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.