Happy Birthday!

To me. All week I knew something was brewing. Despite falling dreadfully ill last Saturday night - I'll spare you the details - by Wednesday I was back at work, and it seemed to me that people were even nicer to me than ever. I also sensed (seems like "using the force" is something I'm getting very good at these days, since I understand next to none of the details) they were talking about me. My coordinator wouldn’t translate, and I felt a little slighted. What was all the fuss? Sheesh.

I got to find out! First, allow me to set the scene. For my birthday on Friday, Ukraine decided to present me with an icy-cold, snowy morning with no electricity or running water for the first time at my site. Gee, and imagine that I’d been counting on a shower as I hadn’t washed my hair in over three days! On top of that, I’d slept fitfully the night before. I tried vainly to make myself look decent, “disguising” my greasy hair with a ponytail and headband, and applying a little mascara and powder over the deep hollows of my eyes. It’s so funny. I feel like I looked like a zombie clown, but all the teachers told me how much more beautiful I looked than normal, just because I’d put on a little eye makeup. Yes, the conditioning runs very deep here.

Well, after the fourth lesson, my coordinator, Tatiana, and I set out to buy the cake for my party (traditionally, the birthday person buys something to eat for the guests). Another teacher, Lena, called us back. “Your host dad, Kostya, is on his way and he’ll take you for the cake,” she said. “It’s too cold out to go yourself.” She was right, sort of: it was minus 20 degrees Celsius, about negative 11 Fahrenheit. Brrr!

So my host dad pulls up to school, and the teachers start unloading the car. What? This was news to me! A train of people unloaded box after box full of plates of food. As I joined in, with a giant box dripping mayonnaise down the front of my coat, I slowly realized that my host family had been feeling me out about my birthday plans all week. And I thought I’d gotten off scott-free simply by being evasive. They’d sort of ask me what I wanted to do the next weekend and I'd sort of provide some non-answer. What I wanted to do? I wanted to move into my own apartment! It had seemed imprudent to reply this way to their kind inquiries at the time, so I had mumbled something in response, making sure to include the word “galubsie”, as that’s my favorite dish, just in case.

Left to take matters into their own hands, my host family provided an incredibly over-the-top extravaganza for the 16 teachers that would attend my little celebration. There were roasted beef and mushroom foil packets with melted cheese and gravy in them; cornmeal baked fish fillets; breaded fillets of chicken with sliced pineapple and melted cheese; three kinds of salads, including crab, olivie (the pickle, peas, hardboiled egg, and mayo specialty of Ukrainian parties), and a tasty apple and chicken salad; and the Amazing Fish, bigger and more impressive than ever. My eyes were popping.

As the school gradually emptied of students, teachers came into the freezing little “cabinet” where we normally take our lunches on the second floor. At the sight of the spread in front of them, they were stunned. “I have SHOCK. Shock!” said Marina, the events director, pressing her hand to her bosom in astonishment. My director was presented with a liter-sized bottle of vodka. There were two other half-liter bottles already in service, and a sweet white wine, and when that ran dry, a partially-consumed bottle of chardonnay was produced from somewhere in a teacher’s desk.

I was a little surprised myself. Extravagant doesn’t do it justice. Having slept poorly the night before, I had been outwardly numb, albeit happy, and sort of just trying to get through the day – every time I turned around a teacher or student, even the ones I didn’t know, were congratulating me in an enthusiastic mixture of Russian, Ukrainian, and English – but inside I felt truly overwhelmed by my host family’s display of kindness, not just toward me but toward my whole school.

When everyone was finally assembled, my director presented me with a single long-stemmed pink rose and a chainik, or 2-liter water boiler. These little pots are as ubiquitous in the electronics aisle in Ukraine as toasters are in the U.S., maybe even more so. I was very pleased, as my new apartment comes with a gas stove for which I have to buy the gas in canisters, making boiling water an inconvenient task, to say the least. They also gave me 100 grivnias, as they put it, “to buy tea for your chainik!”

Toasts were toasted, the feast was consumed, decimated rather, and everyone got jolly. One of the zouches (vice-principals, but doesn’t “zouch” describe that position much better?), Alexey, made the sweetest toast I’ve ever received. Translated (I didn’t understand it at first), it went something like this: “Let’s drink to this exotic flower that’s landed in our garden, to ensure she blossoms more beautifully than ever in her Ukrainian life.” This blond, blue-eyed, middle class Minnesotan has never felt exotic in her life. I was touched. Exotic flower! Me!

And that’s the way it’s done here in Ukraine. Getting tipsy with your friends at work, toasting, laughing, feasting, sitting all crammed together in a tiny, freezing room, and living life to its fullest. This exotic flower has landed in the fragrant garden of life, surrounded by blossoms of love and friendship, and the growing season has just begun.

Making Monkey Faces

When was the last time you had the giggles? Gut-busting, goofy - "I can't breathe!" - fantastically silly giggles?

Living with a 12-year-old, I've witnessed more than my share of giggle fits in the last two months, but I seldom joined in. Maybe it was the stress of moving and adjusting to new places, new faces, new workspaces. Maybe it's my home life, which has been challenging me to be a very patient, flexible person these days. Whenever the seemingly unremitting laughter would break out afresh, I generally grumbled to myself, "Damn! Is this what my mother had to put up with when I was 12? She should be made a saint!"

Then, one night, Friday night, my birthday night, to be exact, that all changed. I was hanging out with Nastya (on the left), Oxana (on the right), and Yulia (not pictured) in Nastya's room. We were knitting and just sort of lounging around. The little girls were taking turns making faces at each other and trying to make each other laugh. Good fun. My ears were ringing with the natural mirth of youth.

In fact, it suddenly reminded me of a little game my brother and I used to play called "Monkey Face". It's not a very complicated game, really. It consists of staring very seriously at one another with one's lips pooched out. The point is to laugh last. I quickly explained the rules of this game to the girls, and a new era in giggling had begun.

For the rest of the night, they played Monkey Face (we're talking hours, here). Every time the game ended, they begged me to join in. How could I resist? I'm not ashamed to say that I giggled like a 12-year-old. Then, the next morning at the breakfast table, I caught Yulia's eye, made the Monkey Face, and it was all over. Even my host dad joined in (behind my host mom's back, which was even funnier). My host mom kept muttering, "Quiet, girls. Quiet at the table," and when her back was turned, my host dad would make the Monkey Face and the room would ring with peals of laughter, mine included.

Laughter, the elixir of life. Thanks to my little brother, when life gives me lemons, I've got a Monkey Face to make.

Time Management

Time flows, runs, drags, stops, blinks - and I'm caught in the middle like a helpless fly on its back. That buzzing sound? It's me, trying to wing my way back on top of life.

Not that I'm not getting anything done, because every day I seem to work, eat, sleep, and work some more. But I can't escape the feeling that I'm just running around in these absurd little circles, made all the more bizarre by the fact that I understand only a tiny fraction of what's going on around me. I blame my apparent inability to DO on everything from my host-family living situation to my lack of language skills, from my definite amateur status as a teacher and organizer to a steady winter diet of potatoes, eggs, bread, and chocolate. If I only had some vegetables to eat, I'd be fine!

But ideas are forming, that's true. The slow drip in the cavern of my mind is starting to create delicate little stalactites clinging from the rafters, inching their way into the space of my daily routine. I've just got to let go and not touch, just let myself trust in the process that I've started. To tell myself: these ideas will continue and grow and someday sparkle in fruition.

I just need to believe the whole thing won't cave in before that happens.

Time Management, Part II

Today was a blast of bright sunshine. I was running late this morning, as usual. A recurring theme in my life. I've been pretty good about managing this tendency up until the last few weeks, when a vague seasonal/situational lack of zest has overcome my senses. The snooze button is all too comforting a friend, so I end up rushing when I could have been strolling, stopping to smell the...chickens, as it is here.

Anyway, this morning was lovely, despite my lateness-induced semipanic. The sun was high and the sky was blue, and not only that, I was wearing my brand new Ukrainian suit and sure to get plenty of compliments when I got to school. I looked sharp, as only Ukrainian women can: a short, pleated skirt and matching petite jacket, hooked up with incredible Ukrainian pantyhose. Seriously, I have never enjoyed wearing hose until today. The top has an extra-wide band so it doesn't pinch or roll. They were sheer yet thick. Supportive without cutting off any circulation. They didn't fall down or scrunch. I actually felt feminine. I imagined my legs were the legs of a supermodel. Killer gams. It helped me with the power walk, as I tried to cover 30 minutes in 20.

I was a mere three speed-walking minutes away from school at 10:26 when I ran into my director. Blast - my luck! She was headed the other way to the center of town. She stopped me in my tracks, gently grabbing my hands with her soft, grandmotherly ones. She shook them with each congratulatory phrase, declaring the holiday a perfect day, a happy day, full of love and happiness. "To the holiday!" she crowed, pleased as punch. I felt comforted by her cheer and good natured words, as always tinged with the tiniest bit of something mischievous, but I felt guilty, too, and wanted to run as fast as I could to get to school by half-past 10.

Not so fast. A few steps behind her, on their way to school, was a pretty blond teacher and the school librarian. They stopped, turning back, when they heard Lyudmila talking to me, and appropriated me for the rest of the walk to school. "I'm late," I desperately intoned, smiling and trying not to look too worried. "So am I!" trilled the teacher. The librarian joined in her light, easy laughter. As the ladies had hemmed me in on either side and were solicitously asking me simple questions appropriate to my childlike language skills, I felt trapped in the sticky Ukrainian honey of time and its management. In the end, I made it to school at 10:32.

Late or not late, it doesn't seem to matter. In the long run, as several of my students have written in their journals, life is for living. Seize the day. Live the moment. Don't worry about it. And anyway, as my teacher friend explained, "The students are late, too. And they'll probably like it!" Be a little bit naughty, her sparkling eyes said. The weather is good. We are young, and healthy. We only get this chance once.