Attack of the Ukrainian Babucias!

une, 26, 2007
I’m sorry if it seems like forever between each of my postings. I am finding it harder and harder to get access to the internet. I am now in my new site and have been for about 4 days. It is quite a strange experience walking around town and knowing that this is where I will be living for the next 2 years. Sometimes that thought is very exciting and sometimes it seems unbearable. Tomorrow I will be attending the graduation ceremony for all of the 11form students at my school. My host sister is among the graduates and she is just walking on clouds right now. She has been quite a big help in getting me used to the are. We have taken some walks together and she is making a point of introducing me to her friends. Yesterday evening I got stranded on a porch in the rain with her and two of her friends so I could begin the story like this. A Russian, a Ukrainian, a Jordanian, and an and American were having a cigeratte(I wasn’t smoking but many of the men here do)…It sounds like a bad joke but is was actually a very interesting conversation. Both of the young men we talked to knew enough English to be dangerous and knew Russian so using a mix of their Russian and English and my Ukrainian and English we were able to cover a variety of topics. I find it interesting that every person I meet asks me if America is better then their country. I always simply say, they are just very different which becomes more and more apparent the longer I stay here.
I have discovered, with no little fear, that almost everyone in my village speaks only Russian. My Babushka takes me out to sit with her and chat will all of the other babushka’s and many of them have never in their lives spoken Ukrainian so instead of me understanding 1 out of every 30 words it is one out of every 45. I think I have understood maybe 3 sentences that have come out of my Babushkas mouth, after that I have to rely on Charades. That being said, quite a few people get a real kick out of the fact that an American is learning Ukrainian. I am just going to really need to hit the books in order to know enough Ukrainian to understand their Russian. I think after several months I will start hitting the books for Russian as well. One thing at a time though. Speaking of time…I spoke with my coordinator today and she let me know that after graduation everything is finished, there are no more rest/summer camps and there are no summer classes so I am at loose ends. Her exact words were, “I get a rest so why don’t you”? I am going to get together with her twice a week to “learn Ukrainian” but I am not really sure what she means by that. I don’t think it involves a classroom setting because she told me to bring my swimsuit. It should be interesting. I will need to look up how to say “I’m drowning!” in Ukrainian. When I asked if there was anything I could help with during the summer she simply said that they expected me to settle in. The only problem is that I am terrified at the prospect of having nothing to do for the next 2 months. I am lonely and homesick now and at the moment don’t have any friends to “hang out with” although the dogs and cats in Ukraine are friendly. I am afraid that I will become that weird creepy American that is always moping about. On the up side, I got the grandma’s helping me find my own apartment and it looks like they may have already found one. These women can be a force to be reckoned with. Then I can be the weird creepy American moping about in her own apartment.
June 29th 2007,
Who needs German Shepard’s when you have Ukrainian Grandmothers?
In my new host family I have a Babycia who the entire family affectionately calls Ba. She is a wonderful women, she continuously tried to communicate with me even when I understood non of her rapid fire Russian (I learned Ukrainian). She constantly includes me in on everything that she does including cooking and working in her very large garden and she has made my transition into my new host family much smoother. She even helped me relocate the hamsters that I was sharing my room with when I confessed to her that they were keeping me up all night with their constant Russian squeeking. I love my Ba and my Ba loves me. In fact, she is caring to the point of being slightly ridiculous. Allow me to explain, I went for a walk to get to know my town and was gone about an hour. As I get back, Ba is just leaving to come looking for me, fearing that I had become lost. There are several other instances I could name but here is the best. I attended the graduation of my host sister Alina. Graduating from high school is one of the biggest events in a Ukrainians life, many of them never go to college so high school is a big deal. The girls dress in ball gowns the men in suits and there are singers and dancers. They put on a wonderful show. The graduation finally ends and one of the English teachers at the schools mentions that she has internet access if I would like to take advantage of it. You see, the kids were now going to Kharkiv to party and wouldn’t be back to my site until later to continue the party at the school until around 11:30 or so when the fireworks began (I told you it was a big deal). I turn to tell Ba that I will not be going home with her because I need to feed my pathetic internet addiction and I have found a local dealer. Concerned she takes this teacher aside and speaks rapidly to her for several moments. The teacher looks at me surprised and says, “she doesn’t think you can get home by yourself, do you know the way?”. I look at her, a little stunned, the town I am in has a little more then twice the number of students I had in my high school. You could blindfold me and drive me to an unknown location in the town and I could still find my way home as it only has one main street.
I said, “I think I can manage”
Ba says, “but it will be dark!”
“I am aware of that Ba.”
“What if you get lost?”
“I can follow the train tracks home” (you think I am joking but I really could)
“What if you get hit by a train?”
“I’m pretty sure I will here it coming Ba.”
“do you have a sweater?”
“I’m wearing it Ba”
Etc…
She wouldn’t let me go until the teacher agreed to find someone to drive me home after the party. I had to show her that I had the address written down on a pad in my purse.
The rest of the evening goes well, I feed my internet addiction and got to know one of my new coworkers better and we head back to the school to celebrate. Now it is tradition in my village that the graduating students party until the early morning and then go to the lake to watch the sun rise. To keep it somewhat safe the school holds the party at the school itself to make sure things don’t get out of hand. So I could have been out very late indeed. It got to be around midnight and , exhausted from using Ukrainian all day I decide to call it a night. The teacher finds me a ride home (it was the cousin of the son of somebody’s teacher etc…) and I head down the hill to my host families apartment. I approach and I see two shady looking characters in long coats standing in the rain right outside the entry to my apartment stairwell. With all of my Peace Corps safety training in mind I think of my options. I think about waiting until they leave but decide that they don’t look any more threatening then staying in the dark in the rain next to the train tracks. I go in for a closer look to assess the situation. It turns out that it is Ba and she has enlisted some of the other grandmothers in the building to wait with her until I came home. They have all been standing in the rain, probably since it got dark, waiting for me to come home. Please remember that I could have stayed out until the next morning but decided not to. I am escorted by this small army of grandmothers to my host families flat and chattered at in Russian by these tiny wrinkled women with head scarves and slippers on about the rain, and the cold, and why aren’t I wearing two sweaters. I am promptly given hot tea and put to bed rather bemused and befuddled by the whole thing. If I had decided to walk home I bet she would have killed me. She didn’t bat an eyelash when my host sister returned how late the next afternoon. I still don’t know what to make of that.