mistaken national identity

Well, the answer to how much of the liturgy I could understand at the Catholic service on Sunday morning is "very little," as the service was in Polish, not Ukrainian. There are enough cognates that I had a slight idea what was going on, but not much.

After that, I met Allie and Vanessa for the opera Natalka Potavka, which was nice, even though the plot was somewhat predictable. Allie had quite the experience before the opera--she had been going to come to church with us, but then ended up at the Greek Catholic church instead of the Roman Catholic church. A very cute (in her words) guy helped her find her way back to the opera theater, and was talking to her in Ukrainian the whole time (Allie speaks some Russian but is a beginner in Ukrainian). At the end, he said something she didn't understand, and she said, "Yes." He then kissed her! I've asked many people for directions over the years in Ukraine, but no one's ever kissed me. :) (Allie said that that was because I actually understand what they're saying...)

However, I did have a funny thing happen last night. I went to L'viv Central Baptist Church for the evening service. The third sermon (there are generally three short sermons at Baptist churches in Ukraine, interspersed with lots of music) was given by a visiting American pastor, who was in charge of a missions trip who would be teaching English to people in L'viv. After the service, I decided to go up and say hello. The visiting pastor was saying hello to some kids in English, so they could practice what they knew how to say. I walked up and said, in what I thought was fluent English, "I appreciated your message. What state are you from?" Very slowly, with a great deal of enunciation, the pastor replied, "I am from the state of Texas." He thought I was a Ukrainian who spoke English! I replied, "I'm from Michigan!" "Really?" he said, and we chatted for a minute or two. I've had people think I'm from all over here, but it's rare that Americans don't recognize me as one of their own!

I did have a similar experience once when I was in the Peace Corps. I was at a Kyiv McDonald's, and a woman there (who might have been a native speaker of English...at any rate, she wasn't Ukrainian or Russian) was having trouble ordering (which is sort of amazing, as it's all cognates). I helped her out, and she said something like, "You must be an English teacher" (because I spoke English). "Yes," I replied.

This afternoon I met with a professor from the English department here, and she took some of my surveys to pass out. I'm glad to have made the contact with her, because I've had some down time on my thesis research and I'd like to get started again.

We head to Kyiv Thursday through Sunday, taking a university van for the 7-hour trip rather than taking an overnight train. It'll be interesting to do Kyiv as a tourist, rather than running errands. On Friday we're going to the Percheska Lavra (Cave Monestary), which is somewhere I've never been, as well as some other places. On Saturday, we have a free day, and I'm hoping to meet up with Sasha Malko and Vitaly Yukhymets, although probably not at the same time. The universe might implode with that odd combination.

and then there were 22!

If evangelicals ever start canonizing people, I nominate Nadia Volodomyrivna Yukhymets for sainthood. There are currently 15 of us living here, and at least seven guests (including small children) are coming to stay for an unspecified number of days (their best friend, who's a missionary in Germany, and friends/family of his). Nadia's been cooking and cleaning all day.

I bought my ticket to leave Balaklia today. Honestly, there isn't a connection. :) The current plan is to head out Wednesday night, do an interview in Kyiv, hang out with/maybe spend the night at my friend Tanya's place (she's a Ukrainian with a penchant for Joss Whedon shows [there, there, Lisa] who I met when she was doing a TB training in Kyiv), and then hopefully head to western Ukraine, assuming I can get an interview scheduled for Friday (or Monday). Not quite sure where I'll be during the weekend, as my plans to visit the Malkos fell through because they'll be out of town for a family wedding. If I don't have any place to go for interviews/visiting, I may pick a city in western Ukraine out of my guidebook and find a relatively inexpensive hotel for a night or two ("relatively inexpensive" = less than $50/night).

Random bits about my research:
*I collected six questionnaires today (that had been distributed earlier during my visit) and did two interviews. With one more questionnaire to get back and one more interview to do tomorrow, that brings my Balaklia total to 13 questionnaires and 6 interviews, which is about half of what I need for a minimum amount of data.
*One teacher I interviewed offered to pass on questionnaires to some of her colleagues, who filled them out and returned them to me by leaving them at the store by my house (which I was told via text message), and then I stopped by to pick them up.
*So far most people I've interviewed have wanted to use English...I don't know if they want the chance to practice speaking or if they feel it's necessary, since they're English teachers (I'm fine with them speaking Ukrainian). One teacher didn't want me to record the interview on my digital recorder because she was worried she'd make mistakes...I felt bad, because her speech was fine.

Valera just came up to tell me that the guests are here...bye for now!

Kyiv, day 2

Happiness is:

*Sleeping for 5 hours once I finally got a bed; hanging out in my hotel room, reading, watching Ukrainian TV, and writing in my journal for a few hours (skipped supper because I would have had to actually go somewhere, had snacks); sleeping 9.5 hours more after that. I feel more or less human now.
*Saving 30 hryvnia on a taxi by going outside and asking a taxi driver myself, rather than having the front desk get me one
*Going to a little cafe I remembered from my Peace Corps days for lunch and having soup with shrimp, lemon, and herbs along with focaccia and a raspberry milkshake
*Sending out copies of my survey and consent forms to PCVs willing to distribute them for me
*Knowing that the Yukhymetses will be at the train station with open arms to greet me when I show up at 3:45 in the morning (I offered to take a taxi, but Nadia said, "Of course we'll be there! We've missed you!" which makes me feel very loved.)

On a less cheerful note, Kyiv is warm and muggy. Ugh.

So long and thanks for all the fish

I have awesome former roomies. Lisa ended up driving me to the bus stop Sunday morning, mostly because she originally had insommnia but then decided to stay up even after it was over to drive me, and Brandi saw me off and gave me a money pouch, as I had forgotten to get mine from Lakeview.

Then a long day/night of travel. I don't like airplane food. It doesn't matter what it is, it doesn't taste good. (@Lisa: I ended up not eating hardly any of the pretzels on the plane for that reason...I want to want to eat them again!)

I made it to Ukraine safe and sound, although 4 hours too early to check into my hotel room. To fill that time, I have a) exchanged money, b) bought a cell phone, c) bought my train ticket to Balaklia tomorrow night, d) called Nadia (who sounded very excited on the phone, e) texted Sasha and Andrey, f) did a lot of window shopping (saw some lovely skirts I'd like to get at the end of the summer, depending on money), g) had lunch at McDonalds, f) gawked at how much prices have gone up in a year and a half (which makes sense with how the hryvnia's dropped), g) paid an outrageous price for Internet, and h) am anxiously waiting to go crash in my hotel room at 2 pm.

I was feeling a bit weird about the whole trip right before we landed, but it feels very natural to be here. Although I'm exhausted and really really just want to sleep right now, or at least be in a prone position. I did doze for a few hours on the flight though. And met a former PCV (before my time) on the plane who runs an English language school in Dnipropetrovsk, is willing to pass out my survey to teachers he knows and said that if I ever wanted a job, I should look him up but I'll probably be overqualified to work at his school, having an actual degree in TESOL.

Wow...jet lag is really kicking in. Time to finish this post and wait 45 more minutes for my room.