Den Razhdenya

This one's for you, Dad.

My dad calls me every Sunday night to talk about my week, family news, philosophical realizations, and the like. I happened to mention that I was planning to keep my birthday on Monday a secret from my colleagues (as the last birthday celebration included two bottles of vodka, a bottle of wine and a variety of homemade salads and finger foods), but my father would have none of it. "They'll find out eventually and then probably be mad that you didn't tell them in the first place." Of course he was right, but how could I commemorate my birthday, now that I had seen a workplace birthday celebration live and in-person, in a way that would be somehow equivalent to what I assumed to be the standard birthday routine at the institute? "Just bring in some donuts. Spread a little American culture. That's what we do at the office, anyway. They'll understand." Donuts? Of course! How could I have already forgotten that donuts can help smooth over virtually any seemingly awkward situation? Had Krispy Kreme been so easily erased from my taste bud memory? Good thing my Dad was there to remind me. I felt that a weight had been lifted, and that my first Ukrainian birthday might not be so bad after all. I thanked my Dad for his always sound advice and got ready for my last night's sleep as a 25 year-old, assured that tomorrow would at least be bearable, if not even a little bit pleasant.

I woke up the next morning and made my way to the bathroom, as per usual. About twenty seconds after I had returned to my bedroom to start readying for the day, I heard a knock at the door. "Da?" In rushed my host dad and sister, with a beautiful cake (pictures forthcoming) and some very exotic-looking flowers in hand, singing the one English song everyone seems to know the world over: Happy Birthday (although "Hotel California" is a close second). I thanked them, assured them this was the finest-looking cake I had ever been given (the thing was awesome), and decided my birthday would be just fine.

I was a little nervous at the supermarket that morning picking out pastries (donuts have yet to be introduced to Ukraine - there's an investment idea, grandpa! - but cream-filled concoctions are a-plenty), but I went for the most recognizable-looking things in the shiny glass case. I still think I may have inadvertently bought day-old pastries, but, alas, when given the option, I will always choose the items I don't have to ask for and can instead just pick up and take directly to the cashier. I arrived a little early to the institute and started unpacking my treats. My coordinator walked in as I was arranging everything on her desk (did I mention I don't have my own desk at the institute? slowly starting to really annoy me.), and I explained, "Today is my birthday. I didn't know what to do, so, I bought some pastries. I hope it's OK." I translated this into Russian (or attempted to, anyway) for the other methodologists and looked at them with wide, hopeful eyes. "Of course it's OK!" said Lyudmila (my coordinator), who proceeded to tell everyone as they came in that today was my birthday. This was all well and good, but, still, no one had touched the pastries. After a few minutes, Lyudmila suggested that we put the pastries away until our lunch break, as then we could share them with everyone (everyone arrives at different times depending on their scheule for that day). "Oh, sure. Whatever is best," I said, being my most accomodating self.

Naively, I thought that the pastries would become nothing more than a lunch time snack - a happy little dessert tacked onto the end of a mid-day meal. Then I noticed that two of the ladies stepped out of the office for a while, returning with large bags full of groceries. I wasn't sure, but I thought I saw a wine bottle being stashed under a desk. Then, 1 o'clock (the lunching hour) rolled around, and the preparations began. My coordinator had to run out - not saying where she was going but that she would be back shortly. The other ladies started opening the cans of what I found out were sardines (not whole, like on a pizza, but shredded, like a can of tuna fish) and making the traditional celebratory meal - sardine salad (basically tuna salad but with sardines instead of tuna) on bread, carrot salad (shredded carrots with some spices...actually quite tasty), and some other unidentified side dishes involving cabbage and possibly peppers. So, ok, maybe we're just going to have a nice little meal and THEN have some pastries. But, alas, it seems a birthday celebration is more or less incomplete without a little alcohol, no matter that the celebration is taking place in the middle of the day at work. The vodka and wine were set out just as my coordinator came running in with flowers and gift in hand. (So, THAT's where she had run off too. I hadn't even thought of it.) After about five minutes of failed attempts to open the bottle of wine with everything from a butter knife to a pair of scissors, I assured everyone that I would drink vodka (they had more or less bought the wine for me, as I had chosen it in the past over vodka), not wanting to be the weak little American. So, we ate and made toasts to my health, happiness, love life, acquisition of large amounts of money and, last but not least, to my parents. I thought of my father, of course (and you too, Mom! and Traci, I made them say to "machexa" as well, which means "stepmom"), and his fantastic donut idea. It had all started out so innocently.

In the end, it was a pretty good birthday. It was snowing outside (and still is), so the vodka warmed me up for my walk to the marshrutka stop. Once I got home, my host family laughed (and groaned) when I told them about my day at work. And, unlike many Ukrainian cakes, my birthday cake not only looked amazing (it was a picture of a globe that charted my flight from the US to Ukraine and included most of my important stops on the way - Philadelphia, Georgia, Wisconsin, New York, Kyiv and Simferopol), but was also quite delicious. Though my family is always assuring me that not all Ukrainians are as celebratory (?) as the ladies I work with, my host dad still made me drink a shot of cognac with him at dinner (something about not being able to go down in alocohol levels when you drink). Ah, Ukraine.

I have some plans in the works to have a karaoke birthday party in the next few weeks (How?, you ask? I have my ways.). I'll keep you posted as any other news rolls in. Until then, dear readers. Dasvedanye.

Everybody wants to be naked and famous

I survived a Ukrainian banya. I'll see if I can explain it in a simple kind of way.

The banya is the Ukrainian (and Russian, for that matter) version of a sauna, and is thought to be a very healthy thing to do. Some Volunteers have gone to the banya with their entire host family (though they are separated by gender in the banya itself), while others have been more or less forced to go because they are told that it will help them recover from whatever sickness is currently ailing them (or at least I read about that in a book of Cross-Cultural stories PC gave us).

Anyway, I was invited to a banya by my friend Trina, who also lived in Obukhov during training and now lives in a tiny little village (Arlovka) about an hour and a half away from the swinging metropolis that is Simferopol. Her vice-principal actually has a banya on her property, and Trina invited me to go along with her. I had already heard about a few of my friends (fellow PCVs) going to banyas, and I was excited to try it out. A day after my invitation to the banya, Trina called me to tell me that her vice-principal had mentioned something about her husband being a "professional trainer" who was very adept at administering the banya and would be happy to do so for Trina and me. This seemed strange, of course, as I had heard that banyas were single-gender affairs, but we both figured that things would be sorted out when we got to the banya itself.

Which we did, at about 5 pm last Saturday. We were ushered into a room with a warm fire going in the fireplace and one of those light-up pictures of a waterfall that they sell on the side of the street out of the trunk of the car in America. Funny the kinds of things they have here and the kinds of things they don't. So, the vice-principal, who was a lovely woman that spoke in more or less rapid-fire Russian to us, brought us our sheets (people wear these in a kind of toga fashion, or at least that's how Trina and I wore ours) and told us to go ahead and get changed. Of course, just because someone knows that you're getting changed doesn't mean they won't proceed to come in and out of the room in order to complete whatever errands need completing. The VP also assured us (at least this is what we think she was saying) that her husband was a professional and it was very normal for him to administer banyas to all kinds of people (she listed a slieu of nationalities). This, we decided, was her way of assuring us that it was ok that her husband was about to see us totally naked. Very comforting.

After we were all sheeted up, Trina and I were escorted to the banya itself, which consisted of a somehwhat large room with a bench and a shower in the corner (this served as a kind of "holding area" where someone could sit if they got too hot in the sauna) and the sauna itself. The sauna was made out of wooden planks (at least on the inside), and was probably about 9 feet long by 5 feet wide. There is a raised platform for a person to lay down on and some steps leading up to the platform where someone could sit pretty comfortably. There's room next to the steps and platform for the banya-giver (?) to move around. And of course there's some kind of furnace with stones in the corner that keep the room incredibly hot.

So, Trina and I went into the steam room and sat down on the platform. Never having been in a sauna before (even in America), I was clearly confused about what to do. Trina assured me that we were just supposed to sit and talk and get sweaty - something that appeared much easier for Trina, a self-confessed champion sweater, than for me. So, we commenced the talking and sweating when the vice-principal's husband entered the sauna with only a small blue towel wrapped around his waist. He would intermittedly check our arms to see if we were sweaty enough (it was at this point that I started to feel like some sort of meat product who was about to encounter the barbecue for the first time), and, when we were, he gave us an overview of the banya and then the adventure began.

First, we each received a massage while we lay on our backs. This was pretty normal, though sweatier than I usually prefer for a massage. Sweat was more or less a theme of this entire experience. Then, we went into the holding room to drink a little water and a little beer, both of which we had brought with us. After that, the real banya began. I went in first, and lay down on the platform. The muzh (Russian for husband, and more or less how I referred to my banya-giver in my mind, as I forgot his name) put eucalyptus leaves that had been soaked in hot water under my head and asked me if the temperature was ok. Then, he picked up two bundles of birch leaves (which had also been soaked in hot water), shook them over me (causing a mini-shower), and then started slapping them on my back and legs. The slapping may sound painful, but it wasn't at all. The most challenging part of the banya is the ridiculous heat, which makes it difficult to breathe. Just when you think that it has cooled off enough for you to handle it, the banya attendant will pour some more water on the stones, causing breathing to become a conscious rather than unconscious effort yet again. At one point, I was convinced that I was going to have a heart attack, but, clearly, I made it out alright. So, after about ten minutes on my back, I was asked to turn over (say what?), which, at that point, was good news as it meant that we were getting closer to the end of this whole incredibly hot stint. The same sort of thing went on again for another ten minutes or so. Afterwards, the muzh led me to the "pool", which was about the size of a hot tub and filled with freezing cold water. He jumped in head first. I did not. Once I was in the pool, which was much deeper than I had anticipated, all I cold say was "Holodna, holdona" ("cold, cold"), and I think the muzh found this rather amusing. I stayed in the pool for about thirty seconds before climbing out and heading back into the sauna, where the whole ritual was repeated.

We were told that usually people repeat this whole cycle (birch leaves to pool) five to seven times. Thankfully, I only went through twice before Trina went up to bat. I then became the official "leaf holder", which is just about as important as it sounds - not very. Trina went through the rounds twice before the VP came in saying something about someone being here to see Trina. Once again, this was all in Russian, so we were still generally confused about what we were supposed to do, especially since we were, you know, totally naked. It was eventually made clear that we needed to put on our sheets (we were given new ones - the old ones were quite wet with sweat and vapor at this point) and come outside. Which we did, only to find that three of Trina's students were dressed in costumes and waiting to sing us a Christmas carol (the next day was Orthodox Christmas). It was then, when we were standing in the 30 degree Ukrainian night air clad in nothing more than a white sheet, that I understood what a blessing it was that my first banya experience had been far away from anyone I would have to see on a regular basis during the next two years.

Anyway, that was my first banya experience. In the end, I learned that being naked in front of someone is somehow less strange when they're beating you with birch leaves and constantly checking your breathing. It's kind of like being at the doctor. Nakedness becomes perfunctory. Though I will say that next time, I'll stick with the single-gender banya experience. Just to get a balanced view, of course.

When it was all over, the VP treated us to ice cream and cookies, which is pretty much the best way to end any experience, in my personal opinion. If, for example, I could treat you to ice cream and cookies after reading this entire post (sorry it was so long), I definitely would. :)

So, this is christmas...

I've been in Simferopol for almost two weeks now. Here are some highlights of my official Peace Corps Volunteer-dom thus far:

1. My first day at work was Decemeber 25th. I arrived at 8 am, only to find out that there was some kind of miscommunication and my coordinator wouldn't arrive until 9 am. I used this opportunity to spread Christmas joy via text message to my fellow volunteers.

2. My third day at work, I spent 3 - 4 hours taking staples out of the spines of notebooks and stamping the upper right hand corner with an official looking stamp. Apparently this is necessary work that must be done to prepare for the Olympiad (an academic competition that is held at the school, rayon (like a region), oblast (like a state - Crimea is my oblast), and all-Ukraine level). I suppose I just wasn't expecting it. In the end, I think it was a good shoulder-strengthening exercise, especially because the stamp pad was a little low on ink.

3. My fourth day at work was the Friday before New Year's and a group of 8 women (myself included) drank one bottle of vodka and four bottles of champagne over lunch. I even made a toast...in Russian! I used the champagne's warming effects to power my walk home, which ended up taking an hour but made me feel a lot better after quite some time without aerobic activity.

4. My host family went out to a disco for New Year's Eve and we didn't make it home until 4:30 am. My dad (that'd be my real dad) audibly gasped when I told him this over the phone. Things are a bit different in Ukraine, it seems. For example, I have never been a big fan of techno music, and it doesn't look like I'll ever be one, but there was definitely a strangely heart-warming moment when my entire family was out there shakin' it on the dance floor. The DJ even played an Elvis song at one point("Jailhouse Rock", for those who are interested), which was exhilirating, but, just like the techno music, somewhat challenging to dance to.

5. Last night I saw a movie (in Russian) in which three people were brutally murdered in the opening sequence. I'm told it's the most expensive Russian movie ever made (it's called "Volkodav", which has something to do with wolves but is also the main character's name), but my host mom and dad weren't too impressed. They even laughed when I said thank you for taking me, which was actually quite appropriate. In other news "Happy Feet" is coming out here in a few weeks, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it'll be in English with subtitles. A girl's allowed to dream, right?

6. I finally received a package. Two to be more exact. AND I just got a message that there's another one waiting at the post office. Oh, the love. I can definitely feel it. Lauren Winkates won the "First Package to Alison" award, while Kristy Thrasher and the rest of the staff at I.S. 528 won the "Most Inspirational Package" award, as four copies of Runner's World were included. This prompted me to resume running, thank goodness, and to make vague plans to run the Athens Marathon in November. That'd be the original marathon course, thanks. Apparently it's quite challenging, but I figure I have almost an entire year to train for it. Goals - they're good to have.

7. Overall, things are still going well. I'm probably not learning as much Russian as I should be (what with my host mom and sister speaking English to me all the time), and I need to start waking up earlier, but, other than that, everything's on the up and up. I'm sure the real challenge will come when work finally rolls around (I have off until January 14th) and I have to start actually being productive, but for now, I'm finding ways to keep myself occupied that don't include any of the "dangerous coping strategies" Peace Corps warned us about. Good thing I brought my guitar, I tell you.

Hope everything is well where you are. Thanks for all the comments, emails, letters and packages. I'll try to keep you a bit more up to date as things start happening here. I'm pretty sure you'll be reading about my trip to the Ukrainian sauna next, and it will most likely involve nudity, wet birch leaves, and freezing cold water. I can't wait!