The sights, sounds, and smells of Spring!

 

Easter break has been the turning point of spring for the past two years.  We came back from break and the cherries were in bloom, then it was the lilacs and chestnuts, next (my favorite) something which I believe might be black locust--it has the most intoxicating smell.  Along with spring comes a million and one events.  People seem to want to break out of winter hibernation with a bang, so we've kept ourselves quite busy most evenings and every weekend.  Needless to say, we're looking forward to a (hopefully) more relaxing summer!  Though our road trip though BC last summer is one our all time favorites, this pregnant mum is hoping to do a little less traveling back and forth.

Kyiv in non-winter months is a very social place.  In the evenings as we walk to our friends' places, the parks are full of people of all ages.  Kids playing on the playgrounds, groups of older men or women, gaggles of youth.  There are a couple of makeshift stools and table outside of an apartment building where people sit and play some type of board game, other times you'll see a babushka and younger children sitting spitting sunflower seeds.  When you stop and think about it, it's pretty cool.  I love all the walking that we do here (again, this is when the weather is nice and we're not trudging through un-plowed streets.) I enjoy hearing people laugh and sing.  But it's what we haven't heard the past two nights that's been truly great...Saturday our landlord had an AC unit installed for us.  Living on the south western side of the 10th floor can get quite hot which has forced us to sleep with our windows open at night.  But since Saturday, we've had three rest-filled nights without waking up to the pack of wild dogs who inhabit the forest, no more drunkards shouting at one am, and no blaring neighbors' TVs.  What peace!

As for interesting things that I've seen this spring...there have been so many times when I've wished that I had my camera with me.  But there was one that needed no photo, a surprise that I knew would come one day while living here, but that still only made it mildly less shocking.  Coming home one afternoon, I rounded the corner to find a mom dangling her sprawled bare-bottomed girl.  Potty training here can begin as young as one and I've heard that it's quite common (and socially acceptable) for kids to take a squat whenever and wherever they need.

A Ukrainian Easter weekend

 In fourth and fifth grade, we'd occasionally get to visit an assisted living home; I vividly remember how one of the ladies there would decorate beautiful eggs.  Try as I might, I could never replicate their splendor (granted I was using Mr. Sketch Scented markers.)

One of the first things we discovered about Ukraine is that it (like many European countries) is famous for its decorated eggs.  Any time of year you can find them being sold along Andrivsky (the main tourist/art street that is held everyday of the week all year long except holidays.)  They come in all colors and materials: wooden, stone, carved goose egg, or your traditional hen's egg.

The picture on the right is a mosaic of the virgin Mary in one of the orthodox churches here in Kyiv.  All of the eggs were individually painted by a realm of people from famous Ukrainian artist to children from orphanages.  But this Easter it wasn't the Easter eggs that stood out.  As the picture shows there were mass arrivals of people from all around to every orthodox church that we passed. All were carrying their embroidery covered Easter baskets (to be blessed I believe.)

Ken, Rawly, a couple friends and I rented a car for a long weekend getaway to Lviv, located in western Ukraine.  Along the way we remarked at what a change we saw from our normal city lives.  Our blog is called the Ukrainian Adventure (though I won't be changing it) I guess the Kyiv Adventure would be more appropriate.  I'm not too sure that we've truly experienced the true heart of Ukraine prior to this trip.  Driving along we saw mile after mile of fertile farmland primarily being plowed by horse, hand, or rototiller.  Oh, there were tractors too--ancient ones.  The kind of machinery that you might be accustomed to seeing next to the barn trying to uphold it'd dignity of the good ol' days from the blackberries threatening to diminish its glory.  Perhaps I'm too sentimental.  But honestly Ken and I couldn't get over that it's 2011 and all this farming is done with just a little more than you or I would use in a backyard garden.

Easter Sunday was a unique experience for us.  Our friends were also in Lviv for the weekend staying at a Baptist church, so we decided to join them for the Easter Sunday service--in Ukrainian.  Little did we know that it's common practice to have multiple sermons, our count was three, I hear we got off lucky.  Fortunately Rawly slept most of the two and a half hour service and then was a ball of energy for the rest of the day.  The only restaurant that we found open turned out to be a Jewish one where we had to barter for the price at the end of the meal.  Rawly was a little fire tickler who at one point not only stuck his finger through the flame of the lit menorah, but also in the wax and came out unscathed, without so much as a yelp or a tear--the Ken-factor appears to have passed down the lineage.

Someday, I aspire to be a photojournalist or at least a photographer; I really wish that I could capture the essence of roadside Ukraine.  Unfortunately I have the eye, but not the talent and there are quite a few stories that I can't tell through photo...the two boys sitting on the hood of an old Lada, the family picnicking in the forest and picking wildflowers, the station after station of honey, twig broomsticks, and bay leaves, or the lonely bucket of potatoes waiting for someone to buy them and take them home, or lastly the beautiful bus stop mosaics--who created those, and why aren't they everywhere (aka drab Kyiv)? But our absolute favorite encounter belongs to this Babushka.  We were meeting a group of friends to tour old Ukrainian castle/mansions but Rawly was sleeping, so we dropped off Holly and Rachel and continued driving.  Apparently Easter Monday is also a holiday. It was crazy, people seemed to come from everywhere heading to the churches and graveyards. At one point we saw all of these people walking over a hillside down little earthen paths.  Ken and I just kept driving until we were in the middle of nowhere on an unpaved road, I had just suggested turning around when the woman pictured flagged us down.  We were a little startled at first as she rattled off in Ukrainian and proceeded to try to get in the back seat.  The door was locked. She rattled some more and we opened the door. Up until this point Rawly had still been off in his car-induced comma of dreamland, his face upon waking was priceless.  It turns out that she had blown out the sole of her shoe walking home from the cemetery so the lift saved her about a mile's walk uphill.  It took her a few minutes to realize that we didn't understand her, but she continued to jabber the whole way.  She wouldn't let us take her all the way down her lane, but we managed to get a "fotka" (which was the only word I was able to communicate with her besides "Anglisky" and "America") with her before she hopped out!

Trying to talk

The other day I was reflecting on how my Russian vocabulary is about as advanced as Rawly's English.  A year and a half in and we can both say about twenty words.  I like like that we have so many similarities--let's just hope that his language skills continue to grow exponentially, as I know that mine won't.  Now many of our colleagues who came at the same time have been a little more diligent in their studies...but, no reason to tear myself down by comparing.
Though my language is lacking, communication sure makes perspective a lot different.   Lately, I've been fortunate to see the "sweeter" side of a few Ukrainians.  My favorites have been with the lady who weighs the fruit at Silpo (a local supermarket), we exchanged a formal greeting, then I asked her how she was and she looked up, startled, and stammered..."Normalnya" and then very quietly "Spaciba (thank you)."  I almost cried with joy--ok, so I'm a tad bit on the emotional side anyway. 
Friday my cleaning lady had the longest conversation with me.  She speaks a little English, so we usually go through the motions of me attempting to understand and then me asking, "Como se dice____?" to the Spanish teacher who's room is connected to mine and she usually comes and translates a bit for us.  But this time I just listened and tried to decipher what I could.  What I got was that Ukrainians also have a phrase for TGIF and that Friday is similar to the number five in Russian.
But for every conversation where I don't know what's going on and I just smile and nod my head--there are the more interpretable ones like with Galeena.  I've written about her before, she's a Russian teacher and the language department's matriarch who reminds me a bit of my grandmother and is full of cultural superstitions.  Well a few weeks ago I held (not just understood) a complete three minute conversation where she asked how the baby was (as she rubbed my belly) and started talking in Russian baby talk, then went on to ask if I needed a key to my classroom, to which I replied yes please.
Grandmotherly reminders must be everywhere.  In our new(er) apartment building we now have "Babushkas" (technically grandmother, but applied to all older women.) Well, the friendliest of the four was pretty excited when I upped the game and asked her how she was doing.  (This phrase really seems to be getting me places!) She started rattling on and asked me if I understood Ukrainian, to which I replied, "No, only a little Russian (chu choot Ruski)."  She recently had her hair cut (she was bashful when I said that it looked nice) and now looks similar to Grammy J in Idaho.  She loves seeing Rawly and always talks a mile a minute to him.
I sure like this speaking business, I wish I had time to learn chu choot more!

Crazy Fun

That's how Ken's described Rawly these last few days.  To be quite honest, he's been a bit of a show off right before bedtime.  With the time difference, we usually are able to catch people on Skype just before he goes off into dreamland--which means one of two things, A) he's sleepy and a bit grouchy or B) he's giddy with having an audience.  The other night he was playing a game with Mimi and Papa (Ken's parents) where he'd run up four steps and then back up to the wall as if he were saying, "Ha!  I gotcha, you thought that I was going to run all the way to you..."  This game could have gone on and on if Momma Bear hadn't made her darling cub brush his teeth.  Let's just say the giddiness ended.
Sunday, our friend Holly came up with a new word.  "inqusiosity" the combination you can guess comes from Rawly's inquisitive and curious nature, hence the definition: Rawly.
He's also taken to being very helpful around the house...he LOVES taking the trash out, helping with cooking and doing dishes, Sunday he followed Ken around dusting with his own rag, and even more than he enjoys putting shoes away, is his love for giving you your shoes so that you can go outside to play.
Tonight Rawls caught one of his first ball games (on TV,) well at least the first that he was conscience of.  He threw his hands up in the air and yelled--you guessed it again--"BALL!"  But my favorite was when there was "snow" on TV and he kept grabbing at it and throwing it off of the TV over and over again.
I was scolded again for not having more pictures of Rawly on Facebook.  I apologize.  In truth, I enjoy reading blogs more than seeing pictures, but here's an attempt to catch you up on the last two months and appease both kinds of people...
March and April:

"This is how sad I am."

Two minutes later..."Now I'm fine, I have my boots"

Big boy bathtime

"Why would you put me in this ridiculous looking toy?"

ANTM and Tyra would be proud of this face

Chillin' with Chris and Cassie

A girl after Rawly's own heart--Arden, baseball in hand

Yep, here's my stash

So serious

Helping Dad make eggs

Not so sure about the haircut

Not so bad, but Mom's exhausted

"This is what I do, right?"

Hanging out with Nyellie...soon this is going to be my little bro or sis!

Baseball, glove, oh camera!

The Three Amigos all born at the same clinic here in Kyiv

Seeing baby Kynslee on her first day

sending mixed signals

There are those moments when the world just seems to freeze around you, eternal nows like I was just fortunate enough to experience.  Sitting at the table, Rawly came up to me and said "up".  He handed me a water bottle that he had taken out of my purse. Then sitting on my lap he signed "more", "thank you" and said "love you". 

From 22 to negative 12--worth every minute

Friday (February 19?) 11 pm we left the comfort of our week long villa to begin the journey home.  We spent the day basking in the sun, teaching Rawly to float in the heated pool, (Ken) catching a few waves in the chilly Mediterranean, and eating our fill of good, good food (Rawly ate his first kid's meal of chicken nuggets at a place called Tea for Two--I'm still bummed that I was too full for the mando sized lemon meringue pie.)

The highlights were many, but one of my favorite memories is of our friends helping us sing 31 rounds of "Down by the Bay" to ease dear Rawly into slumber-land.  Our morning had started out simple enough, go bathing in some pool of a goddess, but not wanting to spend nine Euro to freeze off our tails and potentially see people in the nude, our second option was to head for the mountains.  Being a relatively small island, one couldn't imagine the climate change that can take place in an hour's drive...being the stellar mom that I am, I didn't bring myself or Rawly a jacket--but by golly, I had baby swimmers.  Rookie mistake number two was putting him in the swimmers before we left...coupled with a couple hours in the car...and you have yourself a little accident.  Next stop was going to eat lunch with pant less baby in hopes of finding some good hike nearby.  Luckily we were able to find both, but a place to buy sweats was a task we could not fulfill.  So--we improvised. We adorned Rawly's backpack and practically mummified him with towels, and off we went! As usual, he was a happy camper.  Here's a video of our jaunt (please excuse my huffing and puffing voice!)

We also took a journey to the illegally inhabited "Turkish" third of the island.  Apparently they invaded and took dominion in '74, but after countless promises made to the UN, they remain.  It was pretty interesting seeing Catholic cathedrals turned into mosques.  Hearing three of the five daily prayer calls, Ken felt like we were in the movie Syriana. We ate a great meal at a little mom and pop hummus place.  We watched three generations of their friendly family come and go about their daily life.  I thought it was hilarious when one of the women scolded a boy of about three for taking something off of one of our plates in route to our table!

Big shoes

Here are a couple of shots of Rawly in Momma's boots and tennis shoes