They call this spring?

It’s snowing today. Geez. You can imagine, I’m sure, my disappointment.

My colleague, Sergei, and I are going to a weekend seminar on developing tourism in Ukraine, and it’s being held at a campsite in the forest north of Kiev. As I packed last night, I threw in a short-sleeve shirt “just in case.” So, I’m hurriedly re-packing this morning, swapping the cotton socks for wool ones, t-shirt for sweatshirt.

Sergei has assured me the cabins where we’ll be staying will be heated and are well-equipped for all “usual services.” He specifically pointed out that the toilets are, indeed, indoors. I curious to see what this place really turns out to be, and I have my suspicions about the quality of the infrastructure, especially since the nearby village I visited last week has no connection to the natural gas lines and no running water. Well, as usual, I’ll be quite overpacked compared to my Ukrainian colleagues, but I’m going to shoot for “better safe than sorry” today, and plan for the most basic of conditions.

It’s a pity about the weather, though, as we had all been looking forward to a lot of time outdoors this weekend. Sergei is an enthusiastic outdoorsman, and has been talking all week about his fishing plans after the meetings. I wonder if he likes to ice fish, too?

Language Lessons

I started Ukrainian lessons last week. Mietek, Yugesh and I are taking a 40-hour course together. The teacher promises to have us speaking as well in Ukrainian as we do in Russian by the end of June, although we have our doubts about that. Mietek and Yugesh have it a bit easier than me. Mietek has several advantages: (a) his native Polish is a Slavic language and therefore has many similarities with both Russian and Ukrainian (and is especially close to Ukrainian, as luck would have it), and (b) his Russian is practically native-speaker level. Yugesh has a head start because he’s lived here almost 2 years already, hearing Ukrainian both on the job and outside of work. If I can reach a level where I understand 90%, instead of the current 40-60%, of the Ukrainian spoken around me, I’ll be happy. If I can manage to carry on a simple conversation in Ukrainian, I’ll be delighted.

Our first lesson involved a review of the Ukrainian alphabet, which is somewhat different from the Russian. There are a few additional letters, a few others are absent, and, just to make sure it’s really interesting, a few letters look the same but have completely different pronunciations. Great!

This week’s lesson was conducted almost entirely in Ukrainian, and when we were all at a loss, our teacher reverted to Russian. This means I am learning a third language on the basis of my second language, which presents me with both extra opportunities as well as challenges. I’m hoping to improve and polish my Russian as the teacher corrects my pronunciation and grammar in both languages. I realized quickly though, that one of my biggest difficulties will be the fact that there are still many, many words I don’t know in Russian, and there were a number of times when I was pretty lost during the lesson. But, this, too, will be an opportunity to expand my Russian vocabulary along with my developing Ukrainian skills. I was pretty exhausted by the end of our 90 minute class (which followed a long work day), and that brought back reminiscences of some of those tiring language days in Peace Corps pre-service training. Man, I can’t believe I’m doing this again!

I tried out a “How are you?” phrase in the office the next day, which impressed my colleagues. Although I didn’t understand most of the responses, their smiles were enough for me. I received a fax in Ukrainian today from one of our regional coordinators, and I read it to Igor over the phone. He gave me a Ukrainian equivalent of “woohoo!” and told me I sound better in Ukrainian than in Russian. I highly doubt my accent is any less atrocious, but it made me happy that he was so pleased by my attempt.

Spring is in the air

Every blog I’ve glanced at lately seems to include a posting about how spring has arrived. I guess I should add one, too!

First, I forgot to add to my last post the podiobooks I’ve listened to lately. Scott told me about these when I was home, and I am thoroughly addicted already! I’ve listened to Brave Men Run, Matthew Wayne Selznick; The Curious Education of Epitome Quirkstandard, A.F. Harrold; and a collection of short stories called Voices: New Media Fiction, Mur Lafferty (editor). Also, I’m a subscriber to CookieCast, which is one of Scott’s fun little projects.

Spring made a brief, teaser appearance last week in Kiev. On Wednesday, March 29, it was in the 50’s here, beautiful, sunny, warm. Alessandra and I were visiting some youth centers in Ivankiv raiyon, about an hour north of Kiev, and you could tell the season was changing because we put our coats on to go inside the unheated buildings, and took them off when we went outside into the nice sunshine.

Thursday and Friday we were in Korosten raiyon visiting some sites, and both Alessandra and I had gotten so excited about the previous day’s warmth that we left at home our sweaters and wool socks. It snowed, of course. And not just a little bit – big wet flakes. At one point, driving to a remote village, it was like a “white-out” with the snow coming down so thick we couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead of the van.

The return of storks is a sign of spring and warm weather in Ukraine. This poor stork came back a tad too early, it seems.

Cultural Contrasts

The books I’ve read recently are: The Trouble with Testosterone, Robert M. Sapolsky; the curious incident of the dog in the night-time, Mark Haddon; Mary Called Magdalene, Margaret George; and The Last Secrets of the Silk Road, Alexandra Tolstoy.

Back to one of my favorite topics, cultural differences. Lately I’ve been “reliving” some of my own first impressions through the eyes of a new colleague in the main UNDP office here. Wesley and his wife Shelly, originally from Canada, arrived a couple months ago in Kiev. They had a housewarming party last weekend, for which they had spent the day shopping and preparing. We compared the prices the various party things to those we’d find in North America; mainly he was dumbfounded by the absurdly low price of alcohol here. A one liter bottle of vodka costs about $4-$5. Granted, that’s not the “top shelf” kind, but it’s about the average price for a decent label. How does that compare to a one-liter bottle of vodka in the U.S., eh? A bottle of beer in Kiev costs usually 50 to 75 cents. And they don’t sell them in 6 packs or cases. You buy glass bottles individually, or if you really want to economize, get the one or two liter plastic bottle for 2 bucks. You’re in the mood for wine instead? A decent bottle will cost you about $3. Says something, doesn’t it?

I’ve also had occasion to notice some changes in myself, some ways that I’ve adapted, I suppose. I laughed as I recalled for some Ukrainian friends how when I was home in the U.S. last month I walked up to the entrance of a store and stopped, waiting for the man behind me to open the door for me. It took me a second to realize that not only was he not going to open it for me, he was in fact waiting for me to open it (presumably since I’d gotten there first). In Ukraine, chivalry is most definitely not dead. Men always help women put on their coats, open doors, carry bags, and offer their hand to help a woman get out of the car. I have to admit, it’s nice. I don’t feel a need to prove my independence or abilities or strength as most men I’ve interacted with have a genuine respect for women. They don’t offer their hand or open the door or carry the bag because they think a woman is weak or helpless, but rather out of courtesy and even esteem.

Drinking water continues to be an amusing habit of mine, at least to my Ukrainian friends. Most Moldovans and Ukrainians I’ve met in the last year and a half drink very little water. Perhaps this is because the tap water is not particularly clean, perhaps it’s because the public toilets are often pretty gross and you don’t want to get caught needing one, perhaps it’s because the “8 glasses a day” message hasn’t hit here yet. I recall my host dad Georgi telling me once in Tvarditsa that I drank too much water; he actually believed it was detrimental to my health to drink a couple litres of water every day. One of my first interactions with my Peace Corp partner Donna was during the Site Team Conference, when all the PC trainees met with our soon-to-be partners for a 2-day conference. During lunch, she laughed at how all us Americans had the waiters running back and forth to bring bottles of water, as none had been set out for the lunch. That was one of my first cultural lessons on the Moldovan meal – they don’t drink (at least, not non-alcoholic drinks) with their meals. The lack of free clean drinking water in Kiev definitely affected my water-drinking habits for the worse, and I have been missing my Peace Corps-issued water distiller! I decided to bite the bullet, though, and start buying bottled water. Every day on the way to work I stop at a little shop and buy a 2-liter bottle of mineral water (cost: $0.56). The first week or so, I usually didn’t finish the bottle in one work day. Today, I had emptied it by early afternoon. My colleagues don’t pay much attention to my “weird” drinking habits, but I was reminded over the weekend that it isn’t a normal habit here. Igor made a crack during lunch about what an American I am, drinking water with a bowl of soup.

Work practices continue to be a source of major cultural difference for me. I’ve introduced into the local lexicon a rather poorly translated version of the phrase “like a chicken with it’s head cut off” to describe my perception of the chaotic work style here. Trying to introduce the notion of planning ahead will take a little more effort, I think. There is rarely a dull day, though, and for that I am grateful.