Cultural Moments

“Cultural moments” are what our delightful language teacher calls those experiences which are uniquely Ukrainian, such as ceremonies on national holidays or other special occasions. We also now apply the term to those smaller experiences or reflections that shine a bright light on the fact that this is a different place, which is not always obvious. Two recent cultural moments:

Our host mom, age 38, just had major dental work done, which included getting a whole new set of front teeth (this non-dental-specialist thinks it might be called a “full bridge”??), and she looks great. She was surprised by Marcia’s positive answer to her question, “Are those teeth your own?”

While riding home on the marshrutka, we sat facing two women deep in conversation, both carefully coiffed, one with hair of bright orange while the other’s was maroonish-purple. (Natural hair color is not the fashion. Much care is given to one’s appearance, and many women – of all ages and professions -- go for rather unusual colors.)

We suffered through a couple weeks of very hot weather, but now it’s lovely, warm with a slight breeze. And it’s strawberry season! For the past week we’ve been eating fresh strawberries with almost every meal, all freshly picked from our hosts’ backyard garden. They’re small and very sweet – yum!

In one week we must say goodbye to this pretty city and, even harder, to the wonderful people we have met and lived with for the last three months. We will go again to Kiev for a few days of classes and meetings before the big event: swearing in as official Peace Corps volunteers. The next day we get on a train with all of our belongings, which have grown with the books and supplies added to the already maxed-out quantity we arrived with, and officially move to our new city.

We learned last month that our home for the next two years is to be a large city in the south of Ukraine. We visited there for three days, and were pleased. It has a population of approx 350,000, is located on the Dnepr River not far from where it meets the Black Sea, and offers all the amenities of a big city, as well as a bit of the blight. We’ll be teaching at two different universities, Peter at a larger public “technical” university, Marcia at a small private business and law university, both in the International Economic Relations departments.

Off now to study for the big oral Russian language exam that awaits us later this week…