A few notable things have happened since getting back from Khartsitsk, one joyous, one frightening, one interesting, and then one just hilarious, but as I have learned from my limited experience here, it is best to just take everything in stride.
My first day back after my big trip that I arrived home from at around 3:30 in the morning, apparently, I was expected at work at 8. Coming from working in non-profits in New York where I had pretty liberal managers that didn’t really care what time I came in as long as it was reasonably on time give or take an hour and I got my work done, it was a bit strange to get three phone calls from my co-workers since I decided to show up at 9 instead of 8 after a crumby night of sleep. I am choosing to think that they were just worried that I somehow didn’t make it home. But really, three phone calls? It’s a 40 minute walk, and it’s not like I can move my legs any faster when I am carrying my laptop and laundry back and forth to the office.
Anyhow, I was do to observe an HIV/AIDS training at a local summer camp. Nobody told me in advance that this would be happening… in fact, I sat at the office for a few hours before anyone told me that we were doing this. It usually goes something like this, ‘Amy, let’s go.’, ‘Okay, where are we going?’ ‘An HIV/AIDS training’, and then I imagine them saying ‘Duh’. So first day back this is what we did. They asked me if I had any ideas for a physical warm-up to get the kids interested, however, it took a good 10 minutes for this to come across and by the time I understood what they wanted we were all exhausted from ‘our’ warm-up.
We went to the camp and did the training, I observed and took part in the physical stretching exercise since you don’t have to understand Russian to do jumping jacks. My director then took me on a tour of the camp and explained that it was an overnight camp for three weeks at a clip. It took a good 15 minutes for him to get this point across to me, but in the end, I understood.
The joyous notable that happened came mid-afternoon when after not eating lunch (sometimes they serve lunch and sometimes no), I couldn’t take it anymore, so I started to leave and my boss said something like ‘Let’s go together, wait 10 minutes’. So I get in his car and he’s like, ‘Amy… boiler… saychass(now) horashow (okay)’? (I can’t wait until I can begin to communicate at a level higher than that of a 3 year old). So I said, ‘horashow’, but I need to go to the ATM’. We get to the hardware store and there is this HUGE dude standing out front. I’m guessing at least 6’5” and built like a linebacker. I did my normal non-committal nod that I do to people who stare and then walked into the store with my Director. Apparently, it was his friend who was going to handle the electricity on the boiler. After shelling out 1030 greevs (About 125 bucks) for the boiler we grabbed some beer, dropped by what was apparently my boss’s house so that he could change his clothes and then somewhere else to get his tools and then finally to my house.
After two hours and a lot of mess, I had a boiler and hot water. I don’t have a shower nozzle that works, but I have a high faucet and hot water. No more lugging a heavy tea kettle from the kitchen. They left me, I ordered them to take their beer with them, and I was free to wash my hair with hot water. And that’s what I did… They left a mess and when I started cleaning up, apparently also left a bag with a braid of long blond hair in it. Gross, and even grosser still, for whatever reason my reaction to finding the bag of hair, was to smell it. I immediately regretted this choice and then started thinking – eck, what if this hair came off the body of a dead relative? I threw the hair back in the corner on the floor where I found it and went back to my computer. And then… I lost power in my apartment and had to call my director back over. They fixed the short and told me they would be back the following day to install some kind of fuse that wasn’t from 1953. I begged him to take the hair with him and he noticed that I was a little ‘distressed’ about the hair. He tried to explain what it was, but the word wasn’t in my dictionary. Nor could we find it online, which is when he put the bag of hair on my kitchen table. And again, left it in my apartment. I am all for house-warming gifts, but this is not the kind of gift I was looking for. I brought it to work the next day and left it on his chair. Eck.
That night I had the really frightening occurrence. I discovered that I apparently sleep walk. I am aware that I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and sometimes I am not completely awake when I do so, but it’s never really resulted in anything major with the exception of maybe plunking down on the toilet at the wrong angle and stumbling a bit or clipping my shoulders into door frames, etc. But, I don’t take adventures, I am just usually not fully awake on a mission to the toilet. This night I woke up and had no idea where I was. I got up and realized I was in my apartment in Ukraine and saw the bathroom. So I walked in that direction. I could see the bathroom, but didn’t realize that I was seeing the bathroom through the glass paned French door in my apartment. I usually walk through the other side, which was wide open, but for some reason, I had to get through the closed door… I woke up ‘kneeing’ the glass door, since in my mind, it seemed logical to step over and through the door. I am so grateful that I didn’t actually break the glass, because that would have been an awkward thing to explain to my boss, not to mention the trip to the Emergency Room. I really don’t want to have to get stitches here. Gee.
The interesting occurrence happened on Friday. I had to get up at 4:30 am to get ready and meet one of my work colleagues at 5:50 to walk to the train station and catch the electrychka (commuter train) to Kharkiv which left at 6:25. The train ride to Kharkiv takes 2.5 hours and then we got on the metro. Then we got on a bus and took it for a half an hour to a village outside of Kharkiv where this is a home for children who have HIV, and I think other children who have disabilities and have been abandoned. We were hosting a communal birthday party for children who are HIV positive. My colleagues asked me to prepare a game for the kids, so I contributed ‘Duck, Duck… Goose’, and we sang Happy Birthday in English.
All in all, it was super fun, but… I had last eaten and had something to drink at 5 am and we weren’t offered any food or drink when we arrived at the home. There wasn’t really an opportunity for drink after we left and my colleagues may or may not have asked me if I wanted to go to lunch in Kharkiv, but I didn’t really understand what they were asking. I just understood that they wanted a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answer. So apparently, what I said yes to was eating at home, which meant that I would not get to eat until I had travelled for another 3 hours. So I went for roughly 12 hours without food or water, and it was freaking hot that day. I really don’t understand how these women don’t eat or drink anything for long periods of time. Well, I understand how the smokers do it, and now I understand why they smoke. But, one of the girls doesn’t smoke. Maybe they sneak food and drink, but I never saw them eating or drinking. I just don’t get it. I know I need to start carrying food and drink with me, but it’s hard when you: A. don’t know what the hell is going on; B. don’t know what the hell is expected of you; C. are already carrying tons of shit around.
They brought me back to the electrychka and literally put me on the train, and then left me there. This is when the amusing occurrence happened. The electrychka is a commuter train, but it needs to be described. My train ride is approximately, 2.5 hours. There appear to be no bathrooms on the trains, which I find very interesting. Also there were wooden benches (not comfortable) for seats, and you fit three to a bench which faces another bench of three. But, my 2.5 hour ride cost me less than a US Dollar. So I was seated on the outside of the bench by the aisle, and a woman was sitting by the window. An older man came by and asked if our middle seat was free. He smelled of stale sweat and beer sweat and squeezed himself between me and the other woman. He was also eating a hot dog. I was admittedly grossed out anticipating a two and a half hour ride next to Mr. Smelly, and he was inevitably touching the left side of my body with his, and he was also eating a hot dog.
The hot dog actually comes into play as the amusing part. At a certain point in time he and the lady next to him decided to go out for a smoke before the train left. He put the remainder of his hot dog on the bench as a place holder so that nobody took his seat when he wasn’t there. Great. When he came back he proceeded to sit on his hot dog, which I thought was hilarious. Later, he fell asleep and started to lean on me, so I did the classic lean forward and then standup so that he fell over. I thought it was funny, but the ladies facing me didn’t share my chuckle.
Later that night, I got home and rinsed off with cool water since it was such a hot train ride. I got on the computer and had some dinner and then periodically kept smelling the old man sweat. So I stuck my nose in my pits to check to see if I actually smelled. Nope. I smelled my left shoulder. Eck, it wreaked. I checked my right shoulder and it was fine. I had old man sweat transfer on my right shoulder! I immediately ran to the bathroom and scrubbed it. Ah, Ukraine.
