post 14 october

Note: This entry is from Saturday! :)

Today’s adventure: hand-washing clothing! Note to the future: don’t put this off! Success in buying an appropriate kind of washing powder led to more opportunities for success, including learning which tubs to use, how much powder to use [no measuring required, clearly], how long to soak, how much bleach for whites, how many rinses, and where to hang. There’s nothing to bring you back to reality like seeing how dirty the wash water turns once your clothes have been soaking for half an hour or so. Really? Where did all that come from?? Plus, the continual bending over and repetitive wringing motions make this a work-out.

Let it be known that the apartments of my host family and the other host families in my cluster all have washing machines. It’s a Peace Corps instruction, though, that we learn how to wash our clothes by hand, as the luxury of a washing machine will very likely not follow us to our permanent sites. Washing machines are expensive, and, like most items people have to save up to buy, they are treated well. In my apartment here, my host family has two televisions, a computer, a microwave—pretty similar to what people in the US would consider standard.

Last night was the birthday of my host sister, Ira [pronounced Yee-ra… actually, I’m not sure how she spells it in English…]. After a brief adventure involving accidentally taking the wrong trolley home to, well, not home, I successfully returned to find lots and lots of shoes just inside the doorway. In Ukraine, people take their shoes off upon entering a home, and often put on socks or slippers they’ve brought along.

Once in the door, I was greeted by a hug from the son of my other host sister [Vika], Igor [pronounced Yee-hor… again, that’s my English spelling at work there]. He’s four, and my occasional alphabet study partner. In the living room, about twenty people were packed in and dining on a tasty celebratory dinner. In Ukraine, the tradition is for the birthday guy/ girl to treat everyone else, and Ira and her mother, Tamara, were bustling about, carrying plates of food and talking excitedly to others. Various friends and colleagues were seated around a long table, and I also recognized another PC Trainee, Matt. Why not? It turns out that his host mother and mine work together.

Lots of food, lots of toasts [mine were with juice and then yummy homemade compote], and lots of smiling ensued. Pictures, conversations of varying success, and general overall entertainment resulted. At cake time, several of the guests sang “Happy birthday to you”—yes, of course in English! The cake [torte, more or less, in Ukrainian] was excellent, with five or six alternating layers of vanilla and chocolate spongy cake, creamy… well, not exactly frosting—more like fluffy mortar [what? yes], and a layer near the bottom that included sweet plums. I thought they were cherries, and was surprised, but they were definitely today’s word: смачно [smahtch-no]—delicious!