"Spring Break" Ukraine and Passover

This is the third Passover I have spent away from home. Every time I say I am never going to be away from my family for Passover again…But here I am in Kiev without my family on Passover (but Josh, my brother, is coming to visit on Sunday!). Luckily the past few weeks have kept me so busy that I haven’t really had time to be homesick. I guess I’ll start where I left off last time, heading out the door to meet the Chicago “spring break” group. Perhaps this needs explaining. You are probably familiar with the concept of alternative spring breaks. Usually the trips are doing things like building houses in Central America…These kids chose Ukraine…Apparently I am not the only crazy out there who actually wants to come here. This was a service-learning/cultural exchange trip with a group of 10 students from Chicago Hillels and 10 from Kiev Hillel. (Chicago and Kiev are sister cities)

I didn’t make it to the airport with the rest of the Kiev Hillel kids to meet the Chicago Hillel kids because I had a surprise lunch with one of the JDC VPs in town for just a few hours. Very tasty. When I did meet up with the group, they were very tired, confused, disoriented and overwhelmed…I think they probably felt this way when the left town a week later…I feel this way most of the time here…

Overall the week was awesome. We did sightseeing around Kiev, visited the Jewish communal organizations, did some volunteering at Hesed and made home visits to Hesed clients. For Shabbat we split into two groups, half went to Chernigov and half to Cherkassy. We did some more home visits to Hesed clients, spent time in the Hesed Day Center and did Shabbat and Havdallah with the Youth Club. I went to Chernigov (for the second time in 2 weeks…believe me there is not THAT much to see there…) We also did fun things like went bowling, saw a ballet and went salsa dancing…

What made all of this every-day-of-MY-life-stuff so awesome? That it wasn’t everyday life stuff for anyone else. It was really cool for me to observe and help coach the Americans go through what I have been experiencing for 7 months (!). To watch them and assist them get their heads around just how different everything is here: life period, Jewish life, being Jewish, what a Jew is, living in a society with no social supports, being elderly and receiving a pension that is not large enough to buy your food, medicines and housing…the list is really endless. Obviously the Kiev students know what it is like to live here, but for some of them it was the first time they had any exposure to Hesed, to a Jewish Day School, to doing a home visit to a Hesed client.

It was also really special to be a part of a group of people who come from very different “places” (geographically, Jewish-ly, culturally…) and manage to really bond and learn A LOT from each other. We spent a lot of time teaching each other English/Russian…The Americans were particularly fond of teaching the Ukrainians bad words in English…The new favorite catch phrase at the Kiev Hillel is “Who farted?” It also turns out that most of the Kiev Hillel girls, many of whom I have known all year, SPEAK ENGLISH, and didn’t reveal that to me until now. Socially this was a good week for me because now I am not just “that weird American girl who Sasha knows and sometimes stops by Hillel.” Good thing it only took me 7 months.

I also felt really USEFUL this week. I did a lot of translating and explaining of things that seemed obvious to the Ukrainians but were beyond comprehension to the Americans (like parking on the side walk and drinking beer on the street). My position as an American and a Kiev group member meant I did a lot of cultural interpreting and mediating. As things go on large group trips, logistics can get a bit tricky. Multiply any usual group planning challenges by 10 because we are in Ukraine. Luckily, I am an organizational and logistical mastermind, and my skills in those areas were much appreciated.

The week left me EXHAUSTED. I am used to like 10 hours of sleep a night (I lead a very exciting life, I know). I got far fewer than that all week. One of the Chicagankas, Sarah, decided to extend her trip a few days and stayed with me. We were exhausted and felt crazy together. She speaks Russian, so I gave her a map and sent her on her way. The Hillel girls also did some baby-sitting.

Last week was CRAZY with Passover planning for Warm Homes and general craziness because we are closed most of this week so everyone was scrambling to get things done. All of my questions, of which there are always many, were answered with, “I don’t know. Go ask _____.” As a result, pretty much every day was a disaster and I was in tears by the end of the week. Yes, I have turned into a huge cry-baby.

Saturday we had a Passover seminar at Hillel complete with model Seder. Sunday my gentile friends helped me make a ton of choroset to get me through the week. And now I have just returned from a very bizarre Chabad Seder experience at the central synagogue. Whew.

Sasha and I got tickets for the “people’s” Seder at the synagogue. We arrived, met up with a friend (also named Sasha of course), and milled around for a while waiting to be ushered into the dining room. There was another Seder going on in the main hall of the synagogue. It turns out this was the VIP Seder…the upper crust of the Kiev Jewish community who received special invitations to this Seder lead by one of the four (yes, we have four) head Rabbis of Ukraine. We were standing in the women’s gallery looking down onto the VIP Seder wondering why on earth WE had not been invited. We saw someone we knew, gave her a call, and just like that, we were invited. We joined the VIP Seder just as the meal was getting started. The meal left much to be desired…and my homesickness really kicked in. We chatted with our table-mates and pushed the food around our plates for about an hour. Then the Rabbi, with the help of his very serious and learn-ed 10 year old son, got the second half of the Seder under way. At this point pretty much everyone had left (it started out with maybe 100 people and we were down to 30ish). As engaging as the Rabbi’s pacing and chanting was, we decided we had had enough and took off too.

I was un-impressed. I told Sasha we should have just done it ourselves at one of our houses with a bunch of friends. This thought had crossed my mind earlier, but I am still so wiped out from the last couple of weeks that the thought of organizing something else was just too overwhelming. Now I sort of wish I had! We may still succeed in doing that this week if we can muster the strength after doing Warm Homes and Hesed/Beitheinu and Hillel Seders…Doing Passover at home is just not something that happens here. Because there are very few Jewish families who practice Judaism in their homes (because they literally don’t know how), people rely on Jewish communal organizations for holiday celebrations. The Hillel kids though, definitely know how to do a Seder. I saw them do it on Saturday! Sasha said maybe she would just do it at her house next year…

….Its slow gains here. But any progress is progress. Chag Pesach Semeach!