I also feel like I have to over explain everything. I could just write “I road the bus to the super market today.” but in reality just writing that would not do the ride justice. Its like nothing I have ever experienced in America. Some bus rides can be incredibly horrible if its super crowded and you are squished in and you don’t think any more people could possibly fit on the bus and 5 more people get on. Every ride is different. The thing that struck me as the oddest from an American perspective is the passing of money to pay. To ride the bus it costs 2 Grivna and if you are at the back you pass your money to the person in front of you and they pass it to the person in front of them and so on until the driver gets it. It always gets to the driver. No one ever pockets it and its expected that you will keep passing. I was near the driver today so if someone passed me a 5 Grivna bill for example I had to see that the correct change was given, making sure that it was one or two fares being paid for, just by where I stood. The driver was patient with me and my limited langue skills, but I think he could see that I wanted to help and that I was trying hard. My other bus ride there today I got on where I got off so I ended up riding to the turn around point and everyone got off and the driving gave me an odd look and I told him that I only spoke English and I said “City Center” and he just nodded and started counting his money. I don’t know if he normally would have let someone stay on the bus when he was doing this but he could see that I wasn’t Ukrainian and I wasn’t going to rob him. I just sat there playing a game on my iPod until he turned on the bus and we left. Also an interesting fact about buses in Ukraine. They just passed a law that they cannot play Russian music on the radio. Go national Ukrainian pride. An outsider may look at this as absurd and perhaps even a sign of a corrupt government, but its more the mentality that you are in Ukraine and you speak Ukrainian, not Russian. Its kind of similar to those of us in America who don’t want to press one for English. I know some of you can relate to that.
I was also talking to one of my Ukrainian friends today about all the “white power” symbols I have been seeing around and they explained that to them its not as much, down with other races, but national pride and about being proud of where you are from and your heritage. You have to look at things un-objectively when you travel. If a black person said black pride, or an asian said asian pride it has a completely diffrent connotation then if you were to hear white pride, which can easily lead down a slippery slope to people calling you a raciest. Also I should note that the “white power/pride” symbols I have been seeing are not the swastika. I have seen a few of those, but I feel that, the two are in different classes.
I also talked with a Ukrainian about my trip to the abandoned sports complex. I asked what had happened to it and why it was just there. They said that they didn’t know for sure in that specific case, but probably the funding had dried up and it was just left there. It happened a lot here in the 90’s with factories. A lot of those stand vacant around town. I kind of had a shocked look on my face and they said, well its not so different from a places in America, like Detroit where the work has gone so people just leave and places become abandoned because there is no point to put anything else there, when the economy cant support it.
Last night after dinner I was out with some people who are studying and teaching in Lviv and I commented on how I feel that a lot of people don’t work here. One of them then explained how work is here for a lot of people. They had a friend I’ll call Jonathan, after the book Everything is Illuminated (read it. Its one of the only books I can think of that takes place in Ukraine.) Jonathan’s first job is a night watchman at a monkey house, yes I wrote monkey house. You see there is this place that houses monkeys (I don’t really know why, I was laughing too hard to pay attention at this point in time) and a few years ago there was a fire at night and now they have someone there at nights incase this was to happen again so they could call the fire brigade and save the monkeys. If you are confused right now with this, you are right where you should be. He also works at the Natural Museum of History, something that involves in to be in the same room as someone who does taxidermy. I should probably tell you that the Museum has been closed for “renovations” for 20 years now. Every year the money that is set aside to fix it up kind of disappears, not so unusual here. I believe he also has one other job, but I can’t recall what it is right now. The point is that most people basically hustle here to survive. I know some of my American counter parts may wonder why he doesn’t get a “proper” job and its simply because there aren’t any.
I feel like a lot of people back home just do not understand why I would ever want to be in Ukraine and I feel like I keep trying to fight an uphill battle and no matter how hard I try to explain the good of this country its going to be over shadowed by the negative in the eyes of a lot of people. As a foreigner in this country I have been treated better here than I think a Ukrainian would ever be treated in America. How many times have you gone out of your way to physically walk someone who is lost to where they are trying to get to or stood there patiently when there is no common langue between the two of you until you got it figured out or shared some of your food even when you didn’t have that much to give? Perhaps this is why people are perpetually late here, they are going out of there way to help someone else.
I do not know how many of you know that story of my fist night in Lviv sixteen short months ago. I arrived at the train station around 11pm after traveling for since 9am. I had no idea what to expect. I had been warned by numerous people to not go to Ukraine, that it was dangerous and that I was sure to face violence and and an over all horrible time. I got off the train and walked out of the train station and thought to myself, now where the hell do I go? The tram didn’t stop for me, so I started to walk. I had no idea where I was going and everything was in cyrillic. I ended up walking by a group of adults in there late 40s and they asked if I needed help. They spoke next to no english, but I gave one of them the address to my hostel and he went across the road to talk to a cab driver. When he was gone they gave me an open faced sandwich to eat and vodka to drink. (Don’t refuse vodka in Ukraine. It doesn’t work.) It was also explained to me that it was one of the women’s birthday. The man came back and he told me that he had gotten a cab for me and they all hugged me goodbye and wished me luck on my journey. As soon as I arrived at my hostel I knew that Ukraine was ok in my book. Those people could have ignored the poor lost American and they certainly did not have to give me food and drink, but that is Ukraine for you.
I know its hard to imagine this place if you have never been here, but it sucks you in and steals your heart and you can’t help but feel pride for this nation and being a part of it, even if it is just being an outsider and standing witness to the everyday life of these people.
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