We drove to Ivano-Frankivsk for Igor’s 10 year university class reunion. The education system in Ukraine is organized quite differently from most US schools and universities, and certainly very different from my own experience at Ohio State, one the largest universities in the US. In Ukraine, kids go through most of school with the same small group of classmates. When you enter university, you are also assigned to a group and you study with that small group of people throughout your five years of university. Students choose their department and major from the very beginning, so there isn’t the year or two (or three) for “exploration” that often occurs in US universities. Igor was in the history department, with a group of about 50 other students. So, over the course of five years, you get to know your classmates extremely well.
Igor hadn’t seen most of his classmates since graduation. A couple people he’s kept in touch with, including his roommate Sasha, who’s son is Igor’s godson. Sasha, unfortunately, wasn’t able to make the trip, but Igor was extremely excited to see the 40 or so people who were supposed to attend.
The drive was more of an interesting event for me, since I didn’t know any of the people who were attending the reunion. It rained most of the whole weekend, which made for a few stressful moments along the bumpy roads. Potholes are hard to spot when they are full of water and visibility is awful from the downpour! We had a couple scary moments clunking through some serious potholes, but thankfully the car seems to have suffered no serious damage.
One week after Orthodox Easter is “Memorial Day” or “Easter of the Dead”. In preparation for this day, you clean up the graves of deceased family members and put fresh flowers (usually bright artificial flowers, huge bouquets and grave blankets). On the actual day, you visit the graves of deceased relatives and honor the deceased, sometimes even having basically a picnic in the cemetery, toasting the deceased and leaving them “tokens” of food and drink (bread, colored eggs, special Easter bread “paskha”, candies). We were traveling back to Kyiv on Memorial Day, but we saw the preparations on Friday and many people celebrating the day on Sunday.
An interesting tradition to me is the tendency to put a memorial not only in the cemetery but also in the specific place where a person died, particularly if if was a traffic accident. You can see the bouquets along the side of the road throughout Kyiv and periodically along the road to Korosten. But on the roads we took to Ivano-Frankivsk, I swear there was a memorial every 100 yards for the entire 372 mile trek. And they were bright and very noticeable along the road, as family members had spruced them up with new bright artificial flowers in preparation for Memorial Day. I would think that such regular reminders of human mortality just might encourage one to drive slightly insane – but no! I was horrified by the constant stream of drivers zooming past me on blind curves, up steep hills, and in village residential areas – completely oblivious to who or what might be around that turn, over that hill, or walking along the berm. It was even more frightening to be that unknown car cresting the hill only to find a car coming straight at me in my lane as it tried to pass a car going “only” the speed limit.
I was greatly impressed with Igor’s navigation skills on this trip. Frankly, it’s taken him some time to get into the role. He doesn’t see well at all, even with his glasses, so he often completely misses signs and markers along the side of the road (if they even exist, which they often do not). And I often don’t read fast enough to be able to dictate to him whatever information is conveyed on the signs that do occassionally pop up. But Igor proved himself a better navigator in a cross-country trip when there’s more time to consult the map and make decisions, as opposed to driving in Kyiv, where decisions have to be made quickly. In fact, Igor turned out to be right more often than the actual official route posted on signs. He did a great job Sunday night getting us out of the horrendous traffic jam entering Kyiv. I won’t share the alternate route we ended up taking, as it was a delightfully clear and speedy route into the city and we hope it will stay “our secret” for future Sunday night trips back to Kyiv.
The reunion itself was nice. Igor had a great time, and at one point even said to me how he thought it was so important for me to meet to his classmates so that I could really understand him. Honestly, I wouldn’t say that I learned anything new about him or gained some new incredible insight, but I appreciate that for him it was a very important time in his life and very important people. It helped me put in perspective how it has been so important to me for us to go to Columbus together so he can meet my friends and see where I grew up. I think it will mean much more to me than it does to him, as was the case with his university reunion. I’m so happy he wanted to share it with me, and it means a lot to me that it was important to him. I think he understands as well how important it is for me to share an important part of my life with him.
Oh, one funny thing from the reunion was that I danced with one of Igor’s classmates, Mykola. Everybody speaks Ukrainian there, and I had been excited to get some “immersion” and really practice my Ukrainian. Well, I still can’t really carry a normal conversation, although I can understand about 80-90%, but it takes me too long to say my stuff in Uk so it’s just easier to speak Russian. But I really wanted to try. I was trying hard to keep up, but with the cognac and all, it got challenging. I followed most of the toasts, but sometimes just zoned out ’cause it was too tiring to try to follow everything. So at some point Mykola made his toast and I remember thinking “geez, didn’t understand that AT ALL.” Then later when we were dancing, the guy is trying to make conversation with me and I couldn’t understand a freaking word he was saying. I honestly thought he was speaking some completely random language, like Hungarian or something. My mistake was to reply in Ukrainian, which only encouraged him, I guess. At some point I said something like “Please excuse me, I’m from America and don’t understand very well.” And then I thought he asked how long I had been in the US, to which I responded, “Well, 33 years.” To make a long (and painful) conversation short, I finally admitted that I understood Russian better than Ukrainian, and then he switched to Russian but I still didn’t really catch his point. After two or three songs, we admitted defeat in comprehending each other. I told Igor about it the next day, and he of course thought it was hysterical. Turns out that nobody understands Mykola as he’s from some isolated mountain village with an extreme dialect (like talking to somebody with a deep Creole accent). I was convinced Mykola thought I was a full idiot, which was partially confirmed when he called Igor Sunday afternoon after having the amazing realization that I was American. I was confused whether that was a compliment or not – what’s better? That he thought I was a completely stupid Ukrainian or that he didn’t think I was a foreigner. Well, either way, it was funny that he only understood the next day that I lived 33 years in the US not just on some special program which caused me to forget my native language, but rather because I was actually born there and am a late comer to Ukrainian.
I’m very happy that Igor has reconnected with his university friends. One couple will come visit next weekend from Ivano-Frankivsk, and we hope to have dinner later this week with another couple who also live in Kyiv. We’re also planning some get-togethers with his friends who live not too far from Kyiv. I’m looking forward to getting to know better the people who are important in my husband’s life.
Anka in Kyiv 