English Club: Good Times with Friends

The first week in April I dedicated English Club to April Fool’s Day, and we had a great session comparing American and Ukrainian humor and telling anecdotes. Pasha told of when he sold his grandma’s cow for drug money (“No, Babuysia, I haven’t seen Bessie this morning.”) We had many of the same categories of jokes, but Ukrainians also enjoyed self-effacing jokes about salo, beets, and vodka, with a wry appreciation for life’s hardships, whereas American self-effacing humor I think focuses more on life’s excesses.

I was having tea with some friends at my apartment, and I commented that I used to be afraid of the gas stove; my friend replied, yeah, when we used to make our own drugs, one of my friends almost blew herself up accidentally. Normalno.

I love that my Ukrainian friends love “Friends,” or “Droozie,” as it’s known here, because both they and my brothers can quote it with ease. We watched some episodes together at club and during tea.

Once during the week I had Italian night with Luda from my adult English club—we made a pasta dish with olives and meat and drank wine and listened to Italian music and talked about our shared interest in Mediterranean men.

The first week of May, club was “travel” themed: where we would like to both visit and live. Topping the list for travel were India, Brazil (Ukrainians don’t need a visa), and Australia, whereas England ranked high for resettlement (due mostly to football allegiances).

Kamilia came over to help me cook on Friday, and we invited the English club over for dinner. The pastor’s wife and three kids came with another girl from the church who helps with the healthy lifestyles trainings as well. My oven was so inadequate they had to leave before the food was fully cooked. I had a nice conversation with some neighbors on Saturday after taking out the trash.

On Tuesday the 11th we started school 3 hours later because the 11th formers had an exam, so I was under the impression I would be at school till 6 pm. We made plans to hold the English club at Kamilia’s and cook dinner there, since I would be done so late, but instead I finished an hour early, because Larissa was just giving exams to our co-taught 6th and 7th formers. It was sunny out, so I decided to read on a park bench while I waited for Kamilia; a somewhat intoxicated man sat down across from me and started trying to guess my name, listing off Ukrainian women’s names—I told him like that he would never manage. The topic was war, so everyone recounted family history; Andriy’s grandfather was a Soviet war hero (but Andriy sold his medals for drug money once upon a time), Pasha’s great-grandmother was a rebel, and Luda told stories of cannibalism during the Holodomor. My favorite comment though was when Pasha said I reminded him of Joey from “Friends,” because I often laugh at things other people say in Ukrainian or Russian, even when I have no idea what they’re talking about.

My blog is monitored by my Peace Corps Regional Manager, since it is accessible to the public, (yay free speech!) and she asked for clarification when I made some comments about my friends selling cows and war medals for drug money. I am including my response, in case any of you were also wondering what the heck I was talking about:
I am sorry that you were confused by the content of my blog, so please allow me to clarify. Pasha and Andriy are indeed my friends, and they are certainly not drug users. They were, many years ago, but they have since successfully gone through rehab, and are now active members of the Church that runs the local rehab center, as well as an NGO called "Open Heart." As volunteers working for Open Heart, they regularly visit local schools to give lectures on healthy lifestyles and HIV/AIDS prevention, run youth groups, and organize other events such as the testing I also wrote about. I admire their hard work and good example, and I hope you can see (as I do) that they are good people despite their past. I also make a point to publicly support them, because I think it sets a good example for my community. As to my comments, they are all true statements, and since my blog attempts to address the 3rd goal of Peace Corps (namely, to inform Americans--my friends and family--about the host country), I value my Ukrainian friends' insights as a fascinating look at some of the difficulties of living in Ukraine in the 90s.

This past weekend I went with Pasha to the Botanical Gardens in Kiev to see the lilacs in bloom. It’s a huge park and we explored a lot of it, as I explained my constant desire to see what is around the next bend, or at the end of the horizon (ask friends I have traveled with or brothers I have biked with). It was awesome to speak Ukrainian all day, but it definitely tired me out, and I’m still not able to express everything I want.

I saw my first movie in theatre in Ukraine after more than 7 months in country! I went to Vinnytsia to see “Robin Hood,” essentially with a church group, because most of my friends in Kozyatyn happen to be members of the Church of the Nazarene. It is fascinating to me how religion and drugs, both extremes of which I do not approve, have been a part of the lives of my friends. I don’t know if in America I would have the courage to get to know people like that, so I am happy to think it reflects my philosophy of stepping beyond one’s comfort zone, which for me is somehow easier to do abroad, in a place where everything theoretically is uncomfortable. And the people I’ve met are good people, which I would never have known if I had judged them on my regular standards. I have mixed feelings about religion, considering myself more spiritual than religious, and yet having been raised Catholic (for which I consider myself culturally Catholic). Basically I’ve come to the conclusion that all belief systems are equally valid, so long as they don’t infringe on the rights of others, and I enjoy learning about them in a cultural context, but strongly dislike when they come in conflict, which happens more than it should considering the ideas people profess. Anyway, I’ll stop philosophizing and get back to the film, which wasn’t that good. I didn’t understand all the Ukrainian, but the action didn’t seem very logical either. I did, however, enjoy the theatrical experience, which reminded me of America, since we walked through a mall with things I couldn’t afford, brought popcorn and chips and soda into the theatre, made snarky comments about the previews, and had Big Macs and fries and McSundaes for dinner (it was so surreal to be hanging out with a group of Ukrainians in McDonalds). Pasha and his friend Yura and I walked around town a bit afterwards, and they indulgenced my penchant for exploring unknown quarters of the city as we took a very roundabout way back to the train station. Yura said I had beautiful hands, and I was flattered by the unusual complement (I wanted to type that so I’d remember it when I’m old and wrinkly). I was so tired when I got home at 11:30, but I had to stay up to type and send Ira’s application for camp, since I had walked an hour to and from school that morning just to get, because somehow in the craziness of leaving for the concert yesterday I had managed to misplace it and I felt guilty.

Ponder this, por favor: How do you judge the people you care about, and is there anything that would preclude you being friends with someone?