Home Sweet Home

It has been a dreary couple of weeks. The sun has poked its head out just a couple of times. Winter arrived with my mom and dad last week…it was in the 20s and 30s and snowed pretty much every day they were here. But we had a great time anyway! It was also a nice little “vacation” of sorts for me…staying in a five star hotel, eating at nice restaurants, getting presents like a really cool watch with two faces on it, one for the time here and one for the time in Boston, and yummy fur lined leather gloves…Yes, I like it when mom and dad visit.

We did lots of touristy things around town like some of the requisite churches, the ballet, THE CIRCUS (see pics, amazing), and even a trip about 30 minutes out of time to the Pyragova Museum…basically a Ukrainian Plymouth Plantation…check out the pictures. Pretty cool/hilarious. We also did a JDC excursion day: Hesed, a warm home, the JDC office, and Beitheinu (the Children’s center). What an exhausting day that was! I did a lot of translating the over the course of the week, but it took me two days to recover from the translating I did in that one day! Turns out I speak Russian though.

I have spent much of my free time in the past weekish going to various markets all over the city collecting kitchen items and bedding for my new apartment…WHICH IS WHERE IAM RIGHT NOW! Well, I was there when I wrote this entry, but the wireless network (KostyaHome, Kostya is a name…) which I was allegedly on wasn’t fully cooperating…I will have internet here eventually, probably cable but possibly just dial-up. So I’m posting from work. But yes, I FINALLY MOVED! I am so happy. The move-in/moving process has been a real authentic Ukrainian experience…

Yesterday three men from JDC came to and picked up me and all of my stuff, including the divanchik (couch/bed, sort of futon-y but way more comfortable) that JDC bought for me to use at my home stay. This proved to be a little more involved than any of us knew, as we had to disassemble the divanchik to get it out of the apartment and down the stairs. We managed, drove the 7 minutes to my new place (my new apartment, old apartment and the center of town form a triangle, distance b/n the apts is the shortest side…does this make sense?...it makes perfect sense to me? Mom how’s your Kyiv geography coming?), and unloaded all my stuff. Then began what has been two days of waiting (and not going to work as a result)…2 of the JDC guys left, and Gena (the same man who accompanied me on my first trip to the post office) stayed. We waited for Kolya to arrive from JDC…I’m not sure why exactly other than that he helped reassemble the divanchik…Then the three of us waited around for the washing machine to be delivered. As we moved into our second hour of waiting, Kolya left. Shortly thereafter, the washing machine arrived.

Gena left and I was free to dance about my apartment, unpack, and clean compulsively. It was amazing. Then I took a trip to the heavenly supermarket in the center of town where all the ex-pats shop and you can buy imported things from all over the world (some for outlandish prices that my stipend will not permit on a regular basis) like tortilla chips ($6/big bag), barilla pasta sauce ($8/small jar), sugar-free cookies, CHEDDAR CHEESE!, lo-fat cheese, and grated parmesan cheese (I love cheese). After loading up my back pack with some goodies (like balsamic vinegar), but mostly necessities, I got on a bus and went home. Turns out going on a bus with a large over stuffed back-pack at rush hour is not the best idea…I was uncomfortable and I got many dirty looks and even unkind words from some passengers….Oh well, now I know! I made pelmini (Russian/Ukrainian dumplings/ravioli) for dinner, did some decorating, watched The Simpsons in Ukrainian and passed out.

This morning David, my landlord, came over to wait for the various mastery (handy men) coming to install/fix things. David got here at around 11. He brought me a bag of potatoes and carrots and a bag of onions, explaining that I would inevitably need these items and they were very heavy. He also brought me a box of chocolates. The first master, the door master, didn’t come until about 12:45…so David and I had almost 2 hours to chat and for me to show him the 2 cockroaches (luckily I know how to say cockroaches in Russian from my work this summer…its tarakony) that came out to say hello to me when I was in the shower this morning. We are going to get some traps and poison. (There were cockroaches at the apartment I just moved out of as well…the buildings are both from the 60s and mostly un-renovated.) Oh, how well JCHE prepared me for my life and work here!

David is a very sweet man who works in the kitchen at Hesed. He is in his early 50s and brought pictures of his 19 year old daughter to show me. She lives in Israel with David’s wife. All of his other family has either died (his mother died earlier this year), or immigrated to Israel, America or Germany. This is a typical story. Sadly, he is the only one of his family left. His wife and daughter moved to Israel about 8 years ago. He hopes to join them in the next year or two, now that he doesn’t need to stay to care for his mother. I heard all about his extended family, the time he spent in the army, what kind of education he received, what sorts of jobs he’s had over the years…Very interesting. Then it was my turn to tell him a little about my family and look at pictures. The people here are always interested in seeing pictures of my friends, family, Boston…

I wasn’t exactly sure what the door master was coming for…something about the balcony…Turns out Danny (head of JDC locally) wanted to get a second front door for me (a second layer which is typical here for security and to keep heat in) and make the balcony a closed-in balcony (with windows) all for security reasons. Everyone is very concerned about my security. I have been told by everyone that while this is a safe city, I am a single, foreign, female, living alone. I should always have my wits about me: be aware of strange men, drunk people, groups of young men, pickpockets, and hooligans. I also promised my mom that I won’t take gypsy cabs after 7pm. (Gypsy cabs are a totally “normal” mode of transport here: Basically unregulated “private” cabs. Men who will drive you anywhere that’s more or less on their way for a fee that is lower than a regulated taxi. These are generally safe, and its not like regulated cabs are even really so regulated…). All the warnings are working I guess...I'm now paranoid that a drunk person is going to climb into my apartmen through the balcony and rob me...

So, David and the door master talked for a while about the front door and the balcony. Of course, at this time, the other mastery showed up. This guy (turns out it was 2) was coming to hook up the washing machine. David was out on the balcony with master #1, so I opened the door and said hello. These mastery did not say even say anything to me, just went right to the kitchen and commenced work…Luckily David came in to save me at this point and some argument over where to position the washer ensued…I was not a fan of these mastery. I don’t even really know how to explain it…It was like they were doing us a huge favor by showing up and hooking up the washer, that it was a huge inconvenience for them. They did the job (sort of…we needed a longer hose, so one guy went to get that and didn’t return until 6 even though he said he’d be back at 3:30…in the mean time David changed the face-plate of the outlet that the washer will be plugged into from Ukrainian to European… not sure exactly what was going on but he kept turning the power on and off…intentionally I believe…again, some problems and that took him several hours but we were waiting for the master to return anyway) in a very rushed way, and one of them was on 1 of his 2 cell phones the whole time.

It was a relief when everyone left! David said, “Well, there you see how our mastery work, rushed, busy, and they didn’t even finish. In American I bet it’s not like that.” David was actually the second person I have had to assure that even in American you have to wait around all day for service people and even if they do show up they sometimes don’t finish the job.
All very exciting. I will definitely take some pictures of the apartment and maybe even take a little video to post when it is all set up.