of Jews. Later, communists and Roma were killed there as well;
however, the massacre of the Jews involved around 40,000 Ukrainian Jews being
killed over the course of two days. Now the area is a park. When we first
walked into the park, we noticed a very creepy memorial to the children killed
there. Further in the park, women were pushing baby carriages, a stray dog
tried to bite my boots, children were throwing rocks at an old building as a
game, and a man was peeing on a tree. The atmosphere was certainly not sober,
and we felt uncomfortable because of this. When we turned up the path to the
ledge above the gorge, we saw two memorials and momentarily felt better.
Shortly we found ourselves standing in front of a large menorah. James pulled
out the guidebook: apparently this memorial was erected in 2001 and is made of
plastic. Furthermore, the massacre of the Jews took place in November…not
during Hanukah. So why was the memorial a menorah?
We walked into the woods and encountered a large wooden
cross to the Christians who were killed there (interestingly erected before the
plastic menorah, according to our guide book). Then we found three metal
crosses with names painted on them, each for an individual killed at the gorge.
We looked out over the birch trees—which I will admit were beautiful—and I
wondered how many people had looked out over these same trees as they took
their last breaths. Or was it night or were they blindfolded or did they close
their eyes on the city that had now turned against them? I don’t know, but that
view was much more moving than any of the memorials. We stayed until the sun
began to set.
Once we were back at the metro, we decided to race to the
Museum of Eastern Art. We arrived and we overjoyed to find that 1) it was open
2) we were eligible for student admission. The ladies at the front desk didn’t
want to let us in. They kept saying that we only had half an hour until the
museum closed. Finally, I responded that we knew this perfectly well. We headed
upstairs to the permanent collection, which luckily was rather small. James
lingered with the Japanese paintings of actors in the first room as I continued
into the next room to admire Turkish tiles. I actually felt like I had enough
time to enjoy the collection, although I could always spend more time in such
places. I admired the Buddhist icons and the Hindu carvings, and then I headed
downstairs to the temporary exhibit. This was really interesting. It showcased
textiles from Uzbekistan. Most of the textiles were “suzani.” These are large
tapestries traditionally given to a bride for her new home. The designs contain
carefully planned out patterns of symbols for protection and fertility. The
pieces were colorful, with strong lines and intricate patterns. I loved them.
The exhibit also had a lot of information in English, which I was grateful for.
James and I stayed there until the museum closed.
We had found a restaurant that advertised old traditional Ukrainian
food, and so we decided to try to find it. When we walked in, we found
ourselves in a huge space with a carving of the pagan god of creativity. The
hostess encouraged us to tie ribbons around the carving so that he might grant
our wishes. Then she showed us the library and the pastry counter, the souvenir
shop with handmade dolls and ceramics, the coatroom where we exchanged our
coats for walnuts she had painted gold, and then finally the upstairs where we
would be eating. The seats were covered in sheep skins and our dishes were all
ceramic. I ordered honey wine (which I love) and it came in a horned goblet. We
ate dumplings and borscht and “pancakes” and oats. James bought me a good-luck
doll that was made without any “trauma” to the fabric (i.e. no cutting or
poking with a needle). It was an excellent meal. We had a really pleasant and
relaxing last night.
Friday
Yikes. James didn’t want to get up in the morning. He was
upset when I tried to wake him and then when he finally got up he was upset
that I didn’t wake him earlier. My exasperated “What do you want from me then?”
put both of us a bit on edge, and then he checked his email. After Kiev, he had
planned to visit a friend who is a Peace Corps worker in Moldova. She had told
him that this would be fine, but then she hadn’t answered any of his emails
since, so he was nervous that he would get to Moldova and have a week there
totally alone. So as I packed up our hostel room, he checked his email. There
was nothing from his friend in Moldova, which worried him, and there was also a
note from our program informing him that his host family “wouldn’t be able to
host a volunteer” next semester and so his school director (who isn’t pleased
about the implementation of English as a mandatory second language and so wants
nothing to do with James) had been charged with the task of finding a new
family for him. Yikes.
So our morning started out pretty rough. We didn’t really
talk as we went to Saint Volodymyr's Cathedral one last time and, because it
was open, explored its beautiful interior. I’ve been reverent during all of our
Cathedral trips, but this was the first time I found myself praying as
fervently as the Ukrainians who were there. I prayed for my students and
myself, of course, but most of all I prayed that things would work out for
James, because there was nothing I could say or do to help him.
From there we went to the funicular and we took that up to
the National History Museum. Again it was closed. I laughed and he signed and
we decided that we would just go souvenir shopping because we were near “Andrew’s
Descent” (the street for souvenirs) anyway. Shopping cheered him up a bit. We
found eggs, matrushkas, amber, and many
other things. I bought a magnet for my host family and some painted wooden
ornaments for myself. James bought a few small things, but then he also bought
a black, furry, Russian military hat. It looked awesome on him and silly on me,
so we amused ourselves by photographing each other wearing it.
Our energies were much better by then. As we walked to the footbridge
across the Dnieper and then around an island park, we discussed James’s
situation. He tried to think about what he might have done to offend his
family, and I tried to convince him that—while reflecting on how to improve for
next time is always a good idea—evidence pointed to the family not wanting a
volunteer next semester for personal reasons, not because of anything he did or
didn’t do. Then we talked about our program in general and its mission: whether
it wouldn’t be more effective to run English immersion programs for teachers
over the summer, and what kind of information host families should be given
before their foreign guests arrive (because we get training but it’s been
reported that no one prepares the host families to expect women who play football
or men who do their own laundry). Finally, it started getting dark and we
realized we had to head to the airport. We picnicked on the last of our bread
and cheese, picked up our bags from the hostel, stopped in a shop to buy
chocolate and perfume for my host family, and then headed to the airport bus.
As we walked to the bus-stop, a Ukrainian police officer stopped me and
insisted that I let him carry my suitcase the rest of the way. Then he and his
friends teased James (who had his own bags to worry about) about not being
enough of a gentleman enough to carry his lady’s bags. This was especially
funny because they thought I was the mistress of this Russian gentleman who
couldn’t be bothered to help me. They were wrong on so many counts that the whole
scenario was wonderfully hilarious.
Before long, I had said goodbye to James and to Kiev and I
was marto on my way home.
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